ADVANTAGE AND MODE OF SUBSOILING. 469 



treme delicacy of structure, it is very difficult in most 

 seasons to get on the ground with the hoes at exactly the 

 desirable time; and if not checked, the weeds speedily 

 overpower them and considerably check their growth. 



When the work of clearing has been satisfactorily accom- 

 plished, the proportion of farmyard manure allotted to 

 the crop should be carted out and spread equally over the 

 surface, and then covered in with a winter furrow as deep 

 as the horse-power of the farm will allow. On most soils 

 the subsoil plough can here be used to advantage, and as 

 the carrot-break is usually only of a limited extent, it 

 would not interfere much with the ordinary horse-labour 

 of the season, and in the process of time a considerable 

 portion of the farm would thus be worked, and a large 

 additional amount of valuable soil be made available for 

 the purposes of vegetation. In such cases the subsoil 

 plough should follow immediately, behind the ordinary 

 plough, taking an equal depth, and thus stirring the soil 

 well to the depth of 15 to 18 inches. By harnessing the 

 horses of the leading plough "tandem fashion/' instead of 

 abreast, they both draw on the land instead of one travel- 

 ling in the furrow, which would in this case do an injury, 

 by treading down the soil moved by the subsoil plough. 

 " Read's," or the " Tweeddale subsoil plough/'' with two 

 good horses, will, with a depth two-thirds that of the fur- 

 row of the surface plough, follow close behind it, and get 

 over the same amount of ground in the day. In Norfolk 

 and Suffolk, where carrots have been longer and more 

 largely grown as a field crop than in most other places, it 

 is the custom to increase the depth of soil for this crop by 

 means of stout forks, the labourers following the plough, 

 and working on the bottom of the furrow. This dperation 

 acts upon the soil to the depth of about 15 inches, and 

 costs, irrespective of the surface ploughing, about 2 per 

 acre; whereas the work is as efficiently done by the use 



