230 



GENESEE FARMER 



Sept. 



HORTICULTURAL DEPARTMENT. 



CONDUCTED BY P. BARRY. 



Deep Tillage. 



It may possibly be that some of the readers 

 of this department of the Farmer are so little 

 interested in Agriculture, strictly speaking, that 

 they may not be in the habit of perusing the 

 agricultural pages. R any such there be, we 

 beg of them to turn to the leader of Dr. Lee. 

 in the August number, and read what he says 

 on "deep tillage." That article we consider 

 one of the very best the Doctor ever penned for 

 the Farmer — and that we conceive to be saying 

 a great deul. The mo^st enlightened Agricultu- 

 rists of the present day, both in Europe and 

 America, regard deep tillage as the basis of all 

 good culture. If in farming it be so, and no 

 man denies it, it is not less so in gardening. 



No one should, for a moment, think of plant- 

 ing a garden or an orchard until thoroughly 

 trenched or subsoil plowed. In this country, 

 during the growing season, a powerful sun and 

 frequent drouths, during which we see plants 

 growing on a ihin surface soil with an unmoved 

 hard pan beneath flag, and actually shrivel up 

 as a thirsty pot plant would. Dr. Lee states 

 the reason forcibly : — "As a tight jug will pre- 

 vent water from running in as well as running 

 out ; so a compact, impervious subsoil will pre- 

 vent the ascent of moisture in dry weather, to 

 supply the roots of plants with their indispen- 

 sable water, as well as obstruct the descent of 

 water when in excess on fields." The expe- 

 rience of every cultivator will teach him tliis. 

 How many thousands of young trees are lost 

 in this country by being planted in a small 

 hole on the surface of an impervious hard-pan ! 

 They may start and grow during the showery 

 weatlier of spring, but when three or four weeks 

 of parching hot weather comes along in June, 

 what becomes of them 1 The young and feeble 

 roots can find no food, the leaves turn yellow, 

 and the trees die. And then the query is pro- 

 pounded, " What killed my trees?" Even the 

 present season, notwithstanding the great im- 

 provement that has been made on former prac- 

 tice, we have seen large quantities of trees 

 dying by inches in this way. We have seen 

 orchards planted on land subsoil plowed to the 

 depth of 18 inches, and well manured, where 

 in three years, the trees had attained the size of 

 10 year old trees under the usual treatment. 

 Th« simple satisfaction of seeing trees grow in 

 this way amply pays for the extra labor ; but, 

 not only do trees grow faster, but the fruit is 

 double the size, and fairer and finer every way. 



It frequently happens that, about the time a 

 tree requires a large quantity of moisture to 

 sustain it under a heavy crop of fruit just swell- 



ing out to maturity, a drouth comes — the roots 

 of the tree are confined to a few inches of sur- 

 face soil, and out of that every particle of mois- 

 ture has evaporated — what then becomes of the 

 fruit ? why it either ripens prematurely, falls 

 off, or shrivels up on the tree. Last summer we 

 saw peach trees under such circumstances with 

 the crop lost — actually dried to a crust on the 

 tree. We see trees dropping their fruit while 

 green, from the same reason, and entire crops 

 become stunted and worthless. We have meas- 

 ured apples this season in the deep trenched gar- 

 dens of this city, 16 inches in circumference, 

 that, in an ordinary orchard, would have been 

 probably half that. We have also seen apricots 

 8 inches in circumference, and plums 6 — being 

 double the usual dimensions — all owing to the 

 trees having received a liberal supply of food 

 from the soil. How many, every season, lose 

 their crop of strawberries. A drought comes 

 just as they are ripening, and unless they are 

 deluged with water twice a day, they are dried 

 up, and even the plants burnt off*— -while, if the 

 ground had been trenched two feet deep, at 

 least, they would have required no watering, 

 and would have ripened off' their fruit well. 



The great difficulty in raising pear seedlings 

 in this country, is a leaf blight that attacks them 

 in July, and causes the foliage to drop and 

 the growth to cease completely. Now we appre- 

 hend that deep tillage will be at least a partial 

 remedy. This season our pear seedlings groA' in 

 a plot trenched last autumn more than two feet 

 deep. The surface soil was placed below, and 

 the subsoil above. During the early part of the 

 season, while the young roots were among the 

 subsoil that had been brought to the surface, the 

 growth was moderate ; but about the time when 

 the leaf blight was expected, and had actually 

 seized upon others in an untrenched soil, they 

 took a new start — the leaves assumed a deeper 

 green, and the growth was two to one what it ' 

 had been before. Why 1 — because the roots 

 had just arrived, in their downward progress, at 

 the fine surface soil that had been buried, and 

 that contained moisture and other fertilizing 

 materials ; they revelled in it, and have bade 

 defiance to all kinds of blight, so far. 



As to raising fine flowers, it is next to impos- 

 sible, unless in a deep tilled soil. For proof, 

 witness the innumerable failures in the cultiva- 

 tion of flowers in borders that have been spaded 

 barely 10 inches deep. Unless it be Portulaccas, 

 Mesembry Anthemums, Sedums, Sempervivums, 

 and such succulent things that would flour- 

 ish on a rock, they all dry up in July when 

 three weeks or a month of hot weather comes on. 



Lawns you cannot have without deep iilhige. 

 It is perfect folly to sow grass on ordinary plowed 

 land and hope for a green lawn during sum- 

 mer. The first drouth will scorch it as though 

 fire had passed over it ; but deepen your soil 



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