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a narrower furrow than most persons use. This pulverizes the soil much finer, rendering it capable of better results for any crops. By plowing a little deeper year after year, I believe the soil will wear much longer, with equal productiveness.

The Moline plow has ranked best in this vicinity heretofore, but now others are cor sidered equally good. Some plows will work well run 3 to 4 inches deep; when we come to put them down 6 to 9 inches they will not scour, and are worthless for that use. For plowing 6 or 9 inches deep the furrow should not be cut over 10 inches wide; then it will break fine by turning, and pulverize much better than with a wide furrow.

A. Rankin. My farm was first cultivated in 1858. Have raised corn, wheat, rye and oats. Perceive no deterioration of ground upon which there has been a proper rotation of crops; but where there has not been rotation, or manure applied, the ground has been exhausted fifty per cent. I have applied barn-yard manure with good results both to stalk, ground and meadow. But I think the best way to improve the land is to manure the meadow by producing a heavy growth of roots, then plow it up. Deep plowing I find very beneficial by subsoiling in the spring, or trench plowing in the fall.

For rough and soddy ground I prefer the Moline plow-John Deere's; but for stubble growth, I prefer the Canton plow.

G. W. Minier. My farm was put into cultivation, or began to be, sixteen years ago, in the summer of 1852. I have taken from it wheat, corn, hay, oats, potatoes, flax and barley. "Exhaust the soil in Illinois by cultivation!" That's a good one. You may spoil your lands, by a system of land piracy-everlastingly taking away and never restoring-or by a course of always cropping and never letting your land rest. But by true cultivation the land grows better. Annanias and Sapphira were killed for a less crime than some farmers commit every year with impunity. Of course I use manures; and here I would like to write an essay, but have not time. No lands will pay better results from manures than ours in Illinois. No one ever need be afraid of plowing too deeply. "Best plows!" Excuse me, please, from advertising any one's plow. But give me a good plowman, and him I can't just now describe. Permit me to say, however, that in our "learned Institutions!" (Lord have mercy!) after a toil of four years, we dub our young men A. B.; sometimes A. M.; on a little further, M. D. or D. D.; and when the head has become sufficiently bald, then comes L.L. D. And yet, it requires more skill and better training to plow an acre of land, tell its component parts, and the crops best adapted to it, than all the above flummery which we miscall learning.

J. Robinson. This farm was partly put in cultivation in 1842. The crops taken off have been corn, wheat, oats, rye, barley, fruit, and one or two acres of potatoes annually. The soil, where it has been continually in cultivation, appears to be about one-fourth exhausted; but where it has been in pasture or meadow lately, it is about as good as when new. Very little manure has been applied to the soil, but where it has, with good results. I have plowed to the depth of twelve inches to the advantage of both soil and crops. I have used the Michigan subsoil plow to break meadows and blue grass pasture; one man and four horses or mules breaking two acres or more per day. The Peoria plows and a clipper plow manufactured by T. & H. Smith, of Pekin, work very well in all our soils.

J. R. Tull.-I commenced my first improvement in 1837, and was some fifteen years in opening my farm to its present dimensions. My crops have been mostly

wheat and corn. The soil, where the land is considerably rolling, is very much exhausted; and the best of it is more or less so, I have found that manure, properly applied, is a great benefit. I use all the manure of every description, that I am able to make on the land, and I find that it pays largely. I find that very deep plowing is injurious to my land. A common depth, say 6 to 8 inches, is deep enough.

T. Gregg. My first clearing was done in the winter of 1858-59, and two acres planted, chiefly to apples and peaches, the following spring. Since then the whole ten acre block has been brought into cultivation, and chiefly planted to those and other fruits. My mode of planting was to clear the ground, as is usually done in the west, and after as good a plowing as I could give it for the roots and stumps, planted the trees without any deeper cultivation. This slovenly mode I have had great reason to regret, however, and were it to do over again, I would find economy in expending fifty dollars per acre in cultivating twenty inches deep, in preference. Garden vegetables, consisting chiefly of Irish and sweet potatoes, beans, peas, beets, cabbages and sugar cane, have been grown each year among the trees, with good results. Little manure has yet been applied, but can be used to great advantage.

A. O. Hammond.-My farm was first put in cultivation about 1845. Hay has been the principal crop taken off. The soil seems to be but little exhausted. I have used manure with the very best results. The effect of a few loads spread on a plowed field or meadow can be seen for several years. Have experimented both with the subsoil and trench plow; cannot discover any good resulting from subsoiling, but consider trench-plowing of great benefit. It can be accomplished to the depth of 12 inches, with two strong teams and common plows, one following directly after the other in the bottom of the furrow. It is hard work for both men and teams, and requires considerable patience. I find that the first crop is not usually as good as upon land prepared the ordinary way, but the second and third years the crops are greatly superior.

