IMPROVED MACHINERY AND IMPLEMENTS. 69 



CHAPTER XV. 

 IMPROVED MACHINERY AND IMPLEMENTS. 



New inventions have enabled the producers to draw from 

 the soil its powers and productions with such rapidity, 

 without equally replenishing its fertility, that the capac- 

 ity of the land to produce has been almost as rapidly ex- 

 hausted ; whereas, had the farmers as generally applied 

 those vast powers also to draining and thoroughly pul- 

 verizing the land to an additional depth, the fertility or 

 productive power would have been proportionally in- 

 creased and preserved. It is not yet too late, if they 

 will learn lessons of wisdom and judiciously apply them 

 to a more perfect system of tillage. 



Land which is lumpy and cloddy, only partly crushed 

 and mellow, can be only partly available to nourishing 

 and maturing of the crops, as plants can appropriate 

 only what is fit for solution ; for continuous, large crop- 

 ping this should be done, and machine-power can well 

 be adopted to do it. So with deep culture ; land thor- 

 oughly and uniformly cultivated to the depth of twelve 

 or fifteen inches is capable of producing, year after year, 

 nearly twice as much crop as six inches in depth ; and 

 machine-power, which has been so effective in harvesting 

 and thrashing, can be made equally effective in draining 

 and comminuting the land to greater depth. Then the 

 rapid cropping will not exhaust the power of production 

 of the soil. 



