EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



between such a crop and the starved produce of 1840, on land 

 equally good, would more than doubly repay the entire cost in 

 one year. On the average of wet years, we think it may fairly 

 be reckoned, that the increased return of one green crop would 

 amply repay the costs of draining. Of the increased return from 

 white crops we cannot yet speak so definitely; but the crops on 

 our drained land have been very luxuriant and satisfactory, and 

 the weight of the wheat which was threshed for seed in Novem 

 ber this year, was 63J Ibs. per bushel, which exceeds what we 

 have ever before experienced, in the best years, on our farm. 



&quot; The clover and grass seeds have all succeeded much better 

 than we have been accustomed to for many years, and are now 

 luxuriant, and thickly planted on lands which have for some 

 years appeared clover sick ; probably owing to the treasures of 

 the subsoil being laid open to them, and possibly also to the 

 higher temperature of the dry soil preventing the injury by frost 

 to the crowns of the clover plants, to which some observers have 

 attributed the failure of clover. 



&quot; That the subsoil is so laid open, is abundantly proved by 

 the roots striking downwards, as far as the depth of the drains 

 admits air to the subsoil ; for we have extracted from our drained 

 land the tap-roots of Swedish turnips more than two feet in 

 length, Nature having doubtless taught them to search in the 

 subsoil for that inorganic food, of which the upper soil, by long 

 cropping, had been largely exhausted, but which subsoil they 

 would not have dared to penetrate, had it been saturated with 

 stagnant moisture, to the exclusion of atmospheric air. 



&quot; We do not feel it necessary to enter into any further details 

 or observations ; we can confidently recommend all who may 

 read this Report to embark in the same course of improvement, 

 which we at first commenced with caution, and have pursued 

 and extended with increasing confidence and satisfaction as we 

 proceeded. The expenditure has been serious ; but we entertain 

 no doubt of an ample remuneration.&quot; 



To this I shall subjoin the statements of another eminent im 

 prover in Ireland, who has very successfully drained land to a 

 large extent. 



&quot; The character of the land drained is mostly an adhesive 

 clay, and the subsoil of a bluish-yellow clay, with a mixture of 

 large stones, forming a very retentive and impervious mass. 



