96 THE BOOK OF THE LANDED ESTATE. 



answer all the ends desirable to be attained by the opening up of the 

 subsoil, and I therefore have looked for a more complete method of 

 dealing with it, and find that this can be fully answered by manual 

 trenching. I can see no other mode by which the work of opening up 

 the subsoil, and thoroughly disintegrating it in all its parts, could be so 

 well done. A great objection to this, however, is the expense it would 

 involve, and the question which naturally arises is, therefore, Would it 

 pay ? I have no doubt in my own mind as to its profitableness, for I 

 have seen many instances of land which had been trenched paying 

 much better than untrenched land of the same quality, even after taking 

 the expense into account. To many persons to whom I have men- 

 tioned trenching as the very best means of improving land by its open- 

 ing up the subsoil, and making it afterwards available as a storehouse 

 of food for the plants cultivated on the surface, the scheme seemed wild ; 

 but all admitted that if their land were trenched they could not fail to 

 have a large increase in the crops they could raise, as compared with 

 untrenched land, and would therefore be able to keep more live stock 

 in proportion. No one denied this, for all had observed that the deeper 

 the land is cultivated the easier is it to work, and the higher are the 

 returns from it. I shall just refer to four cases, out of many others I 

 have observed and could bring forward, in proof that trenched land 

 pays its cultivators far better than the same character of land' in the 

 untrenched state. 



The first case to which I shall refer was brought under my notice on 

 an estate I had to do with in the west of Scotland. In that case about 

 fourteen acres of waste land were drained where it was wet, and trenched 

 in order to remove stones and underwood from it, so as to make it fit to 

 be added to an adjoining arable field, and the operation was performed 

 to the depth of two feet over all. After the stones and roots were cleared, 

 the surface was left in a rough state all the following winter the 

 trenching was performed in the month of September in order to allow 

 the weather to act on the land, so as to ameliorate it as much as possible 

 before spring. In the month of June it was manured and green-cropped 

 along with the field of which it now formed a part, and in all respects 

 it had the same treatment as the old arable portion of the field The 

 crop grown was of the kind called green-topped yellow turnips, and it 

 was remarked by all who saw it, that it exceeded in weight any crop of 

 the kind they had ever seen before. The expression used by some of 

 the old farmers of the district in referring to it was, " the land was a 

 perfect mat of turnips." No correct account was kept of the weight of the 

 crop, however, but comparing it with that on the other portion of the field, 

 it must have been fully double the weight of it. This, therefore, was a 



