Proceebtkgs of the Farmers' Club. 627 



tions, and sajs that he does not think that he will ever go back to 

 shallow plowing. 



Mr. David Boyd, Lake Ridge, Mich. — He sajs that he plowed his 

 land from four to six inches, and sowed some of it with wheat. It 

 came up well at the fall, but lost root badly in the winter and spring. 

 The result was only eight bushels the acre. In the spring I plowed 

 a piece of corn stubble in the same way, sowing one-half to oats and 

 planting the remainder, with corn. The oats started well, but shriv- 

 elled up befote harvest, and only yielded about twenty bushels to the 

 acre. The corn dried out at the close of the season, and was nearly 

 a failure. Then I plowed down ten inches. I got this fall twenty- 

 two bushels per acre of wheat ; from another piece I got fifty-four 

 bushels of oats. 



S. H. McConuel, Rockville, Chester county, Pennsylvania, says, 

 that, setting aside his neighbors' find his own experience, he broke 

 up a field for corn of rather a light loam, with a red clay subsoil, deep 

 enough to turn up one or two inches of this red subsoil. He har- 

 rowed thoroughly and planted. The corn came up pale and sickly, 

 and never yielded anything but a crop of nubbins. The next plowing 

 turned out no better. He now plows four to five inches deep ; is 

 careful not to touch the subsoil, and never fails, without manure, to 

 raise from fifty to eighty bushels shelled corn per acre. He beheves 

 in stirring the soil as deep and as often as 3'ou wish, but at the same 

 time keep nature's plan in view, by keeping the best soil always on 

 the top. Shallow plowing is not only practiced throughout his 

 county, but also in the adjoining one, Lancaster, the garden of the 

 State, or, we might say, of the world. 



Mr. Archibald McYean,. Avon, Livingston county, writes that 

 there was a road in his farm which he wished to plow, but it' was 

 so hard that he had to give it up. He, howevQi', sowed it as he did 

 the surrounding land, thinking that it would come to naught, "but 

 there was some dust and some lumps of clay on the track, and the 

 harrowing partially covered some of the seed, and a lively rain 

 sprouted even that which lay in sight. I looked for it to perish from 

 time to time, till near harvest, but every time I looked I noticed a 

 ranker growth of wheat on that road track than any other portion of 

 the field, and the best yield at harvest." 



Mr. G. S. Bentley, Green Hill, Columbiana county, Ohio, says : 

 About three years ago I took charo;e of a farm of fiftv acres. It was 

 naturally a good sandy soil, rather hilly, subsoil on the more elevated 



