74 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



3d. By this deep tillage the rains will sink into 

 the ground, ;ind afford nioisture to the deep roots of 

 plants during the heats of summer ; the fields, as 

 experience has shown, may be laid down with fur- 

 rows, except, perhaps, in very strong lands, and 

 stagnant surface-water will in most cases be pre- 

 vented. 



4th. The deep tilling will enable farmers to raise, 

 as in a garden, carrots, beets, and other tap-rooted 

 plants, for which stiff soils without such ploughing are 

 altogether unsuitable. The carrot and the parsnip, 

 in some cases, are to be preferred to turnips, as af- 

 fording sweeter and more nutritious food for milch 

 cows. 



5th. This ploughing is far preferable to trenching, 

 or spading, or any other mode of moving the subsoil 

 yet devised, as it is equally effectual, and may be 

 done at one fourth the expense. Four horses will 

 probably be required for the deep plough the first 

 time of ploughing, and three afterward, without the 

 assistance of the first plough, which, if the soil is 

 very compact, or a gravelly hardpan, will be neces- 

 sary to turn off the upper stratum of soil, as before 

 mentioned. This plough is made of wrought iron, 

 and well braced, as the pressure on the centre of 

 the beam is very great. 



There is another reason, we think, why subsoil 

 ploughing would be advantageous on the hardpan 

 soils of this country, intended for wheat, which is 

 not noticed above, and which, indeed, would be in- 

 apphcatUe to a large part of England. In that coun- 

 try, with the exception of some parts of Scotlai\d 

 the temperature rarely descends so low as to en- 

 danger the freezing out of wheat in any soil ; while 

 m this country the evil of freezing out is the most 

 formidable one which the cultivator of clay soils has 

 to encounter ; and this evil is constantly increasing 

 on lands of which clay forms the principal ingre- 

 dient, unless some method of counteracting it can be 



