Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 485 



^experiment this year with peach blows, and found it so. I observed, 

 bj the way, that the blossom end of the potato gave better returns 

 than the other. 



Mr. J. G. Gregory. — Forty years ago, when I was in my prime, it 

 was the practice to use three bushels of wheat to the acre ; afterward, 

 it was found that two bushels answered better ; and, later still, that 

 a single peck sufficed, and brought a return of seventy bushels at that. 

 I, myself, have raised a bushel and a half of potatoes from a single 

 tuber. All this goes to confirm the statement that great quantities 

 of seed are wasted. There is one thing more ; we had better come 

 up to a just appreciation of the importance of using less seed in all 

 our crops, having that seed the best, putting it in in the best manner, 

 keeping the fields clean, and gleaning after harvest, that nothing be 

 lost. 



Mr. A. S. Fuller. — I applaud this whole speech of our colleague, 

 and, particularly, the closing words. I am firm in the faith that 

 twenty-five per cent of our agricultural labor is wasted. Why is this 

 thus ? Why run over twenty acres for a harvest that might be grown 

 on a quarter of that area, or a half at the most? Mr. Brown, or Mr. 

 Jones, or Mr. Robinson, had better not attempt to make manure 

 enough for ten acres answer for thirty, or four-inch plowing suffice 

 where sixteen would be shallow enough. 



Dr. Isaac P. Trimble. — Oh, the folly, Mr. Chairman, of speaking 

 of farm labor wasted, and then counseling the use of a subsoil plow. 

 Don't do it. I tried it over my ground, and my ground was worse 

 in consequence for years and years thereafter. 



Mr. J. G. Gregory. — If time served, I could tell of Mr. Lawrence, 

 of Louisiana, a sugar planter, who was in the habit of plowing his 

 alluvial land three inches deep. After a while he bethought him 

 that he ought to get more than a single hogshead from an acre. So 

 what did he do ? Well, Mr. Chairman, he rushed into what Dr. 

 Trimble would doubtless consider a stupendous folly. He sent over 

 to England and got a steam plow, and turned up his plantation to 

 the depth of eighteen inches. And now for the result — three hogs- 

 heads per acre, and enough extra profit in a single season to pay for 

 the implement that did the business. What, Mr. Chairman, would 

 have been his forlorn estate had he chanced to hear and heed the 

 voice of the apostles of shallow plowing ? Suppose he had taken the 

 advice of David Pettit and Dr. Trimble ; wouldn't it have been just 

 as ruinous as though he had dumped two-thirds of his crop into the 

 Mississippi river ? 



