l8oo. On the Proper Mode of Ridging a JVet Clay Soil. 279 



is, of all others, the beft calculated for carrying off water 

 vi'ith the greatefl celerity, thereby rendering a wet foil as dry 

 as pcffible, which is of the utnioft importance in the culti- 

 vation of the different grains at prefentin ufe in ournorthern 

 climate. The curved form of thefe old ridges, certainly was 

 occafioned by the long teams of oxen and horfes which were 

 formerly yoked in the plough, even to the number of twelve 

 or fourteen, which, beginning to turn before the plough ar- 

 rived at the end of the ridge, gradually changed it from the 

 ftraight line, till, in procefs of time, the ferpentine form was 

 extended to the whole ridge. But thefe curved bioad ridges, 

 although fan6lioned with the ftamp of antiquity, have, almofl 

 all of them, in this country, been levelled, and reformed into 

 ilraight narrow ridges, of from fifteen to eighteen feet ia 

 breadth. This operation was, however, always attended with 

 a temporary lofs : lor, unlefs great attention and expence was 

 beflowed, in preferving the old vegetable mould on the fur- 

 face, it was buried, in many places, beyond the roots of the 

 plants which we cultivate, and a ftcrile fubftratum of till 

 brought up to fupply its place, on which plants cannot be 

 made to grow with the fame vigour, as on the old furface 

 foil. I do not know when nairow ridges were firft ufed in 

 England ; but I have reafon to believe, that the late John 

 Cockburn of Ormidon introduced them into Scotland early 

 in this century. I have obferved fome ridges on the eflate 

 of Ormiflon, formed at an early period, at the breadth of 

 fv.z and nine feet. Thefe were ploughed alternately ; the 

 erown of the ridge, this year, forming the open furrow be- 

 twixt the ridges next year : But this form does not feem to 

 have given .fatistatflion ; for the whole ridges on the eftate, 

 at lail; fettled at fifteen feet ; which was of a fufhcient 

 breadth to give them a connderable roundnefs, fo as to al- 

 low the water to run with rapidity off the ridge into the fur- 

 row. When I entered to my farm, which is of a firong 

 wet clay foil, or brick loam, being a mixture of ferruginous 

 clay, and vegetable mould, with a large portion of fand ia 

 it — the under flratum a yellow ochrey clay, with a laresr 

 portion of iron and fand, v.'hich confolidates into a hard mafs, 

 that adniits of no water to pafs through it, — I found the 

 ridges all of the breadth of fifteen feet, and continued them of 

 that breadth, till about fourteen years ago, that, happening to 

 fee a letter from Mr Arthur Young, now Secretary to tlie 

 Board of Agriculture, to a neighbour farmer, wherein he 

 mentioned, that Mr Arbuthnot, who was efleemedone of the 

 bell farmers in England, had found, from experience, that a 



C c 4 ridge, 



