Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Agriculture

​ ​292 hundred fold. Such increase, although far above the average rate, was sometimes even greatly exceeded, if we take the authority of Herodotus, Strabo, and Pliny. Along with the Babylonians, Egyptians, and Romans, the Israelites are classed as one of the great agricultural nations of antiquity. The sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt trained them for the more purely agricultural life that awaited them on their return to take posses sion of Canaan. Nearly the whole population were virtually husbandmen, and personally engaged in its pur suits. Upon their entrance into Canaan, they found the country occupied by a dense population possessed of walled cities and innumerable villages, masters of great accumulated wealth, and subsisting on the produce of their highly cultivated soil, which abounded with vineyards and olivejards. It was so rich in grain, that the invading army, numbering 601,730 able-bodied men, with their wives and children, and a mixed multitude of camp-followers, found " old corn " in the land sufficient to maintain them from the day that they passed the Jordan. The Mosaic Institute contained an agrarian law, based upon an equal division of the soil amongst the adult males, a census of whom was taken just before their entrance into Canaan. Provision was thus made for 600,000 yeomen, assign ing (according to different calculations) from sixteen to twenty-five acres of land to each. This land, held in direct tenure from Jehovah, their sovereign, was strictly inalienable. The accumulation of debt upon it was pre vented by the prohibition of interest, the release of debts every seventh year, and the reversion of the land to the proprietor, or his heirs, at each return of the year of jubilee. The owners of these small farms cultivated them with much care, and rendered them highly productive. They were favoured with a soil extremely fertile, and one which their skill and diligence kept in good condition. The stones were carefully cleared from the fields, which were also watered from canals and conduits, communicating with the brooks and streams with which the country "was well watered everywhere," and enriched by the application of manures. The seventh year s fallow prevented the exhaustion of the soil, which was further enriched by the burning of the weeds and spontaneous growth of the Sabbatical year. The crops chiefly cultivated were wheat, millet, barley, beans, and lentiles ; to which it is supposed, on grounds not improbable, may be added rice and cotton. The ox and the ass were used for labour. The word "oxen," which occurs in our version of the Scriptures, as well as in the Septuagint and Vulgate, denotes the species, rather than the sex. As the Hebrews did not mutilate any of their animals, bulls were in common use. The quantity of land ploughed by a yoke of oxen in one day was called a yoke or acre. Towards the end of October, with which month the rainy season begins, seedtime commenced, and of course does so still. The seedtime, begun in October, extends, for wheat and some other white crops, through November and December ; and barley continues to be sown until about the middle of February. The seed appears to have been sometimes ploughed in, and at other times to have been covered by harrowing. The cold winds which prevail in January and February frequently injured the crops in the more exposed aikl higher districts. The rainy season extends from October to April, during which time refreshing showers fall, chiefly during the night, and gene rally at intervals of a few days. The harvest was earlier or later as the rains towards the end of the season were more or less copious. It, however, generally commenced in April, and continued through May for the different crops in succession. In the south, and in the plains, the harvest, as might be expected, commenced some weeks earlier than in the northern and mountainous districts. The slopes cf [HISTORICAL the hills were carefully terraced arid irrigated wherever practicable, and on these slopes the vine and olive were cultivated with great success. At the same time the hill districts and neighbouring deserts afforded pasturage for numerous flocks and herds, and thus admitted of the benefits of a mixed husbandry. With such political and social arrangements, and under the peculiarly felicitous climate of Judea, the country as a whole, and at the more prosperous periods of the cornmonvpealth, must have ex hibited such an example of high cultivation, rich and varied produce, and wide-spread plenty and contentment, as the world has never yet elsewhere produced on an equally extensive scale. Not by a figure of speech but literally, every Israelite sat under the shadow of his own vine and fig-tree ; whilst the country as a whole is described (2 Kings xviii. 32) as " a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of oil-olive and of honey." An interesting illustration of the advanced state of agri culture in these ancient times is afforded by the fact, that, making allowance for climatic differences, the numerous allusions to it with which the Scriptures abound seem natural and appropriate to the British farmer of the present day. The unrivalled literature of Greece affords us little infor- Greece, mation regarding the practical details of her husbandry. The people who by what remains to us of their poetry, philosophy, history, and fine aits, still exert such an in fluence in guiding our intellectual efforts, in regulating taste, and in moulding our institutions, were originally the invaders and conquerors of the territory which they have rendered so famous. Having reduced the aboriginal tribes to bondage, they imposed upon them the labour of cultivat ing the soil, and hence both the occupation, and those engaged in it, were regarded contemptuously by the domi nant race, who addicted themselves to what they regarded as nobler pursuits. With the exception of certain districts, such as Bceotia, the country was naturally unfavourable to agriculture. When we find, however, that valleys were freed from lakes and morasses by drainage, that rocky surfaces were sometimes covered with transported soil, and that they possessed excellent breeds of the domesticated animals, which were reared in vast numbers, we infer that agriculture was better understood, and more carefully practised, than the allusions to it in their literature would seem to warrant. Amongst the ancient Romans agriculture was highly Rome, esteemed, and pursued with earnest love and devoted atten tion. " In all their foreign enterprises, even in earliest times," as Schlegel remarks, "they were exceedingly covetous of gain, or rather of land ; for it was in land, and in the produce of the soil, that their principal and almost only wealth consisted. They were a thoroughly agricultural people, and it was only at a later period that commerce, trades, and arts, were introduced among them, and even then they occupied but a subordinate place." 1 Their passion for agriculture survived very long ; and when at length their boundless conquests introduced an unheard-of luxury and corruption of morals, the noblest minds amongst them were strongly attracted towards the ancient virtue of the purer and simpler agricultural times. Severn! facts in Roman history afford convincing proof, if it were required, of the devotion of this ancient people to agricul ture, in their best and happiest times. Whilst their arts and sciences, and general literature, were borrowed from the Greeks, they created an original literature of their own, of which rural affairs formed the substance and inspiration. Schlegel and Mr Hoskyn notice also the striking fact, that 1 The Philosophy of History, l>y Frederick Von Schlegel. London, 184(5, p. 253. ​SUMMARY.] AGRICULTURE 293 whilst among tho Greeks the names of their illustrious families are borrowed from the heroes and gods of their mythology, the most famous houses amongst the ancient Romans, such as the Pisones, Fabii, Lentuli, &c., have taken their names from their favourite crops and vegetables. Perhaps it is not too much to assert, that many of those qualities which fitted them for conquering the world, and perfecting their so celebrated jurisprudence, were acquired, or at all events nourished and matured, by the skill, fore sight, and persevering industry, so needful for the intelligent and successful cultivation of the soil. The words which Cicero puts into the mouth of Cato give a fine picture of the ancient Roman enthusiasm in agriculture. " I come now to the pleasures of husbandry, in which I vastly delight. They are not interrupted by old age, and they seem to me to be pursuits in which a wise man s life should be spent. The earth does not rebel against authority ; it never gives back but with usury what it receives. The gains of hus bandry are not what exclusively commend it. I am charmed with the nature and productive virtues of the soil. Can those old men be called unhappy who delight in the culti vation of the soil ? In my opinion there can be no happier life, not only because the tillage of the earth is salutary to all, but from the pleasure it yields. The whole establish ment of a good and assiduous husbandman is stored with wealth ; it abounds in pigs, in kids, in lambs, in poultry, in milk, in cheese, in honey. Nothing can be more profitable, nothing more beautiful, than a well-cultivated farm." In ancient Rome each citizen received, at first, an allot ment of about two English acres. After the expulsion of the kings this allotment was increased to about six acres. These small inheritances must, of course, have been culti vated by hard labour. On the increase of the Roman territory the allotment was increased to fifty, and afterwards even to five hundred acres. Many glimpses into their methods of cultivation are found in those works of Roman authors which have survived the ravages of time. Cato speaks of irrigation, frequent tillage, and manuring, as means of fertilising the soil. Mr Hoskyn, from whose valuable contribution to the History of Agriculture we have drawn freely in this historic summary, quotes the following interesting passage from Pliny, commenting on Virgil : J " Our poet is of opinion that alternate fallows should be made, and that the land should rest entirely every second year. And this is, indeed, both true and profitable, pro vided a man have land enough to give the soil this repose. But how, if his extent be not sufficient 1 Let him, in that case, help himself thus. Let him sow next year s wheat-crop on the field where he has just gathered his beans, vetches, or lupines, or such other crop as enriches the ground. For, indeed, it is worth notice that some crops are sown for no other purpose but as food for others, a poor practice in my estimation." In another place he tells us, "Wheat, the liter it is reaped, the better it casts; but the sooner it is reaped, the fairer the sample. The best rule is to cut it down before the grain is got hard, when the ear begins to have a reddish-brown appearance. Better two days too soon than as many too late, is a good old maxim, and might pass for an oracle." The following quotation from the same author is excellent: "Cato would have this point especially to be considered, that the soil of a farm be good and fertile ; also, that near it there be plenty of labourers, and that it be not far from a large town : moreover, that it have sufficient means for transporting its produce, either by water or land. Also, that the home be well Uiilt, and the land about it as well managed. But I observe a great 1 Siiort Inquiry into the History of Agriculture, pp. 49-51, by Clianclos Wren Hoskyn, Esq. error and self-deception which many men commit, who hold opinion that the negligence and ill-husbandry of the former owner is good for his successor or after-purchaser. Now, I say, there is nothing more dangerous and disadvantageous to the buyer than land so left waste and out of heart ; and therefore Cato counsels well to purchase land of one who has managed it well, and not rashly and hand-over-head to despise and make light of the skill and knowledge of another. He says, too, that as well land as men, which are of great charge and expense, how gainful soever they may seem to be, yield little profit in the end, when all reckonings are made. The same Cato being asked, what was the most assured profit rising out of land 1 made this answer, To feed stock well. Being asked again, What was the next 1 ? he answered, To feed with moderation! By which answer he would seem to conclude that the most certain and sure revenue was a low cost of production. To the same point is to be referred another speech of his, That a good husbandman ought to be a seller rather than a buyer ; also, that a man should stock his ground early and well, but take long time and leisure before he be a builder ; for it is the best thing in the world, according to the proverb, to make use, and derive profit, from other men s follies. Still when there is a good and convenient house on the farm, the master will be the closer occupier, and take the more pleasure in it ; and truly it is a good saying, that the master s eye is better than his heel. " " It is curious," says Mr Hoskyn, " to read such passages as these, and to find the very same subjects still handled, week after week, in fresh and eager controversy in the agricultural writings and periodicals of the present day, eighteen centuries after those opinions were written." In the later ages of the empire agriculture was neglected, and those engaged in it regarded with contempt. Many fair regions once carefully cultivated, and highly productive, were abandoned to nature, and became a scene of desolation, the supplies of overgrown Rome being drawn from Egypt, Sicily, and other provinces, which became notable as the granaries of the empire. Under the Goths, Vandals, and other barbarian con- Middle querors, agriculture in Europe, during the middle ages, ages. seems to have sunk into the lowest condition of neglect and contempt. We owe its revival, like that of other arts and sciences, to the Saracens of Spain, who devoted themselves Spain. to the cultivation of that conquered territory, with heredi tary love for the occupation, and with the skilful application of the experience which they had gathered in other lands in which they had established their power. By them, and their successors, the Moors, agriculture was carried in Spain to a height which perhaps has not yet been surpassed in Europe. It is said, that so early as the tenth century the revenue of Saracenic Spain alone amounted to 6,000,000 sterling, probably as much as that of all the rest of Europe at that time. The ruins of their noble works for the irrigation of the soil still attest their skill and industry, and put to shame the ignorance and indolence of their successors. The same remark applies to the Spanish dominions in South America. In the ancient empire of Peru agriculture seems to have reached a high degree of perfection. The ruins of basins and canals, frequently carried through tunnels, prove their industry and skill in irrigation. One of their aqueducts is said by Mr Prescott 8 to have been traced by its ruins for nearly 500 milea. They cultivated the sides of mountains, by means of terraces, which retained forced soil, and were skilled in the application of manure. That on which they chiefly de pended was guano, and their Incas protected the penguins, by which it was deposited, by strict laws, which made it 5 History of the Conquest of Mexico. ​294 AGRICULTURE [HISTORICAL Middle highly penal to kill oue of these birds, or to set foot on the ages- islands at breeding time. The Spaniards thus obtained possession of two good patrimonies, and have wasted them both. The influence of the crusades upon the agriculture of this period is not to be overlooked. The dreadful oppression of the feudal system received at that time a shock most favourable to the liberties of man, and, with increasing liberty, more enlightened ideas began to be entertained, and greater attention to be paid to the cultivation of the soil. Condition But, during this long interval, the population of Europe >f labour. was divided i u to two great classes, of which by far the larger one was composed of bondmen, without property, or the power of acquiring it, and small tenants, very little superior to bondmen ; and the other class, consisting chiefly of the great barons and their retainers, was more frequently employed in laying waste the fields of their rivals than in improving their own. The superstition of the times, which destined a large portion of the land to the support of the church, and which, in some measure, secured it from predatory incursions, was the principal source of what little skill and industry were then displayed in the cultivation of the soil. " If we consider the ancient state of Europe," says Mr Hume, 1 "we shall find that the far greater part of society were everywhere bereaved of their personal liberty, and lived entirely at the will of their masters. Every one that was not noble was a slave ; the peasants were not in a better condition ; even the gentry themsolves were sub jected to a long train of subordination under the greater barons, or chief vassals of the crown, who, though seemingly placed in a high state of splendour, yet, having but a slender protection from law, were exposed to every tempest of the state, and by the precarious condition on which they lived, paid dearly for the power of oppressing and tyrannis ing over their inferiors/ " The villains were entirely occupied in the cultivation of their master s land, and paid their rents either in corn or cattle, and other produce of the farm, or in servile offices, which they performed about the baron s family, and upon farms which he retained in his own possession. In proportion as agriculture improved and money increased, it was found that these services, though extremely burdensome to the villain, were of little advantage to the master ; and that the produce of a large estate could be much more conveniently disposed of by tho peasants themselves who raised it, than by the landlord or his bailiff, who were formerly accustomed to receive it. A commutation was therefore made of rents for services, and of money-rents for those in kind ; and as men in a subse quent age discovered that farms were bett er cultivated where the fanner enjoyed security in his possession, the practice of granting leases to the peasant began to prevail, which entirely broke the bonds of servitude, already much relaxed from the former practices. The latest laws which we find in England for enforcing or regulating this species of servitude were enacted in the reign of Henry VII. And though the ancient statutes cu this subject remain still uurepealed by Parliament, it appears that before the end of Elizabeth the distinction between villain and freeman was totally, though insensibly, abolished, and that no person remained in the state to whom the former laws could be applied." 3arly But long before the 15th century, it is certain that eases. there was a class of tenants holding on leases for lives, or for a term of years, and paying a rent in land produce, in services, or in money. Whether they gradually sprung up from the class of bondmen, according to Lord Kames, 2 or 1 History of England, chap, xxiii. 8 Kames s Law Tracts. existed from the earliest period of the feudal constitution, Middle according to other writers, 3 their number cannot be supposed :l :-ves. to have been considerable during the middle ages. The stock which these tenants employed in cultivation com monly belonged to the proprietor, who received a proportion of the produce as rent, a system which still exists in France and in other parts of the Continent, where such tenants are called metayers, and some vestiges . of which may yet be traced in the steel-bow of the law of Scotland. Leases of the 13th century still remain, 4 and both the laws and chartularies 5 clearly prove the existence in Scotland of a class of cultivators distinct from the serfs or bondmen. Yet the condition of these tenants seems to h .ive been very different from that of the tenants of the present day; and the lease approached nearer in its form to a feu-charter than to the mutual agreement now in use. It was of the nature of a beneficiary grant by the proprietor, under certain conditions, and for a limited period; the consent of the tenant seems never to have been doubted. In the common expression "granting a lease," we have retained an idea of the original character of the deed, even to the present time. The corn crops cultivated during this period seem to have Crops, been of the same species, though all of them probably much inferior in quality to what they are in the present day. Wheat, the most valuable grain, must have borne a small proportion, at least in Britain, to that of other crops ; the remarkable fluctuation of price, its extreme scarcity, indi cated by the extravagant rate at which it was sometimes sold, as well as the preparatory cultivation required, may convince us that its consumption was confined to the higher orders, and that its growth was by no means extensive. Rye and oats furnished the bread and drink of the great body of the people of Europe. Cultivated herbage and roots were then unknown in the agriculture of Britain. It was not till the end of the reign of Henry VIII. that any salads, carrots, or other edible roots were produced in England. The little of these vegetables that was used was formerly imported from Holland and Flanders. Queen Catherine, when she wanted a salad, was obliged to despatch a messenger thither on purpose. 6 The ignorance and insecurity of those ages, which neces sarily confined the cultivation of corn to a comparatively small portion of country, left all the rest of it in a state of nature, to be depastured by the inferior animals, then only occasionally subjected to the care and control of man. Cultivators were crowded together in miserable hamlets ; the ground contiguous was kept continually under tillage ; and beyond this, wastes and woodlands of a much greater extent were appropriated to the maintenance of their flocks and herds, which pastured indiscriminately, with little attention from their owners. The low price of butcher-meat, though it was then the food of the common people, when compared with the price of corn, has been justly noticed by several writers as a decisive proof of the small progress of civilisation and industry. One of the earliest and greatest agricultural grievances Purvey was the levying of Purveyance. This originally compre- ancc - hended the necessary provisions, carriages, itc., which the nearest farmers were obliged to furnish at the current prices to the king s armies, houses, and castles, in time of war. It was called the great purveyance, and the officers who collected those necessaries were called purveyors. The smaller purveyance included the necessary provisions for the household of the king when travelling through the 3 Bell s Treatise on Leases. 4 Sir John Cullum s History and Antiquities of IfawsUd (Su/blk). 5 Chalmers Caledonia, book iv. c. 6. 8 Hume s History of England, chap, xxiii. ​SUMMARY.] AGRICULTURE 295 kingdom, and these the tenants on the king s demesne lands were obliged to furnish gratis, a practice that came to be adopted by the barons and great men in every tour which they thought proper to make in the country. These exactions were so grievous, and levied in so high-handed a manner, that the farmers, when they heard of the court s approach, often deserted their houses, as if the country had been invaded by an enemy. "Purveyance," says Dirom, 1 "was perhaps for many centuries the chief obstruc tion to the agriculture and improvement of Great Britain. A [any laws were made for the reformation and regulation of purveyance, but without effect ; and the practice continued down to so late a period as the reign of James the First." By statute 1449, the tenant was for the first time secured in possession, during the term of his lease, against a purchaser of the land; and in 1469 he was protected from having his property carried off for the landlord s debts, beyond the amount of rent actually due ; an enact ment which proves his miserable condition before that time. Soon after the beginning of the 16th century agriculture partook of the general improvement which followed the invention of printing, the revival of learning, and the more settled authority of government ; and instead of the occa sional notices of historians, we can now refer to regular treatises, written by men who engaged eagerly in this neglected and hitherto degraded occupation. We shall therefore give a short account of the principal works, as well as of the laws and general policy of Britain, in regard to agricultiire, from the early part of the 1 6th century to the Revolution in 1688, when a new era commenced in the legislation of corn, and soon after in the practice of the cultivator. 2 EARLY WORKS ON AGRICULTURE. )ok of The first and by far the best of our early works is the usbandry. Book of Husbandry, printed in 1534, commonly ascribed to Fitzherbert, a judge of the Common Pleas in the reign of Henry VIII. This was followed, in 1539, by the Boole of Surveying and Improvements, by the same author. In the former treatise we have a clear and minute description of the rural practices of that period, and from the latter may be learned a good deal of the economy of the feudal system in its decline. The Book of Husbandry has scarcely been excelled by any later production, in as far as concerns the subjects of which it treats; for at that time cultivated herbage and edible roots were still unknown in England. The author writes from his own experience of more than forty years ; and, with the exception of passages denoting his belief in the superstition of the Roman writers, there is very little of this valuable work, in so far as regards the culture of corn, that should be omitted, and not a great deal that need be added, even in a manual of husbandry adapted to the present time. Fitzherbert touches on almost every department of the art, and in about a hundred octavo pages has contrived to condense more practical information than will be found scattered through as many volumes of later times ; and yet he is minute even to the extreme on points of real utility. There is no reason to say, with Mr Harte, that he had revived the husbandry of the Romans ; he merely describes the practices of the age in which he lived ; and from his commentary on the old statute extenta manerii, in his Book of Surveying, in which he does not allude to any recent improvements, it is probable that the manage ment which he details had been long established. But it may surprise some of the agriculturists of the present day to be told, that, after the lapse of almost three centuries, Fitzherbert s practice, in some material particulars, has not 1 Inquiry into the Corn Laws, &c., i>. 9. 2 The account of the Writers on Agriculture taken from Mr Cleg- horn s Treatise in the former edition of the Encylopccdia Britannica. been improved upon ; and that in several districts abuses until recently existed, which were as clearly pointed out by him at that early period as by any writer of the present age. The Book of Husbandry begins with the plough and other instruments, which are concisely and yet minutely described; and then about a third part of it is occupied with the several operations as they succeed one another throughout the year. Among other things in this part of the work, the following deserve notice : " Somme (ploughs) wyll tournthe sheld breditli at every landsende, and plowe all one way ;" the same kind of plough that is now found so useful on hilly grounds. Of wheel-ploughs he observes, that "they be good on even grounde that lyetl lyghte;" and on such lands they are still most commonly employed. Cart-wheels were sometimes bound with iron, of which he greatly approves. On the much agitated question about the employment of horses or oxen in labour, the most important arguments are distinctly stated. "In some places," he says, "a horse plough is better," and in others an oxen plough, to which, upon the whole, he gives the pre ference, and to this, considering the practices of that period, they were probably entitled. Beans and peas seem to have been common crops. He mentions the different kinds of wheat, barley, and oats ; and after describing the method of harrowing "all maner of cornnes," we find the roller employed. "They used to role their barley grounde after a showr of rayne, to make the grounde even to rnowe. Under the article "To falowe," he observes, "the greater clottes (clods) the better wheate, for the clottes kepe the wheat warme all wyntcr ; and at March they will melte and breake and fal in nianye small peces, the whiche is a new dongynge and refreshynge of the corne." This is agreeable to the present practice, founded on the very same reasons. " In May, the shepe folde is to be set out ;" but Fitzherbert does not much approve of folding, and points out its disadvantages in a very judicious manner. " In the latter end of May and the begynnynge of June, is tymo to wede the come ;" and then wo have an accurate description of the different weeds, and the instruments and mode of weeding. Next comes a second ploughing of the fallow ; and afterwards, in the latter end of June, tie mowing of the meadows begins. Of this operation, and of the forks and rakes, and the haymaking, there is a very good account. The corn harvest naturally follows : rye and wheat were usually shorn, and barley and oats cut with the scythe. This intelligent writer does not approve of the practice, which still prevails in some places, of cutting wheat high, and then mowing the stubbles. " In Somersetshire, " he says, "they do shere theyr wheat veiy lowe ; and the wheato strawe that they purpose to make thacke of, they do not threshe it, but cut off the ears, and byiid it in shoves, and call it rede, and therewith they thacke theyr houses." He recommends the practice of setting up corn in shocks, with two sheaves to cover eight, instead of ten sheaves as at present; probably owing to the straw being then shorter. The corn was commonly housed ; but if there be a want of room, he advises that the ricks be built on a scaffold, and not upon the ground. Corn- stacks are now beginning to be built on pillars and frames. The fallow received a third ploughing in September, and was sown about Michaelmas. " Wheat is moost commonlye sownc under the forowe, that is to say, cast it uppon the falowe, and then plowe it under ;" and this branch of his subject is concluded with directions about threshing, winnowing, and other kinds of barn- work. Fitzherbert next proceeds to live stock. "An housbande," ho says, "can not well thryue by his corno without he have other cattell, nor by his cattell without corne. And bycause that shepe, in myne opynyon, is the mooste profytablest cattell that any man can haue, therefore I pourpose to speake fyrst of shepe." His remarks on this subject are so accurate, that one might imagina they came from a storcmaster of the present day ; and the minutiaa which he details are exactly what the writer of this article has seen practised in the hilly parts of this countiy. In some places at present, "they neuer scuer their lambes from their dammes;" "and the poore of the peeke (high) countreye, and such other places, where, as they vse to mylko theyr ewes, they vse to wayne theyr lambes at 12 weekes olde, and to my Ike their ewes fiuo or syxe weekes ;" but that, he observes, "is greate hurte to the ewes, and wyll cause them that they wyll not take the ramme at the- tyme of the yere for pouertye, but goo barreyne." "In June is tyme to shere shepe ; and ere they bo shorne, they must be vcrye well washen, the which shall be to the owner grcato profyto in the sale of his wool, and also to the clothe-maker. " It appears that hand washing was then a common practice ; and yet in the west and north of Scotland its introduction is of comparatively recent date. His remarks on horses, cattle, &c., are not less interesting; and there is a very good account of the diseases of each species, and some just observations on the advantage of mixing different kinds on the same pasture. Swine and bees conclude this branch of th work. ​AGRICULTURE [HISTORICAL larly forks. The author then points out the great advantages of in closure ; recommends " quyekscttyngc, dychynge, and Ecdgeyng ;" and gives particular directions about scttcs, and the method of training a hedge, as well as concerning the planting and management of trees. We have then a short information "for a yongo gentylman that intendeth to thryue," and "a prolouge for the wiues occu pation," in some instances rather too homely for the present time. Among other things, she is to "make her husband and herself sommo clothes ;" and " she maye haue the lockes of the shepe eyther to make blankettes and courlcttus, or bothe." This is not so much amiss ; but what follows will bring the learned judge into disrepute even with our most industrious housewives. " It is a wyues occu pation," he says, "to wynowe all manor of cornes, to make malte, to washe and wrynge, to make hcye, sliere corne, and, in time of node, to helpe her husbande to fyll the mucke wayue or dounge carte, diyue the ploughe, to loode heye, corne, and suche other ; and to go or ride to the market to sel butter, chese, mylke, egges, chckyns, capons, hennes, pygges, gese, and all maner of cornes." The rest of the book contains some useful advices about diligence and economy ; and concludes, after the manner of the age, with many pious exhortations. Such, is Fitzherbert s Boole of Husbandry, and such was the state of agriculture in England in the early part of the 16th century, and probably for a long time before; for he nowhere speaks of the practices which he describes or recommends as of recent introduction. took of The Book of Surveying adds considerably to our knowledge lurveying. Q ^ e rura j economy of that age. " Four maner of com- mens" are described; several kinds of mills for corn and other purposes, and also " quernes that goo with hand ;" different orders of tenants, down to the " bouudmen," who " in some places contynue as yet ;" " and many tymes, by colour thereof, there be many freemen taken as boundmen, and their lands and goods is taken from them." Lime and marl are mentioned as common manures; and the former was sometimes spread on the surface to destroy heath. Both draining and irrigation are noticed, though the latter but slightly. And the work concludes with an inquiry " how to make a township that is worth XX. marke a yere, worth XX. li. a year;" from which we shall give a specimen of the author s manner, as well as of the economy of the age. "It is undoubted, that to every townshyppe that standeth in tyllage in the playne countrey, there be erratic landes to plowe and sowe, and Icyse to tye or tedder theyr horses and mares upon, and common pasture to kepe and pasture their catell, beestes, and shepe upon ; and also they have medowe grounde to get theyr hey upon. Than to let it be known how many acres of errable lande euery man hath in tyllage, and of the same acres in euery felde to chaunge with his neyghbours, and to leye them toguyther, and to make hym one seuerall close in euery felde for his errable lands ; and his leyse in euery felde to leve them togyther in one felde, and to make one seuerall close for them all. And also another seuerall close for his portion of his common pasture, and also his porcion of Ids medowe in a seuerall close by itselfe, and al kept in seuerall both in wynter and somer ; and euery cottage shall haue his portion assigned hym accordynge to his rent, and than shall nat the ryche man ouerpresse the poore man with his cattell ; and euery man may eate his oun close at his pleasure. And vndoubted, that hay and strawe that will find one beest in the house wyll finde two beestes in the close, and better they shall lyke. For those heestis in the house have short heare and thynne, and towards March they will pylle and be bare ; and therefore they may nat abyde in the fylde before the heerdmen in winter tyme for colde. And those that lye in a close under a hedge haue longe heare and thyck, and they will neuer pylle nor be bare ; and by this reason the husbande maye kepe twyse so many catell as he did before. "This is the cause of this approwment. Nowe euery husbande hath sixe seuerall closes, whereof iii. be for corne, the fourthe for his leyse, the fyfte for his commen pastures, and the sixte for his haye ; and in wynter time there is but one occupied with corne, and than hath the husbande other fyue to occupy tyll lento come, and that he hath his falowe felde, his ley felde, and his pasture felde al sommer. And when he hath mowen his medowe, then he hath his medowo grounde, soo that if he hath any weyke catell that wold be amended, or dyvers maner of catell, he may put them in any close he wyll, the which is a great advantage ; and if all shulde lye commen, than wolde the edyche of the corne feldes and the aftermath of all the medowes be eaten in X. or XII. dayes. And the rych men that hath moche catell wold have the advantage, and the poore man can have no helpe nor relefe in wyntcr when ne Lath moste ncde ; and if an acre of lande be worthe sixe pens, or it be enclosed, it will be worth VIII. pens, when it is enclosed by reason of the compostying and dongyng of the catell that -shall go and lye upon it both day and nighte ; and if any of his thre closes that he hath for his come be worne or ware bare, than he may breke and plowo up his close that he hadde for his layse, or the close that he haddo for his commen pasture, or bothe, and sowe them with corne, and let the other lyo for a time, and so shall he have alway rcist grounde, the which will bear moche corne with lytel douge ; and also he shall have a great profyto of the wod in the hedges whan it is growen ; and not only these profytes and advantages beforesuid, but he shall save moche more than a I these, for by reason of these closes he shall save mcate, drinke, and wages of a shepherde, the wages of the heerdmen, and the wages of the swine herde, the which may fortune to be as chargeable as all his holle rent ; and also his corne shall be better saved from eatinge or destroyeng with catel. For dout ye nat but hcerdemeu with their catell, shepeherdes with their shepe, and tieng of horses and mares, destroyeth moch corne, the which the hedges wold save. Paraduenture some men would say, that this shuld be against the common weale, bicause the shepeherdes, heerdmen, and swyne- herdcs, shuld than be put out of wages. To that it may be answered, though these occupations be not used, there be as many ncwe occupations that were not used before ; as getting of quicke- settes, diching, hedging, and plashing, the which the same men may use and occupye." The next author who writes professedly on agriculture Tufser, is Tusser, whose Five Hundred Points of Husbandry, 1562. published in 1562, was formerly in such high repute as to be recommended by Lord Molesworth to be taught in schools. 