laid over, the bottom of the open furrow is as wide and flat as represented by the dotted line c, and extending above from a to a. The plough goes along this wide space and first lays over the triangular furrow-slice b on one side, and another of the same form b on the other side, up against and covering the lowest ends of the furrow-slices a a, by which operation the ground is hollowed out in the shape represented below c by the sole of the plough. The dotted line d shows the level of the ground in the state it was before it was ridged up, and the furrow-slices a a show the elevation attained by the land above its former level by ploughing. 752. Crown-and-furrow ploughing can easily be performed on land which has been gathered up from the flat. No feering is required, the open furrows answering the purpose. Thus, in fig. 20, let the furrow-brow slices d be laid over into the open furrows a, and it will be found that they will just meet, since they were formerly separated by the same means; and in ploughing the ridges in half-ridges, a will become the crowns of the ridges, and b the open- furrows, hence the name of this mode of ploughing. Its effect is to preserve the ploughed surface of the ridges in the same state they were when gathered up from the flat. 753. When no surface-water is likely to remain on the land, as in the case of light soils, both these are simple modes of ploughing land; and they form an excellent foundation for drills for turnips on stronger soils, and are much practised in ploughing land for barley after turnips. But when the land for barley after turnips is to be twice ploughed, and it is inconvenient to cross-furrow the land,which it will be when sheep on turnips occupy a field having long ridges, or the season is too wet to leave the land in a cross-furrow, then the land should be so feered as, in gathering up from the flat, the crown-and-furrow ploughing may afterwards complete the ridges. 754. On looking at fig. 20, where the ridges are complete, it is obvious that, were they ploughed into crown-and-furrow, thereby making the open furrows a a a the future crowns, a half-ridge would be left at each side of the field,—a mode of finishing off a field displaying great carelessness and want of forethought. The feering, therefore, should be so made as the gathering up from the flat should leave a half-ridge on each side of the field, and the subsequent crown-and-furrow ploughing will convert them into whole ridges. Thus, the first feering should be made at ea, fig. 19, instead of fc, and every other at the width of one ridge, 15 feet. On ploughing these feerings, the open furrows will be left at i h, kl, o p, and r w; and these will form the feerings of the subsequent crown-and-furrow ploughing. 755. Another mode of ploughing land from the flat surface is casting or yoking or coupling the ridges. The feering for this is done in a different manner from the two foregoing. The first feering is made in the line of e a, fig. 19, close to the ditch, and every other is measured off of the width of 2 ridges, 30 feet-as at y z, betwixt k land o p, and again at half a ridge beyond rw. Casting is begun by laying the furrow-slices of the feerings together, and then laying the first furrowslice towards e a, on going up, and towards yz, betwixt land p, on coming down, the bout; and so on, furrow after furrow, hieing the horses on the headridges always towards you, until the open furrow is left at yz, betwixt kl and i h. The effect of casting is to lay the entire number of furrow-slices, 20 of every ridge, in one direction, and in opposite directions on adjoining ridges. The proper disposition of the furrow-slices is seen in perspective in fig. 22, which exhibits three entire ridges, ab, bc, and cd, two of which are cast or yoked together, that is, the furrow-slices of a b meet those of cb in b, which forms the crown of the coupled ridge, and those of cd lie in the opposite direction from c b, and are ready to be met by those of the adjoining ridge beyond dat d, and they leave the open furrow between them at c: and so on, an open furrow between every two ridges. Ridges lying thus yoked can easily be recast, by reversing the furrowslices of b c and c d into the open furrow c, and converting e into the crown of the yoked ridge bd, and making the crowns b and d open furrows. Casting keeps the land in a level state, and can most conveniently be formed on dry soils. It forms in the middle, and let it be converted into a gore-furrow. Make the plough pass between the centre of the open-furrow c and the left-hand dotted furrow-slice e, and throw up to the right the triangularshaped mould-furrow-slice b, with the mould seen below c. Then turn the horses sharp from you on the headridge, and lay the dotted furrow-slice a upon b, which will thus become the furrow-slice d. Again turning the horses sharp from you on the headridge, take the plough lightly through part of the dotted furrow-slice e, and lay it of a triangular-shape