NOTES. 49 



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CHAP. IV. 



1 Deep ploughing permits the surface-water to pass beneath the roots of the 

 crop in winter, and admits the action of the air and influence of the season in 

 summer ; hence a powerful evaporation is carried on, which supplies the plants 

 with moisture during the driest weather. After every ploughing, the earth ex- 

 hales as much as after the most copious shower of rain. Curwen's Report, p. 54. 



2 Coventry's Discourses, p. 73. 



3 Marshall's Gloucestershire, vol. i. p. 12. His contended by Marshall, and 

 others, that if the operations of tillage were better performed, it would add one- 

 third, or at least one-fifth to the produce of the kingdom. 



4 General Report of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 314. 



5 This is called Fox-earth in Derbyshire. Report, vol. i. p. 305 ; and Fox- 

 bench in Cheshire. Ditto. In Norfolk also, it is considered to be hazard- 

 ous to plough up the black retentive subsoil, so frequent in that district ; but 

 any soil, with a subsoil capable of being pulverized, may be gradually, and suc- 

 cessfully deepened. 



6 When soils are deepened, lime should always be applied, to correct any 

 noxious ingredients in them ; and putrescent matters, to give the soil an ade- 

 quate degree of fertility. It is a mistake, to suppose, that deepening the soil, 

 renders a much greater quantity of manure necessary. The most intelligent far- 

 mers do not think that more than from ten to sixteen per cent, additional is re- 

 quired. 



7 This maxim the farmers of Flanders acted upon, gradually deepening their 

 soil, as their manure was augmented. Mr Young observes, that in poor hungry 

 soils, some proportion ought to be observed, between the depth of a ploughing, 

 and the quantity of manure annually spread. Calendar, p. 510. 



8 I have made many experiments in order to ascertain the advantages to be 

 derived from deep ploughing, all of which have proved the benefit of the prac- 

 tice. Even in many instances, in which the subsoil brought up, was, to all 

 appearance, very unfertile, the surface-soil was much benefited. A very sim- 

 ple and curious circumstance led me into a knowledge of this fact. A tenant 

 on the land, had made a pit of potatoes in an angle of a field, then a wheaten 

 stubble : the pit was dug eighteen inches deep, and about twenty yards long, 

 after being filled with the roots and well covered by the soil from both sides. 

 On the potatoes being consumed, the wheaten stubble was sown with oats, in- 

 cluding the angle as already described. This crop proved indifferent, except on 

 the angle where the subsoil was thrown up, which was most luxuriant, and 

 which retained its fertility for two years afterwards. In another case, when 

 drains had been made to carry off the surface-water from a field sown with rape, 

 all the plants which grew near to the subsoil thrown up in this operation, grew 

 more luxuriant than those in any other part of the field. From the fertile ef- 

 fects which this subsoil produced, and from its adhesive nature, I conceived it to 

 be a species of marl ; but on trying its properties, found it did not possess any 

 calcareous matter. Remark by Edward Burroughs, Esq. 



9 Deep soils are generally the driest in wet seasons, but in very wet seasons, 

 they are thought to be the wettest, because they are the longest in drying. 



10 In shallow soils, there are very often great inequalities in the crop, and 

 that in places of a field quite contiguous to each other. 



1 1 Mr Parker, of Munden, prefers nine inches for the depth of ploughing, 

 and he has practised that system for many years, on good loamy land in Hun- 



e 



