572 



of giving thera against its drouth. Where farmers are found who 

 do practice deep plowing, it is ahuost invariably the case that tlieir 

 neighbors point to thera as men who are in the habit of raising large 

 and profitable crops. Is not this a sign, as significant as any reason- 

 ble man ought to ask for, of the benefits of deep plowing ? I think 

 myself subsoil plowing might be more generally introduced with 

 advantage, than it has yet been ; but as to whether it would be profita- 

 ble if practiced on a large scale, in this State, I am not prepared to 

 say, being without data or reports from agriculturists who may have 

 made experiments in that line. On your deep, loose, loamy, gravelly 

 subsoil, which is rich in all the mineral elements which render a soil 

 valuable, I think it would do good service. Some of my friends have 

 recently purchased subsoil plows, and have promised to report the result 

 of their trials and experiments for the benefit of the public. One of 

 these is in possession of a farm which has been so cultivated by its 

 old French proprietors, that the last one had to give it up as completely 

 worn out; and now my friend has taken hold of it, and he tells me 

 that at the depth of three or four inches below the surface there is a 

 hard layer of soil over which, year after year, the plow had been run 

 until it appeared as though an indurated crust had been formed like 

 that of a road bed, below which it was impossible for the roots of any 

 plant to penetrate. This crust he was about to break up, and as each 

 furrow was turned he would follow the breaking up plow with the sub- 

 soil which would break up and pulverize some five to six inches of soil 

 which the first passing plow could not reach. 



The necessity of deeper plowing, and a more thorough pulverization 

 of earth than has been heretofore practiced, will be readily acknowledged, 

 if we will only consider the services which the soil is required to per- 

 form. Now not only does the soil sustain the crop, but it has also to 

 gather and digest a great part of the food with which the plant is fed, 

 not only from the manures which may be buried in it, but from the 

 rains that fall upon and pass through it, and from the air by which it 

 is permeated. Within a few years past examinations have been made 

 into the properties of the soil, and its qualities and capacities, by a very 

 able agricultural chemist employed for the purpose by the Agricultural 

 Society of England. From his researches it appears that the soil 

 possesses many properties of which it was not before suspected, and. 



