182 Advantages of Deep-rooted Plants. 



saved were the land well stored with tiirf in various stages of 

 decay. My experience in the case of my Indian coffee plantations 

 strongly confirms this view. As long as onr soils were stored 

 with the vegetable matter of the primeval forest all diseases to 

 which our coffee was liable only existed to a trivial extent, but as 

 the land became exhausted of its vegetable matter, and our soils 

 thus lost physical condition, such diseases much increased. They 

 can, however, be again reduced if the soil is dressed with applica- 

 tions of top soil taken from forest lands. I am now appl3dng 

 the same treatment to my coffee that I am to the Ohfton-on- 

 Bowmont farm — i.e., applications of vegetable matter in various 

 stages of decay, through the medium of jungle top soil in the 

 former case and turf in the latter. Since writing the preceding 

 remark I have been told by Mr. LiUie, the tenant of the 

 Bumfoot faim, that he has no turnip disease on his highest and 

 poorest field, while he has a bad attack on a low-lying field, 

 which is one of the best on the farm. In the former case the 

 land had never been limed, but had an application of marl about 

 seventy years ago. This high-lying land had been left six years 

 in grass before the present crop of turnips had been taken, and 

 there was a good turf. The low-lying field was cultivated on 

 the five -course shift. 



Advantages of Deep -rooted Plants. — ^The results which 

 have been attained from filling the land with deeply-rooted turf 

 are as follows : — ^The crops ripen earlier. The land is wanner. 

 It dries much more quickly. Carting on the land does little harm 

 to it, or to the young grasses and plants. Superfluous moisture 

 passes downwards so rapidly that aU wash is avoided. The laud 

 can be much more easily and deeply ploughed and worked. The 

 deep -rooters can penetrate the hardest pans. Weeds are absolutely 

 extinguished, and at CHfton-on-Bowmont, for the last eighteen 

 years there have been none worth removing. No risk of clover 

 failure, though there has been much failure on adjacent farms. 

 No turnip disease, though there has been much in certain seasons, 

 with the exception of one small portion of the land, and that only 

 occurred once. No manure required except some artificials with 

 turnips when first turf is ploughed. As far as we can see at 

 present, no manure is needed when the second txirf is ploughed, as 

 the land is then fuUy charged with deeply-rooted decaying turf. 



