148 



Fall-ploughing and Subsoiling. 



Vol. VII. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Fall-ploughing and Subsoiling. 



In a late journey through Chester and 

 Lancaster counties, I remarked numer- 

 ous instances of fall-ploughing, and cannot 

 but attribute much of that first and most im- 

 portant step in improvement, to the many 

 excellent papers on that subject which have 

 appeared from time to time in the pages of 

 the Cabinet. Some of the practitioners have 

 added another step, and have spread their 

 lime on these winter-fallows, — a most essen- 

 tial one in the routine, and which it only re- 

 mains to follow up by a third, — I mean au- 

 tumnal subsoiling, when the system might 

 be pronounced perfect. By this additional 

 labour, the only objection that I have ever 

 yet heard to fall-ploughing, is completely 

 done away, and all difficulties are obviated; 

 as there will then be no fear of the washing 

 away of the fresh-turned soil during the rains 

 and frosts of winter, as these will find their 

 way into the loosened subsoil and fertilize it 

 to an astonishing degree, by the time the 

 spring season of working has arrived ; not a 

 particle of loss accruing, but much benefit to 

 the next year's crop. Not that there ever has 

 been, in my estimation, the least suspicion 

 that any absolute loss would accrue in this 

 way from fall-ploughing, even although the 

 process of subsoiling should be omitted ; but 

 then it would be necessary to cut diagonal 

 lines or furrows across those lands which lie 

 on a declivity, to conduct the surface-water 

 and prevent the washing of the ploughed 

 land into gullies, taking especial care that 

 these diagonal furrows be carried at so small 

 an angle of descent as merely to take the 

 water away on an easy run ; else, they will 

 be found to increase the danger they were 

 intended to obviate, and form those gullies 

 which they were made to prevent. With 

 this care and attention, the benefit of fall- 

 ploughing will be found an unmixed source 

 of pleasure and profit ; pleasurable, because 

 expediting the labours of the spring, and 

 enabling the occupier of the soil to enter 

 earlier on his labours at that busy season ; 

 profitable, by enabling his land to withstand 

 a drought without flinching, as well as be 

 the means of relieving his soil during a wet 

 and unkindly season ; all which is effected, 

 by laying up the land by a deep furrow early 

 in the autumn to the influence of a winter's 

 frost and snow. These advantages I have 

 often urged upon the notice of my agricultu- 

 ral friends, aided by the pages of the Cabi- 

 net, the last number of which is generally 

 my travelling companion ; pointing out to 

 them at the same time, the perfect indiffer- 

 ence they exhibit on the score of washing 



of the soil, when they sow their crops of 

 wheat in the autumn, although the land has 

 been repeatedly ploughed and pulverized, 

 and made light by manuring after oats, by 

 which the soil is rendered so porous as to 

 be in the greatest danger of washing to a 

 ruinous extent : but the universality of the 

 practice has rendered it familiar, and not a 

 thought about the injury they are liable to 

 sustain ever enters their imaginations ; nor 

 is there in fact any cause for fear ; the cer- 

 tain good arising from the practice, overbal- 

 ancing the imaginary evil a hundred fold. 



But let it be remembered, that the ear- 

 lier fall-ploughing is performed, the better, 

 so that the fresh-turned land may derive 

 benefit from exposure to the fertilizing in- 

 fluence of the sun's rays, which would be 

 found of importance equal to a covering of 

 manure ; the first drying of the land and the 

 after slaking by means of the rains, render- 

 ing the soil so porous as to admit the frosts 

 and snows to shake and pulverize it the 

 whole depth to which it had been turned, 

 and preventing the evil so greatly feared, 

 namely, a washing away of the surface. In 

 my opinion, there is no improvement in 

 agriculture at all comparable to a rigid ob- 

 servance of fall-ploughing, when it is care- 

 fully and seasonably performed, and accom- 

 panied by a coat of lime as a top dressing, so 

 to lie during the winter, whether the land 

 be designed for oats, to be harrowed in early 

 in the spring without a second ploughing; 

 or for corn, peas, potatoes, barley, or any 

 other crop ; convinced as I am, that such an 

 expenditure of the lime is the proper mode 

 of application ; after which, the land might 

 be manured, without fear that the ripening 

 of the crop will be delayed, so as to be liable 

 to the rust, — a common occurrence, if lime 

 be added to the manure on fallowed land in 

 the autumn, preparatory to the sowing of 

 wheat ; for it is the nature of lime, by its 

 antiseptic properties, to retard the action 

 of the dung, so as to cause it to be giving 

 out its energies long after the time has ar- 

 rived for vegetation to cease, and the ripen- 

 ing process to follow, — the only satisfactory 

 mode with which I am acquainted, of ac- 

 counting for the fact, that lime operates in- 

 juriously on wheat, by causing the crop to 

 grow and continue green for too long a 

 period. 



To those, however, who have not subsoiled 

 their land the present autumn, I would say, 

 do not hesitate to adopt that plan of deepen- 

 ing and improving your soil, in the coming 

 spring. A single trial of that most remarkable 

 instrument, the subsoil plough, will convince 

 any man of reflection, that the process must 

 be beneficial to all parties, — to the soil, to 



