240 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Mat 



outside of farming, leaving the land nearly or 

 quite unrequited for its eflbrts at production, and 

 at length a poor run-down farm, worth but a 

 fraction of what it would have been by liberal 

 usage, either to keep, or to bequeath to heirs, or 

 to sell. 



You are correct in the impression that "the sub- 

 soil should bo taken into account in judging of 

 the character and capacity of land. Land is to a 

 considerable extent valuable in proportion to the 

 character and quality of its subsoil. Almost any 

 land can be brought up to a certain medium de- 

 gree of excellence. But when you wish to go 

 beyond that, you will find some trouble and ex- 

 pense in doing it with land that has naturally a 

 poor subsoil. Land with a loose, coarse, sandy or 

 gravelly subsoil quickly feels the parching influ- 

 ence of hot suns and dry weather, does not hold 

 fertilizing matters applied to the soil very well, 

 and when laid down to grass does not last long 

 in a highly productive condition. It may be im- 

 proved, it is true, but it is not easy by ordinary 

 means and methods to carry it beyond a certain 

 fair medium degree of excellence. Land with a 

 subsoil containing qualities poisonous to the 

 roots of cultivated crops is quite difficult of a 

 high degree of improvement. But land with a 

 strong, unctuous, fine-grained subsoil of loam or 

 of clay loam, that holds fertilizing matter well, 

 and on suitable exposure to ihe atmosphere 

 slakes or disintegrates willingly, so that it is sus- 

 septible of a fine mellow tilth, may be improved 

 rapidly and to a high order of production, and 

 that without extraordinary means or expense. 



From your description, I judge it not unlikely 

 that you have a better farm underneath than that 

 on top which has become so worn by shallow til- 

 lage. Such a subsoil as you describe, brought to 

 the surface by deep plowing, and enlivened by at- 

 mospheric influence, high manuring and thorough 

 cultivation, and mixed with the older surface soil, 

 will make you a deep, friable soil, and superb 

 tilth of land, producing greater crops than the 

 land ever bore by shallow tillage, even though 

 well manured, indeed even greater than when it 

 was new from the stump. I can show you instances 

 where this deep kind of tillage has so increased 

 the products of land as to make it necessai-y to 

 increase the barn storage very much. A deeply- 

 worked soil has several advantages over a shal- 

 low one ; it better withstands the peculiarities of 

 a too wet or too dry season ; it is easier to till in 

 after cultivation, from the greater depth of mel- 

 low earth thus induced ; the roots of vegetation 

 have a stronger hold upon the soil, and the crops 

 standing firmer on the ground, are not so easily 

 injured by winds and storms ; the manure may be 

 suitably inclosed in mellow earth near the sur- 

 face, where it is more active in its eff'ects on soil 

 and crop than though it had to be turned under 

 the sod or else left on top, as would be the case 

 by shallow breaking-up ; subsequent tillage mix- 

 ing the manure through the deeply-mellowed soil 

 it has a greater and more lasting efl'ect upon the 

 land ; and when the land is laid down to grass, it 

 holds out longer in productive mowing, because 

 the roots having a deeper range, do not so soon 

 become entangled in a wel) near the surface, and 

 the sod is not so soon "bound out." 



With such a subsoil as yours, you may at once 

 plow at least eight or nine inches deep, where you 



apply say twenty-five cart loads of compost per 

 acre, and ten inches deep if you put on thirty to 

 forty loads. If your facilities for manure will al- 

 low you to give the land forty loads per acre, that 

 amount applied will improve the land rapidly and 

 pay you well. I suppose your land has not been 

 plowed heretofore more than six or seven inches 

 deep. You will therefore by increasing the depth, 

 as above named, turn up two or three inches of 

 subsoil to mix with the old surface soil by after 

 cultivation. At the commencement of the next 

 rotation of crops, or after the land has been laid 

 to mowing and needs breaking up again, you can 

 plow ten to twelve inches deep, if you choose ; 

 and by this time you will have secured a deeply- 

 worked soil that will produce to suit you. Wher- 

 ever your subsoil is poor, or inclined to be sandy 

 or gravelly, however, and the surface soil is loose 

 and hungry, the process of deepening the tilth 

 must necessarily be more gradual, bringing up 

 not more than an inch or so of the lower soil at 

 each rotation of crops, and manuring that gener- 

 ously. Good judgment must preside over one's 

 operations in this direction, and the particular 

 circumstances of the case in hand must temper 

 and govern the action. Where deep plowing is 

 to be practiced, it is usually desirable to do it in 

 the fall, and give the upturned subsoil the bene- 

 fit of exposure to the action of the weather till the 

 following spring. The common grub-worms and 

 the cut-worms are a good deal disturbed and 

 cleared out of the land by late fall plowing. But 

 fall plowing is not absolutely requisite, and if 

 convenience were better consulted by plowing in 

 the spring, it may be done then with success. 



You ask about kinds of plowing. This short 

 inquiry might well demand an entire communica- 

 tion for a reply ; and having devoted considera- 

 ble thought and experiment to the science and 

 practice of the thing, I could give you a pretty 

 full dissertation upon it ; but I must be brief. 

 There are four principal kinds of plowing, which 

 I will barely glance at, for convenience illustrat- 

 ing them with cuts, because they will help to 

 convey to you, through the sense of sight, what 

 it would otherwise take many words to describe 

 intelligibly. Let me observe in passing, that the 

 mould-board of the plow is a perfect and beauti- 

 ful mathematical problem, and when understood 

 and fabricated accordingly, it is capable, in the 

 hands of a skilful plowman, of about as accurate 

 plowing as these cuts represent ; and furthermore, 

 the problem, or mould-board, is susceptible of all 

 the requisite modifications of form to meet the 

 wants of the difi'erent soils and modes of plowing. 



Sod and Subsoil Plowing. — This kind of 

 plowing, as the accompanying cut indicates, and 

 as you are, doubtless, already aware, requires two 

 plows upon one beam. The forward or skim plow 

 should take a depth of not more than two or three 

 inches, dropping the sod accurately into the chan- 

 nel, grass side down ; and the rear plow should 

 lift the remaining depth or under soil, raising it 

 high, and laying it handsomely over the sod or 

 skim furrow-slice and well matched up to the pre- 

 vious furrow, breaking the soil well in the act, 

 and leaving a clean channel behind for the recep- 

 tion of the next furrows. When a well-constructed 

 plow for this style of work is accurately adjusted 

 as to the line of draught, and held so as to cut a 

 uniform width and depth, and turn up the rear 



