106 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
April, 
or three years, till you get a fine tilth twelve or fifteen 
inches deep, is it reasonable to suppose that the crops 
wi?l be increased ? Is it reasonable or not, to suppose 
that twelve inches of soil, permeable by the plant 
roots, will give more nourishment to the crop than six? 
I think it is; and in this I am confident that practical 
farmers will agree with me. They will say, “ the the¬ 
ory looks well; as a theory, we like it; it seems rea¬ 
sonable.” They will admit, that, if the air, charged, 
as it always is, more or less, with watery vapor and 
with nutricious gases, both ready to be deposited for 
the benefit of plants, circulate deeply through the soil, 
a more equable distribution of warmth and moisture 
about the plant-roots will be promoted; that soils, by 
this free circulation of air, will sooner be weathered 
down to a desirable state of fineness; that the plant- 
growing ingredients, locked up in them, while in a 
coarse state, will more readily become available to 
growing crops; and that probably their productiveness 
will be increased by all these changes. But, as pru¬ 
dent men, they whnt something more than probability. 
Before adopting more expensive modes of culture, they 
want something approaching to certainty; and in this 
they are right. 
2. What then are the proofs of the soundness of this 
theory ? In the first place, we have seen that it is 
reasonable. To use a homely, but' significant expres¬ 
sion, “ it stands to reason,” that a deep pulverization 
of the soil will increase its productive powers. In the 
second place, we have the testimony of the most, scien¬ 
tific men, that such ought to be the effect, according 
to the well.known laws of nature. Sir Humphrey Da¬ 
vy declares that “fertility is much connected with the 
power of soils to absorb moisture from air,” and that 
“the power of a soil to absorb moisture, by attraction, 
depends, in a great measure, upon the state of division 
of its parts,” upon “its being so loose and light as to 
be freely permeable to the atmosphere.” In the third 
place, we have, what is after all the most reliable— 
the undivided testimony of practical men—men who 
have themselves made the experiment of deeply pul¬ 
verizing the soil. The system, which I would earnest¬ 
ly recommend to farmers of this country, with excep¬ 
tions however to be named hereafter, is sometimes 
called Dean-Stonozing, from its being first adopted by 
Mr. Smith, of Dean Stone, in Sterlingshire, Scotland. 
I cannot better describe it, than in the words of Cuth- 
bert W. Johnson. He says: “By this system, by 
means of a subsoil plow, of which there are several 
kinds, the subsoil, or under crust of the earth, is mere¬ 
ly broken and pulverized, say, to a depth of from 14 
to 20 inches, without being brought up to the surface, 
or mixed with the upper soil.” Mr. Smith, the inven¬ 
tor of the system, when under examination before the 
Agricultural Committee of the House of Commons, in 
1836, said : “ The subsoil plow has been constructed on 
principles appearing to be best fitted to break up the 
subsoil completely, to a depth sufficient for thorough 
cultivation, say 14 to 16 inches, whilst the active soil 
is still retained on the surface—to be of the easiest 
possible draft in reference to the depth of the furrow 
and firmness of the subsoil—to have strength and mas¬ 
sive weight sufficient to penetrate the hardest stra¬ 
tum—to resist the shocks from fast stones—and to 
throw out all stones under 200 lbs. weight. All this 
has been accomplished and practically proved at Dean- 
stone over an extent of at least 200 acres of various 
soils; and also in various parts of England, Scotland 
and Ireland, during several seasons.” This was now 
twenty years ago. Three years later, in 1839, at a 
meeting in Manchester, Mr. Smith said, that “the 
subsoil plow had not only been efficacious in England, 
Scotland and Ireland, but it had been introduced into 
the stubborn soil of the West Indies. He knew many 
instances of its success on light, gravelly and moory 
soils. He mentioned one instance, where it had been 
tried on such a soil in Perthshire, which subsequently 
produced one of the most splendid crops of barley ever 
grown in that country. He had also letters from farm¬ 
ers, who had tried the plow upon all bottoms, chalky, 
flinty, gravelly and moory bottoms, level soils, stiff 
clays, and almost every variety of subsoil found in 
these Islands, and without a single failure. He was 
frequently asked as to the propriety of using this plow 
before draining ; and he would say, that if the ground 
was completely drained by nature, by its resting on a 
gravelly or sandy bottom, then the subsoil plow might 
be safely, and with advantage used at once ; but if the 
bottom were clay, or any stiff, hard subsoil, that re¬ 
tained the moisture, then the subsoil plow must be 
withheld, till the land had been drained, because its 
application but made a greater space to hold water.” 
Such are Mr. Smith’s views of the benefits of deep 
cultivation; and sueh his statement of the only excep¬ 
tional case—that of lands not “completely drained” 
by nature and not artificially drained—an exception, 
with regard to which, I believe all agree that subsoil¬ 
ing is useless, or worse than useless, till the under wa¬ 
ter is disposed of. But lest any should believe that 
Mr. Smith, though a practical farmer, may possibly be 
more anxious to promote the sale of a particular plow, 
than to benefit his brother farmers, i will now adduce 
the testimony of men, who cannot by any possibility 
be suspected of any undue bias. Sir James Graham, 
after stating the results of experiments carefully con-' 
ducted himself, showing an astonishing increase of fer¬ 
tility by deepening the soil with the subsoil plow, re¬ 
marks : “ I am quite satisfied, that the use of the sub¬ 
soil plow is no less applicable to dry land, than to wet; 
on wet land, it insures and increases the operation of 
the drains; but, on all land, by loosening the substra¬ 
tum, it adds to the effective depth of the soil, whereby 
the nourishment to the plant is augmented; the root 
takes a deeper hold; and a more genial temperature 
is maintained below the surface, throughout the year. 
If I mistake not, it will be foun 1 that sandy loams, no 
less than stiff clays, profit bj*- this system of subsoil 
plowing; and that on dry land, no less than on wet, 
where sterility is the consequence of a hard, hide¬ 
bound, hungry subsoil, Mr. Smith’s treatment is cor- 