1 The edition of 1604 is the one we make use of here. In it the book of husbandry consists of 118 pages, and then follows the Points of Housewifrie, occupying 42 pages more. It is written in verse. Amidst a vast heap of rubbish, there are some useful notices concerning the state of agriculture at the time in different parts of England. Hops, which had been introduced in the early part of the 16th century, and on the culture of which a treatise was published in 1574 by Reynolde Scott, are mentioned as a well-known crop. Buckwheat was sown after barley. Hemp and flax are mentioned as common crops. Inclosures must have been numerous in several counties ; and there is a very good comparison between "champion (open fields) country, and several," which Blythe afterwards transcribed into his Improver Improved. Carrots, cabbages, turnips, and rape, are mentioned among the herbs and roots for the kitchen. There is nothing to be found in Tusser about serfs or bondmen, as in Fitzherbert s works. This author s division of the crop is rather curious, though probably quite inaccurate, if he means that the whole rent might be paid by a tenth of the corn. " One part cast forth for rent due out of hand. One other part for seed to sow thy land. Another part leave parson for his tith. Another part for harvest, sickle and sith. One part for ploughwrite, cartwrite, knacker, and smith. One part to uphold thy teenies that draw therewith. Another part for servant and workman s wages laie. One part likewise for filbellie daie by daie. One part thy wife for needful things doth crave. Thyself and thy child the last part would have. " The next writer is Barnaby Googe, whose Whole Art of Googe, Ihisbandry was printed in 1578, and again by Markham 1578. in 1614. The first edition is merely a translation of a German work ; and very little is said of English Imsbandry in the second, though Markham made some trifling inter polations, in order, as it is alleged, to adapt the German husbandry to the English climate. It is for the most part made up of gleanings from the ancient writers of Greece and Rome, whose errors are faithfully retained, with here and there some description of the practices of the age, in which there is little of novelty or importance. Googe mentions a number of English writers who lived about the time of Fitzherbert, whose works have not been preserved. 1 Some Considerations for the promoting of Agriculture and employ ing the, Poor. Dublin, 1723. ​SUMMARY.] AGRICULTURE 297 orden, >18. For more than fifty years after this, or till near the middle of the 17th century, there are no systematic works on husbandry, though several treatises on particular departments of it. From these it is evident that all the different operations of the farmer were performed with more care and correctness than formerly ; that the fallows were better worked, the fields kept freer from weeds, and much more attention paid to manures of every kind. A few of the writers of this period deserve to be shortly noticed. [at, 1594. Sir Hugh Plat, in his Jewel House of Art and Nature, printed in 1594 (which West on in his catalogue erroneously ascribes to Gabriel Plattes), makes some useful observations on manures, but chiefly collected from other writers. His censure of the practice of leaving farm dung lying scattered about is among the most valuable. Sir John Norden s Surveyor s Dialogue, printed in 1607, and reprinted with additions in 1G18, is a work of con siderable merit. The first three books of it relate to the rights of the lord of the manor and the various tenures by which landed property was then held, with the obligations which they imposed. Among others, we find the singular custom, so humorously described in the Spectator, of the incontinent widow riding upon a ram. In the fifth book there are a good many judicious observations on the " different natures of grounds, how they may be employed, how they may be bettered, reformed, and amended." The famous meadows near Salisbury are mentioned ; and when cattle have fed their fill, hogs, it is pretended, " are made fat with the remnant namely, with the knots and sappe of the grasse." " Clouer grasse, or the grasse honey suckle" (white clover), is directed to be sown with other hay seeds. " Carrot rootes" were then raised in several parts of England, and sometimes by farmers. London street and stable dung was carried to a distance by water, though it appears from later writers to have been got for the trouble of removing. And leases of 21 years are recommended for persons of small capital, as better than employing it in purchasing land, -an opinion that prevails very generally among our present farmers. Bees seem to have been great favourites with these early writers; and among others, there is a treatise by Butler, a gentleman of Oxford, called the Feminine Monarchie, or the History of Bees, printed in 1609, full of all manner of quaintness and pedantry. We shall pass over Markham, Mascall, Gabriel Plattes, and several other authors of this period, the best part of their writings being preserved by Blythe and Hartlib, of whom we shall say a little immediately. In Sir Ptichard Weston s Discourse on the Husbandry of Brabant and Flanders, published by Hartlib in 1645, we may mark the dawn of the vast improvements which have since been effected in Britain. This gentleman was ambassador from England to the elector palatine and king of Bohemia in 1619, and had the merit of being the first who introduced the great clover, as it was then called, into English agriculture, about 1645, and probably turnips also. His directions for the cultivation of clover are better than was to be expected. It thrives best, he says, when you sow it on the worst and barrenest ground, such as our worst heath ground is in England. The ground is to be pared and burnt, and unslacked lime must be added to the ashes. It is next to be well ploughed and harrowed ; and about ten pounds of clover seed must be sown on an acre in April or the end of March. If you intend to preserve seed, then the second crop must bo let stand till it come to a full and dead ripeness, and you shall have at the least five bushels per acre. Being once sown, it will last five years ; and then being ploughed, it will yield, three or four years together, rich crops of wheat, and after that a crop of oats, with which clover seed is to be sown again. Tt is in itself ntler on ses, 1609 r eston, an excellent manure, Sir Richard adds ; and so it should Early be, to enable land to bear this treatment. In less than ten v > rk#. years after its introduction, that is, before 1655, the cul ture of clover, exactly according to the present method, seems to have been well known in England, and it had also made its way to Ireland. A great many works on agriculture appeared during the Blytho, time of the Commonwealth, of which Blythe s Improver 164P. Improved and Hartlib s Legacy are the most valuable. The first edition of the former was published in 1649, and of the latter in 1650; and both of them were enlarged in subsequent editions. In the first edition of the Improver Improved, no mention is made of clover, nor in the second of turnips, but in the third, published in 1662, clover is treated of at some length, and turnips are recommended as an excellent cattle crop, the culture of which should be extended from the kitchen garden to the field. Sir Richard Weston must have cultivated turnips before this ; for Blythe says, that Sir Richard affirmed to himself he did feed his swine with them. They were first given boiled, but afterwards the swine came to eat them raw, and would run after the carts, and pull them forth as they gathered them, an expression which conveys an idea of their beii g cultivated in the fields. Blythe s book is tho first systematic work in which there are some traces of the alternate husbandry so beneficially established since, by interposing clover and turnip between culmiferous crops. Ho is a great enemy to commons and common fields, and to retaining land in old pasture, unless it be of the best quality. His description of the different kinds of ploughs is interesting ; and he justly recommends such as were drawn by two horses (some even by one horse), in preference to the weighty and clumsy machines which required four or more horses or oxen. Almost all the manures now used seem to have been then well known, and he brought lime himself from a distance of 20 miles. He speaks of an instrument which ploughed, sowed, and harrowed at the same time ; and the setting of corn was then a subject of much discussion. " It was not many years," says Blythe, " since the famous city of London petitioned the Parliament of England against two anusancies or offensive commodities, which were likely to come into great use and esteem ; and that was Newcastle coal, in regard of their stench, <tc., and hops, in regard they would spoyle the taste of drink, and endanger the people." Hartlib s Legacy is a very heterogeneous performance, Hartlifc containing, among some very judicious directions, a great 1650. deal of rash speculation. Several of the deficiencies which the writer complains of in English agriculture must be placed to the account of our climate, and never have been or can be supplied. Some of his recommen dations are quite unsuitable to the state of the country, and display more of general knowledge and good inten tion than of either the theory or practice of agriculture. Among the subjects deserving notice may be mentioned the practice of steeping and liming seed corn as a preven tive of smut ; changing every year the species of grain, and bringing seed corn from a distance ; ploughing down green crops as manure ; and feeding horses with broken oats and chaff. This writer seems to differ a good deal from Blythe about the advantage of interchanging tillage and pasture. " It were no losse to this island," he says, " if that we should not plough at all, if so be that we could certainly have corn at a reasonable rate, and likewise vent for all our manufactures of wool;" and one reason for this is, that pasture employeth more hands than tillage, instead of de populating the country, as was commonly imagined. The grout, which he mentions " as coming over to us in Hol land ships," about which he desires information, was pro bably the same with our present shelled barley ; and mills I. 38 ​298 AGRICULTURE [HISTORICAL for manufacturing it were introduced into Scotland from Holland towards the beginning of the last century. To the third edition, published in 1655, are subjoined Dr Beatie s Annotations with the writer of the Legacy s answers, both of them ingenious, and sometimes instruc tive. But this cannot be said of Gabriel Plattes s Mercu- rius Laetificans, also added to this edition, which is a most extravagant production. There are also several communi cations from Hartlib s different correspondents, of which the most interesting are those on the early cultivation and great value of clover. Hartlib himself does not appear much in this collection ; but he seems to have been a very useful person in editing the works of others, and as a collector of miscellaneous information on rural subjects. It is strange that neither Blythe nor Hartlib, nor any of Hartlib s correspondents, seem ever to have heard of Fitzherbert s works. Ray and Among the other writers previous to the Revolution, we Evelyn. shall only mention Ray the botanist, and Evelyn, both men of great talent and research, whose works are still in high estimation. A new edition of Evelyn s Silva and Terra was published in 1777 by Dr Hunter, with large notes and elegant engravings, and reprinted in 1812. The preceding review commences with a period of feudal anarchy and despotism, and comes down to the time when the exertions of individual interest were protected and en couraged by the firm administration of equal laws; when the prosperity of Great Britain was no longer retarded by in ternal commotions, nor endangered by hostile invasion. LAWS. The laws of this period, in so far as they relate to agri culture and rural economy, display a similar progress in improvement. nilage, From the beginning of the reign of Henry VII. to the L188. end of Elizabeth s, a number of statutes were made for the encouragement of tillage, though probably to little purpose. The great grievance of those days was the practice of laying arable land to pasture, and suffering the farm-houses to fall to ruin. " Where in some towns," says the statute 4th Henry VII. (1488), "two hundred persons were occupied and lived of their lawful labours, now there are occupied two or three herdsmen, and the residue fall into idleness ;" therefore it is ordained, that houses which within three years have been let for farms, with twenty acres of land lying in tillage or husbandry, shall be upheld, under the penalty of half the profits, to be forfeited to the king or the lord of the fee. Almost half a century after- %vards, the practice had become still more alarming ; and in 1534 a new Act was tried, apparently with as little suc cess. "Some have 24,000 sheep, some 20,000 sheep, some 10,000, some 6000, some 4000, and some more and some less ; " and yet it is alleged the price of wool had nearly doubled, "sheep being come to a few persons hands." A penalty was therefore imposed on all who kept above 2000 sheep ; arid no person was to take in farm more than two tenements of husbandry. By the 39th Elizabeth (1597), arable land made pasture since the 1st Elizabeth shall be again converted into tillage, and what is arable shall not be converted into pasture. Vagabonds. Many laws were enacted during this period against va gabonds, as they were called ; and persons who could not find employment seem to have been sometimes confounded with those who really preferred idleness and plunder. The dissolution of the feudal system, and the suppression of the monasteries, deprived a great part of the rural population of the means of support. They could not be employed in cultivating the soil, for there was no middle class of farmers possessed of capital to be vested in improvements; and what little disposable capital was in the hands of great proprietors could not, in those rude times, be so advantageously embarked in the expensive and pre carious labours of growing corn, as in pasturage, which required much less skill and superintendence. Besides, there was a constant demand for wool on the Continent ; while the corn market was not only confined by laws against exportation, but fettered by restrictions on the internal trade. The laws regarding the wages of labour and the price of provisions are a further proof of the ignorance of the age in regard to the proper subject of legislation. By the statute 1552 it is declared, that any person that Forcstn shall buy merchandise, victual, &c., coming to market, li n g> !- or make any bargain for buying the same, before they shall be in the market ready to be sold, or shall make any motion for enhancing the price, or dissuade any person from coining to market, or forbear to bring any of the tilings to market, &c., shall be deemed a forestaller. Any person who buys and sells again in the same market, or within four miles thereof, s!::i!i be reputed a regrater. Any person buying corn growing in the fields, or any other corn, with intent to sell again, shall be reputed an unlaw ful ingrosser. It was also declared, that no person shall sell cattle within five weeks after he had bought them. Licenses, indeed, Avere to be granted in certain cases, and particularly when the price of wheat was at or under 6s. 8d. a quarter, and other kinds of .-rain in that proportion. The laws regarding the exportation and importation of Corn tr corn during this period could have had little effect in encouraging agriculture, though towards the latter part of it they gradually approached that system which was finally established at arid soon after the J ! .-volution. From the time of the above-mentioned statute against forcstallers, which effectually prevented exporta . ion, as well as the freedom of the home trade, whet! corn was above the price therein specified, down to 1688, there are at least twelve statutes on this subject ; and some of them are so nearly the same, that it is probable they were not very carefully observed. The price at which wheat was allowed to be exported was raised from 6s. Bd. a quarter, the price fixed by the 1st and 2dof Philip and Mary (1553), to 10s. in 1562; to 20s. in 1593; to 26s. 8d. in 1604; to 32s. in 1623; to 40s. in 1660; to 48s. in 1663; and at last, in 1670, exportation was virtually permitted without limita tion. Certain duties, however, were payable, which in some cases seem to have amounted to a prohibition ; and until 1660 importation was not restrained even in years of plenty and cheapness.* In permitting exportation, the object appears to have been revenue rather than the encouragement of production. The first statute for levying tolls at turnpikes, to make Tolls, 1 or repair roads in England, passed in 1662. Of the state of agriculture in Scotland in the 16th and Scotlan the greater part of the 17th century very little is known; 16th an no professed treatise on the subject appeared till after tha* *. 6 Revolution. The south-eastern counties were the earliest " improved, and yet in 1660 their condition seems to have been very wretched. Ray, who made a tour along the eastern coast in that year, says, " We observed little or no fallow ground in Scotland ; some ley ground we saw, which they manured with sea wreck. The men seemed to be very lazy, and may be frequently observed to plough in their cloaks. It is the fashion of them to wear cloaks when they go abroad, but especially on Sundays. They have neither good bread, cheese, nor drink. They cannot make them, nor will they learn. Their butter is very indifferent, and one would wonder how they could contrive to make it so bad. They use much pottage made of coal- wort, which they call kail, sometimes broth of decorticated barley. The ordinary country-houses are pitiful cots, built of stone and covered with turfs, having in them but one ​SUMMARY.] AGRICULTURE 299 room, many of them no chimneys, the windows very small holes, and not glazed. The ground in the valleys and plains bears very good corn, but especially bears barley or bigge, and oats, but rarely wheat and rye." 1 It is probable that no great change had taken place in Scotland from the end of the 15th century, except that tenants gradually became possessed of a little stock of their own, instead of having their farm stocked by the landlord. " The minority of James V., the reign of Mary Stuart, the infancy of her son, and the civil wars of her grandson Charles I., were all periods of lasting waste. The very laws which were made during successive reigns for protecting the tillers of the soil from spoil, are the be.st proofs of the deplorable state of the husbandman." 2 Yet in the 17th century were those laws made which paved the way for the present improved system of agri culture in Scotland. By statute 1633, landholders were enabled to have their tithes valued, and to buy them either at nine or six years purchase, according to the nature of the property. The statute 1685, conferring on landlords a power to entail their estates, was indeed of a very dif ferent tendency in regard to its effects on agriculture. But the two Acts in 1695, for the division of commons, and separation of intermixed properties, have facilitated in an eminent degree the progress of improvement. PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE FROM 1688 TO 1760. From the Revolution to the accession of George III. the progress of agriculture was by no means so considerable as we should be led to imagine from the great exportation of corn. It is the opinion of well-informed writers, 3 that very little improvement had taken place, either in the cultivation of the soil or in the management of live stock, from the Restoration down to the middle of last century. Even clover and turnips, the great support of the present improved system of agriculture, were confined to a few districts, and at the latter period were scarcely cultivated at all by common farmers in the northern part of the island. Of the writers of this period, therefore, we shall notice only such as describe some improvement in the modes of culture, or some extension of the practices that were formerly little known. ughto:.. In Houghton s Collections on Husbandry and Trade, a ! periodical work begun in 1681, we have the first notice of turnips being eaten by sheep: "Some in Essex have their fallow after turnips, which feed their sheep in winter, by which means the turnips are scooped, and so made capable to hold dews and rain water, which, by corrupting, imbibes the nitre of the air, and when the shell breaks it runs about and fertilises. By feeding the sheep, the land is dunged as if it had been folded; and those turnips, though few or none be carried off for human use, are a very excellent improvement, nay, some reckon it so though they only plough the turnips in without feeding." 4 This was written in February 1694 ; but ten years before, "Wor- lidge, one of his correspondents, observes, "Sheep fatten very well on turnips, which prove an excellent nourish ment for them in hard winters when fodder is scarce ; for they will not only eat the greens, but feed on the roots in the ground, and scoop them hollow even to the very skin. Ten acres (he adds) sown with clover, turnips, &c., will feed as many sheep as one hundred acres thereof would before have done." 5 1 Select Remains of John Ray. Lond. 1760. 2 Chalmers s Caledonia, vol. ii. p. 732. 3 Annals of Agriculture, No. 270. Harte s Essays. Combor on National Subsistence, p. 161. 4 Iloughton s Collections on Husbandry and Trade, vol. i. p. 213, edit. 1723. 5 Hid. vol. iv. pp. 142-144. At this time potatoes were beginning to attract notice. "The potato," says Honghton, "is a lactiferous herb, with esculent roots, bearing winged leaves and a bell flower. "This, 1 have been informed, was brought first out of Virginia by Sir Walter Raleigh ; and he stopping at Ireland, some was planted there, where it thrived very well, and to good purpose ; tor in their succeeding wars, when all the corn above the ground was destroyed, this supported them ; for the soldiers, unless they had dug up all the ground where they grew, and almost sifted it, could not extirpate them ; from whence they were brought to Lancashire, where they are very numerous, and now they begin to spread all the kingdom over. They are a pleasant food boiled or roasted, and eaten with butter and sugar. There is a sort brought from Spain, that are of a longer form, and are more luscious than ours ; they are much set by, and sold for sixpence or eightpence the pound." 8 The next writer is Mortimer, whose Whole Art of Hits- Mortime ban-dry was published in 1706, and has since run through 1706. several editions. It is a regular, systematic work, of con siderable merit ; and will even now repay perusal by the practical agriculturist. From the third edition of Hartlib s Legacy, we learn that clover was cut green, and given to cattle ; and it appears that this practice of soiling, as it is now called, had become very common about the beginning of last century, wherever clover was cultivated. Rye-grass was now sown along with it. Turnips were hand-hoed, and extensively employed in feeding sheep and cattle, in the same manner as at present. The first considerable improvement in the practice of that Tull, 17! period was introduced by Jethro Tull, a gentleman of Berk shire, who began to drill wheat and other crops about the year 1701, and whose Horse-hoeing Husbandry, published in 1731, exhibits the first decided step in advance upon the prin ciples and practices of his predecessors. Not contented with a careful attention to details, Tull set himself, with admirable skill and perseverance, to investigate the growth of plants, and thus to arrive at a knowledge of the principles by which the cultivation of field-crops should be regulated. Having arrived at the conclusion that the food of plants consists of minute particles of earth taken up by their rootlets, it fol lowed, that the more thoroughly the soil in which they grew was disintegrated, the more abundant would be the " pasture" (as he called it), to which their fibres would have access. He was thus led to adopt that system of sowing his crops in rows or drills, so wide apart as to admit of tillage of the intervals, both by ploughing and hoeing, being continued until they had well-nigh arrived at maturity. As the distance between his rows appeared much greater than was necessary for the range of the roots of the plants, he begins by showing that these roots extend much far ther than is commonly believed, and then proceeds to inquire into the nature of theirfood. After examining several hypo theses, he decides this to be fine particles of earth. The chief, and almost the only use of dung, he thinks, is to divide the earth, to dissolve " this terrestrial matter, which affords nutriment to the mouths of vegetable roots;" and this can be done more completely by tillage. It is therefore ne cessary not only to pulverise the soil by repeated ploughings before it be seeded, but, as it becomes gradually more and more compressed afterwards, recourse must be had to tillage while the plants are growing ; and this is hoeing, which also destroys the weeds that would deprive the plants of their nourishment. The leading features of TulTs husbandry are his practice of laying the land into narrow ridges of five or six feet, and upon the middle of these drilling one, two, or three rows, distant from one another about seven inches when there were three, and ten when only two. The distance of the 8 Houghton s Collections on Husbandry and Trade, vol. ii. p. 468. ​300 AGRICULTUKE [HISTORICAL plants on one ridge from those on the contiguous one he called an interval ; the distance between the rows on the same ridge, a space or partition; the former was stirred repeatedly by the horse-hoc, the latter by the hand-hoe. The extraordinary attention this ingenious person gave to his mode of culture is perhaps without a parallel : " I formerly was at much pains," he says, "and at some charge in improving my drills for planting the rows at very near distances, and had brought them to such perfection, that one horse would draw a drill with eleven shares, making the rows at three inches and a half distance from one another ; and at the same time sow in them three very different sorts of seeds, which did not mix ; and these, too, at different depths. As the barley-rows were seven inches asunder, the barley lay four inches deep. A little more than three inches above that, in the same channels, was clover ; betwixt every two of these rows was a row of St Foin, covered half an inch deep. " I had a good crop of barley the first year ; the next year two crops of broad clover, where that was sown ; and where hop- clover was sown, a mixed crop of that and St Foiu ; but I am since, by experience, so fully convinced of the folly of these, or any other mixed crops, and more especially of narrow spaces, that I have demolished these instruments, in their full perfection, as a vain curiosity, the drift and use of them being contrary to the true principles and practice of horse-hoeing. " 1 In the culture of wheat, he began with ridges six feet broad, or eleven on a breadth of 66 feet ; but on this he afterwards had fourteen ridges. After trying different num bers of rows on a ridge, he at last preferred two, with an intervening space of about 10 inches. He allowed only three pecks of seed for an acre. The first hoeing was per formed by turning a furrow from the row, as soon as the plant had put forth four or five leaves , so that it was done before or at the beginning of winter. The next hoeing was in spring, by which the earth was returned to the plants. The subsequent operations depended upon the circumstances and condition of the land and the state of the weather. The next year s crop of wheat was sown upon the intervals which had been unoccupied the former year ; but this he does not seem to think was a matter of much consequence. "My field," he observes, "whereon is now the thirteenth crop of wheat, has shown that the rows may successfully stand upon any part of the ground. The ridges of this field were, for the twelfth crop, changed from six feet to four feet six inches. In order for this alteration the ridges were ploughed down, and then the next ridges were laid out the same way as the former, but one foot six inches narrower, and the double rows drilled on their tops ; whereby, of consequence, there must be some rows standing on every part of the ground, both on the former partitions and on every part of the intervals. Notwithstanding this, there was no manner of difference in the goodness of the rows ; and the whole field was in every part of it equal, and the best, I believe, that ever grew on it. It is now the thirteenth crop, likely to be good, though the land was not ploughed crossways. 2 It follows, from this singular management, that Tull thought a succession of crops of different species altogether unnecessary ; and he labours hard to prove against Dr Woodward, that the advantages of such a change under his plan of tillage were quite chimerical, though he seems to admit the benefit of a change of the seed itself. In cultivating turnips he made the ridges of the same breadth as for wheat, but only one row was drilled on each. His management, while the crop was growing, differs very little from the present practice. When drilled on the level, it is impossible, he observes, to hoe-plough them so well as when they are planted upon ridges. But the seed was deposited at different depths, the half about four inches deep, and the other half exactly over that, at the depth of half an inch. "Thus planted, let the weather be never so dry, the deepest seed rill come up, but if it raineth immediately after planting, the shallow will come up first. We also mako it come up at four times, by m-ixing our seed half new and half old, the new coming up a day quicker than the old. These four comings up give it so 1 Horse-hoeing Husbandry, j 62. Lend. 1762. 2 Ibui. p. 424 many chances for escaping the fly ; it beiu^ often seen that the seed sown over night will be destroyed by the fly, when that sown tho next morning will escape, and vice versa : or you may hoc-plough them when the fly is like to devour them ; this will bury the greatest part of these enemies : or else you may drill in another row without new-ploughing the laud." Drilling and horse and hand hoeing seem to have been in use before the publication of Tull s book. "Hoeing," he says, " may be divided into deep, which is our horse-hoeing ; and shallow, which is the English hand-hoeing ; and also the shallow horse-hoeing used in some places betwixt rows, where the intervals are very narrow, as 16 or 18 inches. This is but an imitation of the hand-hoe, or a succedaneum to it, and can neither supply the iise of dung nor fallcnv, and may be properly called scratch-hoeing." But in his mode of forming ridges his practice seems to have Lccu original ; his implements display much ingenuity ; and his claim to the title of father of the present horse-hoeing husbandry of Great Britain seems indisputable. A trans lation of Tull s book was undertaken at one and the same time in France, by three different persons of consideration, without the privity of each other. Two of them afterwards put their papers into the hands of the third, M. du Hamel du Monceau, of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, who published a treatise on husbandry, on the principles of Mr Tull, a few years after. But Tull seems to have had very few followers in England for more than thirty years. The present method of drilling and horse-hoeing turnips was not introduced into Northumberland till about the year 1780 ; 3 and it was then borrowed from Scotland, the farmers of which had the merit of first adopting Tull s management in the culture of this root about 1760. From Scotland it made its way, but slowly, into the southern parts of the island. Tull s doctrines and practices being quite in advance of his own times, were, as is usual in such cases, vehemently opposed by his contemporaries. He was, in consequence, involved in frequent controversy, in conducting which he occasionally showed an asperity of temper which excites our regret, but which is not to be wondered at, when we consider the trials of patience which he encountered from the unreasonable opposition of the agricultural community to his improvements ; the thwarting of his experiments bj his own labourers, who, in their ignorant zeal against inno vations, wilfully broke his machines, and disregarded his orders; and from acute and protracted bodily disease. The soundness of his views and practice, as regards turnip culture, came by-and-by to be acknowledged, and Lave since been generally adopted. But it was only some twenty-five years ago that his full merit began to be under stood. The Rev. Mr Smith, in his Word in Season, about that time recalled attention to Tull s peculiar system of wheat culture in a way that startled the whole community ; while Professor Way, in a series of eloquent lectures delivered before the Royal Agricultural Society, showed that his science was true in the main, and even more strik ingly ahead of his times than his practice. Among the English writers of this period may be men tioned Bradley, Lawrence, Hules, Miller, Ellis, Smith, Hill, Hitt, Lisle, and Home. Most of their works went through several editions in a few years, at once a proof of the estimation in which they Avcre held, and of the direction of the public mind towards investigating the principles and practice of agriculture. Of the progress of the art in Scotland, till towards the Scotls end of the 17th century, we are almost entirely ignorant. progn The first work, written by Donaldson, was printed in 1697, under the title of Husbandry Anatomized; or, an Inquiry into the Present Manner of Telling and Manuring the 1 Northumberland Survey, p. 100. ​SUMMAKY.] AGRICULTURE 301 Ground in Scotland. It appears from this treatise, that the state of the art was not more advanced at that time in North Britain than it had been in England in the time of Lutzherbert. Farms were divided into infield and outfield ; corn crops followed one another without the intervention of fallow, cultivated herbage, or turnips, though something is said about fallowing the outfield ; inclosures were very rare ; the tenantry had not begun to emerge from a state of great poverty and depression ; and the wages of labour, compared with the price of corn, were much lower than at present ; though that price, at least in ordinary years, must appear extremely moderate in our times. Leases for a term of years, however, were not uncommon ; but the want of capital rendered it impossible for the tenantry to attempt any spirited improvements. Donaldson first points out the common management of that period, which he shows to have been very unproduc tive, and afterwards recommends what he thinks would ba a more profitable course. "Of the dale ground," he says, "that is, such lands as are partly hills and partly valleys, of which sorts may be comprehended the greatest part of arable ground in this kingdom, I shall suppose a fanner to have a lease or tack of three score acres, at three hundred merks of rent per annum (16, 13s. 4d. sterling). Perhaps some who are not acquainted with rural affairs may think this cheap ; but those who are the possessors thereof think otherwise, and find difficulty enough to get the same paid, according to their present svay of manuring thereof. But that I may proceed to the comparison, I shall show how commonly this farm-room is managed. It is com monly divided into two parts, viz., one-third croft, and two-thirds outfield, as it is termed. The croft is usually divided into three parts : to wit, one-third barley, which is always dunged that year barley is sown thereon ; another third oats ; and the last third peas. The outside field is divided into two parts, to wit, the one half oats, and the other half grass, two years successively. The product which may be supposed to be on each acre of croft, four bolls (three Winchester quarters), and that of the outfield, three (2J quarters) ; the quota is seven score bolls, which we shall also reckon at five pounds (8s. 4d.) per boll, cheap year and dear year one with another. This, in all, is worth 700 (58, 6s. 8d. sterling). "Then let us see what profit he Can make of his cattle. Accord ing to the division of his lands there is 20 acres of grass, which cannot be expected to be very good, because it gets not leave to lie above two years, and therefore cannot be well swarded. How ever, usually, besides four horses, which are kept for ploughing the said land, ten or twelve nolt are also kept upon a farm-room of the above-mentioned bounds ; but, in respect of the badness of the grass, as said is, little profit is had of them. Perhaps two or three stone of butter is the most that can be made of the milk of his kine the whole summer, and not above two heffers brought up each year. As to what profit may be made by bringing up young horses, I shall say nothing, supposing he keeps his stock good, by those of his own upbringing. The whole product, then, of his cattle cannot be reckoned above fifty merks (2, 15s. 6d.) For, in respect his beasts are in a manner half-starved, they are generally small ; so that scarce may a heffer be sold at above twelve pounds (1 sterling). The whole product of his farm-room, therefore, exceeds not the value of 733 (61, Is. 8d. sterling), or thereabout. " The labourers employed on this farm were two men and one woman, besides a herd in summer, and other servants in harvest. Donaldson then proceeds to point out a different mode of management, which he calculates to be more profit able ; but no notice is taken of either clover or turnips as crops to be raised in his new course, though they are incidentally noticed in other parts of the work. I also recommend potatoes as a very profitable root for husband men and others that have numerous families. And because there is a peculiar way of planting this root, not commonly known in this country, I shall here show what way it is ordinary planted or set. The ground must be dry ; and so much the better it is if it have a good soard of grass. The beds or rigga are made about eight foot broad, good store of dung being laid upon your ground ; horse or sheep dung is the proper manure for them. Throw each potatoe or

