72 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



A engraving of the plough (see opposite), showing 

 ts construction and mode of operation. That it 

 will answer the end designed we cannot doubt ; and 

 we hope that some enterprising mechanic in this 

 country will manufacture a similar one ; or, judging 

 from the usual results in such cases, an improved 

 article, for the use of American farmers. We know 

 there are large sections of our country where such 

 an implement would be invaluable. We condense 

 from the remarks accompanying the engraving the 

 following account of the benefits ascertained to re- 

 sult from its use. 



1st. That, by breaking up the soil to the depth of 

 eighteen inches (if for the purpose of planting trees, 

 twenty-four inches), the tender roots of plants are 

 enabled to descend to a greater depth, and obtain 

 their necessary food from those parts of the subsoil 

 from which no nutriment was formerly derived ; in 

 addition to which, air and moisture having more 

 easy access to the roots of the plants, farther nour- 

 ishment is thereby afforded. 



2d. The work done by the subsoil plough far ex- 

 ceeds trenching with the spade, as this plough only 

 loosens and breaks the earth all around, without 

 turning the bottom soil to the top, which in some, if 

 not in most cases, would be injurious to vegetation. 

 Plants in their infancy, like animals, require the 

 best and most nutritious food ; and when the delicate 

 roots have acquired a sufficient degree of strength, 

 they will be enabled, from looseness of the subsoil, 

 freely to extend themselves in search of nutriment. 

 In the mean time, the leaves are carrying on the 

 elaboration of the juices and nutritive matters fur- 

 nished by the roots. The distance that roots will 

 penetrate under favourable circumstances is not gen- 

 erally understood. In O.vfordshire, the roots of 

 some wheat sown in a filled-up gravel-pit were 

 traced nine feet into the ground ; and the Society of 

 Arts in London have a stalk of wheat preserved in 

 a glass case with roots six feet long. 



