On a Time, when my Diseases permitted me to go into the Wheat-field, where my Ploughs were at Work, I discovered this Trick, and ventured to ask my chief Ploughman his Reason for doing this in my Absence, contrary to my Direction. He magisterially answer’d, according to his own Theory, which Servants judge ought to be follow’d before that of him they call Master, saying, That as the Roots of Wheat never reached more than Two or Three Inches deep, there was no need that the fine Mould should be any deeper. But those shallow Ridges, which were indeed too many, producing a Crop very much inferior to the contiguous deep Ridges, shewed, at my Cost, the Mistake of my cunning Ploughman. ’Tis true, that People who examine Wheat-roots when dead, are apt to fall into this mistake; for then they are shrivell’d up, and so rotten, that they break off very near to the Stalk in pulling up; but if they are examined in their Vigour at Summer with Care, in a friable Soil, they may be seen to descend as deep as the fine pulveriz’d Mould reacheth, though that should be a Foot in Thickness. I took up a Wheat-ear in Harvest that had lain on the Grass in wet Weather, where the Wind could not come to dry it, which had sent out white Roots like the Teeth of a Comb, some of them Three Inches long: None having reached the Ground, they could not be nourished from any thing but the Grains, which remained fast to the Ear, and had not as yet sent out any Blade. ’Tis unreasonable to imagine, that such a single Root as one of these, when in the Earth, from whence it must maintain a pretty large Plant all or most Part of the Winter, should descend no farther than when it was itself maintained from the Flour of the Grain only. To make a Six-feet Ridge very high, will sometimes require more Furrows; as when the Middle of the Intervals are open very wide and deep, then Six Furrows to the whole Ridge may be necessary, and they not little ones; and the Season makes a Difference, as well as the Size of the Furrows; for when the fine Mould is very dry (which is best), it will much of it run to the Left-hand before the Plough, and also more will run back again to the Left after the Plough is gone past it. But when such Ridges have been made for Wheat, and the Season continues long too dry for planting it, and the Stubble not thrown up, we then plow one deep Furrow on the Middle of each Ridge, and then plow the whole Ridge at Four Furrows more, which will raise it very high. This Way of replowing the Ridges moves all the Earth of them, and yet is done at Five Furrows.