152 



THE PLANTEE's GUIDE. 



post during the trenching, particularly if the subsoil be 

 clay, it is advisable, soon after the potatoes are planted, to 

 hoe into the drills as much slacked lime, in fine powder, 

 as is generally used to a wheat crop — that is, about a 

 hundred and fifty or sixty bushels per acre. This treat- 

 ment surprisingly tends to comminuate the subsoil turned 

 up ; it brings the hard or inert substances contained in it 

 into a state of decomposition or solution, and renders 

 them the proper food of plants. If the process be con- 

 ducted with common judgment, the value of the potato-crop 

 cannot be less than from £20 to £25 per Scotch acre, (I 

 have myself drawn £30 under favourable circumstances;) 

 and it fully pays the labour and manure laid out, and 

 perhaps some rent besides. By the succeeding season 

 the ground will be in a good condition to be planted, 

 after which it should be kept with the hoe for three 

 years. 



In so far, then, the mode of preparing the ground for 

 close plantations is superior in point of economical 

 arrangement to the preparation for open dispositions of 

 wood, as it is clear that it may be prepared without 

 expense to the ovmer. By the directions here given, the 

 soil in the latter is more pulverised, and approaches, if 

 well managed, to the state of fine dark-coloured mould, 

 such as is used for a vinery, and superior to that of most 

 vineries. In the former, what is deficient in fineness is 

 often compensated by variety, and by the extensive scope 

 which it gives to the roots to search for their food. 



On considering these various methods of improving 

 soils for the use of woody plants, the great, and indeed 

 paramount importance of subsoils cannot fail to strike the 

 reader. In fact, the latter may be said, in a great 

 measure, to command and render subordinate the actual 

 properties of the former, rendering them favourable or 