for the mould-furrow-slice f, the upper end of e being left untouched: but a portion of f will trickle down towards i, and so will also a portion of d when it was ploughed. Turn the horses on the off headridge still from you, and bring the plough down behind d, and lay upon it the ordinary furrow-slice g. Turning the horses again from you on the nigh headridge, lay the ordinary furrow-sliceh upon the triangularshaped mould-furrowf, by destroying the remainder of the dotted furrow-slice e, and some more earth; and then turn the horses from you again on the off headridge for the last time, and come down the open furrow i, pushing the soil up with the mould-board from i against f, and clearing the furrow of any loose soil in it, and the gore-furrow is completed. A gore-furrow is most perfectly formed and preserved in clay-soil, for in tender soil it is apt to moulder down by the action of the air into the open furrow, and prevent it being a channel for running water; but, indeed, gore-furrows are of little use, and are seldom formed on light soils. 757. Casting with a gore-furrow upon a gathered ridge always makes the open furrow barer of earth than the gore-furrow; but it is not so correct to say that this is an imperfection unavoidable in casting a ridge, as it is so only in casting after gathering it up from the flat, and more so, of course, after two gatherings up. Casting, in Casting, in my opinion, should never be practised on gathered ridges, to remain in a permanent form, though it may be used for a temporary purpose, as in fallowing to stir the soil and overcome weeds; for, observe its necessary consequences: Suppose the two gathered ridges between a a a, fig. 20, were cast together towards the middle open furrow a, the effect would be to reverse the position of the furrow slices from a to b, on either side of a, and they would remain as flat as formerly; but what would be its effect on the furrow slices on the other halves of the ridges from b to d? They would be gathered up twice, and the coupled ridge would have two high furrow-brows by two gatherings, and two low flanks by one gathering. It would, in fact, be unevenly ploughed, and the open furrow on each side would, of course, be much bared of soil, from being twice gathered up. No doubt the distortion might be partially obviated by making the furrow-slices between a and b on each side of the middle open furrow a deeper and larger than those between b and d, and a uniform shape to the coupled ridge might be thus preserved; but it would be done by the sacrifice of substantial ploughing; and it is much better to confine casting within its own sphere, than practise it in circumstances unfavourable to the proper ploughing of the land. 758. The open furrow in casting does not necessarily bare the earth more than a gore-furrow. It is broader, certainly, from the circumstance of the furrow-slices being laid away from each other; but its furrow-sole is not actually ploughed deeper than the gore-furrow. I would also observe that casting is almost impracticable after two gatherings, because the effect would be to cleave down the sides a b, fig. 20, on both sides of a, again to the level of the ground; whilst it would gather up the two sides actually corresponding with db three times, thereby giving very unequal heights to the two sides of each coupled ridge, or making the furrow-slices on the same ridge of very unequal size, in order to preserve their level-practices both to be deprecated. An author, in speaking of casting, and showing how it may be performed by ploughing the furrow-slices of two adjoining ridges in opposite directions, states that "the interfurrow, which lies between the two ridges, unavoidably leaves a shoulder or hollow place, of more or less width, according to the expertness of the ploughman, in the centre of the crown, which defect can only be completely relieved by reploughing ;"* and informs us, that the defect may be partly prevented by using two ploughs of different widths of mould-boards. I do not see why ploughing two furrow-slices into the open furrow in casting should be more difficult or less substantial than in any other mode of ploughing. A good ploughman will leave in the future crown of the ridge, in every case, neither a shoulder nor a hollow place. 