Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 269 



shallow and clieap system of plowing. The advocates of deep plow- 

 ing say, it will prevent our crops from suffering with the drouth by 

 enabling the roots of plants to penetrate deeper to find food and 

 moisture. Is this true ? Do the roots of our grain crops penetrate 

 to the depth of nine inches, a foot, or eighteen inches, or more 'i 

 What evidence of it is there ? "Who has shown that the roots of our 

 grain crops do so penetrate where the soil has been deepened ? Go 

 into a cornfield when well grown, after a drouth and after a heavy 

 rain, when the wash has carried the soil away in places to the depth 

 of two, three or four inches, and you will find a complete network of 

 fine corn-roots laid bare by the wash ; not at the extreme depth of 

 the shallow plowing, but at the very surface ; and after a day or two 

 of wet, damp weather it is not uncommon to see the ends of new 

 roots entirely above the surface of the ground where there has been 

 no wash ; thus showing, that even in dry times as well as other 

 times, the roots seek food and moisture near and at the surface. 

 Every practical farmer ought to know that in dry times moisture 

 rises fi'om one, two, three, and even four feet deep (according to the 

 hardness of our soil and subsoil) to the surface, before it can pass off 

 by evaporation ; all of which moisture must necessarily pass by, or 

 in contact with these fibrous roots as it is drawn up by the heat of 

 the sun. The poorer the soil is the harder it becomes, and the deeper 

 the drouth will penetrate. There are certain amounts of vegetable 

 matter and other fertilizers in aH soils. The thinner the soil is, pro- 

 vided it contains all the elements of a deep soil, the richer it must 

 be. Take any of our land and mix the soil of six inches deep with 

 a poor subsoil of six inches, and you decrease the fertility of that 

 soil nearly one-half, and so on in the same ratio in proportion to the 

 depth ; and you not only make the soil poorer, but you decrease its 

 capacity to stand dry weather, because you increase its liability to 

 bake or become hard, and so increase evaporation. On the other 

 hand, the richer the soil is in vegetable matter, or the more vegeta- 

 ble matter it contains in proportion to its depth, the more mellow it 

 is, and, consequently, the more evaporation is retarded and the better it 

 will stand dry weather, all other things or circumstances being equal. 

 Mr. Wm. S. Carpenter. — More depends on the care of the crop 

 after it is planted, whatever the depth of plowing may be. If the 

 manure is put on the surface, and the ground constantly stirred, 

 there will be good crops. For my part I am opposed to the extreme 

 as advocated by some. 



