TILLAGE. 69 



In dry and warm soils' these advantages are less ; 

 but still the time gained for spring work is a suffi- 

 cient inducement to a practice that economizes, not 

 merely labour, but the productive powers of the 

 earth also, by soonest enabling us to shade the soil 

 with a growing crop.* 



2d. What number of ploughings, preparatory to a 

 crop, is necessary or proper ? 



The Romans were in the practice of multiplied 

 ploughings. This appears as well from the precepts 

 of Cato as from the opinion of Columella, that " til- 

 lage, which does not leave the earth in a state of 

 dust and render the use of harrows unnecessary, 

 has not been well performed." Tull and his disci- 

 ples carry the doctrine still farther, and believe that 

 frequent ploughings enable us to dispense with even 

 the use of manures. This, however, is extravagant : 

 it is certain that the plough can do much, but it is 

 equally certain that there is much it cannot do. 



Agriculture, like other business having profit for 

 its object, is a subject of calculation ; its labour must 

 be regulated by its end ; and the moment the expense 

 of this transcends the profit, it may be improvement, 

 but it ceases to be farming. When, therefore, we 

 hear of six ploughings preparatory to a wheat crop, 

 we conclude either that the plough will soon stop, 

 or that it belongs to one of the dilettanti, who thinks 

 it beneath him to count the cost. In our own prac- 

 tice, we find that spring crops of the cereal gramina 

 succeed best on one fall ploughing, well ridged and 

 furrowed, and with one cross-ploughing in the 

 spring; and that spring and summer crops of the 



* Those who have any doubts about the importance of shade, 

 have but to look at the effects of a brush-heap, or other collec- 

 tion of small bodies admitting air, heat, and moisture, during 

 the spring or summer months. Under such collections he will 

 find a much more vigorous vegetation than in the uncovered 

 parts of the field : the cause of this effect is that the brush pre- 

 vents evaporation. 



