452 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



On the outside of the cottage allotments, all was barren. It 

 could not be by the manure that had been laid on, for the cot 

 tagers had none but that which they had scraped from the roads. 

 The magic of all this I could ascribe to nothing else but the 

 spade ; they had broken up the land eighteen inches deep. As to 

 digging up 500 acres with the spade, to the depth of eighteen 

 inches, at an expense of six pounds an acre, I would not attempt 

 it. I considered that a plough might be constructed so as to 

 loosen the soil to the depth of eighteen inches, keeping the best 

 soil to the depth of four inches, and near the surface, thus ad 

 mitting air and moisture to the roots of the plants, and enabling 

 them to extend their spongioles in search of food, for air, mois 

 ture, and extent of pasture, are as necessary to the thriving and in 

 crease of vegetables as of animals. In this attempt I succeeded, 

 as the result will show. I have now broken up all these 500 acres 

 eighteen inches deep. The process was by sending a common 

 plough drawn by two horses to precede, which turned over the 

 ground to the depth of four inches. My subsoil-plough imme 

 diately followed in the furrow made, drawn by four horses, stir 

 ring and breaking the soil twelve or fourteen inches deeper, but 

 not turning it over. Sometimes the iron-pan was so hard that 

 the horses were set fast, and it became necessary to use the pick 

 axe, to release them, before they could proceed. After the first 

 year, the land produced double the former crops, many of the 

 carrots being 16 inches in length, and of proportionate thickness. 

 This amendment could have arisen only from the deep plough 

 ing. Manure I had scarcely any, the, land not producing then 

 stover sufficient to keep any stock worth mentioning, and it was 

 not possible to procure sufficient quantity from the town. The 

 plough tore up by the roots all the old gorse, heather, and fern, 

 so that the land lost all the distinctive character of heath land, 

 the first year after the deep ploughing, which it had retained, 

 notwithstanding the ploughing with the common ploughs for 

 thirty-five years. Immediately after this subsoil-ploughing, the 

 crop of wheat was strong and long in the straw, and the grain 

 clcMe A osomed and heavy, weighing 64 pounds to the bushel ; 

 the quantity, as might be expected, not large, (about 26 bushels 

 to the a^re,) but great in comparison to what it produced before. 

 The miLters were desirous of purchasing it, and could scarcely 

 it .vas grown upon the heath land, as in former years it 



