1 
^5 
1854 . 
THE CULTIVATOR 
Letters on British Agriculture—X. 
FIELD CULTURE, 
Amherst, Jan. 12, 1854. 
L. Tucker, Esq.—You could not travel through 
the counties of Great Britain, with an eye open to what 
her farmers are doing, without perceiving that great 
attention is given—more, I think, than with us to 
bringing the soil to a fine tilth. 
You would find, however, if you were to cross the 
British channel, and to spend a few weeks among the 
continental farmers, that some of the Belgians, if no 
others—excel the English in the depth and fineness, 
and almost perfect uniformity, with which they pul¬ 
verize the soil previously-, to putting in the seed. 
In speaking therefore of the field culture of British 
farmers—-their plowing, clod-crushing, harrowing, 
pulverizing the soil finely, mixing it thoroughly, dis¬ 
tributing the manure evenly—I am obliged to say, 
that, while they excel uS, they are excelled by some at 
least of their neighbors ; and as I before stated, that, if 
they would husband their home fertilizers as well as 
their Belgian neighbors do theirs, they would have less 
need to import guano ; so I will now express a confi¬ 
dent belief, that if they would work their fields as well 
as these same neighbors work theirs, they would need 
to import some millions of bushels less wheat. They 
have worked their fields well, and have received a 
great reward. They might have worked them better ; 
and if'they had, would have received a greater reward. 
With them, labor 'is plenty and cheap ; with us, it 
is scarce and dear; while on the other hand, produce 
is always higher there than here. These circumstan¬ 
tial differences have an important bearing on the ques¬ 
tion of applying labor plentifully in order to make the 
tilth perfect. Suppose you have a field essentially 
ready for sowing, plowed, harrowed and brought into 
a tolerable condition for receiving the seed, but such 
nevertheless, that another day’s work to the acre would 
be likely to give an extra bushel of produce for each 
acre in the field. Shall the extra day’s work be ap¬ 
plied, with the hope of an extra bushel ? This ques¬ 
tion might receive a different answer on the two sides 
of the water; for there the extra bushel would be pret- 
tj sure to be worth more than the day’s work would cost, 
while here it would be about as sure to be worth ’ less, 
and although I would not encourage careless tillage on 
the ground that produce will be low, yet I see not 
how the American farmer can afford to lavish as 
much labor on his fields as the English, or I would 
rather say, I see not why the English farmer should 
not apply more labor, and aim at a more perfect culti¬ 
vation than the American, since the investment of the 
former is more in land and less in labor than that of 
the latter. I had reasoned thus before visiting Eng¬ 
land ; and I was prepared to see a more perfect cultiva¬ 
tion than I had seen at home. In this I was not dis¬ 
appointed. English field culture is better than Ameri¬ 
can ; and yet when we take into view the differences 
in the value of land and in the prices of labor and pro¬ 
duce, it is not surprising that they are in advance of us. 
The wonder is rather that they are no more in advance, 
and when among them I could not but think, and was 
sometimes tempted to say, “ you are tall farmers, but 
ice are as tall of our age.” 
Of the means for bringing the soil into good tilth— 
a thing about which you hear a great deal said by 
English farmers—I will speak in the order already in¬ 
dicated. 
1. Of Plowing. In this I do not think they have 
the advantage over us. Of agricultural implements I 
intend to speak more fully in another place. I will 
only say here, that our plows are not more than half 
as heavy as theirs, cost about half as much, and will 
last nearly as long, but would be cheaper if they last¬ 
ed only one year, so much lighter of draft are they, 
and so much more effective with an equal strength of 
team. The tenacity with which Englishmen hold on 
to the old iron plow, a rod long, and heavy enough to 
load a pretty good team, irrespectively of all pressure 
from the soil, is truly wonderful. If you speak to 
them of these plows being heavy, they uniformly say, 
“ Oh no, they are light,” which I suppose means that 
in other times heavier plows were used, and that these 
are comparatively light. If so, the world is certainly 
“ growing wiser ” in one respect, and I hope it may 
grow wise fast; for I am very sure that with one of 
Buggies, Nourse & Mason’s plows, on any ground, light 
or heavy, stony or feasible, a span of horses, or a yoke 
of oxen, will do more work, and do it better, more 
easily for the team and for the plowman, than a three- 
cattle team with one of these long, heavy plows; and 
the difference in the expense of team-work and feed 
would be equal to the purchase of a beautiful Worces¬ 
ter plow for every 25 days’ work of plowing to be done 
on a farm. Some English farmers, and more Scotch, 
are getting their eyes open to the advantages of using 
lighter implements, and I have no doubt that an im¬ 
portant change in this respect will take place within a 
few years. At present, they are too apt to think, that, 
if an implement “ does its work well,” nothing more 
is to be required. I am inclined to think, that, by the 
time a few thousands more of laborers have fled to 
Australia or America, they will begin to think that 
something more should be required, than simply that 
an implement should “do its work well ”—that it 
should do it economically of team strength, and with 
some regard to the comfort of the laborer: 
Very much is said by English writers on agricul¬ 
ture, in favor of deep plowing. Cuthbert W. Johnson 
has written on this subject the best probably of any 
man living or dead. It would seem as if his writings 
must carry conviction to the mind of every practical 
farmer and of every thinking man. If he and other 
English writers have not demonstrated the benefit of a 
thorough pulverization of the soil to a great depth, 
then nothing agricultural ever was or ever can be de¬ 
monstrated. And yet in practice I saw very little 
plowing more than six inches deep, much not above 
four or five, and considerable but three. Owing to the 
more northern latitude of England, to the more fre¬ 
quent rains and less sun, their soils seem to be heavier 
than those among us, which pass under the same 
names. For instance, what they call a sandy soil, ap¬ 
pears about as heavy and nearly as tenacious as soils 
which we call loams; and what they call loams, ap¬ 
pear to be nearly on a par in point of tenacity with 
what we should call clay soils. As a general thing, 
their soils are less friable and less easily worked than 
ours. Soils, which they denominate clayey, are ex¬ 
ceedingly refractory, almost as hard in dry weather as 
brick, and so tough and clingey, when wet, that it is 
hardly possible to break up the furrows into any thing 
like a fine tilth. All this may, for aught I know, ope¬ 
rate as a reason for shallow plowing; and I will not 
therefore undertake to say that they are wrong in eve¬ 
ry case in plowing but three, four, five, and seldom 
more than six inches deep; but I am quite certain 
that in our climate, with regard to a great majority of 
our lands at least, it would be a great piece of folly to 
plow no deeper. Nearly all the plowing which I saw 
there was what we should call shallow; and if it is 
deep enough for them, as I think it is not, it certainly 
is not for us. Theft- plowing, however, is done with 
extreme neatness. I have^remarked in another place 
that in Scotland farms are generally subdivided into 
large fields, oblong in shape, giving long lands for the 
plow. Of some portions of England the same remark 
would be true; but of England generally and of Ire¬ 
land, so far as my observations extended, the reverse 
is true —farms are subdivided into entirely too small 
lots; too many wide-spread hedges encumber the 
ground; and the work for the plow is too short, occu¬ 
pying nearly half the day in turning round those big, 
lumber-legged horses, harnessed as they are, more com¬ 
monly than in a team, one before the other. Tiling 
