AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. ^ 



PUDLISHED BY JOSEPH BBECK & CO., NO. 62 NORTH MARKET STREET, (AoRicntTUaAL Wabkhousij.)— ALLEN PUTNAM, EDITOR. 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, AUGUST 3, 1842. 



[NO. S. 



N. E. FARMER. 



•RACTICE OF ENGLISH FARMERS IN THE 



I.MPROVEMENT OF PEATY GROUND. 

 By Ph. Pusey, M. P., President of the Royal Agri- 

 cultural Society of England. 



Although the improvement of peat is not a sub- 

 ect that can be of general interest, yel, as there 

 ire large tracts of such land in the countrj', and ns 



have had the advantage of observing in my own 

 ieig)iborhood the mode in which it has been im- 

 iroved by good farmers, as well as of receiving in- 

 brmation from members of our Society who have 

 eclaimed peat in other districts, I think it may be 

 if some use if I endeavor to describe their various 

 nethods of management. Our science, we may 

 lope, would gradually advance, if we could obtain 

 aithful accounts of our actual practice upon each 

 ariety of our soil. The peat I am most conver- 

 ant with, follows generally the borders of all the 

 ivulets in this levol stone-brash country. Along 

 he margin of each sandy arable farm, there runs a 

 elt of such poor marshy ground. Long after the 

 neadows are green in spring, these pastures retain 

 he brown of winter : in summer they are covered 

 fith rushes and coarse grass, but are of some use 

 or the sheep in dry weather : in autumn they soon 

 eturn to their withered hue ; and in winter again 

 hey are scarcely to be passed on horseback. Al- 

 aost every kind of tree has been planted upon 

 hem in vain ; but the birch, the alder, and the 

 bele, not the least ornamental of our trees, I have 

 ound to grow with some vigor: they are too poor 

 or the willow. 



The first step of improvement is of course to ac- 

 uire command of the water and obtain an outfall 

 y digging a straight ditch, about 8 feet wide and 

 i deep, down the middle of the hollow : this takes 

 he place of the winding stagnant rivulet that is 

 requently found there. In wider bogs more of 

 hese ditches should be dug, and one may be placed 

 n each side so as to divide the peat from the sound 

 and, and thus cut off the springs which ooze from 

 he higher ground. However slight the apparent 

 all of the ground, it is generally practicable, by 

 arrving along the new water-course to a sufficient 

 ength, to reduce the level of the water 3 or 4 feet 

 lermanently below the surface : this then is the 

 irst and indispensable step, the open drainage : 

 Jie next is the under or close drainage: it has 

 )een done on the Deanston principle — thorough 

 Iraining. Tlie parallel drains have been cut to a 

 iepth of 30 inches in the gravel underlying the 

 Jeat, the materials being tiles and broken stones 

 )ver the tiles, covered with a sod 16 inches below 

 :he surface ; the distance between the parallel 

 drains varying from 20 to about 80 feet. The lev- 

 iU are so flat that tiles have been often necessary. 

 It is essential that these drains should be formed 

 before the surface is broken up, that the work may 

 be clean for the laborers: winter and early spring 

 will be the most convenient seasons. 



dividing the peat into fields of 12 or 15 acres, have 

 been found to lay it sufficiently dry. 



When the draining, of whatever kind, is com- 

 pleted, the question next arises how the coarse and 

 rushy swamp is to be brought into cultivation. I 

 must say that the practice of paring and burning 

 the surface, employed by our farmers, has been 

 justified by its effects. As soon as the harsh east- 

 erly winds of spring have set in, the breast-plows 

 are put to work, the surface is pared and turned 

 over, and, when dry, piled in heaps and burnt to 

 ashes. The proceeding may be defended I think 

 on these grounds: — If the coarse sward filled with 

 the roots of rushes were merely plowed over, it 

 would not decay during the whole summer, and 

 would be far too tough and hollow for any crop 

 that might be sown on it. Again, when a fertile 

 well-dressed surface is burnt, the volatile parts of 

 manure which it contains, may be dissipated by 

 fire, but on the land we are dealing witli, there is 

 no fertility to be destroyed. Lastly, the ashes 

 which are produced, are a manure peculiarly adapt- 

 ed for the crop which experience has taught the 

 Lincolnshire farmers to make their first crop on 

 such land ; that crop is rape, a plant not generally 

 grown in this country. On such ground so pre- 

 pared, it shoots up with unfailing luxuriance, re- 

 sembling the tops of strongly growing swedes, but 

 forming a dense mass of dark leaves, about a yard 

 high, through which it is difficult to make one's 

 way. Although peat may be well suited to the 

 growth of rape, it is to the peat-ashes I believe that 

 the chief strength of its vegetation is due. In 

 fields where the soil is moory but not a pure peat, 

 when they have been pared and burnt in the same 

 manner, a singular appearance presents itself which 

 proves this point. On the spots where the heaps 

 have been burnt, may be seen dark tufts of rape 

 growing in the vigorous manner already described. 

