®I)C Jmmcr's ittontljlij Visitor. 



173 



even straight down until they reach the subsoil, 

 then after penetrating an eighth or a fourth of an 

 inch, turn horizontally. I traced a root of a 

 wheat plant which had extended sixteen inches 

 nearly perpendicular, in less than three months 

 after it had heen sowed, on ground previously 

 subsoiled. It is interesting to take the spade and 

 examine the roots of crops, at any stage of their 

 growth, in order to compare the effects of com- 

 mon or shallow, with those of subsoil ploughing. 

 To see the roots of corn pushing boldly down- 

 wards eighteen inches in search of food, eight 

 inches of which has never been penetrated ex- 

 cept by the noble oak and hickory, and occasion- 

 ally by the searching taproot of clover, as I have 

 witnessed this past summer, affords pleasure as 

 well as instruction to the farmer, who takes pride 

 in fat swine or stall-fed oxen. 



I subsoiled three-fourths of an acre through 

 the middle of an eight acre lot, in June, 1846, 

 for wheat. The field was ploughed but once, 

 and cultivated several times previous to sowing 

 the wheat. I am not able to give the result ac- 

 curately, in consequence of cutting the grain 

 with n reaper, by which I was unable to keep 

 the wheat separate. The difference was quite 

 perceptible at the lime of harvesting ; it stood 

 thicker on the ground, and the berry was of a 

 better quality than the adjoining on ground not 

 subsoiled. 



In May last, I subsoiled one and a half acres 

 for corn, in a field containing six acres. It had 

 been a timothy meadow for four years. The soil 

 was clay loam, subsoil a tenacious clay : a part 

 of the subsoiled ground was a swale previously 

 ditched, a part was a ridge, the balance a wet 

 swale, with a compact, impervious subsoil. 

 Twenty loads of tmfermented manure was ap- 

 plied to the acre. It was ploughed in May five 

 inches deep, and subsoiled nine inches more. 



I saw no difference in the corn until August, 

 which was then very perceptible during the 

 drought of that month. The corn upon the sub- 

 soiled part retained all its beautiful freshness, 

 bearing a healthy perpendicular tassel, and hav- 

 ing the appearance through the day of having 

 been refreshed with a shower of rain the previ- 

 ous evening. That on the unsubsoiled parts, 

 yielded to the drought ; the tassels drooped and 

 the leaves became dry and rolled. After an ex- 

 amination of the soil and subsoil about this time 

 with the spade, the difference in the parts be- 

 came no longer a mystery. 



The earth was moist on the subsoiled portion, 

 within a fourth of an inch of the surface ; on 

 the unsubsoiled, it was dry to the depth of an 

 inch, the balance below dryer than the former. 

 In the one, the subsoil was filled with corn roots 

 in search of food and water; in the othtr, they 

 were turned aside by the subsoil. The corn on 

 the wet swale was as good, if not better, than 

 any other portion of the field. Judging from 

 the present crop, I am of opinion, that subsoiling 

 this wet swale was an advantage to the crop of 

 one hundred per cent., notwithstanding the ob- 

 jection raised by some, to subsoiling wet land 

 without ditching. 



In consequence of an experiment by which 1 

 wished to test two varieties of corn, which cross- 

 ed the field in an opposite direction to that of 

 subsoiling, I only compared three rows of 

 shocks, five rows in each shock, each row of 

 shocks gathered from twenty-one rods of ground. 

 The result was as follows: 



No. 1, not subsoiled, gave b'0(5 lbs. of ears. 



No. 2, three rows subsoiled, 



two rows not, C4Glbs. of ears. 



No. 3, subsoiled, 070 " " 



The subsoiled gave at (he rate of seventy- 

 three bushels to the acre ; that not subsoiled, 

 sixty-five bushels per acre ; a difference sufficient 

 to pay for subsoiling. I consider the subsoiled 

 part as having been previously inferior for corn. 

 I aimed to be accurate ; if there was any differ- 

 ence in the previous condition of the soil, or in 

 estimating the results of the experiment, it was 

 in favor of the unsubsoiled portion. From the 

 observation of the effects of subsoiling, so far as 

 it has been practised by myself and others, my 

 mind has become settled in the conviction, that 

 subsoil ploughing upon most, if not all of the 

 land of this county, will prove very beneficial for 

 corn and nil crops usually raised by us. 



I may be mistaken, but I fully believe, that 

 subsoiling thoroughly performed, will prove 

 more profitable to farmers for the outlay, than 

 any other one improvement. I have never an- 

 ticipated much improvement from it, until after 

 one crop of clover. Then I expect a complete 

 preparation of the soil for wheat. It is unneces- 

 sary for me to describe, with what ease a clover 

 root will penetrate the loosened subsoil, and even 

 go further in search of food, gaining Btrength 

 With every additional inch of depth, bringing the 

 salts of the lower strata to the surface for it use, 

 and affording by its decay, when turned tinder 

 by the plough, rich stores of food for wheat. In 

 conclusion, I would recommend subsoiling in 

 the spring and fall, or when the ground is wet 

 sufficiently deep, at any time in the summer. It 

 does well for a summer fallow, if broken up 

 early. It is beneficial to any crop. The expense 

 is about the same as for breaking up sod 

 ground.— John Mallory.— jY. Y. State Agricul- 

 tural Society's Transactions. 



