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134 IIANDY-BOOK OF HUSBANDRY. 



Plowing has the following objects : — 



1. To destroy existing vegetation. 



2. To loosen the soil and prepare the seed bed. 



3. To allow the lower parts of the surface soil to be prepared 

 for the better use of plants by the action of atmospheric influ- 

 ences. 



4. To deepen the surface soil. 



5. To cover manures, green crops, or dung. 



6. By a combination of the foregoing efforts, to admit air and 

 water more freely among the roots of plants. 



The first and the fifth of these objects are best attained by 

 such regular turning of the furrows as shall completely invert 

 the soil, or at least as shall turn it over so far that the harrow 

 will leave only the lower soil on the smoothed surface. 



The others do not require such nicety of work, and, indeed, 

 they are better accomplished by such treatment, as will more 

 thoroughly break up the furrow. 



In plowing grass land, I think that a carefully turned flat furrow, 

 — that is, the laying of the grass side of the furrow-slice flat upon 

 the bottom of the plow track, or turning it completely over like a 

 board, — is conducive to the most rapid rotting of the sod, while 

 it renders it less liable to be torn up by the harrow, which at the 

 same time acts more uniformly on the freshly turned earth. In 

 turning in green crops, the flat furrow has the same advantage. 

 In plowing in farm-yard manure, however, it is quite as advan- 

 tageous, — perhaps more so, — to mix it more thoroughly through- 

 out the whole depth of the plowed soil by adopting the lap- 

 furrow. 



The chief objections to the flat-furrow system seem to be that, 

 with a given amount of power, the plowing cannot be so deep j 

 that the sod is less broken up ; and that less air is admitted among 

 the particles of the soil. These objections are enough to con- 

 demn the practice, except for the accomplishment of the two 

 purposes referred to above. For all but these it is better to plow 

 with lap-furrows, and better still to so crush the furrow in plow- 

 ing, that it is not turned over in any definite shape ; — simply pul- 



