. American farming and stock raising, with useful facts for the household, devoted to farming in all its departments. Agriculture. 98 THE AMERICAN FARMER. in time of drought, while the roots also can penetrate deeper in search of the requisite amount of water. There maj' be other instances where the breaking up of the subsoil would be a positive injury to crops, such as certain loams or an}' kind of leachy soil, with a coarse, sandy sub- soil that would, if undisturbed, form to a certain extent by its compactness, a barrier to the rapid escape of water and fertilizing properties that would oth
. American farming and stock raising, with useful facts for the household, devoted to farming in all its departments. Agriculture. 98 THE AMERICAN FARMER. in time of drought, while the roots also can penetrate deeper in search of the requisite amount of water. There maj' be other instances where the breaking up of the subsoil would be a positive injury to crops, such as certain loams or an}' kind of leachy soil, with a coarse, sandy sub- soil that would, if undisturbed, form to a certain extent by its compactness, a barrier to the rapid escape of water and fertilizing properties that would otherwise wash through it and be wasted. It is easy to see that the breaking up of such a subsoil would be very hazardous to crops, and the fertilizing contained in the surface-soil capable of being washed out by heavy rains. On old fields that may have a shallow surface-soil, and have been plowed to a certain depth for a succession of years, and never reaching beyond that depth, or, on certain soils formed from the fine sediment of a river, a hard subsoil is (jften found which seems to resemble hard-pan in compactness, and which is evidently rendered so in a great measure by the plow always going to a certain depth. Such soils are materially benefited by breaking through this hard crust with a subsoil STUBBLE PLOW. One of the first and most important things for every owner of a farm to ascertain— aside from the nature of the surface-soil—is the character and value of the subsoil imder- lying his land. In many instances it will prove of little value, and should either be left undisturbed, or loosened simply for the purpose of giving greater capacity for supplying moisture, according to the conditions and nature of the soil, as we have previously stated. In other cases, the subsoil has been known to materially increase tlie value of the agricul- tural soil when mixed with it, but as we have before stated, it should be done very cau- tiously and gradually, accom
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