Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 493 



injured by tlie ^vav^vard rambles of iaj^-roois, why " let down the 

 bars " for the roots of other plants ? 



Much is said of looseniiifj or melloioinrf the ground, and some say 

 the deeper the better. Hence subsoil and trenching. Are these 

 necessar}'^ ? 



I was told by farmers in Salem county that their crops, and espe- 

 cially corn, did best when planted on ground plowed in the fall or 

 winter, and onl}' harrowed in the spring. The seeds germinate as 

 well and grow to tliree or four blades in thoroughly loose ground as 

 in that more compact, but after this they seem to stop, and time is 

 lost, unless a seasonable rain comes to pack the earth just where the 

 young roots want to go. In loose ground there are spaces of air as 

 in stone heaps, the rootlets with tlie hungiy spongioles at the end of 

 tliem have a perpetual hop, skip and jump, from one clod through 

 space to another clod. The native element of roots is earth ; they 

 wp.nt it everywhere, just as we want air, as fish Avant water. Much 

 is said about " aerating " the soil. Has it been proved necessary ? 

 Theoretically, I would suppose earthing the air for tlie tops of plants 

 would be Jia necessary as airing the earth for the roots. 



Even if loosening the soil and the subsoil are useful, have we any 

 proof that the eifect of deep plowing and subsoiling are at all penna- 

 nent. Every fence maker know* that the earth taken from a post 

 hole will not refill it if well packed. Hidebound meadows in stifi' 

 clay that are so often plowed to loosen them, if well top dressed with 

 barn-yard manure, in September, would in a month return thanks 

 for such a manifestation of good sense, and the next summer, instead 

 of half a ton, would give you two tons of hay to the acre. 



I often watch the habits of insects that pass part of their lives in 

 the ground. The female of the seventeen-year locust deposits her 

 eggs in the twigs of trees ; but the young locusts, almost as soon as 

 hatclied, throw themselves to the ground and at once pass into the 

 earth.. I have' often been amazed that anything so young and so 

 .feeble could penetrate the earth so rapidly ; but they seem to have no 

 digging to do. Everywhere there seem cracks and fissures, just wide 

 enough for their free passage. It seems as easy for them to pass 

 through earth as a fish through water. Why is it not just so with 

 the rootlets of plants ? 



In the paper read here some weeks ago by Horace Greeley on deep 

 plowing, he says in his eighth proposition : " In a wet season, deep 

 plowing does at the worst no harm. In a dry season it doubles the 



