SCOUR YOUR PLOWS BRIGHT!Farmersmay be surprised to know that their crops will depend a good deal on the color of the plows! yet so it is. Bright plows are found to produce much better crops than any other. It may be electricity, or magic for aught we know; we merely state the fact, leaving others to account for it. But very much depends upon the manner of doing it, for merely scrubbing it by hand with emery or sand is not the thing—it must be scoured by the soil. It is found that the subsoil scours it better for wheat, than the top soil—for a plow kept bright by very deep plowing affords better wheat than a plow brightened by the surface of the soil. It is the same with corn. In respect to this last crop, if you will keep your plow bright as a mirror until the corn is in the milk, you will find that it will have a wonderful effect. We appeal to every good farmer if he ever knew a rusty plow to be accompanied with good crops? Iron rust on a plow-share is poisonous to corn.A young farmer of about twenty years of age said to us the other day: “If anybody wants me, he must come to my corn-field; I live there—I am at it all the time—I have harrowed my corn once, plowed five times, and gone over it with the hoe once.” “Yes,” said his old father, who seemed, justly, quite proud of his son—“keep your plowsagoing if you want to fetch corn. I never let the ground settle on the top; if it is beaten down by rain, or begins to look a kind of rusty on the surface, I pitch into it, and keep it as mealy as flour. The fact is our farmers raise more corn than they can tend, they can’t go over the corn more than once or twice, and that’ll never do, and I guess I’ll show old Billy R—— that it’s so.”Some ambitious farmers are pleased to “lay by” the corn very early; but it is not wise; for the grass is always more forward to grow about this season than any other; and the ground will become very foul where corn is too early laid by, and, what is more to the purpose, a great deal of the nourishment of a crop is derived from the air and dewconveyed to the roots. This can be done only when the surface is kept thoroughly open.
Farmersmay be surprised to know that their crops will depend a good deal on the color of the plows! yet so it is. Bright plows are found to produce much better crops than any other. It may be electricity, or magic for aught we know; we merely state the fact, leaving others to account for it. But very much depends upon the manner of doing it, for merely scrubbing it by hand with emery or sand is not the thing—it must be scoured by the soil. It is found that the subsoil scours it better for wheat, than the top soil—for a plow kept bright by very deep plowing affords better wheat than a plow brightened by the surface of the soil. It is the same with corn. In respect to this last crop, if you will keep your plow bright as a mirror until the corn is in the milk, you will find that it will have a wonderful effect. We appeal to every good farmer if he ever knew a rusty plow to be accompanied with good crops? Iron rust on a plow-share is poisonous to corn.
A young farmer of about twenty years of age said to us the other day: “If anybody wants me, he must come to my corn-field; I live there—I am at it all the time—I have harrowed my corn once, plowed five times, and gone over it with the hoe once.” “Yes,” said his old father, who seemed, justly, quite proud of his son—“keep your plowsagoing if you want to fetch corn. I never let the ground settle on the top; if it is beaten down by rain, or begins to look a kind of rusty on the surface, I pitch into it, and keep it as mealy as flour. The fact is our farmers raise more corn than they can tend, they can’t go over the corn more than once or twice, and that’ll never do, and I guess I’ll show old Billy R—— that it’s so.”
Some ambitious farmers are pleased to “lay by” the corn very early; but it is not wise; for the grass is always more forward to grow about this season than any other; and the ground will become very foul where corn is too early laid by, and, what is more to the purpose, a great deal of the nourishment of a crop is derived from the air and dewconveyed to the roots. This can be done only when the surface is kept thoroughly open.