144 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



and he asked me how deep he should plough it. I told him 

 just deep enough to cover the manure handsomely. I was very 

 busy, but after a while I went to see how he was getting along, 

 and found he was ploughing it just about eight inches deep. I 

 planted the corn with poudrette in the hill. It came up very 

 handsomely, and grew until the poudrette was exhausted, and 

 then plodded along, as we might say, through the season. It 

 never amounted to anything. I think I can account for it, for 

 after I had made up my mind that my crop was lost, I studied 

 into the matter. Knowing that it was a very wet season, I sup- 

 posed that the roots of the corn had not penetrated the soil as 

 deep as the manure was put. On examination, in company with 

 a gentleman who was visiting me at the time, I found that the 

 corn roots ran almost oii the surface of the ground, and that it 

 was a rare thing to find the fibres extending down more than 

 two inches. This was rather an exception to the usual growth 

 of corn roots, for I have known them to run down nine inches, 

 and have known a heavy crop of corn raised where the manure 

 was plouglied in nine inches deep ; but owing to the character 

 of the season, it. being so very wet, the roots were encouraged 

 to follow the surface, and the manure that I put on to get that 

 crop of corn was lost. But I am in hopes to get a good crop of 

 potatoes there anotlier year. 



I will just mention another incident that occurred last year. 

 I purchased a new plough last spring, just as Mr. Thompson 

 did. I used a conical plough, and when we were ploughing our 

 onion bed, the plough was running so nicely that we ploughed 

 it ten inches deep, where we usually plough only eight. It put 

 in the manure very handsomely, but it turned up on the surface 

 a sort of lifeless earth, that of course was a stranger there and 

 never should have been brought there. And just to show that 

 a certain theory in relation to the growth of onions is true, I 

 will make this statement. It is well known among onion-raisers, 

 that when they plant a piece of new ground, the onions the first 

 year are very liable to have scullions, and that, the longer you 

 continue to plant the same piece with the same crop, the more 

 perfect will be the product. In consequence of ploughing this 

 piece two inches deeper than it had been ploughed for the last 

 six years, one-third of the onions were scullions. I have learned 



