him to make the holes for the trees about tea or twelve feet 
wide ami eighteen inches deep, and then to concrete the bottom 
well with lime and gravel about six inches deep ; or if lime- 
riddlings, such as are rejected by bricklayers, can be pro- 
cured, they will answer equally well, taking caro to water 
aud ram them well, as the firmer the concrete is put to- 
gether the more certain is the attainment of the object iu 
view, viz., the preventing of the roots from descending into 
the subsoil, which would cause canker.— Gardener's Chro- 
nicle . — The present is an excellent time for applying strung 
liquid manure to roses. It is astonishing how vigorous even 
the weaker growing varieties will become if treated with a 
liberal allowance of strong liquid manure, made with ni dit- 
s >il, and applied annually at about this season. This may 
be used again iu spring, diluting it to about the consistency of 
thin paint, and giving each plant from two to three gallons. — 
A pear tree of the jargonelle species, growing on a farm of 
Mr. Pudge, of Hill Laud, Much Cowarne, has this year pro- 
duced three crops. The first was gathered at the ordinary 
time (June); at Mi Isumuier the tree was again full iu 
bloom, the fruit beiug ripe shortly before Michaelmas, when 
the tree was for the third time in blossom. The first aud 
second crops were exceedingly fine, but tlie last produced 
ouly small shrivelled-up fruit. — Mr. Frederick Brewer, late 
foremau at Messrs. Lucombe and Pince’s nursery, lms received 
a certificate of merit from the Horticultural Society, for an 
ingenious mat-making machine. Mr. Brewer says the rushes 
which grow in the Devonshire marshes are well suited for 
these mats, and remunerative employment might thus be 
afforded to many poor families. 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
Pampas Grass. — I got a plant of this in July, 1S53, not 
rooted separately, aud I was afraid that it would not take 
with the ground before winter. It, however, did so, aud 
stood out. all last winter (it was like a small leek when I got 
it), nnd it has grown during the summer to a good-sized 
bunch with leaves about three feet long, and now (Dec. 12) 
quite green. There were two or three stems like tlower- 
b terns, but beiug a young plant they did not come to any- 
thing. I intend to propagate it next season . — John Hutchi- 
son, Monyruy , Buchan, north-east of Aberdeenshire. 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
Many thanks for your reply to my query iu your last 
number. I trouble you agaiu. Be good enough to recom- 
mend me a practical work on gardening ; one well adapted 
to initiate the tyro, for such I am, aud about to inhabit a 
suburban villa with a small garden, and wish to check aud 
direct a common, and, of course, prejudiced gardener, iu 
the cultivation of vegetables, fruit-trees (wall and standard), 
aud a few fiowers ; it must contain, also, something about 
the greenhouse and frames— in fact, a good general work. 
The articles iu your esteemed paper, under the head of “ The 
Garden," &c., will be a great assistance ; but they, of course, 
cannot meet all my present wants. They will be of more 
use to me as I advance and gaiu experience. Grant the re- 
quest, and you will oblige, yours truly, 0. W. 
[Mrs. Loudon's ‘‘ Flower Garden " is an excellent little 
work. — E d. Field.] 
At this festive season, when fanning pursuits are often 
retarded by frost and snow, or are almost forgotten in the 
more exciting pastimes of hunting and shooting, it must 
be a source of gratification to us amidst our recreations — 
when war is thinning the ranks abroad, and when a terrific 
pestilence is sweeping over the rocks and glens of the 
Crimea — to admire the heroic bravery of the allied forces, 
and to hope the burly rounds of the Prince’s prize oxen 
may arrive in time to gladden hearts, and recall happy 
reminiscences of ancient halls, hearths, and homesteads. 
