28 HAMPSHIBE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



your feet ; and it makes you quake in turn, lest you should be " swal- 

 lowed up quick." It is a land at once under the primal curse of briars 

 and " thorns and thistles," and under the second curse of a " flood of 

 water," imaging to a mind like Milton's a portion of the infernal 

 world described by him as " fens, bogs, dens and shades of death." 

 Can land like this be redeemed from this double curse ? 



For land in this condition the true remedies are Draining, and 

 Ploughing. The first is essential to the second. The second is 

 essential to success as to the object aimed at in the process of recla- 

 mation. Beside the spade and the plough, the ax often has an im- 

 portant office to perform in clearing off wood and bushes. 



The first thing to be aimed at is to get rid of the water. It is true 

 that a certain amount of water is necessary for the germination and 

 the subsequent growth of plants, both as the medium of aliment and 

 as itself furnishing certain elements which enter into their composi- 

 tion. But an excess of water operates as injuriously on the fertility 

 of land as does the excess of dryness. And it is as important that 

 the one should be corrected by draining as it is that the other should 

 be corrected by irrigation. Whether the excess of water is on the 

 surface, or on the subsoil, or issues from strata cropping out, drain- 

 ing, either from the surface, or from the subsoil, or from strata send- 

 ing forth springs as at the bottom of hills, is the pioneer process for 

 other improvements. 



The land requiring to be drained is not unfrequently found to con- 

 tain largely those elements which enter into the composition of valua- 

 ble vegetable products. It often happens that the finer parts of the 

 soil are washed down from the hills. It often happens too that from 

 the falling leaves and the annual decay of vegetation, there has been 

 an immense accumulation of vegetable matter on the surface, which, 

 by proper means, can be decomposed and thus be prepared to enter 

 into other crops whether roots, grains, fruits, or grasses. For ages 

 the work of saving has been going on. By the exclusion of air, by 

 a low temperature, by preservative qualities in the water or soil per- 

 haps. Providence with prescient care has laid by for future use these 

 immense stores of vegetable matter in the form of peat for the nour- 

 ishment of future plants ; just as Providence has also laid by im- 

 mense stores of vegetable matter in the form of coal, for the future 

 use of man. In this Avay nature has hoarded up treasures of untold 

 value for those and those only who know how to use them. And the 

 fertility thus imparted to the soil will be permanent. At least the 

 period in the future in which it will continue to be fertile may be 

 commensurate with the period during which nature has been prepar- 

 ing the elements of its fertility. 



It is true that in this preserved organic state, it is unfit for nour- 

 ishing plants. But take a cart-load of it from its place, while in this 

 state in which can be seen the texture of the leaves, the grain of the 

 wood, the cortical layers, the stalks and stems and fibres of plants like 