att (for they were sometimes cut into setts) into a knot of dung,

and afterwards dig earth out of the furrows, and cover them all orer, about some three or four inches deep ; the furrows left between your riggs must bo about two foot broad, and little less will they be in depth before your potatoes De covered. You need not plant this root in your garden ; they are commonly set in the fields, and wildest of ground, for enriching of it." As to their consumption, they were sometimes "boiled and broken, and stirred with butter and new milk ; also roasted, and eaten with butter ; ya, some make- bread of them, by mixing them with oat or barley meal ; others parboil them and bake with them apples, after the manner of tarts." There is a good deal in this little treatise about sheep, and other branches of husbandry ; and, if the writer was well informed, as in most instances he appears to have been, his account of prices, of wages, and generally of the practices of that period, is very interesting. The next work on the husbandry of Scotland is, The Belhavei Countryman s Rudiments, or an advice to the Farmers 1723. in East Lothian, how to labour and improve their grounds, said to have been written by Lord Belhaven about the time of the Union, and reprinted in 1723. In this we have a deplorable picture of the state of agriculture in what is now the most highly improved county in Scot land. His lordship begins with a very high encomium on his own performance. " I dare be bold to say, there was never such a good easy method of husbandry as this, so succinct, extensive, and methodical in all its parts, published before." And he bespeaks the favour of those to whom he addresses himself, by adding, "neither shall I affright you with hedging, ditching, marling, chalking, paring, and burning, draining, watering, and such like, which are all very good improvements indeed, and very agreeable with the soil and situation of East Lothian ; but I know ye cannot bear as yet a crowd of improvements, this being only intended to initiate you in the true method and principles of husbandry." The farm- rooms in East Lothian, as in other districts, were divided into infield and outfield. "The infield (where wheat is sown) is generally divided by the tenant into four divisions or breaks, as they call them, viz, ono of wheat, ono of barley, one of pease, and one of oats, so that tho wheat is sowd after the pease, the barley after the wheat, and tho oats after the barley. The outfield land is ordinarily made use oi promiscuously for feeding of their cows, horse, sheep, and oxen; tis also dunged by their sheep who lay in earthen folds ; and some times, when they havo much of it, they fauch or fallow a part of it yearly." Under this management the produce seems to have been three times the seed ; and yet, says his lordship, " if in East Lothian they did not leave a higher stubble than in other places of the kingdom, their grounds would be in a much worse condition than at present they are, though bad enough." " A good crop of corn makes a good stubble, and a good stubble is the equalest mucking that is." Among the advantages of inclosures, he observes, "you will gain much more labour from your servants, a great part of whose time was taken up in gathering thistles and other garbage for their horses to feed upon in their stables ; and thereby the great trampling and pulling up, and other destruction of the corns, while they are yet tender, will be prevented." Potatoes and turnips are recommended to ba sown in the yard (kitchen-garden). Clover does not seem to have been in use. Rents were paid in corn ; and, for the largest farm, which he thinks should employ no moro than two ploughs, the rent was about six chalders of victual " when the ground is very good, and four in that which is not so good. But I am most fully convinced they should take long leases or tacks, that they may not be straitened with time in the improvement of their rooms ; and this is profitable both for master and tenant." Such was the state of the husbandry of Scotland in the Society early part of last century. The first attempts at improvement Improve cannot be traced farther back than 1723, when a number of land-holders formed themselves into a society, under the title of the Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture ​302 in Scotland. The Earl of Stair, one of their most active members, is said to have been the first who cultivated turnips in that country. The Select Transactions of this society were collected and published in 1743 by Mr Maxwell, who took a large part in its proceedings. It is evident from this book that the society had exerted itself in a very laudable manner, and apparently with considerable success, in introducing cultivated herbage and turnips, as well as in improving the former methods of culture. But there is reason to believe that the influence of the example of its numerous members did not extend to the common tenantry, who a~e always unwilling to adopt the practices of those ivhc are paced in a higher rank, and supposed to cultivate land for pleasure rather than profit. Though this society, the earliest probably in the United Kingdom, soon counted upwards of 300 members, it existed little more than 20 years. Maxwell delivered lectures on agriculture for one or tvo sessions at Edinburgh, which, from the specimen he has left, ought to have been encouraged. In the introductory paper in Maxwell s collection, we are told, that "The practice of draining, inclosing, summer fallowing, sowing flax, hemp, rape, turnip and grass seeds, planting cabbages after, aud potatoes with, the plough, hi iields of great extent, is introduced ; and that, according to the general opinion, more corn grows now yearly where it was never known to grow before, these twenty years last past, than perhaps a sixth of all that the kingdom was in use to produce at any time before." In this work wd find the first notice of a threshing- machine : it was invented by Mr Michael Menzics, advo cate, who obtained a patent for it. Upon a representation made to the society that it was to be seen working in several places, they appointed two of their number to in spect it ; and in their report they say, that one man would be sufficient to manage a machine which would do the work of six. One of the machines was "moved by a great water-wheel and triddles," and another " by a little wheel of three feet diameter, moved by a small quantity of water." This machine the society recommended to all gentlemen and fanners. The next work is by the same Mr Maxwell, printed in 1757, and entitled the Practical Husbandman; being a collection of miscellaneous papers on Husbandry, &c. In this book the greater part of the Select Transactions is re- published, with a number of new papers, among which, an Essay on the Husbandry of Scotland, with a proposal for the improvement of it, is the most valuable. In this he lays it down as a rule, that it is bad husbandry to take two crops of grain successively, which marks a consider able progress in the knowledge of modern husbandry; though he adds, that in Scotland the best husbandmen after a fallow take a crop of wheat ; after the wheat, peas ; then barley, and then oats ; and after that they fallow again. The want of inclosures was still a matter of complaint. The ground continued to be cropped so long as it produced two seeds; the best farmers were contented with four seeds, which was more than the general produce. The first Act of Parliament for collecting tolls on the highway in Scotland was passed in 1750, for repairing the road from Dunglass bridge to Haddington. In ten years after, several Acts followed for the counties of Edin burgh and Lanark, and for making the roads between Edinburgh and Glasgow. The benefit which agriculture lias derived from good roads it would not be easy to esti mate. The want of them was one great cause of the slow progress of the art in former times. The Revolution in 1G88 was the epoch of that system of corn laws to which very great influence has been ascribed, both on the practice of agriculture and the general pro- [RECENT sperity of the country. But for an account of these and later statutes on the subject, we must refer to the article CORN LAWS. The exportation of wool was prohibited in 1647, in 1G60, and in 1688; and the prohibition strictly enforced by subsequent statutes. The effect of this on its price, and the state of the wool trade, from the earliest period to the middle of last century, are distinctly exhibited by the learned and laborious author of Memoirs on Wool, printed in 1747. CHAPTER II. RECENT BRITISH AGRICULTURE. Section 1. Progress during the Eighteenth Century. Before entering upon a description of the agriculture of Great Britain at the present day, it may help to set matters in a clearer light if we take just so much of a retrospect as will serve as a back-ground to our picture. At the beginning of the 18th century the agriculture of our country was still of the rudest kind. With the exception of certain parts of Engknd, the land was still for the most part unenclosed, the live stock of each township grazing together, and the arable land being occupied in common field or run-rig. The practice of fallowing annually a portion of the arable land, and of interposing a crop of peas betwixt the cereal crops, was becoming a common practice, and was a great improvement upon the previous and yet common usage of growing successive corps of white-corn until the land was utterly exhausted, when it was left to recruit itself by resting in a state of nature, while other portions were undergoing the same process. Clover and turnips had been introduced before this date, and were coming gradually into cultivation as field crops in the more advanced parts of England. Potatoes were commonly grown in gardens, but had not yet found their way to the fields. The gradual advance in the price of farm produce soon after the year 17 GO, occasioned by the increase of population and of wealth derived from manufactures and commerce, gave a powerful stimulus to rural industry, augmented agricultural capital, and called forth a more skilful and enterprising race of farmers. The arable lands of the country, which, under the operation of the feudal system, had been split up into minute portions, cultivated by the tenants and their families without hired labour, began nov,- to be consolidated into larger holdings, and let to those tenants who possessed most energy and substance. Thi:j enlargement of farms, and in Scotland the letting of them under leases for a considerable term of years, continued to be a marked feature in the agricultural progress of the country until the end of the century, and is to be regarded both as a cause and a consequence of that progress. The passing of more than 3000 inclosure bills during the reign of Geo. III., before which the whole number was but 241, shows how rapidly the cultivation of new land nov,- proceeded. The disastrous American war for a time interfered with the national prosperity; but with the return of peace in 1783, the cultivation of the country made more rapid progress. The quarter of a century immediately following 1760, is memorable in our agricultural annals for the introduction of various important improvements. It was during this period that the genius of Bakewell produced Bake such an extraordinary change in the character of our moi important breeds of live stock; but especially by the perfecting of a new race of sheep the well-known Leicestei a which have ever since proved such a boon to the country, and have added so much to its wealth. Bakewell s fame as a breeder was for a time enhanced by the improvement which he effected on the long-horned cattle, then tho ​PROGRESS.] AGRICULTURE 303 prevailing breed of the midland counties of England. These, however, were ere long rivalled, and have now been entirely superseded by the shorthorn or Durham breed, which the brothers Colling obtained from the useful race of cattle that had long existed in the valley of the Tees, by applying to them the principle of breeding which Bake well had already established. A more rational system of cropping now began very generally to supersede the thriftless and barbarous practice just referred to of sowing successive crops of corn until the land was utterly exhausted, and then leaving it foul with weeds, to recover its power by an indefinite period of rest. Green crops, such as turnips, clover, and ryegrass, began to be alternated with grain crops, and hence the name alternate husbandry, by which this improved system is generally known. The land was now also generally rendered clea:i and mellow by a summer fallow before being sown with cL.ver or grasses. Hitherto the husbandry of England had been very superior in every respect to that of Scotland. Improvements now, however, made rapid progress in the latter. Mr Dawson, at Frogden, in Roxburghshire, is believed to have been the first who grew turnips as a field crop to any extent. This enterprising farmer having heard of the success with which this crop was cultivated in certain parts of England, took the precaution of seeing for himself the most approved mode of doing so before attempting to introduce it on his own farm. He accordingly went to Leicestershire, and presenting himself to the celebrated Bakewell in the garb of a Scotch ploughman, hired himself to him for six months in that capacity. Having in this thoroughly practical way acquired the knowledge he was in quest of, he told his employer (who would fain have retained him longer) that it was full time for him to be home to his own large farm. The season was too advanced to admit of his doing more that year than sow a few experimental drills, but the very next year he is said to have sown 70 acres. We have been unable to ascertain the exact date of this occurrence, but it is on record that as early as 1764 Mr Dawson had 100 acres of drilled turnips on his farm in one year. A few years after this the Messrs Culley one of them also a pupil of Bakewell left their paternal property on the banks of the Tees, and settled on the Northumbrian side of the Tweed, bringing with them the valuable breeds of live stock and improved husbandry of their native district. The improvements introduced by these energetic and skilful farmers spread rapidly, and exerted a most beneficial influence upon the border counties. An Act passed in 1770, which relaxed the rigour of strict entails, and afforded power to landlords to grant leases and other wise improve their estates, had a beneficial effect on Scottish agriculture. From 1784 to 1795 improvements advanced with steady steps. This period was distinguished for the general adoption and industrious working out of ascertained improvements. Small s swing plough, and Meikle s thrash ing-machine, although invented some years before this, were now perfected and brought into general use, to the .great furtherance of agriculture. Two important additions were about this time made to the field crops, viz., the Swedish turnip and potato oat. The latter was accidentally discovered in 1788, and both soon came into general cultivation. In the same year Merino sheep were intro duced by his Majesty, George III., who was a zealous farmer. For a time this breed attracted much attention, and sanguine expectations were entertained that it would prove of national importance. Its unfitness for the pro duction of mutton, and increasing supplies of fine clothing wool from other countries, soon led to its total rejection. In Scotland, the opening up of the country by the construction of practicable roads, and the enclosing and subdividing of farms by hedge and ditch, was now in active progress. The former admitted of the general use of wheel-carriages, of the ready conveyance of produce to markets, and in particular, of the extended use of liine, the application of which was immediately followed by a great increase of produce. The latter, besides its more obvious advantages, speedily freed large tracts of country from stagnant water, and their inhabitants from ague, and prepared the way for the under-ground draining which soon after began to be practised. Section 2. Remarkable progress from 1795 to 1815. The agriculture of the country was thus steadily improv ing, when suddenly the whole of Europe became involved in the wars of the French Eevolution. In 1795, under the joint operation of a deficient harvest, and the cutting off of foreign supplies of grain by the policy of Napoleon, the price of wheat, which, for the twenty preceding years, had been under 50s. a quarter, suddenly rose to 81s. 6d_, and in the following year reached to 96s. In 1797 the fear of foreign invasion led to a panic and run upon the banks, in which emergency the Bank Restriction Act, suspending cash payment, was passed, and ushered in a system of unlimited credit transactions. Under the un natural stimulus of these extraordinary events, every branch of industry extended with unexampled rapidity. But in nothing was this so apparent as in agriculture ; the high prices of produce holding out a great inducement to improve lands then arable, to reclaim, others that had previously lain waste, and to bring much pasture-land under the plough. Nor did this increased tillage interfere with the increase of live stock, as the green crops of the alternate husbandry more than compensated for the dimi nished pasturage. This extraordinary state of matters lasted from 1795 to 1814; the prices of produce even increasing towards the close of that period. The average price of Avheat for the whole period was 89s. 7d. per quarter; but for the last five years it was 107s., and in 1812 it reached to 126s. 6d. The agriculture of Great Britain, as a whole, advanced with rapid strides during this period ; but nowhere was the change so great as in Scotland. Indeed, its progress there, during these twenty years, is probably without parallel in the history of any other country. This is accounted for by a concurrence of circumstances. Previous to this period, the husbandry of Scotland was still in a backward state as compared with the best districts of England, where many practices, only of recent introduction in the north, had been in general use for generations. This disparity made the subsequent contrast the more striking. The land in Scotland waa now, with trifling exceptions, let on leases for terms varying from twenty to thirty years, and in farms of sufficient size to employ at the least two or three ploughs. The unlimited issues of Government paper, and the security afforded by these leases, induced the Scotch banks to afford every facility to landlords and tenants to embark capital in the improvement of the land. The substantial education supplied by the parish schools, of which nearly the whole population could then avail themselves, had diffused through all ranks such- a measure of intelligence as enabled them promptly to discern, and skilfully and energetically to take advantage of this spring-tide of prosperity, and . to profit by the agricultural information, now plentifully furnished by means of the Bath and West of England Society, established in 1777, the Highland Society, instituted in 1784, and the National Board of Agriculture, in 1793 of which, however, more anon. As one proof of the astonishing progress of Scottish husbandry during this period, we may mention that the rental of land, which in 1795 amounted to 2,000,000, had in 1815 risen to ​304 AGRICULTURE [RECENT 5,278,685, or considirably more than double in twenty years. But of the causes which have influenced the agriculture of the period under review, none have been so powerful as the extraordinary increase of our population, which, in round numbers, has twice doubled during the past seventy years. Not only are there four times as many people requiring to be fed and clad now as there were then, but from the increased wealth and altered habits of the people, the individual rate of consumption is greater now than formerly. This is particularly apparent in the case of butcher- meat, the consumption of which has increased out of all proportion to that of bread-corn. To meet this demand, there behoved to be more green crops and more live stock ; and from that has resulted more wool, more manure, and more corn. While this ever-growing demand for farm- produce has stimulated agricultural improvement, it has also operated in another way. The productiveness of the soil has been greatly increased, and will no doubt be still more so in future ; but the area of the country cannot be increased. Land the raw material from which food is produced being thus limited in amount and in increasing demand, has necessarily risen in price. So much is this the case, that whereas the average price of wheat for the five years preceding 1872 was 2, 15s. per quarter, or 2, 7s. Gd. less than during the five years preceding 1815, the rent of land is much higher now than it was then. The raw material of the food-grower having thus risen in price, his only resource has been to fall upon plans for lowering the cost of producing his crops and for increasing their amount. To such an extent has he succeeded, that the produce market has been kept full, and prices have decreased. The business of farming has in the main been a less prosperous one than most other branches of national industry, and yet agriculture, as an art and as a science, has made steady progress. We believe it is only in this way that the contemporaneous existence of two things apparently so incompatible as a steady rise in the rent of land, and a steady decrease in the price of its produce, can be satisfactorily accounted for. PROGRESS SINCE 1816. Section 3. Laivs affecting Agriculture. The abundant crop of 1813, and restored communication with the continent of Europe in the same year, gave the first check to these unnaturally exorbitant prices and rents. The restoration of peace to Europe, and the re-enactment of the Corn Laws in 1815, mark the commencement of another era in the history of our national agriculture. It was ushered in with a time of severe depression and suffering to the agricultural community. The immense fall in the price of farm-produce which then took place was aggravated, first, by the unpropitious weather and deficient harvest of the years 1816, 1817; and still more by the passing in 1819 of the Bill restoring cash payments, which, coming into operation in 1821, caused serious embairassment to all persons who had entered into engage ments at a depreciated currency, which had now to be met with the lower prices of an enhanced one. The much- debated Corn Laws, after undergoing various modifications, and proving the fruitful source of business uncertainty, social discontent, and angiy partisanship, were finally abolished in 1846, although the Act was not consummated until three years .later. Several other Acts of the Legis lature, passed during this period, have exerted an important influence on agriculture. Of these, the first in date and importance is the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836. All writers on agriculture had long concurred in pointing out the injurious effects on agriculture of the tithe system as it then stood. The results of the change have amply verified the anticipations of those who were instrumental in procuring it. Since the removal of this formidable hindrance, improvement has been stimulated by those Acts under which the Government has been empowered to advance money on certain conditions for the draining of estates. An important feature in these advances is, that the 6 per cent, of interest charged upon them provides a sinking fund by which the debt is extinguished in twenty- two years. Additional facilities have also been granted by the Act passed in 18-i8 for disentailing estates, and for burdening such as are entailed with a share of the cost of certain specified improvements. Section 4. Cattle Murrain and Potato Disease. Another class of outward events, which has had an important influence upon agriculture, requires our notice. We refer to those mysterious diseases affecting both the animal and vegetable kingdoms, the causes and remedies for which have alike baffled discovery. The murrain, or " vesicular epizootic," appeared first in 1841, having been introduced, as is supposed, by foreign cattle. It spread rapidly over the country, affecting all our domesticated animals, except horses, and causing everywhere great alarm and loss, although seldom attended by fatal results. It has prevailed ever since, in a greater or less degree, and has been more widely diffused as well as more virulent in 1871 and 1872 than ever before. It was soon followed by the more terrible lung-disease, or pleuro-pneumonia, which continues to cause serious mortality among our herds. In 1865 the rinderpest, or steppe murrain, origi nating amongst the vast herds of the Eussian steppes, where it would appear to be never altogether wanting, had spread westward over Europe, until it was brought to London by foreign cattle. Several weeks elapsed before the true character of the disease was known, and in this brief space it had already been carried by animals purchased in Smithfield market to all parts of the country. After causing the most frightful losses, it was at last stamped out by the resolute slaughter of all affected animals and of all that had been in contact with them. In the autumn of 1872 this cattle plague was again detected in several cargoes of foreign cattle brought to our ports. Happily the stringent provisions of the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act had the effect of preventing its entrance, except in the case of one cargo brought to Hull, from which the plague was conveyed to several herds in the adjacent parts of Yorkshire, and caused considerable losses before it was again stamped out. Severe as have been the losses in our flocks and herds from these imported diseases, they have been as nothing in comparison wilh the effects of the mysterious potato blight, which, first appearing in 1845, has since pervaded the whole of Europe, and in Ireland especially proved the sad precursor of famine and pestilence. This seemingly insignificant blight for a time well-nigh withdrew from cultivation one of our most esteemed field crops ; it influences the business of farming in a way that baffles the shrewdest calculators, and is producing social changes of which no man can predict the issue. Section 5. Leading Improvements. We can here do little more than enumerate some of the more prominent improvements in practical agriculture which have taken place during the period under review. Before the close of the past century, and during the first quarter of the present one, a good deal had been done in the way of draining the land, either by open ditches, or by Elking- ton s system of deep covered drains. This system has now been superseded by one altogether superior to it both in principle and praetice. In 1835, James Smith of Deanston (honour to his memory !) promulgated his now well-known ​PROGRESS.] AGRICULTURE 305 system of thorough draining and deep ploughing. It has been carried out already to such an extent as to alter the very appearance and character of whole districts of our country, and has prepared the way for all other improvements. The words " Portable Manures" indicate at once another prominent feature in the agriculture of the times. Early in the present century, ground bones began to be used as a manure for turnips in the eastern counties of England, whence the practice spread, at first slowly, and then very rapidly, over the whole country. It was about 1825 that bones began to be generally used in Scotland. In 1841 the still more potent guano was introduced into Great Britain ; and about the same time, bones, under the new form of superphosphate of lime. By means of these invaluable fertilisers, a stimulus has been given to agri culture which can scarcely be over-rated. The labour of agriculture has been greatly lightened, and its cost curtailed, by means of improved implements and machines. The steam-engine has taken the place of the jaded horses as a thrashing power. This was first done in East Lothian by Mr Aitchison of Drumore, who about 1803 had his thrashing-machinery, at his distillery and farm of Clement s Wells, attached to a steam-engine, which was erected for him a few years previously by Bolton and Watt, for the works of the distillery. About 1818-20 several steam-engines on the condensing principle were erected in East Lothian, solely for the propelling of thrashing-machinery. One of these, put up by Mr Eeid of Drem, at a cost of GOO, is still doing its work there, and, strange to say, after the lapse of fifty-five years, looks as well and is as efficient as when first erected. It would be tedious to particularise other instances in this department, as it will be treated of fully in its proper place. It is especially in this department that the influence of the ever- memorable Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations in 1851 has told upon agriculture. Reaping by machinery may virtually be regarded as one of the fruits of that great gathering. The railways, by which the country is now intersected in all directions, have proved of great service to farmers, by conveying their bulky produce to distant markets cheaply and quickly, and by making lime and other manures available to the occupiers of many inland and remote districts. In nothing has this benefit been more apparent than in the case of fatted live stock, which is now invariably transported by this means, with manifest economy to all concerned. During the whole of this period there has been going on great improvement in all our breeds of domesticated animals. This has been manifested not so much in the production of individual specimens of high merit in which respect the Leicesters of Bakewell, or the short-horns of Colling, have perhaps not yet been excelled as in the diffusion of these and other good breeds over the country, and in the improved quality of our live stock as a whole. The fattening of animals is now conducted on more scientific principles. Increased attention has also been successfully bestowed on the improvement of our field crops. Improved varieties, obtained by cross-impregnation, either naturally or arti ficially brought about, have been carefully propagated, and generally adopted. Increased attention is now bestowed on the cultivation of the natural grasses. The most important additions to our list of field crops during this period have been Italian rye-grass, winter beans, white Belgian carrot, sugar beet, and alsike clover. Section 6. Increase and Diffusion of Agricultural Knowledge. Let us look now at the means by which, during this period, agricultural knowledge has at once been increased and diffused. Notice has already been taken of the institution of the Highland Society and the National Board of Agriculture. These patriotic societies were the means of collecting a vast amount of statistical and general informa tion connected with agriculture, and by their publications and premiums made known the practices of the best-farmed districts of the country, and encouraged their adoption elsewhere. These national associations were soon aided in their important labours by numerous local