1 800. On the Proper Mode of Ridging a Wet Clay Soil. 28 1 



Spring, the foil was in a wet cohefive ftate, and did not pul- 

 verize in ploughing. Barley was fown upon it, and I again 

 examined with attention the llate of the field during the courfe 

 of the Summer. It appeared to me to receive greater injury 

 from the wet weather, than the neighbouring fields with nar- 

 row ridges of fifteen feet. The crop of barley was a fcanty 

 one ; clover and rye grafs followed the barley, and then oats, 

 which finiflied the rotation. Not being fatisfied with any of 

 thefe crops, nor the llate of the foil after the rotation was 

 finilhed, I was determined to abandon the broad ridges, and 

 make an experiment on a field formed into ridges even nar- 

 rower than fifteen feet. The one in my eye was of a wet 

 clay foil at one end of the ridges ; but the greateft part of it, 

 although of a clay foil, was drier, being fituated on a hang- 

 ing bank, with a fubllratum that allowed the water to pafs 

 through it. The crops that grew upon this drier part of the 

 field, were always deftroycd by the cut-worm, and produc- 

 ed nothing, fome years, but a narrow Ikirting of grain, next 

 the open furrows, betwixt the ridges. Obfervjng that thefe 

 worms infefted the mofl elevated parts of the ridge, I conjec- 

 tured, that, by forming the field into twelve-feet ridges, and 

 keeping them flat, ploughing them crown and furrow, with- 

 out even water- harrowing the drier part after it was fown, 

 would tend to prevent the cut-worms from making fuch de- 

 vallations on the young plants, before they pufh out their 

 furface roots : for, whenever the plant arrives at this ftage 

 of its growth, the danger from the worm is over : and I had 

 the fatisfaftion to find, it had the defired effeft of Hopping 

 the ravages of thefe deftrutLive animals, in this particular 

 inftance. But the confequences attending the ploughing the 

 field alternately in ridges crown and furrow, particularly on 

 the wet part, was evidently hurtful to the crop, for the fol- 

 lowing reafons. It is obvious, that the ploughman, in deepen- 

 ing and clearing out the water furrows betwixt the ridges, 

 mull go deeper with his plough in that part of the ridge, than 

 in any other; and, in a clay foil, they cannot be made too deep. '" 

 When, therefore, the ridge comes to be reverfed, there is a folid'^^ ^'" 

 b;ife of foil under the cultivated furface, and, more frequently, 

 a folid bafe of till, through which no water can pafs (the 

 clay on the furface being in general nearly turned up with the 



plough flielving in this manner) . "^^^^f-A,/^^^^^^4 / 



A B A B 



from the furrows, towards the middle of the ridges; but it is 

 obvious, that this inclined f-^rm, A B, of the furface of the 



folid 



