LOIS-WEEDON CULTIVATION. 541 



This process is clearly accomplished at two diggings. My object in 

 thus keeping the pure subsoil separate and unmingled on the surface, 

 which no single digging to the same depth could do so effectually, is to 

 enable the atmosphere during winter to have its full and unobstructed 

 influence on the clay ; and when this effect has been produced, as it 

 win he found to be in spring, these important results will have ensued : 

 — The clay wiU have crumbled down to dust, a portion of its known 

 mineral constituents will have been rendered soluble, and it wiU be 

 brought into a condition to receive and retain the organic elements of 

 fertility contained in the atmosphere. It is only after this that the 

 horse-hoe in the summer well mixes the now pulverised clay with a 

 portion of the staple below, and fits the land for the following crop. In 

 the third and fourth years (the other moiety of the field having gone 

 through a similar process the second year) an inch more of the subsoil 

 is brought to the surface ; and so on year after year tUl a depth be 

 attained by inch degrees, of 20 or 24 inches, ' beyond which it is 

 neither needful nor convenient to go.' The principle of the practice 

 being that no more of the subsoil be brought to light than can be 

 wholly pulverised before it be mixed with the staple, it is evident that, 

 in the end, after many years of gradual deepening, and repeated 

 stirrings throughout each year, the entire depth of these two fuU spits 

 will have become friable as garden mould." * 



Although this is an Agricultural fact, it is one equally applicable to 

 Horticulture ; for it shows that by constantly exposing oolitic clay to 

 the action of the atmosphere, as much inorganic matter suited to the 

 food of wheat is annually set free in the soil as is removed by the crop ; 

 and that where doses of azotised manure are not required, deep and 

 careful cultivation has a better effect than mere manuring. 



On the one hand, with shallow cultivation, puddled furrow- trenches, 

 and polished furrow slices, rain-water highly charged with the most 

 nutritious ingredients either runs off to ditches, or is so ill-directed 

 that it very imperfectly reaches the roots. On the other hand, by 

 means of close cropping, that which is intended to bathe every part of 

 a plant, and to be instantly absorbed by its verdant surface, is turned 

 aside. But at Lois-Weedon the soil is made so deep and kept so open, 

 that every root is certain to receive its allotted share of the invigorating 

 shower, and before the rain-water finds its way to drains, it has given 

 up its fertilising ingredients either to the living suckers, for which they 

 were intended, or to the soil which detains them till they are wanted. 

 There, too, the plants are so widely spaced, that no one row intercepts 

 what is intended for another. Even when manuring is indispensable, 

 the effect of the inanure is much increased by the same kind of culti- 

 vation. Turnips and similar root crops have 5 feet for every plant to 



* For fall particulars of this practice, see A Word m Season; or How to Orow 

 Wheat mth Profit. 12th ed, London, 1S54.. 