societies which sprang up in all parts of the kingdom. After a highly useful career, under the zealous presidency of Sir John Sinclair, the Board of Agriculture was dissolved, but has left in its Statistical Account, county surveys, and other documents, much interesting and valuable information regarding the agriculture of that period. In 1800 the original Farmers Magazine entered upon its useful career under the editorship of Eobert Brown of Markle, the author of the well-known treatise on Rural Affairs. The Highland Society having early extended its operations to the whole of Scotland, by-and-by made a corresponding addition to its title, and as the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland continues to occupy its important sphere with a steadily increasing membership, popularity, and usefulness. As its revenue and experience increased, it gradually extended its operations. In 1828, shortly after the discontinuance of the Farmers Magazine, its Prize Essays and Transactions began to be issued statedly in connection with the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, a periodical which until recently occupied a prominent place in our professional literature. This society early began to hold a great annual show of live stock, implements, c., the popularity of which continues unabated. In 1842, Mr John Finnic at Swanstone, near Edinburgh, having sug gested to some of his neighbours the desirableness of obtaining the aid of chemistry to guide farmers in many departments of their business, the hint was promptly acted upon, and these Mid-Lothian tenant-farmers had the merit of originating an Agricultural Chemistry Association (the first of its kind), by which funds were raised, and an eminent chemist engaged, for the express purpose of con ducting such investigations as the title of the society implies. After a successful trial of a few years this association was dissolved, transferring its functions to the Highland and Agricultural Society, which has ever since devoted much of its attention to this subject. The nature and impor tance of the services which labourers in this department of science have rendered to agriculture may be gathered from the society s Transactions, and numerous other pub lications of a similar kind. The Highland Society has of late years established itself on a broader basis, and imparted new energy to its operations by lowering its admission- fee in behalf of tenant-farmers, who have in consequence joined it in great numbers, and now take an important part in the conduct of its business. The practice adopted by it, about the same time, of holding periodical meetings for the discussion of important practical questions, by means of essays, prepared by carefully selected writers, did good service, too, to the cause of agricultural progress. The adoption by Government of a proposal made by this society, to collect the agricultural statistics of Scotland, showed at once how thoroughly it enjoyed the confidence of the tenantry, and how easily, and by what simple and inexpensive machinery, this most important and interesting inquiry could be conducted. Through an unfortunate misunderstanding between the Government and the society on a mere technical point, this most useful inquiry came to an abrupt termination, after having been conducted for five years. This brief experiment had, however, proved so conclusively the value of such statistics, and the ease with which they could be collected, that the Government soon I- - - 39 ​AGKICULTURE [PRACTICE, after took the matter in hand, and has ever since 1 , through the agency of the officers of Inland Revenue, obtained annual returns of cropping and live stock for the whole of Great Britain. The obvious success of this National Scottish Society has led to the formation of similar ones in England and in Ireland, The former, instituted in 1838, and shortly afterwards incorporated by royal charter, at once entered upon a career of usefulness, the extent of which cannot well be over-rated. Its membership comprising the most influential persons in the kingdom and its revenues are now so large as to enable it to conduct its proceedings on a scale befitting its position and objects. These are of a varied character, but its efforts are concentrated upon its journal and annual show. The former, published twice a-year, is chiefly composed of the essays and reports to which the liberal prizes of the society have been awarded, and undoubtedly stands at the head of our present agri cultural periodicals. At the annual shows of the society, a prominent place is assigned to implements and machines. Such as admit of it, are subjected to comparative trials, which are conducted with such skill and pains that the awards command the entire confidence of exhibitors and their customers. The extent and rapidity of the im provement in agricultural machinery which the society has been mainly instrumental in effecting are altogether extraordinary. There are few market towns of any importance that have not their organised club or occasional gathering of the farmers in their neighbourhood, for the discussion of professional topics. We have now also a goodly list of agricultural periodicals, both weekly and monthly, most of them ably conducted, which are extensively read, and are the means of collecting and diffusing much valuable know ledge, which, but for them, would often, as in former times, perish with its authors, or be confined to corners. The facilities now afforded by railways for cheap and expeditious travelling, induce most farmers to take an occasional peep at what is going on beyond their own neighbourhood. This, more than anything, deals death-blows to prejudices, and extends good husbandry. Literature. The literature of agriculture has been enriched by the contributions of many able writers. Some deserve to be particularly mentioned. The volumes of the late David Low, Esq., on Practical Agriculture, Landed Property and Economy of Landed Estates, and Domesticated Animals, must ever be of standard authority on their respective subjects. Mr Henry Stephens Book of the Farm, and Mr J. C. Morton s Cyclopaedia of Agriculture, are invaluable to the agricultural student for their fulness, and for the minuteness of their details. Mr Caird s English Agriculture supplies the means for a most interesting comparison with the descriptions left to us by Arthur Young. Mr Hoskyn s History of Agriculture and Chronicles of a Clay Farm are the very gems of our professional literature. In a series of essays on our Farm Crops by Professor John Wilson of Edinburgh, the scientific and the practical are most happily combined. Among the more recent publications of value may be mentioned London s Encyclopaedia ; How Crops Grow, by Mr Johnson; M Combie s Cattle and Cattle-Breeders ; Mechi s How to Farm Profitably; Hozier s Practical Remarks on Agricultural Drainage; Todd s American Wheat Culturist, &c. Johnston, Anderson, Way, and Voelcker, have done admirable service in expound ing the chemistry of agriculture ; Youatt, Spooner, and Yasey, its zoology ; and Smith, Parkes, Webster, Bailey, Denton, Scott Burn, and Starforth, its engineering, mechanics, and architecture. In reviewing the history of our national agriculture for llie past sixty years, it is pleasing to note the growing intelligence displayed by our agriculturists in the prose cution of their calling. It is curious, also, to observe the analogy between the order of that progress, and that which is usually observed in individual minds. For a long time we see agricultural societies and writers occupying them selves chiefly about the practical details and statistics of husbandry, and attaching much importance to empirical rules. Gradually, however, we observe, along with a zealous collecting of facts, a growing disposition to investigate the causes of things, and desire to know the reason why one practice is preferable to another. When, therefore, the Royal Agricultural Society adopted as its motto, " Practice with Science," it expressed not more the objects to be aimed at in its own proceedings, than the characteristic feature of our present stage of agricultural progress. CHAPTER III. PRACTICE OF BRITISH AGRICULTURE. We shall now endeavour to present a picture of British agriculture in its present state. In doing this, we shall take much the same course which we should pursue, if we were asked to conduct a visitor over our own farm, and to give him a detailed account of its cultivation and manage ment. In the case supposed, we should, first of all, explain to him that the farm comprises a great diversity of soils; that its fields are very variously circumstanced as regards climate, altitude, exposure, and distance from the home stead ; and that in its tillage, cropping, and general management, regard must be had to these diversities, whether natural or artificial. We should then conduct him through the homestead, pointing out the position and uses of the various farm buildings and of the machinery and implements contained in them. From thence we should proceed to the fields to examine their fences and the tillage operations. With some observations about the succession of crops, and the manures applied to them, there would follow an examination of the cultivated crops, pastures, and meadoivs, of the live stock of the farm, and of the measures adopted in reclaiming certain waste lands belong ing to it. This survey being completed, there would naturally follow some discussion about the tenure of land, the capital required for its profitable cultivation, the con dition of farm labourers, the necessity for devoting more attention to the education of the agricultural community, and the duty of the Legislature to remove certain obstruc tions to agricultural improvement. Section 1. Soils. The soil constituting the subject-matter on which the husbandman operates, its character necessarily regulates to a large extent the nature of his proceedings. The soil or surface covering of the earth in which plants are produced is exceedingly varied in its qualities. Being derived from the disintegration and decomposition of the rocks which constitute the solid crust of the globe, with a mixture of vegetable and animal remains, soils take their character from that of the rocks from which they have chiefly been derived. There is thus a generally prevailing resemblance between the soils of a district and the rocks over which they lie, so that a knowledge of the composition of the one affords a key to the character of the other. But this connection is modified by so many circumstances, that it is altogether impossible by the mere etudy of geology to acquire an easy and certain rule for determining the agricultural character of the soil of any particular district or field, as it has been the fashion with some writers of late years to assert. " When, indeed, we regard a considerable tract of land, we can for the most part trace a connection between the subjacent deposits and the subsoil, and consequently the soil. Thus, in a country of ​SOILS, ETC.] AGRICULTURE 307 sandstone and arenaceous beds, we shall find the soil sandy; in one of limestone, more or less calcareous ; in one of schistose rocks, more or less clayey. But even in tracts of the same geological formation, there exist great differences in the upper stratum, arising from the prevalence of one or other member of the series, or from the greater or less inclination of the strata, by which the debris of the different beds are more or less mixed together on the surface. The action of water, too, in denuding the surface at one part, and carrying the debris in greater or smaller quantity to another, exercises everywhere an important influence on the character of soils. Thus the fertility of a soil on the higher ground, from which the earthy particles are washed, is found to be very different from that of the valley to which the?e particles are carried. It is seen accordingly, that within the limits of the same geological formation, soils are greatly varied, and that the mere knowledge of the formation will not enable us to predicate the character of the soil of any given tract, either with respect to its texture, its composition, or its productiveness." 1 Even a very limited acquaintance with the geology of Great Britain serves, however, to account for the exceed ingly diversified character of its soils. The popular defini tions of soils and to these it is safest for practical farmers to adhere have respect to their most obvious qualities. Thus they are designated from their composition, as clays, loams, sands, gravels, chalks, or peats; or from their texture, in which respect those in which clay predominates are called heavy, stiff, or impervious; and the others light, friable, or jjorous. From the tendency of the former to retain moisture they are often spoken of as wet and cold, and the latter, for the opposite reason, as dry and warm. According to their measure of fertility, they are also described as rich or poor. The particular crops for the production of which they are respectively considered to be best adapted have also led to clays being spoken of as wheat or bean soils, and the friable ones as barley and turnip soils. This latter mode of discriminating soils is, however, becoming every day less appropriate ; as those of the lighter class, when sufficiently enriched by suitable manuring, are found the most suitable of all for the growth of wheat ; while the efforts of agriculturists are now successfully directed to the production of root crops on soils so strong as heretofore to have been reckoned unfit for the purpose. But still, such extreme diversities as we everywhere meet with in our soils must necessarily lead to a corresponding diversity in their agricultural treatment, and hence the necessity for keeping this fact prominently in view in every reference to British agriculture as a whole. Section 2. Influence of Climate. But if diversity of soil necessarily modifies the practice !>f the husbandman, that of climate does so far more powerfully. The soils of the different parts of the globe do not very materially differ from each other, and yet their vegetable products vary in the extreme. This is chiefly owing to difference of temperature, which decreases more or less regularly as we recede from the equator, or ascend from the sea-level. Places in the same latitude and at the same elevation are found, however, to vary exceedingly in temperature, according to their aspect, the prevailing winds to which they are exposed, their proximity to seas or mountains, and the condition of their surface. The different parts of Great Britain are accordingly found to possess very different climates. In passing from south to north, its mean temperature may be taken to decrease one degree Fahrenheit for every 80 miles of latitude, and the same 1 Low s Practical Agriculture, p. 42. for every 300 feet of elevation. The temperature of the west side of our island also differs materially from that of the east, being more equal throughout the year. This is owing to the prevalence of mild westerly winds charged with moisture, which, while they equalise the temperature, cause the average fall of rain on the west side of Britain to be in many cases double, and in some nearly three times that on the opposite side. In the central parts of England cultivation is carried on at 1000 feet of elevation, but 800 may be taken as the ordinary limit. In Scotland the various crops are usually from two to three weeks later in coming to maturity than in England. In both divisions of the island the western counties, owing to their mild and humid climate, are chiefly devoted to pasturage, and the eastern, or dry ones, to tillage. As compared with the continent of Europe, our summers are neither so hot, our winters so cold, nor our weather so steady. We want, therefore, many of its rich products, but, on the other hand, our milder winter and moister climate are eminently favourable to the production of pasturage and other cattle crops, and admit of agricultural operations being carried on more regularly throughout the year. Indeed, looking to the immense varieties of the products of our soil, there is probably no other country so favourably circumstanced for a varied and successful agri culture. Section 3. Influence of Population, <&a Besides those variations in the agricultural practice of this country which arise from diversities of soil and climate, there are others which are due to the distribution of the population. The proximity of cities and towns, or of populous villages, inhabited by a manufacturing or mining population, implies a demand for dairy produce and vege tables, as Avell as for provender and litter, and at the same time affords an ample supply of manure to aid in their reproduction. Such commodities, from their bulk or perish able nature, do not admit of long carriage. The supplies of these must therefore be drawn from comparatively limited areas, and the character of the husbandry pursued there is determined apart from those general influences previously referred to. From these and other causes there is a diversity in the practice of British agriculture which increases the difficulty of describing it accurately. Indeed, it is so well known that there are peculiarities of cha racter attaching to almost every individual field and farm, and still more to every different district or county, which demand corresponding modifications of treatment in order to their successful cultivation, that a prudent man, if required to take the management of a farm in some district greatly inferior in its general system of farming to that which he may have left, will yet be very cautious in innovating upon specific practices of the natives. To such peculiarities it is obviously impracticable to refer in such a treatise as the present. They are referred to now because they suggest an explanation of some of those discrepancies in the practice and opinions of farmers, equally successful in their respective localities, which we constantly meet with ; and because, in proceeding to deli neate the practice of Berwickshire, where our personal experience has been gained by upwards of forty years of actual farming, we would deprecate the idea of claiming for its modes a superiority over those of other districts. Its geographical position, and the mixed husbandry pur sued in it, would justify, in some measure, its being referred to as a fair sample of the national agriculture. But it is on the specific ground that it is best to speak from actual experience as far as that will serve, that we vindicate this selection. ​308 AGRICULTURE [FARM CHAPTER TV. FARM-BUILDINGS. Section 1. General Requisites. In pursuance of the plan already indicated, let us now refer for a little to Farm-Buildings. We have spoken of the soil as the raw material upon which the farmer operates : his homestead may, in like manner, be regarded as his manufactory. That it may serve this purpose in any good measure, it is indispensable that the accommodation afforded by it be adequate to the extent of the farm, and adapted to the kind of husbandry pursued upon it. It should be placed upon a dry, sunny, sheltered site, have a good supply of water, and be as near as possible to the centre of the farm. The buildings should be so arranged as to economise labour to the utmost. It should be con structed of substantial materials, so as to be easily kept in repair, and to diminish, to the utmost, risk from fire. The most cursory examination of existing homesteads will suffice to show that in their construction these obvious conditions have been sadly neglected. For one farm really well equipped in this respect, hundreds are to be met with in all parts of the kingdom, and more especially in England, most wretchedly deficient. Wherever this is the case, it is impossible that the farmer, however skilful or industrious, can make the most of his materials, or compete on equal terms with his better furnished neigh bours. As the agricultural community becomes more generally alive to the importance of economising labour by a judicious arrangement of buildings, and of reducing the cost of the production of beef (and adding to the amount and fertilising power of the home-made manure) by the manner in which the live stock is housed, we may hope that improvement in this department will make rapid progress. Tenants will refuse to embark their capital, and waste their skill and labour, on farms unprovided with suitable apparatus for cultivating them to the best advan tage. Landlords and their agents will by-and-by find that until this is done, they must put up with an inferior tenantry, an antiquated husbandry, and with lower and worse-paid rents. Section 2. Plans. In erecting new homesteads, or in making considerable additions to or alterations upon existing ones, it is of much importance to call in the aid of an architect of ascer tained experience in this department of his art, and then to have the work performed by contracts founded upon the plans and specifications which he has furnished. A reasonable sum thus expended will be amply returned in the cost, trouble, and disappointment, which it usually saves to both landlord and tenant. It is to be hoped that in future a greater number of thoroughly qualified architects will devote themselves to this department of their profession, and that they will meet with adequate encouragement. It is not, therefore, with the view of superseding their services, but simply to illustrate our references to existing practices, that we subjoin a plan of farm-buildings. While protesting against the utter rudeness and inade quacy of the great majority of homesteads, we must also deprecate the hurtful expenditure sometimes lavished in erecting buildings of an extent and style altogether disproportionate to the size of the farm, and out of keep ing with its homely purposes. When royalty or nobility, with equal benefit to themselves and their country, make agriculture their recreation, it is altogether befitting that in such cases the farm-yard should be of such a style as to adorn the park in which it is situated. And even those intended for plain everyday farming need not be un sightly ; for ugliness is sometimes more costly than elegance. Let utility, economy, and comfort, first be secured, and, along with these, as much as possible of that pleasing effect which arises from just proportions, harmonious arrangement, and manifest adaptation to the use the buildings are designed for. .Section 3. Principles of Arrangement. The barn, with its thrashing-machinery, and other appurtenances, naturally forms the nucleus of the home stead, and regulates the distribution of the other buildings. The command of water-power will often determine the exact site of the barn, and indeed of the whole buildings. The cheapness and safety of this motive-power render it well worth while to make considerable sacrifices to secure it, when a really sufficient and regular supply of it can be had. But the difficulty of securing this when the adjoining lands are thoroughly drained, and the great efficiency and facility of application of steam-power, are good reasons why precarious supplies of water-power should now be rated very differently than they were when a horse-wheel or windmill were the only alternatives. A very usual and suitable arrangement is to have the whole buildings, forming a lengthened parallelogram, facing south or south east; the barn being placed in the centre of the north range, with the engine-house behind it, and the straw- house at right angles in front, with doors on both sides for the ready conveyance of litter and fodder to the yards, &c. It is always advantageous to have the barn of sufficient height to afford ample accommodation to the thrashing and winnowing machinery. When the disposition of the ground admits, it is a great convenience to have the stackyard on a level with the upper barn, so that the unthrashed corn may be wheeled into it on barrows, or on a low-wheeled truck drawn by a horse. Failing this, the sheaves are usually pitched in at a wide opening from a framed cart. The space on which the cart stands while this is going on is usually paved, that loose ears and scattered grain may be gathered up without being soiled ; and it is a further improvement to have it covered by some simple roof, to protect the sheaves from sudden rain. It is a good arrangement to have the straw-barn fitted up with a loft, on the level of the opening at which the straw is discharged from the thrashing-mill, so as to admit of fodder being stored above and litter below. A sparred trap-door in front of the shaker retains the straw above, 01 lets it fall to the ground as required. This upper floor of the straw-barn is the most convenient place for fixing a chaff-cutter to be driven by the thrashing-power. The granary should comnrunicate with the upper barn, that the dressed grain may be raised to it by machinery. A loft over the engine-room, communicating with the upper barn and granary, forms a suitable place for fixing a grinding-mill, bruising rollers, and cake-breakers, as it affords opportunity for having these machines easily connected with the steam-power. It suits well to have the house in which cattle food is cooked attached to and under the same roof as the engine-house. One coal store and chimney thus serves for both. Over this cooking-house, and communi cating with the grinding-loft, may advantageously be placed a kiln, to be heated by the waste steam from the engine. An open shed outside the barn, for the accommodation of a circular saw, is also a desideratum. By the aid of the latter machine and a handy labourer, the timber required for ordi nary repairs on the farm may be cut out at trifling expense. The cattle-housing, of whatever description, where there are the largest and most frequent demands for straw, is placed nearest to the straw-house, and in communication with the turnip-stores, and the house (if any) in which food is cooked or otherwise prepared. Where cattle are bred, the cow-house and calf -house are kept together. A roomy

​ ​310 A G 11 I C U L T U R E [FENCES. too- 1 In such circumstances, it is no wonder that zealous agricultural improvers should look upon hedgerows much as American settlers do upon their forests, and, like them, be sometimes indiscriminate in their clearings. We believe that there is an advantage in having land, whether for pasture or tillage, subdivided into parallel-sided fields of from ten to forty acres each, according to the size of the farm, by means of permanent fences of a kind adapted to the locality. Section 2. Varieties of fences. When the soil and climate are favourable to the growth of the common white thorn, hedges formed of it combine efficiency, economy, and ornament, in a greater degree than any other fence. But to have a really efficient thorn hedge, much attention must be paid to its planting, rearing, and after management. In proceeding to rim a new line of thorn hedge, care must be taken that the soil is clean and in good heart, and that the subsoil is porous and dry. When these conditions do not obtain, they must be secured by fallowing, manuring, draining, and trenching. The young quicks should be stout and well rooted ; not taken indiscriminately as they stand in the nurserymen s beds, but of uniform stoutness. Such selected plants are always to be had for a small additional price, which will be found to be well repaid in the superior progress of such plants, when contrasted with that of others taken as they chance to come to hand. The embryo fence must be kept free of weeds, and secured from the encroachments of cattle by a line of rails on both sides. Some persons advise that the young hedge should from the first be trimmed into line by using the pruning-hook after each year s growth. It is certainly better not to touch it with the knife, or, at least, only to restrain an occasional shoot that unduly overtops its neighbours, until the centre stems are at least a couple of inches in diameter. If the plants are then headed over fence-high, and the lateral shoots pruned to a straight line, a close fence with a substantial backbone in it is secured; whereas by pruning annually from the first, a fence is obtained that pleases the eye, but which, consisting only of a mass of spray, presents no effectiial barrier to cattle. "When a thorn hedge has reached the stage just referred to, the protecting rails may be removed, and the hedge kept in a neat and efficient state by annual pruning. On good, deep soil, thorns will stand this constant removal of the annual growth of spray for many years without injury, especially if the pruning is delayed until the leaf has fallen. In less favourable circumstances, it is found necessary from time to time to withhold the pruning-knife for a few years together. When the hedge has been reinvigorated by such periods of unrestrained growth, it can again be cut back to the centre stems, and subjected anew to a course of annual pruning. To insure a close fence, the bottom of the hedge must at all times be kept clear of tall weeds. The constant use of the weeding-iron is, however, objectionable ; for, besides being expensive, it injures the bark of the thorns and thereby impairs their health. It is quite sufficient to cut the weeds close to the surface twice a year by means of a reaping-hook or short scythe. In arable lands, by this plan of keeping hedges about four feet high, and cutting down the weeds as required, an efficient and ornamental fence is maintained at com paratively small cost, and with little injury to the ad joining crops from shading, or the harbouring of weeds and vermin. Although the white thorn forms a better hedge than any shrub yet tried for the purpose in this country, there are many upland situations where the beech and hornbeam grow more freely, and are to be preferred either alone or in 1 See Farmer s Magazine for March 1852. p. ?/>3. mixture with it. These plants, and also crab or sloe, are sometimes useful in filling a gap occasioned by the removal of a hedgerow tree or the death of a portion of thorn hedge. In exposed situations, where thorns do not thrive, Stone. drystone walls are the most usual substitute. When carefully constructed, of stones suitable for the purpose, they last a long time, and form an excellent fence. Their durability is much enhanced by having the cope-stones set in lime-mortar. A layer along the centre of the wall, and an external pointing, of lime-mortar will also repay the additional first cost thus incurred. A wall of this kind four feet high, exclusive of the cope, while quite sufficient to restrain cattle and the heavier kinds of sheep, is no barrier to the mountain breeds, which can easily clear a six-foot wall. A simple and very effective fence has, however, come Wire, much into use of late years. It is composed of iron wire (No. 8 being the size most commonly used), which is attached by small staples to common stakes, such as are used for wooden railings, driven firmly into the ground about five feet apart. The wire is drawn out of the coil, and the ends of the various lengths or threads are neatly joined by first heating them, and then twisting the one into the other, until the quantity required for the stretch of fence is run out. It is then attached to every third or fourth stake by a staple, which must not be driven home. The other lines of wire are then treated in the same manner, each being attached to the stakes at such width apart as has been determined upon, and marked upon the stakes. A ready way of doing this is by stretching along the stakes a common gardener s line which has been previously rubbed with chalk, or a charred stick, and striking it against the. stakes at the required heights, in the way that sawyers mark a plank. When the requisite number of wires has thus been loosely attached, they are pulled as tight as possible by the hands of the workmen, after which a screw or lever is applied to each in turn until it is made perfectly tight. As the efficiency of this kind of fence is wholly dependent on perfect tightness being obtained, a stout straining-post must be fixed securely in the ground at the end of each line of fence. This serves the double purpose of furnishing a fulcrum for the stretching instrument, and a secure attachment for the ends of the wires. When the straining is accomplished, each wire is stapled to each stake. The gates are usually hung upon these straining-posts. Although wooden strain ing-posts are commonly used, some persons prefer iron ones, fixed into large blocks of stone. Five wires thus stretched, at an average width of six inches, form an effectual fence for the wildest sheep. They could, indeed, easily clear it so far as height is concerned, but they are afraid to leap at an object which they cannot see until they are close upon it. They may be seen at first walking along the line anxiously looking for an opening, and if one more bold than the others makes a run at it, he is sure to catch such a fall as effectually deters him from repeating the attempt. With these cheap and portable materials, which any labourer of ordinary in telligence can easily put together, a fence admirably adapted for enclosing or subdividing mountain pastures is now quite attainable by every sheep-farmer, and will well repay its cost. It is equally available for protecting young thorn hedges, and generally for all purposes for which wooden railing is used. As a fence for cattle or horses, it is advisable to add a single rail of wood nailed fat along the top of the stakes, which must be sawn off evenly for this purpose. As com pared with wooden railing, wire is much cheaper and more durable, and more easily kept in repair. It is cheaper also than stone walls, available in many situations where they are not, and a more certain barrier to agile sheep ; but it is less durable, and affords no shelter. The latter defect can in some situations be remedied l>v ​MACHINES. AGRICULTURE 311 raising a low mound of turf, running the wire-fence along the top of this mound, and sowing on it the seeds of the common whin. ilaintcn- We have already noticed that the fences of a farm are .ncc. usually erected by the landlord and kept in repair by the tenant. The latter is at least usually taken bound in his lease to keep and leave them in good order ; but as this obligation is often very indifferently performed, and much damage and vexation occasioned in consequence, it is always expedient that a person should be appointed by the landlord to attend to the fences, and the half of his wages charged against the tenant. By such a course, dilapidation and dis putes are effectually guarded against, and the eyesore of defective, ill-kept fences is wholly removed. CHAPTER VI. MACHINES AND IMPLEMENTS OF HUSBANDRY. Section 1. liecent Improvements. That the cultivation of the soil may be carried on to the best advantage, it is necessary that the farmer be provided with a sufficient stock of machines and implements of the best construction. Very great improvement has of late years taken place in this department of mechanics. The great agricultural societies of the kingdom have devoted much of their attention to it ; and under their auspices, and stimulated by their premiums, exhibitions, and competitive trials, manu facturers of skill and capital have embarked largely i)i the business. In many instances the quality of the article has been improved and its cost reduced. There has hitherto been a tendency to produce imple ments needlessly cumbrous and elaborate, and to in troduce variations in form which are not improvements. The inventors of several valuable implements, the exclusive manufacture of which they have secured to themselves by patent, appear to have retarded their sale, and marred their own profits by the exorbitant prices which they have put upon them. Some, however, have become alive to the advan tages of looking rather to large sales with a moderate profit on each article, and of lowering prices to secure this. A most salutary practice has now become common of inventors of implements of ascertained usefulness granting licence to other parties to use their patent-right on reasonable terms, and thus removing the temptation to evade it by introducing some alteration which is trumpeted as an improvement, although really the reverse. The extended use of iron and steel in the construction