Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1860-11-17
AGRICULTURAL.---O PASTURES AND
NEW PLOWS.

If any of our farmers are sceptcal about
bringing up our old pastures and rendering
them as good as new they should witness the
improvements that are being made upon the
pasture lands west of the old WELLS place be-
longing to the Asylum.
1t is thought by some that our pastures are
worn out, and that it would be as impossible to
resuscitate them as it would be to restore an
unmendable garment. They say that these
pastures, through whose thin covering of soil
naked rocks already project like knees and ell
bows from the beggar's dress, would be rem
dered more poor and naked still by blowing,
since the soil would all wash off and run away.
The soil is "fed OUT and exhausted, and so it
must remain; for if it should be plowed up,
nothing but rocks would be left in its place.
These are wrong ideas. The soil of our pas
ture-and is not exhausted; but on the contrary,
it has been lying fallow, enjoying long Sab
bath, gaining new strength; and if properly
aroused and stirred up from its repose, it would
exhibit new life again, and smile as formerly,
with fresh, primeval green. Let the deep
pillow into its bosom, and treat it literally with
composted muck put it to potatoes and corn
for two seasons and then seed it down-treat it,
in short, as we do our meadow land, and it will
yield us not only good pasturage, but even good
moving. We have no doubt that the lands of
Windham County could be made to support as
many large, thrifty diaries as they did formerly.
If there is danger of the land washing too
much on account of its stcepness then only the
upper portion, say from half to four-ffths,
need be plowed up and titled; so that the ma
nure put upon this portion would be caught by
the unplowed portion below where, arriving
in liquid state, it would be in the best posi-
bic condition for fertilizing the soil As proof
as to what tillage may effect upon steep pas
lures, we would ask our readers who are fami-
lar with the locality, to compare the titled land
of Mr. LEVI BoYDEN of Guilford on the eastern
slope of Buck-Hll, with the uncultvated pas
ture land adjoining it on the north. 1t is the
same kind of land; and yet, that which has been
titled can now be moved, while the other fur
nishes but moderate amount of pasturage.-
There is but little sleeper cleared land than this
in any part of the county.
The pillow now being used upon the ASYLUM
pasture-lands referred to, is HoLBRooK's pa
tent, OF the heaviest kind. 1t weighs some
hundred and fifty or two hundred pounds, and
is drawn by two yokeG of oxen; SO that no
small stone or obstacle will throw it out of the
furrow. This furrow is full nine inches deep
and owing to the peculiar structure of the pillow,
the sod is turned over with force and precis-
ion such, that 1t is very apt to lie where it is
first put. 1t brings up the soil from depth
that never had the breath of suspicion of day
light before, and which seems to offer as much
feraeity to crops of any kind as the surface soil
of the same pasture did hundred years ago,
at which time it was opened for the first settle
ment in East Brattleboro. At least, such is the
promise by the aid Of the large muck-heaps
composted with ashes now upon it, which were
taken out from the earth in neighboring field.
The pillow is so constructed, on scientific prin-
cipes, that it is a beauty to the eye as well as a
source of beauty to the work which it performs.
Handsome is what handsome does. The heavy,
cast-iron mold-board is as beautiful in its shape
as the wing of the zephyr, and it seems to cut
through the stiff, compaeted soil as easily as the
zephyr glides through the air. The cnryatures
are all generated by right lines, and the long-
tudinal elements are like those of thin wedge
or slightly inclined plane, so that the power to
overcome the resistance of the soil is the great
est which could possibly be derived from mere
structure. Itis the first instance perhaps, since
the creation of the world, where mathematics
has been applied to the construction of the