THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



381 



thods by which English farmers have for many | cultivators of the soil I evet saw, and he falls in 

 years been silently changing the face of the coun- partl-y wiih your views of shallow ploughing. I 

 try, which now constantly come to our knowlf'dge, | certainly do nol. It is pot^sibie in the fiisi instance, 



if you put on a small portion of clay, by ploughing 

 deep you may loose it ; then I would say in reply 



try) 



but for which they have not hitherto received the 

 credit due to them ; its effect is so wonderful 

 that I ought nol to withhold a further account of 

 it which I liave obtained Irom Mr. Wingate him- 

 self, whose larm at Leake is meniioned by Mr. 

 Morton: 



" Dear sir — I will endeavor to describe lo you 

 what we have done in our east fen since its great 

 imprpvement by drainage, confining myself lo that 

 land which I consider decayed vegeiable matter 

 on a clay or silty subsoil at various depths, and 

 which had been under water generally lor ages in 

 the winter season, and getting partially dry m ihe 

 summer. A great deal of wood in the first in- 

 stance was taken out of it — nay, in fact, is still 

 in many parts where the plougfi goes a little deep, 

 chiefly oak, I believe, but in some mstances maple, 

 poplar, and aspens, all lying in one direction. At 

 the time of the first enclosure, from vvliat I hear, 

 the land was brought into cultivation by paring and 

 burning, sowing with cole (rape,) then afterwards 

 oats and rye, which oais it grew of very bad quali- 

 ty, being very light, and I believe it nearly ruined 

 the first class of occupiers. It had been occupied 

 before I took it by a tenan', and had been all clay- 

 ed over once ai my expen-e. After getting it into 

 my own hands, the first thing i did (it being very 

 much out of coniition) was to fallow it thorough- 

 ly, and sow it with cole, and I had some very tijir 

 crops. After that I clayad it again : we usually 

 have our clay-dikes 11 yards Irom the centre ol 

 each, taking oH' the peat and putting on the clay, 

 3 feet wide by 4 feet deep — a very heavy dress- 

 ing being nearly 300 cubic yards per acre. After 

 that it was sown with, 1st year, oats ; 2d, wheat ; 

 3d, cole with manure ; 4th, oats ; 5th, wheat ; 

 6th, cole or turnips well manured, and then clayed 

 over a third time the same as before ; and most 

 certainly I had very productive crops, that is, as 

 much as 5 qre. of wheat per acre, and from 8 to 9 

 qrs. of oais, all of very lair quality. I began 

 again to clay the fiaurth time, but nol with the 

 same favorable results, and have only done some 

 little over again, thinking the lands have got quite 



to that, I would clay the land, and sow the crop 

 without ploughing at all. simply well harrowing 

 or scarifying it, then breaking it up and well mix- 

 ing it. On some peaty land of wretched quality 

 where I live, I have doubled, nay trebled, the 

 produce by drainage and vpry heavy claying. 



Wm. B. Wingate." 



I do not quite agree with Mr. Johnson as to the 

 applicaiiotj of lime in the quantity of 250 or 300 

 bushels per acre, although he has high authority 

 in the tfieory of Sir Humphry Davy; not that I 

 so much doubt its efiicary as fear the expense. 

 Indeed, Sir Humphry Davy's opinion, that quick 

 lime will dissolve peat, is now much doubted; 

 lime, too, is generally applied not in a caustic but 

 in a slacked stale, and the advantage of burning 

 lime for farming purposes is by many supposed to 

 consist merely in its consequent reduction to a fine 

 powder. 



As this is a point, however, on which the farm- 

 ers of one half of England, the western side, 

 would probably ijive an opposite opinion to those 

 on the eastern side, while in Lincolnshire a most 

 important improvement has been made with clay 

 only, and lime has been tried vvithout any advan- 

 tage, it is right that I should now mention two in- 

 stances of great success efl^ected by means of lime. 

 For the first case, I am indebted to Dr Buckland, 

 on whose application Sir Charles Monteilh fur- 

 nished to him the fsllowincr account of some ex- 

 tensive operations on peaty land in Scotland : — 



Edinburgh, Nov. 7th, 1841. 

 " 3fy dear sir, — It is the general opinion 

 amongst improvers of peaty soils that lime is ab- 

 solutely necessary to produce a crop of grain well 

 filled with farina ; and 1 found fi-om experience, in 

 the improvement of part of my peat-meadows in 

 view of my house, that when the first crop grown 

 upon it was potatoes well dunged but without 

 lime, the potatoes were found to be hollow in the 

 heart of them and very watery, while in other 



sufficient solidity ; in tiict, some of il is, I consider, j parts of the meadows upon which dung was em- 

 almost over-clayed. I do noi attribute my getting ployed, potatoes of a good quality were produced 

 less produce of late years to the overcropping ol when lime was employed in addition to the dung. 



the land, but to the destructive ravages of the 

 wire-worm. Still i do consider, on the whole, I 

 have fared much belter than my neighbors, who 

 generally have some portion of their land in seeds 

 either mown or summer-crassed. 



Perhaps I ought to add, 1 have generally con- 

 sumed 6 or 8 tons ol'oil-cake, with about 12 acres 

 of meadow-land hay, to assist in converting my 

 straw into manure. The size ol'that farm is about 

 100 acres. I ridged some peat land for turnips 

 one season, with but indifferent success ; and I al- 

 ways find the corn much better and much less in- 

 fected with the wire-worm in the clay-dikes, 

 where the land has been turned over perhaps 

 from 3 to 4 feet in depth. We attempt very heavy 

 rolling ; tread the wheat land with men or women 

 in the spring ; but if we have cold, backward 

 weather, all we can do appears of but little avail 

 against the destructive insect. 



1 have mentioned your note to a neighbor and 

 much respected friend of raine, one of the beslv^ettal acre of peat-bo 



"The farmers in Scotland think they cannot 

 raise good crops of grain without lime, as the 

 greatest part of the south of Scotland is com- 

 posed of new red sandstone, grauvvacke, and gra- 

 nite, and therefore devoid of lime, which forms a 

 very considerable portion of every fertile soil; 

 indeed it was found that the soil in Dumfl-iesshire 

 did not produce well-filled barley crops till the 

 farmers employed lime, which they now do to a 

 great extent, and find it equally useful for potatoes 

 and turnip crops, which is amply testified by the 

 larmers purchasing lime to the amount of 3000/. 

 annually from my lime-quany at Close Farm. 



" You are correct in saying that a considerable 

 part of my peat-bog improvemenis have been 

 made by lime alone, and have been productive of 

 very tolerable crops of hay. I have always con- 

 sidered peat more suitable for crops of grass than 

 corn. In addition to the lime I have commonly 

 employed 50 or 60 tons of sandy earth lo the ira- 



