Arable Lands in Dry Climates. 
337 
vation, are rendered well adapted for root crops, though such 
soils at one time were considered quite unsuitable for them. 
After the drainage of such land as requires it, the next most 
important step for retaining moisture is deep-cultivation. Whether 
this may be accomplished by steam or horse power is immaterial, 
so that the operations are carried on at the proper time, when 
the soil is dry, or comparatively so. To manage this always 
is next to impossible ; but to be able to do so generally requires 
no more than a full strength of horses or steam properly 
applied. The labour of the farm must always be kept well 
forward. 
Autumn cultivation is essential to the proper preparation of the 
land for root-crops. The foulest and stiffest fields should be fii'st 
attached. If the harvest is moderately early, cultivation may 
generally be commenced in the end of August, and should be 
continued as much as possible to the end of September. A 
month's ploughing and scarifying with all the strength of 
the farm will usually be sufficient to clean any such fields 
as require it on any farm moderately well managed pre- 
viously. Foul land should not be very deeply ploughed, as it 
cannot be dried nor shattered into pieces so soon as when 
ploughed with a furrow of moderate depth. No horse scarifiers 
or grubbers I have ever tried, or have seen used, seemed equal 
to the task of thoroughly breaking up stiff foul land. Horse- 
power is unable to draw an implement taking a width of several 
feet, and sufficiently deep at the same time to reach the roots of 
couch, which usually go four, five, or six inches deep. A 
great man}', however, persevere with grubbers for breaking up 
foul land, and naturally enough contend that what they do is 
right. Grubbing in the first place appears satisfactory, from 
getting over the ground faster than ploughing ; and the land 
also appears to be in about as forward a state towards destroying 
couch, &c., as ploughed ground after being scarified. In most 
instances, however, foul land merely grubbed two or three 
inches deep, and very commonly missed altogether at the foulest 
spots, is not cleaned, but merely checked for a time. I know 
larms where grubbing is the order of the day — autumn and 
spring. Still the land is foul, though submitted to an enormous 
amount of surface scratching almost every year. The smash- 
ing-up system by steam is a very different thing, as the power 
is sufficient to reach a proper depth, and leave hard clay soils 
in large lumps, which no ordinary rain can search through, but 
wets lor a short time only, and suddenly becomes dry again, and 
so dry too, as to destroy couch and other weeds by mere absence 
of moisture. Horse-grubbers leave the enemy in the subsoil ; 
it soon revives again, and in fact would continue to live 
