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raent to agricultural as well as arboricultural improvement cannot exist, 

 than this unsightly weed ; because wherever there are rushes, there must 

 be superfluous moisture; and that excess of an indispensable element, is 

 equally hostile to abundant grain-crops, good pasturage, and good wood. 



To point out a method of eradicating the rush effectually is a problem 

 that has not as yet been solved, by men in either of these departments. 

 The causes which occasion it are twofold : first, underground water; in 

 which case, it is completely to be removed by draining : and secondly, 

 tenacity of soil, which retains moisture, as if in a cup; a species of 

 evil, for which no cure has ever been found. Observing, some years ago, 

 that, on no land where the subsoil was completely dry, were any rushes 

 ever kno\m to spring up; and reasoning on the indisputable maxim, that 

 Sublaia causa, tollitur ejfeciiis, I conceived, that if any means could be 

 devised to carry off superfluous moisture, from underneath the soil, and 

 to carry it oS speedily, the rushes would disappear, as a matter of course. 

 Experience had shown that, from underground drains, however carefully 

 executed, no such effect would follow; because numerous examples exist 

 of persons, who, from an anxiety to lay dry particular fields, have inter- 

 sected them with drains in all directions, within five and six feet of one 

 another, and still rushes have sprung up, even on the top of their drains. 

 Nothing, therefore, promised to be effectual, except some method oi ren- 

 dering the entire snhsail a drain, and thus carrying off the water, which 

 descended from the higher grounds, or fell from the sky, before it had 

 time to stagnate. 



For this important purpose, deep trenching seemed particularly well 

 adapted ; as the first principle of it consists, in reversing the order of 

 the natural strata, and putting down, to any given depth, the loose and 

 friable soil, which has been the subject of culture. By that means, a 

 subsoil of an entirely different quality, namely, the fine mould of the 

 surface, would at once be created at the bottom of the trench, and 

 through which the superfluous water, formerly retained by impervious 

 strata, would now readily percolate. Besides this, another object of 

 immense interest presented itself, and that was, the sudden and effectual 

 alteration, and therefore melioration of the soil, from wet to dry, from 

 stiff to porous : and if it were true, as already stated, that " the best 

 soil, whether for wood or agricultural crops, was one, that is at once 

 loose and deep," here both depth and looseness would at once be obtain- 

 ed, with the power of retaining water only to the i)roper extent, and 

 exerting a great chemical agency for the preservation of manures. 



My first experiment in reducing this theory to practice, was made on 

 about two eicres of old meadow-land, on which rushes had been abundant 