 On the rest of the ground you can hardly distin- 

 guish the pale blue or purple dwindled plants of 

 rape scarcely raising themselves from the surface 

 and choked with grass. This fact illustrates in 

 some degree the chemical laws of the food of 

 plants; for Dr. Liebig states that peat ashes con- 

 tain a small proportion of potash : I believe that 

 the rape itself also contains potasli : hence proba- 

 bly the wonderful influence of peat-ashes upon its 

 growth. There is also a further circumstance 

 which may be remarked ; the quantity of ashes 

 which thus occasions the diflference between a 

 strong plant 3 feet high and a feeble weed of a 

 kvr inches, is very small ; but, of that small quan- 

 tity, the potash and other salts which enter into 

 the composition of the plant and enable it to bring 

 forth its tall stem and broad leaves, are still more 

 minute: the ashes cannot then be called the food 

 of the plant ; they can only aid the plant to make 

 use of the other matters of which its vegetable 

 frame is formed ; yet they act precisely as farm 

 dung, which is supposed to afford the substance of 

 vegetation. Such is the fact; the explanation re- 

 mains for that chemist who at some future dav 



In Lincoln- 

 shire, however, the heavy expense of under-drain- shall unfold to us the great mystery of the food of 

 ing has not been required. Deep open ditches, ' plants. 



I have omitted to mention the manner in which 

 the rape or swedes are sown ; and, in now advert- 

 ing to it, I have to state an instance in which the 

 knowledge of a practical farmer was better than 

 my own theory. I had been very desirous that 

 one of my tenants should subsoil-plow his peat land 

 after it had been drained, in order to let down the 

 water through the tenacious subsoil : this he was 

 very reluctant to do, because in his opinion it could 

 not he plowed too shallow. He was unwilling 

 even to plow it 4 inches deep, thinking the depth 

 of 2 inches enough. Now it happened that in a 

 peaty field of my own, which had just been broken 

 up, one half of the 2.5 acres was plowed 2 inches 

 deep, the other half, contrary to my intentions, 4 

 inches deep. On the half which had been plowed 

 shallow, I found a very fine growth of swedes ; on 

 the other, which had been plowed deep, about 8 

 acres were almost perfectly bare, nearly every 

 plant having been destroyed by the wire-worm. 

 The looseness of the ground arising from the deep- 

 er stirring, may have rendered the progress of the 

 wire-worm more easy ; but 1 think the true cause 

 of the destruction was the enfeebled state of the 

 plant, in consequence of which it perished under 

 the attack which greater vigor would have enabled 

 it to survive. This 1 believe is often the case, and 

 certainly under the strong swedes on the firmer 

 land, an equal number of wire-worms was to be 

 found. The farmers in fact here, led by experi- 

 ence, carry to a great length the principle of keep, 

 ing such poor light ground as tight as possible. I 

 should have mentioned that the rape is planted by 

 sowing it broadcast on the unmoved ground after 

 the ashes of the first breast-plowing have been 

 spread, the seed being afterwards covered by par- 

 ing and turning over another thin slice of the sur- 

 face in a second breast-plowing. On one farm, .50 

 acres of land, which though not peat are peaty, and 

 equally loose in texture, were broken up from grass 

 three years ago, and have been cultivated ever 

 since by the breast-plow alone. I did try tlie sub- 

 soil plow last year on two acres of peat, cutting 

 through a subsoil of weak clay, and it appears to 

 me that the present crop of swedes has suffered ma- 

 terially by the consequent looseness of the ground, 

 the land being but half covered with plants: in- 

 deed, although it has been thorough drained, it has 

 returned to the state of bog, and is once more al- 

 most impassable. It is right, however, to mention 

 that in Lincolnshire deeper plowing is practiced. 

 Mr Handley writes to me, "the peat is plowed ns 

 deep or deeper than other lands. A relative of 

 mine has for years "been in the practice, when the 

 surface has become exhausted by cropping, of 

 plowing with two plows in the same furrow, depos- 

 iting the top soil in the bottom of the furrow, and 

 raising the subsoil from the depth of fourteen in- 

 ches to the top, with most beneficial results ; but if 

 that depth was exceeded, the following crops were 

 bad." But even there the practice is not unani- 

 mously approved, and Lincolnshire farms have been 

 by no means exempt from the wire-worm. On 

 Exmoor, too, in Somersetshire, I have lately seen 

 subsoil plowing practiced upon peat by Mr Knight 



