364 Iteport on the Exhibition of TmjAemcnts. 



knives and well set, require no guidance, and will go without a holder.'' 

 When it is thought desirable to reverse the furrow-slice completely, Mr. 

 Brown is in the habit of using only the upper knife horizontally, and 

 he applies a lower one in a vertical position (as shown by the dotted line 

 e in fig. 2) so as to cut otf about an inch or more of the inner or lower 

 edge of the furrow- slice just turned, to allow room for the succeeding slice to 

 fall flat over, or nearly so ; and, under these circumstances, he ploughs 

 shallower and wider. 



With respect to the economy per acre arising from this process, Mr. 

 Brown observes, that he has no account of the cost of the old system of 

 ploughing and harrowing on his estate, having abandoned it for so long a 

 period. He expresses himself as so convinced of the important saving and 

 superior work effected by the use of the knives, that he employs them 

 throughout his farms, and for every kind of crop. Several farmers in the 

 neighbourhood of Grafton, who had been in the habit of using Mason's 

 ploughs, have sent them to him to be altered to this new pattern. 



XXVII. — On the Public Institutions for the Advancement of 

 Agricultural Science which exist in other Countries, and on the 

 Plans which have been set on foot by Individuals iv it h a similar 

 intent in our own. By Charles Daubeny, M.D., F.R.S., 

 Professor of Rural Economy in the University of Oxford. 



In the lecture which I last delivered before the University, my 

 ohject was to explain the methods by which it might be possible for 

 a person possessed of a moderate stock of scientific information, 

 and of a few cheap and simple instruments of analysis, to determine 

 the physical properties of the land he cultivates, and so much at 

 least of its chemical constitution as would enable him to refer it 

 to some one particular class and order in my proposed arrange- 

 ment of soils.* But it is to be apprehended, that few practical 

 farmers of the present day are provided with even that small 

 amount of knowledge which such investigations presuppose, and 

 that by most persons belonging to this class the very names 

 assigned to the different constituents of the soil, and even to the 

 qualities which we distinguish in them^ are viewed, as it were, as 

 an unknown tongue. 



Hence, before we can hope to introduce the requisite degree of 

 precision into the observations and reports of agriculturists, or to 

 correct the vagueness of their present ideas and expressions, I con- 

 ceive it will be necessary to furnish to those youths who are in 

 after-life to take up husbandry as their profession some more 

 enlarged system of instruction than is at present provided for 

 them, and to see that, in addition to that familiarity with the daily 

 routine of a farm which at present constitutes the principal pre- 



See the Table appended to my Lecture on the Application of Science 

 to Agriculture, printed in the last Number of this Journal. 