During the Christmas week London is as a tale that is 
told. How picturesquely wild is a scene in the provinces 
on a fine frosty morning, as you look over the fertile vale ; 
from the vast area of down which overhangs it a small 
straggling village or two may he seen in the distance, with 
their old ivy-clad towers and fine meadows nourished 
by the meandering Stour. A narrow line of chalk-road, 
fringed with fir plantations, is seen for miles over the 
hills. It was the far-famed Great Western mail -road 
in the palmy days of coaching, when mails were dug 
out of snow-drifts with wonderful dispatch, or dragged 
by the plough-teams to the nearest public, nnd, long 
before the rail superseded the road, whirling us to our 
ancient home, the Argos of Dorsetshire. But we must 
leave Nature's romance for London life realities ; the 
rugged hills for crowded cities; the sovereignty of wealth 
for the daily toil of labour; the lowing of kine for the 
cavillings of cabmen mid the crowding of omnibuses. Still 
we sigh for green fields nnd pastures new, by which, on 
all sides, we have been surrounded. 
The price of all kinds of grain remains pretty much the 
same as last week. Farmers continue to supply the markets 
pretty freely, but the deliveries lmve not been quite so liberal 
us last week. The importations from America have very 
much decreased this year, owing to the failure of the wheat 
nnd Indian meal and rye crops in many of the States. During 
the war the ports of Odessa and Galatz have been closed, and 
us France is a buyer here, we have drawn more largely 
than usual on Egypt and Syria, and other countries where 
the high price of corn has tempted them to sell. Labour 
is scarce, and wages have considerably advanced in some 
of the midland and eastern districts, and, owin'* to the 
abundance of the crop of 1854 over 1858, which was a 
very poor one, the farmer, who lms the trade in his hands, 
should not reap all the advantages of high prices, but, on the 
live mul let live principle, assist the labourer as much as 
lie is able. A labourer with anything like a family re- 
quires a bushel of Hour per week, the price of which is in 
many places 13s. hi., and as the highest price of labour is 
only 12s. per week, and in many districts much lower, lie 
deserves, and he ought to be, as well oil’ as when the loaf 
Was 4d. and wages 8s. lie then had bread enough to 
spare; but now, with the loaf at Did., lie can hardly pur- 
chase it, putting aside the other commodities lie wants 
during the week. As the weather has been of late par- 
ticularly favourable for farming operations, nnd a much 
larger breadth of land sown this year than usual, and as corn 
well sown is half grown, let us hope prices may bo better 
THE FIELD. 
adjusted to relieve the wants of the labourers, and that 
(lurmg the next year, swords maybe turned into plough- 
shares, an honourable peace proclaimed, which may have 
tile effect of allowing us to use corn at a reasonable price, 
instead of a starving one to the consumer at the present 
tune, and that our brave army may return to their poacc- 
fui homes, crowned with laurels, from fighting for truth and 
justice against a desperate and a common foe. 
F ARMING PROSPECTS. 
THE CAPABILITIES OF DIFFERENT SOILS. 
( From our C/BTUpotukrit.) 
Most counties in England vary in their different peculiarities 
ofsojls, aa a glance At a good geological map of the British Isles 
Iu I d ^ tnc,s - L ' VL,u ”U^mhos«ppn.xiniat 1 n g 
each othci— farms differ most materially in soil and produce. 
