i^i* ^ Sy 's* ia <^ ««r iaj lar^ 



AND .ORTICULTUriAL REGISTER. 



9L. XVIII.3 



PUBLISHED BY JOSEPH BRECK & CO., NO. 52 NO.,fH MARKET STREET, (Agricultur.vi. Warehouse.) 

 BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JA1NIUARY 8, 1840. 



[KO. 87. 



AGRICULTURAL. 



From the Journal of the English Agricultural Society. 



RESENT STATE OF THE SCIENCE OF AG- 

 RICULTURE IN ENGL.^ND. 

 [Coiitiaued.] 

 A deep soil, indeed, haa this double advantajre 

 ■er a shallow one, even though both be equally 

 ndy — that during dry weather, roots can descend 

 ■eper in search of moisture, and that moisture ri- 

 s from below, by capillary attraction, more freely 

 wards them. But where veins of clay are found 

 terlarding, as it were, the sand, the advantage 

 11 be far greater, because the sandy soil will be 

 ought now into that moderately adhesive state 

 lich will entitle it to be ranked as a loam. In- 

 ed, where clay is not found on the very spot, it 

 may often be brought, as has long been the prac- 

 :e in Dorsetshire and in Norfolk, by horse-labor, 

 )m a moderate distance. It is worth remark that, 

 another part of this country, and on a different 

 scriptionof light soil, strong as is the disinclina- 

 in of British husbandry for the use of the spade, 

 eat improvements have for a long time, over an 

 tensive district, been effected by lifting clay from 

 low and laying it upon the surface. It is the 

 at district of Lincolnshire to which we 'v'lude. 

 ire the soil consists of light vegetable niitner, 

 If-decayed fibres of plants, clothed in its natural 

 ite with rushes or heath. A handful of it pre- 

 nts very much the appearance of rappee snuff. — 

 ; a depth varying from one to many feet, lies a 

 ry stiff blue clay of the consistence of soap. — 

 hen the land is brought into cultivation, trench- 

 are opei.ed down to this clay, and a heavy dress- 

 g of it is laid on the face of the ground, which 

 ree years afterwards is found to be imperfectly 

 .xed in su'.all lumps witli»the peat. At the end, 

 wever, of twelve years, after three such doses of 

 ly have been given, a specimen which we have 

 en from tijis same ground, instead of a brown 

 ■w'dery substance like rotten bark, presents the 

 'pearaiice of a dark grey, rather stiff loam, not 

 ssimilar to the garden mould which is usually met 

 Ih round London, capable of bearing heavy crops 

 cole oats and wheat in rotation, being, in fact, 

 e soil of a most valuable description of farm, 

 iiich has been manufactured from the It^vo sterile 

 w materials, pure peat and mere clay. 

 It might be supposed that the reverse of this pro- 

 !ss would also succeed, and that, as sands and 

 ;at9 are made firmer by the admixture of clay, 

 ayey soils might be rendered more porous if sand 

 ere carted upon them. It has been, indeed, so 

 ipposed, and the attempt has been made, but no 

 stance is known in which it has been found to 

 cceed. The expense of laying on the large quan- 

 ;y of sand that would be required, must probably 

 ore than snallow up any profit that could be de- 

 ved ; and although cold lands with retentive sub- 

 ils have, in many disiricts, been much improved 

 ! covered drains, more or less effectively n.ade, 

 e hope of bringing them to a thoroucrbly free- 



working genial temper, had been, until lately, al- 

 most abandoned. Mr Smith, however, a manufac- 

 turer of Deanston, near Stirling, some years since 

 applied his mind to this subject; and, as the prac- 

 tical farmer wh) has this year won the first medal 

 of the Society, slates i\Ir Smith's process to be the 

 greatest improvement effected in agriculture since 

 the introduction of turnip culture, (that is, for the 

 last century,) it is impossible to pass it over, al- 

 though, of course, its introduction is too new to be 

 placed already altogether beyond the risk of dis- 

 appointment. Mr Smith's mode of dealing with a 

 clayey subsoil, which holds up in the soil the water 

 that has fallen in rain, and thus exerts some unex- 

 plained evil influence on plants fitted fur the food 

 of man or of cattle, is as follows : That gentleman 

 invented a heavy iron plough, resembling the com- 

 mon plough, but differing in thi=i respect, that, hav- 

 ing no mould-board, it splits the ground but docs 

 not turn it over; and he uses it thus: — at the same 

 time that an ordinary plough goes along and turns 

 over the surface of the wet land, the share of the 

 subsoil plough following, passes through and splits 

 the whole of the subsoil to the depth of 18 or 20 

 inches, and the rain water sinks, of course, so much 

 lower. Mr Smith, however, does not allow the 

 rain to lodge here : he lias previously dug covered 

 drains about three feet deep, made thus deep in or- 

 der that his underground plough may have room to 

 pass over the covered cliannel which is left i'or tiie 

 water to flow along in the lower part of these drains 

 after they have been filled in above ; and he states 

 that in this way he can not only produce, artificial- 

 ly, a porous subsoil instead of a close one, but that 

 this clayey subsoil, having been so subdivided, be- 

 comes mellowed by the action of air and of water, 

 and that thus, after a few years, a portion of it may 

 be safely brought up by deep or trench-ploughing, 

 and turned over upon the surface, so that the culti- 

 vated soil, by this third process, is to the same ex- 

 tent deepened. To whatever extent the Deanston 

 system may be found applicable to the clay lands 

 of England, a revolution will be at the same time 

 effected in their mode of culture by the introduc- 

 tion of the turnip among them. 



