PLOWING, SUBSOILING, AND TRENCHING 157 



throwing the soil all out on one side, then to dig down to the 

 same depth for another two feet, putting the top soil in the bot- 

 tom of the first trench, and the last digging on the top, thus com- 

 pletely inverting the soil. The manure is either put at the bot- 

 tom of the trench or mixed evenly through the whole mass. 

 When the last trench has been dug out, the earth thrown from the 

 first trench is wheeled around and used to fill it. 



I cannot better close this subject than by saying, for the third 

 time, that no benefit at all adequate to the outlay can be hoped 

 for from either trenching or subsoiling, unless the subsoil is (either 

 naturally or artificially) well drainell. 



STEAM CULTIVATION. 



And now for the poetry of plowing — not the soft, pastoral 

 song of the slowly turning sod, of idly stepping team and lounging, 

 musing hind ; — but the more heroic poem of the present day ; 

 the story of the bridling of the " willing giant," steam, and of 

 the harnessing of brains to work which asked but little help from 

 brains before. For once, at least, America yields to England 

 the palm of agricultural invention, and McCormick gives a place 

 of honor to Fowler. 



England, with fewer land-owners than the State of New York, 

 and with nearly all her farmers working leased land, has about 

 eight hundred steam plows and cultivators in active use — cultivat- 

 ing not far from three hundred thousand acres ; and the system of 

 steam cultivation has there been an established success for a 

 dozen years. The story of the rise and progress of the improve- 

 ment is really a wonderful one, and as I read of the impediments 

 to its general adoption, through the long list of small fields, un- 

 even surface, crooked fences, and crooked landlords, I long to 

 see it gain a foothold on the prairies of our Western States, where 

 every circumstance that could promote its efficient application 

 seems ready-made to its hand. Thence, I am sure, by a reversal 

 of the old rule, the course of its empire would eastward wend its 

 way. 



