'19'4 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



'ing Hovey's seedling and the large early scarlet strawberries, he 

 Lad so changed their character that they would not run ; but 

 upon giving them the ordinary treatment, the very first year 

 they returned to their former habits, running as rapidly and 

 forming as large a leaf as other plants not so treated. 



TRENCHING. 



Prof. Nash said that M^here labor is cheap and bread is dear, 

 as in England and on the continent of Europe, it may be good 

 policy to trench, and yet it may not be good policy in this coun- 

 try. So long as we keep so many horses, so long as labor is 

 higher than six cents per day, and so long as there is no lack of 

 bread, the stirring of the soil by human muscles is out of the 

 question, excepting in the smallest enclosures. One foot in depth 

 of soil weighs 2,000 tons to the acre, and more if it is in a moist 

 condition. In trenching three feet deep, at $500 per acre, this 

 would be 8.1 cents per ton for lifting the earth. The subsoil plow 

 produces as good an effect upon the soil above it as the spade, 

 and the action of the air and rain admitted upon the soil below 

 it will keep it from becoming too compact. 



- Mr. Carpenter. — In England the trench plow has nearly super- 

 seded the subsoil plow. When land is subsoiled it soon settles 

 back into its former condition, but when it is trenched either by 

 the spade or the trench plow, the change in the position of the 

 subsoil, allowing the atmosphere to operate upon it chemically, 

 is productive of the best results. In trenching, the earth has not 

 all to be lifted ; the top spit is merely rolled over into the fur- 

 row ; the second is more laterally, and the third is the only one 

 that is lifted. 



Prof. Nash. — The inertia of every ounce of the soil must be 

 overcome. It must all be lifted a little, and a portion of it three 

 feet. As to tlie pressure downward of the subsoil plow, I admit, 

 action and reaction being equal, that there is just as great a pres- 

 sure downward as the lifting force, but at the depth at which 

 the subsoil plow runs, who cares for that ? But it w411 not remain 

 condensed by this pressure, for, as I have stated, the action of 

 the air and of the rain will soon cause it to crumble. 



Mr. Adrian Bergen. — I do not see that it makes any difference 

 whether you plow or spade, provided you go into the ground 

 deeply. In my garden I sometimes plow a part and spade a part, 

 and I can see no difference in the results from the part plowed 

 and from the part spaded. 



