PLANTING. 23 



of success. An application of lime> when it can be procured at a rea- 

 sonable cost, will also be found highly useful. 



Should the effects of these operations have been powerful enough to 

 bring the land to the essential condition of cleanness, depth, and fineness 

 of tilth required, the soil will be ready for the reception of the acorns in 

 the spring. Unreclaimed lands, however, of this description can seldom 

 be prepared as above by the out summer's fallow only; and in such cases 

 it will be necessary to continue the process of fallowing for another season. 

 A green crop fallow may be now adopted ; and should the weather be 

 favourable, the crop will probably cover the expense of cleaning for that 

 season, or at all events considerably lessen the cost of fallowing. The 

 choice of the crop to be employed must be determined by the condition 

 or adaptation of the soil to certain kinds of green crops, and the greater 

 local demand that may be for one kind of produce more than another. 

 The following may be pointed out: Swedish turnips, rape, potatoes, 

 cabbages, and winter vetches. For these crops it may be unnecessary to add, 

 that the row and ridge system of^culture should be adopted, as affording the 

 greatest facilities for cleaning and pulverizing the land, either by the hand 

 or horse-hoe, and thereby obtaining the great objects in view in their 

 most perfect state, and at the least comparative cost. Green crops are 

 here mentioned for fallow, because they exhaust the soil less than corn 

 crops, and also afford the means of destroying every kind of weed much 

 better ; but if a corn crop should promise better advantages than a green 

 crop, and secure the cleaning and pulverization of the soil, there can be 

 no possible objection to it, the extra manure given with the corn crop 

 supplying the loss supposed to be caused to the soil. As soon as the 

 crop, of whatever kind, is reaped and carried, advantage should be taken 

 of the first favourable weather to have the surface scarified, horse-hoed, 

 or skim coulter ploughed (according to circumstances of convenience, in 

 the possession of one or other of these implements), and the weeds collected 

 by the harrow, and by the hand if necessary. It is, in this case, the 

 safest mode to burn the weeds, for their seeds and the eggs of insects 

 are thereby more certainly destroyed. The land should now be ploughed 

 up to stand the winter's exposure. The mode of ploughing is of im- 

 portance at all times, but most particularly so when the full effect of 

 frost and winter weather is required to divide and ameliorate an adhe- 

 sive clayey soil. When the furrow slice of a soil of this description is 

 reversed, or laid quite flat, the weight and tenacity of the soil consolidate 

 its surface almost immediately, and obstruct the action of the weather 

 in breaking down the texture of the soil, as well as that of the harrows 

 in raising a tilth, or the greatest depth of mould for covering the seeds. 

 But when the furrow slice is raised up so as to lie at about an angle of 

 45, the greatest possible surface of the soil that ploughing can accom- 

 plish is exposed to the direct influence of the atmosphere in the most 

 effective manner*. As soon as the weather will permit in February, the 

 harrows should be used to raise as deep a tilth as possible; and when 

 this mould is in its driest state, the last ploughing should be given : the 

 reversing of this comparatively dry and ameliorated mould to the bottom 

 of the staple of the soil is of great advantage to the growth of the plants. 



* { Hally's plough' is admirably constructed for this mode of ploughing. 



It may be supposed that the preparation of the soil has here been too minutely dwelt 

 upon; but being a part of the subject of considerable importance, in many instances too 

 little attended to, and from the neglect of which failures of considerable extent have had 

 their origin, as regards this mode of rearing oak trees, we have ventured to state thus 

 much 011 the point. 



