68 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



most strikingly seen in the increased product and 

 profit for labour bestowed; though even our gardens 

 are too often only the shadows of what they might 

 be, and would be if cultivated properly. The farm- 

 er ploughs his garden deeper and finer than the rest 

 of his premises, and manures it better, scarcely 

 seeming to remember that field-crops require the 

 same depth for the free expansion of their roots, 

 and the same richness of soil to promote their rapid 

 growth. Let a farmer examine the extent and depth 

 to w^hich the roots of corn in a loose and favourable 

 soil will spread, and he will cease to wonder at the 

 failure of a crop where the subsoil, at the depth of 

 three or four inches, has never been stirred by the 

 plough, and over the hardpan of which the tender 

 fibres of the roots vainly wander in search of proper 

 nutriment, and as fruitlessly strive to penetrate. 



In loamy or sandy soils, the roots of trees have 

 been found to penetrate to the depth of ten or twelve 

 feet ; and the roots of the Canada thistle have been 

 traced six or seven feet below the surface. Wheat, 

 if planted in a mellow, rich soil, will strike its roots 

 three feet downward, and elongate much farther 

 horizontally. The roots of oats have been discov- 

 ered at the distance of eighteen inches from the 

 stem ; and the long, thread-like roots of grass ex- 

 tend still farther. The roots of the onion are so 

 white that in a black mould they can be readily 

 traced, and in a trenched or spaded soil they have 

 been followed to the depth of two feet. The potato 

 throws out roots to the extent of fifteen or twenty 

 iiifhes ; and the tap-rooted plants, turnips, beets, 

 cnrrots, &c., independent of the pei-pendicular root, 

 spread their fibres to a distance which equals, if it 

 does not exceed, that of the potato. It is perfectly 

 atT^urd to expect to succeed with roots of this class, 

 u'iless the ground is so mellow as to allow them to 

 ptnetrate and grow freely ; we have measured a 

 carrot drawn in our garden, smooth and straight. 



