AMERICAN GARDENER. 101 



growing plants is to cutoff, or tear off, their 

 roots, of which the ground is full. This is really 

 the case, and this does great good ; for the roots, 

 thus cut asunder, shoot again from the plant side, 

 find new food, and send, instantly, fresh vigour to 

 the plant. The effect of this tillage is quite 

 surprising. We are hardly aware of its power in 

 producing vegetation ; and we are still less aware 

 of the distance, to which the roots of plants ex- 

 tend in every direction. 



182. MR. TULL, the father of the drill-husband- 

 ry, gives the following account of the manner, in 

 which he discovered the distance to which certain 

 roots extend. I should observe here, that he 

 was led to think of the drilling of crops in the 

 fields of England, from having, when in France, 

 observed the effects of inter-tillage on the vines, 

 O in the vineyards. If he had visited America 

 instead of France, he would have seen the effects 

 of that tillage, in a still more striking light, on 

 plants, in your Indian Corn fields; for, he would 

 have seen these plants spindling, yellow, actually 

 perishing, to-day, for want ot ploughing ; and, in 

 four days after a good, deep, clean and careful 

 ploughing, especially in hot weather, he would 

 have seen them wholly change their colour, be- 

 come of a bright and beautiful green, bending 

 their leaves over the intervals, and growing at the 

 rate of four inches in the twenty-four hours. 



183. The passage, to which I have alluded, is 

 of so interesting a nature, and relates to a matter 

 of so much importance, that I shall insert it entire, 

 and also the filates made use of by MR. TULL to 

 illustrate his meaning. I shall not, as so many 

 others have, take the thoughts, and send them 

 9* 



