640 = 574 
Practical Agriculture. 
Improvement 
of poor clay 
pasture. 
Messrs. 
Fowler's 
knifing. 
Mr. Smith of 
Woolston's 
clay-land 
husbandry. 
On Castle Hill Fai-m, near Cricklade, Wiltshire, Mr. Edmund 
Ruck manages a calcareous clay and strong loam on a five-course 
system ; vetches, rye, and other sheep-feed, being followed by 
wheat, this by clover, the lea broken up for beans (manured), 
and then wheat again. The results of nearly twenty years' 
experience with Messrs. Fowler's steam plough (apart from the 
economy as compared with horse and ox-teams) are that the 
staple soil has been deepened from 5 down to 8 inches ; the land 
drains better and dries more quickly after steam than after horse 
operations ; artificial manures act more effectually, owing tq the 
finer tilth produced ; by autumn cultivation vetches and rye can 
be grown and fed off in spring, in time for a root crop to follow, 
enabling a much larger flock of sheep to be kept ; the seeds are 
very much better, and clover can be repeated at shorter intervals ; 
the harvest comes a week earlier, the samples of both wheat and 
barley are better and heavier, the yield of grain has been aug- 
mented at least eight bushels per acre ; and, by the use of arti- 
ficial manures w ith intercultural tillage or horse-hoeing between 
widely-drilled double rows of barley, Mr. Ruck has been able tr 
grow fine barley crops in succession. 
One of the most remarkable specimens of improvement ol 
poor clay pasture-land is on Mr. Ruck's Manor Farm at Bray- 
don in Wiltshire, lying in a low tract of poor clay, having pas- 
tures of weak watery grasses — of " hard-head, rest-harrow, anc 
devil's-scabious," with tufts of rush and furze — and a water-tabl( 
only a few inches below the surface. Mole-draining, by Fowler'i 
steam draining-implement, 3 feet deep at every two yards 
breadth, with cross-drains at intervals of four chains, and n( 
pipes laid except at the outlets, was the fundamental operation 
and this, followed by lime-composting, liberal artificial manuring 
and heavy folding with cake- and corn-fed sheep on the grass 
altered the nature of the herbage, and doubled the rental value 
of the land in four years. 
On some very strong clay soils, deeply drained, a great changi 
of texture has been produced by a novel operation termec 
" knifing," that is, cutting gashes some 3 feet deep in paralle 
lines some yards apart, and thus opening and shaking the sub 
soil and letting down water and air. The powerful implemen 
employed is Messrs. Fowler & Co.'s knifer, fitted with ai 
immensely strong blade or coulter, this being hauled at slov 
pace by wire-rope, pulley, and steam-engine stationed ahead. 
The first farm wholly under steam-culture was that of Mi 
William Smith, of Woolston, near Bletchley, in Buckingham 
shire, containing 112 acres arable, partly of gravelly clay, bu 
principally a stiff, cold, calcareous clay. Mr. Smith has latel 
