492 Tj?AKSACTioys of the Amehtcan Institute. 



The best crop of a neigliborliood becomes the common talk, and 

 tlie reason why is tliorou^-hly investigated. These accidental suc- 

 cesses have led to the general adoption of comparatively shallow 

 tillage by tlie intelligent, painstaking and successful farmers of that 

 county. 



Deep tillage is both laborious and expensive, and if never useful 

 and often injurious, let us iind it out. When the coining steam plow 

 is actually here, those who choose may run the thing into the ground 

 as deep as they choose ; but, in the meantime, let us be merciful to 

 the animals that do the plowing, unless we kno\v that deep plowing 

 pays. 



Much stress is laid on the circumstance that the roots of various 

 plants are often found at great depths in the ground. This is 

 not denied. In the very careful examination of the roots and root- 

 lets of corn in the field in Salem county, where the ground had only 

 been plowed three inches deep, ninety-nine hundredths of them 

 were found within that distaace of the surface. The hills of that 

 corn were four and one-half feet apart, each way, and" from two to 

 three stalks in a hill. Tlie corn was then just shooting in tassel. 

 This whole surface of three inches, and especially the lower or sod 

 portion of it, was a mass of corn roots. They were reveling in tlie 

 food contained in that soil, especially the crumbling sods. In dig- 

 ging down deeper and examining carefully, we found other roots, 

 here and there one, but beariiig no more proportion to those near the 

 surface than the tap-roots of nursery trees do to the laterals that gooff 

 in every direction and multiply almost ad injinitum. 



Since the examination, I have repeatedly noticed the same thing 

 in my own garden. Iloe your corn two or three inches deep at the 

 time the ears are forming, and you will cut off these delicate roots 

 b}' thousands in each square foot. It is then in ftict a mass of fibers. 

 You hardly know which predominates, the rootlets or the earth itself. 

 Xow, why these few stragglers leave the main body and ramble down 

 to such depths, I do not know. Mr. Greeley says, " they seek food 

 and find it ; " though further on he speaks of the " cold, lifeless " 

 subsoil. Tiiose roots go down for a purpose, lyidoubtedly ; but that 

 they get food is not proved. Such roots can be found in a subsoil in 

 which, if the surface soil M'ere taken ofl", nothing would grow. 



Mr, Andrew S. Fuller tells us tliat when nursery trees are taken 

 up to be transplanted, the tap-roots should be cut off. AVhy tliis 

 discrimination between young trees and other plants ? If trees are 



