108 THE PRINCIPLES OF 



especially tne pasture-ground. Certain diseases disappear 

 with drainage. Red water, for instance, a most destructive 

 scourge, frequently to be found on undrained land, disappears 

 when the ground is dry. So also with liver-fluke or rot 

 in sheep; and black quarter or blackleg, that scourge of 

 stockbreeders, which often takes off the very best of their 

 young stock. And not only so, but the human population 

 is healthier. Ague and consumption disappear after land 

 has been drained, and it is not among the least of the advan- 

 tages of a thorough system of drainage that the health of the 

 population is much improved. Some people cry out against 

 Government assistance to landlords in the form of drainage 

 grants ; they consider that it is wrong for the Government 

 to help landed proprietors with public money; they think 

 that landed proprietors should help themselves. But drainage 

 is a philanthropic work, because among other great advan- 

 tages the health of the population and the whole interests 

 of the country benefit by the drainage of land, and if a land- 

 lord is short of capital, and can borrow from the Government 

 on the principle of repayment with interest in twenty-five or 

 thirty years, it is an excellent thing for the country. 



Next, with reference to other methods of land improve- 

 ment. After w r e have drained our wet land we may 

 proceed to lay out our money with some prospect of getting 

 it back again. Deepening the cultivated soil is the next 

 thing, and that leads me to the consideration of subsoil! ng, 

 trench-ploughing, and deep cultivation. Trench -ploughing 

 or double ploughing is an agricultural operation which must 

 be conducted with very great care. It is one of those 

 thorough-paced improvements which finds favour with the 

 Press, but is often a way to bury money. I will tell you 

 what it often, but not always, does ; it brings up an intractable, 

 unweathered, sour subsoil, and the consequence is it dilutes 

 the soil arid lowers its percentage of available fertilizing 