of agricultural implements is materially adding to their durability, and generally to their efficiency, and is thus a source of considerable saving. While great improvement has taken place in this department, it too commonly happens that the village mechanics, by whom a large portion of this class of implements is made and repaired, are exceedingly unskilled, and lamentably ignorant of the principles of their art. They usually furnish good materials and substantial workmanship, but by their unconscious violation of mecha nical laws, enormous waste of motive power is continually incurred, and poor results are attained. This can probably be remedied only by the construction of the more costly and complex machines being carried on in extensive factories, where, under the combined operation of scientific superin tendence, ample capital, and skilled labour, aided by steam- power, the work can be so performed as to combine the maximum of excellence with the minimum of cost. Section 2. Plough?. We begin our brief notice of the implements of the farm with those used for the tillage of the soil. Of these the first place is unquestionably due to the plough. A history of this implement, tracing its gradual progress from the ancient Sarcle to its most improved form at the present day, is necessarily a history of agriculture. So much is this the case, that a tolerably correct estimate of the progress of the art in any country, whether in ancient or modern times, may be formed by ascertaining the structure of the plough. Much attention has been paid to its construction in Britain for the last hundred years, and never more than at the present day. After all that has been done, it is still, however, an unsettled point which is the best plough for different soils and kinds of work ; and accordingly, many varying forms of it are in use in those parts of the kingdom which have the reputation of being most skilfully cultivated. Eversince the introduction of Small s improved swing-plough, the universal belief in Scotland, and to a considerable extent in England, has been that this is the best form of the imple ment. Wheel-ploughs have accordingly been spoken of by Scottish agriculturists in the most depreciatory terms, and yet it turns out that this has been nothing better than an unfounded prejudice ; for when subjected to careful com parative trial, as has been frequently done of late, tho Howard s Champion Plough. balance of excellence is undoubtedly in favour of the plough with wheels. Its advantages are, that it is easier of draught ; that the quality of its work is better and greatly mere uniform than can be produced by a swing plough ; that in land rendered hard by drought, or other causes, it will enter and turn over even furrows where its rival either cannot work at all, or at bast with great irregularity and severe exertion to the ploughman; and, lastly, that its efficiency is independent of skill in the ploughman. This last quality has indeed been usually iirged as an objection to wheel-ploughs, as their tendency is said to be to produc an inferior class of workmen. Those who know the diil - cultyof getting afield ploughed uniformly, and especially of getting the depth of furrow specified by the master adhered to over a field, and by all the ploughmen, can best appreciate the value of an implement that, when once properly adjusted, will cut every furrow of an equal width and depth, and lay them all over at exactly the same angle. The diversity in the quality of the work at those ploughing competitions, to which only the picked men of a neighbourhood are sent, and where each may be supposed to do his very best, shows conclusively how much greater it must be on individual farms, even under the most vigilant superintendence. In every other art the effect of improved machinery is to supersede manual dexterity ; and it does seem absurd to count that an objection in agriculture Avhich is an advantage in everything else. There is more force in the objection that wheel-ploughs are inferior to swing ones in ploughing cloddy ground, or in crossing steep ridges, and that the} cannot be used for forming drills for turnip or other crops. This objection vanishes when it is known that in the mosf improved wheel-ploughs, the wheels can be laid aside at pleasure, and that they can then be used in all respects as swing-ploughs. A mould-board, somewhat higher and wider behind than that best adapted for ordinary work, is required for forming turnip-drills. This, however, is easily managed by having two distinct mould-boards for each plough, or, better still, by itsing only the double mould -board ​312 AGRICULTURE [MACHINES AND or bulking plough for drilling. An important feature in the English ploughs is, that they are fitted with cast-iron shares, which, being case-hardened on their under surface, wear unequally, and so preserve a sharp edge. The necessity for daily recourse to the smithy is thus removed, and along with it that irregularity in the quality of the work and draught of the plough, which so often arises from witting or unwitting alterations being made in the set of the share in the course of its unceasing journeys thither. These cast-iron shares are slightly more brittle than those made of malleable iron with steel points ; but it is of importance in determining their comparative merits to bear in mind that the prime cost of the former lOd. to Is. each is so small as to render them at the year s end the least expensive of the two. When it is desired to turn a very deep furrow, a plough is used differing from the common one only in being somewhat larger and stronger in all its parts, with four horses to draw it. Ploughs which break and stir the subsoil, without bringing it to the surface, by following in the wake of the common plough, are now much used. The first of the kind the invention of the late Mr Smith of Deanston is a ponderous implement, requiring at least four good horses to draw it. It is well adapted for displacing and aiding in the removal of earth-fast stones. The inventor has happily described its operation by terming it a " horse pick." Read s subsoil- plough is a much lighter implement, which can usually be drawn by two horses. Since the introduction of thorough draining, it is found beneficial to loosen the soil to a much greater depth than was formerly practicable, and this class of implements is well fitted for the work. It is always ad visable to use this implement, and to mark and dig out the large stones encountered by it, before introducing steam cultivation. Broadshare or paring-ploughs are much used in various parts of England in the autumn cleaning of stubble. A broad-cutting edge is made to penetrate the soil to the depth of three or four inches, so as to cut up the root- weeds which at that season lie for the most part near the surface. These, as well as the stubble, being thus detached from the firm soil, are removed by harrowing and raking ; after which the land is worked by the common plough. An implement of this kind is frequently used in carrying out the operation of paring and burning. Bentall s Broadshare has the reputation of being the best of its class ; but we can con fidently recommend the common plough, stripped of its mould-board and fitted with a share twelve inches broad, as not only the cheapest, but decidedly the most efficient scarifier that has yet been used. An ingenious Aberdeenshire mechanic, Mr Pirie of Kinmundy, has recently invented a double-furrow plough, on an entirely new principle, which has met with general approval, and has already been adopted by all the great plough makers. By carrying the plough on three wheels, one on the land and two bevelled ones in the angle of the furrow, Mr Pirie dispenses with both soles and side plates, and thereby lessens the friction, and avoids that hurtful glazing and hardening of the bottom of the furrow which attends the use of other ploughs. So much is the draught lessened by this improvement, that three horses and one man with this double-plough can perform as much work in a day as four horses and two men with two ordinary ploughs. For a seed-furrow or level field of free soil, two horses are quite able to work the double- plough. Various implements of the plough type, so modified as to adapt them for particular processes, have from time to time been offered to public notice, but have failed to meet with general favour. We limit our notice to those of ascertained utility, and refer the reader who desires fuller information to Ransome s Implements of Agriculture, 1 and the more recent work by Messrs Stephens and Scott Burn, where he will find descriptions of the most interest ing of them. Section 3. Grubbers, d~c. Next in importance to the plough is the class of imple ments variously called grubbers, cultivators, drags, or scari fiers. To prepare the soil for the crops of the husbandman, it is necessary to pulverise it to a sufficient depth, and to rid it of weeds. The appropriate function of the plough is to penetrate, break up, and reverse the firm surface of the field. This, however, is only the first step in the process, and does but prepare for the more thorough disintegration which has usually been accomplished by harrowing, rolling, and repeated ploughings. Now, however excellent in its own place, the plough is a cumbrous and tedious pul veriser, besides needlessly exposing a fresh surface at each operation, and cutting the weeds into minute portions, which renders their removal more difficult. These defects were long felt, and suggested the desirableness of having some implement of intermediate character betwixt the plough and harrow, which should stir the soil deeply and expeditiously without reversing it, and bring the weeds unbroken to the surface. The whole tribe of grubbers, &c., has arisen to meet this demand, and we shall now consider the comparative merits of the more prominent of the group. The first notice is due to Finlayson s harrow, which, as improved by Scoular, was, until recently, the best implement of its kind. Its faults and they attach equally to Kirkwood s and Wilkie s are, that it is severe work for two horses, is liable to choke in turfy or foul ground, and that it consolidates the bottom of the furrow, while producing a fine tilth on the surface. Finlayson s grubber, in its improved form, weighs about five cwt, and costs as many pounds. Another useful implement of this class which enjoys a large reputation in England is Biddle s scarifier. It is Kiddle s Scarifier, as made by Ilaiisoine & Co. mounted on four wheels two small ones in front and two much larger behind. The frame and tines are of cast- iron, and can be raised and depressed at pleasure by means of two levers which regulate the depth to which the tines shall penetrate. The tines are prepared to receive case-hardened cast-iron points of different widths, or steel hoes of nine inches width, so that the implement can be used for breaking up and paring the surface, or for grubbing out weeds and pulverising the soil, as may be required. An important feature in this scarifier is, that it keeps its hold of a hard sin-face much better than a plough. It weighs half a ton, is drawn by four or six horses, and costs about 18. 1 The Implements of Agriculture, by J. Allen Ransome, Lond. 1843. The Look of Farm Implements and Machines, by Henry Stephens and R. Scott Burn. Edin. ​IMPLEMENTS.] AGRICULTURE 313 The Dude or Uley cultivator has many features in common with Biddle s, and although brought forward as an improvement upon it, has not established its title to be so regarded. The great weight, high price, and amount of horse-power required to work them, are serious objec tions to all these implements. Of more recent notoriety than these, and contrasting with them favourably in these respects, is an implement invented by the late Mr John Tennant, at Shields, near Ayr, and now popularly known as Tennant s grubber. Its construction, as the annexed cut will show, is simple in the extreme. Its weight is about two cwt., its price 4, 10s., Tennant s Grubber, as improved by T. Brown, Edington. and its draught easily overcome by two horses. The depth at which it works is regulated by raising or lowering the shank which supports its wheels in front. Its tines can be easily moved on their supporting bars, and it may be worked with five or seven as desired. By substituting a shorter hind bar. and setting the tines more closely to gether, it makes a most efficient drill-grubber. We shall have occasion to refer to this implement frequently in treating of tillage operations. The improvement which. Mr T. Brown has made on Tennant s grubber consists mainly in the mode of attaching the tines to the bars. This attachment, which the cut explains, has the merit of being at once very simple and very effectual. The tines when thus fixed are as rigid as if welded to the bars, and yet, by merely slackening the screws and driving out the wedges, they can with ease and rapidity be either adjusted at varying widths apart,, or detached for repair. A, Tine ; B, Keeper ; C, Wedge. Actual Size. Section 4. Steam-Power Tillage Implements. Such are the most important of those implements by which the tilling of the soil has hitherto been accomplished, and upon which the farmer must continue to rely so long as he uses the muscular force of animals as his motive power. Fowler s Locomotive En But the progress of invention has at last made the steam- engine practically available for this purpose, and accordingly we here introduce some notice of what has now been accom plished, in applying steam power to the cultivation of the soil. After many abortive attempts to do this by moving the engine itself over the land to be operated upon, it is now admitted on all hands that the only available method is to gine, with Clip Drum. communicate the power from the engine to the implements by means of steel wire-ropes and windlasses. This is done in a variety of ways, some of the most prominent of which we shall now describe. The systems actually in operation fall under tw general classes, which are known severally as the " Direct" and the " Roundabout." The first of these is the system introduced by Messrs John Fowler & Co. of Cornhill, London, and now so well known in connection with T. 40 ​314 AGRICULTURE [MACHINES AND their name. The late Mr John Fowler s first efforts were directed to the production of a draining apparatus, and it was after succeeding in this apparently more arduous effort that he adapted his tackle to the hauling of tillage imple ments. After various tentative changes, Mr Fowler settled on the form which is still in extensive use. It consists of a single locomotive engine, usually of 12 or 14 horse-power, with a windlass attached to it under the boiler. Around this windlass an endless steel wire-rope passes with a single turn in a groove, which, by means of hinged clips, lays hold of nearly the entire circumference of the rope, and that with a force proportioned to the strain upon the rope, which thus obtains sufficient grip to convey the necessary hauling power without risk of slipping upon the drum. This wire- rope, which requires to be just twice as long as the field to be tilled is wide, passes round a sheave upon a self-acting anchor placed at the farther side of the field opposite to the engine. This anchor is a prominent feature in Mr Fowler s apparatus. It consists of a low truck on four wheels, with sharp disc edges, which cut deeply into the soil, and thus obtain a hold sufficient to resist the strain of the wire rope. A box, loaded with stones, is fixed on the outer side of this truck to hinder it from canting over. The sheave mounted upon this truck, besides serving its primary use, gives motion when required to a drum, which winds up a rope, the other end of which is fixed well a-head in the direction in which the truck is required to move. Thus the apparatus warps itself along the headland as the ploughing progresses, and is kept always vis-a -vis to the engine, which moves itself forward by its own locomotive power at every bout of the ploughs, and keeps abreast of them. That the ro;:e may not drag upon the ground, friction rollers or rope-^ orters, as they are called, are placed at suitable intervals. These beingmounted on wheels and strung upon the rope, are now in a good measure self-acting, as the tautness of the rope keeps them in its own line. The ploughs are fixed to a balance frame carried on two wheels, and are in duplicate, pointing to each other, so that when the set at one end of the frame is in work, the opposite set is carried aloft in the air. The plough frame is thus hauled to and fro across the field, between the engine and movable anchor, 1 y reversing the action of the windlass; and it is adapted for taking from two to eight furrows at once, according to the power of the engine em ployed, or the nature of the soil that is operated upon. Messrs Fowler have made this form of their apparatus more generally available by adapting ic for attachment to the ordinary 8-horse power thrashing-engine. When thus used the clip-drum is mounted on a separate frame and connected with the engine, which being stationed in a corner of the field to be ploughed, the rope is carried to two self- acting anchors, one at each side of the field, and thus encloses a triangle. The plough is drawn to and fro betwixt these anchors, and as it gradually approaches the engine at each successive bout, the gearing on the plough-frame tightens up the rope and accommodates it to the diminishing length required. To work Fowler s apparatus there is required one engine- driver, one ploughman, a stout lad to attend to the anchor, two boys to shift the rope-porters, and a horse and boy to supply the engine with water and fuel. Fowler s Steam-Plough as at work. About 1805 Messrs Fowler made an important addition to their apparatus by substituting a second engine for their movable anchor. In this arrangement, now well known as the " Double Engine system," a pair of locomotive engines, each having a plain winding drum instead of the clip-drum, are placed opposite to each other at the ends of the field to be operated upon ; the rope of each of the engines is attached to the plough, or other tillage implement, which is drawn to and fro betwixt them by each working in turn. While the engine in gear is coiling in its rope and drawing the plough towards itself, the rope of the other engine is paid out with merely so much drag on it as to keep it from kinking or getting ravelled on the drum. The advantages claimed for this system are, economy of power from the direct pull of tho engines on the implement ; the facility and rapidity with which the engines move themselves and the whole apparatus from field to field, or farm to farm, and take up their positions and get to work without the aid of horses ; and the few hands required to work it. Its drawbacks are the large first cost, and corresponding charge for wear and tear, depreciation, and interest ; its unsuitableness for working in small and irregularly shaped fields ; and the injury done to headlands in wet weather. Its special adaptation is for large farms, and for working for hire; and for these it is undoubtedly without a rival. Mr William Smith of Woolston, Bedfordshire, may fairly be regarded as the pioneer of cultivation by steam power. At the meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society of England at Carlisle in 1855, he witnessed the performance of the late John Fowler s steam draining-plough, and then contracted ​IMPLEMENTS.] AGRICULTURE 315 with him to construct for him a windlass and other tilling apparatus, with which he got to work on his own farm in the autumn of that year. These two leaders in steam- cultivation did not long work together. They had decided and diverse opinions as to the best road to success, and accordingly each for the future took his own course. Mr Smith s merit is not largely that of an original inventor of machinery, but rather that of a zealous, persevering, and successful applier of the inventions of others. But by his own example and his vigorous writings, he has contributed very largely indeed to the success of steam cultivation. He makes use of the ordinary portable engine, such as is em ployed as a thrashing power, which gives motion to a detached windlass with two drum?, from which a wire-rope is carried round the area to be operated upon, and hence the name " Roundabout" applied to this system. This rope being attached by a turning bow to a powerful grubber, the implement is drawn to and fro across the field by reversing as required the action of the windlass, the slack half of the rope being uncoiled from the one drum as the part in work is wound up upon the other. His mode of working is to break up the ground by using a three-tined grubber, and then to go over it again with a seven-tined one, working at right angles to the first. Mr Smith zealously advocates the supe riority of grubbing to ploughing, being of opinion that if the soil is thoroughly broken up to a sufficient depth, it is better not to reverse the surface, as weeds are thus kept on the top, and the removal of them thereby greatly facilitated. Mr Smith soon made an important addition to his system of tillage by means of an implement which he calls a Ridger and Subsoiler. By means of it the soil, after being thoroughly smashed up by the steam-grubber, is thrown into 36-inch ridges, the tine at the same time penetrating and loosening the subsoil in each furrow several inches deeper. His clay soil treated thus immediately after harvest is put into the best possible condition for benefiting by the alternations of wintry weather, for allowing rain-water to pass readily and beneficially to the drains, and for yielding a friable seed-bed in spring. It has enabled him altogether to dispense with dead fallows ; to grow abundant crops of wheat and beans alternately for a number of successive years, at an average annual cost of 8s. 6d. per acre for tillage ; and to keep his land perfectly clean under this constant cropping. He has the high merit not only of being the first man who successfully used steam power for the cultiva tion of a farm, but of demonstrating that this can be done with manifest economy even by the occupiers of small farms, Smith s Steam Cultivator as at voik. seeing that his own farm extends to but 180 acres of arable land. After the lapse of eighteen years there is probably no one who yet practises steam cultivation with as great success and economy. At the end of this period he reports that his engine and tackle are in excellent condition. Mr Smith s apparatus was for a time manufactured by the well-known firm of J. & F. Howard of Bedford, and more recently by Barford & Perkins of Peterborough. Since 1860 the Messrs Howard have sent out a tackle of their own, in which the main features of Smith s system are retained, but to these, they have themselves added from time to time various improvements. By means of a self-acting windlass and self-moving anchors, their tackle can now be worked by one eugineman (who also attends to the windlass), one ploughman, and two porter-boys. Although the earliest in date of invention, the most recent in actual operation is the tackle of Messrs Fisken, which has features peculiar to itteJ. A single traction engine is stationed at any convenient point on the margin of or near to the field to be operated upon, the preference always being given to a site where there is water, whence it can supply itself either by pumping or by the patent injector. The other parts of the apparatus are two self-moving anchor windlasses, which are placed opposite to each other on two sides of the field, occupying the place and doing the work of the two engines in the double-engine system. These windlasses are mounted on four disc wheels, and have also a spud which cuts into the soil to give the necessary resistance to the side pvll. They each carry a winding-drum with the necessary length of wire-rope, and these windlass-drums wind up and pay out alternately in precisely the same way as in Fowler s double engines. They also have each a winding-forward drum with wire-rope and anchor fixed a-head, by means cf ​316 AGRICULTURE [MACHINES AND which they warp themselves forward and keep abreast as the work progresses. Power is communicated from the engine to these windlasses by means of a light hemp rope, travelling at the speed of the fly-wheel, which is carried all round the field, and takes a double turn round a grooved pulley on each windlass. A set of anchor pulleys on wheels carry this rope round the comers of the field ; another set of pulleys, on stakes driven into the ground at suitable points, carry it off the ground; and a tension anchor mounted on four wheels, and having, like the windlasses, an apparatus by which it warps itself forward, and keeps the hemp-rope taut as the length out varies with the progress of the work. The windlasses have each a self-acting clutch, which stops the implement when any obstruction is encountered, and by which the attendants stop it at the turnings, or when otherwise necessary, with out in any case requiring to stop the engine. By these arrangements the engine-driver does not require to have the implement in sight, his duty being merely to drive his engine at a uniform speed, as neither stopping nor revers ing are required. The advantages claimed for Fisken s tackle are those which it has in common with the other Roundabout systems, and, in addition, the use of a light hemp rope to convey power from engine to implement with less friction and cost than in other systems; great adapta bility to fields of any size, or shape, or inequality of surface ; and a capacity in certain circumstances of being worked by a fixed steam-engine or water power. The Royal Agricultural Society of England has from the first devoted much attention and large funds to the promo tion of steam cultivation, by the prizes offered at its annual shows, and by the reports published in its Journal from year to year. In the prolonged trial of steam-ploughs which took place at Leeds in July 1861 under its auspices, the competi tion was mainly betwixt Fowler s and the modification, by Howard, of what is popularly known as Smith s system. The award of the judges was as follows: " The 100 prize offered for the most economical application of steam power to the cultivation of the soil, was awarded to Mr Fowler for his 12-horse power engine, moving anchor age, and plough; and of the 100 offered for the most economical application of the ordinary thrashing-engine of the farm to steam cultivation, 75 was given to Mr Fowler, and 25 to Mr Howard. Besides these a silver medal is given to Mr Hayes, for his clever windlass for the same purpose ; and the same to Mr Roby for his combined engine and windlass." During the summer and autumn of 1861, Mr ,T. C. Morton, editor of the Agricultural Gazette, personally in spected the farms of many of these parties, and published from time to time in that paper detailed accounts of his own observations and of the information supplied to him in regard to each case. In his New Farmer s Almanac for 1862, he condensed these reports, and from it we give the following extracts : " Little Woodcote Farm lies a tract of open country and light calcareous soil of various depth upon the chalk, about a mile from the Carshalton station on the London and Epsom railway. Mr Arnot has had Fowler s 10-horse power steam-engine and ploughing apparatus since the harvest of 1859. His apparatus, rope,and enginecost700. He works a three-furrow plough. The work done each year by the steam-plough on his 400 acre farm has thus been 393 acres in 1859-60, and 389 acres in 1860-61. It has been done at the rate of six or seven acres a day for ordinary ploughing, and three acres a day (one acre per furrow) when at the 10 and 12 -inch deep work. It may average on the whole five acres a day, including all stoppages and removals, and has thue taken close upon eighty days for its accomplishment. Besides this, however, 150 acres have been ploughed during the time for neighbours at a charge, including everything, of 12s. an acre. The engine is also used for thrashing purposes, and 220 acres at home and 250 acres elsewhere are thus thrashed out for hire. " The cost of repairs has been uncommonly small in cluding a new cog-wheel, repacking cylinders, and athorough overhaul and cleaning of the whole apparatus at the end of two years besides the replacement of shares and sharpening of coulters for the plough, and the gradual wearing of the rope-porters. In all it has not nearly reached 10 a year, at which, nevertheless, we put it. The tear and wear of rope is reported as follows : A new 400-yard rope, lately bought, costing 35, has made the stock stronger and better than it was at the beginning. This charge may therefore be put against more than two years work, and is equal to about 1 5 a year. The weekly cost of labour when at work is as follows : Engineer, 18s. ; ploughman, 14s. ; anchor lad, 9s. ; two porter lads, 6s. each ; horse and water cart, about 24s. weekly in all, 3, 17s. weekly, or as nearly as possible 12s. a day. The cost for oil is Is. a day, and for fuel, at nine or ten cwt. a day, it may be put at 10s. daily. The charge for depreciation at 10 per cent is 70 a year, and for interest of capital 35 a year. The whole annual cost may thus be estimated : Labour, 80 days .... .48 Fuel and oil .... 44 Repairs and rope ... 25 Depreciation and interest of capital . 10? Total 222 "But 500 acres of thrashing, and 70 or 80 acres perannum of steam ploughing for hire, equal in all to at least forty days work per annum, are also done by this engine. And the profits of this work should be deducted from this sum before Mr Arnot s experience of his investment can be accurately described. The sum of 222, at which, if there had been no other use for engine and apparatus, his cost must have been estimated, is equal to 11s. per acre over the work accomplished, much of which, however, was 1 2 inches deep. But if the proper share of the interest and depreciation of capital be charged upon its work elsewhere for hire, the cost of steam ploughing will not exceed 190, or 10s. 6d. an acre. But Mr Arnot would contend that the engine is not 30 worse than when he purchased it two years ago ; and one-half of this, with interest of capital, will amount to 50, two-thirds only of which should be charged against the plough-work ; aud 1 50- would thus appear to be the annual cost of ploughing 400 acres, or 7s. 6d. an acre. In fact, he might very well claim that this sum should be still further reduced by all the profit of his hire elsewhere, which can hardly be put at less than 20s. a day, and this on forty days per annum will amount to 40 or more ; so that the net cost to him of his machinery has not been more than 110 a year, or 5s. 6d. an acre over his ploughing. " What did it use to cost him when he worked thirteen horses on his farm 1 He now works six horses. His horses get 2 J Inishels of oats, and 2| trusses of hay weekly each, during seven months : 30 veelcs at lls. amount to . 1610 22 weeks on clover, &c., at 5s. . 