his lecture, Mr. Young says — " If I were to name the circiira*- 

 stance which more than any other governed his (Mr. Ducket's) 

 practice, I should say that the whole was founded in trench 

 ploughing; and that the principle which governed this practice 

 (a principle thoroughly impressed upon his mind as well as on 

 the minds of those who draw intelligent conclusions) was that of 

 giving as little tillage as possible to sandy soils." 



"The next circumstance w^hich I shall advert to (says Mr. 

 Young) in the husbandry of Mr. Ducket, is the use of long^ fresh 

 tiling, instead of that which in common management is turned 

 and mixed till it becomes rotten: and in justice to his memory, 

 I shall read the short recital of his practice, as I printed it 

 three-and-twenty years ago. " Dependent on the Trench- 

 Plough,* is Mr. Ducket's system of dunging. He conceives, 

 and I apprehend very justly, that the more dunghills are stirred 

 and turned over, and rotted, the more of their virtue is lost. 

 ft is not a question of straw merely wetted; but good Zon^ dung 

 he esteems more than that quantity of short dung, which time 

 will convert the former to. Two loads of long may become one 

 ^i short ; but the two arc much more valuable than the one. 

 Without the Trenching-plougb, however, his opinion would be 

 different. If long dung is ploughed in, in the common manner, 

 with lumps and bundles sticking out at many places along every 

 furrow, which lets the sun and air into the rest that seems cov- 

 ered, he thinks, so used, it is mostly lost, or given to the winds : 

 in such a case, short rotted manure will be better covered, and 

 should be preferred. But with hLs plough nothing of this hap- 

 pens ; and it enables him to use his dung in such a state as gives 

 him a large quantity instead of a small one. The good sense of 

 these observations must be obvious at the first blush.*' Mr. 

 Young adds — " The use of tkesh instead of rotten dung, is, in 

 my opinion, one of the greatest agricultural discoveries that has 

 been made in (he present cr^e." He then states a striking eXperi- 



■■■■ The Trench-Plough of Mr. Ducket's invention was so admirably coii- 

 trived as completely to bury whatever was intended to be turned in. Mr. 

 Young says he saw him turn down a crop of rye, six feet high, so that not 

 an atom was left visible ; and yet the depth did not exceed eight inches. 

 Trench-ploughing has sometimes been eftected in this country by a second 

 plough follnwinj in the same furrow after the fir-.t, and going a few ianhu?. 

 >ieeper. 



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