64 APPLIANCES FOE 



II. 



APPLIANCES FOR TRENCHING AND 

 SUBSOILING.* 



BY MAX RlNGELMANN, 



Professor at the National Agricultural Institute, Paris. 



At the beginning of the nineteenth century, agriculturists 

 were convinced of the need of deep cultivation for the im- 

 provement of land for certain special cultures, that of madder 

 for instance, but the difficulty of execution of deep ploughing 

 resided in the defective making of trenching or subsoiling 

 ploughs, as well as in the great number of animals required 

 for this work. In 1852 the improvements made in iron 

 implement construction generally, enabled Vallerand to 

 initiate sugar-beet culture by disturbing the land to a depth 

 of 14 inches, a depth which was very soon increased when the 

 Bonnet plough appeared on the market. This improvement 

 of the land tended to become general towards 1855, while 

 active polemics took place between the partisans of trenching 

 (bringing the subsoil to the surface) and those advocating 

 subsoiling (disturbing the subsoil in situ). The latter had an 

 advantage over the former in being able to use lighter imple- 

 ments, which it was easier to construct strongly at that time. 



The manufacture of agricultural implements made very, 

 rapid advances between 1865 and 1880, owing to develop- 

 ments in the metallurgy of iron, and, above all, the substitu- 

 tion of steel for iron, enabled the construction of much more 

 powerful instruments than that of Vallerand. A reaction then 

 took place, the subsoil ers were discarded, and the trenching 

 plough gained thu ascendancy. 



Agriculturists were then in possession of powerful ploughs, 

 but could rarely spare the necessary draught ; for this reason 

 the use of these implements was very limited. The viticul- 

 turists of the South of France, convinced of the possibility of 

 reconstituting their vineyards with American vines, and of the 

 necessity of deep cultivation prior to planting these vines, 



* Journal d' Agriculture Pratique, Vol. 64. 1900. 



