178 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



agree in all respects ; and although our record may not agree — 

 although it may seem to some that those who shall peruse what 

 we say here will gain no information therefrom — yet we must 

 take into consideration our different localities and our different 

 circumstances, and, as the saying is, each one " pays his money 

 and must take his choice." 



I did not expect that the few remarks which I made yester- 

 day would be concurred in by the majority of those present. 

 I made them to draw out discussion. I said that in my opinion 

 the prevailing notion of the community was not so much in 

 favor of deep ploughing as formerly. That I suppose to be the 

 case, and it Is our nature, as has been expressed here, to go 

 from one extreme to the other ; too much so. We should 

 endeavor, as has been said here, to guard against going so far 

 the other way that we shall retrograde instead of going forward. 



From the discussion yesterday and to-day^ I have formed the 

 opinion that the majority of those who have spoken arc against 

 very deep ploughing ; but I have also come to the conclusion, 

 as I have already said, that it depends altogether upon cir- 

 cumstances. We need to know the circumstances in these 

 several cases that have been mentioned. With regard to Mr. 

 Thatcher's experiment, we learn that until that piece of land of 

 six acres was underdrained, the satisfactory results were not 

 obtained. This should be taken into consideration. I cannot 

 recommend deep ploughing upon heavy or wet soil until it has 

 been underdrained ; and not only underdrained, but heavily 

 manured. That is the case with Mr. Porter's lands. They are 

 rich. If he manures for corn, it is very heavily, and also for 

 tobacco ; and that is the reason why he has such good success 

 with deep ploughing, and why he can follow the practice of 

 deep ploughing. 



With regard to subsoiling, I almost regretted that I stated 

 yesterday what I did, because I was not willing to have it' go 

 abroad that the opinion of the Board, or my opinion, was 

 against subsoiling, because I am not convinced that it is injuri- 

 ous to the land, if adopted under proper circumstances and on 

 proper occasions ; and as an opinion seemed to be expressed 

 opposed to subsoiling, after I said what I did, I said I regretted ' 

 throwing that out. The circumstances under which my exper- 

 iment was made I mentioned yesterday. The land was level — 



