50 HOW TO MAKE THE FARM PAY. 



How to Subsoil. If yoa have but one team, plow one fur- 

 row round the field, or such portion of it as you wish to plow ; 

 then hitch to the subsoil plow, and go round again in the same 

 furrow. As the subsoiler does not raise the earth to the top, 

 but only pulverizes it where it lies, it can safely be run as deep 

 as your team can draw it. A span of horses, or yoke of oxen, 

 will draw a subsoiler from eight to fourteen inches deeper than 

 the first cut. In preparing orchard grounds, the subsoiler is 

 often run eighteen to twenty inches deeper than the first cut. 

 When the plow cuts a wide furrow, the subsoiler must be run 

 twice in the same furrow. It is all the better to use the sub- 

 soiler also in cross-plowing. Subsoiling in this way, for two or 

 three years, will mellow the ground for fourteen to eighteen 

 inches deep, and the subsoil may then be turned to the surface 

 by trench plowing. In subsoiling, you must keep a sharp eye 

 on your plow. It is of little use to subsoil wet, heavy lands, until 

 they have been under-drained. Many valuable acres would be 

 added to our farms if we would underdrain and subsoil these 

 lands, at much less expense than to buy new acres. 



Underdrain as soon as possible, but until your drains are 

 completed, plow your wet lands up and down the slope, in nar- 

 row divisions, sixteen to twenty feet wide — not with flat furrow 

 slices, which give the land no chance to drain, but with lapped 

 furrow slices. After these divisions are completed, run the 

 plow as deep as your team can draw it through the middle fur- 

 rows. Then, with a round-pointed shovel, throw out the loose 

 dirt from them, and you have free channels for the surplus 

 water to run off. It is not so much extra work as it seems, and 

 will abundantly pay. 



The time for plowing has been hinted at in the preceding 

 l)ages, but we would say distinctly, here, that all hard, heavy 

 soils, inclined to be lumpy, should be plowed in the fall as late 



