1874.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
11 
formed without a jar. If it is a movable-comb hive you 
can take off the boxes, take out frames, look for the 
queen, and be very likely not to alarm a bee. Have the 
smoke at hand, so that if they do accidentally get an 
alarm they may be at once quieted. Another thing: If 
it is in a season of honey, and the bees are engaged 
bringing it in—especially Italians—they are not often dis¬ 
posed to resent what at another time, a few hours earlier, 
might he thought a gross insult. When bees are filled 
with honey or syrup they are not disposed to make an 
attack. If you wish to train bees to make them good- 
natured always when practical work with them in the 
middle of a warm day. Work slowly; a quick motion 
may attract unpleasant attention. Avoid crushing a 
single bee. A little time gained now by quick motions 
may be lost in removing stings anotherday. If no poison 
has been set afloat they have nothing to anger them. It 
is possible, if no anger is called up, that having no use 
for their poison little or none may be secreted. After a 
few generations, at any rate, we shall have little fear to 
go among them and get acquainted. And when we get a 
few more interested seekers after their real nature we 
shall progress in the same ratio in pleasurable and satis¬ 
factory bee-keeping. Let us resolve to give no cause of 
resentment. 
Ogden Farm Papers—No. 47. 
Good farming is good farming all the world 
over. This must be the result of the reflections 
of any considerate person who compares the 
agriculture of other countries with that of his 
own. The one universal purpose of the farmer 
is to devote the' fertility of his soil and his 
facilities for its management to the production 
of such returns as will pay the largest profit in 
the comforts of life, in the increased value of 
his property, or in actual money. In seeking 
the accomplishment of this purpose he depends 
upon fundamental principles, and works in 
obedience to fundamental laws, which are 
everywhere the same. Soil and sunshine, air 
and water, and the never-ending combinations 
and changes by which they aid or retard the 
growth of plants—these are invariable from 
one end of the world to the other. Processes 
vary with circumstances and conditions, but 
the principles on which they depend are every¬ 
where the same, and the best farming of Europe 
differs from the best farming of America only 
in details, not in general principles. 
A careful observation of the agriculture of 
the best cultivated parts of Europe confirms 
the opinion formed at home that the only good 
farming anywhere is the very best farming 
that under the circumstances is possible; and 
that, whenever possible, the highest kind of high 
farming pays the lest. It is not to be under¬ 
stood by this that the finest buildings, the most 
elaborate implements, the most costly animals, 
the most lavish outlay for artificial manures, 
are the index of good management—they are 
often the opposite—but that the fullest measure 
of success will attend the efforts of that man 
who, in small things as in great ones, makes 
the most of his circumstances, and whose am¬ 
bition never stops short of the highest excel¬ 
lence that is within his possible reach; who is 
never satisfied with what he has done but is 
always striving to do more. 
There are more of this class in Europe than 
in America, and herein lies its chief advan¬ 
tage as a school for the agricultural student. 
Most of the problems which interest us and 
form the subjects of our discussions may be 
better investigated there than here. In view 
of this I applied myself during my recent trip 
to the obtaining of light on the much vexed 
question of deep plowing, one which has al¬ 
ways had a prominent place with our writers, 
and about which no definite early conclusion 
6eems probable. It has certainly not been less 
talked about and written about and quarreled 
about in England. When agricultural writing 
first commenced there it at once took a promi¬ 
nent position, and the columns of the British 
agricultural journals are to this day more taken 
up with it than with any other topic on which 
opinions differ widely. Arguments on both 
sides are,- plenty—on either side, viewed by 
themselves, they seem convincing—and it is at 
least difficult to decide which has the best of 
the discussion. In practice, the deep plowers 
find comparatively few adherents, for there as 
well as here it is the almost universal custom 
to plow only to the depth of about six inches. 
Personally, I have always sided with the deep¬ 
er faction, and I am not now disposed entirely 
to abandon their position. At the same time, 
the more I investigate the matter the less am I 
inclined to urge the adoption of their recom¬ 
mendations. There is much force in the state¬ 
ment of a recent English writer that if by deep 
plowing you convert the upturned subsoil (by 
the aid of manure) into a surface soil, you by 
covering up the surface soil convert it into a 
subsoil, and place its greater fertility beyond 
the reach of the developing action of the at¬ 
mosphere and thus lose its effect. On the other 
hand, there is no getting around the fact that 
gardeners and nurserymen have great faith 
in the efficiency of “trenching,” a process 
whereby the surface soil is completely buried 
beneath the upturned subsoil. In their cases, 
however, the quantity of manure used is much 
greater than is possible in the larger operations 
of the farm. 
