364 Transactions of the American Institute. 



of a fine texture, mueli too loose for young crops to start "svell in ; 

 and unless rolled after seeding, it becomes packed by rains or both ; 

 the young crop does not succeed well, as all lands are more or less of 

 this nature, and need a certain degree of tenacity in the soil for 

 the young plants to grow in after pulverization. I have had 

 experience in improving poor lands, and raising them to a high state 

 of cultivation and have made the increased crops at the same 

 time pay up the expenses of their increase, therefor, appa- 

 rently without cost, and by plowing only five inches. I have tried, 

 in making these improvements, many experiments in deep plowing 

 subsoiling in plaster, and fertilizers of various kinds, in plowing 

 under grain crops ; some proving of the highest value, particularly 

 clover, and some less value, as oats and broom corn. I now propose 

 to demonstrate to the unprejudiced mind that deep plowing, subsoil- 

 ing, &c., are of doubtful utility on all lands susceptible of deep culti- 

 vation. In the stiff land spoken of, we plow and pulverize the soil 

 after heavy rain for a year or two years ; after the next heavy rain 

 followed by dry weather, the soil becomes as hard as before, and this 

 course may be followed for one hundred years or any length of time 

 with the same result, provided there is the same amount of vegeta- 

 ble matter in the soil. If the soil which contains nearly all the 

 vegetable matter cannot retain a state of pulverization in a dry time ; 

 or becomes so stiff that no plow with the best team can enter, much 

 less plow it ; can the subsoil of the composition, minus the vegetable 

 matter, retain it ? Vegetable matter being a good loosener of the 

 soil and retainer of moisture, which nobody denies, it is evident that 

 without this the subsoil, after a heavy rain, followed by dry weather, 

 will become as hard as before, the very circumstances which formerly 

 produced that stiffness ; therefore, subsoiling such land for such a 

 purpose would be useless. If the above are the true and inevitable 

 results attendant on subsoiling very stiff land are they reasonably so 

 in relation to other subsoils in proportion to the tenacity of the other 

 subsoils until we reach a state in which the subsoil is sufficiently 

 loose ? This must be true ; but we have no soils or subsoils so stiff 

 but that when saturated with moisture the roots of our crops can 

 penetrate them ; and as they require a certain degree of tenacity in 

 the soil to succeed well, our friend Greeley is in part right when he 

 says plants need anchorage, but not a fine loose soil or subsoil of 

 twelve to eighteen inches from the surface, where but few of the 

 roots ever extend ; not far from tlie genial warmth of tlie sun and 



