6 



Present State of the Science of 



trictS;, been much improved by covered drains, more or less effec- 

 tively made, the hope of bringing them to a thoroughly free- 

 working genial temper had been, until lately, almost abandoned. 

 Mr. Smith, however, a manufacturer of Deanston, near Stirling, 

 some years since applied his mind to this subject; and, as the 

 practical farmer who has this year won the first medal of the 

 Society states Mr. Smith's process to be the greatest improve- 

 ment effected in agriculture since the introduction of turnip - 

 culture, (that is, for the last century,) it is impossible to pass it 

 over, although, of course, its introduction is too new to be placed 

 already altogether beyond the risk of disappointment. Mr. 

 Smith's mode of dealing with a clayey subsoil, which holds up in 

 the soil the water that has fallen in rain, and thus exerts some un- 

 explained evil influence on plants fitted for the food of man or 

 of cattle, is as follows : — That gentleman invented a heavy iron 

 plough, resembling the common plough, but differing in this re- 

 spect, that, having no mould-board, it splits the ground, but does 

 not turn it over ; and he uses it thus : — at the same time that an 

 ordinary plough goes along and turns over the surface of the 

 wet land, the share of the subsoil-plough following, passes through 

 and splits the whole of the subsoil to the depth of 18 or 20 

 inches, and the rain-water sinks, of course, so much lower. Mr. 

 Smith, however, does not allow the rain to lodge here : he has 

 previously dug covered drains about 3 feet deep, made thus deep 

 in order that his underground-plough may have room to pass over 

 the covered channel which is left for the water to flow along in 

 the lower part of these drains after they have been filled in above ; 

 and he states, that in this way he can not only produce, artifi- 

 cially, a porous subsoil instead of a close one, but that this clayey 

 subsoil, having been so subdivided, becomes mellowed by the action 

 of air and of water, and that thus, after a few years, a portion of it 

 may be safely brought up by deep or trench-ploughing, and turned 

 over upon the surface, so that the cultivated soil, by this third pro- 

 cess, is to the same extent deepened. To whatever extent the 

 Deanston system may be found applicable to the clay-lands of 

 England, a revolution will be at the same time effected in their 

 mode of culture by the introduction of the turnip upon them. 



With regard to that portion of England which lies on a stratum 

 that may be called rocky, much of it will be found to have the 

 immediate subsoil of clay, and to fall therefore properly under the 

 last head ; and even where the subsoil is of stone, the stone may 

 be so interspersed with clay, that thorough draining may be equally 

 requisite. Where that stone is a dry gravel, it may be worth 

 the trial whether the roots of some plants cannot be enabled to 

 descend into it by means of the subsoil-plough. Such an experi- 

 ment appears, by a communication from one of our members, to 



