ROOTS AND VEGETABLES. 99 



poroiui. Although pulverizing the soil is not applying manure, 

 yet it serves materially to aid the young rootlets in making 

 their researches for food, and hastens the crop. 



One object, then, in ploughing, is to break the stubble, and 

 reduce the soils to that degree of hueuess that the rains, dews 

 and air may penetrate them, and deposit their fertilizing 

 influences. 



Another object in ploughing, is to mix and deepen the soils. 

 It often happens that the surface-soil is sandy and the subsoil 

 clay, or the surface-soil composed mainly of vegetable loam, 

 and the subsoil wanting. Now it is important that these soils 

 be mixed and made deeper and changed to a proper fineness, 

 before they are fit to give sustenance to the young plant, and 

 give more extensive range to the young rootlets. The depth 

 to which land should be ploughed should be varied according 

 to circumstances. We would not, however, favor the princi- 

 ple of turning up a large amount of subsoil at once, but at each 

 successive ploughing, gauge the plough so that it may remove 

 and bring to the surfece about one inch more in depth than at 

 the previous ploughing ; this will add an amount of subsoil 

 to the surface, equal to one hundred loads of thirty bushels 

 each, to be converted into surface-soil, and this operation 

 should be repeated till the required depth is obtained. 



It was said, with much emphasis, nearly half a century ago, 

 by a scientific and practical farmer, "Ploughing is too deep when 

 it buries all the richer parts, and brings to the top only a cold, 

 and gravelly substance, unless you have manure in such abun- 

 dance, that you can create a new vegetable surface." This 

 principle is as true to-day as then. It may also be said with 

 equal emphasis, that ploughing is too frequent when the excess 

 of crops does not fully compensate for the extra cost of plough- 

 ing. 



Every observing farmer must have noticed that when imper- 

 fect ploughing has been done around trees and stumps, and 

 about fences, that the crops are poor and feeble. This is not 

 caused by the poverty or sterility of the soil, because, as the 

 plough rises out of the ground to the surface, it brings with it, 

 and deposits, the richer parts of the soil. The feebleness of 

 the crop is caused by the indiflerent ploughing, and conse- 

 quently from poor tillage that the plant has received afterwards. 