H. Sodowsky.-Иy farm was entered abont 1822. I came here in 1840. The crops raised have been corn, wheat, oats, rye, potatoes, buckwheat, etc. When one field needs rest we sow it down in timothy and clover, and turn up some other pasture. We haul all the manure and rubbish from about the barns and cow houses onto the fields, and by so doing, not only keep up our lands, but improve them. My experience is in favor of deep plowing. It enlivens the soil, leaves it in a healthy con. dition, causing it to retain moisture in a dry season, and in a wet season letting the water below the surface,

W. M. Allen.—The first 40 in 1836. I bought in 1839. The balance by parcels until 1856. Crops have been corn, wheat, oats and Hungarian. Exhaustion not perceivable. Have used manure for corn and grass with good results. Best plow, Munn & Ellsworth's, Bloomington. Deep plowing indispensable.

8. P. Boardman.-My farm has been put in cultivation, in different amounts, in different years, from 1858 up to the last year. Corn has been the principal crop taken off, although some land has been put in wheat, oats, Hungarian, flax and potatoes, from year to year. The greater part of the 150-acre field was broke in June, sowed to wheat in September, and the following year, after harvest, the stubble turned under and sown to timothy by itself, with clover added the following spring. The object in view in stocking new ground thus soon, being to get into tame pasture as soon as possible. This stocking does as well, apparently, as if the land had been cropped a few years previous to seeding with tame grass. Of the 640 acres in

tame grass, but little of it has had over four grain crops taken off previous to seeding. In so short a period of cultivation no exhaustion of the soil can be perceived; the only difference in the cultivation being that the fourth crop requires more attention and labor on account of weeds. On one field, at present in grass, I applied a hundred or more loads of stable manure, when it had been cropped but two years, and could discern but little difference in the corn on the manured or the unmanured portion. I don't wish to be understood as saying that our land is so rich as to need no manure, but that, for corn, ordinary quantities of manure scattered on our new prairie soils, will make not much perceptible difference. When manure is applied to grass lands—no matter how new the ground-and put on in the fall, or right after mowing, its good effects are as perceptible in the increased amount of hay the next year as in any country I ever saw.

About the only sample of deep plowing seen in Illinois is when a tame-grass sod is trench-plowed. Although it is more than double the labor of common plowing, yet it more than pays in the increase of the corn crop and the labor of tending it. For trench plowing, I prefer two teams rigged to separate plows, rather than the same teams attached to any trench plow which I have yet seen. I have seen two or three different makes of the Michigan double plow, but none with which I thought four horses could do the work as easily as when attached to two separate plows.

Allow me, right here, to express the opinion, that by stock-farming Central Illinois (further I know not) will grow richer and richer. By stock-farming I mean that the principal returns from a farm shall be the income derived from some sort of live stock. I mean, too, that all the manure which shall ever be applied to such farm, shall be the manure dropped on its pastures by the stock, and the collectious about the stables and sheds. I have seen examples of the sort in the case of "sheep farms," in the last sixteen years, and I know that such are richer than the day the plow was first "stuck in them." Now, I have not altogether a western man's undoubting faith in western soils, but I read everything I can get hold of in regard to keeping up the fertility of the soil. In looking over my eastern-extreme eastern— agricultural papers, I find that almost the entire amount of their space is taken up with talking about manures, and much of it about made, commercial manures. I can't conceive of any circumstances whereby Illinois prairie soils-if properly managedwill ever require anything but grass seed (particularly clover seed) and the accumulations of our stables, barns and sheds. I keep constantly in mind, too, the fact, that the early (or even later) settlers of more eastern States might once have talked of their localities as I do of Illinois, but I bear in mind that they had not, as we have, the experience of some older country to show that no soil, however rich, is inexhaustible. What I say is this: The soil of Central Illinois-cropped by any stock sufficient to employ three-fourths or more of its acres in tame grass, (to be mowed or pastured) and the balance to not remain in cultivation over five years before being "laid down" to grass again-will never "wear-out" as long as the world stands.

Take testimony of the oldest and best farmers in Central Illinois, and unless I am much mistaken they will all say "that there is no wear out to a stock farm in Central Illinois."

I don't wish to foolishly cry down the value of manures, or indorse the too common western notion that it is of no use to put manures on our lands. What I intend to say more strongly than anything else is, that western farmers-using the common sense and experience of three or four generations of more eastern farmers-need

not let their soils deteriorate the least bit, and, at the same time, it need cost them but little to "keep their lands up."

The State of Illinois will be a stock State for about ten years yet, after which time the sceptre will most probably depart from Judah When the time comes that it pays better to sell the products of our soil in the raw state of so much grain, I think we will need the teachings of two or three Agricultural Colleges to keep up the fertility of our soil. So long, however, as it pays us to keep stock enough to eat up our grain and hay, so long we will need only common sense to enable us not to wear our farms out.

In the future (when it pays Illinois to sell grain) we shall then learn (like England, where land rents for as much as the cost in fee simple of the most of our western lands) that we must keep a certain amount of stock, "wille, nille."

G. Harding-My farm has been in cultivation 15 years, or part of it; and that nortion of it sown to grass has not diminished but materially improved in productiveness, while that portion planted with different grains has shown material exhaustion. I renew the soil by sowing it down to different kinds of grasses for pasturing. I have used manures to great advantage and practice deep plowing under all circumstances. Plowing in the fall is always the best for all kinds of crops to be grown the next season. The two-horse plow. I consider the best in all cases for breaking up ground to be tilled. In trench plowing I use two independent teams and plows.