In this matter it would certainly be safer to 
advise that all attempts at deep plowing be 
very carefully made. Many instances can be 
cited where it has been decidedly injurious. 
Ogden Farm offers one of a serious character, 
where nearly ten acres of land was so far in¬ 
jured by turning up a few inches of poor cold 
clay that five years’ time and an expenditure of 
manure and labor to the value of more than 
the original cost of the land have been insuffi¬ 
cient to make good the damage. Perhaps cor¬ 
responding cases of benefit may be adduced, 
though I know of none that appeals so strongly 
to my judgment. 
After considering the question on all sides, 
what should be our practical recommendation ? 
It seems especially clear to me after a careful 
examination of the farming of some of the best 
parts of Europe. It is certainly true that, 
taken as a whole, the best European agricul¬ 
ture, like the best American agriculture, does 
not depend on deep plowing. The men who 
succeed the best, there as well as here, are 
generally shallow plowers rather than deep 
plowers. Many of them no doubt believe, 
theoretically, that deeper plowing would be 
better; but whatever their theory may be, 
their practice is to confine the turning of 
the soli to the first five or six inches, and to 
keep their manure near the surface. The only 
thing of general value that has been proved 
about the question after all these years of ar¬ 
gument is that it has two sides to it, and I do 
not hesitate to recommend my readers to be 
very cautious how they enter into the discus¬ 
sion with their own plowshares. Study, inves¬ 
tigate, and theorize as much as you like, but be 
very slow to abandon a custom that is known 
to be successful for one that is of uncertain 
promise. I do not myself desert the deep 
plowing party, but, on the other hand, I do not 
recommend its teachings for general and imme¬ 
diate adoption. In many cases it will do good, 
but first trials should in all cases be made on & 
very limited scale, for on many soils it does 
great harm. There are channels enough open 
for the introduction of improved processes 
which will pay without question, and the laud¬ 
able energy of enthusiastic men need never lack 
for an object. It is the safest plan to stick to 
the best customs of the best farmers until they 
fail to satisfy, and then to amend or alter them 
only as careful experiments shall prove the 
change to be a good one. The truth is that we 
know by far too little of the how and the why 
of vegetable growth to decide on the value of 
any improvement in advance of its actual trial. 
The way in which agricultural writers have 
been forced to abandon their recommendation 
for the immediate plowing under of stable 
manure, and to content themselves with find¬ 
ing out the reason why the opposite custom of 
farmers (to spread manure on the surface and 
leave it there) was better, is too fresh in mind 
for any prudent man to insist that deep plow¬ 
ing is to be or ought to be the universal pana¬ 
cea of agriculture, while he can count on his 
fingers the really successful farmers who have 
adopted it, or, who having once adopted it, 
have found it worth their while to keep it up. 
Of course, the expense of deep plowing has 
had much influence in retarding its spread, but 
the expense is of itself no argument against it, 
and it has not been taken up where (as on the 
larger farms of England) mere expense is no 
argument against any process that is sure 
to pay. 
It was thought that the use of steam in 
plowing would finally decide the matter in 
England, and that with the increased motive 
power thus placed at the disposal of the farmer 
there would be a general deepening of the fur¬ 
row. The result has been quite an opposite 
one—a general giving up of the furrow. Only 
where there is clover or grass to be turned un¬ 
der is the plow used at all in steam cultivation. 
In all stubble and fallow work (which is much 
more in proportion to the grass work than it is 
here) there is substituted for it a deep-tined 
grubber or cultivator which tears up and loos¬ 
ens the ground very thoroughly without revers¬ 
ing it at all. The cultivation is deep, it is true, 
but the top soil is kept at the top, and the sub¬ 
soil is only torn asunder and loosened where it 
lies. This secures the great advantages of deep 
plowing—better drainage and better protection 
against drouth—without entailing the disad¬ 
vantage of burying the richer surface soil away 
from the action of sun and air and out of the 
reach of surface roots. It is, in fact, more like 
our long advocated but too costly subsoiling, 
and it constitutes the most effective cultiva¬ 
tion yet known. 
As a whole, the farming of England is the 
best in the world. The farms are usually 
large, and the farmers men of intelligence and 
of large capital. More attention is paid there 
than anywhere else to the making of manure ; 
grain is largely grown; and the system of a 
regular rotation of crops, to maintain the fer¬ 
tility of the soil, is almost universal. Over a 
large part of the country the cash profit of 
farming is secured by the sale of grain, but the 
fertility of the land, the ability to produce 
grain, is kept up by the feeding of a heavy 
stock of cattle or sheep, which are kept mainly 
for the sake of the manuic they maiie, and 
which are largely fed on purchased food—in 
great part oil-cake and Indian com imported 