5100 The annual food per horse costs 22 " The annual charge for depreciation, farrier, blacksmith, saddler, and implements, is at least 5 per horse, and for interest of capital in horse and implements at least 2 more. This makes the annual cost of each horse 29. The wages paid, in cash and cottage, to ploughmen is at least 32 per pair, or 16 per horse, and the whole cost is thus equal to 45 per horse per annum ; which over seven horses amounts to 315 per annum one-half more than the expenditure, even on the highest estimate, upon tho ​IMPLEMENTS.] A G K I C U L T U II E 317 engine which has displaced them, and nearly double what Mr Arnot has actually incurred when he deducts his profits on its hire. " A clay land farm near Bedford (the Woolston or Bed ford apparatus), the Tithe Farm of Stevington, occupied by Mr William Pike, is a tract naturally of poor clay soil. The extent farmed by Mr Pike has till lately been about 475 acres, of which 357 were arable; and fifteen horses were employed in five 3-horse teams upon this extent. Now, about 600 acres are fanned, of which 420 acres are arable ; and the whole is managed with ten horses and an 8-horse power engine, working grubbers on the Wool ston system. If the additional land requires the same horse-power per 100 acres as was needed on the original farm, then, in place of ten horses, seventeen or eighteen must have been needed, and probably Mr Pike s mere saving by the use of his 8-horse engine and cultivating apparatus does not fall short of 300 a year. "The present cropping of the land is as follows : 125 acres are in wheat, of which 105 were partly after beans, cross-grubbed by steam-power before sowing, and partly after clover, having been cross-grubbed also by steam-power more than once before the previous harvest time, and then horse scarified and harrowed. The remainder was after horse cultivation. There are GO acres of beans after wheat, its stubble having been dressed with farm-yard dung, and then ploughed by horse power. There are 60 acres of grass and clover ; 20 acres now in vetches have been cross- grubbed after a manuring ; 25 acres in mangolds and turnips have been cross-grubbed in autumn, and again steam-scarified and crossed in spring ; 50 acres in barley, and 25 acres in oats, make up the extent of the farm, and were got in after steam cultivation. By cross-grubbing it is meant that the operation was repeated. "More horse cultivation than usual was done in 1860. Clay land was fit only on rare ocasions, and both horse and steam power were then used to the utmost. Mr Pike has had Mr Smith s grubber worked by an ordinaiy thrashing-engine since July -1858. Since that time 731 acres have been cross-grubbed, i.e., doubly-worked. In addition to this Mr Pike informs me that he has also cross-grubbed for hire 300 acres of land. For this he charges 25s. an acre, the coals being supplied to the employer. " Excluding this item from our consideration in the meantime, and assuming that 730 acres double cultivated between July 1858 and June 1861 correspond to 250 acres annually, the average performance of the engine, in cluding all stoppages except removals, has been six acres daily once cultivated. To do 250 acres twice would there fore occupy at least eighty-three days ; adding three days for removals, there are eighty-six days work of the steam- engine to be charged upon the steam cultivation of the farm. The following is the labour and its cost per week: 1 engineer, 16s.; 1 ploughman, 11s.; 2 men shift ing anchors, 22s. ; 1 man at windlass, 12s. ; 1 porter-boy, 6s. ; 1 boy and horse with water cart, 24s. : the whole amounts to 3, 19s., or 13s. 2d. daily. In addition to this we add the cost of coals, 10 cwts. at 19s. a ton on the ground, or 9s. 6d. daily. The oil at 5s. a gallon costs about Is. a day. "The daily cost thus conies to 23s. 6d., and this over eighty-six days amounts to about 100. Against the engine and apparatus, costing about 510, we must put 10 per cent., or 51, for depreciation, and 5 per cent., or 25, 10s., for interest of capital The cost of repairs may perhaps be satisfied by an annual charge of 15 ; and for tear and wear of rope we have the following items : 1400 yards of iron wire-rope originally purchased, 50 ; steel ropes, 1400 yards, since purchased, 60. Probably the annual charge needed to maintain this may be made on the theory that the rope will last three years, and 25 a year may suffice for this particular. Adding up these items, we have a sum total of 216, 10s. to be charged against the farm for steam cultivation. Putting 216 against 500 acres once grubbed in the course of the year, we have a charge of about 8s. 7d. an acre for the grubbing. Mr Pike informed me that, during the three years of his steam cultivation, on several of the ten fields already specified, he has not used the plough at all. Even the mixing of manure with the soil is done by the grubber. No plough is used to bury it. It is laid upon the land, and grubbed to and fro, and thereby mixed sufficiently. The cleanness of the land, too, is a fair testimony to the quality of cultivation by implements which stir, but do not overturn the soil. " Mr Pike has till lately used the grubber invented by Mr Smith of Woolston, with the turnbow apparatus for turning the tool at the land s end. Latterly he has used the cultivator of Messrs Howard, each tine of which is double, pointing both fore and aft, so that no turning at all is needed, the claw which follows in the wake of the working tooth as it goes coming into operation in its turn as it comes back again." Mr Pike thus writes to Messrs Howard, of date December 2, 1861 : "GENTLEMEN, I have cultivated my farm by steam-power for the last four years, and therefore feel myself in a position to speak positively of the merits of the system. "My farm, belonging to the Duke of Bedford, consists principally of poor, strong, hilly, clay land, which, before I entered upon it, was laid up in three yard ridges, with water gutters drawn across the ridges to take off the water. Since I have steam cultivated it, I have done away with ridges and furrows entirely ; my fields of 40 and 50 acres each, which are steep in places, are all laid on the flat, and during the wettest season I have never seen any water stand upon them. I am convinced if land is broken up a good depth by the cultivator, and under drained, there is no need of any furrows, if it is ever so strong. "I am enabled to manage my farm with about half the number of horses. I do it with less trouble to myself. I am always more forward with niy work, and the horses I do keep cost much less per head than formerly, as all the hard work is done by steam. " The effect of deep stirring this soil is very apparent in the crops ; my land is naturally very poor, so that very large yields are out of the question ; but I am convinced I can grow much more corn by steam than by horse cultivation, and I can also grow a larger breadth of root crops. I also find that by constant deep tillage my land moves easier every year, consequently it is less expense to cultivate. I seldom use the plough, except my horses have got nothing else to do. "I break up my clover lays before harvest, and make a bastard fallow of them. I am convinced this is the surest way of getting a good wheat crop on strong soil ; and, besides cleaning the land, it has this advantage, it does not leave so much work to do at Michaelmas. I also break up my tare land before harvest, so that after harvest I have nothing to do bvit cultivate my bean and wheat stubbles. "I put away my tackle as soon as possible after we have heavy rains, the latter part of October or beginning of November, and do not bring it out again until the turnip land is ready to break up for barley. My object is to make the best use of the summer and the early autumn. "When I commenced cultivating by steam, I used to set down to little pieces, but I found that too much trouble, therefore increased the length of my ropes, as I found it made very little difference to my 8-horse engine whether I had out a long or short length of rope. I have now sufficient to do a 50 acre field, without moving either engine or windlass ; this is my largest field ; I dug a pond at one end, and I do the whole without moving from the pond. When I can, I set my engine and windlass in an adjoining field, so as to finish headlands and all complete, without going into it Water carting is a great expense, and in a wet season a great nuisance. I therefore have dug some ponds, and sometimes I dam up a ditch or master drain to obtain a supply. "I am particularly pleased with the new apparatus you made for me last spring. The windlass is much easier moved about, and is very simple to manage. The cultivator takes less time at land s end, there is no danger of overturning, it docs not jump so much in work, and the hind shares cause the land to lay looser. No matter ​318 AGRICULTUEE [MACHINES AND how hard the ground, it will break it up, aud on sidehills it goes much steadier and better than my old one. The first steel rope I had did above 2000 acres, and I have a small portion of it, at work yet. If people mean to have their ropes last, they must keep them off the ground, and attend well to the coiling on the windlass drums. I like your new rollers, which carry the rope further from the ground. I am, Gentlemen, yours very truly, " Messrs J. & F. Howard, Bedford. WILLIAM PIKE." It is due to Messrs Howard to state that their numerous other customers concur in testifying to the general efficiency of their tackle, its little liability to breakage or derange ment, and to the readiness with which their ordinary farm labourers have learned to work it efficiently. By this time cultivation by steam-power had been adopted by enterprising individuals in nearly every county in England, and was making steady progress in the face of many hindrances. In every instance the purchaser and his servants had to learn the use of novel and somewhat complicated machinery ; much of which, as first sent on t, proved to be defective both in structure and in material. Tike fields also, through lack of preparation, often presented obstacles which, as experience was gained, were seen ar.d remedied. In a few instances, where the purchaser of steam tackle was either unable to give his personal super intendence, or lacked the needed energy and perseverance to cope with the difficulties of a new enterprise, it proved a failure. But with rare exceptions, easily accounted for, it was everywhere demonstrated that by steam-power and appropriate implements, the tillage of the soil can be per formed with a rapidity, efficiency, and economy far excelling what is practicable by animal power and the old implements. In the autumn of 18G6, by which date steam tillage had greatly extended, the Royal Agricultural Society of England sent out three sets of commissioners to inspect and report on the position of steam cultivation at that time. The reports obtained were published in the Society s Journal for 1867, and present a mass of most interesting and instructive in formation on the whole subject. The commissioners visited about 150 farms situated in nearly 40 different counties of England, and a few in East Lothian, containing an aggregate area of 06,000 acres, which they estimate to be about a third of the whole area then under steam cultiva tion. They amply confirm what has already been stated as to the success of this new system of tillage, and make it plain that the changes thus brought about are of such im portance as really to amount to a revolution in modern agriculture. At its annual show in 1871, at Wolverhampton, the English Society again provided for a careful competitive trial of steam-tillage machinery, when the following awards were made : CLASS I. For the best combination of machinery for the cultiva tion of the soil by steam-power 1st Prize, 100 Awarded to Messrs J. Fowler & Co., Leeds. 2d Prize, 50 do. do. do. CLASS II. For the best combination of machinery for the cultiva tion of the soil by steam-power, the weight of the steam-engine not to exceed 10 tons 1st Prize, 50 Awarded to Messrs Fowler, Leeds. 2d Prize, 25 Awarded to the llavensthorpc Engineering Co. (Fisken system i. CLASS III. For the best combination of machinery for the cultiva tion of the soil by an ordinary agricultural engine, whether self-propelling or portable. 1st Prize, 50 Awarded to Messrs Fowler, Leeds. 2d Prize, 25 Awarded to Messrs Howard, Bedford. A Silver Cup, value 100, offered by the Eight Hon. Lord Vernon, president, for the best combination of machinery for the culti vation of the soil by steam-power, the cost of which shall not exceed 700. The engine to be locomotive, and adapted for threshing and other farm purposes. Awarded to Messrs Fowler & Co., Leeds. Steam cultivation has now ceased to be a novelty, and is making rapid progress in all parts of Great Britain and in foreign countries. In March 1873, at an agricultural meet ing, it was stated by Messrs Fowler it Co. of Leeds, that they are turning out annually from their works about 100 sets of their tackle for the home market, and from 50 to 60 for foreign countries. Of their home sales about half are to private individuals, and half to persons who work them for hire. In a district around Magdeburgh fifty sets of their tackle are employed in cultivating the soil for the growth of sugar-beet. The other leading makers are also doing a large business, with the certainty of its becoming larger every year. The expiry of several patents applicable to steam cultivating tackle is giving an additional stimulus to the manufacture of such machines. Partly in this way, and also by contrivances of their own, the Messrs Howard of Bedford have recently (1873) made very considerable changes and progress with their tackle. Their self-acting anchors, and their turning cultivator, which is constructed on an entirely new principle, are, said to be respectively the best of their kind. Section 5. Harrows. When a field has been broken up by the plough, it is usually next operated upon by the harrow, whether the object be to prepare it for and to cover in seeds, or to bring clods and roots to the surface. This is virtually a rake dragged by horses. In its most ordinary form, the framework is of wood with iron tinqs, of which each harrow contains twenty. Formerly each horse dragged a single harrow, although two or more w r ere worked abreast. Under this arrangement the harrows had too much independent motion, and were liable to get foul of each other. This has been remedied, first, partially, by coupling them loosely by riders, and then more effectually by a hinge-like joining, which allows a separate vertical motion, but only a combined horizontal one. A rhomboidal form is also given to this pair of harrows usually called brakes so that when properly yoked, no two tines run in the same track. This description of harrow is now frequently made entirely of iron. Howard s patent harrows are a further improvement on this implement. The zig-zag form given to each section en- Howard s Patent Harrow. ables the whole so to fit in, that the working parts arc equally distributed over the space operated upon. The number of times is 75, instead of 40, as in the form last noticed, and yet, from the form of frame and manner of coupling, the tines are well apart, and have each a separate line of action. Practical farmers speak very highly of the effective working of this implement. By an exceedingly simple contrivance, the centre part when turned on its back forms a sledge on which its fellows can be piled and drawn along from one field to another. A light description of harrows, with smaller and more numerous tines, is some times used for covering in grass-seeds. If a harrow is to be used at all for this purpose, Howard s is a very suitable ​IMPLEMENTS.] AGRICULTURE 319 kind, but a much better implement is Cartwright s chain- harrow, which abrades the surface over which it is drawn to a degree that could not be anticipated from a mere inspection of the implement. It is formed by attaching to a draught-bar pairs of square-linked chains, each 7 feet long, connecting them by cross links, and keeping the whole expanded by two movable stretchers. The old-fashioned ponderous break harrow is now entirely discarded, and the more efficient cultivator used in its stead. A form of the latter, from its close resemblance to harrows, is noticed now rather than before. It is a very strong iron harrow, with the tines made longer, and very considerably curved forwards. An iron rod with a loop handle is fixed to the hind bar, by means of which the driver can easily hitch it up and get rid of weeds, &.c. Two such harrows are coupled together and drawn by four horses. Its pulverising power is very considerable. But when clods have been brought to the surface, they are most effectually reduced by various kinds of rollers. Section 6. Rollers. Those formerly used were solid cylinders of timber or stone attached to a frame and shafts, for which hollow ones of cast-iron are now generally substituted. The simplest form of these has a smooth surface, and is cast in sections to admit of more easy turning. They are made of diverse weights, so as to be adapted for the draught of one or two horses as required. Those of the former description,weigh- Cambridge s roller possesses several features in common with Crosskill s, and is used for similar purposes. In the Smooth Cast-Iron Field Roller. iiig in all G cwt., and costing as many pounds sterling, are exceedingly useful for all purposes where expedition rather than heavy pressure is wanted. From their greater dura bility, smoother surface, and less liability to clog, the readi ness with whica they can be cast of any weight that is re quired, and their moderate price, it is probable that cast-iron cylinders will speedily supersede all others. Several important variations on the common smooth roller have been introduced of late years. Of these the first notice is due to Crosskill s clod-crusher, on the ground both of its intrinsic merit and the date of its introduction. It consists of cast-iron discs 2 feet in diameter, with serrated edge and a scries of side way-projecting teeth. Twenty-three of these discs are strung loosely upon a round axle, so as to revolve independently of each other. The free motion thus given to each disc, and which has latterly been increased by cast ing each alternate one of greater diameter in the eye, adds at once to the pulverising and self-cleaning power of the roller. Three horses yoked abreast are required to work it. The axle is prolonged at each end sufficiently to receive travelling wheels, on which it is transported from place to place. Although primarily designed and actually much used for breaking clods, it is even more in request for consolidating loose soils, checking the ravages of wire-worm, and covering in clover and grass seeds. For the latter purpose, its action is perfected by attaching a few bushes to it, which fill up the indentations, and leave a surface so beautifully even as to rival the accuracy and neatness of a well-raked border. It is now to be had on a smaller scale adapted to the draught of two horses. Canil i-M-e s Press- Wheel Roller. form in which it was first brought out it consisted of discs, fitting close to each other, with fluted instead of serrated edges. In its recently improved form the discs are not made of uniform diameter as formerly, but each alternate one in the set is raised about two inches, and has the centre hole, not circular and close fitting to the axle, but triangular and wide. The result is that while the discs press uniformly on the surface over which they are rolled, the larger ones rise above their fellows with a jerking motion, Avhich gives a most efficient self-cleaning power to the implement, and thus admits of its being used when other rollers would bo clogged. The eccentric discs are now made either with OO serrated or smooth edges as customers prefer. After careful trial we have come to the conclusion that it is the most useful roller for general purposes which we yet possess. Disc ol Cam bridge s Roller, showing Self-cleaning Action. Under this head may be noticed press drills, which, by means of a series of narrow cylinders with conical edges, form corresponding grooves in loose soil. Seeds sown broad cast ove. a surface thus treated come up in rows. The Land-Presser. land-presser is a modification of the press-roller. It is made with two or three conical edged cylinders to fit into the seams of as many plough furrows, the other end ​320 of the axle on which they are fixed being supported by a plain carriage-wheel. It is drawn by one horse, and follows in the wake of two or three ploughs, according to the number of its cylinders. When wheat is sown after clover lea, this implement is found exceedingly useful in closing the seams and forming a uniform seed-bed. The Norwegian, or, as it should rather be called, the Swedish harrow is strictly a clod-crushing implement. From its radiating spikes penetrating the surface over which it is drawn, it has been called a harrow; but its revolving motion entitles it rather to be classed with rollers. In its usual form it consists of three rows of cast-iron rowels arranged upon parallel axles fixed in an iron frame, which is supported on three wheels, one in front and two behind. The out line and arrangements are in fact the same as in Finlayson s grubber, only substituting parallel rows of rowels for tines. There is also the same leverage for raising and depressing the frame. But this implement has recently been con structed on a much simpler and cheaper plan, in which the wheels and lever apparatus are discarded altogether. It thus consists of a simple wrought-iron frame with four rows of rowels. A few boards are laid across the frame, forming a platform over the rowels, on which the driver stands when it is wished to increase the weight and efficiency of the im plement. On the tipper side at either end is fixed a piece of wheel-tire, on which the implement, when turned on its back, can slide along, sledge-fashion, when it is wished to move it from place to place. As thus constructed it can be made for about 5. This is the best implement yet in troduced for breaking moist clods. flection 7. Breast-Plough and Trenching-Fork. Before leaving the implements of tillage, it may be proper to notice two, which have been a good deal brought under notice of late years, viz., the breast-plough and trenching- fork. The former is extensively used in carrying out the process of paring and burning. It is the implement known in Scotland as the flaughter (or thin turf) spade. In using it the workman guards his thighs with a piece of board, fastened on apron-wise, and with this presses against the cross-head of the implement, and urges forward its cutting edge. When a thin turf has thus been severed from the surface, he turns it over by a jerk of his arms. The fork is used in giving a deep autumn digging to land in preparation for root crops. Both operations can ordinarily be more economically performed by using horse-power with suitable implements. But for clearing out corners of fields, hedge sides, and similar places, manual labour with these tools can frequently be made to supplement the plough to good purpose. Section 8. Implements for Sowing, A large portion of the grain annually sown in Great Britain is still distributed by hand from the primitive sowing-sheet. The sower stalks With measured step, and liberal throws the grain Into the faithful bosom of the ground. " In Scotland a decided preference is still given to broadcast sowing, for which purpose a machine is used that covers from 15 to 18 feet, according to the Avidth of ridge adopted. It consists of a long seed-box, carried on a frame mounted on two wheels. From these motion is com municated to a spindle which revolves in the seed-box, and expels the seed by means of cogs or brushes, through openings which can be graduated to suit the required rate of seeding. It is drawn by a single horse, is attended by one man, and can get over 30 acres a day. It is peculiarly adapted for the regular distribution of clover and grass seeds. Now that reaping by machinery has become so [MACHINES AND general, there is an obvious advantage in having the fields as level and with as few open forms as possible, and hence of having a marker attached to the sowing-machine. In one made by Sheriff at West Barns, by an ingenious apparatus on the principle of the odometer, the machine itself is made to register the space which it travels over, and thus to indicate the rate per acre at which it is distributing the seed. Excellent results have been, and still are, obtained from broadcast sowing. But as tillage becomes more perfect, there arises a demand for greater accuracy in the depth at which seeds are deposited in the soil, for greater precision in the rate and regularity of their distribution, and for greater facilities for removing weeds from amongst the growing crop. These considerations led, at a comparatively early period, to the system of sowing crops in rows or drills, and hence the demand for machines to do this expeditiously and accurately. We accordingly find, in our best cultivated districts, the sowing and after-culture of the crops now conducted with a precision which reminds the spectator of the processes of some well-arranged factory. This is accomplished by means of a variety of drilling- machines, the most prominent of which we shall now notice. The Suffolk drill is the kind in most general use. It is a complicated and costly machine by which manure and seeds can be simultaneously deposited. That called the "general purpose drill" can sow ten rows of corn, with or without manure, at any width between the rows from 4 i to 10 inches, and at any rate per acre between two pecks and six bushels. It can be arranged also to sow clover and grass seeds, the heavier seeds of clover being thrown out by minute cups, and the lighter grass seeds brushed out from a separate compartment. It is further fitted for sowing beans and turnips the latter either two drills at a time on the ridge, or three on the flat. This drill, as most recently improved by Messrs Hornsby of Grantham and Garrett of Leiston, has an apparatus for preserving the machine in a level position when working on sloping ground. As a main object in drilling crops at all is to admit of the use of the hoe, it becomes an important point to accomplish the drilling with undeviating straightness, and exact parallelism in each successive course of the drill. This is now obtained by means of a fore-carriage, which an assistant walking alongside so controls by a lever as easily to keep the wheel in the same rut down which it had previously passed. Messrs Hornsby have also introduced India-rubber tubes for conducting the seed, in place of the tin funnels hitherto used. These drills cost about 42. The Woburn drill of the Messrs Hensman is simpler in its construction than those already noticed. " In all other drills, the coulters, which distribute the manure or seed, hang from the carriage. In this drill the carriage rests upon the coulters, which are like the iron of skates ; it may be said, indeed, to run on four pairs of skates. Hence this drill s power of penetrating hard ground, and of giving a firm bed to the wheat-seed in soft ground. Each drill coulter, however, preserves its independence as when suspended. This self-adjustment is required by the in equality of tilled ground, and is thus obtained : each pair of coulters is fixed to the end of a balance beam, these again to others, and they to a central one. Thus each coulter, in well-poised rank, gives its independent share of support. It varies from the generality of drills, as it is drawn from the centre by whipple-trees instead of shafts ; and the drill-man behind can steer or direct the drill with the greatest nicety. The corn-box of the drill is entirely self-acting, and delivers the seed equally well going either up or down hill. It is also capable of horse-hoeing, by attaching hoes to the levers instead of the coulter-sharea ​IMPLEMENTS.] AGRICULTURE 321 It is drawn by a pair of horses, and the price from 18 to 20." J Turnip drill. In Scotland, and in the north and west of England, turnips are usually sown on the ridge by a machine which sows two rows at a time. In the south eastern parts of England, which are hotter and drier, it is found better to sow them on the flat, for which purpose machines are constructed which sow four rows together, depositing manure at the same time. Both kinds are adapted for sowing either turnips or mangold-wurzel seeds as required. With the view of economising seed and manure, what are called drop-drills have recently been introduced, which deposit both not in continuous streams but in jets, at such intervals apart in the rows as the farmer wishes the plants to stand. What promises to be a more useful machine is a water-drill invented by a Wilt shire farmer Mr Chandler of Market Lavington. " Hia water-drill pours down each manure-coulter the requisite amount of fluid, mixed with powdered manure, and thus brings up the plant from a mere bed of dust. Having used it largely during three years, I may testify to its excellence. Only last July, when my bailiff had ceased turnip sowing on account of the drought, by directing the use of the water-drill, I obtained from this latter sowing an earlier and a better show of young plants than from the former one with the dust-drill. Nor is there any increase of expense if water be within a moderate distance, for we do not use poAvder-manures alone. They must be mixed with ashes, that they may be diffused in the soil. Now, the expense and labour of supplying these ashes are equal to the cost of fetching mere Avater; and apart from any want of rain, it is found that this method of moist diffusion, dissolving, instead of mingling only, the super phosphate, quickens its action even upon damp ground, and makes a little of it go further." 2 Section 9. Manure-Distributors. The practice of top-dressing wheat, vetches, clover, or meadows, with guano and various light manures, has now so much increased, and the inconvenience of scattering them over the surface by hand is so great, that various machines have recently been invented for distributing them, which can also be used for sowing such manures over turnip drills, covering three at once. Such machines will probably be used in future for distributing lime, which can thus be done much more regularly than by cart and shovel, especially when it is wished to apply small quan tities for the destruction of slugs or for other purposes. It seems quite practicable to have this or a similar machine so constructed as that it could be readily hooked on to the tail of a cart containing the lime or other substance which it is desired to distribute by it. The top-dressing material could by such an arrangement be drawn into the hopper of the distributor as it and its tender move along, and the cart when emptied be replaced by a full one with little loss of time. A cheap and effective machine, capable of being in a similar manner attached to a dung-cart, which could tear asunder fold-yard manure, and distribute it evenly in the bottoms of turnip drills, would be a great boon to farmers, and seems a fitting object to be aimed at by those possessed of the inventive faculty. Section 1 0. Horse-Noes. It has already been remarked that the great inducement to sow grain and green crops in rows is that hoeing may be resorted to, for the double purpose of ridding them of 1 See Mr Pusey s Report on Implements, in the Journal of (he Royal Agricultural Society of England, vol. xii. p. 604. "Ibid., p, C07. weeds and stimulating their growth by frequent stirring of the soil It is now upwards of a century since Jethro Tull demonstrated, in his books and on his fields, tho facility with which horse-power could be thus employed. His system was early adopted in regard to turnips, and led, as we have seen, to a complete revolution in the practice of agriculture. The peculiar manner in which he applied his system to grain crops, and the principles on which he grounded his practice, have hitherto been for the most part repudiated by agriculturists, who have thought it indispens able to drill their grain at intervals so narrow as to admit, as was supposed, of the use of the hand-hoe only. But the accuracy with which corn-drills perform their work has been skilfully taken advantage of, and we now have horse-hoes, covering the same breadth as the drill, which can be worked with perfect safety in intervals of but seven inches width. By such a machine, and the labour of a pair of horses, two men, and a boy, ten acres of corn can be hoed in as many hours. Not only is the work done at a fifth of the expense of hand-hoeing, and far more effectually, but it is practicable in localities and at seasons in which hand-labour cannot be obtained. Garrett s horse-hoe is admitted to be the best implement of its kind. It can be used for hoeing either beans, tur nips, or corn, as the hoes can be adapted to suit any width betwixt rows, and the axle-tree being movable at both ends, the wheels, too, can be shifted so as to be kept between the rows of plants. The shafts can be attached to any part of the frame to avoid injury to the crop by the treading of the horses. Each hoe works on a lever independent of the others, and can be loaded with different weights, on the same principle as the coulters of the corn- drill, to accommodate it to uneven surfaces and varying degrees of hardness in the soil. A great variety of implements, under the general names of horse-hoes, scufflers, scrapers, or drill-grubbers, fitted for the draught of one horse, and to operate on one drill at a time, is in use in those parts of the country where root crops are chiefly sown on ridgeleta from 24 to 30 inches apart. With considerable diversity of form and efficiency, they in general have these features in common, viz., provision for being set so as to work at varying widths and depths, and for being armed either with hoes or tines, according as it is wished to pare the surface or stir the soil more deeply. A miniature Norwegian harrow is sometimes attached to drill-grubbers, by which weeds are detached from the soil, and the surface levelled and pulverised more thoroughly. Tennant s grubber, with its tines set close together, and two horses yoked to it abreast by a tree long enough to allow them to walk in the drills on either side of that operated upon, is the most effective implement for cultivating between the rows of beans, potatoes, turnips, or mangolds, that we have yet seen used for this purpose. Section 11. Turnip-Tldnners. It sometimes happens, as when drought prevails while the earlier sowings of turnips or mangold are made, and this is followed by copious rains and forcing weather, that the farmer finds it impracticable to get the thinning-out of the seedlings overtaken as fast as is needful. To aid him in such emergencies, a class of machines has been brought out, of which Huckvale s turnip-thinner may be named as a type. They are very favourably reported of by those who have used them. Such machines, drawn by one horse, and made to operate upon either one or two rows of young turnip plants, have first a paiing apparatus, which clears off weeds from the sides of the rows, and along with this a set of revolving hoes by which gaps are cut in the rows of turnip plants, and tufts of them are left standing at any I. 41 ​322 AGRICULTURE [MACHINES AND required distance apart. This does not dispense with the after use of the hand-hoe or fingers to effect a perfect singling of the plants ; but as a large space can be gone over in a day at small cost, it enables the farmer to save his crop from getting overgrown and choked until he can overtake the more perfect thinning of it. The next class that claims attention is Section 12. Harvesting Implement*. These, till little more than twenty years ago, comprised only the reaping-hook and scythe. An implement by means of which horse-power could be made available for this important operation has long been eagerly desired by farmers. Repeatedly during the first half of the present century their hopes had been excited, only to be disappointed, by the announcement of successful inventions of this kind. These hopes were revived, and raised to a higher pitch than ever, by the appearance, in the Great Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations, of two reaping-machines, known as M Connick s and Hussey s, from the United States of America, where for several years they had been used extensively and successfully. These implements were subjected to repeated trials in different parts of England, on crop 1851, but never in circumstances which admitted of their capabilities being tested in a thoroughly satisfac tory manner. At the first of these trials, made under the auspices of the Royal Agricultural Society, the preference was given to M Cormick s, to which the Exhibition Medal was in consequence awarded. It turned out, however, that at this trial Hussey s machine had not a fair chance, being attended by a person who had never before seen it at work, for, when a further trial took place before the Cleveland Agricultural Society, with Mr Hussey himself super intending his own machine, an all but unanimous decision was given in his favour. Hussey s machine was in conse quence adopted by the leading implement makers, such as Messrs Garrett, Crosskill, &c. Early in 1852, a very important communication from the pen of the late Mr James Slight, curator of the museum of the Highland and Agricultural Society, appeared in the Transactions of the Society, by which the attention of the public was recalled to a reaping-machine of home production, viz., that invented by the Rev. Patrick Bell, minister of the parish of Carmylie in Forfarshire, and for which a premium of 50 had been awarded to him by the Highland Society. This machine attracted much attention at that time. Considerable numbers were made and partially used, but from various causes the invention was lost sight of, until, by the arrival of these American machines, and the notoriety given to them by the Great Exhibition, with concurring causes about to be noticed, an intense interest was again excited regarding reaping by machinery. From Mr Slight s report, the public learned that the identical Bell s machine, to which the prize was awarded, had for the previous fourteen years been statedly employed on the farm of Inch-Michael in the Carse of Gowrie, occupied by Mr George Bell, a brother of the inventor, who, during all that period, had succeeded in reaping, on the average, four-fifths of his crop by means of it every year. Mr Slight further stated, that at least four specimens of it had been carried to America, and that from the identity in principle between them and those now brought thence, with other corroborating circumstances, there is little doubt that the so-called American inventions are after all but imitations of this Scottish machine. When it became known that Bell s machine was to be exhibited, and, if possible, subjected to public trial, at the meeting of the Highland and Agricultural Society at Perth, in August 1852, the event was looked forward to by Scottish farmers Avith eager interest. On that occasion it was accordingly again brought forward, with several important improve ments made upon it, by Mr George Bell, already referred to, and was fully tested in competition with Hussey s, as made by Crosskill. To the disappointment of many, Mr M Cormick did not think fit to enter the lists at this or at some subsequent opportunities. The success of Bell s machine on this occasion, and at some subsequent public trials, gave it a high place in public estimation, and accordingly many of the implements manu factured by Mr Crosskill of Beverley, were sold to farmers in all parts of Great Britain, and especially in Scotland. After a hopeful start the success of this machine has not been so decided as was at first anticipated. In common with other reaping-machines, it had of course to contend with the disadvantages of unprepared fields and unskilful guides ; but in addition to this, it was found to be too heavy in draught, too liable to derangement, and (in the first issues of it) too easily broken in some of its parts to be fitted for general use. These drawbacks were, to a greater or less extent, obviated by subsequent improvements, and the machine continued for a few years to receive a fair measure of public patronage. By-and-by it was in a great measure superseded by other self-delivery machines, such as Burgess & Key s M Cormick, with its Archimedean screw, which, like Bell s, lays off the reaped grain in a continuous swathe, and by others which, by means of revolving rakes, lay it off in quantities suitable to form a sheaf. In crops of moderate bulk and standing erect, these self-delivery machines make rapid and satisfactory work, but when the crop is lodged and twisted they are nearly useless. The consequence is that for several years, and especially in those districts where reaping by machinery is most practised, the preference is given to manual-delivery machines, on the ground that they are lighter of draught, less liable to derange ment, less costly, more easily managed, and thus more to be depended upon for the regular performance of a fair amount of daily work, than their heavier rivals. And, accordingly, light machines on Hussey s principle, but with endless variations, are at present most in demand. Before leaving this subject, a remark is due in connection with the strange neglect of Bell s machine for twenty-five years, and the enthusiasm with which it was hailed on its reappearance. The first is so far accounted for by the fact noticed by Mr George Bell, that such specimens of his brother s machine as formerly got into the hands of farmers were so imperfectly constructed that they did not work satisfactorily, and thus brought discredit on his invention. The true explanation seems to be, that at that date the country was not ready for such a machine. Not only was manual labour then abundant and cheap, from the number of Irish labourers, who annually, as harvest drew near, flocked into the arable districts of Great Britain, but thorough draining had made little progress, and the land was everywhere laid into high ridges, presenting a surf ace peculiarly unfavourable for the successful working of a reaping-machine. Now, however, the conditions are reversed. Emigration to the colonies, and the ever-growing demand for labourers in connection with factories, mines, docks, and railways, have to a very great extent withdrawn the class of people that used to be available for harvest work, and have so largely raised the rate of wages to those who still remain as to render reaping-machines indispensable to the farmer. The pro gress of thorough draining has at the same time enabled him to dispense with the old-fashioned ridges and furrows, and to lay his corn lands in the level state so favourable for reap ing and other operations of husbandry. In these altered conditions lies the true explanation of the former apathy and subsequent enthusiasm manifested by our farmers to wards this invention. ​IMPLEMENTS.] AGKICULTUEE 323 Section 1 3. Mowing-Machines. Anotlier class of labour-saving machines, closely allied to those we have just described, for which we are indebted to our American cousins, is mowing-machines. Several different forms cf these were introduced and brought into somewhat general use during the years 1858 and 1859. Having used such machines for the past fourteen years we can testify to their thorough efficiency, and to the very great saving of labour, and still more of time, which can be secured by means of them. In one instance 30 acres of clover a very full crop, and partially lodged were mown in 32 hours, and this under all the disadvantages of a first start. This machine being of very light draught, a pair of horses can work it at a smart pace without difficulty. By employing two pairs of horses, and working them by relay, it can, in the long days of June and July, be kept going sixteen hours a day, and will easily mow from 16 to 18 acres of seeds or meadow in that time, making, moreover, better work than can ordinarily be obtained by using the scythe. These mowing-machines, which cost from 16 to 25 each, have proved a most seasonable and truly important addition to our list of agricultural implements. That they may be used to advantage, it is absolutely necessary to have the land well rolled and carefully freed from stones. Section 14. Haymakers. Haymakers are valuable implements, and well deserving of more general use. They do their work thoroughly, and enable the farmer to get through a great amount of it in snatches of favourable weather. Where manual labour is scarce, or when, as in Scotland, haymaking and turnip- thinning usually come on hand together, the mower and haymaker render the horse-power of the farm available for an important process which cannot be done well unless it is done rapidly and in seasoa Section 15. Horse-Rakes. Horse-rakes are in frequent use for gathering together the stalks of corn which are scattered during the process of reaping, for facilitating the process of haymaking, and also for collecting weeds from fallows. By an ingenious contrivance in the most improved form of this implement, the teeth are disengaged from the material which they have gathered without interrupting the progress of the horse. We seem to be verging on the time when, by means of machines worked by horse-power, farmers will be enabled to cut and carry their grass and grain with little more than the ordinary forces of their farms. Section 16. Wheel- Carriages. The cartage of crops, manure, &c., upon an arable farm, is such an important part of the whole labour performed upon it (equal, as shown by a recent estimate, to one-half), 1 that it is a matter of the utmost consequence to have the work performed by carriages of the most suitable kind. It was for a long time keenly debated by agriculturists, whether waggons or carts are most economical. This question is now undoubtedly settled. Mr Pusey says, " It is proved beyond question that the Scotch and Northumbrian farmers, by using one-horse carts, save one-half of the horses which south country farmers still string on to their three-horse waggons and three-horse dung-carts, or dung-pots, as they are called. The said three-horse waggons and dung-pots would also cost nearly three times as much original outlay. Few, I suppose, if any, fanners buy these expensive luxuries now, though it is wonderful they should keep them ; for last year at Grantham, in a public trial, five horses with five carts were matched against five waggons with ten horses, and the five 1 See Morton s Cyclopaedia of Agriculture. Article "Carriages." horses beat the ten by two loads." 