G. W. Vaughan.-Part of my farm was put in cultivation in 1848, part in 1855, part in 1860, 1861, 1864 and 1865. On the old part of the farm, corn, oats, wheat and grass have been taken off; from the newer lands corn has been taken. I can hardly say to what extent the soil is exhausted, since too much ground is undertaken by one hand, and consequently becomes poisoned by weeds, thereby lessening its vitality. I think if the ground were well tilled it would show no evidence of exhaustion for several years. I have never used stable or barn manure on my corn lands, but have applied it to meadows. I have practiced deep plowing but not subsoiling, though I am of opinion that it is very useful; I think ground should be subsoiled but once in 4 or 5 years. Had we a good shipping point near here, I would prefer deep plowing and tending in corn, then changing to small grains clover and timothy to recuperate the soil, which can be kept lively in this way quite as well as by sub-soiling. We find difficulty here in making meadows profitable, therefore the need of sub-soiling. I always plow deep for corn and have plowed both deep and shallow for small grains. I find, in deep plowing for corn and small grains, that the early growth of the plant is slower than in shallow plowing, but when once well set and fairly growing, its growth is faster. I know not why this is, but suppose that when the roots start to shoot downward they reach the hard surface in shallow plowing and get their set, and the top grows fast, sooner than if the roots were still growing downward in loose soil. From my experience in raising grain, I think deep plowing best for corn and early sown fall wheat, and shallow plowing for oats and late sown fall wheat, My reasons are these: corn planted in deep plowed soil grows slowly for a while, but the crop is generally double that of the shallow plowed soil, Wheat, when sown early in the fall, has time to get rooted and is harder to winter-kill when plowed deep, but if sown late does not seem to spread on the ground sufficiently. Oats generally grow too tall and rank anyway, and if the ground is plowed deep, they grow slowly for a while, then fast, and become so rank and late

that they fall down and spoil, when by shallow plowing they grow much faster at the start, then are checked in their growth, thereby hastening their maturity. I have seen splendid crops of oats raised without plowing at all, just barrowed in, in the spring, on corn ground of the previous year. They ripened quicker than those sown on plowed land. Oats do not seem to need much root to make the stalk and head. For spring wheat, I think it immaterial whether the ground be plowed deep or shallow, as it should in all cases be plowed late in the previous fall, and the wheat harrowed in as early in the spring as is admissible. I have never been successful with spring wheat when breaking the ground in the spring. Much difference of opinion exists about deep plowing. Some contend that deep plowing once in three years and shallow plowing for two is better than deep plowing all the time, as that turns up the new soil every third year, and it is but little exhausted in the intervening time. I, however, prefer deep plowing all the time, and if the ground seems exhausted, to recuperate it with some kind of manure. Deep plowing exhausts the soil in the same proportion that shallow plowing does, I think. The effect of deep

plowing is on the crop produced. We have tried but few kinds of breaking plows; I have used the Peoria and Rock river plows for breaking up ground and find them excellent. I do not know that the gang and subsoil plows have been used in the county. In common with my neighbors I prefer the improved Rock river, made at Grand Detour, Ill., to any I have tried.

S. Butler-Farm put in cultivation six years ago. The crops have been corn, wheat and buckwheat, broom corn and Hungarian corn. The crops in the consecutive years have been equally good. Manure helps the soil fully one-third.

W. F. Bliss.-Smith's cast steel plows, C pattern, answer a good purpose in breaking prairie.

D. Gove.-I improved my farm myself, commencing seven years ago; my crops have been wheat, corn, oats and the grasses. I cannot percieve that the soil is ex hausted in the least, in fact the wet spots seem to get better as they are drained and opened up to the sun and air; and on the thinner portions of the farm, I have spread all the manure that accumulates annually, mostly on the meadows, during the fall and winter, and the effect is very great and more than pays for hauling out the manure the first crop. I have always been in favor of deep plowing, and my experience every year more fully confirms me of both its immediate and lasting results. Deep plowing is the best for either wet or dry seasons. And the land after once being deeply and thoroughly plowed is ever after less liable to run together or to become baked, as is the case where shallow plowing is practised. My own practice is this: put three heavy horses abreast to a plow that turns about 13 or 14 inches, which I have had made to order, of a shape that will run deep and at the same time have a curve that will pulverize the soil as much as possible; and for corn the depth of furrow is governed by the strength and endurance of the team, but usually from 10 to 12 inches; then thoroughly harrow, and, if dry, roll and then plant, and, in addition to all other good results from deep plowing, the seeds of noxious weeds are buried so deeply that if they come up at all, it will not be until after the corn is ready to cultivate.

J. G. Swann.—In 1835. Crops have been corn, wheat, clover and broom corn. Soil very little exhausted. Have used manures with good results. Deep plowing always. Moline plows; for cultivation, double shovels.

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