GENERAL RULES FOR PLOUGHING. 445 



abundance of manure to be applied and mixed with it, cannot 

 be brought at once into a state of active productiveness. Where 

 there is a sufficiency of manure, however, there is, no doubt, some 

 advantage gained, to what extent it is not easy to say, from the 

 freshness of the virgin soil which is brought up. Otherwise, 

 time and cultivation will be required to bring this fresh and 

 comparatively inert soil into a condition of productiveness. In 

 this case, however, the farmer must exercise his own judgment, 

 and consider his own means. He may be sure that the deeper 

 and the richer is the soil, or mould, which he has to cultivate, s: 

 much the more abundant will be his crops. To create a soil, 

 however, is not a sudden operation ; and, in cases where the 



the depth of the soil, and squared off two feet with spades, the earth being thrown 

 off to a distance on each side. 



&quot; A man with a spade should then be placed at each end of the furrow, to dig 

 and square it out half the length of the trench-plough, as wide as the furrow in 

 tended to be taken, in order to enable it to plunge into its depth at once, on turn 

 ing in to work ; this is made at the left-hand side of either furrow, after the small 

 two-horse-plough has made its start. 



&quot; This two-horse-plough (one that will take a width of furrow one inch wider 

 than the trench-plough) then precedes and turns in the manure and turf, together 

 with three inches of soil, into the bottom of the furrow, or prepared trench. The 

 trench-plough, drawn by four, six, or eight horses, according to the depth desired, 

 then turns over from ten to eighteen inches of clean soil on the turf, which is so 

 completely buried as to destroy all vegetation, even in the freshly-broken sod. 

 When the sod is quite fresh, as little soil as possible should be taken up by the 

 small plough, so that the couch or weeds may be more completely covered by a 

 great mass of clean soil. When the ploughed land becomes so wide as to render 

 it inconvenient for one man, at each end, to open the furrow for the plough on one 

 side, and square up the other side neatly, one man is placed at each corner to 

 perform this work, so that two additional men at each end of the land, or four in 

 all, are now digging, levelling, and squaring up the corners. Two acres or more 

 may thus be turned up in a day, as the trench-plough takes a wide furrow from 

 eleven to thirteen inches, and, by its excellent construction, moves and turns the 

 whole soil. 



&quot;This operation is performed by joint-stock labor by all the farmers in Jersey, 

 who bring their teams to assist each other. It is appropriately denominated, not 

 a great ploughing, but a GREAT DIGGING ; indeed, no spade husbandry is so effi 

 cient, as most men, in digging, merely turn the secondspit upon the under, or 

 trench-slice, whereas the whole soil is shaken and broken by the trench-plough.&quot; 



Certainly the soil, in this case, must be very rich to bear being inverted at this 

 depth. I give the whole account, rather as matter of agricultural curiosity, than 

 with any notion of its being adapted to our husbandry. These very great opera 

 tions, in which so many men and so many horses are employed at one time, I have 

 always found of doubtful expediency, and should deem it prudent to seek more 

 simple means of accomplishing the end, if more simple could be found. 

 38 



