Advantage of very Shallow Cultivation. 
191 
Note by Mr. Pusey. 
This statement of a practical farmer appears to me very re- 
markable, as bearing upon the supposed necessity for stirring all 
soils deeplv. So far the other way does Mr. Parker's experience 
point, that he actually gives his farm only one horse-ploughing, 
and that a shallow one, during his six years' rotation. The breast- 
plough, which he uses at other times, is the same implement as 
is figured under the name of a paring spade in another part of 
this number (p. 101). The workman forces it forward with his 
thighs, and turns over no more of the ground than a gardener 
who is taking off the turf of a pleasure-ground. Yet, excepting 
one horse-ploughing, this is all the stirring which Mr. Parker 
gives to his farm in six years. The breast-plough indeed is per- 
severingly used by him — twice in the first year, once in the second, 
no less than three times in the third year, and once again in the 
fourth. Instead of loosening the soil, Mr. Parker's efforts tend to 
preser\e its firmness, or restore that firmness when lost; and he states 
that otherwise he could not secure even a turnip-crop. Strange 
as such doctrine may sound, Mr. Parker does not stand alone 
in his practice. Another farmer (Mr. Edmunds), whose family 
long occupied such light moory land in the same neighbourhood, 
tells me they also found that nothing but the breast-plough would 
leave the ground firm enough to grow wheat. Occupying similar 
land, I may add that I never plough it deeply but I repent of so 
doing, and am falling more and more each year, by the advice of 
neighbouring farmers, into the use of the breast-plough, instead 
of the horse-plough. This manual labour is quite as cheap ; 
for a good workman can pare such hollow tender land at 4s., 
or even at 3s. an acre. It is possible that the drought of our 
climate in Gloucestershire and Berkshire may be one cause of 
the success of this practice in those counties, and that the same 
soil, if transferred to Westmoreland, would require deeper work- 
ing. Therefore, without recommending shallow cultivation in 
districts where deep ploughing has been hitherto practised, I 
would merely warn beginners against plunging recklessly into 
the subsoil. 
Ph. Pusey. 
