Nov. 17, 1855.] 



THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 



53 





field as competitors tor ploughing their half acre each, 

 a nd 23 in another as competitors for ploughing the 

 straightest furrow. One of these fields, containing 

 20 acres, 1 rood, 23 perches, had been drained in 1851, 

 at an expense for labour of 32*. 7s. The other, a Clover 

 lea, in which 26 ploughs were assembled, contained 

 17 acres, 2 roods, 10 perches, and had been drained at 

 8 cost for labour of 32Z. 15s. Id. 



While the judges were deciding on the merits of the 

 work, the ploughmen and drainers sat down to a sub- 

 stantial dinner at the farm, after which the prizes to the 

 successful candidates and the gratuities to the unsuc- 

 cessful were distributed by his lordship, accompanied 

 by exhortations and advice as to their moral and reli- 

 gious conduct, which were delivered with much feeling 

 and received apparently with much attention. At the 

 dinner in the Hall, at which upwards of 70 partook of 

 his Lordship's hospitality, after the few toasts of 

 a public nature, "The Queen," "The Royal Family,'' 

 "The Navy and Army," had been given by Lord 

 Berners, he proceeded to the agricultural toasts, 

 and called for the agricultural remarks which they were 

 intended to elicit. His lordship first proposed the 

 health of Mr. Trimmer, and called upon him for an 

 explanation of the Key thorp system of draining, and 

 the principles on which its success depends. In respond- 

 ing to the toast, Mr. Trimmer briefly pointed out the 

 absurdity of supposing that the variations of soil are 

 dependent on the strata of our geological maps, in which 

 all the superficial accumulations are supposed to be 

 removed, in order that the rock nearest to the surface 

 may be represented as the actual surface, though those 

 superficial accumulations vary in depth from something 

 less than a foot to more than 200 feet. He stated that 

 having long made these superficial accumulations his 

 peculiar geological study he had pointed out in 1837 in 

 a'paper on the " Agricultural Geology of Norfolk," pub- 

 lished in the Journal of the Hoyal Agricultural Society of 

 England, that at the junction of the soil and subsoil there 

 are at certain depths a series of natural ridges and furrows 

 which have in general a determinate direction, and he had 

 intimated that they must have an important bearing 

 on questions of drainage and subsoiling. In a lecture 

 delivered some years afterwards before the Royal 

 Agricultural Society, he had pointed out how he con- 

 sidered that the contradictory statements so frequent in 

 the controversy then raging as to the failure or success 

 of deep or of shallow draining, might be reconciled by 

 observing whether the drains crossed or ran between 

 these natural subterranean ridges and furrows. He 

 further stated that Lord Berners, who was present on 

 that occasion, had observed that if what Mr. Trimmer 

 called ridges and furrows were the same as what in 

 Leicestershire they called "clay ban kg,'* he could bear 

 testimony to the soundness of these views, as he had 

 for many years been in habit of taking advantage of 

 them in draining operations, and had thereby been able 

 to effect a considerable reduction in the cost. On a sub- 

 sequent visit to Keythorpe, Mr. Trimmer had found 

 these clay banks to be identical with the natural 

 subterranean ridges and furrows which he had observed 

 in many other localities in England, Wales, and Ireland. 

 In conclusion he adverted to the presence of Mr. 

 Mechi, Mr. Bullock Webster, and Mr. Baker as the re- 

 spective representatives of deep, of moderately deep, 

 and of shallow draining, and expressed a hope that 

 they would favour the meeting with their views on the 

 Keythorpe system of draining. 



Lord Berners then proposed the health of Mr. 

 Bullock Webster, who in returning thanks bore testi- 

 mony to the efficiency of the drainage at Keythorpe, 

 and adverted to the absurdity of supposing that water 

 can filtrate through a retentive clay as stated by some 

 great draining authorities. He adverted to some pecu- 

 liar views entertained by Mr. Mechi on this point, and 

 begged to reserve himself for a few further observa- 

 tions when that gentleman should have spoken. 



