270 
Farming of Oxfordshire. 
are washed away or rendered useless by water taking the place 
of air, and the earth is either as soft as mud or as hard as a 
brickbat. The soil must be deepened and dried by the subsoil- 
plough and draining. 
The ridges or lands on the clay soils are generally 8 or 10 
yards wide, and are laid with a slight curve along the line of 
descent. Where broader ridges are found, tlie land is usually 
dryer and better. In under-draining there can be little hesitation 
about distance, for the inutility of draining across lands has else- 
where been shown. Soon after Michaelmas the land should be- 
drained. Let the furrows be opened deeply with a common 
plough, and a drain dug 3^ feet deep. This may not be con- 
sidered deep enough, but as the height of the ridges may be 
gradually reduced from 24 to 12 inches, in a very little time the 
pipe will be 4 feet under ground. After the pipes have been 
carefully laid, and a little of the upper soil placed over them, 
the drain can be filled in ; and this is often done with a plough. 
In draining some lands, the lias for instance, the last spit is 
often a rich blue clay. This should not be returned to the drain, 
but spread over the land, and will thus be productive of much 
good. Supposing the drains to be 30 feet apart, it will require 
1200 pipes to drain an acre. The 1^^ inch cost 18*-. per tliousand, 
and allowing a few for breakage, and larger ones used in the 
main drains, may be calculated at 24.9. an acre. There will be 
72 poles (of 5i yards) of draining on the acre, which, at Qd. a 
pole, gives 3t3.s., thus making the cost of under-draining just 3/. 
per acre. The cartage must of course depend on the distance 
of the kiln, but as a thousand l^-inch pipes generally weigh 
less than a ton, this expenditure need not be very heavy. 
When the draining is finished, the land should be deeply 
ploughed in the direction of the ridges, and laid up with clear 
furrows for tlie winter. Should the draining not be performed 
till the spring, the land should be ploughed first and drained 
afterwards. The pipes can be carted on during frosty weather. 
By allowing fallow land to lie till May or June, which some 
farmers still think best, the weeds have- taken fast hold of the 
ground ; and in tearing it up at that season, the couch will be 
broken into numerous pieces, each one of which being full of 
vigour will begin to grow. Such stubborn soils ought to be 
ploughed in November to be well pulverised by the frost, and 
the second ploughing be given early in the spring. This plough- 
ing should be across the ridges. The land being mellowed by 
the winter, and made friable by the second ploughing, the 
grubber, roll, drag, and harrow should be set to work, and the 
root-weeds pulled out, gathered up, burned, or carried off. 
Though under-draining is common, subsoil ploughing is so 
