Some of the Atjricultural Lessons of 18GS. 
45 
that botli deep cultivation and thorough land drainage have con- 
tributed to fertility, even during such a drought as that of 1868 ; 
the latter both directly, wherever it had been long in operation, 
by the gradually deepening cultivation effected by the passage of 
rain water through soil and subsoil, and the deepening, therefore, 
of the area to which the roots of plants extended in search of 
food, and, also, indirectly, by preparing both soil and subsoil 
for their deeper cultivation by steam power. 
I have kept three additional witnesses till the last, as their 
evidence, though hardly dissentient from what has been already 
given, may yet be classed together, as representing excep- 
tions to the general rule. It will be acknowledged that they are 
all excellent and trustworthy observers. — Mr. Clare Sewell Read, 
M.P., occupying land at Honingham Thorpe, near Norwich, 
varying from a stiff soil to a light sandy loam says: — 
" I have two marshes drained by a windmill : one lies higher than the 
other and generally grows a fine crop of grass : the other is louver, and grows 
but little grass, and that sour stuff. This year the high marsh is burnt up 
and the lower one grew more grass and of better quality than usual. 
" Last autumn 1 ploughed deeply by steam, and also dug (with Fowler's 
plough and Cotgreave's (iiV/>/;'«iymouldboards) a quantity of land 12 inches deep. 
This was a clay loam and the barley on it was an excellent crop. The wheat 
and winter oats after the deep steam ploughing were also very good. I have, 
'however, seen deep steam culture in the spring entirely destroy all reasonable 
hopes of a root crop, not onl\' this year, but in the average run of seasons." 
Mr. J. J. Rowley, of Rowthorne, Chesterfield, whose farm is on 
the edge of the magnesian limestone, part of it being old grass 
over the coal-formation, says : — 
" I have every reason to believe that drained grass land has suffered less 
from the drought of the present year than undrained lands chiefly because the 
latter began to crack the soonest; the open fissures in this kind of land 
before the rains, were remarkable. Even now [December 14th], from their 
<3epth and width, the cracks are not yet closed. The cracks on the well 
drained loams were small in comparison and are now closed up. 
" There is little or no steam cultivation on our thin limestones. On a farm 
near to me the turnip fallows were steam cultivated in the autumn of last 
^•eai", and the turnips are a complete failure. On the adjoining lands, culti- 
vated in the ordinary waj% there is a partial crop only ; — perhaps one-quarter 
■of a crop. The roots are generally a failing crop in the district. I am, how- 
ever, satisfied that the greater amoiuit of evaporation occasioned by deej) culti- 
vation is damaging to the turuipcrop. This 1 have seen after a shallow subsoil 
ploughing." 
Mr. Rowley also declares that the 4-feet drainage sanctioned 
by the Inclosure Commissioners, in his neighbourhood, has not 
l)een successful. — Mr. Henry Evershed, late of Halstead, writes 
as follows :— ^ 
" On a farm in this parish the wheat suffers greatly from being sopped in 
water during wet winters. This year the yield is very great, and land that 
