180 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 3 



For the Farmers' Register. 



HORIZONTAL PLOUGHING — 



HILL-SIDE TRENCHES — HAND BAKES — USE OF 



GYPSUM. 



Kivg 8f Q}teen, 1st June. '37. 

 In the April number of the Regi-sfer, we were 

 favored with an interesting notice of a few itemf; 

 on Mr. Gay's farming. In relerence to some of 

 his topics, I have de.^ignetl lor some time, to call 

 the attention of the readers of tiie Register; and 

 in the first place, to the manilc'slly bad efi'ecis of 

 what is commonly called '■'horizontal ploughing.'" 

 Though this kind of ploughi^L^ when executed 

 by a skilful hand, under tlie use of the raltcr, or 

 water level, may now and then present a level fur- 

 row or bed, I will venture to say it. that there is 

 not, in eastern Virginia, a field of horizontal 

 ploughing, nor would the commutiity be benefited 

 by greater perlection in the plan. Upon moderate 

 elopes the plan is benefic^ial in proportion to its 

 perfection; but, upon long and wide abrupt decli- 

 vities, all attempts at horizontal ploughing are 

 more or less injurious, and frequently, vastly more 

 po than the old "up and down hill" plan. This 

 will doubtless appear to many to be a strange no- 

 tion; but let it not be repudiated until examined. 

 It occasionally manilests strikinir benefits — ha?; 

 great plausibility about it, and many advocates, 

 who are so, because they have fallen out with the 

 old plan, and for several years been using this un- 

 der both the infliience oi' prejudice on the one 

 hand, and favoritism on the other. But I must 

 ptill ask leave to say, that '^horizontal ploughing'''' 

 in its usual modifications, is just the opposite ex- 

 treme of "up and down'''' ploughing. Upon the 

 moderate slopes, whereon the first exerts the 

 greatest benefit, the last is but a little, behind if, 

 though certainly inferior. Where then lies the 

 truth? As in most other matters, just between 

 these extremes. While we should by no means 

 be induced to plough on rollinsr lands up and down 

 hills, we would equally deprecate the attempt to 

 pave the soil by the opposite course. We had far 

 better let the water go its way down each water- 

 furrow, which is commonly open after seeding 

 wheat, down to the clay, or beneath the soil, than 

 to permit it to embody, and make its destructive 

 passage, not ow, but through the whole body of the 

 soil, by a thousand deep-cut trenches down the 

 pide of the hill. Many of our most noble hills, 

 which should not only stand as monuments of the 

 unspeakable wisdom and power of their great 

 architect, from amidst which, and without which, 

 he could not have given us the flowing stream or 

 verdant meadow, instead of presenting the aspect 

 of youth in all its vigor, beauty, excellence and 

 power, stand like poor old women (pardon the 

 figure,) who have borne children, kindly nurtured 

 them, reared them to manhood, witnessed their 

 inijratitude, seen them die or wander from home, 

 who can now only pour the unavailing and unpro- 

 fitable waters of sorrow down the many deep 

 channels of exhausted nature! It is unfeigned, 

 when I declare my deep sympathy over these poor 

 old women — the hills of our nativity, and reproach 

 thf" wretched conduct, called management. 



But 1 eaid that the truth was to be found be- 

 tween the extremes. The ploughing then, must 

 be neither horizontal nor up and down, but so 

 graduated, as to be always inclined downwards 



towards the connected valley, and contrary to the 

 natural fall of the hill. In other words, the water 

 should never be allowed to fall towards the point 

 or loot of the hill, but, crossing the side of the hill 

 ohiiquelv, empty itsellj or embody in the valley. 

 If it gathers on the side or down on the jioint, a 

 frully will be very sure to result. If agully should 

 show itself in the valley, just throw in a little brush 

 from time to time, so as arrest it. Tin? graduated 

 plan, will answer well on many kinds of soil. It 

 is known to farmers, especially those of a hilly 

 country, that sotne lands wash much worse than 

 others. Much of this difl'erence I conceive to be 

 owing to actual poverty — a want of vegetable mat- 

 ter in the soil. We hardly ever meet with many 

 gullies on new grounds, or fertile old land, unless 

 they are badly managed. The tendency to gully 

 is rather owing to art than nature, in all new or fer- 

 tile lands. But the graduated ploughing itself, 

 will not answer on extensive lands, unless aided 

 by the hill-side trench system. This, added. to the 

 graduated ploughing, I humbly conceive, em- 

 braces and offers the most complete plan that can 

 be applied to our hills. Farmers appear to be 

 slow in taking up the trench system. They seem 

 unwilling lo lose a row now and then, not consi- 

 derintr how many they lose instead upon the pre- 

 sent plan. My experience is very limited with the 

 trench, but so far as it has gone, it is highly satis- 

 factory. I think Mr. Gay, however, gives too 

 much fall. I give but two or three inches in thirty 

 or forty yards. Lay off a trench every thirty 

 yards on a large hill, beginning so near the brow 

 as to receive with certainty all the water that may 

 be thrown off from what we commonly call the 

 level above, which level, (almost always very 

 uneven, or having a general slope,) should be 

 ploughed strictly horizontal, so as to keep as much 

 water as possible for its own use, and at the same 

 time prevent its operation on the hill-side. All 

 the ploughing below is to correspond with this 

 trench, say for fifteen rows, emptying as above 

 described, contrary to the natural arrangement, 

 then cut another trench, and so on. Few hills 

 among us, would require more than three trenches; 

 one answers in a great number. The trench plan, 

 without proper graduation, is of no benefit — it can- 

 not be made to hold the volume of wafer, which 

 often gathers from a great rain. Trenches ought 

 not to be very long. They are quickly made. All 

 ditching required, on old high land, could be done 

 in the way by which they are made, with a great 

 saving of labor and expense. If the reader will 

 deliberately and justly compare the horizontal 

 with the up and down plan of" ploughing, keeping 

 in mind the period they have been respectively 

 used, I feel confident, novel as may be the conclu- 

 sion, that he will admit, if no more, that horizon- 

 tal ploughing, as in general 2ise, is but little if at 

 all superior to the other. While the up and down 

 plan has been in use time immemorial, with truly 

 bad efif-cts, the other, as every man may observe, 

 who will take even a little pains to do so, has 

 caused incalculable and utterly incurable evils in 

 thousands of instances. In riding through the 

 country, ask the date of the enormous gullies 

 which every where intrude upon your notice, and 

 compare it with the date of horizontal ploughing, 

 and you will be satisfied as to the source of the 

 evil. It is the unavoidable operation of horizontal 

 ploughing, unless aided by some auxiliary, to 



