486 WISCONSIN AGRICULTUEE. 



our hearts to the old house at home. Here is the store-house of 

 luxuries, and if a judicious selection of fruits and plants are cul- 

 tivated it will furnish the table throughout the season. Of course 

 every family should make such a selection as is best adapted to 

 their several wants ; but there are fruits, such as strawberries, 

 currants, raspberries, grapes, &c., which should find a place in 

 every garden. Here, as in the cultivation of other parts of the 

 farm, let what is done he well done. 



Another want of Eacine county farmers is a thorough convic- 

 tion of the utility and even necessity of deep plowing. 



You have a soil not easily excelled in the inorganic elements, 

 and had you the climate of Southern Ohio or Maryland, the pro- 

 ductiveness of your land would be almost fabulous. 



But with the climate as it is which is best adapted to our 

 wants, imparting vigor and health to all, you may so modify its 

 effects upon the soil as to raise the average product of your farms 

 fully 30 per cent., and that, too, by means entirely within the 

 reach of every one. Not only experience but science teaches us 

 that a greater degree of warmth than moisture is necessary in 

 the production of most cereals, but both are necessary and may 

 be obtained by judicious plowing and draining. The grand ob- 

 ject to be obtained is to sink as low as possible the surface water, 

 thereby giving the air a chance to penetrate into the soil, that its 

 gases may act upon and combine with the inorganic elements in 

 the earth, and fit them for food for the plant. Although the in- 

 organic elements form the smallest fraction in the bulk of vege- 

 tation, yet their absence in the soil would be as fatal to the veg- 

 etable creation as the absence of air would be to the animal crea- 

 tion. But since we are not yet able to drain and sub-soil to se- 

 cure this end fully, let us do what best we can, which is, to plow 

 as deep as possible. Experience has proved to us that plowing 

 three or four inches deep after the first two or three crops will 

 produce twelve or fifteen bushels of wheat per acre, and further, 

 that plowing eight or nine inches on the same land will produce 

 twenty or twenty -five bushels per acre. Thus the man who 

 puts the plow down where it ought to be reaps eight or ten bush- 

 els of wheat for the extra expense of plowing well. This is not 



