1889.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
211 
work done. I have no doubt tliat one plowing 
with the steel plows is equal to two with the 
old dirt-rooters that pushed over four or five 
inches of soil, and required more team than the 
bright little steel plows did when running half 
us deep again. But it was no use. Those steel 
plows have been knocked around for five years, 
and were used only when we got out of points 
for the cast-iron ones. But slowly and steadily 
they worked their way to favor, and now every 
man <*t the farm wants a steel plow, and I was 
obliged to order a new one this spring, although 
we have half a dozen or more cast-iron ones. 
The prejudice of not a few fanners and a good 
many farm men is something stupendous. Even 
the Deacon thinks the steel plow cannot run as 
steadily in dry land as a cast-iron one of the 
same form, because the dirt slips off so smooth- 
ly from the mould-board, while in the cast-iron 
one the furrow-slice adheres to the mould- 
board, and keeps the plow in its place. There 
is, of course, nothing in this; but even if there 
was, four-fifths of all our plowing is done while 
the ground is moist, and a steel plow will do 
good work when the soil is so wet that a cast- 
iron one would glod. For my part, I am satis- 
fied that the "coming plows" will be made of 
steel. Not only are they lighter, and stronger, 
easier on the team, and do better work, but the 
saving of points alone will soon pay the cost of 
the plow. A blacksmith can sharpen a steel point 
in a few minutes, and can give it less or more 
" bite," according to the nature of the ground. 
Our gang plows must also be made of steel 
before they will really be the useful implements 
they are calculated to become, and no cultivator 
that is not made of steel should ever be used. 
And so of Shares' Harrow, so-called. It would 
be an exceedingly affective implement for cov- 
ering seed on sod land, if the teeth were made of 
steel. And who that has ever used a good 
steel garden rake can doubt, that if the teeth of 
our ordinary harrows were made of steel, bright 
and sharp, they would do vastly better work? 
I hope some worthy American inventor will yet 
make his fortune out of a good steel-toothed 
harrow ; our common harrows are not harrows 
at all. They are only "drags." They are the 
poorest and least improved implement now used. 
A farmer in Iowa writes to know what is the 
value of Hungarian grass, to plow under when 
in blossom, as a manure, as compared with 
clover, which is not a sure crop with him. And 
another farmer in Illinois asks the same question 
in regard to timothy and red-top. None of the 
"grasses," such as wheat, barley, oats, Indian 
corn, timothy, red-top, etc., are more than half 
as good, except for weight, as clover, to plow 
under for manure. Peas would be far better. 
If the clover fails because the land is wet, noth- 
ing will do it any good except draining. If it 
fails because the land is mucky, there is no need 
of plowing under any kind of crop. The soil 
contains already an abundance of organic mat- 
ter, and this is all that we gain by plowing un- 
der crops. Not a particle of mineral matter is 
added to the soil. Good tillage, by exposing 
the soil to the atmosphere, and favoring decom- 
position, will develop the plant-food, of which 
there is undoubtedly an abundance now lying 
dormant in the soil. Draining and good culture 
are all that such soils need to make them very 
productive. And then by stocking down with 
good grasses, and pasturing them half the time, 
their fertility may be maintained, and in fact 
increased. Of course, all the manure that can 
be made on the farm should be saved and 
applied. The basis of the impiioveuieut is 
draining and good tillage. A year's fallow, on 
such hind, if thorough, will do more good than 
plowing under a year's growth of any crop. On 
a calcareous loam, deficient in organic matter, 
plowing under clover has an exceedingly bene- 
ficial effect, and the effect is obtained at least a 
year sooner than if the crop was made into hay 
and the manure obtained from it returned. 
But with good mowing machines, rakes, and 
unloading forks, that enable us to make hay at 
half what it formerly cost, and with the present 
and prospective high price of beef, butter, and 
cheese, it seems a "shame" to plow under 
good clover hay. 
A subscriber to the Agriculturist, at Tipton, 
Ind., writes: "In your April Walks and Talks 
you mention the fact that you commenced a 
ditch, but for want of sufficient fall, abandoned 
it. What is the least fall per rod at which tile 
drains will work well ? We have a level coun- 
try, and many persons are afraid of tile on ac- 
count of the fall." — An experienced English 
drainer says a properly laid underdrain will 
work well with a fall of one inch in seven 
hundred feet. The way I cut drains on low, 
level land, is to commence at the main ditch or 
stream, dam it up a couple of inches, and cut 
the drains so that a quarter of an inch or so of 
water will follow the ditches. This cannot be 
done properly without the long-handled narrow 
scoop, described in the Agricultural Annual for 
1807, but with it a drain can be cut as smooth 
and true as a planed board. When the ditch is 
finished, take away the dam, and lay the tile ; 
put no stones or straw on top, but shovel in the 
dirt, taking care that it does not get into the 
joints, and I will guarantee that the drain will 
work well. I think there can be no doubt that 
a drain laid in this way, with two-inch tile, 
twenty-five or thirty rods long, would work 
well ; as, if the tiles are full of water at the 
upper end, and there is a free outlet below, 
there is an actual fall of two inches in the tiles 
themselves, supposing them to be laid on a dead 
level. Furthermore, I have drains laid with 
very little fall, that frequently discharge into a 
stream in which the water is a foot above the 
tiles, and yet the drains are perfectly effective. 
