GOOD TILLAGE. 25 



We draw no comparisons, nor do we need any, 

 between the products of a field of habitually wet 

 soil, or the trouble and expense of managing it, and 

 the same field after it has undergone a thorough 

 drainage and amelioration. Every farmer, we pre- 

 sume, has noticed the vast disparity in both. If 

 there is one to whom it is not familiar, let him make 

 the trial, and he will be astonished at the result, and 

 at his own want of forethought in not having made 

 it before. 



III. GOOD TILLAGE. 



When thorough draining has been effected upon 

 lands to be benefited thereby, there is another oper- 

 ation which is calculated to aid in the efficiency of 

 manures and in the increase of farm products. This 

 is good tillage a perfect pulverization of the soil, 

 and the keeping it free from weeds, which retard the 

 growth of the crop, and rob it of its food. Good til- 

 lage is important not only as it serves to exterminate 

 weeds, to facilitate the digestion of vegetable food, 

 and to mix and to incorporate this food with earthy 

 elements ; but as it breaks and mellows the soil, and 

 enables the roots of plants to range freely in search 

 of this food. Every farmer must have observed, that 

 where tillage has been but imperfectly performed, as 

 is sometimes seen about stumps and rocks, and near 

 fences, the crop is comparatively feeble and light. 

 This cannot be owing to the poverty of the soil, be- 

 cause the plough, as it rises to the surface in these 

 places, deposites and accumulates there the best and 

 finest mould of the field. The feebleness of the 

 grain arises from the imperfect tillage which those 

 spots receive. The old practice of carrying the 

 main furrows to the extremity of the field, and of 

 dispensing with head-lands, is a bad and slovenly 

 one, and ought to be everywhere exploded. The cut 

 and cover practice is still worse, as it leaves one half, 

 and sometimes two thirds of the soil undisturbed by 



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