2 The one-horse cart* here referred to are usually so constructed as to be easily adapted to the different purposes for which wheel-carriages are needed upon a farm. For each pair of wheels and axle there is provided a close-bodied cart, and another with sparred sides and broad shelvings, called a long-cart, or harvest-cart, either of which can easily be attached to the wheels, according to the nature of the commodities to be carried. Sometimes a simple movable frame is attached to the close-body to fit it for carrying hay or straw ; but although one or two such frames are useful for casual pur poses throughout the year, they are inferior for harvest work to the regular sparred cart with its own shafts. In some districts the whole of the close-bodied carts used on the farm are made to tip. For many purposes this is a great convenience; but for the conveyance of grain to market, and generally for all road work, a firm frame is much easier for the horse, and less liable to decay and de rangement. The Berwickshire practice is to have one pair of tip-carts on each farm, and all the rest firm or dormant - bodied, as they are sometimes called. Many farms are now provided with a water or tank cart, for conveying and distributing liquid manure. Section 17. Road-Engines. Although many attempts have been made to adapt the loco motive steam-engine for the conveyance both of passengers and goods on common roads, the results hitherto have not been altogether satisfactory. Progress is, however, undoubt edly being made in this effort ; and in not a few instances such engines are actually in use for the carriageof heavy goods. If beet sugar factories should increase in Great Britain, the carriage of the roots from the farms to the factories will probably be performed by traction engines ; for the inex pediency of withdrawing the horse-power of the farm from its other urgent work at the season most suitable for deliver ing these roots to the sugar-maker presents at present a serious hindrance to the cultivation of this crop. MACHINES FOR PREPARING CROPS FOR MARKET. (Sections 18, 19, 20.) Section 18. Steam- Engines. The extent to which steam-power is now employed for the purposes of the farm is another marked feature in the recent Portable Steam-Engine. (Clayton, Shuttleworth, &. Co.) progress of agriculture. We have already referred to the value of water-power for propelling agricultural machinery 2 Mr Pusey s Report, in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England vol. xii. p. 617. ​324 AGRICULTURE [MACHINES AND when it can be had in sufficient and regular supply. As it is only in exceptional cases that farms are thus favoured, the stoam-engine is the power that must generally be reckoned upon, and accordingly its use is now so common that a tall chimney has become, over extended districts, the prominent feature of nearly every homestead. It has been satisfactorily shown that grain can be thrashed and dressed by well-constructed, steam-propelled machinery, at one- fourth the cost of thrashing by horse-power and dressing by hand-fanners. So great, indeed, is the improvement in steam-engines, and so readily can the amount of power be accommodated to the work to be done, that we find them everywhere superseding the one-horse gin, and even manual labour, for pumping, churning, coffee-grinding, etc. Wherever, then, a thrashing-mill is used at all, it may be safely asserted that, next to water, steam is the cheapest power by which it can be propelled. The portable engine is the form which has hitherto found most favour in the southern parts of the kingdom. Mr Pusey thus states the reason for which he regards them as preferable to fixed engines : " If a farm be a large one, and especially if, as is often the case, it be of an irregular shape, there is great waste of labour for horses and men in bringing home all the corn in the straw to one point, and in again carrying out the dung to a distance of perhaps two or three miles. It is therefore common, and should be general, to have a second outlying yard. This accommodation cannot be reconciled with a fixed engine. Portable Thrashing-Machine. (Clayton, Shuttleworth, & Co.) " If the farm be of a moderate size, it will hardly and if small will certainly not bear the expense of a fixed engine : there would be waste of capital in multiplying fixed engines to be worked but a few days in the year. It is now common, therefore, in some counties for a man to invest a small capital in a movable engine, and earn his livelihood by letting it out to the farmer. " But there is a further advantage in these movable engines, little, I believe, if at all known. Hitherto corn has been thrashed under cover in barns ; but with these engines and the improved thrashing-machines we can thrash the rick in the open air at once as it stands. It will be said, How can you thrash out of doors on a wet day 1 ? The answer is simple. Neither can you move your rick into your barn on a wet day; and so rapid is the work of the new thrashing-machines, that it takes no more time to thrash the corn than to move it. Open-air thrashing is also far pleasanter and healthier for the labourers, their kings not being choked with dust, as under cover they are ; and there is, of course, a saving of labour to the tenant not inconsider able. But when these movable steam-engines have spread generally, there will arise an equally important saving to the landlord in buildings. Instead of three or more barns clustering round the homestead, one or other in constant want of repair, a single building will suffice for dressing corn and for chaff-cutting. The very barn-floors saved will be no insignificant item. Now that buildings are required for new purposes, we must, if we can, retrench those buildings whose objects are obsolete. Open-air thrashing may appear visionary, but it is quite common with the new machinery ; nor would any one perform the tedious manoeuvre of setting horses and men to pull down a rick, place it on carts, ana build it up again in the barn, who had once tried the simple plan of pitching the sheaves at once into the thrashing- machine." 1 To us these reasons are inconclusive.. A fixed engine can be erected and kept in repair at greatly less cost than a portable one of the same power. It is much easier to keep the steam at working pressure in the common boiler than in the tubular one, which, from its compactness, is generally adopted in portable engines. It is, no doubt, very convenient to draw up engine and machinery alongside a rick and pitch the sheaves at once upon the feeding-board, and very pleasant to do this in the sunshine and " caller air;" but we should think it neither convenient nor pleasant to have engine and thrashing-gear to transport and refix every time of thrashing, to have grain and chaff to cart to the barn, the thrashed straw to convey to the respective places of consumption, and all this in circumstances unfavourable to accurate and cleanly disposal of the products, and excessive exposure to risk of weather. Sudden rain will no doubt interrupt the carrying in of a rick in the one case as the thrashing of it in the other ; but there is this vast difference in favour of the former, that the partially carried rick is easily re-covered; machinery, products of thrashing, and work-people, are safely under cover; and the engine is ready by a slight change of gearing for other work, such as bruising, grinding, or chaff-cutting. It is urged onbehalf of the portable engine, that in districts where the farms are generally small, one may serve a good many neighbours. Now, not to dwell on the expense and inconvenience to small occupiers of frequently transporting such heavy carriages, and of having as much of their crop thrashed in a day (there being manifest economy in having at least a day s work when it is employed) as will meet their demands for fodder and litter for weeks to come, we are persuaded that on farms of even 80 or 100 acres, a compact fixed engine of two or three horse-power will thrash, bruise grain, cut chaff, work a churn, and cook cattle food, etc., more economically than such work can be done in any other way. It is very usual to find on such farms, especially in dairy districts, an apparatus for cooking cattle food by steam, or by boiling in a large copper, where as much fuel is used every day, and as much steam generated, as would work such an engine as we have referred to, and do the cooking over and above. Even a small dairy implies a daily demand for boiling water to scrub vessels and cook food for cows. How manifestly economical, then, when the steam is up at any rate, to employ this untiring, obedient agent, so willing to turn the hand of anything, in performing the heavy work of the homestead with a power equal, perhaps, to that of all the men and horses employed upon the farm. Whenever tillage by steam-power is fairly available, there will undoubtedly be an inducement to use the portable engine as a thrashing-power that has not hitherto existed, as there will be a manifest economy in having both opera tions performed by the same engine. Even then, however, there is a high probability of its being found impracticable to withdraw the engine even once a week for the needful thrashing during the six or eight weeks immediately after 1 Mr Puscy s Report on Implements. Journal of the Royal Agri cultural Society of England, vol. xii. p. 621. ​IMPLEMENTS.] AGRICULTURE 325 harvest, when it will be of such consequence to make diligent use of every available hour for pushing on the tillage. The kind of fixed engine most approved for farm-work in the north of England and south of Scotland is the over head crank engine, attached by direct action to the spur- wheel, and sometimes even to the drum shaft of the thrashing-machine. Their cheapness, simplicity of con struction, easy management, and non-liability to derange ment, fit these engines in an eminent degree for farm-work. 1 Section 1 9. Thrashing-Machines. It is now sixty-five years since an ingenious Scotch mechanist, Andrew Meikle, produced a thrashing-machine so perfect that its essential features are retained unaltered to the present day. Indeed, it is frequently asserted that, after all the modifications and supposed improvements of the thrashing-machine which have been introduced by various parties, the mills made by Meikle himself have not yet been surpassed, so far as thorough and rapid separation of the grain from the straw is concerned. The unthrashed corn is fed evenly into a pair of slowly revolving fluted rollers of cast-iron, by which it is presented to the action of a rapidly revolving cylinder or drum armed with four beaters, which are square spars of wood faced with iron, fixed parallel to its axis, and projecting about four inches from its circumference. The drum is provided with a dome or cover, and the corn being partly held by the fluted rollers as it passes betwixt the drum and its cover, the rapid strokes of the beaters detach the grain from the cars, and throw the straw forward upon slowly revolving rakes, in passing over which the loose grain is shaken out of the straw, and falls through a grating into the hopper of a winnowing and riddling machine, which rids it of dust and chaff, and separates the grain from the unthrashed ears and broken straw, called roughs or shorts. The grain and roughs are discharged by separate spouts into the apartment below the thrashing-loft, whence the corn is fed into the rollers, and the thrashed straw falls from the rakes into the straw barn beyond. Since Meikle s time further additions have been made to the machinery. In the most improved machines driven by steam or a sufficient water power, the grain is raised by a series of buckets fixed on an endless web into the hopper of a double winnowing-machine, by which it is separated into clean corn, light, whites or capes, and small seeds and sand. The discharging spouts are sufficiently elevated to admit of sacks being hooked on to receive the different products as they fall. When barley is thrashed, it is first carried by a separate set of elevators, which can be detached at pleasure, into a " hummeller," in which it is freed from the awns, and then raised into the second fanners in the same manner as other grain. The hummeller is a hollow cylinder, in which a spindle fitted with transverse blunt knives revolves rapidly. The rough grain is poured in at the top, and, after being acted upon by the knives, is emitted at the bottom through an opening which is enlarged or diminished by a sliding shutter, according to the degree of trimming that is required. A large set of elevators is usually em ployed to carry up the roughs to the feeding-board, that they may again be subjected to the action of the drum. The roughs are emptied, not directly on the feeding-board, but into a riddle, from which the loose grain passes by a canvas funnel direct to the winnower in the apartment below, and only the unthrashed ears and short straw are allowed to fall upon the board. The alterations that have been made upon the thrashing- 1 See .article cm Comparative Advantages of Fixed and Portable Steam Power for the Purposes of a Farm," by Robert Ritchie, Esq., C.E., Edinburgh, in Transactions of Highland Society for March 1852, p. 281. machine since Meikle s time chiefly affect the drum. Meikle himself tried to improve upon his beaters by fixing a project ing ledge of iron on their outer edges, so as to give them a scutching action similar to that of flax-mills. This strips off the grain from oats or barley very well when thinly fed in ; but its tendency is to rub off the entire cars, especially of wheat, and also to miss a portion of the ears, whenever there is rapid feeding in. More recent trials of drums on the scutching principle show them to be on the whole inferior to the plain beater. We have already referred to the general use of portable thrashing-machines in the eastern counties of England. These, for the most part, have drums with six beaters upon a skeleton frame, which revolve with great rapidity (about 800 times per minute, hence often called high-speed drum), within a concave or screen, which encloses the drum for about one-third its circumference. This screen consists alternately of iron ribs and open wire- work, and is so placed that its inner surface can be brought into near contact with the edges of the revolving beaters, arid admits of this space being increased or diminished by means of screws. No feeding- rollers are used with this drum, the unthrashed corn being introduced directly to it. Another form of drum, acting on the same principle as that just referred to, but cased with plate-iron, and having for beaters eight strips of iron projecting about one-fourth of an inch from its surface, and which works within a concave which embraces it for three-fifths of its circum ference, is in use when it is desired to preserve the straw as straight and unbroken as possible. These are made of sufficient width to admit of the corn being fed in sideways, and are called bolting machines, from the straw being delivered in a fit state for being at once made up into bolts or bundles for market. Although the term beaters is retained in describing these drums, it is evident that the process by which the grain is separated from the ears is rubbing rather than beating. This necessarily requires that only a narrow space intervene between drum and concave, and that the corn be fed in somewhat thinly. Such machines thrash clean, whether the ears are all at one end of the sheaf or not, and deliver the straw straight and uninjured ; but it is objected to these by some that they are slower in their operation than those with the beating drum, are liable to choke if the straw is at all damp, that the grain is sometimes broken by them, and that they require greater power to drive them. A further and more recent modification is the peg-drum. In this case the drum is fitted with parallel rows of iron pegs, projecting about 2 inches from its surface, which in its revolutions pass within one-fourth of an inch of similar pegs fixed in the concave in rows running at right angles to the drum. Great things were at first anticipated from, this invention, which, however, it has failed to realise. But iron pegs have more recently been added to the common beater-drum with apparent success. The beaters in this case are made one-half narrower than usual, and have stout iron pegs, formed of square rods, driven into their faces, angle foremost, and slightly reflected at the points. These act by a combination of beating and rippling, and are said to thrash clean and to be easily driven. There is thus a great variety of thrashing-machines to be found in different parts of the country, the comparative merits of which are frequently and keenly discussed by agriculturists. The extraordinary discrepancies in the amount and qiiality of the work performed by different machines, and in the power required to effect it, are due quite as much to the varying degrees of skill with which their parts are proportioned and put together, as to varying merit in the respective plans of construction. In the best examples of 6-horse power stationary steam- engines and thrashing-machinery, as found in the Lothians, ​326 AGRICULTURE [MACHINES AND fifty quarters of grain, taking the average of wheat, barley, and oats, are thrashed, dressed, and sacked up ready for market, in a day of ten hours, with a consumption of 7^ cwt. of good coals, and a gross expenditure for wages, value of horse labour, fuel, and wear and tear of machinery, of 9d. per quarter. The exigencies of the labour market are giving a power ful stimulus to the use of labour-saving contrivances of all kinds ; and hence the recent introduction of straw elevators, to be worked either by horse-power or by the same steam- engine that is driving the thrashing-machinery. The latter plan finds most favour in England, where it has already been adopted to a considerable extent. The Royal Agricultural Society of England has done much towards ascertaining the real merits of the various thrashing-machines now in use, by the carefully conducted comparative trials to which it has subjected those which have been presented in competition for its liberal prizes. The accuracy of these trials, and the value of the recorded results, have been much enhanced by the use of an ingenious apparatus invented by Mr C. E. Amos, consulting engineer to the Society, which is figured and described at p. 479 of vol. xi. of the Society s Journal. A pencil connected with this apparatus traces a diagram upon a sheet of paper, recording every variation of the power employed during the experiment to work the machine under trial. For reasons already stated, we regard it as unfor tunate that the patronage of this great Society has hitherto been so exclusively bestowed upon portable machines. Section 20. Winnowing-Machines. We have already referred to the fanners, which, except in portable machines, are almost invariably found in com bination with thrashing-machinery, so as to deliver the grain into the corn-chamber in a comparatively clean state ; and we have also noticed the further contrivances by which, when there is a sufficient motive power at command, the complete dressing of the grain goes on simultaneously with the thrashing. The winnowers used in such cases do not differ in construction from those worked by hand. In deed, it is usual to have one at least that can be used in either way at pleasure. In these machines the separa tion of the clean from the light grain, and of both from dust, sand, and seeds of weeds, or other rubbish, is effected by directing an artificial blast of wind upon a stream of grain as it falls upon a riddle. There is thus a combination of fanning and sifting, which is used in different degrees according to the views of the mechanist. In some forms of this machine the benefit of the artificial blast is in a great measure lost through an injudicious application of it. Section 21. Corn-Bruiser and Grinding-Mill. The now frequent use of various kinds of grain in the fattening of live stock creates a necessity for machines to prepare it for this purpose, either by breaking, bruising, or grinding. A profusion of these, to be worked by hand, is everywhere to be met with. Such machines are always most economically worked by steam or water power. When that can be had, a set of rollers for bruising oats or linseed, and millstones to grind the inferior grain of the farm, form a most valuable addition to barn machinery. Section 22. Cake-Crushers. Machines for breaking linseed-cake into large pieces for cattle, or smaller ones for sheep, are now in general use. The breaking is performed by passing the cakes between serrated rollers, by which it is nipt into morsels. These are usually driven by hand ; but it is always expedient to have a pulley attached to them, and to take advantage of mechanical power when available. Section 23. Chaff-Cutters. The use of this class of machines has increased very much of late years. Fodder when cut into lengths of from half-an-inch to an inch is somewhat more easily masticated than when given to animals in its natural state; but the chief advantages of this practice are, that it prevents waste, and admits of different qualities as of hay and straw, straw and green forage, or chaff and pulped roots being so mixed that animals cannot pick out the one from amongst the other, but must eat the mixture as it is presented to them. Such cut fodder also forms an excellent vehicle in which to give meal or bruised grain, either cooked or raw, to live stock. This applies parti cularly to sheep feeding on turnips, as they then require a portion of dry food, but waste it grievously when it is not thus prepared. Chaff-cutters are constructed on a variety of plans ; but the principle most frequently adopted is that of radial knives bolted to the arm of a fly-wheel, which work across the end of a feeding-box fitted with rollers, which draw forward the straw or hay and present it in a compressed state to the action of the knives. A machine on this principle, made by Cornes of Barbridge, has gained the first premium in its class at recent meetings of the Royal Agricultural Society of England. Gillcts guillotine chaff-cutter is an exceedingly ingenious and efficient machine, performing its work with great accuracy, and without frequent sharpening of its one double-edged knife. These machines are most economically worked by the power used for thrashing. The most convenient site for them is in the upper loft of the straw-barn, where the straw can be supplied with little labour, and the chaff either shoved aside, or allowed to fall as it is cut through an opening in the floor into the apartment below, and at once conveyed to other parts of the homestead. The practice on some farms where there is a fixed steam-engine, is to thrash a stack of oats in the forenoon, and to cut up the straw, and bruise or grind the grain simultaneously, in the afternoon. Section 2 4. Turnip-Cutters. Cattle and sheep which have arrived at maturity are able to scoop turnips rapidly with their sharp, gouge-like front teeth, and so can be fattened on this kind of food without an absolute necessity of slicing it for them. Even for adult animals there is, however, an advantage in reducing turnips to pieces which they can easily take into their mouths, and at once get between their grinders with out any preliminary scooping ; but for young stock, during the period of dentition, it is indispensable to their bare subsistence. It is largely through the use of slicing- machines that certain breeds of sheep are fattened on turnips, and got ready for the butcher at fourteen months old. It seems to be admitted on all hands that Gardener s patent turnip-cutter is the best that has yet been produced for slicing roots for sheep. It is now made entirely of iron, and is an exceedingly useful machine. In cattle feeding it is not usually thought necessary to divide the roots given to them so minutely as for sheep. A simple machine, fashioned much on the principle of nut-crackers, by which, at each depression of the lever handle, one turnip is forced through a set of knives which divide it into slices each an inch thick, is very generally used in Berwickshire for this purpose. Many persons, however, prefer to have the turnips put into the cattle-troughs whole, and then to have them cut by a simple cross-bladed hand-chopper, which at each blow qiiarters the piece struck by it. The mode of housing fattening cattle largely determines whether roots can be most conveniently sliced before or after being put into the feeding-troughs. ​IMPLEMENTS.] AGRICULTURE 327 Sect ion 25. Tu rn p-Pulpers. An opinion now obtains, and is on the increase, that it is advantageous to rasp roots into minute fragments and mix them with chaff before giving them to cattle, as this not only facilitates mastication, but in wintry weather prevents the chilling effects of a bellyful of such watery food as turnips are when eaten alone. This system is peculiarly appropriate when it is desired to give a few roots to store cattle which are being fed mainly upon straw or coarse hay. When a few turnips or mangolds are put down in their natural state there is a scramble for the better food, in which the stronger cattle get more than their share, and the weaker are knocked about. But by pulping the roots and mixing them with a full allowance of chaff, every animal gets its fill, and there is nothing to quarrel about. At the Carlisle meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society a premium was offered for machines to perform this kind of work, under the somewhat inappropriate designation of "pulping-machines." The prize was awarded to Mr Philips for his machine, which reduces roots to minute fragments by means of a series of circular saws. We learn from parties who have made trial of most of the machines of this class yet brought out, that they give the preference to that made by Bentall of Maldon in Sussex. Section 26. Steaming Apparatus for Cooking Cattle Food. We have several times alluded to the cooking of food for cattle. This is performed either by boiling in a common pot, by steaming in a close vessel, or by infusion in boiling water. Varieties of apparatus are in use for these purposes. A convenient one is a close boiler, with a cistern over it, from which it supplies itself with cold water by a self- acting stop-cock. This is alike suitable for cooking either by steaming or infusing. Section 27. Weighing-Machines. It is of course indispensable for every farm to be provided with beam and scales, or other apparatus, for ascertaining the weight of grain, wool, and other com modities, in quantities varying from 1 Ib. to 3 cwt. But, besides this, it is very desirable to have a machine by which not only turnips, hay, manures, &c., can be weighed in cart-loads, but by which also the live weight of pigs, sheep, and bullocks can be ascertained. Such a machine, conveniently placed in the homestead, enables the farmer to check the weighing of purchased manure, linseed-cake, coal, and similar commodities, with great facility. It affords the means of conducting various experiments for ascertaining the comparative productiveness of crops, the quantities of food consumed by cattle, and their periodic progress, with readiness and precision. To persons unable to estimate the weight of cattle by the eye readily and accurately, such a machine is invaluable. Section 28. Concluding Remarks on Implements. We have thus enumerated, and briefly described, those machines and implements of agriculture which may be held to be indispensable, if the soil is to be cultivated to the best advantage. The list does not profess to be complete ; but enough is given to indicate the progress which has recently taken place in this department. We have already referred to this department of the proceedings of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, and would earnestly recommend to all engaged in agriculture the careful study of the reports on implements contained in the ninth and subsequent volumes of their Journal. The care with which they have selected their judges, and the skilful manner in which those entrusted with the difficult and responsible office have discharged their duties, are truly admirable. A few extracts from these reports will serve to show the extent and value of this department of the Society s labours. In the report for 1849, Mr Thomson of Moat-Hall says " The Society s early shows of implements must be viewed chiefly in the light of bazaars or expositions. Neithei stewards nor judges had yet acquired the experience requisite for the adequate discharge of their office, so that such men as Messrs Garrett, Hornsby, Ransome, and a few others, would have laughed in their sleeves had they been told that they could learn anything in the Society s show- yard. In spite, however, of a creditable display on the part of a few leading firms, the majority of the implements exhibited at these early shows were of inferior construction and workmanship, and the general appearance of the exhibitions meagre and unsatisfactory. " The attention of some of the leading members of the Society (especially of the late lamented Mr Handley) was earnestly directed to the improvement of this department, and they soon perceived that little was gained by collecting implements in a show-yard for people to gaze at, unless an adequate trial could be made of their respective merits. To attain this end great exertions were made, and every improvement in the mode of trial was followed by so marked an increase in the number and merit of the imple ments brought forward at subseqxient shows, as to prove the strongest incentive to further effort. " At the Cambridge and Liverpool meetings, when these trials were in their infancy, their main attraction consisted of ploughing-matches on a large scale, which gratified sight seers, but gave no results that could be depended upon, and therefore disappointed all practical men. It would occupy time unnecessarily to trace the gradual changes which have led to the discontinuance of these showy exhi bitions, and the substitution in their place of quiet, business-like trials, in the presence of stewards and judges alone. Suffice it to say, that what they have lost in dis play, they have gained in efficiency, and consequently in favour with those classes for whose benefit they were de signed. At the York meeting, the improved mode of trying the thrashing-machines supplied a deficiency which, until that time, had been much felt, viz., the absence of any means of ascertaining the amount of power expended in working the machines under trial ; and it may now be asserted, with some confidence, that, with the exception of an occasional error or accident, the best implements are uniformly selected for prizes. " It now remains to answer the question proposed for consideration, viz., to what extent the great improvement made of late in agricultural implements is due to the exertions of this Society ; and with this view a tabular statement is subjoined, which shows the relative extent and importance of the Society s two first and two last shows of implements : No. of Awards. Exhibitors. Money. Medals. 