6 



the cottager, who should use spade and shovel in 

 preference. The best ploughing is that which comes 

 nearest to trenching, which exposes the greatest quanr 

 tity of fresh surface; and the best plough is that 

 which is most easily drawn. As to the depth, 4 

 inches may be considered hght, 6 inches middling, 

 and 9 inches deep ploughing. In g-eneral, the poor 

 man's field is only scratched ; fresh mould is rarely 

 brought up ; and this, as I have already hinted, is very 

 important, in light soils, in which the essence of the 

 manure is filtered downwards ; it is therefore neces- 

 sary, to bring it into action, by mixing the under 

 with the upper soil. 



Lea should be ploughed almost always for oats in 

 the first instance. The sod should be so laid as to 

 form an angle of 45 degrees (thus-V ;) the harrow- 

 ing covers the seed in the spaces between the furrow 

 slices, and it comes up regularly in narrow drills. — 

 The old, and still too general practice of shovelling 

 lea corn is useless, where ploughing is perfect ; but 

 otherwise in every instance, it will be absolutely ne- 

 cessary. The sets in dry ground should be very 

 wide, (7 yards in breadth ;) in moist land, 3 yards 

 where the Gloucestershire ridge (as described in 

 the first number) is not formed, -sviU be a good breadth 

 for the ridge, and the harrow should be -wide enough 

 to cover the entire ridge at one stroke. I tried the 

 experiment of covering some lea oats with a shovel 

 last year ; that which in the same field was only har- 

 rowed in, though on a remarkably hungry soil, yielded 

 fully as much. When fallowing is resorted to, you 

 should consider what your object is, which should be 

 to clear the ground from weeds, to mix top, middle, 

 and bottom together, and to loosen the clay ; (for on 

 clay lands alone should fallowing be thought of; and 

 ei-en on these only in case of previous had tillage and 

 had rotations,) therefore, as is the practice in Scot- 

 land, you should give 4 or 5 good ploughings, be- 

 sides frequent harrowings whenever weeds appear; and 



