FARMERS' REGISTER. 



389 



committee in 1836. He gave a detailed account 

 of his system of draining, which very much re- 

 sembled the furrow draining of ihf^ midland coun- 

 ties of England, except that at Deanston, sione 

 being on the ground, the drains are made with 

 stones and not liles ; and at Deanston the cover ol 

 the drain ij; 22 inches helow the surface; whereas, 

 in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire the top ol 

 the tile ill the furrow is not so deeply laid. Mr. 

 Smith, when his land is effectiialiy drained, lays it 

 down without a furrow ; in the midland counties 

 the furrow is carefully preserved. 



Mr. Smith, alter drainins, lor the first rotation 

 at least, does not bring to the surface any of the 

 subsoil: but by a plough of his own invention, 

 •which follows a common plough turning up the sur- 

 face he penetrates the subsoil to the depth of 20 

 inches, and breaks and pulverizes the lower crust 

 without bringintr it to the top. This subsoil; plough, 

 cuch as Mr. Smith has used, is a heavy implement, 

 requiring the draught of four, six or eight horses, 

 according to the tenacity and strength of the sub- 

 stratum. 



Mr. Smith contends that the sub-soil, by being 

 moved, becomes pervious both to air and moisture; 

 and the efficacy of the drains are fthus^perlected 

 and perpetuated, and that the character of the sub- 

 soil itself, when relieved from superfluous moisture, 

 and open to atmospheric influences, is entirely 

 .changed, that it becomes mellow and friable, and 

 after one rotation, or a lapse of five years, that it 

 may be brought to the top. by deep ploughing, with 

 eafely and propriety, and be mixed with the sur- 

 face-soil to great advantage. 



In the midland counties of England, deep 

 ploughing alter furrow draining has been the con- 

 stant practice ; but the use of six horses in a sub- 

 soil plough is a novelty in Scotland. In England 

 a portion of the sub-soil is raised at once to the top : 

 at Deanston the sub-soil, though broken, is not so 

 raised, and here the important question arises. — 

 When land is efl'ectually drained, which is the 

 right treatment of the sub-soil 1 Will you bring a 

 portion of it immediately to the surface by deep 

 ploughing, or will you, with Mr. Smith, delay this 

 operation for some years, until the sub-soil shall 

 have been mellowed, after having been broken and 

 penetrated by the atmosphere 7 



The advantages of the wide circulation of agri- 

 cultural knowledge, of the multiplication of the 

 experiments, and of the interchange both of the 

 theory and practice between Scotland and Eng- 

 land, will here develops themselves in the clear- 

 est light. Furrow-draining and deep ploughing 

 have been practised in England for half a century; 

 yet the introduction of an analogous system into 

 Scotland is reuanied almost as a discovery. But in 

 Scotland itself the greatest difference of opinion 

 prevails on the question of turning up or only mov- 

 ing the sub-soil after draining. Some of the great- 

 est authorities in East Lothian differ from Mr. 

 Smith, and lean to the English practice. In the 

 first furrow for green crop after draining, by two 

 ploughs following each other, which is equivalent 

 to trench-ploughing, they go down to the depth of 

 12 or 14 inches,^and bring a certain quantity of 

 virgin soil. 



It is obvious that this difference of practice in 

 the treatment of the sub-soil involves a most im- 

 portant question, which can only be solved by ac- 

 ;:urate and multiplied experiments. The outlay ol 



capital, which is common to both plans, consists in 

 effectual under draining, and no subsequent man- 

 agement, no fresh application of capital, can be 

 of any avail, unless, on retentive soils or a sub- 

 stratum of clay, the water be quickly carried ofl'. 

 This I take to be an axiom undisputed in agricul- 

 ture ; but after effectual draining, when this outlay 

 has been incurred, the mode of treating the sub- 

 soil affects only production, and does not involve 

 expenditure; and greater produce without addi- 

 tional outlay is the grand object of the practical 

 farmer. 



We have seen that in draining Mr. Smith uses 

 stones, because he has them on the spot. Tiles are 

 substituted in the midland counties ol'England, be- 

 cause stones cannot be obtained easily, and be- 

 cause in the clay districts tiles are cheaply and 

 easily manufactured. 



It has always appeared to me that skill in agri- 

 culture does not so much consist in the discovery 

 of principles of universal application as in the 

 adaptation of acknowledged principles to local cir- 

 cumstances. 



The peculiarities of soil and climate, what na- 

 ture gives or nature withholds in each particular 

 district, must be carefully considered and judiciously 

 investigated, before any given experiment, though 

 locally successful, can be pronounced to be gene- 

 rally useful or universally applicable. The neglect 

 of this consideration has brought agricultural ex- 

 periments into disrequte, on account of the heavy 

 losses which they have occasioned, f f the record 

 now opened in these transactions be faithfully kept, 

 this evil will be averted ; for I hope that each ex- 

 periment detailed will he authenticated by the name 

 of the party who makes it, and that every local 

 circumstance of a peculiar character will be care- 

 fully particularized. 



My attention having been thus directed to the 

 various treatment of sub-soils after under draining. 

 I tried an experiment, in the year 1838,fon a field 

 of about eight acres of the poorest and wettest 

 land. The surface soil is about five inches deep, 

 of black earth of pea'y quality : the sub-soil is a 

 weeping retentive clay with sand and rusty gravel 

 intermixed. This clay goes down to the bottom of 

 the drains, which are of tile, laid ,30 inches deep, 

 in every fiirrow.* This field is in a farm lately 

 taken into my own hands, and was rented by (he 

 outgoing tenant at 4s. 6c?. an acre. It was in pas- 

 ture of the coarsest description, overrun with 

 rushes and other aquatic plants. 



After draining, on one-half of this field, I used 

 Mr. Smith's sub-soil plough, on* the other half I 

 trench-ploughed to the depth of 10 inches by two 

 ploughs following in succession : in the first part 

 not mixed with the surface any oft he sub- soil, in the 

 last part commingling the surface and sub-eoit 

 in nearly equal proportions. The whole field was 

 heavily but equally manured and planted with po- 

 tatoes ; and though the potato crop even on good 

 land, in this neighborhood, was below an average, 

 yet the crop in this field exceeded an>verage, and 

 yielded about 12 tons per acre. The field is 

 equally drained in every j^ear. I filled up the tile- 

 drains with porous materials, such as stones, 

 moor-turf reversed, and tops of thinnings of young 



* The size of the tiles used was 6 inches for the 

 main drains, and .S inches for tfie common drains. The 

 tile drains were laid 10 yards apart. 



