332 



NEW* ENGLAND FARMER 



APRIl.ai, 1S41. 



now CAN FARMING BE MADE PROt'ITA- 

 BLE?— SUBSOIL PLOUGHING. 

 Letter of E. Phinney, Esq. to A. Huntington, 

 Esq., piiblislicd in tlie Transactions of the Es.se.\ 

 Agricultural Society, 1840 : 



Lexins:ton, Dec. 1, 1640. 

 A. Huntington, Esq. — Dear Sir — The ques- 

 tion is often usked. How can farrnino; tie made 

 profitable ? I answer, by liberal manuring, deep 

 and tliorouofh plougliinir, and clean culture. I will 

 venture to atHrni, without fear of contradiction, 

 that no instance con be cited, where a farmer who 

 has manured his grounds highly, made a judicious 

 nse of the plough, and cultivated with care, has 

 failed to receive an ample remuneration for the 

 amount invested — nay more, that has not received 

 a greater advance upon his outlay than the average 

 profit derived from any other business. One great 

 difficulty is, that most farmers seem not to be aware 

 of the fact, that the greater the outlay, to a reason- 

 able extent, when skilfully applied, the greater 

 will bo the profit ; they therefore manure sparingly, 

 plough shallow, and the consequence is, get poorly 

 paid for their liibor. This has raised a prejudice 

 and given a disrelish to the business of farming, 

 especially among those who are in the habit and 

 are desirous of realizing something more from their 

 occupatitm than a naked return of the amount ex- 

 pended. 



The farmer who is so sparing of his manure that 

 he can get but thirty bushels of corn from an acre, 

 gets barely enough to pay him for llie expense of 

 cultivation; and in addition to this, by the ordinary 

 method of ploughing, his field, at each successive 

 rotation, is deteriorating, his crops becoming less, 

 and in a few years he finds he must abandon his 

 exhausted and worn out fields, to seek a subsis- 

 tence for himself and family in some other busi- 

 ness, or in some other region, where the hand of 

 man has been less wasteful of the bounties of na- 

 ture. 



Instead then of his scanty manuring often cart- 

 loads to the acre, which will give him but thirty 

 bushels (jf corn, let him apply thirty loads. This 

 additional twenty loads, at the usual price of ma- 

 nure in this part or the country, will cost him thir- 

 ty dollars. But he now, instead of thirty bushels 

 of corn, gets sixty bushels, and the increased quan- 

 tity of stover will more tlian pay for the excess of 

 labor required in cultivating and harvesting the 

 large crop over that of the small one. He has 

 then added thirty bushels of corn to his crop by 

 means of the twenty loads of manure, which at the 

 usual price of one dollar per bushel, pays him in 

 the first crop for his extra outlay. His acre of land 



dituros for manure to a certain extent. This has 

 been most strikingly verified by some of our West 

 Cambridge farmers. It is not uncommon among 

 some of the farmers in that town, to put on their 

 grounds one hundred dcdlars' worth of manure to 

 the acre, and in more instances than one, the gross 

 sales of produce from ten acres under the plough, 

 have amounted to five thousand dollars in one sea- 

 son. This is the result of high manuring and ju- 

 dicious cultivation of a soil too which i.s exceedingly 

 poor and sandy. 



The subject of subsoil ploughing is one upon 

 which there has been little said, and less done in 

 this part of the Country. In all our grounds ex- 

 cept those which are very loose and sandy, there 

 is no doubt that great benefit would be derived 

 from the use of the subsoil plough. In England, 

 the effect of subsoil ploughing in increasing their 

 crops, as stated by some agricultural writers, would 

 seem almost incrodlble. By this means, the crops 

 in that country have been doubled, and in many 

 instances trebled. The expense, however, is sta- 

 ted to be very great — so great, as to be beyond 

 the means of most of our farmers. In one case 

 the expense of subsoil ploughing on a farm of over 

 five hundred acres, was estimated by the owner to 

 cost the enormous sum of thirteen hundred pounds 

 sterling. This calculation took into consideration 

 the use of the heavy Deanston plough, winch al- 

 ways required four, and, in some stiff clays, six 

 horses to work it. I am aware that an implement 

 might be constructed, which though it might not 

 do the business quite so well, could, nevertheless, 

 be made highly beneficial in the hands of our far- 

 mers, and obtained at a far less cost. I am inform- 

 ed that Mr Bosson, of the Yankee Farmer, has, 

 with a highly praise-worthy zeal in the ir.terest of 

 agriculture, imported from England a subsoil 

 plough, which may be worked with a less powerful 

 team than the one commonly in use in that coun- 

 try. 



