438 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



field, the stubbles having been ploughed in October. This crop 

 was much superior to the former. It produced fine grain, and 

 was so luxuriant that the greater part of it was lodged previous 

 to reaping on the 9th of August. Should the surface or active 

 soil be very shallow, the breadth of the ridge may be narrowed, 

 or the breadth of the furrow increased. The wide furrows allow 

 of loosening the subsoil, either with crow-bars, picks, or spades, 

 and I carefully reserve all stones which appear, for drains, where 

 draining is necessary ; and where it is, I now drain wherever I 

 find the stones at hand sometimes before tilling. I make the 

 drains at forty or sixty feet apart at first, and put in my inter 

 mediate drains in each succeeding year, as I obtain stones in 

 loosening the subsoil. 



&quot;I lay out my ridges for potatoes, the breadth as for oats, 

 putting the sets in rows across the ridges, five sets in each row, 

 and the rows varying from eighteen to twenty-two inches apart : 

 thus saving seed, being enabled to keep the plants free from 

 weeds, to dig out the potatoes at less cost without injury, and 

 increasing the produce, over the old lazy-bed system, in the pro 

 portion of one sixth.&quot; 



The object of this farmer is to till his low land, in a way to 

 avoid the evil of excessive wet, by this simple method, before 

 he can go to the expense of completely furrow-draining. The 

 method of managing land by complete drainage, which I shall 

 presently describe, would undoubtedly be to be preferred, where 

 there is a sufficiency of time and capital ; but in the mean time 

 the other system may be adopted as a temporary substitute. 



This gentleman gave me, at the same time, an account of an 

 experiment made as to the distance at which potatoes should be 

 planted, which seems worth recording, and which I will insert 

 here, though not exactly in place. 



The potatoes were cultivated in the lazy-bed fashion described. 

 Six ridges were laid out four feet wide, with two feet furrows ; 

 an equal quantity of manure laid down for each. Two ridges 

 were planted, the cuttings being laid thick, without any regu 

 larity ; two ridges had the cuts placed in rows across the bed, 

 fourteen inches apart, five sets in a row ; and two ridges, seven 

 teen inches asunder, five sets in each row. The manure was 

 spread over the entire of the ridges tilled in the old lazy-bed 

 way, and immediately over the sets planted. The quantity of 



