Proceedings of the Fariiers' Club. 543 



and shallow plowing and drainage, ofters these items withont com- 

 ment or inference, as being of possible aid in arriving at correct con- 

 clusions. 



Mr. AYm. S. Carpenter in reply expressed the opinion that only 

 minor consequence should be attached to the circumstance of plants 

 sending their rootlets down to such depth. My experience, said he, 

 is that the roots which stay near the surface are the ones about which 

 farmers ought chiefly to concern themselves. For there is no question 

 that if these are destroyed the plant will perish. A few years ago a 

 friend set from one to two hundred apple trees in his lawn. The 

 third or fourth summer they began to die, and there was fair prospect 

 that he "would loose them all. I visited him and found that the treea 

 had been planted from eight to twelve inches deeper than they 

 originally stood. At my suggestion they were taken up and reset in 

 proper depth of soil, and they are now as magnificent trees as one 

 would wish to see ; so with other growing things, even the red clover 

 must not be overburdened with weight of earth and we may conclude 

 that the roots which go deep are of little use to the plant, and are 

 not to be specially regarded by the husbandman. 



Mr, S. Edwards Todd. — Some trees, some shrubs, some bushes, 

 some vegetables, and some kinds of leguminous plants, always have 

 a strong and large tap-root. A tap-root seems to be just as natural 

 to those plants and trees as coronal roots are to the stalks of Indian 

 cxDrn. Indeed, let the tap-root be severed from the main stem and 

 the tree or plant will usually cease to thrive satisfactorily, and, in 

 many instances, decay and death will soon follow. Pine trees, and 

 especially the Pinus alba., usually have a large and long tap-root, I 

 have seen stumps of small pine trees taken out, each having a tap- 

 root from eight to twelve feet in length. I'he chestnut {Castanea)^ 

 the bkck walnut {Juglaus nigra), the shell-bark hickory {Carya alba 

 and the Carya sulcata)., and many other trees are so dependent on a 

 tap-root that it is exceedingly difiicult to remove them, and have 

 them live and grow satisfactorily, without digging deep and taking 

 up a large proportion of the tap-root without injury, and then trans- 

 planting as the roots first grew, as nearly as practicable. Most fanners 

 in all sections of the country understand how exceedingly difficult it is 

 to remove certain nut-bearing trees, and have them live. The tap-root 

 was so mutilated, or removed entirely that th© trees never could survive 

 the injury received when they were taken up. Most nut producing 

 trees, and many of the cone bearing trees, like the pinus strobus and 



