evaporation; and we are inclined
to believe that any prejudicial combined action of attraction and
evaporation is thereby well guarded against. The facts stated seem to
prove that less will not suffice.

"So much on the score of temperature; but this is not all. Do the roots of
esculents wish to penetrate into the earth--at least, to the depth of some
feet? We believe that they do. We are sure of the brassica tribe, of
grass, and clover. All our experience and observation deny the doctrine
that roots only ramble when they are stinted of food; that six inches well
manured is quite enough, better than more. Ask the Jerseyman; he will show
you a parsnip as thick as your thigh, and as long as your leg, and will
tell you of the advantages of 14 feet of dry soil. You will hear of
parsnips whose roots descend to unsearchable depths. We will not appeal to
the Kentucky carrot, which was drawn out by its roots at the antipodes;
but Mr. Mechi's, if we remember right, was a dozen feet or more. Three
years ago, in a midland county, a field of good land, in good cultivation,
and richly manured, produced a heavy crop of cabbages. In November of that
year we saw that field broken into in several places, and at the depth of
four feet the soil (a tenacious marl, fully stiff enough for brick-earth)
was occupied by the roots of cabbage, not sparingly--not mere capillae--but
fibres of the size of small pack-thread. A farmer manures a field of four
or five inches of free soil reposing on a retentive clay, and sows it with
wheat. It comes up, and between the kernel and the manure, it looks well
for a time, but anon it sickens. An Irish child looks well for five or six
years, but after that time potato-feeding, and filth, and hardship, begin
to tell. You ask what is amiss with the wheat, and you are told that when
its roots reach the clay, they are poisoned. This field is then
thorough-drained, deep, at least four feet. It receives again from the
cultivator the previous treatment; the wheat comes up well, maintains
throughout a healthy aspect, and gives a good return. What has become of
the poison? We have been told that the rain water filtered through the
soil has taken it into solution or suspension, and has carried it off
through the drains; and men who assume to be of authority put forward this
as one of the advantages of draining. If we believed it, we could not
advocate draining. We really should not have the face to tell our readers
tha