190 



GENESEE FARMER. 



Aug. 



country, in every state of the Union. Gov. 

 Hammond has done more than almost any other 

 man South in the way of draining low lands. 

 His magnificent crops demonstrate tlie sound- 

 ness and good economy of this practice. Ditches 

 should be at least three feet deep. At the South, 

 the uniform custom is to make open drains even 

 in cities. The ground is so level and full of 

 fine sand, that the drains fill up and become 

 worthless, if covered as is practiced at the North, 

 and in England and Scotland. 



After thorough draining, deep tillage and al- 

 ways having a growing crop on the land are 

 matters of inestimable importance. This subject 

 can hardly be too much talked of, and studied 

 by practical farmers. Deep tillage, what is it 1 

 How does it enrich the surface soil, and aug- 

 ment the annual crops of the husbandman ? It 

 enables the atmosphere with its natural moisture, 

 its oxygen, carbonic acid and ammonia — with 

 all the gaseous elements of plants and animals 

 which die and decompose on the ground — to 

 penetrate deep into the earth, loosened and mel- 

 lowed as it should be by subsoil plowing. 



Porous loam, clay, mould, marls, and even 

 sand and gravelly earths, have the power to con- 

 dense both the vapors and pure gasses contained 

 in the air — to absorb and fix them in the soil 

 where they perform most important chemical 

 functions in the laboratory of nature. In the 

 first place we desire the reader to bear in mind 

 that the gasses which pervade the atmosphere 

 are the elements of wheat, corn, clover and 



flesh, for which God has given to the earth 

 strong natural affinity. Hence, if a dead pig 

 be buried in a soil a foot deep, you get no smell 

 from the same, which is not the case if the car- 

 cass lie and rot on the ground. A shallow soil 

 with the hard-pan close to the surface will absorb 

 a small dose of these fertilizing constituents of 

 dead plants and animals. No matter how richly 

 laden a shower may be with the elements of a 

 crop, a poorly plowed, a shallow tilled piece of 

 ground can absorb and hold very little of the 

 much needed moisture, and other food of 

 starving grain. 



During the heat of summer, when the farmer 

 makes his crops, an immense amount of insensi- 

 ble moisture evaporates from the surface of the 

 earth, and especially from the leaves of trees 

 and smaller vegetables. A tight vessel that 

 will catch and hold all the rain that falls during 

 the six warmest months in the year, standing out 

 fairly to the weather, will be dry more than half 

 of the time, in ordinary seasons. Evaporation 

 greatly exceeds the fall of rain, during the time 

 when cultivated plants are grown. This excess 

 of evaporation causes springs to dry up, creeks 

 and rivers to run small in summer and autumn. 

 As a tight jug will prevent water from running 

 in, as v,ell as running out, so a compact, imper- 

 vious subsoil will prevent the ascent of moisture 



in dry weather to supply the roots of plants with 

 their indispensable water, as well as obstruct the 

 descent of water when in excess on fields. 



Nothing is plainer than the fact that, when the 

 rains of spring and fall, and the snows of winter^ 

 saturate the earth with moisture for many feet 

 in depth, the water that descends into the ground 

 carries in solution all the soluble organic and in- 

 organic elements of plants, down so far as it 

 runs. Dissolve an ounce of salt in a gallon of 

 water, and wherever the water permeates, the 

 salt goes with it. You must evaporate the water 

 to separate the salt. 



Providence has made the subsoil and the earth 

 below it a vast reservoir of water more or less 

 impregnated with those things that combine in 

 cultivated plants — in human food — to form ulti- 

 mately, the bones, brains, flesh and blood of 

 man and of all inferior animals. Kind reader, 

 would you organise these constituents of grain 

 and grass largely and cheaply in your growing 

 crops ? Then break the undercrust. that the 

 moisture below with its salts of lime, its dissolved 

 bones, potash, soda, magnesia, chlorine, sulphur,, 

 phosphorus, iron, carbon and nitrogen, may 

 come up to the thirsty roots of your plants, and 

 fully nourish the same. A deep tilled soil im- 

 bibes more solar heat in summer than a shallow 

 plowed one. Being warmer, chemical changes 

 are ttiore rapid — more food is prepared for your 

 crops in a given time. The mean temperature 

 of the earth in Georgia is from 12 to 18 degrees 

 higher than in New York ; and corn is now from 

 12 to 18* feet high on the Savannah bottoms. 



After corn is planted, or the seeds of wheat, 

 Barley, rye and oats are covered, there is an 

 advantage in rolling the ground to compress the 

 earth about the seeds : and to check the too rapid 

 evaporation at the surface of the tilled land. 

 We have studied this matter of solar evaporation 

 with care, in more States than one. 



To enrich a farm, by accumulating thereon 

 the raw materials for making cheap bread, milk, 

 meat and clothing, every acre, forest, meadow, 

 pasture and plow-land, should have, during as 

 much of the time as is practicable, a large bur- 

 den oi growing vegetation to organise and fix in 

 a tangible shape all the constituents of crops as 

 they exist in the ever moving air, and in the 

 surface and subsoil. If not fixed, they will be 

 lost to the farmer. Air and water are never 

 stagnant and still over, and in the earth, of a 

 healthy neighborhood. So soon as one crop is 

 off, another should be in, to collect and save the 

 dissolving mould, the sail of lime, potash, &c , 

 in the soil — to extract fertilizing minerals from 

 the subsoil, and gasses from the atmosphere. If 

 these auxiliary crops are not needed for hay, 



\ 



* We suspect, there is some mistake in these figures — 

 but we " follow copy," and leave our associate to confirm 

 w correct tho statement. — Hohb Ed. 



