GENERAL RULFS FOR PLOUGHING. 439 



seed required by the first mode of planting was six and a half 

 stone, or 91 pounds ; by the second method, 77 pounds ; and 

 by the third method, 70 pounds. The quantity of ground, in 

 each case, was seven square perches. The produce was as sub 

 joined : 



In the first method, 1218 pounds. 



In rows at 14 inches, 1358 &quot; 



In rows at 17 inches, 1442 &quot; 



He adds that the advantage of the latter method is not only 

 a considerable increase of produce by the acre, amounting to 

 5152 pounds over the first method, but there is a decided advan 

 tage in every operation which takes place, from the planting to 

 the digging. The ridges take less seed j require less labor; can 

 be freed from weeds with greater ease and less danger to the 

 tender stalk, and dug with greater facility, and without injury 

 from the spade. Another advantage is, in those places where 

 there is but a light surface, they may be &quot; moulded up,&quot; or the 

 dirt brought to the plants, with much benefit. 



I give this as an example of spade husbandry. As such, it will 

 have its value with many of my readers. It is not adapted to 

 cultivation upon any extended scale ; but there are small pieces 

 of low, wet land throughout the country, which the owners 

 cannot afford at once to drain thoroughly, but from which, in 

 this way, good crops may be obtained, and the land brought 

 into a condition of productive improvement. The experiment, 

 in regard to quantity of seed, is certainly worth considering. 

 Potatoes are never cultivated in England or Ireland, as with us, 

 in hills. I have known as large a production from a field culti 

 vated in hills three and a half feet apart each way, as in almost 

 any other mode ; but the expense of gathering them is more than 

 upon one planted in drills, so as to be easily turned out by the 

 plough. A distinguished farmer in England has invented what 

 he calls a hog s-head plough, for the purpose of turning out 

 potatoes which are planted in drills, without injuring them. It 

 resembles a hog s snout attached to the front part of a plough, 

 without a colter, by which the potatoes are raised and turned 

 out of their bed. This may be said to be copying nature, for it 

 is clearly the way that profound race of investigators, the swine, 

 would turn out the crop, if they were sent into an undug potato 



