in order that it may have its full effect. If slaked a considerable time before it is applied to the land, it does not act so powerfully in reducing the noxious herbage, or neutralising the acids, as when applied in a hot state. There are very thin moorish soils, however, where lime by itself will not improve the herbage. These soils require a nourishing rather than a stimulating manure, and a dressing of good earth will be found to have the same effects that lime has on a stronger soil.

Top-dressing with clay or sand, or a compost of each, will be advantageous in mossy moorish tracts, where lime cannot be obtained. These materials are very effective in improving the pasturage, and destroying the growth of moss plants; and if applied in sufficient quantity to the depth of an inch or so, will generate a sweet herbage, and render the ground capable of being benefited by the droppings of the animals which it will then support.

There are many extensive ranges of pasture, producing in their natural state wholesome herbage, which are perhaps considered so good as not to require improvement; but no grounds will yield a better return than these, for what is expended upon them, either in topdressing or drainage. The grass will thereby be rendered sweeter, more nourishing, and more luxuriant. Surfacedressings of lime, lime and earth, or lime and peat, will ever be found beneficial to the pasturage of these grounds. When good peat mould can be got, and properly mixed with lime, it will always be found a valuable top-dressing. This preparation of lime and peat is in a peculiar manner conducive to the growth of clover, and of the short sweet kinds of pasture-grasses; and by using it, the soil will also acquire a tendency to promote the growth of such grasses, and to prevent rank, coarse, or sour herbage.

New peat mould, if put into a heap by itself, will acquire a slight degree of fermentation, by which its parts expand, and are reduced to a crumbling state, well adapted for top-dressing on light or clay soils, especially if it has been saturated with urine from the cattle, or compounded with dung, sand, or lime. Rushes, heath, bent, and other weeds, entirely disappear, when a surface

application of lime, or compound of lime, earth, or peat is given, if the soil is first sufficiently drained.

DRAINING.

Draining is one of the most necessary and important operations in agriculture, and is uniformly followed by beneficial results. If any springs appear in your land, they must be dried by cutting an under-drain, of sufficient depth to intercept them, where the wet appears, and filling for 16 or 18 inches with small stones, over which a thin covering of turf or heath must be laid, and the drain be then filled in and levelled. This is the most common and durable sort of drain: but in very soft peaty soils, instead of stones, you must use brushwood or heath, laid regularly lengthwise in the drain, and supported at the sides, as is described in speaking of the reclaiming of moss land, (p. 18.) Care must also be taken to carry off the surface water by means of open drains, which must always be kept clean, and the outlets and water-courses scoured out once a-year.

If the surface soil rests upon a close compact subsoil, the latter forms a kind of reservoir for the water, and the object of a drainer in such a case should be, to give it a passage into fixed channels or drains. When water overspreads the surface, and is unable to penetrate to the subsoil, the carrying it away in channels is termed surface-draining. When it has penetrated the surface, and is retained by, or is kept soaking slowly through the tenacious subsoils, the process of collecting it into a fixed channel, is called under-draining.

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On the sloping surface of any field, in which there is an oozing of water, the line where the moisture appears on the surface, is generally perceptible, by the change of colour of the soil, and other indications of wetness, as the production of rushes, coarse grasses, &c. By cutting a drain along the upper side of this line, sufficiently deep to reach the bed of the water, you will intercept it before it reaches the surface, and may carry it away to some convenient outlet. One drain well laid out, and of adequate dimensions, will in this way fulfil a purpose which no multiplication of smaller drains can effect; for

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these will only lessen the effects of wetness on the surface, but the larger drain will remove the cause of it. Surface water may be carried either in open or in covered drains. The open drains are, the ditches of the field, which ought to be laid so as to favour the descent of the water-the open furrows, which are formed by the ridges and open trenches, cut in the places necessary for giving a free passage for the water. In general, open drains are formed in the hollows, or lower parts of the land, so that the water may get access to them from the higher grounds.

A good arrangement of ridges and furrows, will generally of itself effect the purpose of surface-draining; but as the tendency of the water will always be to sink below the level of the furrows, deeper drains may still be sometimes necessary to assist in carrying it away.

