Recent Publications on Manures. 95 



pieces are apt to be washed again together with the first heavy 

 rain that occurs, and consolidation takes place. If done in dry 

 weather, the pieces get hardened, the water passes them freely 

 without consolidating ; and if the pieces are small and dried, the 

 soil in our damp climate is in the best possible state for a crop. 

 Even where the atmosphere is generally more dry, if dug wet, 

 the pieces get hard and impenetrable with the drought, and 

 digging dry and breaking small will be best even there. The 

 only danger in breaking very small is, that very heavy rains may 

 consolidate more rapidly, and for strong seeds or plants it is 

 generally left more rough, but for small seeds, pulverisation to a 

 very small consistence is indispensable ; and if done when the 

 soil is dry, and gets a dry day or two afterwards, it generally 

 keeps open through the summer. In old wrought land, espe- 

 cially if a sandy alluvial loam, the soil, being long worked, loses 

 its tenacity, and the small pieces fall to powder too easily ; the 

 grains of soil do not attract one another so strongly as in newly 

 turned up soil, virgin or maiden loam as it is called, in which 

 the disintegration from the original state of stone has not pro- 

 ceeded so far as in worn out soil ; the small pieces adhere more 

 tenaciously in the grains of their substance to one another, and 

 the mechanical texture is superior. For over-wrought land there 

 is no remedy but trenching up the subsoil if it is good, or laying 

 down to grass if not, till the soil, by consolidation and pressure, 

 begins to assume the original state of stone from which it was 

 formed, and the grains adhere more perfectly to one another. 

 The pulverisation of the soil has much effect on the crop, and 

 its benefits are immense in all but the most sandy soils. I have 

 seen immense difference in the crops of potatoes, from the soil 

 being well broken and the contrary : even breaking soil well with 

 the rake, when in a sort of moist state between the wet and drv, 

 thus reducing the rough clods to small pieces, I have seen 

 produce great effect. The advantage of digging between the 

 rows of potatoes planted with the plough, at an expense of 405. 

 per acre, has been lately stated in one of our periodicals, as 

 producing an advantage of 151. per acre. By the spade the 

 ground is dug more deep and much better broke, and in popu- 

 lous districts, where labour is cheap, digging will be found nearly 

 as cheap as ploughing; perhaps cheaper, if the depth and pul- 

 verisation be considered. Impressed with these ideas, the High- 

 land Society has lately awarded premiums on a large scale, in 

 the Highlands, for the encouragement of digging; and Sir Charles 

 Ferguson of Kilkerran near Maybole, another great patron of 

 agriculture in our county, has done the same at the village of 

 Dailly, in the neighbourhood of his estate. Small pieces let out 

 to cottagers have been found to produce immense returns ; and 

 the produce of ground might be very considerably increased, if 



