CHAPTER VI. 



PLOWING, SUBSOILING, AND TRENCHING. 



" In ancient times, tiie sacred plow employed 

 The kings and awful fathers of mankind ; 

 And some, with whom compared your insect tribes 

 Are but the beings of ths summer's day, 

 Have held the scale of empires, ruled the storm 

 Of mighty war, and then with unwearied hand, 

 Disdaining little delicacies, seized 

 The p'.oiv, and greatly independent lived.'* 



Thomson. 



A FEW years ago a " Young Farmer " in England wrote to the 

 "London Gardeners' Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette," asking 

 information concerning the " Art of Plowing." The following 

 was the reply of that very able paper : — 



" The niceties of this subject are no longer of the importance 

 " they once possessed. Well-drained land should be ' smashed 

 "up' — that is the proper way to treat it. If you want to know 

 "all the mysteries of the subject, as it used to be practically 

 "carried out, consult 'Steven's Book of the Farm.' The whole 

 "vocabulary of this once tedious subject has become obsolete ; 

 " in place of gathering up^ crown and furrow plowing^ casting or 

 '■'■yoking^ or coupling ridges^ casting ridges with gore furrows^ 

 ^'•cleaving down ridges^ with or without gore furrows, plowing 

 " two in two out^ plowing in breaks^ etc, all that the land now 

 " needs, in order to efficient cultivation, is, according to Mr. 

 " Smith, of Woolston, a 'smashing up;' and it is to land drainage 

 "as permitting a deeper rough tillage before winter, and to steam 

 " plows and steam cultivators as enabling it, that the most striking 

 "lesson of recent experience in land cultivation is due." 



