SECTION VI. 



443 



It is probable that this method of eradicating Rushes has not as yet 

 become very extensively known, and therefore has not been much 

 verified by the experience of others.* In the end of 1821, or beginning 

 of 1822, a scientific friend of mine, who saw the work going on in the 

 park here, was so much struck with its importance and simplicity that 

 he drew up a short account of it, as managed at this place, and pub- 

 lished the article in the " Farmer's Magazine " of Edinburgh, where the 

 reader will find it.t But in that article, as far as I remember, (for I 

 have it not at hand,) the depth of the trenching and the expense 

 attending it are both underrated. In respect to the trenching, I never 

 trenched less than eighteen, and sometimes twenty inches in depth ; and 

 as to the expense, it never amounted to less than Is. per pole, or per fall 

 Scotch measure, (which bear the same proportion to each other as the 

 higher national rates do,) or £Q per acre when spade-work only was 

 necessary. If the aid of the pick was called in, it amounted to 2d. 

 more per fall, or 26s. per acre. But in such a case previous outlay is 

 of little moment, if we can only rely on an adequate or profitable 

 return. 



It is a curious fact, and may be verified by those who are disposed to 

 make the experiment on a single acre, or less, that the trenching of 

 ground, if done only deep enough^ has (besides eradicating Rushes) the 

 extraordinary eff'ect of rendering wet land dry, and dry land moist, for 

 the most beneficial produce either in timber or agricultural crops. In 

 respect to the former soil, it is obvious on the face of the proposition, and 

 from the foregoing experiments. As to the latter, I have more than 

 once verified it by trenching a sandy soil fifteen inches deep, when there 

 were not more than four inches of good mould on the surface, and 

 when the mould was unscrupulously put down to the bottom of the 

 trench, and eleven inches of pure sand superinduced upon it ! Never- 

 theless, the oats sown the first year upon this soil, and manured and 

 treated as above, at once reached the mould at the bottom of the trench ; 



* So little does this seem to be known, that an intelligent friend of mine 

 (than whom no man does more work, or does it in a better style of execution) 

 is, at this moment, (October 1827,) engaged, with the help of a professional 

 drainer, brought at some expense from a distance, in endeavouring to extirpate 

 the Rushes in his park by surface drains, at twenty and thirty feet distance. 

 It would be quite in vain for me to tell him that his drainer has no science, 

 and that his Rushes, ua this way, cannot be lyermanently eradicated There are 

 very few men who put any value on advice that is gratuitous. Besides, I am 

 too near at hand (not five miles off) to be of any use to him. Were I to come 

 from Lincolnshire, or the Land's-End, offering for fifty guineas to communicate 

 my secret, I believe I could render him very material service. 



t No. XC, for May 1822. 