In a climate like our own, which at that season 

 of the year when our crops, particularly our root 

 crops, most need the benefit of moisture that may 

 be derived from deep ploughing, and are most like- 

 ly to sutler from drought, the use of the subsoil 

 plough would be attended with unquestionable 

 benefit. On a field of my own, which had been 

 set to iin orchard, and therefore kept under the 

 plough for some years, in attempting to underdrain 

 a part of it that was usually flooded by water in 

 the spring of the year, I noticed what the English 

 call the "upper crust." This lay some inchesjje- 

 low the surface, at the depth to which the land 

 had been usually ploughed, formed by the treading 

 of the oxen and the movements of the plough over 



similar to the handles of a plough. On trying this 

 by running after the drill ploigh, 1 found, in my 

 hard, stony subsoil, it was quite inadequate to the 

 business, being too light and of insufficient strength. 

 I then had one constructed of similar plan, but 

 much lieavier and stronger. The beam five feet 

 long, six inches square, of white oak, well ironed, 

 with three tines in nearly a right line, made of the 

 best Swedes iron, one and a half inches square, 

 extending twelve inches below the beam, with a 

 spur at the foot, some less than that of the tine of 

 the cultivator, with strong handles and an iron 

 beam extending from each handle to the centre of 

 the beam, by which the balance is easily preserv- 

 ed. This implement, drawn by two yoke of oxen, 

 followed the drill plough in getting in carrots, and 

 performed the work better than 1 had anticipated. 

 The " upper crust" gave way, the resistance made 

 by the hard, gravelly bottom and smaller stones 

 was readily overcome. The earth was loosened 

 in most places twelve or fourteen inches from the 

 surface, and though not so thoroughly pulverized as 

 it probably would have been by a perfect subsoil 

 plough, yet, in my very hard stony subsoil, I am 

 inclined to believe, that for simple drill husbandry, 

 this will be found to be a valuable substitute for 

 the English subsoil plough. And considering the 

 small price of the implement, and the greater ease 

 with which it is worked, the friction being much 

 lessened by dispensing with the sole, I shall con- 

 tinue to use this until I can find a better. A part 

 of my crop of carrots was sowed upon the same 

 land appropriated to that crop last year ; no more 

 manure was applied than in the previous year, and 

 notwithstanding the very severe drought which 

 greatly injured most of our root crops, my crop on 

 this piece of land was nearly double to that of last 

 year. There is no known cause to which I can 

 attribute this great increase of the produce, but the 

 use of my new coijstructed substitute for a subsoil 

 plough. The soil was stirred to the depth of four- 

 teen inches ; by this means the roots of the carrots 

 were enabled to strike deep and thereby not only 

 to find more nourishment, but to overcome, in a 

 great measure, theefl^ects of ij ve.'y pinching drought. 

 With great respect, 



Your ob't servant, 



E. PHINNEY. 



is laid to grass after taking off the corn, and the it. This I found to be so hard as to bo apparently 



effect of his twenty loads of additional manuring, 

 will be to give him, at the lowest estimate, three 

 additional tons of hay in the first three years of 

 mowing it, worth fifteen dollars a ton standing in 

 the field. Now look at the result. His thirty dol- 

 lars expended for extra manuring was paid for in 

 the first year's crop, and at the end of three years 

 more he will have received fortyfive dollars profit 

 on his outlay of thirty dollars : and in addition to 

 this, his land is improved, and in much better con- 

 dition for a second rotation. There is no delusion 

 in this. It is a practical result, of the reality of 

 which any farmer may satisfy himself, who will 

 take the trouble to make the experiment. 



From no item of outlays can the farmer derive 

 80 ample, or so certain a profit, as from his expen- 



as impenetrable by the roots of plants as a piece of 

 marble, and discovered to me at once the cause of 

 the failure, in a great measure, of my crop of pota- 

 toes the year before. Having discovered what I 

 supposed to be the cause of the failure, I set about 

 devising measures to remedy it. 



I had never seen a subsoil plough, there never 

 having been one seen or made in this part of the 

 country. I consulted my ingenious friends, Messrs 

 Prouty & Mears, and, at my request, they made 

 an instrument of very cheap and simple construc- 

 tion, consisting of a wooden beam, about three in- 

 ches square, and three feet long, with three tines 

 or teeth of the common cultivator, placed in a di- 

 rect line in the beam, extending about eight inches 

 below the beam ; to this handles were attached 



For the New England Farmer. 



TO THE PUBLIC. 

 The Operation of Bronchotomy Successfully Per- 

 formed on the Horse. 

 On the 26th of January last, the undersigned 

 was requested to examine a horse, the property of 

 Messrs Charles and F. A. Heath, Esqrs., on Front 

 street. His disease was strangles, or an abcess in 

 the throat, of an unusual character — a consequence 

 of fever or general indisposition. I prescribed for 

 him and continued my visits from day to day till 

 the morning of February the first, when all my ef- 

 forts having so far proved ineffectual, the swelling 

 and inflammation of the throat were such as to pre- 

 vent swallowing ; respiration had become very la- 

 borious, and immediate suffocation inevitable. I 

 proposed an operation on the trechea, or wind-pipe. 

 With this my employer was unacquainjed, but on 

 my explaining the modus operandi, he requested 

 me to do as I thought fit. I immediately com- 

 menced operation, excising a portion of the wind- 

 pipe sufficient to admit a small tube ; this done, 



