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CLITHEROE, March 7th, 1848.

In continuing my attempts to grow wheat on the same land year after year, I observed that the crop of 1845 was very seriously injured by the deficient drainage—­the old drains having been destroyed by the subsoil plough.  It was therefore necessary to replace them; they were accordingly put in four feet deep.  This took up so much time, that the season for sowing wheat had gone by, and the ground was cropped with potatoes, which were dug up in September, and the wheat might have been got in early in October; but seeing in your paper that sowing too early was not advisable, and also being carried away by the arguments of the thin-seeders, I deferred sowing until the middle of November, and also put in little seed, and the weather proving very unfavourable when the wheat was coming up, there was not half plant enough in the spring, and I hesitated whether to plough up the ground or to drill in barley.  I determined to do the latter.  It was put in on the 18th April, and wheat and barley grew up together, and when cut and threshed, it yielded 48 bushels to the acre.

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ON THE GRAVELLING OF CLAY SOILS.

There is an old story of a man, who, having a very stony field, determined to experiment on the value of these stones in the growth of his crops.

With this view he divided his field into three equal parts.  From No. 1 he gathered all the stones, which he spread upon No. 3, leaving No. 2 in its original condition.  He then sowed barley over the whole field, and carefully noted the results.  The story ends by saying that No. 1 bore a miserably poor crop, No. 2 a tolerable one, and No. 3 a splendid one.

I quote this story as a text on which I wish to speak as to the advantage of gravelling heavy clay soils.  Some weeks since I spent a few days at the village of Milnthorpe, in Westmoreland, and during one day with Mr. Hutton, the celebrated bone-setter, I remarked that the land was very stony, being covered with stones (not pebbles) having very much the appearance of road metal.  He replied, that these stones were essential to the fertility of the soil, and said that some years before there was a great demand for such material in the neighbourhood of Preston, and the high prices stimulated the farmers to gather these stones from their land, and send them to Preston; but the consequences were so injurious to the growth of their crops, that they were compelled—­at least those who had the means of doing so—­to lead stones again upon their land before their crops would grow again with the vigour which they had before the stones were abstracted.  This brought to mind what had occurred in my own farm practice.  A church was built in the neighbourhood, and the stones for it were hewn on the corner of a field which was afterwards sown with wheat, and I remarked that the straw was much brighter, the ripening was forwarded ten days, and the sample was much better where the stones had been hewn than elsewhere in the field. (The stones of which the church was built were of ordinary sandstone, probably millstone grit.)