8 



PLOUGHING. At the annual meetings of the North- 

 amptonshire Farming and Grazing Society, it has always 

 been considered a perfection to plough a narrow stitch, 

 and to lay it on edge as much as possible, that the harrows 

 may draw a sufficient quantity of mould over the seed corn. 

 This is all right and proper for broad-cast sowing, but as 

 I think drilling better than broad-cast, I like a wide furrow 

 best, and laid as flat as possible. Deep ploughing, where 

 there is any depth of soil, is beneficial for all crops ; but 

 particularly for green ones, care being taken not to bury a 

 fertile soil, and bring to the surface a sterile one. I have 

 had attached to the right side of a plough-beam a curved 

 piece of timber, to which are fastened, one on each side, 

 by strong screws, to let them up and down, two strong, 

 iron, duck's-foot shaped miners, which penetrate and 

 loosen the sub-soil before the shell- board throws the surface 

 soil over it, in which should there be any twitch, it can be 

 got out, instead of burying it, as is by some erroneously sup- 

 posed a method of getting rid of it. Some persons like to 

 sow on stale furrows for all corn crops ; I like it on a clover 

 ley for wheat, but on no other occasions. Scufflers are now 

 made which will answer the purpose of stirring land that 

 has been ploughed, and thus save the labour and expense 

 of a ploughing. When land has become very full of 

 twitch, it is a good plan to half-plough it that is, turning 

 over one furrow, and then another opposite to meet it ; this 

 done in November will check the growth of the twitch 

 during the winter. The land when ploughed in a contrary 

 direction, early in the spring, will lie in heaps, and thus 

 become quite dry, when the twitch may easily be got out, 

 and a good turnip fallow made. A sandy soil is the most 

 liable to be overrun with it, but it is one from which 

 it is easily extirpated. It appears extraordinary, but many 

 of the foulest and worst-managed farms I have ever seen, 

 have been occupied by the owners themselves, and by those 

 too who had been brought up farmers. The only* way I 

 could account for this was, that the farms must have had 

 burthens on them ; that ready money being scarce, the 

 owners had not the means of keeping the requisite number 

 of horses, or expending so much as was necessary in labour 

 by fifty pounds per annum, thereby losing annually full 



