PLOUGHING. 177 



Next in importance is a stout and thoroughly trained team. 

 Many farmers pay but little attention to the securing and pre- 

 serving of a suitable team for the general purposes of agricul- 

 ture. Doubtless, throughout most of New England, oxen are 

 preferable, for most of the purposes of farming, to horses or 

 mules. Especially is this true in reference to ploughing ; their 

 gait is less rapid, and the plough is drawn with more evenness 

 and force, and hence the furrow may be turned with greater 

 ease and uniformity. It is highly important that the cattle 

 should be well matched in size, weight, motion, and tempera- 

 ment ; with these requisites, and proper training, united with 

 kind treatment, your cattle may be educated to perform their 

 tasks with ease, skill, and profit. It is also necessary tliat the 

 driver should control himself if he would succeed in controlling 

 his oxen. I have always noticed that all well-bred oxen show 

 a proper resentment to the use of loud, boisterous and profane 

 language, when addressed to them, and are quite as likely to go 

 wrong as right, under such circumstances ; lience, let passion 

 be restrained, and kind words used, and the effect will be salu- 

 tary on both man and beast. 



Many farmers in selecting their ploughs, aim to get those that 

 turn the widest furrow, in order to complete their work with 

 greater despatch. Some of these ploughs turn a furrow from 

 fourteen to eighteen inches in width. Now experience and 

 observation in England and Scotland, have proved that a furrow 

 more than twelve inches in width is not so favorable for perfect 

 and thorough pulverization as those within that width ; hence 

 the furrow slice should be no wider than what is necessary for 

 the complete turning of the sod. 



Much has been well and properly said of late years, in regard 

 to ploughing deep. There can be but little doubt in the mind 

 of any candid and reflecting man, that the neglect of deep 

 ploughing has been the great mistake of all past generations of 

 farmers in this country. When we remember that many of our 

 grain and vegetable roots penetrate to the depth of from one to 

 three feet, what folly is it to skim over the surface to the depth 

 of five or six inches, as was formerly the universal practice. It 

 is well that our farmers are beginning to awake to this impor- 

 tant matter, and as the result, we may expect surer and larger 

 crops. We would say never plough less than eight inches deep, 



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