IO NEW HAMPSHIRE AGRICULTURE. 



secured and an open space left at the bottom of each furrow, 

 from which the forces of nature might attack the inverted sod 

 and aid in its disintegration. 



With the best hand plows which he could get, it cost the 

 present owner of the First Minister's Farm from ten to twelve 

 dollars to break up an acre of his interval sod land to the depth 

 of from eight and a half to nine inches. To do this, as before 

 remarked, required three men and eight oxen, or a team equiv- 

 alent thereto. In the course of time the Sulky plow came to 

 the farm and came to stay. No less than three have here done 

 service; first, a " Cassidy ; " later, a " Syracuse," and lastly a 

 Taylor & Belcher. Their distinctive points of excellence can- 

 not be here detailed. It must suffice to say that, with a slightly 

 diminished depth and width of furrow, the cost of sod-plowing 

 has been reduced to about one half of its former amount ; while 

 the privilege of riding has been accorded to the plowman in 

 exchange for that of going on foot. For similar reasons, 

 the old spike-tooth harrow has been remanded to the retired 

 list. 



Next in importance to fertilization, in field culture, is soil 

 pulverization. There is no better place to study this essential 

 work than between the handles of a good plow swinging free in 

 the furrow, behind an even, steady-moving team. The com- 

 minution of the furrow slice as it is detached from its bed and 

 rolled over, will suggest to an intelligent plowman that the 

 vast envelope with which Omnipotence has wrapped this 

 planet is all plant food ; stored for the farmer's use in a form 

 to insure its preservation, and that he has but to separate its 

 numberless particles and expose them to the action of heat and 

 air, water and frost, to secure from them assimilable sus- 

 tenance for the plants growing upon them. Furthermore, as 

 he thinks back into the agricultural past, it will occur to him 

 that old Jethro Tull, who, two hundred years ago, taught that 

 pulverization might be substituted for fertilization, was less of 

 a crank than his neighbors thought him to be. In time it 

 will dawn upon him that the former is cheaper than the latter 

 and that if he will, he may plow more and manure less to his 

 own pecuniary advantage. 



