458= IPS 
Practical Agriculture. 
absence of systematic supervision of the discharge of flood 
waters, the regulation of irrigation works, and the storage of 
water for the supply of villages and small towns, is oxie of the 
blots on English local government. The extension of subsoil 
drainage, too, though only a minor proportion of the drainable 
land has been effectively relieved of wetness and rendered a 
more porous and friable matrix for the rooting of plants, has 
intensified the evil of insufficient main arteries, by pouring 
into them a larger proportion of water and in quicker time than 
formerly. 
Geology. Unique among all the kingdoms of the world is England 
in respect of its geological structure, comprising in its com- 
paratively small area portions of nearly all the great strata 
— primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary, which are to 
be found over the whole globe. Hence the wondrous diversity 
of soils, the sudden transitions from light to heavy land, or 
the intermingling of breadths of clay, sand, and limestone upon 
the area of a single farm, sometimes of a single field. Looking 
at a geological map of England and Wales, one might think 
it convenient for description of the husbandry to treat as 
distinct districts the principal formations which, in coloured 
strips, are seen ranging generally from south-west to north 
east ; the older rocks most westward, and the series super 
posed upon each other in succession until the most recent beds 
appear in the east. One might treat in one division the granite 
trap, slates, shales, and scbists of West Cornwall, Devon, South 
and North Wales, the Lake region, and Northumberland ; in 
another, the Silurian soils of Herefordshire, Carmarthen, Rad 
nor, and Shropshire ; in another, the marls and rich loam 
of the Old Red Sandstone of Herefordshire, Monmouth, am 
Brecon ; in another, the mountain limestones and grits o 
Somerset, Derbyshire, West Yorkshire, Cumberland and West 
moreland ; in another, the coal-fields of Gloucestershire ant 
Glamorgan, of Shropshire and Flint, of Cheshiye, Stafford-j 
shire, Derbyshire, and Leicestershire, of Lancashire, the Wes 
Riding, Cumberland, Durham and Northumberland ; in another 
the loams and marls of the New Red Sandstone, the most exten 
sive geological formation in I'^ngland, stretching from Torba^ 
in Devonshire, through Somerset, Gloucestershire, Worcester 
shire, Warwick, Nottingham, York, to the mouth of the Tee 
in Durham, and from Warwickshire, through Staffordshire an* 
Cheshire to Lancashire ; in another, the lias clays, running in J 
narrow belt tl\rougli the whole country from the Dorset coast t* 
Yorkshire ; in another, the oolite and l)rash lands, also occupyin; 
an irregular strip of country from Dorset to Yorkshire; ii 
another, the Oxford and Kimmeridge clays ; in another, thi 
