Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/361

Rh OPERATIONS.] AGRICULTURE 335 3d, The General Land-Drainage and Improvement Com pany s Act (12 and 13 Viet. c. 91), for the purposes of draining, irrigating and warping, embanking, reclaiming and enclosing, road-making and erecting farm-buildings. 4th, The Lands Improvement Company s Act (16 and 17 Viet. c. 154), for the same purposes as the above, with the addition of planting for shelter. This company s powers extend to Scotland. By these Acts ample provision is made for rendering the dormant capital of the country available for the improvement of its soil. To the owners of entailed estates they are peculiarly valuable, from the power which they give to them of charging the cost of draining, &amp;lt;fcc., upon the inheritance. If such owners apply their own private funds in effecting improvements of this kind, they are enabled, through the medium of these companies, to take a rent-charge on their estates for repayment of the money they so expend, over which they retain personal control, so that they can be queath as they choose the rent-charge payable by their suc cessor. Besides their direct benefits, these Drainage Acts have already produced some very important indirect fruits. They have led to many improvements in the manner of accomplishing the works to which they relate, to the wide and rapid dissemination of improved modes of draining, &c., and, in particular, they have had the effect of creating, or at least of greatly multiplying and accrediting, a staff of skilful and experienced draining engineers, of whose services all who are about to engage in draining and similar works will do well to avail themselves. Section 3. Removal of Earthfast Stones. Newly reclaimed lands, and even those that have long been under tillage, are frequently much encumbered with earth- fast stones. This is particularly the case in many parts of Scotland. Their removal is always desirable, though neces- bttrily accompanied with much trouble and expense. In our personal practice we have proceeded in this way. In giving the autumn furrow preparatory to a fallow crop, each ploughman carries with him a few branches of fir or beech, one of which he sticks in above each stone encoun tered by his plough. If the stones are numerous, particu larly at certain places, two labourers, provided with a pick, a spade, and a long wooden lever shod with iron, attend upon the ploughs, and remove as many of the stones as they can, while yet partially uncovered by the recent furrow. Those thus dug up are rolled aside upon the ploughed land. When the land gets dry enough in spring, those not got out at the time of ploughing are discovered by means of the twigs, and are then dug up. Such as can be lifted by one man are carted off as they are, but those of the larger class must first be reduced by a sledge hammer. They yield to the hammer more easily after a few days exposure to drought than when attacked as soon as dug up. Before attempting to break very large boulders a brisk fire of dried gorse or brushwood is kept up over them until they are heated, after which a few smart blows from the hammer shiver them completely. Portions of otherwise good land are sometimes so full of these boulders, that to render it available, the stones must be got rid of by trenching the whole to a con siderable depth. When ploughing by steam-power becomes general, a preliminary trenching of this kind will in many cases be requisite before tillage instruments thus propelled can be used with safety. Section 4. Paring and Burning. Paring and burning have, from an early period, been re sorted to for the more speedy subduing of a rough uncultured surface. This is still the most approved method of dealing with such cases, as well as with any tough old sward which is again to be subjected to tillage. In setting about the operation, which is usually done in March or April, a turf, not exceeding an inch in thickness, is first peeled off in successive stripes by a paring-plough drawn by two horses, or by the breast-plough already described. These turfs are first set on edge and partially dried, after which they are collected into heaps, and burned, or rather charred. The ashes are immediately spread over the surface, and ploughed in with a light furrow. By this process the matted roots of the pasture plants, the seeds of weeds, and the eggs and larvae of innumerable insects, are at once got rid of, and a highly stimulating top-dressing is supplied to the land. A crop of turnips or rape is then drilled on the flat, and fed off by sheep, after which the land is usually in prime con dition for bearing a crop of grain. This practice is unsuit able for sandy soils, which it only renders more sterile ; but when clay or peat prevails, its beneficial effects are indisput able. We shall, in the sequel, give an example of its recent successful application. Section 5. Levelling. Land, when subjected to the plough for the first time, abounds not unfrequently with abrupt hollows and pro tuberances, which impede tillage operations. These can be readily levelled by means of a box shaped like a huge dust-pan, the front part being shod with iron, and a pair of handles attached behind. This levelling-box is drawn by a pair of horses. Being directed against a promi nent part, it scoops up its fill of soil, with which it slides along sledge-fashion to the place where it is to discharge its load, which it does by canting over, on the ploughman disengaging the handles. In all parts of Great Britain, abundance of pasture land, and often tillage land also, is to be met with lying in broad, highly raised, serpentine ridges. These seem to have originated when teams of six or eight bullocks were used in ploughing ; and it has been suggested that this curvature of the ridges at first arose from its being easier to turn these long teams at the end of each land by sweeping round in a curve than by driving straight out. The very broad head lands found in connection with these curved ridges point to the same fact. A theory still lingers among our peasantry, that &quot; water runs better in a crooked furrow than in a straight one,&quot; and has probably been handed down since the discovered awkwardness of curved ridges was first seen to need some plausible apology. These immense, wave- like ridges are certainly a great annoyance to the modern cultivator ; but still the sudden levelling of them is accom panied with so much risk, that it is usually better to cut drains in the intervening hollows, and plough aslant them in straight lines, by which means a gradual approximation to a level surface is made. A field in our own occupation, which was levelled, by cleaving down the old crooked ridges, fifty years ago, still shows, by alternate curving bands of greater and less luxuriance, the exact site of the crowns and furrows of the ancient ridges. Section 6. Trenching. But for its tediousness and costliness, trenching two or three spits deep by spade or forkis certainly the most effectual means for at once removing obstructions, levelling the surface, and perfecting the drainage by thoroughly loosening the subsoil. For the reasons mentioned, it is seldom resorted to on a large scale. But it is becoming a common practice, with careful farmers, to have those patches of ground in the corners, and by the fences of fields, which are missed in ploughing, gone over with the trenching-fork. The additional crop thus obtained may fail to compensate for this hand-tillage, but it is vindicated on the ground that these corners and margins are the nurseries of weeds which it is profitable to destroy.