with a View to the most Profitable Crop. 53 
This ground has been cultivated for several years in the 
usual careless manner, having borne, I believe, successive 
crops of oats, or oat hay, with very little manure. The 
soil was light, and easily moved for a depth of about 6 
inches; but on the sole of the furrow made by the plough 
it was as hard as the road, the clayey loam of which it was 
composed being very tenacious. 
IT commenced draining these four acres by cutting ditches 
30 inches deep and 80 feet apart, in the direction of the line 
of quickest descent, or nearly so, to the central water-course. 
Into these drains split palings were placed for the purpose of 
keeping the water-way open in a triangular form, (thus V), 
the paling being 5 or 6 feet long and about 4 inches 
wide : the earth was then filled in upon the top of the 
water-way thus formed, but no attempt was made to ram 
or consolidate it. 
I should have been glad to have taken the trench deeper, 
say to the depth of 4 feet, which appears to be sanctioned 
by experiments made in England ; but the men employed 
were not used to the work, and the hardness of the subsoil 
made it very difficult for them even to reach the depth of 
30 inches. ‘The want of depth was therefore compensated 
for by putting the drains near together. 
Having filled in the drains, and having, in the course of 
the work, ascertained the nature of the subsoil, and the 
extent of available soil above the hard substratum, I 
decided upon attempting to break up a portion of it by 
employing one of Read’s subsoil ploughs, purchased by me 
from Mr. John Walker, who kindly attended one morning to 
instruct my workmen in the mode of using it. By this 
plough following in the furrow turned out by an ordinary 
plough, the ground has been broken up to the depth of at 
Jeast 4 inches below the solid surface of the ordinary sub- 
E93 
