The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1870-04-22
WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING.
PlOwing-Deep or shallow.
RY HoRACE GREELEY.


isf
Flowing or Shallow.
Rules absolutely without exception
are rare and those who imagine that /
insist on blowing all lands deeply arc
wrong for hold that much land should
never be plowed at all. In fact, l have
seen in my life nearly as large an area
that ought not as l have that ought to be
plowed; by which mean that half the
land L have seen may serve mankind
better if devoted to timber than il sub
jected to tillage. l personally know
farmers who wsuld thrive far better if
they titled but half the area they do,
bestowing on this all the labor and fer
tiiizers. they spread over the whole,
even though they threw the residue in
to common and left it there. judge
that q majority of our farmers could
increase the recompense of their toll
by cultfvating fewer acres than they
now do.
Nor do l deny that there are soils
which it is not advisable to pillow deep
ly. Prof. Mapes told me he had seen
tracts in West Jersey whereof the soil
was but eight inches deep, resting on a
stratum of eopperas (sulphate of iron,)
which being upturned by the pillow and
mingled with the soil, poisoned the
summer, on the interyale of New River.
In the western part Of Old Virginia,
many acres of corn which were thrifty
and luxuriant in spite of shallow plow-
ing and intense drouth, because the
rich, black loan which had there been
deposited by semi-annual foundations,
until its depth ranged from two TO
twenty feet, was so inviting and perme-
able that the corn-roOts ran beL0tC the
bottom of the furrow about as readily
as above that line. l do not doubt that
there are many millions of acres of such
land that would produce tolerably, and
sometimes bounteously, though simply
scratched over by a brush harrow and
never plowed at all. In the infancy of
our race, when there were few mouths
to fill and when farming implements
were very rude and Ineffective, cultiva-
ton was all but confined to these faciie
strips and patches, SO that the utility,
the need, of deep tiliage was not appar-
ent. And yet, we know that crops Of
ten failed in those days, plunging whole
nations into the miseries of famine.
The primitive pillow was forked stick
or tree-top, whereof one prong formed
the coulter, the other and longer the
beam; aud he who first sharpened the
coulter-prong with stone Ratchet was
the Whitney or Mccormick of his day.
The pillow i'll common use to-day in
Spain and Turkey is an improvement
on this, for it has an iron point; still, 1t
is miserable tool. When, at five years
old, first rode the horse which drew
my fathers pillow in furrOwing for or
cultivating his corn, it had an iron coul-
ter and an iron share but it was mainly
composed of wood. In the hard, rocky
soil of New Hampshire, as full of boul-
ders and pebbles as n Christmas pud-
ding is of plums, blowing with such an
implement was a sorry business at best.
My father hitched eight oxen and q
horse to his pillow when he broke up
pebbly green-sward, and found an acre
of it very good days work. i hardly
need add that subsoiling was out of the
question, and that six inches was the
average depth of his furrow.
Judge that the best steel plows now
in use do twice the execution that his
did with like expenditure of power
hat we can, with equal power, pillow
twelve inches as easily and rapidly as
he plowed six. Ought we to do it? Will
it pay?
l first farmed for myself in 1915 on q
plat of eight acres, in what was then
the open country skirting the East river
nearly abreast the lower point of Black
wells Island, near Fiftieth ST., ON a lit
tie indentatiOn of the shore known as
Turtle Bay. None of the Avenues east
of Third was then opened above Thir-
tieth st. and the neighborhood, though
now perforated by streets and covered
with houses, was as rural and secluded
as heart could wish. One fine spring
morning, Il neighbor called and offered
to pillow for So my acre of tillage not
cut up by rows of box and other shrubs :;
and L told him TO go ahead. l came
home next evening, just as he was fin
ishing the job, which 1 contemplated
most ruefully. His pillow was a pocket
edition his team a single horse; his
burrows at most five inches deep. /
paid him, but told him plainly that l
would have preferred to give the money
for nothing. He insisted that he had
plowed for me as he plowed for others
all around me. Il will tell you," re-
Joined, .'exactly how this will work.
Throughout the spring and early sum-
mer we shall have moderate heat: thus
far my crops shall do well. But then
will come hot weeks, with little or no
rain and they will dry up this shallow
soil and everything planted thereon"
The result signally justified my pre-
dictiOn. We had frequent rains and
cloudy, mild weather, till the LIST of Ju-
ly, when the clouds vanished, the sun
came out intensely hot, and we had
scarcely sprinkle till the 1st of Sep
TENDER, by which time my corn and pc
tatoes had about given up the ghost.
Like the seed which fell on stony ground
in the Parable of the Sewer, that which
l had planted had withered away "be-
cause there was no root ;" and my pros
pect for a harvest was utterly blighted,
where, with twelve inches of loose, fer
tile, well pulverized earth at their roots,
my crops would have been at least res
pectable. When l became once more a
farmer in a small way on my present
place, / had not forgotten the lesson,
and tried to have plowed deeply and
thoroughly so much land as had plowed
at all. My first summer here 1S53) was
a very dry one, and crops failed in con-
sequence around me and all over the
country; yet mine were at least fair
and was largely indebted for them to
relatively deep blowing. / have since
suffered from frost Con my low land),
from the rotting of seed in the ground,
from the ravages of insects, &c. but
never by drouth and l am entirely
confident that Deep Flowing has done
me excellent service Ny only trouble
has been to get it done; for there are
apt to be reasons-(haste,I ateness in the
season, Sc. )-for blowing shallowly for
',just this time," with full intent to do
henceforth better.
close this paper with a statement
made to me by an intelligent British
farmer living at Maidstone, south of
England. He said:
"a few years ago, there came into my
hands field of twelve acres, which had
been an orchard; but the trees were
hopelessly in their dotage. They must
be cut down; then their roots must be
grubbed out SC / resolved to make
clean job of it, and give the field a thor
ough trenching. Choosing a time in
autumn or early winter, W hen labor was
abundant and cheap, had it turned
over three spits CT inchesl deep: the
first being merely reversed; the second
reversed and placed at the bottom; the
third being reversed and placed above
the second. The soil was strong aud
deep, as that of an orchard should be
planted the field to garden peas, and
my first picking was very abundant.
About the time that peas usually begin
to wither and die, the roots of mine
struck the rich soil which had been the
first stratum, but was now the second,
and at once the stalks evinced new life
threw out new blossoms, which were