from three to six inches, with a dressing of lime or sand, and until sufficient drainage has been provided.

In spring, the land prepared as above may be planted with potatoes, dibbled in, and should there not be time for laying on the clay or gravel at first, it may be done after planting the potatoes. But at no time should moss land be dug too deep, for digging to a greater depth than nine or ten inches, renders it porous and is hurtful. As soon as the potatoes are off, the furrow drains should be cleaned out, and no water be allowed to remain on the surface during the winter, nor the cattle permitted to trespass and poach it with their feet.

Oats may be sown the following spring, with or without manure, according to the condition of the soil; and it will be found very beneficial to roll the land. Should the oats prove heavy, a second crop may be taken in the the following year, especially if lime or shell sand be applied. The next crop should be potatoes, manured again, and by this time the soil will have become tolerably firm, and barley may be tried, sowing with it the refuse seeds from the hay loft, and rolling it with a stone or loaded wooden roller. This will next year give a sward of grass, which, at the end of summer, may be cut for hay, or it may be pastured by sheep or calves, heavy cattle being kept off as they would poach the ground. After two years' grass, oats may again be sown, followed by potatoes or turnips, manured; and the land will afterwards be fit for any purpose, if liberally supplied with manure.

In reclaiming any great extent of moss land, it ought to be divided into the number of fields which is best proportioned to the size of the farm, and the most suitable rotation of crops. Thus, in a farm which requires a five-course shift, there should be ten fields, so that two fields should be under oats, two under barley or wheat, two under green crop, and four under hay and pasture, each year; or if in a smaller farm, and a fourcourse shift, four fields will be found most convenient, giving one field each for oats, hay, wheat, or barley, and green crop.

The enclosures should be all square; for it has been found that in square fields, five ploughs will do as much

work as six, when the sides are irregular; and there is less waste ground.

If springs exist, and if the bog be above three or four feet deep, it will be necessary to wedge-drain, by cutting a drain two feet deep, the upper half being cut with a broad spade, and the lower half with a narrow one, and the upper turf replaced, so as to leave the lower half of the drain open. This is easily done, and will last for many years; but it must be borne in mind, that in drains to be covered, the narrower they are at the top the better.

If the moss be so soft as not to admit of cutting properly, you must form artificial sides to your drains, by means of small sticks laid on each side, and meeting at the bottom in the shape of a V, which must again be filled up with brushwood, laid lengthwise, which will last for many years. But springs in pure moss are by no means common. The wet arises generally from the unevenness of the surface beneath, and the natural capa city of moss for retaining water; and if the large fence ditch be deep enough, and kept open, as well as the furrows between the ridges, in two or three years the soil will get firm and dry, and then the top-dressing of gravel or clay soon converts the peat into a rich loam, more especially if lime or sea-sand be applied occasionally.

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The reclaiming of gravelly soil, is often, from its hardness, more difficult than peat. It must be first trenched to the depth of fifteen inches with a spade and mattock, keeping the better sorts of soil uppermost, and throwing the stones on the top. A less depth than fifteen inches is of no use-less has often been tried, and the consequence has been, that the land turned out poor, thin, and springy, thus throwing away the outlay incurred, whilst the additional depth of three or four inches would have rendered the undertaking suc cessful. Indeed, you will find that any poor, shallow soil, which you may have been cultivating for years, will be improved wonderfully by digging it over, and loosening a few inches of the hard subsoil; and the reason is plain the rain penetrates the earth until it arrives at the firm unbroken bottom, by which it is retained,

keeping the whole soil cold and unprofitable. The deeper, therefore, that this hard subsoil is placed below the manure and the crops the better; and hence it follows, that deep are more productive than shallow soils.

If the hard stratum, commonly called pan or till, be found at the bottom of the surface soil, it is absolutely necessary to cut it through by deep trenching, before endeavouring in other ways to render the land productive. Where this has not been done, the owner will invariably have to complain of cold land and bad crops, and of the necessity of manuring more frequently than his neighbours; the cause of which is, that the hard subsoil or till forms a shallow drain, which keeps the soil wet, and carries away the manure with every heavy shower; but if the till were broken up, the land would become dry and fertile. Yet how few fields are there which have ever had a mattock applied to them, for the purpose of breaking the till, and thus giving a greater depth of soil, although complaints are constantly made about its poverty and thinness?

