GENERAL RULES FOR PLOUGHING. 437 



with what propriety I am unable to see the lazy-bed system. 

 It is done, in general, only in wet and low lands, though I have 

 seen it, upon other lands. In this case, the whole land may be either 

 ploughed or dug over by the spade, before the formation of the 

 beds, or it may be left in grass, and the process proceed in this 

 way : Beds of four feet wide are marked out, and divided by a 

 furrow-drain about one foot wide. The potato sets or seed are 

 laid upon the ground or bed, at such distances as are deemed 

 best, generally in lines across the bed, and the earth in the 

 furrow is cut down to the hard pan, even a foot and a half in 

 depth, by a spade, and taken out and thrown upon the seed 

 which has been deposited on the bed, and the whole is carefully 

 smoothed off with the shovel. The fresh earth thus taken from 

 the furrow-drain brings no seeds of weeds with it, and the after 

 cultivation is easy. The potatoes in the autumn being dug 

 with a spade, the whole ground is pretty thoroughly forked, or 

 dug over, and, when it is used the next year for a crop, it may 

 be of potatoes again, or of oats, the furrow-drain is rilled up, 

 and one made in another place, or in the centre of that which 

 was the bed, so that, in truth, the whole field becomes pretty 

 thoroughly cultivated. 



A very intelligent farmer, whom I had the pleasure of meeting 

 in Ireland, was kind enough to give me an account of his man 

 agement of some of his land on this plan, a system which he 

 considers as extremely well adapted to a cold, wet soil, not yet 

 carefully drained, or to a dry soil which may have become ex 

 hausted by constant cropping and shallow ploughing. 



&quot; I lined out the ground to be tilled, in ridges four feet wide, 

 and furrows two feet wide. I then dug out of the parts lined off 

 for the furrows, and put on the ridges, all the active soil which 

 could be taken up by the spade. The sets were then planted, and 

 covered by the earth which had remained in the furrows, and 

 which was for this purpose cleanly shovelled. By this mode I 

 obtained a dry seed-bed in moist ground a fresh, active soil in 

 exhausted ground, and a depth of surface in light land. 



&quot; In one instance, on a cold, retentive soil not drained, where 

 there had been a very poor crop of potatoes the previous year, 

 and the soil not stirred from the time the potatoes had been dug 

 out until the oats were sown, a good crop of oats was obtained. 

 In the other case, a second crop of oats was taken off the same 

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