142 HANDY-BOOK OF HUSBANDRY. 



and oxidation* chiefly during the winter and spring. In the sum- ■ 

 mer she is busy at other things, but in winter she takes hold of 

 every lump of the rough furrow tops, splits its particles apart 

 with her wedges of ice, roughens their edges so that they will 

 never stick together again, turns the black oxide of iron into 

 iron rust, sets free the pent-up plant food, sweetens the acids, 

 and performs such wonders in mechanics and chemistry as man 

 can never hope to equal — wonders which have made the world 

 what it is, and without which its population could not live. 



If heavy land is saturated with water in the autumn, and lies 

 soaking all winter, the action of the frost and air can do but 

 little good, and the plowing would surely do harm, but with proper 

 underdrainage — with only so much water in the soil as its par- 

 ticles will absorb within themselves, the spaces between them 

 being filled with air — there is nothing to equal fall plowing — 

 which has the further very great advantage of lessening the hurry 

 and the tax on the strength of the teams in the spring. One good 

 plowing in the fall is a saving of time in the spring, and does 

 more good than half a dozen plowings without the subsequent 

 weathering to prepare the land for the production of crops. 



Spring plowing — except in plowing grass land for corn — should 

 be done as early as is consistent with a proper regard to the state 

 of the land. It is better not to plow clay land at all than plow it 

 when wet ; but take the first opportunity when it is dry enough, 

 to do as much as possible, not only for the sake of getting so 

 much of the work out of the way, but to give the air as much 

 time as possible to act on the newly turned ground. 



HOW TO PLOW. 



Plow your land deeply, and " smash it up." This is the begin- 

 ning and the end of what is theoretically good plowing, without 

 regard to the condition of the soil and subsoil. If the directions 

 can be followed without injury, they are emphatically the direc- 

 tions that should be followed. If the land is fallow, and if there 



* Rusting. 



