Proceedixgs of the Farmers'* Club. 405 



'plowing as deep as six inches, some five, most four, bnt a few 

 -only three or even two and a half inches. The hay crop generally 

 reported at two and a half tons to the acre, while the wheat was often 

 so rank in straw as to lodge. In such cases the grain is more or less 

 imperfect, and the general report was about an average crop of wheat, 

 or rather less than such a large crop of straw would indicate. The 

 w^eather in the spring and early summer had been wet and cold, as 

 with us ; but for six weeks previous to our visit there had been 

 almost no rain in that immediate neighborhood. 



This is difficult to understand when we remember how all other 

 sections w^ere fiooded throughout the past season. The drouth con- 

 tinued six weeks after our visit, there not being two inches of rain 

 during twelve weeks, upon the farms we visited. We traveled orer 

 a district of country in Mannington, Avell cultivated., for a distance of 

 seven miles, to a field of corn of about thirty acres, planted on a sod, 

 on a farm of Dr. Dickinson, worked by his tenant, Mr. Dubois, said 

 to have been, and we believe was, upon examination, plowed in the 

 spring only three inches deep. The corn w^as of a good size for the 

 season (30th of July), mostly from eight to ten feet high, the tassels 

 beginning to show generally over the field ; will be, when full grown, 

 from ten to twelve feet ; some was in silk. The drouth and heat at 

 this time was extreme, but the corn blades were not curled or rolling, 

 but remained green down to the roots, and had not suffered any appa- 

 rently from the dry weather, while a clover field adjoining, of the 

 second crop, was suffering severely. We examined the soil and found 

 unmistakable proof that a very large portion of the roots, certainly 

 nine-tenths of them, were imbedded in the sod within three inches of 

 the surface, while but a small part were found below ; some were 

 found as low as twelve inches, thus showing conclusively that in a 

 dry time a large portion of the roots, forming a complete network, 

 were imbedded in the sod near the surface, to seize upon the fertili- 

 -zers in the soil, and in the small rains and dews, from the 

 atmosphere, and the moisture brought up from below by the 

 heated surface of the ground for the support of the plants, and thereby 

 prevented evaporation. We observed the sod had been turned up in 

 plowing the corn. This was thought to be not good policy by the 

 farmers accompanying us, as it exposed the sod more to the sun and 

 (increased evaporation. Experience teaches them the ground should 

 be plowed deep enough in the spring to give a mellow surface above 

 the sod to work in while tending the cro]:). A depth of four or five 