The health of Mr. Baker, of Writtle, having been 

 proposed by Lord Berners, that gentleman returned 

 thanks in a long speech, embracing a great variety of 

 topics, which we are prevented by our plan trom 

 noticing, except as far as his observations bore on the 

 Keythorpe system of drainage. He bore testimony to 

 its efficiency as well as to the excellence of the general 

 management of the estate, denied that he was a shallow 

 drainer, as he had been described to be by Mr. Trimmer, 

 though, he contended, that if there was a porous soil 

 only 2 feet deep on an impervious subsoil nothing was 

 gained by carrying the drains into the latter. 



Then followed the great speech of the evening, that 

 °f M. Trehonnais, who in the most feeling and eloquent 

 terms a i verted to the union now happily subsisting 

 between France and England, whose best blood was 

 shed together in the same cause— the cause of freedom 

 ^d civilisation. He then adverted to the eminence of 

 the British nation in arms, to arts, in science, in com- 

 merce, in literature, and, though last not least, in agri- 

 culture. He lamented the short-comings of his own 

 country in the latter particular, he referred to his own 

 labours for its improvement, and to the difficulties with 

 *hich he had to contend from the want in France of a 

 **ce of trained and skilful rural labourers like those of 

 England. A rev. gentleman, whose name we could not 

 h*rn, in proposing the health of Lord Berners adverted 

 to his lordship's case of the agricultural labourers on 

 the estate and to the improvement which had taken 

 Place of late in their treatment throughout the couuty, 

 though much yet remained to be done. 



k>rd Berners having responded with much feeling, 

 then proposed the health of Mr. Mechi, adverting to his 



■^ ^M », ^ 



labours in the cause of agricultural improvement, his zeal 

 as a bold experimen the candour with which he com- 

 municated his failures as well as his successes, and th 

 unruffled good temper with which he . endured the 

 severest criticisms. 



When Mr. Mechi rose to return thanks, he was 

 greeted with applause, second only to that with which 

 M. Trehonnais had been received. He adverted in his 

 usual happy manner to the various agricultural subjects 

 which form the staple of his speeches ; he spoke ot the 

 success of his own farming operations, theextraordinhry 

 profit of which excited some laughter, eulogised all he 

 had seen at Keythorpe, aud bore testimony to th 

 efficiency of the drainage there, though he did not 

 touch on the peculiarities upon which the success of the 

 system depends. In the course of the evening the 

 judges of the ploughing and druiuinz, the office-bearers 

 of the society, and several of the miners made some 

 interesting aud valuable remark* on a \ariet\ of prac- 

 tical questions, and the meeting broke up under the im 

 pres&ion that they had rarely spent a more agreeable 

 evening, or one at which a greater variety of subjects 

 had been discussed without undue prominence being 

 engrossed by any. 



Home Correspondence. 



Thin Seeding. — It was with much pain I read your 

 stricture on Messrs. Hardy's cultivation of Wheat. Out 

 of almost 100 acres of land, which these men cultivate, 

 and with industry deserving the highest praise, and 

 skill surpassing the age in which they live, you single 

 out two square yards out of 484,000 for comment and 

 condemnation. Now, the highest cultivated piece of 

 ground I know, and the most productive — for the pro- 

 duce is enormous and beyond all expectation— a few 

 years since was a barren waste, the ground having been 

 skinned and skinned until apparently all the vegetable- 

 bearing soil had been carried away. I time after time 

 pressed its cultivation ; but was frequently laughed at for 

 so doing by land cultivators. But at length this plot, con- 

 sisting of 9 acres, was commenced to be cultivated ; ami 

 now I will challenge the produce, consisting of vegetables 

 only, for quality, quantity, and value, against that of the 

 same quantity of laud in this country, and year by 

 year. Now, let me tell you, on this land experiments on 

 a small scale, exactly similar to those made by Messrs. 

 Hardy, are made, and some were made this last year, 

 and with as complete success as Messrs. Hardy's were. 

 That is, some single yards square were marked out, an 

 a single Potato planted in each ; and the result has been 

 about a peck of as fine Potatoes as ever were grown 

 from each Potato planted in a square yard. I also 

 know a clergyman, who himself cultivated thoroughly his 

 own garden with his own hands ; and his plan throughout 

 is the same as the above. On a visit to him this summer 

 I myself witnessed the fork put under roots, and from 24 

 to 30 large Potatoes, like flour when roasted or boiled, 

 were turned up from each root from single Potatoes 

 planted, and all the other vegetables in the garden were 

 cultivated on the same plan— that is, every plant grew 

 singly, as I myself also have always planted ray. cereals, 

 and the produce was equally surprisingly luxuriant. 

