540 Transactions of the American Institute. 



marked difference in favor of' deep plowing. I cut at least fifty tons 

 more of hay, and all the cultivated crops are more than double what 

 they were then, and yet I have not as many acres as he had, nor any- 

 thing like the capital to work the land. The advance in the crops is 

 ilue mainly to deep plowing, 



Mr. E. Goodrich, Cedarville, Mich. — The God of nature has so 

 dispensed the elements of fertility in the soil, that in some localities 

 they are almost exclusively embracec^ within a few inches of the 

 earth's surface, and in others they are to be found deep down in 

 earth. Consequently the question of deep or shallow tillage must be 

 met and decided according to the particular organization of the 

 individual field or tract of land under consideration. It is not 

 uncommon that we find a few inches of fertile surface soil, rich in 

 the elements of vegetable decomposition, but immediately underlaid 

 with quicksands or other substances extremely barren of fertility. 

 In such a case the farmer may procure a few crops by plowing 

 from four to six inches deep, but let him plow a foot in depth, and 

 throw down the fertility of the soil to the bottom of a cold furrow 

 at the same time burying up the inhospitable subsoil as a seed bed, 

 and he will find his crop materially diminished. Perhaps his next 

 neighbor, on a difterent soil, b}^ pursuing the same course may find 

 his crop doubled. Now, if these men are not distinguished for their 

 powers of observation and reflection, each one will " be fully per- 

 suaded in his own mind ;" and while the one succeeds well by deep 

 plowing and the other by shallow, each will marvel at his neighbor's 

 stupidity, and think that every farmer in order to succeed should do 

 just as he has done. It is so the world over, and perhaps it always 

 will be so, in spite of all that has been or may be said or written on 

 the subject. The fact is that no calling on earth requires more tho- 

 rough experience, close observation and sound judgment, than that 

 of the farmer. The practice of the farmer must be varied to suit 

 the varieties of soil and all the thousand attending and surrounding 

 circumstances. A farmer may have ten fields and no two of them 

 admit of precisely the same treatment. 



Your correspondent, Mr. Snow, of Hanover, Mich., very justly 

 ridicules, the popular idea that plants send their roots deep down into 

 the bowels of the earth in search of nutritious matter not to be found 

 near the surface. Let us devote a moment's consideration to this 

 subject, and, first, let us inquire lohat causes a lylant to groxo f A 

 plant is in one sense like an animal ; both grow upon the strength of 



