i. ON DEEP PLOUGHING AND MANURING. 



For myself, I enicrlainno doubt of the utilit}' of deep plough- 

 ing; not at once, in our lands in general, but by an increase of 

 two or three inches at every annual ploughing, until the earth 

 be stirred and pulverised to the depth cf ten or twelve inches. 

 Indian corn, planted in such a mags of loosened earth, would 

 not, I am persuaded, ever suffer by ordinary droughts. Like a 

 spunge, it would absorb a vast quantity of rain-water, and be? 

 come a reservoir to supply the wants of that and of all other 

 plants. Nothing is more common, in a dry summer, than the 

 rolling of the leaves of corn ; and that circumstance is often 

 mentioned as an evidence of the severity of the drought. This 

 rolling of the leaves of Indian corn, is the consequence, in part, 

 cf scant manuring, but still more of shallow ploughing. Few, 

 perhaps, are aware of the depth to which the roots of plants 

 will penetrate in a deeply loosened earth. A gentleman,* much 

 inclined to agricultural inquiries and observations, informed me, 

 near fifty years ago, that seeing some men digging a well, in a 

 hollow place, planted with Indian corn, then at its full growth, 

 he stopped to examine how far its roots had descended ; and he 

 traced them to the depth of nine feet. The soil was an accu- 

 mulation of rich earth which had run or been thrown into the 

 hollow. 



The seed of the common turnip, sown in warm weather, and 

 on a soil sufficiently moist, I have known to vegetate in about 

 eight-and-fcrty hours ; and in only four or the days afterwards. 

 I found the plants had sent down roots to the depth of four or 

 five inches. 



I have often noticed forest trees blown down by violent winds, 

 whose roots, of the same species, were very differently formed. 

 Such as had grown in grounds having a hard, impenetrable pan 

 of clayey gravel, at the depth of twelve or eighteen inches from 

 the surface, exhibited a fiat mass of roots; while others, torn up 

 from a deep loam, or loamy gravel, showed downward roots of 

 several feet in length, 



'^ Peter Oliver, Esq. then a Judge of the Superior Court of Massachusetts. 



