PRIZE ESSAY ON PLOUGHING.

Southland Times, Issue 1317, 4 October 1870, Page 3

PRIZE ESSAY ON PLOUGHING.

Bt Aitdbew Chbistie. "We hare been requested by the Long Bush Ploughing Association to publish the following essay : — It is impossible to describe ploughing with mathematical exactness. Different soils require different standards ; but for all practical purposes here, a few fixed rules may be laid down descriptive of -what may in all cases be termed good ploughing. Ploughing should be evenly held ; the grass and weeds well turned down ; the furrows firm and straight ; and the seams deep, close, and clean. The ridges should be well formed (i. c., that from any point of view no irregularities may appear in them), and the finish neat and narrow. The plough should leave the furrow in such a position that it would need no packing or setting with the hands afterwards. When measured, the sock tide of the furrow should be rather longer than the coulter side. Ponton's ploughs are well adapted for doing the work as described. Some say that a proper-shaped furrow should be like the letter V turned upside down, thus, \ ; but this is a shape of furrow I have never seen in good ploughing. This order of furrow is too much set on edge, is generally badly closed, leaves the grass near the top, and is either loose or broken, and full of holes. The word Cut, so much used by ploughmen, means not so much a sharp-cornered fnrrow (as some people imagine), as a narrow furrow with much earth above the grass to make a good bed for the seed. False Cut, on the other hand, is a gouging ' : put of the furrow with the sock, leaving ' a weak, thin, cocks-comb-looking furrow. The best test of ploughing, and at the same time a safe, easy, and practical one, is to sow the seed. If the bed is good, the seed will all be seen, and so as to be rrewSly and well covered in the harrowing. Let the ground be harrowed up and down, then across, and if it stands this test the ploughing is unexceptionable. Competitions are certainly strong .iLcentivea to acquire excellence implough-

ing; but in my opinion they fail in their object unless the rules require that every ploughman set up his own poles, set his own coulter and break, and finish without assistance. No inexperienced ploughman, or any person connected either with any of the ploughmen or their employers should be appointed judge.