No. 129.] 375 



said, " if a farmer hires two men, and works with them, and 

 keeps them at their work, he may maintain his family and clear 

 8 per cent, upon the value of his fai-ra. But if he farms more 

 largely, as a gentleman farmer, leaving the management to 

 an overseer, he will not make more, perhaps, than 2 or 

 3 per cent. Farming is much less profitable in the county 

 of Onondaga than it used to be four or five years ago. Our 

 land still grows 50 bushels of Indian corn to the acre, and 

 this is the best crop we now get, but it must be manured j 

 much is now laid down to grass to be recruited." This 

 is the substance of what I have stated before in this Club 

 more than once, that wheat wull not pay as well as Indian corn 

 and grass. It will not pay for highly manuring and tillage equal 

 to some other things This is the true reason why the crop of 

 wheat has fallen off, with us and in some other States; there is 

 not so much planted, or if there is as much, or even more, it is 

 not manured as high or tilled as well as some other things. The 

 farmer cannot afford to put phosphate of lime and other mineral 

 ingredients, which his soil may require, and also a good supply 

 of barn-yard manure and the best of tillage besides. AH these 

 must be and ai-e applied at this time to things that will produce 

 more and pay better than wheat. 



Dr. Underhill. I omitted speaking of another great source of 

 phosphate of lime, and that is one which some few farmers have 

 hit upon. I mean that part of the farm which lies about six 

 inches deep under the farm. There, since the deluge, lies un- 

 disturbed the fertilizer, usually hard. 



Roots of the grains and annuals cannot penetrate it. There it is 

 and has been accumulating for thousands of years, insoluble, ex- 

 cept when roots apply themselves to it. Not one farmer in ten 

 ever plows deeper than five inches. The roots cannot get at the 

 mine below— it is too hard. He cannot afford to buy guano or 

 bone, but he can afford a subsoil plough. Let him go down fif- 

 teen inches into his good farm below, and he may have a new 

 farm good for fifteen years to come. I never thought until this 

 year, that my loose, sandy, gravelly land wanted subsoiliug ! It 

 is so very light and loose that one almost wades in it. But, nev- 

 ertheless, this year I have subsoiled 12 to 14 inches deep, and 



