Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 367 



locally, in any one county. I have seen land plowed only two inches 

 deep that would beat Pettit's, If any one don't know better than to 

 bury his soil where the roots of the grain cannot reach it, let him do 

 it. But if I were going to plant trees, then I would put the soil 

 down where the roots could get at it, I believe that for grain deep 

 culture is the true principle. I know it ; I have practiced farming 

 and deep culture, and we gardeners do it about as thoroughly as any- 

 body, and I never knew a farmer who went contrary to this principle 

 succeed. I think common sense should teach a man. 



Professor Whitney thought that there were two mistakes in the 

 letter. The first was,, that Salem county was a fair example of the 

 land throughout the globe ; and the second was, that the writer says 

 that if we till deeply we must bring up the subsoil. In New Jersey 

 I had occasion to examine the soil, and it is a soil which permits the 

 roots to pass down to the subsoil, and it contains a very appreciable 

 amount of organic matter which is derived from that source. We 

 need not bring it to the surface ; but if we pulverize it, it disinte- 

 grates the manurial constituents and allows the water to filter away, 

 and catches the manurial matter, and it is a rule that all plants grow 

 not in any particular direction, but go where the nutriment is found. 

 Some sixty or seventy years ago, when the English dug up Major 

 Andre, they found a peach tree that had its roots in the skull. The 

 sole object of tillage is to get at the mineral properties of the soil, so 

 that the roots can obtain their nutriment. There are lands where 

 we can plow deep and invert. I know land upon which I myself 

 worked which was plowed to the depth of ten or twelve inches, and, 

 though the yield had been small before, yet we had a heavy crop of 

 oats. In other lands again, the subsoil is too cold to bring to the 

 surface, and then, of course, it is better to stir it merely, and let it 

 stay below the surface soil. As to what Dr. Trimble says about Mr. 

 Pettit regularly doubling Mr. Geddes on corn, I don't believe it. He 

 says Mr. Pettit can raise 100 bushels as often as George Geddes does 

 fifty to the acre. I will believe it when it is proved. We hear a 

 great deal about big crops of corn, but I know a farmer, admitted to 

 be the best in a county near Salem, and where the land is similar in 

 all respects, and he says it is good cropping when, taking one year 

 with another, any twenty acres give 2,000 bushels of ears. Again in 

 wheat, which is a test crop, I would like to know of Mr. Pettit if 

 his crop averages the rise of twenty-six bushels to the acre year by 

 year, or if any ten farmers in Mannington township will say that 