Before the approach of winter, a few open drains, about one foot wide, and six inches deep, or more, according to the quantity of water expected, and having such a fall as to let the water run freely off, should be cut with a spade across the fields, to catch surface water, and lead it into the open main drains. These water furrows are easily made, and the trouble of making them will be amply repaid in the ensuing crop.

All drains, as well open as covered, should have a gentle slope or fall, enough to let the water run off readily; but if the fall be too great, the water acquires so much force as to carry away the soil at the sides, which soon chokes up the drains.

Draining, with Subsoil Ploughing, is at present extensively practised in Scotland and England, and has invariably produced the most beneficial effects upon the soil, and increased the quantity, and improved the quality of the crops.

Almost every description of land will derive benefit from this operation; but on heavy clay soils, with a hard retentive bottom, the effects are most striking; land which before grew nothing but sedges and the coarsest grasses, being converted into good mellow soil, fitted for the culture of every description of crop.

The mode of proceeding is, in the first instance, to make a number of parallel drains 21 feet apart, either across or up and down the field, as circumstances may demand; these must be 2 feet deep, and filled with broken stones to the height of 12 inches from the bottom of the drain, leaving 18 inches from the top of the stones to the surface of the soil.* Cover the stones with a very thin sod, over-lapping it at the joints, to prevent any of the loose earth getting in. The drains are then to be filled in, and a crop of grain taken off the land, and as soon as it is removed, the subsoil plough is put into operation, transversely, or across the direction of the furrow drains.

This implement is considerably larger and heavier than the common plough, and is constructed without a mould board.-It penetrates into the subsoil to a depth of 16 inches, and although it effectually breaks up and opens it, none of the inferior soil is brought to the surface. The plough is made as thin as is consistent with strength, in order that it may pass through the soil with as little resistance as possible. From four to six, and in some instances eight horses, are employed to draw itthese require care and temper, on the part of the ploughman, to bring them to take kindly to the work; and some dexterity is required in the management of the plough itself, which, however, is easily acquired.

After the construction of the furrow drains, and as soon as the land has been cleared of the grain crop, the operation of subsoil ploughing is to be commenced. common plough goes first, turning up a furrow to the depth of 6 or 8 inches, the subsoil plough then follows, and passes through the subsoil to a depth (including the first furrow) of 16 inches; the common plough then again comes round, turning another furrow from the upper soil upon that which has been subsoiled, and followed again by the subsoil plough as before. The drainage is so perfect after this that in process, the toughest clays furrows are found to be unnecessary, as the surface water immediately passes through the soil,

*Tiles are also used; in this case the drains need not be quite so deep.

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and escapes into the drains prepared for that purpose in the first instance, a

It is found that the subsoil never consolidates again, after being thus broken up; the constant circulation of the air and water keeps it open and friable; and after undergoing a course of cropping for a few years, the ground which has thus been treated, may be ploughed to the full depth of 16 inches, and the subsoil, now become mellow and active, will be mixed up with the original surface soil, and crops of unusual excellence, both in quantity and quality, will be obtained from the mixture. The harvest will also be considerably earlier than on the same land in its previous state.

Of such vital importance is draining in all its branches, and in all situations, that the man who has the means of effecting this operation, and possesses an undrained rood of land, deserves to be poor, and to be pointed at by his neighbours as an idle, slovenly, and improvident person.

I

Irrigation, or the watering of land, is too much neglected in Ireland, although by it, with little trouble and expense, large crops of hay and luxuriant pasturage may be ensured. It is difficult to account for this neglect of irrigation, which might be adopted with so much advantage by the Irish farmer; for in many situations favourable for watering, meadows in which only coarse or scanty herbage now appears, might thereby be rendered extremely valuable.

The use of running water on the surface, has been practised for promoting the growth of grass from the earliest ages, and seems to have been known in some parts of England in the time of the Romans. Irrigation acts as a means of giving food to grasses-o -of consolidating boggy and mossy lands-as a destroyer of certain kinds of weeds and as the cause of warmth in winter, and of coolness in summer. The banks of streams, which are occasionally flooded, are found to yield the richest grass. The tender roots and leaves of grass, covered in winter or in the beginning of spring by water,