372 
ON THE UTILITY OF RIDGING GROUND. 
circumstance which may have assisted to clear the best land first, where 
there was any diversity. Buildings were absolutely necessary for an 
increasing population ; and the finest timber for the builder, growing 
on the best land, was the first felled, and so left it partially cleared for 
the purposes of depasturing, and ultimately for the plough. 
Whether judgment or any accidental circumstances caused the best 
land to be first cultivated, is a matter of no moment; but that it was 
so, is, as already stated, very evident, as well as a very natural pro¬ 
ceeding. Now this description of land being of a loamy character, and 
liable to become clung , as farmers call it, that is, so saturated with rain 
during winter, it was found most unmanageable when it came to be 
sown in the spring; but the cultivator discovered that, if it were 
ploughed in the autumn, and exposed to the action of frost in winter, 
it became so mellowed, that it was in the finest order for sowing in the 
spring. Nor was this all; the philosophers of those days conceived 
that there were certain nitrous qualities which floated, in frosty air 
particularly, and which were inducted by the rough or ridged surface 
in much greater measure than if the ground had lain flat or undis¬ 
turbed. Thus the cultivator’s and the philosopher’s notions were firmly 
united, and henceforth constituted a standing rule of practice, that all 
land under the plough or spade is enriched by exposure to the atmos¬ 
phere. Hence the custom of ridging the soil in gardens, as well as in 
fields, became general; and not only on heavy, but on the lightest sands 
and gravels. 
That there are many districts of heavy land in this and other coun¬ 
tries, which, without autumn fallowing, as it is called, would be 
unmanageable in the spring, is perfectly true, not that it is enriched by 
the reception of nitrous or other qualities, but merely by its adhesive 
property being destroyed by the frost and drying effects of the air, and 
thereby rendered loose, and fit for the reception of either seeds or 
plants. Ridging or rough-digging such land is indispensable, and of 
the greatest utility in its culture, and benefit to the crop raised upon 
it: but here the advantages of ridging, whether in the fields or in the 
garden, ends. Light, sandy, or gravelly soils need no such prepara¬ 
tion ; for neither is this ever so bound together as to require disruption 
by frost, or so drenched with moisture as to require bleaching for 
several months in the sun and air. On the contrary, the more com¬ 
pactly light land is laid, or suffered to lie, before it is worked for sowing 
or planting, the better the crop will succeed upon it. Exposing such 
soils to the sun and air, not only robs it of moisture, but at the same 
time of a great portion of its humid riches. The richest stable-yard 
manure, if spread out and long exposed to the sun and air, is surely 
