42 
Some of the Agricultural Lessons of 1868. 
In the same county Mr. Savidge, of Sarsden Lodge Farm, Chip- 
ping Norton, believes that if the gentlemen who conducted the 
steam-plough inspections for our society could have gone their 
rounds again last autumn, they must have returned with a load 
of useful information, for never did deeply stirred steam culti- 
vation do so well. He adds : — "I fear in some districts during the 
long dry time, many began to think they had over-drained some of 
their land, and at agricultural meetings (Warwick to wit) during 
August and September, several speakers stated that it had been 
over done, and that we were suffering from that. My own expe- 
rience is, that in no season did good deep draining tell a better 
tale ; and we have a fine prospect upon such land for the next 
crop." 
Mr. Mitchell, of Rainham, farming on the edge of the 
Thames-side marsh lands, Essex, describes an example, in which 
the effects of both deep-tillage and of drainage are singularly 
combined ; for he refers to the appearance of the crop directly 
over the line of a freshly made deep drain, cut so lately as last 
spring. Its purpose was to carry off the water from a low lying 
pasture, and it had to be taken through a field of higher land, 
apparently dry. Both over the drain and for some distance on 
each side of it the mangold crop was finer than on any other 
portion of the field. 
Mr. Coleman, late of Woburn, now writing from Park Nook, 
near Derby, says : — 
" I have noticed that in this dry season very much of the land that has been 
drained during the past two or three years bore luuch better crops than usual, 
and did not seem so much affected by the dry weather as the adjoining fields, 
which are still uudrained. The drained land did not crack so much, nor were 
the cracks so wide or deep as upon the undrained portions ; and 1 may safely 
say that the drained land was moister than the uudi-ained during the latter 
part of the summer. Some boggy land certainly produced more herbage than 
usual, and this is the only case I noticed of undi'ained land being more pro- 
ductive than that which had been drained." 
The following is a report from the " Britannia " Farm of 
Messrs. Howard, Bedford : — • 
"The soil is a stiff retentive clay, which under the old shallow horse 
culture was very hard working (requiring three or four horses to a plough), 
and not very productive. After deep drainage and deep cultivation hy steam 
power the land has become much more pjorous and productive, and the water 
gets very quickly into the drains. Although the real nature of the soil is not 
altered, the appearance of it is much so, and the greatly increased productive- 
ness is beyond all doubt. Some ]iarts of it are of so strong a clay, that if 
a small hole is dug, the friction of the spade in making it causes it, when 
filled with water, to retain it for almost any length of time. Under the old 
system the treading of the horses up tlie furrows, even when drained, caused 
. the water to stand upon the surface for some time after a heavy rain; now, 
although the land is laid perft'Ctly flat, without a sinule open furrow, no 
water is ever seen to stand. We cannot speak from experience on our own 
