DEEP OR SHALLOW PLOUGHING

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 1992, 16 May 1885, Page 2

DEEP OR SHALLOW PLOUGHING

A number of (jomnjunfaatjfliip fin ftjs important 1 ' iiibjecjJ.'jiave come, to hand recently',''whfeh we NaVe "been reserving tq'bnrig' together;' 'Tliey "gfVe, mainly, Bio'results of experience—a good teacher for a ' partjculaj; ' soil, and 'yet not always '<V '<JeHijm guidej 'as We shall see in discussing this subject. The letters pefpre us, fpr exapje, give (Jiametrjcally oppositei liesiiltgffprti what appear at first sight, to be the same methdcj fippjjef}' fp, very similar soils, Before printing these letters, let us go to the bottom of the subject, so to speak, and see if we cannot understand why Ave plough at all;. and wegajpjot do better than repeat some tjiqijgjjts from an artjcje (wjtji ijllistrafiori|)| l g}va|}''slpy 3rjj last year, Jnjjeefj, several ljay'e'iiqme''fqr'{ts repr}nfcjng entire} at this leisi|re seasqn, as. Many were' tqq" pujy' {ljeg, wi(;h'"ping lyqrk, tR §tHdy thlpk, ,W§ frpm every reader a, careful- reading and re-reading of what fqllqws., for jfj will serve ag the groundwork of this whole subjeot, not only of ploughing, but of har* rowing, cultivating: indeed of the entire .mechanical treatmont of the soil, ';.' Take a box of good soil, say ten feet' square, and three feet deep. Dry the and weigh it, Wet it again and ifdwgii cjoyer. A? it grows, cut it from time tp |inje', qnjiil yOu/Jiave taken, qff qno hundred 9iqver,'but l a(|i|'i|qtl]'iqg'tq the'soil ekoopt pufo r»in 'W a£eiy Pull out the plantn, dry- and weigh the gar-til again, the same as as at first. It will weigh more to before you topi? frqm- it, the lOOJbof clover jl( a Qhemisfc examined ; its composition Wore and after, he would find a' little mineral matter missng; that fs,' : sPme potash, Isomelimo, and some phosphoric acid, &c, only a few 6uiices lii'-ajl. -He wqßl<| find added to it) a'quanjtitf of vogetivbjb majJter, 'siijill roots, ; tqq minute'to beseen'separately.' Ho rnighji call this humus. ".'.: ; !'.'*"' ' ""- °

; 'fhere" <ji(T the 1001b of clover come from?' From the. air,'.. certainly, fir hoj|lijg m pure pin ■ water was'- added. A'fqreljt'pj j]f grow on'' an acre V''land, and piosqrl keep on increasing in bujk (leaf mbuj3|. &cX losing only some minerals tliat'we would fjiifj jn|jjg' amies' on bu'rnjrig the wool' ' ■•-' ; ■.■''• : "-"-''' " ' • ' Wheat, con;, qats, grass, fruit trees, everything growing iij qriipbn fclje- soil, fncjlea/osjif'liujik' ant} weight,' jusj;' as in the casVpf %eWi»' 'Ji ll) e trees, in the fprest, TJjey get t|)e|p ghjef material of grpftli frpin. the'ajv! Jt comes mainly through th? teliyeg, §trip off the leaves from a fruit tree, from ft cornstalk, from-a wheat plant, and it will ceaso to enlarge its bulk or to grow. | Some food comes from the air through th'o water, ,cr sap by way of the roots, but only afll.tflo'"'comparatively. 'Mo a wheat plant, 'which grows in the same way as com, oats; grass,' &c. In the kernel of wheat We' sholved'i-'three vyteeks ago; you saw a little germ .War its baso',' kerne}' is put -jn the soil 'ana gers rijoiijj) enpug|i and 'fypjii enough, 1 the germ swells,' It sqqh begins to feed upon the food '(the s'tarcli, 1 gluten'! sugar, itc,, stored in tlje' rest of the kernel. It seif4s a littlQ ijprqtjt- jijfo lb/air, at tl}e ijanje a little rqot gqwii'lhtq tJio soil. The stem gqes. frn expanfjjng, branching, sending put leaves, an| giyjjjg a broader surfagetqthe. air, Therqot also expands, sending out baches, ten, tow dreds, thousands, of them, on aslnglo plant Take up a foot square of earth holding a wheat stalk. Let water pass slowly over it a long time, until the soil isyeiy gontly dissolved away. There will be loft hundreds of little roots tho eye can see, and tens of thousands of still smaller ones that yqu can sod pnjy wit]} a mjcrqs,oopo. Agqod sojl'iif fullpf t)}esq ; roots, frnnj' ono'to tlfree feet each way frpm the. bottom of-the stern. If you' cqul4 : pij|l; iip a single wheat, or corn, qr grass stalk, without breaking its email tender roots, you would haye a largo brush, with tens of thousands of fine fibres branching out and terminating in millions of 'invisibly small tubes. Tlus is fact,, not -fancy or theory. Any one can prove" it'with a powerful microscope. The leaves of wheat, corn, grass,' trees,

