REPORTS. 41 



extra labor. Every dillar judiciously expended in deepning the 

 soils of this beautiful valley, will prove a better investment than the 

 gold digger's passage money and Jixins. 



Hitherto we have wrought the surface only. We have implements 

 for that jiurpose, and modes of using them, which perhaps approxi- 

 mate perfection as nearly as any thing that can be reasonably expect- 

 ed. But if we undertake to do anything more, we may need other 

 tools to do it with. Should we come to the conclusion that 18 inch- 

 es of loosened soil would afford a better pastime for our corn roots 

 than 6 — enough better to pay the extra expense, and leave an in- 

 creased profit — how should we effect the change ? Not by rimning 

 deeper with our present plows. They are inadequate to the task. 

 Not by constructing them very much larger. No power yet in the 

 field could draw them. Even could we perform the operation, it 

 would bury the vegetable moiild in too cold a region, where its de- 

 composition and conversion to food for new plants would be retarded. 

 If performed in the spring, it would leave the surface entirely too 

 cold for the first summer's crop. Trench plowing, of which so much 

 has been said of late, we suppose is well enough for a rich fancy farm- 

 er, who, for the sake of exhibiting his agricultural skill, can very 

 well aff'ord to put more on a few acres than he will take off. It may 

 be well for gardners in the neighborhood of a large city, where rents 

 are high, manure plenty, and vegetables always in demand. But the 

 practice of it by farmers generally, we apprehend, must be delayed 

 till our country contains at least a hundred millions of people. Sub- 

 soiling, in connection with common plowing, as we understand it, 

 proposes first to invert the top-soil some 5 or six inches, and then to 

 stir the sub-soil some 10 or 12 inches deeper. For many of our fields 

 this must be a capital operation. We see not how their productive- 

 ness could fail to be increased by it. It opens passages for the cir- 

 culation of air and water. It can hardly fail to produce a favorable 

 influence on the temperature of the soil. But it does not come up 

 to our idea of so pulverising the soil, that every portion of it may be 

 perforated by rootlets, and become a fit medium for the transmission 

 of water downwards or upwards, as the case may require. We 

 should keep in mind, that, in a well prepared soil, the tendency of 

 water is upward after evaporation, as well as downward after rain. 



We have all heard it said, that *' it is wise to learn from an enemy." 

 It is wise, also, to learn from an inferior. Presently you will under- 

 stand what is intended by this last remark. The Spanish farmer, in 

 point of skill, intelligence and industry, cannot be superior to the 

 American farmer. He is indeed more conservative — he uses the same 

 plow to-day that his ancestors used 2000 years ago, I cannot better 

 describe it, than by comparing it with a rake. Imagine for yourself 

 an enormous iron rake, with a long handle and four teeth, long enough 

 to scratch the ground some 20 inches deep, and strong enough to en- 



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