SECRSTARY'd REPORT 103 



possess advantages over tlie turnip and beet, in being more uniformly 

 relished by all kinds of stock. It keeps horses in good condition, is 

 excellent for fattening oxen, causes a free flow of milk in cows, and 

 imparts no b id taste to it ; with manure and good treatment it succeeds 

 ■well in soils which are sandy, and naturally inferior; is less liable 

 than the others to disease and the ravages of insects, and by its long 

 fusiform roots and minor rootlets penetrating to great depth, obtains 

 a good share of its nutriment from the subsoil, and does good service 

 iu loosening the same, both finely and deeply. 



Deeper Tillage. Aside from the means heretofore alluded to 

 for the restoration of lost fertility, several of which depend in part for 

 their efficacy upon mechanical improvement of the soil, and a deeper 

 culture of it, much may be accomplished by this alone. One corres- 

 pondent replies to the query as follows : 



" If I were to undertake the renovation of worn out lands, I 

 would mainly rely upon deeper tillage, and by bringing to the surf ice 

 the yet untried elements of tlie soil, endeavor to find something which 

 would serve as a basis for new. crops. In practicing this, however, 

 I would take up no more at once, than could be dealt thoroughly 

 with, and left in an improved condition." 



The suggestion is a valuable one. Deeper tillage and better 

 tillage are means not to be neglected, for experience has long shown 

 that the physical structure of a soil has much to do with its powers 

 of production, and that where land has given out, it is not always 

 because it is actually, as it is seemingly, exhausted, but because its 

 latent or buried fertilizing powers have not been fully brought into 

 requisition. All operations which tend to a more thorough pulveri- 

 zation and deepening of the soil, will help to bring them forth — of 

 these, plowing ranks first. 



Good plowing, in fiict, lies at the basis of a good practical hus- 

 bandry. No other work done upon the farm is so important as this. 

 If it be not such as it should be, the resources of the soil cannot, in the 

 present state of the art of agriculture, be made available. Deep 

 plowing is repeatedly recommended as a means of renovation for 

 exhausted lands, and there cannot be a doubt that by its means a 

 great deal of land, which now produces little, might be improved. 

 Unlike green manuring, it does not add directly to the amount of 

 plant food in the soil, but rather serves to bring forth what is already 



