410 Transactions of the American Institute. 



on plowing by some practical former, and it was jocosely remarked 

 that no practical farmer was connected with the Club. It would be 

 unfortunate if such an idea should go forth, and the numberless 

 farmers looking here for practical information should be led to believe 

 that they should ask in vain for it. Many men have undertaken to 

 cultivate farms for the purpose of procuring a more comfortable and 

 independent living than they could gain in towns and cities; and this 

 Club is responsible to many of those men for the advice which has led 

 them to make this change in their condition, and is bound to see that 

 they do not fail therein for want of any further guidance which is 

 needed to help them along. Now, a great deal has been said in this 

 Club on the subject of plowing — whether it is best for the farmer 

 to turn over the surface soil merely, and give his plants a shallow 

 seed-bed, or to invert the subsoil ten or twenty inches in depth, as 

 the case may be ; the deeper the better, some have said. But the 

 discussion has led to no result either in or out of this Club, and it is 

 doubtful if the opinion of a single man has been changed. If any 

 position has been assumed by the advocates of one view which has 

 been found unassailable by those holding the other view, they are 

 still like the man who, "convinced against his will, holds to the same 

 opinion still." But to a practical man who has sufficient intelli- 

 gence to give all theories due consideration, it is apparent that 

 the true ground is still untouched, and that all the discussion 

 has been ineffectual for this reason. A preliminary question 

 needs to be answered why do we plow at all ? Then the ques- 

 tion should we plow deep or shallow resolves itself? Just as 

 the question, what shall we eat? depends wholly on the solution 

 of the one, why do we eat? Tell us why, and we can find out 

 for ourselves, what. For the farmer plows variously to suit various 

 soils and various crops, and has a distinct object in doing so. Differ- 

 ent soils need different, treatment, and the question, what this or that 

 man should be recommended to do is no more possible of a general 

 answer than what physic this or that man should take if he were sick. 

 The conditions and necessities of soils and crops are as varied as are 

 the ills that man is heir to. Then the question is to my mind 

 resolved into a triplicate one — what is plowing, why do we plow, 

 and what is the nature of the soil we are plowing ? Here is matter 

 to fill a space equal to an old-fashioned three-volume novel ; but I 

 intend merely to lay down a few points of an undisputed character, 

 of the nature of axioms, on which those numberless farmers who look 