 But on the above 9 acres of land I have known the 

 common spring culinary Cabbages, which under common 

 cultivation weigh 4 lb., or 1 lb., or 2 lbs,*or 3 lbs. 

 perhaps, weighing 34 lbs. and 36 lbs. each. This day 

 week also I saw a plot of culinary red Carrots being 

 dug up, many of which weighed near 9 lbs. each ; and 

 I myself have grown Potatoes for experiment, three of 

 which weighed 10 lbs., and of course on the same plan. 

 But you object to the two square yards of Wheat in the 

 midst of 13,300 square yards, planted chiefly on the 

 Lois-Weedon system, which I believe you approve of. 

 I myself do not approve of this system, believing that it 

 is not adapted for general practice ; and, besides, the only 

 examples of it— three only— I have seen, except this one 

 of Messrs. Hardy's, have been failures. But Messrs. 

 Hardy adopted it on 2 acres and three-fourths of 

 the land they cultivate, and I think with complete 

 success. On the 27th July last, the day before 

 my friend Mr. Mechi's gathering, I walked over 

 every rod, or up or down almost every furrow 

 of this land ; and I wish you had been with me, and 

 I think if you had you would not afterwards have penned 

 your leading article of the other week;— you would 

 have looked at the whole plot, and not at the two 

 square yards only, though they deserve attention. 1 

 observe I do not like the plan because not more than 

 one-third of the land was cultivated with Wheat— the 

 rows being 1, 2, 3, and 4 feet apart— and the rest 

 planted with Potatoes, averaging 2} feet between each 

 row. Each grain of seed had been planted separately 

 in each row, and I counted on some few roots 40 stalks, 

 each having on it an ear of Wheat ; I gathered also, 

 as I walked about the field, several ears, each of which 

 had in it from 90 to 96 grains of fine plump Wheat. 1 

 do not know the produce, but it must have been very 

 large indeed, considering that in reality one-third only 

 of the land was cultivated with Wheat. I believe the 

 Agricultural Gazette recommends about 1} bushels ol 

 seed per acre, or from 15 to 18 seeds in every square 

 foot of land ; whereas, had the whole of the land been 

 planted by Messrs. Hardy on their plan, one gram o 

 seed only would have been put into a square foot of 

 ground. Should the reader smile at this kind of calcu- 

 lation, or even scoff, as many will, I observe there is 

 more in it than meets the eye. For four years in suc- 

 cession—year after year— I myself drilled, with a drill 

 I made, a field with Wheat in rows 12 inches apart, 



dropping the seeds into the rows singly, seed 

 1 varied the quantity in the rows, but alwa\ - kept to the 

 ^ame distances between the rows, so that i uantity of 

 seed varied per sere from { a peck to 2 peeks so acre. 

 The produce averaged for the four years 44 bushels of 

 beautiful Wheat an acre. I likewise drilled 2 cks of 

 Barley on an acre, and had 63 bushels of fine malting 

 Barley from 2 pecks of seed, or 252 pecks. 1 h. pe 

 therefore, no discouragement will prevent M e ss rs . 



Hardy, who are most industrious and very intelligent men, 

 from pertsvering in their very praiseworthy osnrse. I 

 pronounce them to be public benefactor*, and to deserve 

 the support and protection « f t ry well-wisher to his 

 country, and especially of every landed proprietor. ■ 

 Geo. Wilkin*, Pars< . Wix, (k M. 



Agiicultural Improvement and Incrmmd Proliticnem. 

