525 
Spring Park Farm. 
long period of heavy expenditure and ungrateful return. I con- 
tinued to work my farm under every disappointment, with that 
energy and perseverance which ensure success ; and I can ven- 
ture to assert that the crops at Spring Park have latterly equalled 
those on very much better land, although raised at less cost, and 
that my wheat is now grown and sent to market, exclusive of all 
profit, under 36s. per quarter.* Before my occupation, the 
Spring Park farm had been lying waste for seven months, and 
was at my entry in as bad condition from its poverty, the 
unchecked growth of weeds, and the almost total absence of 
material to keep stock and make dressing, as can be well ima- 
gined. Besides giving the usual routine of ploughings, dressings, 
and cleanings, my first important attempt to improve the land 
was to trench it deeply. This I accomplished with a monster 
turn-rice plough made for the purpose, and to which 1 attached 
eight powerful horses. With this implement, and the assistance 
of two men following with pickaxes to work up the larger 
masses of rock, we accomplished about half an acre a day ; thus 
continually crushing and bringing to the surface in blocks, the 
iron-bound gravelly bed that pervaded the soil 6 or 7 inches 
below the surface. By this means I deepened the land, and the 
quantity of soil available to ])lants became -more than doubled ; 
the corn is now enabled to stand the summer drought, while the 
labour of tilling is for ever diminished. This novel mode of 
proceeding caused considerable astonishment, and my neighbours 
generally considered I was doing harm, for they thought the little 
soil there was on the surface I was for ever burying ; that is to 
say, I was putting the good soil out of reach of plants and poison- 
ing the surface by turning up a hungry gravel from beneath. 
Perhaps I may as well here speak of the difference between 
trench and subsoil ploughing : the former is intended to convey 
the idea of bringing to the top the subsoil from beneath ; the 
latter, of merely breaking the under pan. I should not do right 
were 1 to omit to state my conviction, that whilst the benefit from 
the latter is considerable, the utility of trenching is far greater. I 
am aware an opinion is very prevalent, that many subsoils require 
sub-pulverizing l)efore bringing to the top, and that placing raw 
earth on the surface may be injurious. I would assure my read- 
ers my experience has shown me this is a great mistake. I have 
* The fact that wheat may be grown at a cost of 36s. per quarter, I 
think, independent of every assertion, is shown by the detailed estimates 
at the close of this paper. I readily admit that to bring inferior land into 
condition to do this a large capital, in the first instance, must be sunk; 
l)ut tenants taking such farms should hold them on long leases at low 
rents ; lind then the difference between the rent paid and the rent the 
land is made to be worth by the improvements, will be the equivalent 
obtained for the outlay. 
