Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1873-05-29
FARM N GARDEN.
A New Departure i'm Agriculture.

Mr.. H. Schnebley, editor of the Farm
er's Friend and Guide, published at
Peoria, Ill, proposes a new departure
L agriculture. He is sanguine that corr
can be grown for less than five cents per
bushel, and wheat for less than ten cents
per bushel. He a
In these days of new departures in
politics and religion, I thought I would
get up n in agriculture. I have been
experimenting with deep and shallow
plow1ng for the last thirteen years, and
L always found the shallow blowing the
best. have also found that the annual
blowing of the soil is unnecessary and
worse than useless, for the soil as fur
nished by nature is ~pulverized more
thoroughly than any tool can do it. [
have no use at all for the common har-
row or drag, and consider them all hum
bugs from the old Scotch down. I con-
slider them a dead drag upon the man,
the land and team, and they ought to be
SO named.
have several bits of evidence I here
propose to offer
On the 9th day of April, 1870, [ was
at the Illinois Industrial University, at
Champaign. inquired for the Regent.
IL 1CDly was, 1OuG W NEW lOIh.
l asked for the Professor of Agriculture.
He had gone too. So 1 wended my way
down to the experimental farm. Here I
found MI. Vickory trimming trees. I
remarked to him, "Butchering trees,
are you?" eyes" said he, "we trim
them every month in the year, and make
a record Of it." WANTED to know of him
how much corn he had planted.
"Corn planted p said he, looking at
me with astonishment. "Why yes"
said I. "Time enough for that" said
he.
I replied that the old saying of Cline
enough" had ruined many a man, and [
had lost more money at it than from all
other cause put together.
He replied that they had only replowed
that small strip between two rows of
apple trees as fall blowing.
L told him that was wrong /; fall plow-
ing ought never to be replowed.
Why" said he, eve are going to
subsoil and trench-plow this whole
field"
L told him not to do it, as | had watch
ed trench-plowing, subsoiling and deep
blowing for twelve years, and had never
seen any land that would produce as
good a crop after as before either was
done. I told him to plant what he had
plowed between The next two, trench
pillow the next two, shallow-plow the next
two, and the balance of the field [ would
not pillow at all, as hat ground was in
better condition than he could make it
by blowing. It was done accordingly.
Now for the result.
On the 18th day of July the result
was published in the Western Rural, of
Chicago. The orr growing on the I'M
plowed land was far superior to any of
that on the plowed land, and, strange to
say, that which was trench-plowed and
subsoiled was the poorest of all. Now,
If it will not win i'll a dry season, when
will it win? So much for the year 1870.
Now, for 1871. [ paid another visit
to the University, and found my friend
Vickroy experimenting the blowing. /
said, "Butchering land this time" He
was blowing about eight inches deep and
narrowing. 1 told him to stop both,
which, to my surprise, he did, and com
menced to pillow shallow and using the
board. I told him he hitched to the
wrong end of the board-that agricul-
ture as recommended by agricultural
penny-a-liners, and practiced by many
farmers, was wrong end to, and upside
down-so we turned the board upside
down and t'other end to. After this was
all done, we took about three acres, one
half of which was plowed, the other half
was not. It was all planted the same
day, with the hoe Ghe favorite way of
planting there, as Mr.. Flagg had pre-
viously planted deep-plowed land that
was laid off with painted stakes in the
same way). L paid a visit there last
week, found the corr cut up, asked the
men that cut it if they could see any
difference in the three-acre piece. They
said they could not. l told them how it
was planted. They wanted to know
which end it was that was not plowed.
l did not tell them.
On the old home place, one of the old
marks of this county (the Red Barn),
% acres of corn were planted this
year. The ground was plowed two and
and one-half inches deep, twelve acres
of which was timothy soil, all treated
alike, plowed with same plox. A plank
was drawn over the whole field, then
planted with a common Brown corn
planter planted very shallow, SO much
so that, owing to the dryness of the
spring, the old ground had to be re-
planted, ditto the sod, the cut-worms
having destroyed nearly the whole of it.
1t became necessary to plant again, which
was done the same as in the first place.
It was cut off again, but not killed. On
the old ground the corn was plowed
three times with a common walking cul-
t%ivator, the sod but once, five rows of
which were not plowed at all.
This field has been in cultivation
t~hirty-fve years. Ten acres of this field
were trench-plowed once, and has never
produced a good crop since, and there is
now not much more than half as much
corn per acre as there is on the adjoin-
ing piece, which will yield from seventy
five to one hundred bushels per acre,
the best crop ever grown upon it. In
this new departure I propose to show
how cheap any kind of grain can be
raised. 1 am able now to show that
corn can be grown for less than five cents
49, - - H. g.. L. Ill., L.