. . A miming in.uo resistance 
to the implements employed m cultivating them, and freedom 
from surface and stagnant water, until we come to the thin, 
chalky soils, of light oolite, situate on the Cotswuld Hills in 
Gloucestershire, and which are found also to prevail in Dor- 
setshire, Wiltslm-e, part of Buckinghamshire, Northainptou- 
B ure, part ot Lincolnshire, and so on, to the wolds of York- 
shire ; but beyond this point it is not to be found in Eng- 
land, and is altogether unknown iu Scotland. Wheat grows 
best in Kent, Essex, Lincolnshire, and soino few favoured 
counties; whilst the barley and turnip lands are Norfolk 
Snltolk, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdon- 
s u i re, aud Hertfordshire. The old turf lands, as I have already 
stated, suit cattle better aud fatten them quicker than any 
other. The object of agricultural labour is to raise on any 
given space the greatest quantity of any kind of grain or 
vegetable, regard being had to the quality of the produce at 
the least amount of expenditure, so as to secure suc.-css 
This can only be effected by a proper outlay of capital, say 
£10 to £12 per acre, according to circumstances ; but, if you 
are to carry out subterraneous irrigation, and all the modern 
improvements, you will want more, irrespective of landlord’s 
improvements. The land should then be dug, forked, or 
ploughed, rolled, and harrowed, good rotted manure 
being laid on at the last moment, so as to prevent 
the saline particles from being dried up, instead of 
being washed by the ruins into the earth. Around 
London the market gardeners use an immense quantity 
of night-soil with the manure, in a solid rather than in a 
liquified form, as recommended by Mr. Mochi. It generally 
remains on large and well managed premises a year at least, 
to solidify, and is then mixed up with road stuff and stable 
dung rotted, at the rate of twenty loads to tho acre ; and 
the market gardeners prefer it to our town sewage as regards 
agricultural fructification. 
Every genus of plant requires, for its perfect growth aud 
fruitfulness, some particular principle or ingredient to bo 
derived from the soil. Hence the laud, when it has raised 
and supplied to a crop all that it possessed of that necessary 
principle, is no longer capable of nourishing it, but may be 
made capable of feeding some other crop, which draws 
another source of food from the soil, which without the aid of 
tillage would become barren. The earth must then be moved 
often, hi order to bring fresh portions of it to the surface, 
and, as in young plants, the surface earth is loosened, in 
order to allow the sun to attract moisture to the roots, all 
particles in turn will become subject to atmospheric 
changes, and the fertility of the soil renewed by supplying 
other elements of nutrition, which tho preceding crops have 
exhausted. The universal ingredients of plants — says Dr. 
Playfair — are bases : potash, soda, lime, magnesia, peroxide of 
iron, oxide of magnesia, aud alumeu ; the acids are — silica acid, 
phosphoric acid, sulphuric acid, carbonic acid, chlorine, 
iodine, and bronvne. Plants generally contain most of these 
ingredients, but iu very different proportions. The silica 
plauts are wheat straw, barley, and rye straw ; the lime 
plants, pea straw, potatoc haulm, sainfoin, and meadow 
clover ; the potash plauts are maize straw, turnips, beetroot, 
and potatoes. The determination of the precise ingredients 
belongs to chemistry, but there are many variations in the 
qualities of apparently similarly constituted soils which 
geology, unassisted, can explain. By the aid of these sciences 
the quality of tho soil for agricultural purposes is deter- 
mined with considerable precision. The earth being sur- 
rounded by an atmosphere of organic matter, as well os 
oxygen, nitrogen, carbonic acid, and watery vapour, acts 
upon these bases (for instance, the lifting of a limestone road 
after frost is a case in point), and there is a constant 
transformation from organic into inorganic elements. Plants 
being composed of organic and inorganic constituents, that 
which escapes during combustion being the organic por- 
tion, whilst that which remains iu the ashes is tho inor- 
ganic matter ; the organic constituent arising from the 
atmosphere, the inorganic from the soil. The plauts, by 
their roots, take up food from the soil, and often the very 
food which the soil has taken up by its power of absorption 
from the atmosphere, and which is increased by separating 
the particles of which it is composed. I hope I have 
made myself understood. I had great pleasure iu reading 
the lectures of Dr. Playfair, delivered before the Royal 
Agricultural Society, some years ago, as also Dr. Ryan's 
lectures on agricultural chemistry. Since that time 
tho rapid strides scieuce has made in this country has 
awakened the public mind into action, and, greatly owing to 
the laudable exertions of such men as Messrs. Mechi, 
Huxtable, Hewitt, Davis, Lawes, aud others, the art of agri 
culture has been elevated, aud now takes its stand among 
the other arts and sciences. We have an Agricultural 
College at Cirencester, exceedingly well conducted, and 
tho only wonder is that they should be so few aud far 
between. Surely there Ls room for another in the Eastern 
Counties ; say, for instance, iu Colchester, a town situate in 
a good farming district and easily approachable by railways. 
