IMPROVEMENT OF LAND. 97 



proof of the advantage of trenching land, even on the crop of the first 

 year after the operation. As the field was to be sown down the follow- 

 ing year with young grass along with a crop of barley, I requested the 

 farm-overseer to keep a note of the produce of the latter, both on the 

 trenched and untrenched parts of the field. He did so, and the result 

 was that on the trenched portion there were sixty-four bushels per acre, 

 while on the untrenched there were only forty bushels to the acre ; thus 

 giving twenty-four bushels more of crop on the trenched than on the 

 imtrenched land. This result, therefore, speaks for itself. I may also 

 mention, that as I had occasion to pass through this field after it was 

 in pasture, I noted the condition of the grass on both portions of it, and 

 was much struck by the superiority of that on the land which had been 

 trenched, compared with that on the part which had not been touched. 

 Indeed, the farm-overseer told me that the grass on the fourteen acres 

 of trenched land was at least equal to that on the other twenty-five acres 

 embraced in the field. The next example to which I shall refer is 

 one of about three acres of land which were drained and trenched in 

 order to be prepared as a nursery for the rearing of young trees. In 

 doing this, road-scrapings, horse and cow manure, together with a quan- 

 tity of rotted vegetable matter, were laid in the bottoms of the trenches, 

 which were made to the depth of two feet. Here, also, the operation was 

 performed in the autumn, and the rough surface allowed to lie over the 

 winter for improvement by the weather. The part chosen, and to which 

 I now refer, was in the corner of a field, and from subsequent arrange- 

 ments it was found necessary to abandon it for a nursery, and therefore 

 it was again added to the field. The field being under grass at this 

 time, however, it was necessary to put -a temporary fence round the 

 trenched part in order to keep it in crop till the whole could be 

 brought into the same rotation, when it was intended to throw it into 

 the field again. Following out this plan, it was well manured and sown 

 with turnips. The crop was very heavy as compared with any other crop 

 of the kind in the neighbourhood, and also proved the immediate advan- 

 tage derivable from trenching. The following year this piece of land was 

 sown down with grass and oats, and the quantity produced per acre was 

 nearly seventy-three bushels, while in the neighbouring fields the average 

 of the crop of oats did not exceed forty-eight bushels. In this case the 

 young grass was very much injured by the heavy crop of oats, and in 

 fact had to be resown the following spring. I have seen it since, how- 

 ever, and the grass on the trenched part was the best upon the estate on 

 which it is situated. The next example I shall give is a case I observed 

 on a place which I had occasion to visit in one of the central counties 

 of England. In that instance I found a Scotch land-steward bringing 



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