Agriculture in England. 



5 



similar toil. On a farm called VoUander^ a litde beyond Courtray, 

 consisting of about 140 acres, the Rev. Mr. Rham went over a 

 field of 106 acres, the whole of which has been repeatedly trenched, 

 by the present occupier we imagine, to the depth of 2 or 3 feet. 

 A deep soil, indeed, has this double advantage over a shallow one, 

 even though both be equally sandy— that during dry weather roots 

 can descend deeper in search of moisture, and that moisture rises 

 from below, by capillary attraction, more freely towards them. 

 But where veins of clay are found interlarding, as it were, the sand, 

 the advantage will be far greater, because the sandy soil will be 

 brought now into that moderately adhesive state which will entitle 

 it to be ranked as a loam. Indeed, where clay is not found on the 

 very spot, it may often be brought, as has long been the practice 

 in Dorsetshire and in Norfolk, by horse-labour, from a moderate 

 distance. It is worth remark that, in another part of this country, 

 and on a different description of light soil, strong as is the dis- 

 inclination of British husbandry for the use of the spade, great 

 improvements have for a long time, over an extensive district, been 

 effected by lifting clay from below and laying it upon the surface. 

 It is the peat-district of Lincolnshire to which we allude. Here 

 the soil consists of light vegetable matter, half-decayed fibres of 

 plants, clothed in its natural state with rushes or heath. A handful 

 of it presents very much the appearance of rappee snuff. At a 

 depth varying from one to many feet lies a very stiff blue clay of 

 the consistence of soap. When the land is brought into cultiva- 

 tion, trenches are opened down to this clay, and a heavy dressing 

 of it is laid on the face of the ground, which three years afterwards 

 is found to be imperfectly mixed in small lumps with the peat. 

 At the end, however, of twelve years, after three such doses of clay 

 have been given, a specimen which we have seen from this same 

 ground, instead of a brown powdery substance like rotten bark^ 

 presents the appearance of a dark grey, rather stiff, loam not 

 dissimilar to the garden-mould which is usually met with round 

 London, capable of bearing heavy crops of cole oats and wheat in 

 rotation, being, in fact, the soil of a most valuable description of 

 farm, which has been manufactured from the two steril raw 

 materials, pure peat and mere clay. 



It might be supposed that the reverse of this process would also 

 succeed, and that, as sands and peats are made firmer by the 

 admixture of clay, clayey soils might be rendered more porous if 

 sand were carted upon them. It has been, indeed, so supposed, 

 and the attempt has been made, but no instance is known in 

 which it has been found to succeed. The expense of laying on 

 the large quantity of sand that would be required must probably 

 more than swallow up any profit that could be derived; and 

 although cold lands with retentive subsoils have, in many dis- 