 — It is the duty of every wise cultivator, aided by the 

 lights and instructive lessons of analytic chemistry, to 

 strain every effort in order to increase the produce of 

 the land, and thereby to meet, as far as is p hie, the 

 emergency of the times, and suppl the deficiencies re- 

 sulting from war. But how bring about those desiderata t 

 — that is the question which if is the object of the to, low- 

 ing hints to solve. The farming mind, we are now told, 

 "is broad awake, and only waiting for farther develop- 

 ment Hnd mechanical ad vane It is incalculable tO> 

 what i \tent our culture might have attained in the late 

 admirable sear <u, could steam plianc have been 

 brought into general use in aid of animal power." This 



truthful observation points to the deep worictaf and pul- 

 verisation of the ground, and these can never be effected 

 without bringing up a good subsoil, to the full depth of 

 12 or 14 inches. There once were great differences of 

 opinion on this subject, and we frankly admit that it 

 would be sheer folly to work up a hungry gravel or a 

 solid bed of chalk, the :»»rmer because it i* worss than 

 inert, and the latter because it is in itself a capital 

 absorbent drainer, obviating, to a great exU t, the 

 necessity of forming artificial drains. Now a good 

 system of thorough drains, made truly level in their 

 gradual fall, constitute s one of the requirements of fertile 

 husbandry. The Isle of Thanet, in Kent, bears i ut this 

 truth, for there the chalk rock does nut only drain the 

 sari ace earth, but also supplies the roots of plants 

 with moisture by its power of retaining water. 

 These preliminaries being admitted, we are in a ] i- 

 tion to consider «hat a thorough preparation of aral > 

 land connected with a corresponding system of enrich- 

 ment really is. The following case in point occurred in 

 our own experience. A plot of ground was trenched 

 as in garden tillage ; the surface Grass turf was then 

 thrown at the bottom of each deep trench, upon that 

 the upper t I was deposited, and the subsoil brou-ht to 

 the top. This soil abounded with coarse sandy grit, 

 that caused the more loamy (aluminous) cons nts, 

 when wetted, to bind in hard intractable clods. When 

 such a subsoil is met with and brought to a surface it 

 ought to be immediately so enriched with spit far: and 

 fold-yard dung as to constitute a perfectly rich bed in 

 the first instance. And we may farther add that, as 

 loamy soils invariably fix and hold fast organic nnd 

 saline manures, a field so treaied would be prepared at 

 once for a Turnip crop followed by Wheat. Water, 

 however profuse in quantity, would never wash out the 

 manure ; and nothing except the vital energy of suc- 

 cessive crops would ever exhaust it. But what is is 

 vital energy, and howcan we define it? Itisnotdfeftti ve 

 —it is not mobile; hence we arrive at the conclusion 

 that it is essentially an attractive force, and 

 if so, there exists but one great agent to which we can 

 refer, and that is electricity. Here also we obtain that 

 which opens to us and explains the fertilising influence 

 of all manures. Analytic chemists have proved to a 

 demonstration that wherever there is decomposition or 

 combination, electricity is called into play ; and by this 

 simple fact the great superiority of farm-yard dung is 

 i -tablished. This is a fortunate circumstance, since 









upon every farm a quantity of organic manure is un- 

 avoidably produced, and must be used. During its pre- 

 paration in the dunghill carbonic acid and ammoniacal 

 gases are extricated, but never lost, for that great store- 

 house the atmosphere first receives and then returns 

 them with interest in fertilising showers. We would, 

 however, employ farm-yard manure in every farm, 

 nor by any means wait till the whole of it be reduced 

 to the condition of black spit dun ,-. but in every case of 

 deep laboration, whether by a steam cultivator or the 

 spade, we would deposit at the bottom of each trench 

 a deep layer of recent manure, the gases rising from 

 which would combine with the covering earth, and be 

 therebv retained by its attracting and fixing power. 

 Something remains to be said of manures in general. 

 They are few in number, among which first and foremost 

 stand the organic products of the farm itself, for the 

 reasonsabove assigned. Next standssound and pure guano 

 which comprises soluble phosphates, sulphates, and 

 muriates with alkaline and ammoniacal bases, combined 

 with the finest bone phosphates, urea and some urates, 

 This comprehensive manure combines well with spit- 

 dung, if judiciously intermixed, and is itself a most 

 valuable appliance in many operations. Bone-dust and 

 bones digested in diluted sulphuric acid possess specific 

 qualities ; but unless we^ could prepare from fish fa 

 worthy representative of guano at half the price of that 

 wofully adulterated substance, we feel but little inclina- 

 tion to notice the doubtful compounds advertised as 

 * artificial manures/' The prosperity of agriculture 

 and the increase of its productions to double their 

 present aggregate amount, are the earnest desire of the 

 writer, aud these could certainly be realised under s 



