404 [Assembly 



^•Deep planting, abundance of alkali, salt at the rate of one or 

 two bushels per acre, and the exclusion of fresh manures, are the 

 ehief requisites for this crop. 



Shallow plowing unpi'ojifahle. 



" There is no error in husbandry that has proved so fatal 

 to progress, and has been so unhesitatingly clung to as shal- 

 low plowing; and indeed, even now, amidst the experience 

 of practice and the assurance of science, the difficulty of per- 

 suading men's minds to try and test for themselves, is met 

 by distrust and unconcern. jMr. Warren Granger, a neighbor of 

 mine, at my suggestion made an experiment on a piece of stiff 

 clay land, having an uneven surface, and a steep side slope, which 

 was selected for a fruit and vegetable garden. This piece of land, 

 wet and cold through the spring, holding water in the depres- 

 sions, and baked bone-dry through the summer, was subsoiled and 

 tile-drained, the drains 30 feet apart, three feet below the sur- 

 face. The soil, since the work was done, looks, and is entirely 

 changed. The rains instead of running over the surface, washing 

 away its fertility, percolates the soil, depositing its ammonia and 

 other matter it contains near the surface, while the superabun- 

 dant water passes through the tile. A remarkable fact connected 

 with draining is the heightened temperature of the soil. Careful 

 experiments have proved this. Even ordinary trenching or sub- 

 soil plowing, renders the soil a week or ten days earlier in the 

 spring, while deep draining, say to four feet, raises the tempera- 

 ture fifteen degrees. Such lands never suffer from drought, they 

 are early, require less manure, are quick and easily worked, and 

 although expensive at the onset well repay the cost." 



FEANKLIN. 



B. P. Johnson, Esq., Sec'y of the N. Y. State Ag. Soc. : 



Dear Sir: — I regret to be obliged to say that I cannot return tc- 

 you any reports or statements, as contemplated by law, to accom- 

 pany applications for premiums. This requisition was entirely 

 overlooked by the executive committee, consequently I have 

 none to transmit to you. I shall look to this next year. It was 



