SECRETARY'S REPORT. 63 



know this, we cannot tell whether forty loads to the acre will 

 produce sixty bushels of corn, or more or less ; or whether 

 twenty loads will not produce fifty or sixty bushels to the acre. 

 I have put on twenty-five loads to the acre, and have got over 

 seventy bushels ; and I have applied more than that sometimes, 

 and have not got near so much as that — say forty bushels to 

 the acre. Now, there is a difference in seasons about that, and 

 there may be a difference in manures that we don't know about, 

 as well as a difference in the soil. I think all these fundamental 

 facts should be studied, that we may have more basis to go upon. 



Prof. Agassiz. — The observations which have just been made 

 show that we are in ignorance of one fact which is of the utmost 

 importance — the depth to which rootlets grow and from which 

 they receive nourishment. I was quite astonished to hear the 

 gentleman's statement that they go down only two or three 

 inches. I believe they go down several feet. Now, how is that 

 fact to be ascertained ? It is not an easy matter. It cannot be 

 ascertained by tearing the corn from the ground. The only 

 way is to wash the earth away with water, using no violence 

 whatever. If that be done, I think it will be found that the 

 network of rootlets, which is attached to every plant of corn, has 

 a most extensive system of ramifications ; and to what extent 

 that goes, and what the plant can receive from these different 

 rootlets, are essential elements in the consideration of this 

 question. 



Remarks have been made concerning manuring at the sur- 

 face as being nature's mode of manuring. No doubt it is ; but 

 let us see to what depth this manure is carried in the course of 

 years. Nature is every year manuring the land, by the fall of 

 the leaf and the decay of the plants growing at the surface ; but 

 that manure, once at thq surface, is all the time sinking down. 

 Every new layer brings the preceding lower and lower down 

 and we ought to know positively to what depth all that is car- 

 ried. I have looked for that information wherever I could, and 

 I don't think we have any information of that kind. It would 

 be well if we began to collect it systematically, and every 

 contribution in that direction, will, no doubt, be a benefit to 

 agriculture. 



The subject was then laid upon the table, and the next topic 

 for consideration was a lecture on 



