260 Improvement of Poor Lands by Subsoil-Ploughing. 



II. The other experiment which I woald mention was made on 

 a field of 5 acres, of a cold wet clay. When I first took this field 

 the soil was poor and heavy. About 5 or 6 inches of soil only 

 had ever been stirred. All the land around is in permanent 

 grass^ being supposed too heavy and wet for profitable cultivation 

 with the plough. The tenants are tied down, under heavy pe- 

 nalties, not to break it up. The mode in which my field had 

 been cultivated before, was the old one of two corn crops, after a 

 complete fallow. To attempt to have turnips there would have 

 been considered as absolute folly. The first thing I did was to 

 trench-plough it very partially, only bringing up about an inch 

 of the yellow clay: and this was too much. It was then well 

 chalked all over ; a practice extensively followed here, where 

 there is no calcareous earth in the natural soil. The chalk is 

 carted seven miles, and is reckoned to cost IL per waggon-load 

 when laid on the land. From 5 to 10 waggon-loads per acre are 

 usually put on the land every 8 or 10 years^ at the time it is 

 fallowed. 



I followed the old course of tillage, with the variation of wheats 

 beans, oats, and tares ; manuring well, and fallowing every 4 or 

 5 years. But every course was attended with loss, as my accounts 

 proved, although I had fair crops, paid a very low rent (for it is 

 not my own), and it was tithe-free. This did not suit my pur- 

 pose ; but^ as I had a lease of it, and could not give it up, I laid 

 it down to grass with a crop of oats, sowing clover and a mixture 

 of good grass-seeds. The feed of it would more than cover the 

 rent and outgoings; and I could lay out my money to better 

 advantage on improving my own land. 



It remained in grass five years, in which time it was mown twice 

 for hay^ and fed three years. After the first two years the grass 

 began to deteriorate, and at last the coarse grasses, especially 

 Alopecurus arvensis, and the different varieties of Agrostis pre- 

 vailed, and left bare spaces between them. I therefore deter- 

 mined to break it up. Preparatory to this I had all the old fur- 

 rows ploughed out between the ridges which still remained. 

 The sward which the plough raised was taken up and carted 

 into heaps at the corners of the field, which was then ploughed 

 and left for 6 weeks. On the 1st of January, 1835, the weather 

 being very mild, beans were dibbled on it, in rows 15 inches dis- 

 tant, the beans being put in 4 inches asunder. They came up 

 well, and were very carefully hoed three times, and the weeds 

 pulled up by hand. The crop was abundant, the bean-stalks 

 were high and well furnished with pods through their whole 

 length. The produce was 30 quarters of excellent horse-beans 

 (6 quarters per acre). The bean-stubble was cleared and the land 

 cleaned with the scarifier^ harrows, and rake, and then ploughed. 



