cruickshank's practical planter. 347 



other natural occupiers of the soil, is very luxuriant, 

 there would scarcely be one in a hundred that would 

 ever be seen after the first spring, unless a very ex- 

 pensive cultivation to check the weeds were resorted 

 to. To effect economical planting in these soils, it 

 is necessary to have the plants sufficiently large, not 

 too close together, and placed in rows, that a mower 

 may be able to distinguish them among the her- 

 bage while he cuts it down ; or what is much bet- 

 ter, that the spade or plough * culture may be prac- 



* We have raised crops among young trees (as well timber as 

 fruit trees), not four yards apart, by plough culture, and have found 

 the process, after the ploughmen and horses were accustomed to it, 

 not much more expensive than common cultivation, and the crop, 

 till the trees became too close, scarcely inferior. By means of a 

 long muzzle to the plough standing out towards the left side, and 

 a driver to the horses beside the ploughman, we succeeded in get- 

 ting the two first furrows lapped a little over each other in the row 

 of trees, where the gathering of the ridge commenced (we gathered 

 up at every other row). In the row of trees where the finishing 

 of the ploughing of the ridge occurred, we were obliged to leave a 

 stripe of ground about two feet wide, to be dug by the spade. The 

 horses required to be yoked in file, and to drag by ropes (traces) 

 rather than by chains, as the bark of the trees was liable to be 

 rubbed off by the latter. The more to guard against rubbing, we 

 had the swingletree constructed so that the trace-ropes came out 

 from a hole in the ends, without any hook. In harrowing the 

 ground, one man is required to lead the horses, and another to di- 

 rect the harrows. In rich soil, under cultivation of green crop, in 

 this manner, trees progress very rapidly, and from the open ar- 

 rangement acquire very healthy constitutions. Of course, when 



