AND RURAL ECONOMIST. 285 



depth of the furrow should, in general, bear a due propor- 

 tion to the breadth, that is, about two-thirds, or as six inches 

 deep is to nine broid. This is the general, if not the univer- 

 versal opinion of the Scotch farmers."^ The angle forty-five 

 is strongly recommended in Bayley's Essay on the Construc- 

 tion of the Plough, in his Durham Report, and in Brown's 

 Treatise on Rural Affairs. In the southern counties of 

 England, however, they generally prefer to turn the furrow 

 quite flat, or horizontal ; and allege as a reason for that prac- 

 tice that the weeds, grass, &c. ploughed under cannot well 

 be smothered or withered unless the roots are turned com- 

 pletely bottom upwards, and the turf covered so closely as to 

 have no communication with the atmosphere. 



In Flanders, land is frequently cultivated by an implement 

 called the hinot, which is highly esteemed. By this instru- 

 ment the land is not turned over, as by the plough, and the 

 weeds buried ; but the soil is elevated and pressed into small 

 ridges, and thus is better exposed to the beneficial influence 

 of the winter frosts, and becomes much sooner dry in spring 

 than when the land is turned over perfectly flat. When fur- 

 rovv"" slices are set up edgewise by a plough, they become 

 small thin ridges, are more easily pervaded by frost, and are 

 in a situation to attract more of the fertilizing influences of 

 the atmosphere, than when they are turned over so as to lie 

 in a horizontal position. Perhaps this mode of ploughing 

 land may be advantageous in stiff, hard soils, where several 

 ploughings are necessary to prepare for the reception of the 

 seed. If land of this description is broken up in the fall or 

 summer preceding the sowing or plantin^f of the seed, and 

 cross ploughing in the spring is made use of, preparatory to 

 putting in the seed, we are inclined to think that the ' feather 

 edged ploughing,' as it is sometimes called, (in which the 

 furrow slices are not laid so flat as to exclude the air from 

 between and from the lower part of the furrow slices,) is to 

 be preferred. ' Ploughing previous to winter setting in is of 

 great use to clays, or stiff lands, exposing the surface to the 

 frost, which mellows and reduces it in a manner infinitely 

 superior to what could be accomplished by all the operations 

 of man. 't If, then, exposing the surface of stiff soils to the 

 frost is of great advantage, the more surface there is exposed 



* Code of Agriculture. 



t See Husbandry of Scotland, vol. i. p. 229, and vol. xi, Appendix, 

 p, 26. 



