REPORTS. 39 



steam will be seen striding such of our fields as are entirely free from 

 stones : rolling its shark toothed cylinders through the soil ; grind- 

 ing to powder all coarse lumps ; combing, currying, tearing to shreds 

 all stalks and roots; and so pulverizing and mixing the whole, as 

 greatly to increase the fertility. 



But it would be folly to relax our efforts at improvement on exist- 

 ing means for, in the first place, such a steam process may never 

 come ; in the second place, if it come, it can be applicable to only a 

 small portion of our lands ; and in the third place, it affords no re- 

 lief for intervening time. We cannot live this j^ear on the expecfa- 

 tion of bread to be raised by steam next year. True wisdom, in this 

 case, is, to seek for the most perfect preparation of soils, by means 

 now within our reach. As yet, " much increase is by the strength of 

 the ox," not of steam ; and we do well to inquire whether the strength 

 of this noble animal may not be better employed than at present, 

 with all our improved plows, in preparing the soil for luxuriant crops. 

 May there not be some mode of tearing up, pulverizing and mixing 

 soils to a great depth, which, though perhaps more expensive, would 

 nevertheless, pay better, than the present cheap mode of merely in- 

 verting the top soil ? 



The roots of most cultivated crops will run 20 inthes deep, if you 

 give them that depth of loosened soil. They run down, off, or up- 

 ward, wherever they find the best food, and the best conditions for 

 promoting the growth and perfection of the plant. They are endow- 

 ed with an instinct about as unerring as that of cattle in the selection 

 of their pasturage. We know not, and we probably never shall know, 

 precisely, how plants grow. But we know that the leaves se- 

 lect the right nutriment from the air and reject the wrong, and that 

 the roots are equally discriminating in their choice from the ground. 

 He who has taught the fowls of Heaven to observe their appointed 

 times, has taught the roots of plants to seek unerringly, the right food 

 and the best conditions — to run shoal, to secure the kindliest influences 

 of the sun to run downward for moisture, to run for food wherever 

 food is found. Only give them room and they will choose their di- 

 rection wisely. If you bury an old shoe by the side of a grape vine, 

 ten thousand rootlets will shoot towards it ; while if you put in the 

 same place a quantity of bog iron, they will all turn their faces from 

 it. The roots of plants should not be confined, as by our common 

 method of plowing, to 5 or 6 inches of soil. They should have at 

 least three times as much space, out of which to choose the proper 

 conditions of moisture and dryness, of heat and cold, and to select 

 food appropriate to the plant to which they belong. By loosening the 

 soil to a great depth we secure the conditions Avhich the plant de- 

 mands. We create a porosity by which excessive rains pass off with- 

 out injury ; and we secure a capillary action by which water deep in 

 the earth is drawn upward, when the surface would otherwise be too 



