Edwardsville spectator. [volume] (Edwardsville, Ill.) 1819-1826, 1821-03-27

in this, as we'll as other countries, ! am
persuaded that much depends, not only
upon the purity, but the temperature OF
the water; that warm or tepid water is
unfavorable to health in bilious countries,
and that very cold water is ambitious
in its tendency, and is alike beneficial in
the preservation as in the restoration Of
health.
Besides the predictions for forest
lands, arising from old and deep-rooted
habits, they are often selected by the
poor man from a belief that, although
they require more manual labor to bring
them into cultivation, yet they require
less capital to do SO than the prairie
lands. The idea is very prevalent that
| it requires at least four horses and pa
tented 5ar-shear plough to break prairie.
This is by no means correct. The prairie
lands require very little, if any, more force
of team to break them, than the sod lands
which have been long set on old farms.
l know from experience that pair of
horses, or a. pair of oxen are perfectly
competent to the task of ploughing and
preparing prairie land for cultivation
As the experiment I made proved very
satisfactorily, both in the execution and
in the result; and believing, if followed
by those of limited means, it would be
highly advantageous, / beg leave here
to state the particulars of it.
In the months of May and June last
I broke prairie, on which there was
thick sod, by first ploughing it with
plain knife coulter, such as is generally
used to break new rooty land; l then
Immediately ploughed the land a second
time, with a small bar-shear, obliuuely
across the first ploughing, in order to
reduce the size and diminish the number
of the clods; this was followed by two
borrowings with an iron tooth drag, which
eflectually broke the land, pulverized it,
and put it in an excellent state of prepa-
ton for crop Of corn. Each of these
operations was performed With ease by
one pair Of horses. The poor man, on
he frontier, who should find it expensive
Or difficult to procure iron, might sub
'ttute wood for the teeth of his drag
A Although this mode of breaking prairie
consumes nearly triple the time ordina-
lily taken, yet when it is recollected that
t requires only one pc rson, and but half
# the usual team, it will not be consi-
Tered tedious or laborio us, especially by
hose who, possessed of limited means,
Gould not prepare for GUILTY. alton as much
and, in the same time, in any other way ; |
and when it is also taken into considera-
ton that the land is better broke, and
will yield much greater crop, than
new prairie generally does, in the ordi-
nary way of ploughing it. When the
sod of the prairie is inverted by the
plough in long flakes, in the spring of
the year, it does not decay and become
mellow until the ensuing autumn; the
consequence is that the corn, which is !
planted in it, cannot be cultivated, and
of course seldom brings more than about
one third, and often not more than one
fourth of a crop. BY this mode of coul-
tering, ploughing, and narrowing, the
land is put into asta hitch enables the
farmer to list, check, plant, and cultivate
it, and the yield, Judging from my crop,
is but little short of what it would be il
old land.
While on the subject of the cultiva-
ton of corn, permit me to recommend to
our farmers the use Of the one horse
harrow, consisting of either three or FIVE
teeth. The farmers in the corn districts
on the sea-board have found great adj
vantage in the economy of labor, the pre-
servation of soil, and the increase of their
corn crops, from substituting this kind
of harrow in place ofthe plough; which
in the advanced stages of the corn has