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The land being properly trenched, the stones should upon the surface for a season, to consolidate the earth, and rot the turf turned down. They should then be taken off; the smaller ones for under drains, and the larger to make a wall or fence around the field. If any are too large to be removed, they may be broken in pieces by first digging around and under them, and then lighting a fire on the top, when there is wind enough to make it burn briskly, and blow away the ashes; by this means they will, in a very short time, crack and fall to pieces.

Large stones may be broken in this way, at a very small

expense.

The land should afterwards be formed into regular ridges eighteen feet broad, with small furrows between each; and in every case the furrows should so run across the slope of your grounds, as to have a gentle and gradual fall, rather than directly up and down. This makes the labour of working the land easier, and the surface water runs off without cutting and carrying away the soil.

In spring, the land may be manured for potatoes, for the two following years, when a compost of peat and

lime, or sand, or even rotten peat alone, if nothing better can be had, may be laid on it as a top-dressing, and it should then be sown with oats. The fourth year it may be dunged and planted with potatoes again, or sown with turnips, followed by barley and grass seeds, after which the soil will be almost as good as old land.

IMPROVEMENT OF COLD GRASS LANDS.

Of such land, there is a large quantity in England and Scotland, and still more in Ireland, which at a moderate outlay might be brought under a profitable process of husbandry. Already much has been done, and with the very best results; but much yet remains to be done.

Land of this description generally lies in an elevated situation, exposed to cold winds. Waste land, situated above a certain elevation, cannot be cultivated with advantage, because at such heights the air is too thin, and is destitute of the properties requisite for supporting vegetation with the necessary vigour. The finest soil, at such heights, is unfitted for the purposes of tillage.

Throughout the British islands, land is reclaimable to the height of from 800 to 1000 feet above the level of the sea. For the improvement of land at this height, the first requisite is shelter, and the next is drainage. The land should be sheltered by fences and belts of plantation, and means should be provided for carrying off the rain water, as well as any moisture which may be over-abundant in the soil,-Both are absolutely essential.

In elevated moorland tracts, without a shelter for the animals which feed on the scanty herbage, none but the most hardy breeds can exist; but wherever plantations have been formed, the severity of the atmosphere becomes tempered, and the cold of the naked hills is exchanged for comparative warmth and comfort. Plantations have thus the effect of reducing, as it were, the elevation of a high and cold country, and giving it the mild character of a lower one-the animals are benefited, vegetation shoots forth more freely, and the herbage is rendered more nutritious. The experience of every grazier confirms the fact, that sheep and cattle thrive

IMPROVEMENT OF COLD GRASS LANDS.

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better on sheltered lands than on lands which are unenclosed and exposed, although the quality of both may be the same.

In the formation of stripes or belts of plantation, an occasional curvature will be found better than a straight line: it affords additional shelter; its outer front has, in the aggregate, less exposure to the wind; and it has a more picturesque appearance. It is a great error in the formation of plantings for shelter, to make the stripes very narrow: from sixty to one hundred yards wide will be found more profitable than those of smaller dimensions.

The hedge-row enclosures of England have been sometimes condemned as too small for grain culture; but their smallness is beneficial for grazing. The English graziers have found that five enclosures of ten acres each will feed more cattle than sixty acres within one fence.

After high-lying waste lands have been improved by plantations and draining, the operations on the soil are next to be attended to.

In general, the best application is a top-dressing of lime, which has a remarkable effect in destroying the coarse herbage, and raising in its place a sward of white clover, and other sweet grasses. But this is not the only benefit to be gained from top-dressing with lime. The thick matting of tenacious roots, which kept the soil in a state of sterility, is acted upon and decomposed by the lime, and formed into a fine vegetable mould, capable of bearing any crops. Indeed, on all soils containing acids or ferruginous salts, lime is absolutely necessary to bring them into a state of fertility.

If lime or other calcareous substances are laid on the surface of bog land, the moss plants will disappear, and a rich sward of clover, daisies, and meadow-grass will rise spontaneously; and from the results of numerous experiments, in many different situations, it is satisfactorily proved, that the owners of waste lands within reach of lime, have generally themselves to blame if the ground continues unprofitable.

In the application of lime, it should be a rule always to give abundance, and in a newly-slaked condition,