106 PLAIN AND PLEASANT TALK 



good farmer remarked the other day to us, " One of my 

 neighbors who is always talking of deep plowing was at it 

 last summer, and I followed in the furrow, and his depth 

 did n>t average more than four inches; he did not measuu- 

 on the land side but on the mold-board side." The rea- 

 sons are very strong for deep plowing. 



1 . When crop after crop is taken off the first four or five 

 inches of top earth, it tends speedily to rob it of all ma- 

 terials required by grass or grain. Every blade taken from 

 the soil, takes off some portion of that soil with it. 



2. Deep plowing brings up from 'beneath a greater 

 amount of earth, which, when subjected to the frosts, the 

 atmosphere, and the action of the plow, becomes fit for 

 vegetation. 



3. Summer droughts seldom injure deeply-plowed soils ; 

 certainly not to that degree that they do shallow soils. 

 The roots penetrate the mellow mould to a greater depth, 

 and draw thence moisture when the top is as dry as ashes. 

 Will not some one who is curious in such matters try two 

 acres side by side plowed shallow and deep, respectively, 

 and give us the history of their crop? 



QUANTITY OP SEED. It has been often said that Ameri- 

 can husbandry was unfavorably peculiar in stinginess of 

 seed-sowing. It is certain that very much greater quan- 

 tities are employed in Great Britain and on the Continent 

 than with us, and that much greater crops are obtained per 

 acre. In part the crop is owing to a superior cultivation ; 

 but those who have carefully studied the subject affirm that, 

 in part, it is attributable to the use of much greater quan- 

 tities of seed. We give a table showing the average quan- 

 tity of seed per acre for different grains, in England, Ger- 

 many, and the United States. The table was formed in 

 that manufactory of so many valuable articles, the Albany 

 Cultivator. It must be remembered that the average crop 

 is not the average of the best farming States, but of the 

 whole United States. 



