28 Roots are the Best Cultivating Agents. 



or even greater, advantage of doing so in the case of 

 land to be left in grass for five or more years, and which 

 is to be again broken up for the winter support of the 

 stock on the farm. 



I have been told by a very intelligent gardener, who 

 is practically acquainted with the great importance of 

 soil disintegration through the agency of roots, that if 

 he trenches land a foot deep, and takes from it a crop of 

 parsnips, he finds, on taking up the crop, that the land 

 immediately below the part dug is in finer physical 

 condition than the cultivated land above. And this, of 

 course, arises from the fact of the parsnip roots pene- 

 trating, and minutely sub-dividing, the soil, which, from 

 its depth, has the advantage of being largely removed 

 from the action of the weather. And, to give another 

 illustration, we find the same thing in India when the 

 forest is allowed to gradually extend itself into the 

 adjacent grass land, and when the roots of the trees 

 gradually permeate the land below the reach of the roots 

 of the grass plants, and so turn the whole soil to a 

 considerable depth into a beautifully cultivated subject. 

 Or, to take yet another illustration, it may be mentioned 

 that agriculturists in France, to improve certain arable 

 lands, sow on them a mixture of gorse and grass (to be 

 cut for hay) with a view of improving the depth and 

 texture of the soil, which, after the lapse of a certain 

 number of years, is again brought under the plough. 

 Of all cultivating agencies,, then, roots stand by far at 

 the head, and it is by applying this principle to our 

 arable lands that we shall at once manure, aerate, and 

 cultivate them in the cheapest manner. All agricul- 

 turists recognise this in a general way ; but, as regards 

 the cultivation of our lands with the agency of deep- 

 rooting forage plants, it can hardly be said to have been, 

 practically speaking, recognised at all in this country. 

 And I may go as far as to say that, till it is so, our 

 agriculture wiU never be placed in the position of safety 

 it ought to occupy. I was long ago certain of this, but 



