ESSEX SOCIETY. 121 



low wire, or stick worm, which often injures the corn about 

 the low places in our fields, is not killed by ploughing. Some 

 recommend carting sand or gravel on to such places, to destroy 

 the Avorms ; if it does not kill them, it will probably help the 

 soil. 



The Proper Depth for Ploughing. The old adage says, 

 " Plough deep, and you will have corn to sell and to keep." It 

 may appear presumptuous, to question the truth of anything 

 that has passed into a proverb, but I think this assertion much 

 too broad. Deep ploughing is an important requisite, yet this 

 alone will never secure a good crop. If our quantity of manure 

 is small, and the soil a cold one, which has never been ploughed 

 more than five inches deep, if we were literally to adopt the 

 adage, and plough deep, we probably should have corn neither 

 to sell nor to keep. My advice, to those who wish for the per- 

 manent improvement of their soil, is, to plough no more land 

 than they can manure well, and to plough this an inch deeper, 

 each successive year ; by thus mixing the subsoil with the sur- 

 face soil, both will be improved. I have often thought it 

 strange, that so little difference should be made, by the trustees, 

 in ploughing with single and with double teams ; unless it is 

 thought, that land ought never to be ploughed more than seven 

 inches deep. If premiums were offered, for ploughing five, 

 seven, and nine inches deep, we should have the different sizes 

 of ploughs brought into use, which the farmers need ; and it 

 would give the owners of the land, where the ploughing match- 

 es are held, a good opportunity to see which is best, deep or 

 shallow ploughing. 



On the Use of the Subsoil Plough. We have not seen that 

 benefit, resulting from the use of the subsoil plough, which we 

 anticipated, when we procured it, in 1841. We used it for 

 three years, without perceiving any advantage from it. Since 

 then, we have not used it ourselves, nor had any opportunity 

 to lend it to our neighbors. The cost of subsoiling, I estimate 

 to be five dollars per acre. I think that two dollars extra ex- 

 pense, in cultivating the crop while growing, will benefit it 

 more than subsoiling. Most of the land, upon which we used 

 16 



