2S4 FRANKLIN SOCIETY. 



be disintegrated, slacked or decomposed, and the valuable 

 mineral manures they contain rendered available and made a 

 part of the soil. In this ^\'ay, as all the agriculturists in the 

 mountain districts are aware, well worn and apparently ex- 

 hausted soils, if allowed to remain fallow a short time, become 

 as strong and good as new. And we believe we may say 

 that every thorough scientific farmer, the country over, will agree 

 with us, that deep ploughing, in all soils, cannot be too highly 

 recommended, or too strongly urged, if we would increase by 

 a lar2:e per centage the amount of our crops. 



A few brief considerations will show the reason for this 

 opinion. 



In the first place, deep ploughing allows the air to percolate 

 through the soil, and thus play its part in the nourishment of 

 the roots of plants, in the decomposition of the various earths, 

 and the deposition of moisture. 



Secondly, deep ploughing carries the manures down further 

 into the earth, exposes more soil to the action of the atmos- 

 phere and sun-light, and allows the roots to penetrate more 

 deeply and have more room in which to grow. 



Thirdly, a deep furrow covers up the manures that have 

 been spread over the surface, and thus retains the nutritious 

 and volatile elements, that otherwise would escape into the 

 air, and be lost. 



Fourthly, by deep and thorough tillage, all lands, of what- 

 ever description of soil, are enabled to endure and to defy the 

 periodical droughts, that form a peculiar feature of our New 

 England climate. There has been a theory in times past, and 

 a very plausible and specious theory it was, that in light soils, 

 on a gravelly or sandy subsoil, the goodness of the manures 

 would be lost by deep ploughing, or rendered unavailable, as 

 they must necessarily leach or filter away through the gravelly 

 or sandy substratum. Any one, however, who has passed im- 

 pure, turbid, or even oflensive water through a common filter, 

 will find that even a few inches of earth suffice to remove the 

 color and the odor from the water, and render it pure and 

 limpid; and that, as the juices of the manure pass from the 

 surface down into the ground, the earth speedily absorbs aU 

 the useful and nutritious salts, and that there is infinitely more 

 danger of the goodness of the manure being evaporated from 



