SECRE'PAKY'S REPORT. 105 



untler-draining is necessary, and sliould be considered an indispen- 

 sable pi'c-requisite to best success; but tbere is a large extent of 

 such as can be greatly benefitted by deep plowing and subsoiling, 

 >vithout previous under-draining. 



Another advantage of deep plowing, not unfrequently obtained, is 

 that thereby Ave effect a mixture of unlike soils. Everybody is 

 familiar Avith the advantage of carting sand upon clay, and clay 

 upon sand, or swamp muck upon either, or upon any soil deficient 

 in ve2;etable matter — now, ■where the surface soil and subsoil are 

 unlike, as we often find them, no small good is found to result from 

 their mixture, irrespective of other considerations ; and where it can 

 thus be effected, it is by far the cheapest method of accomplishing 

 the end. At a much higher cost even, than when thus effected, the 

 mixture of unlike soils may be often adopted as a profitable means 

 of improving their mechanical condition and structure, and thus 

 increasing their powers of production. 



My present purpose, however, is not so much to state the uses of 

 plowing, nor to discuss the best methods of doing it, nor to urge tliat 

 its importance in practical agriculture is so great as to warrant all 

 the care and skill which can be brought to bear upon it, nor to dwell 

 at length upon all the advantages which may be expected to result 

 from deeper plowing, some of which are hinted at above, as rather 

 to bring prominently into view the important fact that there are, 

 beneath the surface of thousands of our exhausted fields which have 

 been only skimmed over, great resources for fertility, which have not 

 hitherto been made to contribute to the fixrmers' wealtii, and that 

 by simply putting in the ploio deeper than before^ he may bring 

 into action soil which never sato the liglit^ and thus virtually 

 work upon a ne^v farm within his old enclosure. 



So, too, every other operation, be it digging, rolling, hoeing, or 

 whatever else which tends to more perfect comminution of the soil, 

 adds to fertility, and although we may reject so much of the creed 

 of old Jethro Tull as avers that "fine particles of earth are the very 

 pabulum on which the plant Subsists," all experience shows that we 

 may safely adopt, and use our utmost endeavors to carry out, the 

 practice which such creed would dictate. 



Forest Growth. " Let exhausted land grow up to wood for 

 the next generation." says another correspondent, and this suggestion 

 is also a valuable one ; it would be well, indeed, to devote a very 



