94 BOARD OF AGRICTLTURE. 



ferent classes of plants. We know that clover has a much 

 deeper system of roots than our ordinary grains. "We know 

 that where the soil is rich at the surface, and where it is 

 adapted naturally, by its mechanical condition, to the growth 

 of wheat, for example, the large proportion of wheat roots are 

 found within a rather narrow space. On the fertile plains 

 surrounding the town of Leipzig, the principal commercial city 

 of Saxony, situated in one of the richest agricultural regions 

 of Germany, I have seen the same kind of plow going back 

 and forth, wliich you will find pictured in the classical dic- 

 tionaries as used by the Romans. If you should take a 

 shingle five inches wide and sharpen it to a blunt point, you 

 would have about the shape of the plowshare I refer to. 



This wooden instrument, shod with thin iron, did not turn 

 a furrow; it simply made a groove about four inches deep 

 from crest to base, stirring and mixing the soil thoroughly, 

 however, to that extent. This was the only l<ind of plowing 

 1 saw practised on these fields in 1854, and yet splendid crops 

 were harvested from them. The soil was doubtless naturally 

 of excellent texture and allowed a due penetration of the 

 roots. But the fact remains that with such tillage all fertiliz- 

 ing applications must remain near the surface, and this makes 

 evident that the roots of our grains need not go down to anj 

 very great depth. If the soil has nourishment and moisture 

 for them, six or eight inches of earth will answer for the sup- 

 port of a crop. A foot will, in a majority of cases where the 

 soil is of good quality, contain the bulk of the roots of the 

 wheat crop. They may go deeper, as Schubart observed, but 

 only because they must descend in order to find food or drink. 

 It has been shown by experiment that roots dcvelope in 

 poor soil in the vicinity of any enriching material ; so that 

 we cannot say, because Indian-corn roots have been traced for 

 twenty feet in a sand-bank, that it is the habit of the maize 

 plant to send out roots twenty feet long. The length de- 

 pends upon the soil rather more than upon the plant. 



It is greatly to be desired that our knowledge of the relative 

 development of the roots of our various crops should be com- 

 pleted. The roots are in one sense the most important part 



