ii8 OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES. 



offending the patriotic susceptibilities of a great 

 many that not one American farmer in twenty knows 

 what really good plowing is. Over and over, the 

 wiseacres at the county fairs give their first pre- 

 miums to the man who, by a little deft handling of 

 the plow, can turn a flat furrow, and who wins his 

 honors by his capacity to hide every vestige of the 

 stubble, and to leave an utterly level surface. But a 

 flat furrow, with ordinary implements, involves a 

 broad cut and a consequent diminution of depth. 

 The perfection of plowing upon sward-land implies, on 

 the contrary, little pyramidal ridgelets of mould, run- 

 ning like an arrow's flight the full length of the field, 

 all which a good cross-harrowing will break down 

 into fine and even tilth, like a garden-bed. Yet again 

 and again, I have seen such plowing, by Scotch 

 adepts, condemned by the county wise men for its 

 unevenness. The flat furrow is not, indeed, without 

 its uses under certain conditions of the land, and with 

 special objects in view as, for instance, where, by a 

 fall plowing, one wishes a partial disintegration of 

 the turf, in view of a " turning under " of the whole 

 surface upon the succeeding spring for a crop of 

 roots. This is practised upon the island of Jersey (so 

 famous for its dairy stock) with great success. The 

 sod is " skimmed " (such is their term) in the month 

 of November or December, and with the opening of 



