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importance. In my First Report on the Agriculture of Massachu- 

 setts, the attention of the farmers was strongly called to the 

 use of the subsoil plough, which after a trial of more than 

 twelve years, in connection with the system of thorough drain- 

 ing, was then effecting a most beneficial revolution in English 

 agriculture. Confirmations of its extraordinary utility were 

 abundantly furnished in my Second and Third Reports. Since 

 that, a subsoil plough after the most approved model has been 

 introduced into the country and subjected to a most successful 

 experiment. Improvements in Great Britain are undertaken 

 upon a scale far beyond any thing likely to be attempted 

 among us. There they think the subsoil ploughing must be 

 preceded by a thorough draining of the land or the good 

 effects of it will not be fully realized. Some few attempts 

 among us at subsoil ploughing without draining, have been so 

 beneficial as to warrant the most sanguine expectations of ad- 

 vantage, when the joint system shall be completely carried out 

 on lands adapted to it. The success is dependent on three 

 particulars; first, the freeing of the land from all superfluous 

 wet. Tlie deepening and loosening of the soil to a depth of 

 sixteen or twenty inches with drains, completely underlaying 

 the field, will cause the water, which falls and which would 

 otherwise remain in the ground, at once to pass off. The sec- 

 ond is, by deepening and loosening the soil to render it permea- 

 ble to the roots of the plants, which then easily extend them- 

 selves in search of their proper nourishment, and accessible 

 likewise to light and air, which are both essential or conducive 

 to vegetation. The third is, by bringing the subsoil gradually 

 to the surface to cause it to become enriched by the air, by 

 manuring and cultivation, and ultimately rendering the whole 

 depth of soil moved by the plough of equal fertility. The eft'ect 

 of light and air in enriching soils exposed to them is observed 

 easily where the dirt from digging a well is thrown out, which, 

 though at first absolutely sterile, will after awhile become 

 covered with a healthy vegetation. There can be no longer a 

 question of the great improvements which are to come from 



