PRESIDENTIAL ADDRF.SR. '>o.) 



tion if the farmer has sufficient capital, or if his holding is so small that 

 his capital can be more intensively used. It is possible to gi'ow nothing but 

 crops bringing in a large gross return; in districts round Sandy, Biggleswade, 

 &c., the niarket-garden crops have been exclusively grown for very many years 

 with great success * ; this method also proves very successful on the Bagshot 

 sands. It is not clear, however, that this type of farming coidd be indefinitely 



The best hope for improvement of these light soils lies in increasing the 

 number of money-finding crops, improving the methods of growing them— c.;/., 

 the introduction of the boxing and spraying of potat-oes— and their relation^ to 

 the other crops or the live-stock, and improving the organisation for disposing 

 of them, so that farmers will feel justified in spending the rather considerable 

 smns of money without which light soils cannot be successfully managed. 



We can now leave these light soils and pass to the opposite extreme— the 

 heavy clay soils. These suffer from the fundamental defect that the clay easily 

 deflocculates and assumes a sticky, pasty condition when wet, and a hard, lunipy 

 condition when dry. In spite of a good deal of laboratory work, deflocculation 

 is not well understood; it is known, however, to be a special case of a very 

 general phenomenon— flocculation of suspended colloids— and it will presumably 

 succumb to treatment when the general problem is solved. Important advances 

 have been made in the last few years by Perrin,' and it would be interesting 

 to apply his methods to clay. 



For the time being the only feasible method of flocculating clay is to add 

 lime or chalk, but experience shows that liming and chalking must be accom- 

 panied by drainage to be a complete success. Any attempt to improve crop 

 production on heavy lands involves these as the first steps. 



Liming and chalking present no serious difficulties beyond those of transit 

 already discussed ; but drainage does. 



The old drains laid down in the great reclamation schemes of the '60s, 

 and still often called the Government drains, are in many places blocked up, 

 and new ones are wanted. The old system is too costly for modern use, biit 

 fortunately mole drainage promises to be an efficient and much cheaper substi- 

 tute. Already one or two large companies are at work in Oxfordshire and the 

 surrounding counties ploughing either by the acre or the chain, and already 

 good results have been obtained in Oxfordshire, Essex, and elsewhere. But if 

 drainage is to be a complete success there must be co-ordination and a certain 

 amount of control over the whole drainage area. This control already exists 

 in some places : the Fens, Eomney Marsh, &c., and it can be worked satisfac- 

 torily. But in the great clay areas there is no unified control, and it is left 

 to each individual to act or refrain from acting just as he pleases. One man 

 may drain his land, but if his neighbour a little lower down does not choose 

 to keep the ditch clean there may be endless trouble. Further, if his successor 

 chooses to neglect the drains, they may get blocked up, and much of the capital 

 sunk in them may be wasted. It is obviously undesirable that a great 

 fundamental improvement should thus be at the mercy of individuals, and the 

 whole matter requires careful considered action. 



Where clay soils are drained and limed it is possible to begin to do some- 

 thing with them. Wheat, beans, mangolds, cabbages, and grass can all be 

 produced. There is often a tendency to shallow ploughing resulting in the 

 formation of a rather solid plough-sole a few inches below the surface. ]\Iarked 

 irnpiovement has resulted on some of the Essex land by breaking this up with 

 a subsoiler every four or five years; the practice, unfortunately, is not common. 

 and demonstration plots on heavy soils in different parts of the country are 

 much needed to extend it. 



But, when all is said and done, clays still suffer from two disadvantages : 

 they are only suited to a limited number of crops, and they are difficult to 

 cultivate. The land may be too hard in autumn to be ploughed for winter 



' In 1808 they were eaid to have been grown from time immemorial.- 

 Batchelor, General View of the Affriculture of Bedford. 



^ Brownian litovrmtnt avd Molecular Reality. Perrin (London, Taylor & 

 Francis, 1910). 



