PLOWING 127 



which is attached a handle and device for hitch- 

 ing the power to move it. To this plow the hus- 

 bandman hitches a mule or a buffalo which is led 

 back and forth across the field by his wife, while 

 he holds the plow into the ground the best he can. 



We have already recited the incident of the 

 early American colonists scratching their soils 

 with crude plows, and because they could not plow 

 to any depth with them, became imbued with the 

 idea that deep plowing injured the soil. 



We, the descendants of those colonists are 

 surely victims of heredity, because this same false 

 notion exists to-day and must have come to us by 

 inheritance and is practiced by agriculturists to 

 an extent alarming to him who has made any in- 

 vestigation of modern plowing. 



For several years the author has made a care- 

 ful investigation of plowing as practiced in the 

 rich corn belt of Indiana, Illinois, and other States. 

 He has taken measurements of the depth of plow- 

 ing upon all kinds of soils, with all kinds and makes 

 of modern plows, from the walking breaking plow, 

 to the largest modern tractor, and his computa- 

 tion of the average depth of plowing has revealed 

 the startling fact that plowing in the locality men- 

 tioned rarely exceeds an average depth of more 

 than three and one-half inches. 



Investigating further as to the cause or reasons 

 for such shallow plowing, he has come to the con- 

 clusion that the conditions that have led up to or 

 caused so shallow a plowing of the soil have gen- 

 erally been an insufficiency of motive power, or 

 power to pull the plows, and this insufficiency of 

 power applies to every kind and make of plow, 



