i54 AGRICULTURAL ESSAYS, 



commenceraent of the winter frosts, next previous to the seat- 

 son when it is to be seeded for a crop, has a great tendency to 

 fertilize the soil. 



The following experiment is a confirmation of this fact. A 

 farmer in New-Jersey some years since, trench pleughed an 

 exhausted field of stiff soil in the fall ; cross ploughed apart of 

 it, and in that part broke the lumps to pieces. In the spring 

 the field was all ploughed equally and sown with barley and 

 •lover. The part on which the most labor had been bestowed 

 v/as in fine order when sown, and yielded about thirty bushel*- 

 an acre of barley; the other part was still in lumps, the frost 

 Dot having been found sufficient to mellow them entirely, and 

 the product of barley was only about twenty bushels an acre. 

 The same difference was a-fterwards observed in the clover. 



But this field with this stratum of crude earth thrown uper- 

 most, it is e-^ident would have yielded little or nothing the next 

 •pring, and until mellowed and fertiUzed by summer suns, had 

 it not been mellowed and fertilized by winter frosts.* 



To improve land by ploughing, or to plough it so as effectu- 

 ally to ansv.'er the necessary purposes of tillage, — it is essen- 

 tial tliat the plough should be constructe<i and so managed when 

 in operation, as to cut aU the land at the bottom of the furrow 

 clean, and nu-t only so but to turn it flat over, especially if there 

 is any vegetable living en the surface, to be destroyed. By 

 .#nly loosening the soil, v/ithout cutting the bottom of the fur- 

 jow clean, the purposes of ploughing are in part defeated. 



It is a fundamental principle in tillage that the soil must be 

 pulverized, and the seed so distributed, that the food necessary 

 to its growth may be made to contribute equally to the nour- 

 ishment of every grain sown or planted. If this is true, the 

 more perfectly this operation is performed by ploughing, the 

 greater crop may be expected. If parts of the soil which th« 

 roots of the plant would penetrate, are left in a hard state un- 

 loosened by the plough at the bottom of the furrow, the growth 

 •f the plant will be mereby retarded tnd its produce lessened. 

 Or if the stiff clods of earth are left unbroken after the process 

 •f harrowing is finished, the space whict they occupy is thereby 

 lendered less productive ; the seed it is true may force its plant 

 \o emerge from under the clod, but the stock of the plant in that 

 ease is forced to occupy the space which, if the seed is equally 

 distributed, as it should be, is barely sufficient for the growth 

 of the plants which would otherwise be its sole occupants ; the 

 jCpnsequence ii, that the plants around the clod, by being too 



* Bee Fwmer*» Assistant, page 68. 