With regard to that portion of England which 

 lies on a stratum that may be called rocky, much of 

 it will be found to have the immediate subsoil of 

 clay, and to fall therefore properly under the last 

 head ; and even where the subsoil is of stone, the 

 stone may bo so interspersed with clay, that thorough 

 draining may be equally requisite. Where thai) 

 stone is a dry gravel, it may be worth the trial 

 wliether the rools of some plants cannot be ena- 

 bled to descend into it by means of the subsoil 

 plough. Such an experi.nont appears, by a com- 

 munication from one of our members, to have suc- 

 ceeded at Heckfield. A considerable portion of 

 the stony soils belongs to t'.ie great chalk lormation 

 which, resting on the basis of Hampshire, flings its 

 arms widely, in four directions, as far as the -sea, 

 through Dorsetshire, Sussex, Kent and Yorkshire. 

 On this extensive tract another, and singular, mode 

 of permanently improving the texture of the soil, 

 by blending with it a part of the subsoil, has been 



long and successfully, though very partially, prac- 

 tised. Pits, like well.s, are sunk in tlie.fielil, by 

 workmen usei to the business, and from the bot- 

 tom of these the best sort of chalk is brought up 

 with a windlass, to be aftorwards spread over the 

 surface ; which thus, in the winter months, when 

 the operation should take place, that the lumps of 

 stone may be shaken to pieces by the frost, pre- 

 sents at a distance the aspect of afield covered 

 with snow. The benefit of this rather expensivtu 

 operation has been long acknowledged, tluiugh it!i 

 mode of action has not been explained. It is lesti 

 surprising, indeed, where the upper soil of the' 

 chalk formation consists of a thin layer of reddish 

 clay, left behind by the plastic clay formation ; bu't 

 even where that soil is a shallow sheet of earth , 

 that appears to be mads up of fragments of th« i 

 «tone upon which it rests, this ancient practice ol" 

 laying on a fresh coat of that very stone is statee 

 to be equally advantageous. Enough, however, hal 

 now been said to prove how much remains to be ^ 

 done for the permanent improvement of the Engf. ■ 

 .lish soil. Indoed, while il may with truth be af- 

 fi rmsd that our husbandry, on the Large scale, stands 

 in the firs* rank, as far as the surface of the ground 

 is co'ncer.innl, it must equally be admitted, as re- 

 ga rds tife' subsoil, to be yet in its infancy. There 

 is sc aitwsly a situation where, however wet or dry, 

 or stortyi iiny be the. natural grcund, a kitchen gar- 

 de. 1, «iiii»-i-be.:tff iiiould t'AO spades deep, >t .•.y not 

 gra dually be fWrned by tho oonstai.t, long cujtin- 

 ued c»re of the gardener. While the sand is stiff- 

 ened, and the clay Vnellowed, and boi'Ii deepened, 

 the very stone is probably, by length of cultivation, 

 worn down into soil. Nor can British husbandry 

 be ctmsidered complete in this department until all 

 the farms of this country, like those of Flanders', 

 are brought into the same condition of gardon-IiJte 

 temper and depth. 



If v,-e suppose the soil of a farm to have been 

 provided with a free and healthy S'jbsoil, the next 

 subject to which the inquiry of agricultural science 

 may be directed is, the manner in which that soil 

 should be prepared for the reception of the intend- 

 ed crops ; but it is unnecessary to do more than to 

 touch upon one or two of the principal heads. The 

 most simple and ancient of rural instruments, the 

 plough though probably much more than 2000 years 

 old, has recently received great improvement, and 

 the best construction of it is even yet matter of 

 controversy. There is no doubt th t, by giving a 

 more suitable curve to that part of it (the mould- 

 board) which turns over the earth which has been 

 detached with the share, and by substituting iron 

 for wood on its surface, the friction has been so 

 crreatly diminished, that the new ploughs, being- in 

 other respects also of a far better shape, eftVct a 

 diminution in draught, which may be estimated 

 within compass at the saving of half a horse's labor 

 on a team of three horses ; and the Scotch or swing 

 plough is now very generally used with two horses, 

 the ploughman holding the reins. Nothing shows 

 more the necessity of communication among the ag- 

 ricultural body th.an that the old cumbrous ma- 

 chines, with a huge carriage in front and two large 



