Proceedings of the Farmees' Club. 7J5 



hist fair: and it was insight of this field that Dr. Trimble said, 

 in presence of Mr, Crandell, " You have the best of "Westchester 

 county." How much of the county he has seen I cannot tell, but the 

 fact is that all those fields on which I raise good crops are tilled 

 deeply, and on those not yet so worked I have not succeeded in grow- 

 ing profitable crops. The other charge, against which I have to 

 defend myself, is the assertion that I have taken Mr. Greeley's advice 

 to plow deep. I had practiced deep tillage long before I knew Mr. 

 Greeley, or his views about the depth of plowing. I have taken Mr. 

 Greeley's advice in many things, and am thankful to him for it ; but 

 for what common sense, for what experience, for what science shows 

 as clearly as daylight, I do not require anybody's advice. The very 

 laws of nature tell us to till the ground well and deep. Go over the 

 parched fields of the southern States, made sterile by years of wanton, 

 reckless robbing of the soil and shallow plowing. Ask the mulleins, 

 the liveforevers, and the scrub pines, which find but a scanty supply 

 where once corn and cotton luxuriated. Ask the crumbling ruins 

 which your eye meets on every side, once the comfortable homes of 

 wealthy planters, but long before the war abandoned for new and 

 richer fields. The very drearyness and devastation which surround 

 you exclaim, " Obey the laws of nature." If it was customary in 

 the Club to pass resolutions about the principles of agriculture, I 

 would off'er the following : 



Whereas, Plants grow better and more luxuriant in light an mel- 

 low soils, than in such which are compact and heavy : 



Resolved, That in order to bring compact and heavy soils into the 

 most favorable condition for the growth of crops, they should, by 

 plowing or otherwise, be loosened and mellowed to the depth which 

 the roots of such crops may reach. 



Resolved, That soils already in a sufiiciently loose and mellow con- 

 dition for the production of good crops, need not necessarily be 

 plowed or stirred deeply. 



I trust the foregoing will leave no uncertainty about my views of 

 deep or shallow tillage. But as the Club is severely criticised by the 

 agricultural press for the views expressed here by Dr. Trimble, and 

 by him only, I must put in a word of explanation for them, and it is 

 the only explanation they admit of, namely, that it is an incomplete 

 and entirely one-sided view of the objects and purposes of plowing. 

 No intelligent man can advise shallow plowing everywhere, at all 

 seasons, and on all soils. One object of plowing is to mellow, to 

 loosen, to deej)en the soil, and another is to cover manure. Where 