If the drains are three feet deep, we get in this 
case two feet of drainage, and the water in the 
other foot below is constantly changing, which 
prevents all injury from stagnation. The fact 
is, there is vastly less trouble about draining 
than most people imagine. It is almost impos- 
sible to lay the tiles so that they will not work, 
provided they have a free outlet or discharge 
into a running stream. Of course it is unwise 
not to lay the tilas with great care, but it is 
nevertheless a fact that, on my farm, I have 
had drains laid when the water in the ditches 
was over the tiles, and when I certainly feared 
the mud would stop them up, and yet, so far, 
every drain works well, and I see no reason to 
doubt that they will work just as well for all 
coming time. If the water is running freely 
through the tiles when the dirt is thrown on to 
them, there is no danger, so far as my experi- 
ence goes, of their ever filling up. Even in 
quicksand I should apprehend no trouble pro- 
vided the drains are sufficiently numerous to 
dry the land completely. If they once carry off 
all the water without filling up, there is no 
farther danger. It is the excess of water in the 
land when the drains are first cut that causes 
the trouble. When the drains once get fairly 
at work, there will never be so much water 
again, and consequently very little danger of 
the sand washing into the tiles. 
I am going to ask Mr. Judd to come and see 
my farm again this summer, and I think lie will 
find no wild mustard in the field that I summer- 
fallowed for barley. So far, the system more 
than comes up to my expectations, and I intend 
to fallow thirty acres this summer and autumn 
for barley. There are a good many stones in 
t lie field, and I feel satisfied they will never be 
got out in the ordinary course of farming. Take 
this spring, for instance : the season was so late, 
and we were necessarily in such a hurry in plow- 
ing for spring crops, that the thought of stopping 
to get out a stone seemed little less than mad- 
ness. But fallow for barley, and then as soon 
as you are through sowing winter wheat, plow 
the fallow, and make a business of getting out 
every stone that the plow strikes. My barley 
fallow has given rise to considerable comment. 
One of the wealthiest farmers in the neighbor- 
hood one day asked, "What are you going to 
do with that field?" "I mi fallowing it for 
barley." "Well," he replied, "it may pay you, 
but it would not pay me. / cannot afford to 
wait so long for a crop." " What would you 
have done with the field ?" 1 asked. " Sowed 
it to wheat," he said. "Very good. Now, if I 
had sowed it to wheat, when should I have 
harvested the crop?" "Next August." "Very 
well ; and when will the barley be ready to 
harvest?" " It won't pay, any way," he replied, 
and drove off. I wish the intelligent farmers of 
the country, however, would try the plan. I 
can think of no other system of rotation so well 
calculated to clean the land, and to lessen the 
amount of manual labor, as to allow the land 
to lie exposed to the ameliorating influences of 
the atmosphere for so long a period, without 
dispensing with a crop. In fact, it gives us all 
the advantages of a long fallow without the 
loss of a single crop, and that at a time when 
we have most leisure for working the land. 
There is one thing in which farmers are cer- 
tainly improving. They cultivate their corn 
much more thoroughly than formerly. The old 
plan here was to cultivate it once both ways, 
and then hoe it. And then, in the course of a 
few weeks, cultivate it again, throwing the soil 
to the hills, and then dress it up with the hoes, 
And this was considered rather extra culture; 
it was what farmers aimed at, and they rather 
congratulated themselves when they could ac- 
complish it. Now, thanks, mainly, as I believe, 
to the teaching of the agricultural press, the 
idea of a certain number, and only a certain 
number, of "cultivatorings" being necessary is 
given up, and the more energetic farmers culti- 
vate as often as there are any weeds to kill, 
and many intelligent and experienced men who 
have tried the plan cultivate once a week or 
ten days, whether there are any weeds or not. 
This constant stirring of the land develops the 
plant-food in the soil, and also keeps it moist, 
and, especially on a rather heavy loam, adds 
from twenty-five to fifty per cent to the crop, 
while the land is in far better condition for the 
subsequent crops of barley, wheat, and clover. 
I believe in "clover and plaster." I believe in 
making rich manure, and a good deal of it. I 
believe in carefully saving and applying it, and 
also in using artificial manures; and I believe 
in lime and muck, and salt and ashes; but be- 
fore all, and above all, and beyond all, I believe 
in underdraining and thorough cultivation. I 
have no heart to talk about scientific agricul- 
tural questions, although I read nearly all that 
is written on such subjects. The one thing 
that we most need, as farmers, is to be con- 
vinced of the importance and advantage of 
killing weeds and making the land mellow. 
