232 OF PLOUGHING. 



ed land, is also more apt to carry couch-grass among the 

 oats.* Mr Paterson of Castle-Huntly is decidedly of the 

 same opinion. He admits, that barley might be sown on 

 the winter-furrow, where the soil is loamy, with a better 

 chance of success, for that particular crop ; but he contends, 

 that repeated ploughings both in clay and loam, during the 

 driest season of the year, before the barley seed-time, is so 

 necessary for perfectly cleaning the laml,t that no saving 

 of labour could compensate the want of them, which saving 

 of labour is supposed to be the bent, if not the OH/// reason, that 

 can be given, for sowing barley on a winter-furrow. As to the 

 absurdity of burying that part of the surface after being 

 prepared and meliorated by the influence of a winter at- 

 mosphere, and bringing up a soil less prepared, he asks, 

 may not this be rather more speculative than solid ? He 



be harrowed across, but always along the ridges, to prevent the rye-grass 

 getting up between the furrow-slices. 



Remarks by Mr Jack of Moncur. This is a great argument against 

 too early ploughing for oats, as it sets the couch-grass roots in motion, 

 and greatly increases their quantity in the soil ; thereby both injuring the 

 immediate crop, and adding greatly to the trouble and expence of the 

 subsequent fallow. 



f On this subject, Mr John Shirreff remarks, that the ground on 

 which barley is to be sown, is always supposed cleaned previously by 

 summer-fallow, by turnips, potatoes, or some other cleaning crop, and 

 never to depend on cleaning to be administered that very spring on which 

 the barley or other grain crop is to be sown. So far from destroying, 

 annual weeds at least, spring-ploughing promotes their vegetation and 

 increase. 



J Mr Wight of Ormiston cannot concur with Mr Paterson in the iden, 

 that burying the surface, prepared and meliorated by the influence of a 

 winter atmosphere, and bringing up a soil less prepared, is more specula- 

 tive than solid. The soils can never be more softened, or rendered more 

 capable of receiving the seeds, than after a winter's frost ; and he has 

 always observed, that the seeds were abundantly covered, and enabled to 



