98 ON PLOUGHING. 



day or two sooner than we can begin to plough it. 

 The harrow opens the ground, lets in the air, and fits 

 the soil for the plough. Take the harrow, then, if 

 you are impatient to begin spring work^ level down 

 hills, if yon made any last year, with this or with your 

 cultivator, and then plough hut once^ though you may 

 take as fine a furrow as you please. Bury the stalks, 

 the weeds, and all the rubbish underneath, and there 

 let it lie till it becomes manure. It is all wanted be- 

 low, but none above. As a general rule, no land should 

 be ploughed twice in the same month. Very rough 

 land must be treated differently. It must be cross- 

 ploughed, to take advantage of the stones and the 

 fixed stumps. But it is very absurd, in plane fields, 

 after we have laid the soil right side up, to disturb it 

 again before we take a crop. 



No unrotted manures should be used for spring grain. 

 Old and rotten manure, in proper quantity, will do no 

 harm ; for it works immediately, brings your grain for- 

 ward early, and it often ripens before the sultry weath- 

 er comes on ; or it is so far spent before that time, it 

 does no injury : whereas, green manure begins to ope- 

 rate at the very time when there is most danger from 

 the rapid growth of the grain — that is, in July — and 

 if it is very hot and sultry — such weather as Indian 

 corn delights in — the grain grows so rapidly as to burst 

 the stalk open and let out its juices. They flow down 

 the outside of the stalk and form what we call rust 

 upon it. 



In confirmation of this doctrine, we understand that 

 this rust does not make its appearance in England. 

 That is a colder climate, and grain is much longer in 

 coming to perfection than in our country. Hence, 

 also, we raise better English grain in cool summers 

 than in warm ones ; and few summers yield, at the same 

 time, our greatest crops of corn and of English grain. 



Though we much prefer seeding down to grass in 

 September, yet lands planted last year, and prepared 



