a 
368 
that a thorough subsoil-ploughing or trenching 
is a permanent improvement of the soil,—is pro- 
ductive of continued good results for a series of 
years after the operation has been performed. I 
have often had occasion te remark this in my 
own experience; and that how slowly ground 
which has been once disturbed acquires its ori- 
ginal degree of solidity, every railroad contrac- 
tor or builder can furnish satisfactory evidence. 
Neither are the good effects of this deep-soil 
cultivation merely dependent upon the effects 
of the manure being more deeply placed, or more 
widely diffused in the soil; the mere loosening 
and extended pulverization of any soil, is certain 
to render that soil more productive. It is seldom 
that any experiments can be carried on to any 
extent, which will prove this fact more conclu- 
sively than those made some years since by Mr. 
Withers and other planters in Norfolk, with 
their timber plantations, of which, nearly in his 
own words the following is the detail. In the 
year 1811, five acres of poor black sandy land 
were planted in the parish of Holt; the land had 
been recently inclosed from the common, and 
was covered with heath and whins; Scotch fir, 
and a proper assortment of deciduous trees, were 
planted in large holes; the fir succeeded pretty 
well, but the other trees made no progress; and 
although, he adds, ‘I yearly filled up the vacan- 
cies occasioned by death and decay, I found, at 
the end of four or five years, that all the trees 
but the Scotch fir, with very few exceptions, 
were either dead or in a dying state. I then 
had all the ground trenched, and all the vacan- 
cies filled up with oak, ash, chestnut, elm, and 
other trees; and I have kept it regularly hoed, 
and free from weeds ever since. The conse- 
quence has been, that the last-mentioned trees 
have made such a rapid growth, that I have 
been enabled to clear away the greater part of 
the fir, and the remainder must be taken out in 
a year or two, to give space for the other trees. 
One mountain-ash, which had escaped the deadly 
effect of the heath, whins (and iron-bound soil), 
gave a decided proof of the advantages of trench- 
ing and cleaning the land. ‘This tree had barely 
kept alive, not making more than two or three 
inches of wood in a season; but in the year fol- 
lowing the trenching, it threw out two leading 
shoots, the smallest of which, when cut off at 
Michaelmas, measured six feet two inches.’ In 
the spring of 1819, another piece of ground, 
containing half an acre, adjoining the five acre 
field, was planted with the same description of 
trees. ‘This land was trenched two feet deep, 
and has since been kept perfectly clean; and so 
great is the advantage of preparing the land 
properly, in the first instance, that the trees in 
this piece are now much superior to those planted 
eight years before, although the latter have had 
the benefit of hoeing for the last nine or ten 
years. With regard to field crops, the testi- 
mony in favour of subsoiling the same kind of. 
SUBSOIL-PLOUGHING. 
light sandy soil is equally important and unan- 
swerable. Thus, Sir Edward Stracey, the inven- 
tor of the Rackheath subsoil-plough, says, ‘I 
have broken up nearly 500 acres of heath land 
with the plough. My crops have been nearly 
doubled. The wheat produced on the land so 
broken up has been fine plump grain, weighing 
about 634 lb. to the imperial bushel, has pro- 
duced the best price in the market, where, be- 
fore the deep ploughing, the same land scarcely 
produced the seed. The wheat was so poor and 
shrivelled, that nobody would look at it; and, as 
IT had no manure to lay upon the ground, I can 
ascribe the goodness of the crop to nothing but 
the deep ploughing.’ And for heavier soils, the 
evidence in favour of subsoil-ploughing is nearly 
equally valuable. In the year 1838, an experi- 
ment was made by Sir James Graham, which is 
important in several respects. It was on a field 
of about eight acres, of the poorest and wettest 
land. ‘The surface-soil is about five inches deep 
of black earth, of a peaty quality; the subsoil is 
a weeping retentive clay, with sand and rusty 
gravel intermixed ; this clay extends to the bot- 
tom of the drains, which are of tile, laid thirty 
inches deep in every furrow. This field was 
rented by the out-going tenant at 4s. 6d. per 
acre. It was in pasture of the coarsest descrip- 
tion, overrun with rushes and other aquatic 
plants. After draining on one-half of this field, 
I used Mr. Smith’s subsoil-plough. On the other 
half I trench-ploughed to the depth of ten inches, 
by two ploughs following in succession; in the 
first part, not mixing with the surface any of 
the subsoil,—in the last part commingling the 
surface and the subsoil in nearly equal propor- 
tions, The whole field was heavily but equally 
manured, and planted with potatoes; and though 
the potato crop, even on good land in this neigh- 
bourhood (Cumberland), was below an average, 
yet the crop in this field exceeded an average, 
and yielded about twelve tons per acre. The 
field is equally drained in every part. The crop 
was so equal throughout the field, that I am un- 
able to pronounce positively which part was the 
best ; but I am inclined to give the preference to 
that portion where Mr. Smith’s subsoil-plough 
was used.’ 
“It is always refreshing to find the observa- 
tions of the farmers confirming the experiments 
of the chemist, as in those which have been made 
by the Hampshire farmers, who find, in the re- 
tentive soils of their stiff clay formations, such 
as those in the north of that county, that when 
they are reduced, by dint of ploughing, to a fine 
mouldy state, so that the atmosphere can freely 
penetrate through them, that then the surface 
of the subsoil speedily becomes very moist, and 
continues so during the warmest weather. The 
more finely the soil is divided, the more steadily 
moist the surface of the substratum becomes. 
The farmers of the chalk formation in the same 
county also have remarked, in the wheat crops 
— —- —— — = 
