THE IMPROVEMENT OF OUR WASTE LANDS. 233 



three feet and allowed to remain in this way for some months, when the 

 peat will have subsided so much as to admit of the drains being again 

 deepened ; and this must be carried on for one or more years, as may be 

 necessary, until the peat has dried for several feet in depth. If the 

 bottom of the rnoss has not been reached, the drain-pipes will have to 

 be put in on wooden soles that is, long boards of wood about three and 

 a half inches broader than the pipes which will rest upon them. 



The drainage having been finished, the trenching can be proceeded 

 with as already described in regard to the trenching of other land, and 

 any roots of trees in the moss will have to be removed as described. The 

 cost of the reclamation of moss depends upon its depth and its nature. 

 I drained and trenched a field of moss some years ago in Inverness-shire. 

 The peat was oil an average fifteen feet deep ; this we drained first, and 

 afterwards removed a large number of tree-roots in the manner described, 

 the improvement of the land costing the sum of 8 per acre. 



SECTION 4. The Reclamation of Waste Lands by Horse-Power. 



There are several forms of ploughs which have of late years been used 

 in subsoiling and trenching land with horses. Amongst these is the 

 Tweeddale subsoil-trench-plough, which was an improvement made by 

 the Marquess of Tweeddale upon a subsoiling-plough made by Mr Eead. 

 It has been extensively used in the subsoiling and trenching of several 

 farms at Yester, county of Haddington, Scotland, and also in other parts 

 of the kingdom. 



Mr Stephens, author of the ' Book of the Farm,' wrote a work describ- 

 ing the improvements carried out on the Yester farms, entitled ' The 

 Yester Deep-Land Culture,' which is very instructive, and no one should 

 be without it who has the improvement of estates to carry out. In this 

 work Mr Stephens thus describes the different parts of the Tweeddale 

 subsoil-plough, fig. 88 : 



FIG. 88. 



" These comprehend the shank or coulter a b, the sock or share b c 

 attached to it, and the inclined plane or tail-board b d, also attached to the 



