For myself, I entertain no doubt of the utility of deep ploughing; not at once, in our lands in general, but by an increase of two or three inches at every annual ploughing, until the earth be stirred and pulverized to the depth of ten or twelve inches. Indian corn, planted in such a mass of loosened earth, would not, I am persuaded, ever suffer by ordinary droughts.--Like a spunge, it would absorb a vast quantity of rain water, and become a reservoir to supply the wants of that and all other plants.--Nothing is more common in a dry summer, than the rolling of the leaves of corn; and that circumstance is often mentioned as an evidence of the severity of the drought. This rolling of the leaves of Indian corn, is the consequence, in part, of scant manuring, but still more of shallow ploughing. Few, perhaps, are aware of the depth to which the roots of plants will penetrate in a deeply loosened earth. A gentleman,[11] much inclined to agricultural inquiries and observations, informed me, near fifty years ago, that seeing some men digging a well, in a hollow place, planted with Indian corn, then at its full growth, he stopped to examine how far its roots had descended; and he traced them to the depth of nine feet. The soil was an accumulation of rich earth which had run or been thrown into the hollow. [11] Peter Oliver, Esq. then a Judge of the Superior Court of Massachusetts. The seed of the common turnip, sown in warm weather, and on a soil sufficiently moist, I have known to vegetate in about eight-and-forty hours; and in only four or five days afterwards, I found the plants had sent down roots to the depth of four or five inches. I have often noticed forest trees blown down by violent winds, whose roots, of the same species, were very differently formed. Such as had grown in grounds having a hard, impenetrable pan of clayey gravel, at the depth of twelve or eighteen inches from the surface, exhibiting a flat mass of roots; while others, torn up from a deep loam, or loamy gravel, showed downward roots of several feet in length.