Tour in England. 
hundred acres of heath land, composing two 
farms without tenants; the gorse, heather 
and fern shooting up in all parts. In short, 
the land was in such a condition, that the 
crops returned not the seed sown. The land 
was a loose loamy soil, and had been broken 
up by the plow to a depth not exceeding four 
inches , beneath which was a substratum 
(provincially called an iron pan,) so hard, 
that with difficulty could a pickaxe be made 
to enter in many places ; and my bailiff, who 
bad looked after the land for thirty-five years, 
told me that the lands were not worth culti¬ 
vation, that all the neighboring farmers said 
the same thing, and that there was but one 
thing to be done, viz., to plant with fir and 
forest trees ; but to this I paid little atten¬ 
tion, as I had the year preceding allotted 
some parcels of ground, taken out of the ad¬ 
joining lands, to some cottagers; to each 
cottage, about one third of an acre. The 
crops on all these allotments looked fine, 
healthy, and good, producing excellent wheat, 
carrots, peas, cabbages, potatoes, and other 
vegetables in abundance. The question 
then was, how was this done 1 On the out¬ 
side cottage allotments all was barren. It 
could not be by the manure that had been 
laid on, for the cottagers had none but that 
which they had scraped from the roads. The 
magic of all this I could ascribe to nothing 
else but the spade; they had broken up the 
land eighteen inches deep. As to digging 
up 500 acres with the spade to the depth of 
eighteen inches, at an expense of 6/. an acre, 
I would not attempt it. I accordingly con¬ 
sidered that a plow might be constructed so 
as to loosen the soil to the depth of eighteen 
inches, keeping the best soil to the depth of 
four inches, and near the surface, thus ad¬ 
mitting air and moisture to the roots of the 
plants, and enable them to extend their 
spongioles in search of food ; for air, moist¬ 
ure, and extent of pasture, are as necessary 
to the thriving and increase of vegetables as 
of animals. In this attempt I succeeded, as 
the result will show. I have now broken up 
all these 500 acres eighteen inches deep. 
The process was by sending a common plow, 
drawn by two horses, to precede, which 
turned over the ground to the depth of four 
inches; my sub-soil plow immediately fol¬ 
lowed in the furrow made, drawn by four 
horses, stirring and breaking the soil twelve 
or fourteen inches deeper, but not turning it 
over. Sometimes the iron pan was so hard, 
that the horses were set fast, and it became 
necessary to use the pickaxe to release them 
before they could proceed. After the first 
year, the land produced double the former 
crops. Many of the carrots being sixteen 
inches in length, and of a proportionate thick 
ness. This amendment could have arisen 
solely from the deep plowing. Manure I had 
scarcely any, the land not producing then 
stover sufficient to keep any stock worth 
mentioning, and it was not possible to pro¬ 
cure sufficient quantity from the town. The 
plow tore up by the roots all the old gorse, 
heather, and fern, so that the land lost all the 
distinctive character of heath land the first 
year after the deep plowing; which it had 
retained, notwithstanding the plowing with 
the common plows, for thirty-five years. Im¬ 
mediately after this sub-soil plowing, the crop 
of wheat was strong and long in the straw, and 
the grain close-bosomed and heavy, weighing 
full sixty-four pounds to the bushel. The 
quantity, as might be expected, not large, 
(about twenty-six bushels to the acre) but 
great in comparison to what it produced be¬ 
fore. The millers were desirous of pur¬ 
chasing it, and could scarcely believe it was 
grown upon the heath land, as in former 
years my bailiff could with difficulty get a 
miller to look at his sample. Let this be 
borne in mind, that this land then had had no 
manure for years, was run out, and could 
only have been ameliorated by the admission 
of air and moisture by the deep plowing. 
This year the wheat on this land has looked 
most promising; the ears large and heavy, 
the straw long, and I expect the produce will 
be from 34 to 36 bushels an acre.’’ 
Here are most important improvements 
detailed with exactness, and it seems that 
these great benefits were accomplished with 
scarce the aid of manure, but simply by the 
use of the sub-soil plow, an instrument with¬ 
in the means of any of our own farmers, how¬ 
ever limited they may be, for the cost of it 
in America is hardly half of that in England, 
and there can always be a uniting of teams 
among neighbors, for the purpose of obtain¬ 
ing the requisite force to move the sub-soil 
plow, at a sufficient depth to ensure the de¬ 
sired amelioration of the soil. The increase 
of the crops will enable the farmers to add to 
their stock, and this would make them an in¬ 
crease of manure, and they could thus go on 
and fertilize their soil to any reasonable 
depth and extent. How much better would 
the making of such improvements be for 
them, than to break up, as they so often do, 
all old associations; separate themselves 
from the land of their fathers; forsake home, 
kindred, and friends, and the comforts and 
refinements of a denser population, to seek 