759. Nearly allied to casting is the ploughing named two-out-and-two-in, which may also be executed on the flat ground, and requires a particular mode of feering. The first feering should be measured of the breadth of 2 ridges, or 30 feet, from the ditch a e, fig. 19; and every subsequent feering of 4 ridges breadth, or 60 feet. The feerings are thus but few. The land is ploughed in this manner: Let a b, fig. 24, be the side of the field, and let c d be the first feering of 30 feet from a b; and also, let ef be the next feering of 60 feet. After returning the feering furrow-slices, begin ploughing round the feering c d, which always keep on the right hand, and hupping the horses from you, on both the head-ridges, until about the breadth of a ridge is ploughed on each side of c d, to gg and h h. While this is doing, 2 ridges to ii and k k are ploughed around ef by another ploughman. At this juncture, open furrows occur at h h and i i, embracing between them 2 ridges, or 30 feet, from h to i. Then let the ploughman who has ploughed round c d plough from h to i, laying the furrow-slices first to h and then to i, by hieing the horses towards him, on both headridges, until the ground is all ploughed to, which becomes the permanent open furrow. The * British Husbandry, vol. ii. p. 46. VOL. I. M FEERING FOR PLOUGHING RIDGES TWO-OUT-AND-TWO-IN. have been ploughed, laying its furrowslices towards g g, and making the open furrow at a b. The effect of ploughing two-out-and-two-in, is to lay all the furrow-slices across two ridges in one direction from a to c, and across two ridges in the opposite direction, from / to c, both double ridges meeting in c d, which becomes the crown of the 4 ridges from / to a. In like manner the furrow-slices over the 4 ridges from 7 to m, meet in their crown ef. In ploughing this mode, every ploughman takes in a feering of 4 ridges, which he completes before he goes to another. The reason, I suppose, that this mode of ploughing has received its peculiar appellation is, that two ridges are ploughed with the horses turning outwards, and two by their turning inwards. 760. The appearance of the ground on being ploughed two-out-and-two-in is seen Fig. 25. row-slices not meeting from opposite directions, but lying across it, there would be no true crown. Exactly in a similar manner, when the gore-furrow is introduced into cast ridges, as in fig. 22, the crowns at b and d are converted into open furrows, and transmuted into a centre e, which, the furrow-slices lying across the ridges, would therefore not be a true crown. 763. A nearly allied ploughing to the last is that of ploughing in breaks or divisions. It consists of making feerings at indefinite distances, and ploughing large divisions of land without open furrows. Some farmers plough divisions of 8 ridges or 40 yards; but so great a distance incurs considerable loss of time in travelling from furrow to furrow at the landings. Instead, therefore, of the breadth of a given number of ridges being chosen, 30 yards are substituted; and this particular breadth has the advantage of causing deviations in ploughing from that of the ordinary ridges, and of loosening any hard land that may have been left untouched by the plough in ploughing the ordinary ridges. Land is ploughed in breaks only for temporary purposes, such as giving it a tender surface for seed-furrowing or drilling up immediately thereafter. The time lost in ploughing wide breaks might be easily estimated in figures by fig. 24, where, the feerings c d and ef being supposed to be 60 yards asunder, the ploughs have to go round c d and e f until they reach h and i respectively, thus travelling in a progressive increasing distance to 30 yards for every furrow-slice of 10 inches in breadth laid over. 764. Another mode of ploughing is twice-gathering-up. Its effect may be seen in fig. 26, where the twice-gatheredup furrow-slices are seen to rest upon the solid ground. It may be practised both on Fig. 26. lea and red-land. On red-land that has been already gathered up from the flat, it is begun by making feerings in the crowns of the ridges, as at b, fig 20. The furrowslices of the feerings are laid together, and the ridges ploughed by half-ridges, in the manner of gathering up from the flat. The half-ridge left by the feerings at the sides of the field must be ploughed by themselves, even at the risk of losing time, because it would not do to feer the first ridge so as to plough the half-ridge as directed to be done in the first-gathering-up, in fig. 19, around the feering of the quarter-ridge fc, because the furrows betwixt ƒ and i, when ploughed in the contrary direction they were before, would again lower the ground; whereas the furrow-slices from e to f and from z to i, being ploughed in the same direction as formerly, the ground would be raised above the level of if, and disfigure the ploughing of the entire ridge. ze. Gathering up from the flat preserves the flatness of the ground; and the second gathering-up would preserve the land in the same degree of flatness, though more elevated, were there depth enough of soil, and the furrow-slices made in their proper form; but a roundness is usually given to a ridge which has been gathered up, both by harrowing down the steep furrowbrows, and by ploughing the furrow-slices of unequal size, from want of soil at the furrow-brows and open furrows. 765. In gathering up lea the second time, no feering is required. The plough goes a little to the left of the crown of the ridge, and lays upon its back a thin and narrow furrow-slice, a, fig. 26, to serve as a cushion upon which to rest the future crown furrow-slices. The horses |