600 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



WHAT HAS BEEN AND IS DOINC4 FOR THE GEN- 

 ERAL ADVANCEMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



[Extracts from an Address before the Worcester County Agricultural Society, at its 

 Fair, held on the 23d September, 1852. By Prof. James J. Mapf.s, Editor of 

 The Working Farmer.] 



The improvements in agriculture during the past half cen- 

 tury have been greater than those of any previous time. You 

 will recollect that the iron plough-share was invented but 

 eighty years ago, and that the improvements made upon it 

 have since increased its utility five-fold ; that before its inven- 

 tion, the ploughman could disturb but ^V ^^^ weight of soil, 

 with the same amount of power, and in the same time, that 

 may now be disturbed; that the slight depths to which he 

 could plough would scarcely bury the parasite plants calcu- 

 lated to annoy his labors. The dry and the wet soil were 

 manured alike, and the sand and clay soil received similar 

 treatment. The subsoil plough and the underdrain were 

 unknoVn ; even the causes of the benefits arising from the 

 plough were but slightly understood. 



Among the greatest improvements of the day we may name 

 underdraining and subsoil ploughing, preceded perhaps by 

 deeper disintegration of the soil by the surface plough. The 

 benefits to be derived from deep surface ploughing are too 

 numerous to be only entitled to a passing notice. Even the 

 fine ploughing we have witnessed to-day, although infinitely 

 superior to the present average ploughing of the country, and 

 as compared with the general ploughing of thirty years ago, 

 calculated to improve materially the condition of the farm, is 

 still not so deep and thorough as well-directed experiment has 

 proved to be advisable. Why do we plough at all ? Is it not 

 for the purpose of admitting air and moisture to the soil, to 

 permit roots to travel to a greater depth, by loosening particles 

 from each other ? Do not soils improve by the action of the 

 atmosphere upon their ultimate particles, and must not this 

 improvement be proportionate to the number of particles acted 

 upon? Can the atmosphere enter soil to as great a depth 



