PLOWING DEEP OR SHALLOW. 87 



vating his corn, it Lad au iron coulter and an iron 

 share ; but it was mainly composed of wood. In the 

 hard, rocky soil of New-Hampshire, as full of bowl- 

 ders and pebbles as a Christmas pudding is of plums, 

 plowing with such an implement was a sorry business 

 at best. My father hitched eight oxen and a horse 

 to his plow when he broke up pebbly green-sward, 

 and found an acre of it a very long day's work. I 

 hardly need add that subsoiling was out of the ques- 

 tion, and that six inches was the average depth of his 

 furrow. 



I judge that the best Steel Plows now in use do 

 twice the execution that his did with a like expendi- 

 ture of power that we can, with equal power, plow 

 twelve inches as easily and rapidly as he plowed six. 

 Ought we to do it ? Will it pay? 



I first farmed for myself in 1845 on a plat of eight 

 acres, in what was then the open country skirting the 

 East River nearly abreast the lower point of Black- 

 well's Island, near Fiftieth-st., on a little indentation 

 of the shore known as Turtle Bay. None of the 

 Avenues east of Third was then opened above Thir- 

 tieth-st. ; and the neighborhood, though now perfor- 

 ated by streets and covered with houses, was as rural 

 and secluded as heart could wish. One fine Spring 

 morning, a neighbor called and offered to plow for 

 $5 my acre of tillage not cut up by rows of box and 

 other shrubs ; and I told him to go ahead. I came 

 home next evening, just as he was finishing the job, 

 which I contemplated most ruefully. His plow was 



