20 Soil. 



surface, so poor, as not to be worth 5s. per acre for any 

 other purpose, if laid down with sainfoin, will produce, for 

 several years, about two tons per acre of excellent hay, and 

 an aftergrass extremely valuable for weaning and keeping 

 lambs. How much more valuable, than any crops-of grain 

 that such soils usually yield ( 59 ). 



The management of sandy land, according to the system 

 adopted by the celebrated Duckett of Petersham and Esher 

 in Surrey, has been strongly recommended by an eminent 

 author. It was founded on three principles : 1. Ploughing 

 very deep, by which a due degree of moisture was preserved 

 in his light land, and the crops were flourishing in seasons 

 of drought, which destroyed those where the ploughing had 

 been shallow ; 2. Ploughing seldom, but effectually, by a 

 trench plough, or what he called a skim-coulter plough, 

 with which he buried the weeds that grew on the surface : 

 he has thus been enabled, to put in seven crops with only 

 four ploughings ; and, 3. Occasionally he has raised a 

 crop of turnips in the same season, after a crop of wheat, or 

 of pulse ( 60 ). 



In the Pays de Waes in Flanders, sand is likewise cul- 

 tivated to great perfection. The soil of that district, which 

 was originally a barren white sand, by a slow, but sure pro- 

 cess, has at last been converted into a most fertile loam. The 

 surface alone, to the depth of three or four inches, was at 

 first cultivated, and it was enriched with a considerable quan- 

 tity of manure, but the soil was gradually deepened, as it be- 

 came progressively more fertile ; and now the ground, at the 

 commencement of every rotation, is trenched by a shovel, 

 (the soil being very loose), to the depth of from fifteen to 

 eighteen inches, the exhausted surface is buried, and fresh 

 earth brought up, fertilised by the manure washed down to 

 it, during the seven preceding years. It is then subjected 

 to the following course of crops : 1. Potatoes ; 2. Wheat, 

 manured, sown in November, among which the seed of car- 

 rots is sown in February, for a crop in the same year ; 3. 

 Flax, manured, and sown with clover-seed, for the next 

 crop ; 4. Clover ; 5. Rye or wheat, with carrots for a second 

 crop; 6. Oats after the carrots; and, 7. Buck-wheat; at 

 the end of which period the ground is again trenched ( 6l ). 



The double crops raised in the sandy soils of Flanders, in 

 the course of the same year, are attended with much ad- 

 vantage. The Flemish farmers, thereby obtain a greater 

 quantity of manure, than they could produce under any other 

 system, and thus are enabled to extract so much produce 



