Connecticut western news., 1884-05-14
FARM AND GARDEN.
A LESSON IN FARM NARROWING.

A good deal is written and said about blowing, but little in regard to harrow ing. But narrowing is even more i'm portant than blowing. Flowing cannot bring the soil into good condition for the seed. It merely prepares it for the more important work of narrowing, and unless this is rightly done the soil is wholly unfit for sowing or planting. On light land, by the skillful use of the blow, the soil may be very nearly pre- pared for the seed, but one indispensable requisite is wanting which the harrow only can perform, and that is, the con- solidation of the ground to preserve it from drying out too much after it is sown. But on heavy land the soil is utterly un- fit for the seed until It has been pulver- ized and made fine as deeply as it has been plowed. The blow turns over, the furrow slices, at times hard and com pact and almost as solid, when dry, as stone. It is the purpose of the harrow to reduce this cloddy soil to fine con- dition and to fit it for the seed.
 There are two ways of narrowing, good and bad, and the bad sometimes appears to be better than the good work. Let us first consider the good work. The harrow should have sharp, long teeth, and be hitched by chain suf- ficiently long to permit the harrow to be dragged level and to avoid lifting up the corner by which it is drawn. It then works it's way through the soil, diverg- ing from a straight line at every obstacle met by each tooth, and is thus forced through the furrow slices in all direc- tions, and quickly reduces the compact earth into fine mellow condition. The Jumps which it cannot break it brings to the surface and there leaves them, and is so doing it works the fine soil down to the bottom. This is very quickly done in light, sandy soil, but requires more working to effect it in hard, stiff land. When the work is done, if the soil is stiff and clayey, the surface will be covered with Jumps all the harder and larger if the narrowing has been delayed until the soil has become dry, ard all the smaller if it has been done on the newly plowed land. But down below the soil is fine and mellow and in good condition to receive the seed and cause it to sprout and take hold with it's roots and make a vigorous growth. This, however, cannot be done with one or two strokes of the harrow, but it requires repeated narrowing and even cross-har- rowing to do it we'll.
 Bad narrowing can be done very quickly, as other poor work may be done. The harrow is hitched short, and rides on few rows of the hinder teeth. The teeth are short and blunt, and pene- trates but Q very little way into the ground. It scratches the surface and does not work its way tortuously through the soil down to the bottom. It leaves the top.fine, perhaps, but it also leaves the bottom loose and open even in light soil, while in heavy soil the furrow slices lie upon each other unbroken, with vacant spaces at the bottom. An inexperienced man walking over the field may think it well narrowed, but if he tries to push cane into the soil here and there, in one place 1t will go down suddenly of its own weight in vacant space six inches or more, and i'll another it cannot be pushed down more than two inches. The seed sown upon such soil is either barely covered, or it falls down into the spaces, where it lies and rots, while the other sprouts, but soon fades and dies, because there is no soil for the roots to penetrate with sufficient ease.
 Perhaps the farmer has roller, and thinks the roller will make up for these deficiencies. But this is mistake. Where the narrowing has been good the roller will do good service. It will crush the Jumps left on the surface and finish the good work of the harrow. But on the badly narrowed land the roller merely packs the surface over the arched clods below, which are not crushed, be- cause the weight of the roller does not reach them, and makes the matter worse, because the thin skin of soil packed by the roller soon dries and bakes into a crust, and the young plants rooted in it very soon die.