1868. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



477 



years could make It, the plough moved steadily 

 along cutting up the solid bed finely. It has 

 been frequently tested, and the inventors are 

 still at work making such improvements as 

 these trials have suggested, and are entirely 

 confident of complete success. The Farmer 

 remarks : — 



The steam plough when completed will plough, 

 plant and finish fifty acres per day, in the best 

 manner ; and the engipe will also, when attached 

 to their new "Header and Harvester," as it is the 

 intention of the inventors to do, will head, thrash 

 and clean up fifty acres per day, — the Header cut- 

 ting a breadth of twenty feet wide. When this is 

 accomplished we may, indeed, call it the age of 

 progress. 



Call this a dream, if you will. But is it 

 not just as likely to come to pass as are the 

 dreams of the croakers, who see visions only 

 of what is discouraging, degrading, plodding 

 inferior, hateful in the present or future of 

 American agriculture? We have been so 

 long "scared with the dreams" and "terrified 

 with the visions" of this class of prophets, 

 that we take pleasure in recording the more 

 cheerful anticipations of our California friends. 



SHALLOW PLOUGHIITQ. 

 One of "the wise men who concentrate the 

 rays of agricultural knowledge" at the New 

 York Farmers' Club, not long since invented 

 a plough designed to stir up the soil to a depth 

 which ordinary plough- joggers never thought 

 of reaching. Some New Jersey farmers who 

 belong to the society of Friends, took issue 

 with the teachings of this Club as to the ad- 

 vantages of universal deep tillage, and finally 

 asked for an examination of the results of a 

 system of cultivation based on shallow plough- 

 ing. A committee was therefore appointed 

 by the Club to visit the grounds of these 

 Friends. We find an account of this visit in 

 the Rural New Yorker, by a member of the 

 Committee, marked with the familiar initials 

 "T. C. P." from which we give the following 

 paragraphs : — 



The next ^ay we were taken into carriages 

 and driven over the surrounding country, and 

 to several farms where shallow ploughing had 

 been practiced for many years. They call 

 from four to six inches shallow, — their aver- 

 age is about four. Though the season was 

 both backward an^ dry, they had made good 

 harvests, and I was much astonished to see 

 the evidences, in large and numerous stacks 

 and a heavy stubble, of crops of wheat, oats 

 and rye that would have done no discredit to 

 the wheat lands of Western New York. The 



clover would compare favorably with the best 

 I have seen in that favored region. The soil 

 is a loamy alluvion resting on an ocean drift ; 

 the surface slightly undulating, and requiring 

 draining only in the bottoms bordering streams. 



On the bottoms where the tide overflows are 

 some fine redtop or herdsgrass meadows, 

 which are protected by embankments. These 

 meadows are a great source of profit to the 

 owners, as more than one-half of all the red- 

 top seed raised in the Union is grown here. 

 Those who have these meadows generally keep 

 cattle. 



The course of farming now usually adopted, 

 after more than one hundred years' experi- 

 ence, is wheat, clover, corn, oats, rye or 

 wheat, followed by clover again. The first 

 crop of clover is cut for hay, followed by a 

 crop for seed, then pastured by sheep. Sheep 

 are usually bought in October, the ewes then 

 stinted to the ram, and kept in good condi- 

 tion ; lambs sold as soon as the butcher will 

 take them, and the ewes follow as soon as fed 

 up to marketable condition. This is their fa- 

 vorite course, and on this they' increase the 

 fertility of their soil and grow rich. I saw a 

 portable steam engine driving a threshing ma- 

 chine at a group of stacks, and understood* 

 that it is generally used. 



My impression is that I have seen no por- 

 tion of the country where a system of farming, 

 based upon clover, can be so profitably studied 

 as in Salem, Co., and around Salem City. It 

 has been longer and more persistently prac- 

 ticed than in the winter wheat region of West- 

 ern New York, and presents much the same 

 results — highly cultivated farms, elegant build- 

 ings, and a refined and intelligent society. In 

 such a soil as theirs, deep ploughing is not 

 desirable, because they get the immediate ad- 

 vantages of their clover sod, and the soil does 

 not require the ameliorating influences of 

 deeper culture. 



Disease in the Stable. — The North Brit- 

 ish Agriculturist attributes much of the dis- 

 ease in stables to the exclusion of the necessary 

 quantity of light, a fair share of which is 

 deemed as essential to animal growth as to 

 vegetable. When stables or ether inclosures 

 are kept in comparative darkness, filth is apt 

 to be overlooked, from which unwholesome 

 gases are continually exhaling, rendering the 

 air unsuited to the demands of animal life. 

 This conclusion is, in every respect, a reason- 

 able one, and should challenge the attention 

 of every stock grower. Extreme darkness or 

 garishness — especially in the case of fattening 

 animals — is to be avoided, as along this medi- 

 um line runs the pathway of healthfulness to 

 stable stock and of profitableness to Uic owner. 



