CULTIVATION. 209 



gold. Tlie digging, however, so enriched the soi' 

 that they were fully compensated for their disap- 

 pointment, and became wealthy from the increased 

 jjrodnce of their farm. 



Farmers will find, on experiment, that they have 

 gold buried in their soil, if they will but dig deep 

 enough to obtain it. The law gives a man the own- 

 ership of the soil for an indefinite distance from the 

 surface, but few seem to realize that there is another 

 farm below the one they are cultivating, which is 

 quite as valuable as the one on the surface, if it were 

 but propei'ly worked. 



Fall jplowing^ especially for heavy lands, is the 

 best means of securing tlie action of the frosts ot 

 winter to pulverize the soil. If it be a stiif clay, it 

 will be well to throw the up-soil in high ridges ( by 

 ridging and back-furrowing,) so as to expose the 

 largest possible amount of surface to the freezing and 

 thawing of winter. This, with the rotting of the 

 sod, ( whieh is thus made ready for the feeding 

 of plants,) makes the efifects of fall plowing almost 

 universally beneficial. The earlier the plowing is 

 done, the more thoroughly the sod is rotted and pre- 

 pared for the nutrition of the crop of the next year. 



The great improvement of the age in the mechan- 

 ical branch of agriculture, has been made in England, 

 during the past ten or twelve years, in the application 

 of the steam-engine to the work of cultivating the 

 Boil. It would be beyond the scope of a simple 

 elementary book like this to enter fully into a de- 

 scription of the machinery by which this work is 



