Imjyro Dement of Peafy Ground. 403 



been ploughed deep, about 8 ncres were almost perfectly bare, 

 nearly every plant having been destroyed by the wirewonn. 

 The looseness of the ground arising from the deeper stirring may 

 have rendered the progress of the wire-worm more easy ; but I 

 think the true cause of the destruction was the enfeebled state 

 of the plant, in consequence of which it perished under the 

 attack which greater vigour would have enabled it to survive. 

 This I believe is often the case, and certainly under the strong 

 swedes on the firmer land an equal number of wireworms was to 

 be found. The farmers in fact here, led by experience, carry to 

 a great length the principle of keeping such poor light ground as 

 tight as possible. I should have mentioned that the rape is 

 planted by sowing it broadcast on the unmoved ground after 

 the ashes of the first breast-ploughing have been spread, the seed 

 being afterwards covered by paring and turning over another thin 

 slice of the surface in a second breast-ploughing. On one farm 

 50 acres of land, which though not peat are peaty, and equally 

 loose in texture, were broken up from grass three years ago, and 

 have been cultivated ever since by the breast-plough alone. I 

 did try the subsoil-plough last year on 2 acres of peat, cutting 

 through a subsoil of weak clay, and it appears to me that the pre- 

 sent crop of swedes has suffered materially by the consequent 

 looseness of the ground, the land being but half covered with 

 plants : indeed, although it has been thorough-drained, it has 

 returned to the state of bog, and is once more almost impassable. 

 It is right, however, to mention that in Lincolnshire deeper 

 ploughing is practised. Mr. Handley writes to me, " the peat is 

 ploughed as deep or deeper than other lands. A relative of 

 mine has for years been in the practice, when the surface has 

 become exhausted by cropping, of ploughing with two ploughs 

 in the same furrow, depositing the topsoil in the bottom of the 

 furrow, and raising the subsoil from the depth of 14 inches to the 

 top, with most beneficial results ; but if that depth was exceeded 

 the following crops were bad." But even there the practice is 

 not unanimously approved, and Lincolnshire farms have been by 

 no means exempt from the wireworm. On Exmoor, too, in 

 Somersetshire, I have lately seen subsoil-ploughing practised 

 upon peat by Mr. Knight with success ; but there the peat, about 

 8 inches thick, rests on one or two inches only of retentive earth, 

 to which its growth is owing. Below this crust a porous stone- 

 brash is found. The wetness of the climate may also remedy the 

 hollowness of soil produced by the subsoil-plough. The shallow 

 ploughing of our farmers seems to me to be decidedly right upon 

 our own peaty and other loose soils. 



1 may mention another mode in which this principle has been 



