Plowing Deep Or Shallow

Rules absolutely without exception are rare; and they who imagine that I

insist on plowing all lands deeply are wrong for I hold that much land

should never be plowed at all. In fact, I have seen in my life nearly as

large an area that ought not as I have that ought to be plowed, by which

I mean that half the land I have seen may serve mankind better if

devoted to timber than if subjected to tillage. I personally know

armers who would thrive far better if they tilled but half the area

they do, bestowing on this all the labor and fertilizers they spread

over the whole, even though they threw the residue into common and left

it there. I judge that a majority of our farmers could increase the

recompense of their toil by cultivating fewer acres than they now do.



Nor do I deny that there are soils which it is not advisable to plow

deeply. Prof. Mapes told me he had seen a tract in West Jersey whereof

the soil was but eight inches deep, resting on a stratum of copperas

(sulphate of iron,) which, being upturned by the plow and mingled with

the soil, poisoned the crops planted thereon. And I saw, last Summer,

on the intervale of New River, in the western part of Old Virginia, many

acres of Corn which were thrifty and luxuriant in spite of shallow

plowing and intense drouth, because the rich, black loam which had there

been deposited by semi-annual inundations, until its depth ranged from

two to twenty feet, was so inviting and permeable that the corn-roots

ran below the bottom of the furrow about as readily as above that

line. I 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, cultivation was all but

confined to these facile strips and patches, so that the utility, the

need, of deep tillage was not apparent. And yet, we know the crops often

failed utterly in those days, plunging whole nations into the miseries

of famine.



The primitive plow was a forked stick or tree-top, whereof one prong

formed the coulter, the other and longer the beam; and he who first

sharpened the coulter-prong with a stone hatchet was the Whitney or

McCormick of his day. The plow in common use to-day in Spain or Turkey

is an improvement on this, for it has an iron point; still, it is a

miserable tool. When, at five years old, I first rode the horse which

drew my father's plow in furrowing for or cultivating his corn, it had

an iron coulter and an iron share; but it was mainly composed of wood.

In the hard, rocky soil of New-Hampshire, as full of bowlders and

pebbles as a Christmas pudding is of plums, plowing with such an

implement was a sorry business at best. My father hitched eight oxen and

a horse to his plow when he broke up pebbly green-sward, and found an

acre of it a very long day's work. I hardly need add that subsoiling was

out of the question, and that six inches was the average depth of his

furrow.



I judge that the best Steel Plows now in use do twice the execution that

his did with a like expenditure of power--that we can, with equal power,

plow twelve inches as easily and rapidly as he plowed six. Ought we to

do it? Will it pay?



I first farmed for myself in 1845 on a plat of eight acres, in what was

then the open country skirting the East River nearly abreast the lower

point of Blackwell's Island, near Fiftieth-st., on a little indentation

of the shore known as Turtle Bay. None of the Avenues east of Third was

then opened above Thirtieth-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, a neighbor called and

offered to plow for $5 my acre of tillage not cut up by rows of box and

other shrubs; and I told him to go ahead. I came home next evening, just

as he was finishing the job, which I contemplated most ruefully. His

plow was a pocket edition; his team a single horse; his furrows at most

five inches deep. I paid him, but told him plainly that I 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. "I will tell you," I

rejoined, "exactly how this will work. Throughout the Spring and early

Summer, we shall have frequent rains and moderate heat: thus far, my

crops will do well. But then will come hot weeks, with little or no

rain; and they will dry up this shallow soil and every thing planted

thereon."



The result signally justified my prediction. We had frequent rains and

cloudy, mild weather, till the 1st of July, when the clouds vanished,

the sun came out intensely hot, and we had scarcely a sprinkle till the

1st of September, by which time my Corn and Potatoes had about given up

the ghost. Like the seed which fell on stony ground in the Parable of

the Sower, that which I had planted had withered away "because there was

no root;" and my prospect for a harvest was utterly blighted, where,

with twelve inches of loose, fertile, well pulverized earth at their

roots, my crops would have been at least respectable. When I became once

more a farmer in a small way on my present place, I had not forgotten

the lesson, and I tried to have plowed deeply and thoroughly so much

land as I had plowed at all. My first Summer here (1853) was a very dry

one, and crops failed in consequence around me and all over the country;

yet mine were at least fair; and I was largely indebted for them to

relatively deep plowing. I have since suffered from frost (on my low

land), from the rotting of seed in the ground, from the ravages of

insects, etc.; but never by drouth; and I am entirely confident that

Deep Plowing has done me excellent service. My only trouble has been to

get it done; for there are apt to be reasons?--(haste, lateness in the

season, etc.)--for plowing shallowly for "just this time," with full

intent to do henceforth better.



* * * * *



I 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 a 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; so I resolved to

make a clean job of it, and give the field a thorough trenching.

Choosing a time in Autumn or early Winter when labor was abundant and

cheap, I had it turned over three spits (27 inches) deep; the lowest

being merely reversed; the next reversed and placed at the top; the

surface being reversed and placed below the second. The soil was strong

and deep, as that of an orchard should be; I 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 a new life--threw out new blossoms, which were

followed by pods; and so kept on blossoming and forming peas for weeks,

until this first crop far more than paid the cost of trenching and

cultivation."



Thus far my English friend. Who will this year try a patch of Peas on a

plat made rich and mellow for a depth of at least two feet, and

frequently moistened in Summer by some rude kind of irrigation?



The fierceness of our Summer suns, when not counteracted by frequent

showers, shortens deplorably the productiveness of many Vegetables and

Berries. Our Strawberries bear well, but too briefly; our Peas wither up

and cease to blossom after they have been two or three weeks plump

enough to pick. Our Raspberries, Blackberries, etc., fruit well, but are

out of bearing too soon after they begin to yield their treasures. I am

confident that this need not be. With a deep, rich soil, kept moistened

by a periodical flow of water, there need not and should not be any such

haste to give over blooming and bearing. The fruit is Nature's

attestation of the geniality of the season, the richness and abundance

of the elements inhering in the soil or supplied to it by the water.

Double the supply of these, and sterility should be postponed to a far

later day than that in which it is now inaugurated.