224 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



in the soil. If the soil is lumpy and coarse, and does not come 

 in close contact with the seed, to keep moist, the seed can't ger- 

 minate, the roots carit extend in search of food, nor can this 

 food be prepared and transmitted to the plants, unless the soil 

 is so pulverized as to admit the free circulation of air and moist- 

 ure through its interstices, and through its mass. As before 

 stated, the air and dews being charged with elements of fertility, 

 the more porous the earth is made, the more easily are these 

 elements conveyed to the seed. 



Generally, we believe that farmers do not use such care in 

 selecting and planting seed as is necessary, and from this cause, 

 and from having the soil so ill prepared to receive it, a very 

 large per cent, does not germinate, and the part that does is of 

 a half-starved and sickly kind. In selecting seed of any of the 

 cereals, if the grain is threshed by machines and the seed used 

 for sowing or planting, we unquestionably get a large per cent, 

 of half-grown, shrivelled seed, unfit for planting. By this mode 

 of selecting seed, and having the soil half ploughed and harrowed, 

 we may expect to reap a half-grown harvest ; but when the 

 grain is lightly threshed by the flail, or only half the seed shelled 

 out, to be used for that purpose, we may expect to have large, 

 healthy, plump seed, such as will germinate and produce a full 

 crop of grain, requiring no more labor, or manure in the culti- 

 vation, than the poor, sickly, half-grown crop. Again, we believe 

 that small seeds are frequently too deeply planted ; the seed, 

 after being sown, requires air, warmth and moisture, by which 

 the seed undergoes some change, and on swelling, a young, tender 

 root bursts forth from the shell, and, in obedience to the laws of 

 gravitation, goes downward in search of food, while at the same 

 time a stalk shoots upward towards the surface, to form the 

 plant. These small roots that first make their appearance, are 

 fine and delicate ; they move downward for food to nourish the 

 young plant ; hence the food for roots thus tender should be 

 sweet and nutritious, and if it be not found, the plant droops 

 and withers, perhaps dies ; or if it be found only in small quan- 

 tities, and of an insipid kind, it produces a poor, sickly plant ; 

 or if the soil be hard and lumpy from bad ploughing, and does 

 not come' in contact with the young roots, we have only a half- 

 starved plant, or tree. Here, again, the importance of thorough 

 ploughing, and a deep pulverization of soils, is apparent. 



