SUBSOIL- PLOUGHING CONNECTED WITH THOROUGH-DRAINING. 135 



or the imperfect execution, of it often brings many a good thing 

 into disrepute, arid proves a great bar to improvement. 



But the great objection which will be urged will undoubtedly 

 be the want of capital, and the expensive character of such im 

 provements. That they are expensive there can be no doubt ; 

 but in all such cases there are only two questions to be asked. 

 First, have I the means of executing them ? If the means are 

 not within a man s reach, of course he should remember the 

 fate of him who fell under general reproach, because &quot;he began 

 to build, and was not able to finish.&quot; The second question is, 

 &quot; Will the improvement pay ? Will it produce an adequate re 

 turn ? &quot; Then the cost of it is only to be considered in reference to 

 the return which it will make ; and the agricultural improver, in 

 such case, is to be governed by the same principles by which 

 the conduct of shrewd men is directed and regulated in other 

 business transactions. 



I can only say, that, in England, with scarcely an exception, 

 as far as I have seen, the improvement is sure to be remunerative 

 in a very high degree ; and for that reason the government are 

 proposing a most beneficent measure in offering the loan of cap 

 ital, upon adequate security, for the accomplishment of such im 

 provements, and in other cases allowing the owners of entailed 

 estates to raise a certain amount upon the mortgage of such 

 estates for the same purpose. Within my own observation, in 

 my own country, where such improvements have been judi 

 ciously effected, though on a comparatively very limited scale, 

 the result has afforded an ample compensation. I know quite 

 well how all agricultural improvements, involving a considerable 

 outlay of expense, and attended with some necessary delay in 

 the returns, are commonly sneered at in our active and bustling 

 community, by some persons, who are constantly in a state of 

 the most feverish anxiety to find a shorter way to wealth, to 

 reach it, if I may so say, on a railroad line, and by an express 

 train ; but I believe I may add with confidence, and that after 

 not a short experience, that judicious investments in the profit 

 able improvement of land, though they may have been at first 

 expensive, have, in the course of time, proved as profitable as, 

 and always much more secure than, most of the moneyed specula 

 tions in which the business public have been engaged. 



7. READ S SUBSOIL PULVERIZER. T ouarht not to close this 