Lectures are now given annually. I believe, at the Society 
of Arts during the Christmas Cattle Show week. Lectures, 
we know, have long been well attended iu tho Universities 
of Edinburgh and Glasgow ; and in t he University of Giessen, 
iu Prussia, Loibig gave his valuable lectures to admiring 
aud crowded audiences. Farmers' clubs and local agricul- 
tural societies are now not without men of eminence be- 
longing to them, for the purpose of expounding the nature 
aud properties of organic chemistry, anil of detecting the 
impurities mixed up with aud fouud in manures, as also for 
the purpose of showing tho hopeless absurdity of recom- 
mending any specific manure for a particular crop without a 
thorough knowledge) of tho capabilities of soils, tho consti* 
1235 
tuents of soils and tho ingredients of plants, so that we 
hope, iu time, there may be hardly a country gentleman or 
1 “ f ‘ ho ■>»"« .timulaat'a to 
agriculture aud th 
Parmtr s' Club House, 
39, AVic Bridge Hire 
feeding of stock. 
I, Btuet/rian. 
E. B. A. 
DRAINING. 
( From a Correspondent.) 
P p o p °ao. directing our readers' attention to the very 
8ubjQ ®t of drainage, at the same time showing its 
on ? h UUCt i Cn W1 f h sowin ft aud »ta great effects 
on the . suite of an abundant harvest. Much lms lately 
on tL , T l rV tteU ‘T emmently-practical agriculturists 
onlt h fo il ®a P or rt ' mllow drainage ; and as wo intend 
ouly to show the advantages to bo derived from one mode, 
namely, deep drains, we must not he understood to ho par- 
ti r^ r Ul i° f , , “ au » umtin g a similar ngitatiou to 
r* llU< St,U ooutinuc8 > rage between civil 
eugiiiusis on the respective merits of pipe or brick drains, 
f Uty f entirely confined to showing the British 
far me i the great advantages of deep drains in clayey and 
uthei soils fouud ill our geological formations Where deep 
drams are used, the actual espouse of eaoh drain is of 
course, increased with its depth ; but, from the fact of fewer 
drams being required, that is, the drains being placed at 
much greater distances apart, considerable saving ensues iu 
11 r a bxo < 1 u f oa of ground. Tho deep drains possess 
the following further advantages —the water penetrating 
through a deeper filtering strata, is entirely freed from t he finer 
and richer particles of manure it imbibes and incorporates, 
liy affinity and otherwise, with itself, thus saving loss of 
nutriment -intended for the crops planted. Again, less 
chance ot impediments or disarrangement arises, from tho 
roots ot trees, destruction by animals, frost, and divers other 
causes, to which shallow drains are liable. The difference 
also ot the pressuro on the surface gradually, though imper- 
ceptibly, increases with the depth, and tends to produce an 
atmospheric or -vphou-liko pros.-mre, and consequently nets 
with considerable force to drive the water into tile cavity of 
the drain, and thus facilitate its speedy escape. The vigour 
of plants is greatly increased, more particularly grain, as the 
Btnnv of wheat will be generally found of a correspond- 
ing length to its root, which is easily demonstrated by trial. 
