444 



NOTES AND ILLUSTEATIONS. 



and they would have gone down double the depth, had they had an 

 opportunity. On trying oats in the mould of a hot-house, the roots were 

 found to descend two feet nine inches ! 



I regret that there is not room, in the brief space of an ordinary note, 

 (which has been now so greatly exceeded,) to demonstrate the reason- 

 ableness of the experiments" made on chemical principles, so as to satisfy 

 the man of science. The man of practice may very easily satisfy him- 

 self. He who tries the thing will be convinced, that, while by deep 

 trenching he will raise the value of his land (as held out in the text, 

 by the one-haK in some cases, and by double in others, especially if he 

 take a green crop the first season, his entire expense, for both labour 

 and manure, will generally be repaid by that crop : so that, whether he 

 operate as a husbandman or an arboriculturist, he will, by the second 

 season, (as the saying is,) be fairly " on velvet" — or, in other words, that 

 this improvement of the subject loill pay itself after a twehemonth. 



I am aware that the trenching of land, whether in theory or practice, 

 is a subject not fully understood — not even by Mr Withers huuself, not- 

 withstanding his two pamphlets, which are drawn up to illustrate it. 

 The extraordinary and wonderful effects produced by deepening, and the 

 comminution of the parts, (but the one is useless without the other,) are 

 known comparatively to few persons, notwithstanding the success with 

 which chemistry has already been applied to agriculture ; and none but 

 gardeners and nurserymen are, as yet, prepared to believe the vast power 

 which they put into the hands of a man of science and enterprise. 



