88 THE BOOK OF THE LANDED ESTATE. 



of their land. They have not, generally, any well-defined reason to 

 give as to why they are of opinion that it should not be disturbed, but 

 affirm that, when they have happened to turn up any of the subsoil, 

 they have found it do more harm than good to their crops. From 

 entertaining this prejudice against breaking up the subsoil, many of 

 them rear poor, scanty, and unremunerative crops ; and those men, al- 

 though experiencing this state of things, never attribute the true cause 

 of their failure to their neglect in not making a deeper soil for the better 

 development of the plants, but blame the land itself as being either 

 " too cold bottomed " or " too retentive " for a more profitable state of 

 things ; and so in this opinion they go on year after year, getting poor 

 returns for themselves, and in consequence paying only a poor rent to 

 the proprietor. Many of the intelligent class of farmers are now, how- 

 ever, of a different opinion, and therefore practise deep ploughing, so as 

 to break up the subsoil and mix it with the upper, and by this means 

 make a deeper soil for the better development of all the plants they cul- 

 tivate. Still there are comparatively few, even of the intelligent class 

 of farmers, who cultivate their land deep enough to secure the full 

 advantages of its latent capabilities ; and therefore, with regard to the 

 tillage of the land as generally practised in this country, it is evident 

 that but few of its cultivators understand how to deal with it ui order 

 to bring its capabilities into full exercise for the advantage of all con- 

 cerned. If they knew how to do this, they would not confine the 

 cultivation of their land to a few inches seldom exceeding twelve 

 on the surface, while they have a storehouse of wealth lying below this, 

 which requires only deeper cultivation to render it available. It is but 

 reasonable to suppose that, were this fact generally known and received 

 among farmers, it could not fail to be as generally practised. In short, 

 the depth to which a farmer ploughs is a sure index of his intelligence 

 as a cultivator of the soil. 



Drainage is the next branch of farming operations to which I shall 

 refer. Since 1835, when Mr Smith of Deanston first brought into public 

 notice his well-known system of drainage, much has been done through 

 its means for the improvement of large tracts of arable land. Of what 

 has been drained in this way, a large proportion has been made valuable 

 crop-bearing land by the operation, while in other cases the land has 

 been only partially benefited by it, but all less or more improved, ac- 

 cording as the respective depths and distances apart of the drains were 

 calculated to produce the desired state of dryness in the land operated 

 on. When Mr Smith first made known his system of thorough-drain- 

 ing, however, it was understood that it should be followed by a system 

 of deep-ploughing, in order to make it thoroughly effective to dry the 



