Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 505 



ditches'-bottom has been thrown out will be more productive. He 

 considers it an established truth, that on heavy, tenacious soils, deep 

 tillage is always salutary, and quite often on sandy loams, especially 

 when the climate is likely to bring drouth. A corn field in Texas, 

 plowed a foot deep, will give a fair yield, though no rain fall on the 

 growing crop. 



Mr. Swift.— The principle to guide us in New York and vicinity is 

 the quality of manure. With much manure till deep. But much 

 depends on climate and season. 



Mr. D. B. Bruen. — I will give the experience of a neighbor of 

 mine, a market gardener. He takes $1,000 and $1,200 worth from 

 an acre each year, uses 175 and 200 loads of manure per acre, and 

 plows just as deep as he can get the share into the subsoil. By this 

 deep tillage and high manuring he has made himself rich. 



Mr. P. T. Quinn. — I have watched this discussion with peculiar 

 interest, because I have always been a believer in deep tillage. The 

 views I advance are not from reading. Library farmers make fine 

 theories but bad crops. My farming experience in the red clay of 

 New Jersey is of many years' duration, and every year I am more 

 and more thoroughly convinced of the soundness of tlie system that 

 has, for nearly a quarter of a century, been followed on the Mapes 

 farm. That system found me poor, and by it and nothing else, I 

 have been enabled to rise, to save money, and to reach competence. 

 On much of that farm I have a soil of twelve inches ; and for six 

 inches below that the earth is mellow, and, as Mr. Whitney has 

 found, well supplied with organic matter. Here Mr, Quinn read a 

 letter from Prof. Geo. H. Cook of the State Geological Survey. He 

 says in substance, that the Salem soil and subsoil are both remarka- 

 bly light and porous, unlike most of the State, and not requiring to 

 be subsoiled to admit the roots of crops. 



Mr. John C. Thompson, of Staten Island, gave his views on the 

 intimate connection between good plowing and a proper condition of 

 the soil as to moisture, as follows : 



In discussing a question of such vast importance to the human 

 family, one that involves so much extra labor to both man and beast, 

 and one that involves the greater production of food for the human 

 and brute family, as that of deep tillage, it is of the utmost importance 

 that we start right, and keep right on the question before us. And, 

 therefore, the first thing we should inquire into and definitely settle, 

 is, what condition of soil suits our growing crops best ; whether wet. 



