This was an unlooked for request. I have myself much to learn from observing farmers, of longer experience, and whose attentions have been exclusively devoted to husbandry. Mine, since I became a farmer, have been diverted by other pursuits; so that at intervals only my thoughts have been turned to this subject.
No one doubts the importance of our profession; and the actual formation of our society is a declaration that improvements in it are necessary.—But the field of agriculture is of boundless extent; and though traversed for some thousands of years by the greater portion of the human race, yet by no one, nor by all combined, has a complete survey been accomplished. Every year, and every day, presents something new: and even of old things, the practices of ages, there still exist diversities of opinions. For instance, which is preferable, deep or shallow ploughing?—Should manures be spread on the surface, or be buried by the plough? If the latter, at what depth, to produce the greatest effect, with the most lasting fertility?—Should manure be applied in its rough, coarse, and unfermented state, or, by keeping and repeated turnings, be more or less rotted?—These are points which appear to me deeply to affect the interests of agriculture. On these therefore I will give you my opinion, enlightened by the observations of intelligent husbandmen. I will then advert to a few other topics which demand your attention; dwelling on one of them—Root crops for the Food of Live Stock—as lying at the foundation of an improved agriculture.
I. On Deep Ploughing and Manuring.
For myself, I entertain no doubt of the utility of deep ploughing; not at once, in our lands in general, but by an increase of two or three inches at every annual ploughing, until the earth be stirred and pulverized to the depth of ten or twelve inches. Indian corn, planted in such a mass of loosened earth, would not, I am persuaded, ever suffer by ordinary droughts.—Like a spunge, it would absorb a vast quantity of rain water, and become a reservoir to supply the wants of that and all other plants.—Nothing is more common in a dry summer, than the rolling of the leaves of corn; and that circumstance is often mentioned as an evidence of the severity of the drought. This rolling of the leaves of Indian corn, is the consequence, in part, of scant manuring, but still more of shallow ploughing. Few, perhaps, are aware of the depth to which the roots of plants will penetrate in a deeply loosened earth. A gentleman,[11] much inclined to agricultural inquiries and observations, informed me, near fifty years ago, that seeing some men digging a well, in a hollow place, planted with Indian corn, then at its full growth, he stopped to examine how far its roots had descended; and he traced them to the depth of nine feet. The soil was an accumulation of rich earth which had run or been thrown into the hollow.
The seed of the common turnip, sown in warm weather, and on a soil sufficiently moist, I have known to vegetate in about eight-and-forty hours; and in only four or five days afterwards, I found the plants had sent down roots to the depth of four or five inches.
I have often noticed forest trees blown down by violent winds, whose roots, of the same species, were very differently formed. Such as had grown in grounds having a hard, impenetrable pan of clayey gravel, at the depth of twelve or eighteen inches from the surface, exhibiting a flat mass of roots; while others, torn up from a deep loam, or loamy gravel, showed downward roots of several feet in length.
About five months ago, I received from England a pamphlet written by one of the most distinguished agricultural writers in that country—Arthur Young. It was a lecture read, a few years before, to the British Board of Agriculture, of which Mr. Young was the Secretary. Its title is, "On the Husbandry of three celebrated British Farmers, Messrs. Bakewell, Arbuthnot and Ducket,"—all eminent for genius, enterprise, application, and long experience. It was to do honour to their memories, "and to bring to recollection the means by which those celebrated practitioners, in the first and most important of all arts, carried their agriculture to a perfection unknown before," that the lecture was written and published. And this, Mr. Young observes, would be more peculiarly useful, because those men, "confining themselves to practice alone, had left no register of their own meritorious deeds." I will present to you the substance of the information contained in this pamphlet, as in itself very important, and because the practice of Arbuthnot and Ducket has a direct bearing on the points I am now considering—DEEP PLOUGHING and MANURING.
"Mr. Ducket had sand, and sandy soils alone, to deal with; but Arbuthnot's land classed among those harsh, wet, tenacious loams, which are usually called clay, and ought to be esteemed such, relative to every circumstance that attaches to difficulty and management." Passing by what Mr. Young says of Arbuthnot's draining operations, I content myself with mentioning the principal of that improvement: "Lay your land dry, whatever may be the method pursued, before you attempt any thing else."
"In respect to tillage, Mr. Arbuthnot carried it to great perfection: He invented a swing plough for a pair of horses and the general depth of six inches, and a much larger one with wheels, for gaining the depth of 12, and even of eighteen, for some peculiar crops, especially madder. Upon the advantages of deep ploughing he never had the least hesitation; but always declared that in all he had read or heard, he never met with one argument against the practice that had with him the smallest weight."—"In the essential operation of ploughing, he considered one earth [that is, one ploughing] well timed, and of a right depth, as being much more efficacious than that repetition of tillage so common in every district."[12]