410 . Transactions of the American Institute. 



tion of deep and shallow tillageing liinges on the character of the 

 !>ubsoil. I liave brought from the very Held to which he refers, the 

 forty acre cornfield plowed three inclies deep, this pot of subsoil, dug 

 at a depth of twelve or fourteen inches. To compare with it I have 

 brought a pot of subsoil from the Mapes farm, that has been sub- 

 soiled for years, with what good efiects Mr, Quinn can best tell. 

 Now I desire the club to examine these contrasted earths ; the whole 

 question is one of subsoil. The earth from Salem coitnty is, as you 

 see, a light, porus clay loam of fine texture, and apparently rich in 

 some of the elements of plant food. This character of subsoil 

 extends over an area about thirty miles long by ten wide. Now, the 

 tillage suitable for such a surface is one thing, that on the Mapes 

 farm is another thing. When we talk about the advantage or use- 

 lessness of getting down deeper, let us know what kind of earth we 

 get into as we go^down, 



Mr. George Geddes, Syracuse, N. Y. — Mr. Chairman : I came 

 here simply as a listener, and I have been very much gratified by 

 what I liaVe heard. If the report or statement of the chairman of 

 this committee had gone out Avithout qualification, I should have 

 regretted its publication, but with these soils set before us by Mr. 

 Lyman we have a demonstration of the importance of regarding the 

 mechanical and the chemical make up of subsoils when we discuss 

 deep plowing. I have been for almost three score years a tiller of the 

 soil. I plow the lands my father cleared, and the more I observe 

 crops the more I see that the roots of plants will, if they can, 

 reach a great depth in the soil. Corn and wheat, even, will 

 send rootlets two and three feet down when the character of 

 the subsoil favors such invasion. I had the meanest looking, 

 most unpromising soil to begin -with that a man ever tried to 

 shove a spade into. It was a naked, barren shale, the growth scrub 

 white oak. My father was blamed for making a selection apparently 

 so bad. But I can report crops that will compare very well with the 

 showing of Dr. Trimble. We cannot up there raise that kind of corn 

 (the Ohio Dent) ; but we can raise corn that will give sixty shelled 

 bushels to the acre. How have I produced this fertility? Three 

 things have done it ; clover, deep plowing, and the foot of the sheep. 

 There is on old Spanish saying that there is gold under the foot 

 of a sheep, and I have found it true. Those lands have not been 

 manured with barn-yard comj)osts. In my opinion, Mr. Chairman, 

 we have plants, some, perhaps, that we regard as our worst pests, that 



