No. 6. 



Prouly Ploiigh- 



-Moore Plovgh. 



183 



hence a cold is more suitable to tlie beet, 

 than a warm climate; and as Chaptal has 

 remarked, nitre in such cases, takes the 

 place of sugar; wliich, he says, is experi- 

 enced in the Southern and warmer parts of 

 France. 



Holding in view \\\esG principles, the cul- 

 tivator may mark his course in safety and 

 confidence — he will adapt his crops to the 

 climate and to the chemical and geological 

 constitution of his soil, and he will distribute 

 the alternations in consistence with the es- 

 tablished laws, which the God of nature has 

 ordained and conferred on him, the faculty 

 of reason to discover and to apply, for his 

 comfort and convenience. 



The subject of manures is too copious for 

 an ordinary address — yet the extensive use 

 of lime would seem to claim for it a passing 

 remark. 



Like others, I have used it in various 

 modes and quantities ; and I have been con- 

 vinced that it may be over-used: by five 

 hundred bushels to the acre twenty years 

 ago, a plat of six acres of my field was ren- 

 dered unprofitable for many years, until I 

 had literally buried it with rich earthy and 

 putrescent manures, and it is not now as good 

 as these should have made it. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Prouty Plough—Moore Plough. 



I WAS net a little disappointed in perusing 

 the last number of the Cabinet, that the com- 

 mittee on the ploughing" match which came 

 off at Westchester in the Tenth month last, 

 had not vindicated themselves from the cen- 

 sure cast on them by Observer, — see page 

 106 — fur awarding the premium to the Moore 

 plough. I have not the pleasure to be ac- 

 quainted witli any of the committee, but 

 certainly they were selected for their expe- 

 rience and good judgment in ploughing. Ob- 

 server palliates their sin, by saying they were 

 unacquainted with the peculiar merits of the 

 Prouty plough, and that they valued a good 

 plough according as it made smooth and flat 

 work : — here Observer forgets, that if the 

 committee were unacquainted with the pe- 

 culiar merits of tlie Prouly plough, they 

 were equally unacquainted with the merits 

 of the Moore plough, except the work before 

 them, which was a little better than Ob- 

 server'' s ne plus ultra of the Prouty plough ; 

 and such too was the decision of the com- 

 mittee on the ploughing match for New Cas- 

 tle county; said committee, in order that 

 they should view the work with an impartial 

 eye, left the ground during the match, and 

 their decision was responded to by the spec- 

 tators; and since that time, C. P. Holcomb, 



one of the friends of the Prouty ploufrh, has 

 come over and ordered several of Vl/oore's 

 plough. It is nut a little surprising that 

 Paschall Morris should assign much of the 

 merit of his great crop of corn to the Prouly 

 plough, wlien he before had given us the 

 true cause, viz: that the field was a twenty 

 year old green grass sod; that it was limed 

 seven years since, and from that time pa.s- 

 tured ; — now who could ask for a better seed 

 bed .' or who ever saw such a one with com- 

 nion cultivation, that was cloddy or weedy] 

 Green grass will not grow twenty years on 

 land that is of a nature to be cloddy; and as 

 for weeds, they are not apt to grow from the 

 first ploughing after so long a rest. Ob- 

 server says that the soil is unrivalled, and 

 yet we find that greater crops have been 

 raised by men who had never seen a Prouty 

 plough. P. M. and D. W. of Conshehocken, 

 are not like the English farmers that Lord 

 Stanley told an anecdote of, for the latter 

 had a notion that iron ploughs bred weeds, 

 but the former rather think that Prouty^s 

 plough breeds corn. 



Now for a few words on deep ploughing, 

 alluded to by P. M.: — in that case "it was of 

 much more importance than what kind of 

 plough was used, for his was a deep soil ; 

 but on many soils it would have been tnad- 

 ness to plough seven inches deep. Major 

 Cooch, who was one of the most practical 

 farmers of New Castle county, used to say 

 when he was ploughing eight inches deep 

 with four horses, that deep ploughing made 

 poor fathers, but rich sons; his lands not 

 being of that kind that green grass would 

 grow on for twenty years. It might appear 

 from the above that I am unfriendly to Prou- 

 ty 's ploughs; but such is not t!ie fact. I 

 have until lately thought them second to 

 none, and now only to one; but it is this 

 writing up things above their true merits 

 jthat I disapprove of, for by such methods 

 'people are apt to he greatly deceived. For 

 {instance, about Rohan potatoes. Sugar-beets, 

 Button corn, Tree corn, Baden corn, Cork- 

 shire hogs, and Guano; all of which I have 

 tried except the hogs and potatoes. Some- 

 time last spring, one of the correspondents 

 of the Cabinet stated, that lime and plaster 

 put on potatoes before they were covered, 

 would prevent the rot. I tried it on three 

 rows, which yielded seventeen bushels, and 

 I am afraid that they will all rot: one half 

 have been taken out of the cellar rotten, and 

 the remainder look very suspicious. The 

 other parts that were not so treated, are per- 

 fectly sound, the seed being the satne; yet 

 I do not think that the treatment had any 

 bad effect, but that it was caused by wet 

 weather, that came on before they were dug, 



