PREPARATION OF THE SOIL. 413 



allotted to the crop should be carted on and carefully 

 spread, and the ploughs sent in with instructions not to 

 spare the teams, but to cover it up with a 9 or 10 inch 

 winter furrow before they leave the field. In the labour, 

 as well as the other arrangements of a farm, quality 

 should be always preferred to' quantity ; the first should 

 be secured before the other is sought for. In autumn 

 ploughing for mangold or any other root crop, a team 

 getting over two-thirds of an acre per day, 9 inches deep, 

 would, in nine cases out often, pay the farmer better than if 

 they got over an acre with a 6-inch furrow in the same time. 

 Where the subsoil plough is used for the purpose of adding 

 to the available agricultural soil of the farm, a crop of man- 

 golds will take advantage of the increased feeding area as 

 well as a crop of carrots would do. To these last, however, 

 it is of more immediate importance, as they cannot content 

 themselves with the comparatively shallow soils in which 

 mangolds can be successfully cultivated. If the field has 

 been properly worked, and laid up with a good, high- 

 shouldered furrow, it will not require any attention until 

 the time arrives for preparing for the intended crop. 



The preparation consists in securing the conditions, "me- 

 chanical" as well as "chemical," in the. soils which experience 

 has shown to be necessary to the healthy development of 

 the plants cultivated. In all cases it is desirable that the 

 soil should be as deep as possible ; in a fine state of divi- 

 sion; that it should contain sufficient moisture to supply 

 the requirements of vegetation, but that no water should 

 remain in it in a stagnant state ; and that it should con- 

 tain all those ingredients, in an available condition, which 

 the crop requires to carry on and to perfect its growth. 

 These are all points of direct importance to the healthy 

 development of our " Farm Crops," and none of them can 

 be neglected without the penalty of a proportionate dimir 

 nution of produce. 



