AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



337 



dred, while tliat at four feet deep was ninety ; showing that the rain had 

 carried the heat down with it, where it will remain for a long time to 

 invigorate the roots of the crops. This shows the exceeding great folly of 

 making open water courses on (he surface of the ground to carry it off, 

 instead of making drains below to save the heat, gases, and moisture in the 

 earth, which may be compared, if properly drained, to an immense spunge, 

 always ready not only to absorb, but retain, an enormous quantity of water, 

 with a single drop of which it will not part, unlil all the molecules and 

 pores have taken in more than they can possibly hold by capillary attrac- 

 tion. This I liave often observed by examining the outlets of my drains 

 after a tremendous rain during the summer, and frequently find no water 

 issuing from them. If dry, after the rain, it will be drawn again to the 

 surface of the field by evaporation, acting upon capillary attraction before 

 it has time to reach the drains. I have frequently heard good farmers say 

 that they do not believe in subsoil plowing, because they invariably' raise 

 better crops on land plowed five inches, than they do from that plowed 

 eighteen. Still these same men are all inconsistent, because they invaria- 

 bly till their drained gardens eighteen inches, and if you ask them why they 

 do so, will reply that they obtain much better crops in their gardens by 

 deep cultivation, never for a moment considering, that if their fields were 

 drained and subsoil plowed, the result would be the same. The fact is, the 

 generality of land should on no account be subsoil plowed before it is tho- 

 roughly underdrained, because at the bottom of the furrow left by the sub- 

 soil plow will become a living lake, and ruin every crop he sows upon the 

 ground. 



There are but few soils that do not require draining and subsoil plowing, 

 I do not know of any. Strong tenacious clays of every description require 

 deep cultivation. Sandy, gravell) and silty soils generally, if not invari- 

 ably, have hard bottoms of pebbles mixed with protoxide of iron, masses 

 of conglomerated pudding stone, with veins of clay running through them 

 in sufficient quantities to head back, or reteutively hold, spring water ; 

 therefore they require deep cultivation. If proper attention was paid to 

 these matters, you would never hear the eternal complaint of the destruc- 

 tion of the roots of clover, wheat and rye, by freezing out. Let me assure 

 you this never would be the case if the soil was sufficiently deep. The 

 roots of the cereal crops, clovers and grasses, will run a great distance 

 down if the soil will permit, and the roots of the White and Swede turnip 

 will extend many feet in a friable soil ; the root of a con)mon field parsnip 

 has been traced over thirteen feet, and then broken ofi", perhaps several 

 feet from its extreme point. 



I sincerely hope that a few of us at least who now compose this assembly 

 of agriculturists, may live to see the day when this penurious and pinching 

 economy in farming shall succumb to more enlarged views, and permit 

 capital to develop its circumscribed strength. Let our motto, manufac- 

 tures, science and the arts, unite in one common interest for the welfare of 



[Am. Inst.J 22 , 



