DEEP DIGGING. 



AN EXPERIMENT IN DEEP DIGGING. 



BY "WILLIAM BACON, EICIIMOXD, MASS. 



Last spring we took a corner of an old garden spot wLicli, though it had always been 

 liberally manured and plowed as well as such a piece of ground could be, and to put it in a 

 condition for fruit trees we gave a good dressing of manure and a thorough spading to 

 the full depth of an unworn spade, the longest we could find in the market. In this 

 spading operation, we often came in contact with a subsoil so stift' that it offered a 

 strong resistance to the spade ; still the spade was put in at the cost of much physical 

 exertion. The old soil and manure were laid in the bottom of the trench, and the 

 heterogenous and apparently sterile material on which it had reposed, were placed 

 upon the surface. This new earth, upon much of which the sun had never shone, and 

 the dew had never fertilized, was, in due time, planted with garden vegetables — not, 

 however, in ex])ectation of much crop, for the very surface gave almost positive assur- 

 ance that such things would never grow there. They were sown and planted to furnish 

 a motive for a continued tillage through the season, and, in addition, the ground was 

 planted out with dwarf Pear trees. The season in our region, as in many other sections 

 of the countiy, was one of distressing drouth — but very little rain from May to October — 

 and, in consequence, the ground on this patch was probably oftener and more thoroughly 

 hoed than it would have been had the dews and rains fulfilled their labors as usual. 

 We now speak of the result. Our Pear trees (some twenty) on this patch, not only 

 lived but made a desirable growth; and as for the vegetables — Melons, Cucumbers, 

 Tomatoes, &c., &c., to the end of the catalogue — they gave us a crop superior to any 

 we had raised for yeai-s. 



From this operation, we infer, in the first place, that deep and thorough tillage, and 

 frequent stirring of the earth, are good preventives of the eftect of drouth. The deeper 

 and better pulverized the soil, the greater its power of absorption ; consequently when- 

 ever there is moisture in the atmosphere, such lands are certain to attract their full 

 share of it. It is so, also, with the vegetable-nourishing gases which the air from time 

 time contains. Such lands also sutler less in rainy seasons from excessive moisture, for 

 the same qualities which enable them to absorb when there is a scarcity, enable them 

 to throw oti" when there is a superabundance. 



In the second place, deep and thorough tillage proves, to us, conclusively that the 

 productive powei-s of earth are not always as nearly exhausted as many strive to im- 

 agine, but that the vile skinning, skimming system — the plowing three, four, and five 

 inches deep — is what induces the sterility which so many lament. Any clayey soil — 

 and they are among the best for many purposes — may be made as barren as the desert 

 of Sahara by such a system. Plow shallow and the earth under the furrow will lose 

 the influence of the two essentials of fertility, sunshine and air, and will, of couree, 

 become cold, compact, and barren. Roots will avoid such earth ; or, if they make an 

 effort to penetrate it, it Avill be like attempting to extend themselves into a rock to meet 

 the invifjoratinsr influences of an iceberg. 



In tree-culture — especially in growing fruit trees — even a tolerable degree ot suc- 

 annot be realized unless this shallow stirring of the earth is given up and 

 stirred deep. Trees mav, as we have seen, sometimes live in such shallow 



