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No. VI. 



An Account of the Improvement of more than 90 Acre$ of Lands, lying waste. 

 By Mr. Philipps, of Tyn-y~Sbos, near Oswestry. 



In the year 1804 ^ large quantity of waste land was divided and allotted in the 

 township where I live, on the borders of North Wales, by private agreement. I 

 became possessed, as proprietor, of 70 acres of these lands. I obtained 50 acres 

 more by two leases, each for 21 years, and 25 acres in exchange for other lands. 



The wastes consisted of two divisions : the first was a piece of common land, 

 surrounded by old inclosures. This portion, though raised far above the general 

 level of the country, is much less elevated than the larger tract, hereafter to be 

 described. 



The portion of this waste allotted to me was eight acres. The grass produced, 

 while the land was in its natural state, was a sour rough sort. It afforded pasture 

 in the summer to a few cattle, horses, and sheep. The coldness of the soil, and 

 the consequent bad quality of the grass, gave this common the Welsh name of 

 Rhos ; a name which implies a tract of moist land, producing a coarse sour herbage. 



1. I began my improvements upon this allotment, because it lay near my house. 



The fence is a ditch four feet high, with a double rail at the top. A double row 

 of quick is planted upon the top of the ditch, to supply the place of the rails when 

 they decay. 



The surface soil is about six inches deep, with a substratum of bad yellow clay. 

 The first ploughing was in June 1804; it was cross ploughed in August, and har- 

 rowed ; ploughed a third time about the 20th of September ; manured about the 

 end of the same month with 1690 Winchester bushels of lime, amounting to about 

 211 bushels an acre: ploughed a fourth time in the middle of October, in small 

 butts or ridges, sov/ed and harrowed. This operation of ridging was peculiarly 

 necessary here to carry off the surface water, which had formerly greatly injured 

 the land. Twenty-four bushels of Devonshire wheat were sown. The return was 

 about 240 bushels ; 30 bushels an acre. The crop was one of the finest in this 

 country. 



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