SUBSOIL PLOWING.Oneof the great improvements of the age is the adoption in husbandry of the subsoil plow; or, as it is called in England,Deanstonizing system, from Mr. Smith, ofDeanstone, who first brought the implement into general notice. They are designed to follow in the furrow of a common plow, and pulverize without bringing up the soil for eight or ten inches deeper. In ordinary soils two yoke of oxen will work it with ease, plowing from an acre to an acre and a quarter a day.The use of this plow will renovate old bottom-lands, the surface of which has been exhausted by shallow plowing and continual cropping. It brings up from below fresh material, which the atmosphere speedily prepares for crops.Old fields, a long time in grass, are very much benefited.Constant plowing at about the same depth will often form a hard under-floor by the action of the plow, through which neither roots nor rain can well penetrate; subsoiling will relieve a field thus conditioned.Soils lying upon clay or hard compact gravel are openedand remarkably improved by the process. The wet, level, beech-lands would be greatly benefited by deep plowing in thefall of the year, subjecting the earth, to a considerable depth, to the action of the frosts, rains, etc., and giving a downward drain for superfluous moisture.Although we have incidentally alluded to the benefits of subsoiling, they deserve a separate and individual enumeration.1. In very deep molds or loams it brings up a supply of soil which has not been exhausted by the roots.2. In soils whose fertility is dependent upon the constant decomposition of mineral substances, subsoil plowing is advantageous by bringing up the disintegrated particles of rock, and exposing them to a more rapid change by contact with atmospheric agents.3. Subsoiling guards both against too much and too little moisture in the soil. If there is more water than the soil can absorb, it sinks through the pulverized under-soil. If summer droughts exhaust the moisture of the surface they cannot reach the subsoil, which affords abundant pasture to the roots.
Oneof the great improvements of the age is the adoption in husbandry of the subsoil plow; or, as it is called in England,Deanstonizing system, from Mr. Smith, ofDeanstone, who first brought the implement into general notice. They are designed to follow in the furrow of a common plow, and pulverize without bringing up the soil for eight or ten inches deeper. In ordinary soils two yoke of oxen will work it with ease, plowing from an acre to an acre and a quarter a day.
The use of this plow will renovate old bottom-lands, the surface of which has been exhausted by shallow plowing and continual cropping. It brings up from below fresh material, which the atmosphere speedily prepares for crops.
Old fields, a long time in grass, are very much benefited.
Constant plowing at about the same depth will often form a hard under-floor by the action of the plow, through which neither roots nor rain can well penetrate; subsoiling will relieve a field thus conditioned.
Soils lying upon clay or hard compact gravel are openedand remarkably improved by the process. The wet, level, beech-lands would be greatly benefited by deep plowing in thefall of the year, subjecting the earth, to a considerable depth, to the action of the frosts, rains, etc., and giving a downward drain for superfluous moisture.
Although we have incidentally alluded to the benefits of subsoiling, they deserve a separate and individual enumeration.
1. In very deep molds or loams it brings up a supply of soil which has not been exhausted by the roots.
2. In soils whose fertility is dependent upon the constant decomposition of mineral substances, subsoil plowing is advantageous by bringing up the disintegrated particles of rock, and exposing them to a more rapid change by contact with atmospheric agents.
3. Subsoiling guards both against too much and too little moisture in the soil. If there is more water than the soil can absorb, it sinks through the pulverized under-soil. If summer droughts exhaust the moisture of the surface they cannot reach the subsoil, which affords abundant pasture to the roots.