Copper. — The Pittsburg Mining Company 

 have recently blasted down and cut up a mass of 

 copper, nearly pure and malleable, which weigh- 

 ed not less than eighty tons, and the value of this 

 mass, when delivered in market, will exceed 

 twenty-five thousand dollars. Nothing in the 

 whole history of copper milling approaches 

 this. — Buffalo Commercial Advertiser. 



The Enterprise aud Industry of New England. 



It richly repays one for travelling in almost all 

 parts of New England to witness the effect of 

 enterprise and industry in changing the face of 

 things for the better. The creation of capital 

 invested in permanent means of human comfort 

 and sustenance in the last ten years, seems to 

 have fully doubled : the gains that are made are 

 placed at once in the position to bring other 

 gains. The moving principle brings into requi- 

 sition every possible material and commodity as 

 the source or the aid to some new application of 

 1 lie industrial hand. What has been made of 

 the water power in some parts — a pond, a brook 

 and a fill, deemed too small for years for any 

 valuable application, is increased by artificial 

 means into a great power for the creation of cap- 

 ital. A little stream in Western Massachusetts 

 comes down two or three miles from the' moun- 

 tain to unite itself to the waters of the Ilousa- 

 lonic on ils way to the sea, in the town of Lee : 

 at fii'st perhaps a common paper-mill was erec- 

 ted on the larger river. By-and-by some one 

 thinks of the smaller stream as practicable for a 

 mill of the same kind. The mills increase upon 

 this little stream, one, two, three, to the number 



of some dozen. The very beat superior paper 



of the country is now made upon this small 

 stream: it becomes so much a standaid for 

 quality that Congress and the Departments ad- 

 vertise for this as the best to be procured on 

 contract. Hand paper and machine paper, the 

 paper from straw, from cotton waste and cotton 

 and linen rags, is here made. The cities call for 

 the Lee paper by the hundreds of reams daily 

 for newspapers— the booksellers) a greater quan- 

 tity for their hooks. Lee now, mainly upon a 

 small stream coming down from mountain ponds 

 — further in the country and further from rail- 

 way accommodation than much of the isolated 

 mountain region of New Hampshire— turns out 

 manufactured paper to the value nearly of a mil- 

 lion of dollars per annum. What is true of pa- 

 per in the Berkshire mountains is true of the 

 various manufactures of hundreds of other tow us 

 of Massachusetts, and is fast extending to each 

 and all the New England Stales. 



These remarks are elicited from having our 

 attention recently called to the " largest scythe 

 manufactory in the world," far down in what 

 was the wilderness of Maine since the time of 

 our recollection. Looking over the map of 

 Maine, we first descry as directing to the sea at 

 Portland a chain of ponds or lakes running some 

 sixty miles into the country to the very verge of 

 the While Mountains: ibis country we lately 

 visiled: the hills are covered with beautiful 

 liirms, farm houses, many with large barns annu- 

 ally well filled. The streams are ihe places for 

 mill and manufacturing locations. A steam boat 

 runs thirty miles upon a level through the Seha- 

 go lake and other ponds, surrounding which are 

 fertile cultivated fields and pastures, orchards, 

 and woodlands not too much left for use. Fur- 

 ther east northerly from the Androscoggin river 

 valley and ihe track of the Maine and Moutreal 

 railroad is another chain of ponds and lakes, ex- 

 tending across the country to within a few miles 

 of Waterville on the Kennebeck. In a niche 

 between two ponds is the waterfall in ihe tow n 

 of North Wayne which is the scene of ihe great 

 scythe manufacture that has been brought lo 

 its present perfection by the enterprise of a sin- 

 gle individual. Mere is the new business of one 

 man making a cash product exceeding a hun- 

 dred thousand dollars in a year. On such a 

 business it will not be exrtavagnnt to anticipate 

 that the cheapened transport of railroads, bring- 

 ing his iron and steel, his coal and charcoal and 

 grindstones, a quickened transit each way of 

 materials and manufactures, will save for the 

 benefit of ihe operators at least three per cent. 

 upon ihe whole amount, putting three thousand 

 dollars a year as a new item in the manufactur- 

 er's profits. 



Our own mowers have had repeated occasion 

 lo commend the assured excellence of the North 

 W.-.yne scythes': we hope to live to try them 

 again and more than once. Mr. Dunn's great 

 business is too much for the ownership of one 

 man ; and he does well to divide his stock 

 among those who have a baud in working aud 

 directing the several operations and trades ne- 

 cessary for the full perfection of the scythe. We 

 have an example of the manufacture of stage 

 coaches and other carriages in our own town, 

 eminently successful for the last twenty years, in 

 which perhaps some twenty young men, with an 

 interest directly in ihe profits of the work, have 

 become of easy circumstances — have built and 

 own houses and live with their families even in 

 genteel affluence. How much better the gains 



