

"i^yrpr^^W 



THE ILLINOIS FAEMER 



Mae. 



bed, thougli our] gardener succeeds 

 well witliout this burniniv of the soil 

 and we would not be at much expense 

 in re2:ard to it. 



This month you will plant onions, 

 lettuce, pears, chickory and parsnips. 



Do not sow any foul seed on any pre- 

 tence whatever. 



■ Labor is scarce and dear ; you will 

 therefore have to add brains to help out 

 the want of labor — ^look carefully be- 

 fore you leap, is an old valuable adage, 

 which simply means that you shall first 

 consider how and when to apply labor 

 to the best advantage. 



Tobacco has now become a staple 

 crop of the State. Select a site shel- 

 tered from the hoary winds or plant 

 a bolt of corn around the patch. This 

 crop will call loudly foi- shelter belts. 

 The drying houses will occu]:iy consid- 

 erable room, and must have the heavy 

 winds broken from them. Select your 

 Bite and enclose half an acre or an acre 

 with a white willow belt. 



-*•*- 



Plows [and Plowing— Spaders and 

 Spading. 



The modern imi^rovement in plows 

 dates with the patent of Jethro "Wood, 

 who substituted the cast iron for the 

 wooden mold-board. When a boy we 

 used one of TVood's cast iron plows, 

 and its polished surface as it turned 

 over the smooth furrow, will always be 

 remembered in contrast with the old 

 wooden mold-board " bull plow," with 

 its single handle and unsteady gait. 

 Among the numerous forms of the old 

 "Wood patent, we much doubt if it has 

 been improved from the original. 



On the prairies the cast iron plow 

 will not scour in any form, even when 

 polished, and the wooden mold-board 

 had to be resorted to. This was at first 



improved by substituting nan'ow strips 

 of band iron, called straps : hence the 

 name strap plow. But few of these 

 are now to be seen, as the steel mold- 

 board drove them out of use. The first 

 plow that would scour in prairie soil, 

 made in Chicago, if not in the State, 

 was of sheet iron from the shop of 

 Gates & Schofield. That occurred in 

 the Autumn of 1842. About that time 

 the Diamond Gary plows, made by 

 Jewett of Springfield were attracting 

 attention. From sheet iron the mold 

 board has gone through all the grades 

 of boiler iron, German steel, Pittsburgh 

 steel, rolled cast steel, and now cast 

 steel cast in iron molds. 



The mode of plowing has kept even 

 pace with the improvement of the plow, 

 and now bears a wide difierence to the 

 hog-rooting work of the old strap plow 

 of the pioneer. Subsoiling and trench 

 plowing have become incoi-porated into 

 the system of thorough culture. The 

 large breaking plows have given place 

 to those of smaller size, and the five 

 and seven yoke teams have yielded to 

 the two voke, or three horse teams to 

 turn over the prairie sward. 



CAN THE PLOW BE FrKTHEK IMPROVED ? 



When the cast steel mold-board was 

 produced, it was hailed as the limit of 

 progress in that direction. The form 

 of the Moline and other clipper cast- 

 steel plows would appear to b :; incapa- 

 ble of further improvement, and we 

 may well conclude that no further ef- 

 fort in that regard would be of value. 

 That cast-steel is the best material for 

 the mold-board and land side may also 

 be conceded, having then the material 

 and form as perfect as possible, our next 

 attention is to the economy of material 

 to thicken the wearing parts, so as not 