It is even apparent to the eye. In damp undrained laud, if 
the season Ls wet, the straw is short and dark green, and tho 
roots are short also, because tho damp nature of the ground 
prevents them descending into it ; they requiring air for tho 
purpose ot vitality like ourselves, which, in this ease, is un- 
attainable. In the same soil, during a dry season, the straw 
will grow high and slender, corresponding with tho roots, 
which can descend and receive a copious supply of air from 
the particles of the soil being open and divided ; yot. for the 
want of the chemical results produced by rain, it ia not a 
fine or robust crop. Deep drainage effect* both these objects 
in any season, if not carried to such an extent that tho 
cubical contents of tho soil above and around ore not too 
great for the dimensions of the pipe to drain the excess of 
moisture from it. Tins, in all eases, is au indispensable 
condition ; for we might as well proposo to drain London 
with a twelve-inch pipe, as to use tho same diameter of pipe 
at a depth ot throe foet as at nine feet. It will have come 
under the notice of our readers, the much superior quality 
and appearance of wheat grown ou a natural fall, or on the 
edge of a declivity : this arises principally from the roots 
beiug enabled to penetrate a rich aud light loam, well-drained 
from the angular surface of the ground, instead of pene- 
trating a compact clay, highly impregnated with water aud 
earthy salts. The effects above named have, iu nine cases 
out of ten, raised tho cry that the seed sown was bad, 
whereas the vitality of a seed is unattainable. The wheat 
which was buried with the ancient Egyptians lias been sown, 
after 3,000 years, in this country with tho most gratifying 
results (being exhumed with tho bodies buried iu tho 
Pyramids). It was placed there aa emblematic of eternity, 
from its indestructible nature. Again, let the plough tear 
up a dry and natu rally-drained common, far removed from 
all weeds, perhaps not disturbed since the flood, and perfect 
virgin soil, immediately its surface will be covered with 
weeds, many of which were not known iu the district before. 
Here, then, we have a convincing fact of t he vitality of seed,, 
aud the folly of calling seed purchased bad because it fails 
to grow', when wo ought to look for the cause in the damp 
soil, which decomposes the starch like germ ho soon as it 
vegetates in the parent seed. 
It will, therefore, readily be seen, from the brief remarks 
we have made, that the crop depends upon the seed being 
placed iu dry and suitable soil, possessed of sufficient nutri- 
ment to feed aud produce the plant, and freed from 
damp to a depth sufficient for tho purpose of tho growth of 
tho roots. When these indispensable conditions have been* 
proved to demonstration, then, and then only, shall wo h *- 
able to secure good crops. Many formers, however, detract 
from the result named, when the above conditions are ful- 
filled, by sowing tho grain so thick that the soil does, not 
possess sufficient nutriment to support tho numerous plants, 
aud the air also is unable to circulate freely through them. 
The result of a crowded room, with no other than the 
ordinary ventilation, and no moro provisions than what are 
consumed by the few usual occupants, will very pointedly 
illustrate the effects of thick sowing — which is coru iu a 
crowd iustead of human beiugs. Insects also increase much 
faster under such circumstances, as tho ruin ifi prevented 
washing them away, or the wiud blowing them off’. Thus 
we get smut and a hundred other abominations. Wheat set 
at nine inches or a foot apart, two seeds beiug placed in each 
hole, will produce twelve to twenty strong straws and a 
more abundant yield. Thus it will bo seen how much 
depends on deep and effectual drainage, aud that ouo drain 
is not as good as another, for the many reasons stated. Wo 
regret that diminished space necessitates our quitting this 
truly interesting and important subject, which we trust at 
some future day to renew, aud endorse by the experience 
H. B. H., C.E. 
OOIIIW tuikli V v*' ' ■ 
and approval of our corn-growing readers. 
Some Practical Hints.— The following excellent advice 
from a practical farmer in Wales has been addressed to a 
gentleman who bad made some inquiries of him. His 
suggestions deserve the widest circulation. 
Dear Sir, — Your letter I duly received. The point on 
which you write relating to agriculture is ouo of immense 
importance. Your opinion i-> exactly my own ; and from 
experiments made by myself and other farmers iu the county 
of Roxburgh, it was found that cleaning lauds iu autumn 
was u great deteriorating of the soil. Cleaning lauds in 
