Whatever may be the speculative opinion of Mr. Owen of New Lanark, no one having attended the detail can doubt the utility, and practicability of many parts of his plans which have been laid before the public, and which have been indeed in considerable practical operation, under the immediate direction of this gentleman himself at Lanark. There is, I believe, very little doubt that they will now be adopted, in part at least, in order to avert the calamities, under which the poor are labouring, both in this, as well as our sister island, and that such adoption will reduce, if not ultimately annihilate, that bane of our country, the poor-rate. The recent establishment too, of the British and Foreign Philanthropic Society, supported by the Earls of Blessington, and Lonsdale, Viscount Torrington, Viscount Exmouth, Lords Nugent, and Archibald Hamilton, and a host of M. P.'s, and other gentlemen, of all parties, promise much in furtherance of those plans for promoting the well-being, order, and comforts of the poor.

To what, however, I desire more immediately to call your readers' attention, is the essential superiority of the spade over the plough husbandry. It appears by a letter of Mr. FALLA, dated Gateshead, Newcastle upon Tyne, Nov. 13th, 1820, and published by Mr. Owen in his

66

Report to the County of Lanark, of a Plan for relieving Public Distress and removing Discontent, by giving permanent productive Employment to the Poor and Working Classes," that he has been, for between thirty and forty years past, occupied in the cultivation of land chiefly for the raising of trees, and seeds for sale; that, finding a difficulty some years since, of procuring a sufficient number of men to work the land with the spade, he substituted the plough in working those parts, where a considerable quantity of vacant ground happened to lie

together; and he fancied that, besides getting through the work with more facility and convenience, the work was done in a manner equal to that done with the spade. The effect of the first use of the plough, was not of so much bad consequences as when repeated: the treading of the sub-soil by the horses' feet, together with the action of the iron bottom of the plough, not having, at first, the miserable effect of making the bottom of the worked ground hard and firm like a turnpike road. The continued successive use of the plough, however, soon shewed the bad effect, in the diminished health and vigour of the trees. Fortunately this effect was discovered by Mr. Falla, when men for spade work were more easily to be obtained than at the period when the use of the plough was adopted; this last practice has, in consequence, been by him entirely laid aside.

In the use of the spade, Mr. Falla produces a depth of well-worked earth of nine or ten inches, which is more than twice that of the plough, as used in the counties of Durham and Northumberland; and, instead of the hardened level bottom not easily if at all penetrable in strong clayey sub-soils, by either superfluous moisture, or the roots of plants, he obtains a loose broken bottom, which is esteemed a particularly favourable circumstance in such soils.

Mr. Falla was still further stimulated to make experiments in the spade culture, in consequence of an experiment in wheat, with this method, which had been made at Nottingham many years ago, having been mentioned to him as productive beyond example. The Nottingham experiment having been made with plants of wheat raised upon garden beds, and thence transplanted into lines, Mr. F. began with the same method. He sowed the wheat beds in the month of August, and transplanted the

same in September and October; the distance of the lines from each other was, in one experiment, nine, and in another twelve inches, the plants in both cases being twelve in each yard. These experiments were made two years successively; the least produce was fifty-two, and the greatest sixty-two bushels, Winchester measure, per acre. The quantity of land under these experiments was one half an acre each year; a quantity sufficiently large for experiment. The digging, at Mr. Falla's common nursery price, cost fourpence per rood, of fortynine square yards; or thirty-three shillings per acre; the transplanting fourpence halfpenny per thousand. There is, by this method, a great saving of seed; from one to two pecks of wheat producing as many plants as are sufficient to plant an acre; whereas, the usual quantity for plough cultivation, sown broadcast, is two bushels.

The following, on these data, is the expense of cultivating one acre, the lines being nine inches apart.

Transplanting 232,323 plants at 4 per 1000 4 7 1

Half a bushel of seed wheat

....

4 6

£6 4 7

During the time of making these experiments, it occured to Mr. Falla, that the increase in the produce of wheat arose more from the deep working of the land by the spade, than from transplantation. He, therefore, made other experiments with wheat, sown both in drills and broad cast, the land being, in all cases, worked in the same manner by the spade. The following are the results.

On Spade Husbandry.

CROP 1819.

23

Bushels per acre.

No. 1, transpl. from the seed-bed into 6 inch lines, produced 62.

No. 1, transpl. from the seed-bed into 6 inch lines, produced 684

A portion of No. 4, in the last experiments, was laid down wet when in flower, and proved very abortive, or Mr. F. thinks it would have exceeded, as in the former year, No. 5. Much of Nos. 1, 2, and 3, was shaken out by wind, and destroyed by birds.

The expense of broadcast will stand thus-digging..£1 13 Seed wheat two bushels per acre

18

If sown broadcast, and the seed harrowed in by a horse, say 2s. per acre; if raked in with a garden rake, it will cost.

£2 11

£2 15

If sown in drills, made with a garden hoe, it will cost 4s. per acre more; but a larger saving than that expense will be made in the quantity of seed compared with the broad cast method.

The expense of cultivating an acre of land by the plough, admitting one digging to be equal to three ploughings and harrowings, will be thus.

Three ploughings and harrowings, at 10s.....£1

Seed wheat two bushels

Harrowing the seed in

10

18

2

£2 10

Thus it appears that the cultivation of an acre of wheat by the spade costs only five shillings more than by the plough.

In respect to wheat transplanted and sown on land worked by the spade, Mr. F. has no doubt that sowing is the best system; and that the advantage over the plough is from the deep and otherwise superior working of the land by the spade.

The average value of the produce of spade and plough culture will be therefore found as follows.

By the spade 68; bushels per acre at 8s.

£27

8

By the plough 38 bushels per acre; this quantity
being a fair average on land better than that on
which Mr. F's. experiments were made, at 2s. 15

4

Being the advantage gained by the extra expense of five shillings.

Mr. F. being desirous of ascertaining how far and at what expense it may be practicable to work land by the spade by women, boys, girls, and feeble old men, he made an experiment for the purpose. The land was dug by girls, in two short spits, each of about five or