etc., are equally curious; but we can onlyv stop to say that there are running .out'into each,. thousands upon thousands of little tubes, arid these have littleimouths upon the surface of the leaves. They are too small to be seen with the eye, but tho microscope- shows as many as a hundred thousand of these little ivjfe.hs upon a single square inch of a leaT surface. Scientists call them stomata. Those-myriads;; -of• mouths upon the ends of th'eroo'tv'and upon the, surface of the leaves, are connected together, by •what we may"oall-'long hollow tubes, or pores, or sap channels. Cuttis aetoss the corn-stalk or-wheat stem, you can See •into some ofthetfarger tubes, but tHere are myriads of them too small, to be seen,, : ,>;/ „.:...; .-. : :{;', : Such a structure is every growing plant, or aUtheiplants.;that. constitute our cultivated crops.';; arid our fruit trees are similar—a double system of openings or feeding mouths,bqne set in the air,-one ■in the soil, and the two joined toother by channels, which ■we might call wSter pipes. : "'

When a plant, or anything that grows, decays,.or.is burnt, the atoms of which it is made up, escape into the air, in an invisible form—or all but a little mineral (ashes) go into the.^if;'and in fact, the air i 3 a great storehouse of atoms, of which plants and animals are made up. The air itself is mostly- made up jkLtwo materials that help build plants, W besides there is floating-'about in it a vast amount'of plant food,. not enough in any one place to be seen by the eye, but the cliemisfcean get' a little plant food out of every gallon, of, ordinary air upon the whole Burfaee';#>tliß. earth. ; We have takenplant food -from common air. Were you ever in a great cotton mill or other large-manufactory.where they work up _ raw material and turn out useful articles, changingjie. bale of cotton Into sheeting, muslins, and laces, wool from the fleece into,brbadqloth, or delaines, or cashmeres; ironware or pig-iron into ploughs, railway bars, locomotivos, pocket knives, needles, &c? Jou see wheels, and shafts, and pipes, anM-mul-titude of mechanical contrivances, Yet the tiniest wheat or grass plant, or a single growing corn plant, is a more wonderful manufactory, having a thousand times more machinery, or more working parts, than the greatest manufactory ever built by men, oven if it covored over twenty acres or more, Thejtostands that simple looking corn planet on the surface of its loaves are millions of opon mouths, well one catching out of the passing air little atoms that havo previously 'helped to make up the substance cf some former plants or animals, Down in the soil are millions of other open mouths, at the ends of rootlets or root hairs,- gathering up moisture or water that makes tho sap of tho plant, That water'passes up through tlu roots, into the pores of the stein, up through the veins of the leaves, out to the open mouths on tho surface,, Some of this water or sap escapes'by evaporation, into air, and goes off as"invisible vapor, to be afterwards condensed into rain drops, and fall back to the earth. But other portions of the water dissolve and take up the airfood that'the leaf-mqijths or stomata have b.een oqllectjng, TJlja gap fterf gqej* b,a.s| down through' another set qf tubes., and deposits alons-in.'the leaves, *j# stems, and the roots; little atoms of food gathered.