1830 Oxford 23 5 4 1840 Cambridge .36 7 1848 York . .146 230 21 1849 Norwich . . 145 364 13 " From this it will be seen that at Cambridge, where the trial of implements was confined to one day, and was, in other respects, so immature as to be of little practical value, the number of exhibitors was only thirty-six, and the judges, in whom a certain discretionary power was vested, awarded no money and but seven medals, in consequence of the scarcity of objects deserving of reward ; whilst at York, eight years after, when trials lasted several days, and had attained a considerable degree of perfection, the number of exhibitors had increased four-fold. The additional amount offered in prizes at the later meetings has undoubtedly assisted in creating this great increase of competition, but it cannot be considered the principal cause, since the impl^ 1 ​328 A G R I C II L T IT H E [DRAINING ment-makers are unanimous in declaring that, even when most successful, the prizes they receive do not reimburse them for their expenses and loss of time. How, then, are the increased exertions of the machine-makers to be ac counted for 1 Simply by the fact that the trials of imple ments have gradually won the confidence of the farmer, so that, when selecting implements for purchase, he gives the preference to those which have received the Society s mark of approval. This inference is corroborated by the makers themselves, who readily admit that the winner of a prize, for any implement of general utility, is sure to receive an ample amount of orders, and that the award of a medal is worth on an average 50." In reporting upon the agricultural implement department of the Great Exhibition, Mr Pusey says " The yearly shows and trials of the Royal Agricultural Society have certainly done more in England for agricultural machines within the last ten years, than had been attempted anywhere in all former time It seems proved that since annual country shows were established by Lord Spencer, Mr tlandley, and others yet living, old implements have been improved, and new ones devised, whose performances stand the necessary inquiry as to the amount of saving they can effect. To ascertain that amount precisely is difficult ; but, looking through the successive stages of management, and seeing that the owner of a stock-farm is enabled, in the preparation of his land, by using lighter ploughs, to cast off one horse in three, and by adopting other simple tools to dispense altogether with a great part of his ploughing, that in the culture of crops by the various drills, horse labour can be partly reduced, the seed otherwise wanted partly saved, or the use of manures greatly economised, while the horse-hoe replaces the hoe at one-half the expense, that in harvest the American reapers can effect thirty men s work, whilst the Scotch cart replaces the old English waggon with exactly half the number of horses, that in preparing corn for man s food, the steam thrashing-machine saves two-thirds of our former expense, and in preparing food for stock, the turnip-cutter, at an outlay of Is., adds 8s. a-head in one winter to the value of sheep ; lastly, that in the indispensable but costly operation of draining, the materials have been reduced from 80s. to 15s. to one-fifth, namely, of their former cost, it seems to be proved that the efforts of agri cultural mechanists have been so far successful, as in all these main branches of farming labour, taken together, to effect a saving, on outgoings, of little less than one-half." Since these reports were made, the demand for improved agricultural implements and machinery has increased enormously, so much so that the manufacture of them is now a most important and a rapidly increasing branch of our national industry, and we quite anticipate that in a short time there will be such a general appreciation of the benefits of cultivation by steam power, and such a demand for engines and tackle to carry it out, as the makers and manufacturers will find it difficult to satisfy. Scottish agriculturists, in reading these reports, will pro bably note with self-gratulation, that some of the improve ments referred to as of recent introduction in England, viz., two-horse ploughs and one-horse carts, have long been estab lished among themselves. Indeed, they will find graceful acknowledgment of the fact in these reports. Unless alto gether blinded by prejudice, they will, however, see that our brethren south of the Tweed have already outstripped us in many particulars, and that unless our national Society, our mechanists, and farmers, exert themselves with correspond ing judgment and zeal, we must henceforth be fain to follow, where we at least fancy that we have hitherto been leading. But we have more important motives and encouragements to exertion than mere national emulation. The extent to which the cost of production of farm produce has been lessened by recent improvements in the implements of husbandry, and in the details of farm management, is greater than many are aware of. It seems to be in this direction mainly that the farmer must look for a set-off against the steadily increasing cost of land and labour. If by further improvements in his machinery and implements he is enabled to keep fewer horses, to get his deep tillage performed by j steam power, and his mowing and reaping accomplished by I the ordinary forces which he requires throughout the year, the reduction upon the prime cost of his produce will be really important. A hopeful element in this anticipated progress is that it tends directly to elevate the condition of the rural labourer. Every addition to the steam power and labour-saving machines used upon the farm implies an increased demand for cultured minds to guide them, a lessening of the drudgery heretofore imposed upon human thews and sinews, an equalising of employment throughout the year, and a better and steadier rate of wages. Believing, as we do, that on every farm enormous waste of motive power mechanical, animal, and manual is continuously going on through the imperfection of the implements and machines now in use, we would urge upon all concerned to look well to this ; for, with all our improvements, there is undoubtedly yet a large margin for retrenchment here. Besides the bulky and costly implements now enumerated, every farm must be provided with a considerable assortment of hand-implements and tools, all of which it is of conse quence to have good of their kind. Although not individu ally costly, they absorb a considerable capital in the aggre gate. When not in use, they require to be kept under lock, and at all times need to be well looked after. Without waiting to describe these in detail, let us now see how the work of the farm is conducted. CHAPTER VII. PREPARATION OF THE LAND FOR TILLAGE OPERATIONS. Section 1. When Required. Before those simple tillage operations which are necessary in every instance of committing seeds to the earth can bo gone about, there are more costly and elaborate processes of preparation which must be encountered in certain circum stances, in order to fit the soil for bearing cultivated crops. It is now only in exceptional cases that the British agri culturist has to reclaim land from a state of nature. The low-country farmer does occasionally meet with a patch of woodland, or a bank covered with gorse or brushwood, which he sets about converting into arable land. It is in the higher districts that, from the facilities now afforded for readily enriching poor soils by portable manures, the plough still frequently invades new portions of muir and bog, and transforms them into fields. The occupiers of land in these upland districts are accordingly still familiar with the processes of paring and burning, trenching, removing earth- fast stones, and levelling inequalities of surface. In break ing up land that has been for a course of years under pasturage, paring and burning are also frequently resorted to in all parts of the country. The grand improvement of all, thorough underground drainage, is common to every district and class of soils. Section 2. Draining. From the moist climate of Britain, draining is undoubtedly the all-important preliminary operation in setting about the improvement of the soil. To drain land is to rid it of its superfluous moisture. The rivers of a country with their tributary brooks and rills are the natxiral provision for removing the rain water which either flows directly from its surface, or which, after percolating through porous strata to an indefinite depth, is again discharged at the surface by springs. The latter mny ​OPERATIONS.] AGR1CULTU R E 329 thus be regarded as the outlets of a natural underground drainage. This provision for disposing of the water that falls from the clouds is usually so irregular in its distribu tion, and so imperfect in its operation, that it leaves much to be accomplished by human labour and ingenuity. The art of the drainer accordingly consists 1st, In improving the natural outfalls by deepening, straightening, or embanking rivers; and by supplementing these, when necessary, by artificial canals and ditches : and, 2J, In freeing the soil and subsoil from stagnant water, by means of artificial underground channels. The firiit of these operations, called trunk drair*age, is the most needful ; for until it be accomplished there are exten sive tracts of land, and that usually of the most valuable kind, to which the secondary process either cannot be applied at all, or only with the most partial and inefficient results. Very many of our British rivers and streams flow with a sluggish and tortuous course through valleys of flat alluvial soil, which, as the coast is approached, expand into extensive plains, but little elevated above the level of the sea. Here the course of the river is obstructed by shifting shoals and sand-banks, and by the periodic influx of the tides. The consequence is, that immense tracts of valuable land are at all times in a water-logged and comparatively worthless state, and on every recurrence of a flood are laid entirely under water. In a subsequent chapter on " Waste Lands" some account shall be given of the extent of this evil, and of the efforts that have been successfully devoted to its remedy. Some of these fen-land and estuary drain age works have been accomplished in the face of natural obstacles of the most formidable character, and constitute trophies of engineering talent of which the country may well be proud. Great as the natural difficulties are which have to be encountered in such cases, there are others of a differ ent kind which have often proved more impracticable. It has been found easier to exclude the sea and restrain land- floods, than to overcome the prejudices and reconcile the conflicting interests of navigation companies, commissioners of sewers, owners of mills, and landed proprietors. Although all these classes suffer the most serious losses and incon veniences from the defective state of many of our rivers, it is found extremely difficult to reconcile their conflict ing claims, and to allocate to each his proper share of the cost of improvements by which all are to benefit. A most interesting and instructive illustration of the urgent necessity for improving the state of our rivers, of the difficulties to be encountered in doing so, and of the incalculable benefits thus to be obtained, has been given in an essay on Trunk Drainage, by John Algernon Clarke, Esq., published in vol. xv. (part first) of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England. Mr Clarke, after some most important observations on trunk drainage, describes in detail works projected under powers granted in an Act of Parlia ment, passed in 1852, "constituting commissioners for the improvement of the river None and the navigation thereof." There is not a district of the kingdom in which works similar in kind are not absolutely indispensable, before extensive tracts of valuable land can be rendered available for profitable cultivation by means of underground drainage. It is interestingto know that the necessity for trunk drainage, and the means of accomplishing it, were distinctly set before the public 200 years ago by a practical draining engineer, to whose writings the attention of the agricultural com munity has been frequently directed of late by Mr Parkes, Mr Gisborne, and others. From the third edition (1652) of The Improver Improved, by Walter Blithe, the author referred to, in which the true principles of land drainage are stated as distinctly, and urged as earnestly, as by any of our modern writers, we here quote the following remarks : "A strait water-course, cut a considerable depth, in a thousand parts of this nation, would be more advantageous than we are aware of, or I will task myself here to dispute further. And though many persons are interested therein, and some will agree, and others will oppose ; one creek lyeth on one side of the river, in one lord s manor, and another lyeth on the other side, and divers men own the same ; why may not one neighbour change with another, when both are gainers ? If not, why may they not be. compelled for their own good, and tfie commonwealth s advantage? I daresay thousands of acres of very rich land may hereby be gained, and possibly as many more much amended, that are almost destroyed ; but a law is want ing herein for the present, which I hope will be supplied if it may appear advancement to the public ; for to private interests it is not possible to be the least prejudice, when every man hath benefit, and each man may also have an equall allowance if the least prejudiced. But a word or two more, a7id so shall conclude this chapter and it is a little to further this improvement through a great destruction (as some may say) ; it is the removing or the destroying of all such mills, and none else, as drown and corrupt more lands than themselves are worth to the commonwealth, and they are such as are kept up or dammed so high as that they boggyfie all the lands that lye under their mill-head. Such mills as are of little worth, or are by constant great charges maintained, I advise to ba pulled down ; the advance of the land, when the water is let run his course, and not impounded, will be of far greater value many times. But in case the mills should be so necessary and profitable too, and far more than the lands they spoil, I shall then advise, that under thy mill-dam, so many yards wide from it as may prevent breaking through, thou make a very deep trench all along so far as thy lands are putrefied, and thereinto receive all the issuing, spew ing water, and thereby stop or cut off the feeding of it upon thy meadow, and carry it away back into thy back-water or false course, by as deep a trench, cut through the most low and convenient part of thy meads. But put case that thou shouldst have no convenient fall on that side thy mill-dam, then thou must make some course, or plant some trough under thy mill-dam, and so carry it under into some lower course that may preserve it from soaking thy meadows or pastures under it ; and by this means thou maist in a good measure reduce thy land to good soundness, and probably wholly cure it, and preserve thy mill also." It is painful to reflect that after the lapse of two cen turies, we should still see, as Blithe did, much "gallant land" ruined for want of those draining operations which he so happily describes. A clear outfall of sufficient depth being secured, the way Subsoil is open for the application of underground draining. And here it may be proper to state, that there is very little of the land of Great Britain naturally so dry as not to be susceptible of improvement by artificial draining ; for land is not in a perfect condition with respect to drainage, unless all the rain that falls upon it can sink down to the minimum depth required for the healthy development of the roots of cultivated crops, and thence find vent, either through a naturally porous subsoil or by artificial channels. Much controversy has taken place as to what this minimum depth is. Suffice it to say, that opinion is now decidedly in favour of a greater depth than was considered necessary even a few years ago, and that the best authorities concur in stating it at from three to four feet. There are persona who doubt whether the roots of our ordinary grain or green crops ever penetrate to such a depth as has now been specified. A careful examination will satisfy any one who makes it, that minute filamentary rootlets are sent down to extraordinary depths, wherever they are not arrested by stagnant water. It has also been questioned whether any benefit accrues to crops from this deep descent of their roots. Some persons have even asserted that it is only when they do not find food near at hand that they thus wander. But it must be borne in mind that plants obtain moisture as well as nourishment by means of their roots, and the fact is well known that plants growing in a deep soil resting on a porous subsoil seldom or never suffer from drought. It is instructive, too, on this point, to observe the practice of the most skilful gardeners, and see tho importance which they attach to trenching, the great depth I. - 42 ​330 AGRICULTURE [DRAINING at which they often deposit manure, and the stress which they lay upon thorough drainage. On the other hand, it is well known that soils which soonest become saturated, and run from the surface in wet weather, are precisely those which parch and get chapped the soonest in drought. The effectual way to secure our crops at once from drown ing and parching, is to put the land in a right condition with respect to drainage. All soils possess more or less the power of absorbing and retaining water. Pure clays have it in the greatest degree, and gritty siliceous ones in the smallest. In dry weather this power of attracting moisture is constantly operating to supply from below the loss taking place by evaporation at the surface. In heavy rains, as soon as the entire mass has drunk its fill, the excess begins to flow off below ; and therefore a deep stratum, through which water can percolate, but in which it can never stagnate that is, never exceed the point of saturation is precisely that in which plants are most secure from the extremes of drought and drowning. If a perfect condition of the soil with respect to drainage is of importance for its influence in preserving it in a right condition as respects moisture, it is still more so for its effects upon its temperature. All who are conversant with rural affairs are familiar with that popular classification of soils in virtue of which such as are naturally dry are also invariably spoken of as warm and early ; and conversely, that wet soils are invariably described as being cold and late. This classification is strictly accurate, and the explana tion of it is simple. An excess of water in soil keeps, down its temperature in various ways. In passing into th e state of vapour it rapidly carries off the heat which the joil has obtained from the sun s rays. Water possesses also a high radiating power ; so that, when present in the soil in excess, and in a stagnant state, it is constantly carrying off heat by evaporation and radiation. On the other hand, stagnant water conveys no heat downwards ; for although tho surface is warmed, the portion of water thus heated being lightest, remains floating on the surface, and will give back its heat to the atmosphere, but conveys none downwards. When the surface of stagnant water becomes colder than the general mass, the very opposite effect immediately ensues ; for as water cools its density increases, and thus causes an instant sinking of the portion that has been cooled, and a rising of a warm portion from below to take its place this movement containing until the whole has been lowered to 40, at which point water reaches its maximum density, while, if the temperature be reduced a few degrees more, water will begin to freeze. It is thus that soil surcharged with water is kept at a lower temperature than similar soil that has a sufficient natural or artificial drainage. But while the presence of stagnant water in a soil has this injurious power of lowering its temperature, a very different effect ensues when rain water can sink freely into it to a depth of several feet, and then find a ready exit by drainage ; for in this case the rain water carries down with it the heat which it has acqiiired from the atmosphere and from the sun-heated surface, and imparts it to the subsoil. There is as yet a lack of published experiments to show the ordinary increase of temperature at various depths and in different soils, as the result of draining wet land. Those conducted by Mr Parkes, in a Lancashire bog in June 1837, showed, as the mean of thirty-five observations, that the drained and cultivated soil at seven inches from the surface was 10 warmer than the adjoining undrained bog in its natural state at the same depth. It is understood that later experiments conducted by the same gentleman on an extended scale fully establish the fact, that an increased temperature of the soil is an unfailing accompaniment of thorough draining. The importance of this result cannot well be over-rated. The temperature and other conditions of the atmosphere, which we call climate, are placed beyond human control ; but this power of raising the temperature of all wet, and consequently cold soils, becomes tantamount in some of its results to a power of improving the climate. There are, accordingly, good grounds for stating that in numerous cases grain crops have ripened sooner by ten or twelve days than they would have done but for the draining of the land on which they grew. The points which we have thus briefly touched upon are so essential to an intelligent appreciation of the subject, that we have felt constrained to notice them, however meagrely. But our space forbids more than a mere enumera tion of some of the many evils inseparable from the presence of stagnant water in the soil, and of the benefits that flow from its removal. Wet land, if in grass, produces only the coarser grasses, and many sub-aquatic plants and mosses, which are of little or no value for pasturage ; its herbage is late of coming in spring, and fails early in autumn ; the animals grazed upon it are unduly liable to disease, and sheep, especially, to the fatal rot. When land is used as arable, tillage operations are easily interrupted by rain, and the period always much limited in which they can be prosecuted at all ; the compactness and toughness of such land renders each operation more arduous, and more of them necessary, than in the case of dry land. The surface must necessarily be thrown into ridges, and the furrows and cross-cuts duly cleared out after each process of tillage, on which surface expedients as much labour has probably been expended in each thirty years as would now suffice to make drains enough to lay it permanently dry. With all theso precautions the best seed-time is often missed, and this usually proves the prelude to a scanty crop, or to a late and disastrous harvest. The cultivation of the turnip and other root crops, which require the soil to be wrought to a deep and free tilth, either becomes altogether impracticable, and must be abandoned for the safe but costly bare fallow, or is carried out with great labour and hazard ; and the crop, when grown, can neither be removed from the ground, nor consumed upon it by sheep without damage by poaching. The dung, lime, and other manure, that is applied to sncli land is in a great measure wasted ; and the breaking of the subsoil and general deep tillage, so beneficial in other circumstances, is here positively mischievous, as it does but increase its power of retaining water. Taking into account the excessive labour, cost, and risk, inseparable from the cultivation of wet land, and the scanty and precarious character of the crops so obtained, it would in many cases be wiser to keep such lands in grass, than to prosecute arable husbandry under such adverse circumstances. These very serious evils can either be entirely removed, or, at the least, very greatly lessened by thorough draining. It often happens that naturally porous soils are so soaked by springs, or so water-logged by resting upon an impervious subsoil, or, it may be, so drowned for want of an outfall in some neighbouring river or stream, that draining at once effects a perfect cure, and places them on a par with the best naturally dry soils. In the case of clay soils, the improve ment effected by draining is in some respects greater than in any other class, but still it cannot change the inherent properties of clay. This has sometimes been overlooked by sanguine improvers, who, hastily assuming that their strong land, when drained, would henceforward be as friable and sound as the more porous kinds, have proceeded to treat it on this assumption, and have found to their cost that clay, however well drained, will still get into mortar and clods, if it is tilled or trodden on too soon after rain. It is entirely owing to such rash and unskilful management that an opinion has sometimes got abroad, that clay lands are injured by draining. They merely retain the qualities ​OPERATIONS.] peculiar to clay, and when tney are treated judiciously, show as good a comparative benefit from draining as other soils. The only instances in which even temporary injury arises from draining is in the case of some peaty and fen lands, which are so loose that they suffer from drought in protracted diy weather. As such lands are usually level and have water-courses near them, this inconvenience admits of an easy remedy by shutting up the main outlets, and then admitting water into the ditches. The drains in this way become ready channels for applying the needed moisture by a kind of subterraneous irrigation. Thorough. The beneficial effects of thorough draining are of a very decisive and striking kind. The removal of stagnant water from a stratum of 4 feet in depth, and the establishing of a free passage for rain water and air from the surface to the level of the drains, speedily effects most important changes in the condition of the soil and subsoil. Plough ing and other tillage operations are performed more easily than before in consequence of a more friable state of the soil. Moderate rains which formerly would have sufficed to arrest these operations do so no longer, and heavy falls of rain cause a much shorter interruption of these labours than they did when the land was in its natural state. Deep tillage, whether by the common or subsoil plough (which formerly did harm), now aids the drainage, and is every way beneficial. Ridges and surface furrows being no longer needed the land can be kept flat, with great benefit to crops and furtherance to field operations. An earlier seed-time and harvest, better crops, a healthier live stock, and an improved style of husbandry, are the usual and well known sequents of judiciously conducted drainage operations. In short, the most experienced and skilful agriculturists now declare with one consent that good drainage is an indispens able preliminary to good cultivation. History. Although it has been reserved to the present times to see land draining reduced to a system based on scientific prin ciples, or very great improvement effected in its details, it is by no means a modern discovery. The Romans were careful to keep their arable lands dry by means of open trenches, and there are even some grounds for surmising that they used covered drains for the same purpose. In dubitable proof exists that they constructed underground channels by means of tubes of burned earthenware ; but it seems more probable that these were designed to cany water to their dwellings, <fcc., than that they were used simply as drains. Recent inquiries and discoveries have also shown that it is at least several centuries, since covered channels of various kinds were in use by British husbandmen for drying their land. It is, at all events, two centuries since Captain Walter Blithe wrote as follows : Blithe. " Superfluous and venomous water which lyeth in the earth and much occasioneth bogginesse, mirinesse, rushes, flags, and other filth, is indeed the chief cause of barrenesse in any land of this nature Drayning is an excellent and chiefest means for their reducement ; and for the depth of such draynes, I cannot possibly bound, because I have not time and opportunity to take in all circumstances And for thy drayning trench, it must be made so deepe that it goe to the bottome of the cold, spewing moyst water, that feeds the flagg and the rush ; for the widenesse of it, use thine owne liberty, but be sure to make it so wide as thou mayest goe to the bottome of it, which must be so low as any moysture lyeth, which moysture usually lyeth tinder the over and second swarth of the earth, in some gravel or sand, or else, where some greater stones are mixt with clay, under which thou must goe halfe one spades graft deepe at least ; yea, suppose this corruption that feeds and nourisheth the rash or flagg should lie a yard or foure foot deepe, to the bottome of it thou must goe, if ever thou wilt drayne it to purpose And for the drayning trench 331 be sure thou indeavour to carry it as neare upon a straight line as possible To the bottome where the spewing spring lyeth thou must goe, and one spades depth or graft beneath, how deep so ever it be, if thou wilt drayne thy land to purpose. I am forced to use repetitions of some things, because of the suitableness of the things to which they are applyed ; as also because of the slownesse of peoples apprehensions of them, as appears by the non-practice of them, the which wherever you see drayning and trenching you shall rarely find few or none of them wrought to the bottome Go to the bottome of the bog, and there make a trench in the sound ground, or else in some old ditch, so low as thou verily conceivest thy selfe assuredly under the level of the spring or spewing water, and then carry up thy trench into thy bogg straight through the middle of it, one foot under that spring ; . . . . but for these common and many trenches, oft times crooked too, that men usually make in their boggy grounds, some one foot, some two, never having respect to the cause or matter that maketh the bogg to take that way, I say away with them as a great piece of folly, lost labour and spoyle After thou has brought a trench to the bottom of the bog, then cut a good substantial trench about thy bog; and when thou hast so done make one work or two just over- thwart it, upivards and dowmvards, all under the matter of the bog. Then thou must take good green faggots, willow, alder, elme, or thorne, and lay in the bottome of thy works, and then take thy turfe thou tookest up in the top of thy trench, and plant upon them with the green sward down wards ; or take great pebbles, stones, or flint stones, and so Jill up the bottome of thy trench about fifteen inches high, and take thy turfe and plant it as aforesaid, being cut very fit for the trench, as it may join close as it is layd downe, and then having covered it all over with earth, and made it even as thy other ground, waite and expect a wonderfull effect through the blessing of God." These sagacious arguments and instructions were doubt- Elkhij less acted upon by some persons in his own times and since ; but still they had never attained to general adoption, and were ultimately forgotten. Towards the close of last century, Mr Elkington, a Warwickshire farmer, discovered and promulgated a plan of laying dry sloping land that is drowned by the outbursting of springs. When the higher lying portion of such land is porous, rain falling upon it sinks down until it is arrested by clay or other impervious matter, which causes it again to issue at the surface and wet the lower-lying ground. Elkington showed that by cutting a deep drain through the clay, aided when necessary by wells or augur holes, the subjacent bed of sand or gravel in which a body of water is pent up by the clay, as in a vessel, might be tapped, and the water conveyed harmlessly in the covered drain to the nearest ditch or stream. In the circumstances to which it is applicable, and in the hands of skilful drainers, Elkington s plan, by bringing into play the natural drainage furnished by porous strata, is often eminently successful. His system was given to the public in a quarto volume, edited by a Mr John Johnston of Edinburgh, who does not seem to have shared the engineer ing talents of the man whose discoveries he professes to ex pound. During the thirty or forty years subsequent to the publication of this volume, most of the draining that took place was on this system, and an immense capital was expended in such works with very varying results. Things continued in this position until about the year 1823, when the late James Smith of Deanston, having discovered anew Smith those principles of draining so long before indicated by Deans Blithe, proceeded to exemplify them in his own practice, and to expound them to the public in a way that speedily effected a complete revolution in the art of draining, and marked an era in our agricultural progress. Instead of ​332 A G R I C IT L T II R E [DRAINING persisting in fruitless attempts to dry extensive areas by a few dexterous cuts, he insisted on the necessity of pro viding every field that needed draining at all with a complete system of parallel underground channels, running in the line of the greatest slope of the ground, and so near to each other that the whole rain falling at any time upon the surface should sink down and be carried off by the drains. The distances between drains he showed must be regulated by the greater or less reteutiveness of the ground operated upon, and gave 10 feet as the minimum, and 40 feet as the maximum of these distances. The depth which he pre scribed for his parallel drains was 30 inches, and these were to be filled with 12 inches of stones small enough to pass through a 3-inch ring in short, a new edition of Blithe s drain. A main receiving-drain was to be carried along the lowest part of the ground, with sub-mains in every subordinate hollow that the ground presented. These receiving drains were directed to be formed with a culvert of stone work, or of tiles, of waterway sufficient to contain the greatest volume of water at any time requiring to be passed from the area to which they respectively supplied the outlet. The whole cultivated lands of Britain being disposed in ridges which usually lie in the line of greatest ascent, it became customary to form the drains in each furrow, or in each alternate, or third, or fourth one, as the case might require or views of economy dictate, and hence the system soon came to be popularly called furrow draining. From the number and arrangement of the drains, the terms frequent and parallel were also applied to it. Mr Smith himself more appropriately named it, from its effects, thorough draining. The sound principles thus promulgated by him were speedily adopted and extensively carried into practice. The great labour and cost incurred in procuring stones in adequate quantities, and the difficulty of carting them in wet seasons, soon led to the substitution of tiles and soles of burned earthenware. The limited supply and high price of these tiles for a time impeded the progress of the new system of draining ; but the invention of tile-making machines by the Marquis of Tweeddale and others, removed this impediment, and gave a mighty stimulus to this fundamental agricultural improvement. The substitution of cylindrical pipes for the original horse shoe tiles has still further lowered the cost and increased the efficiency and permanency of drainage works, rn The system introduced and so ably expounded by Smith 11 of Deanston has now been virtually adopted by all drainers. Variations in matters of detail (having respect chiefly to the depth and distance apart of the parallel drains) have indeed been introduced ; but the distinctive features of his system are now recognised and acted upon by all scientific drainers. 11. In setting about the draining of a field, or farm, or estate, the first point is to secure, at whatever cost, a proper outfall. The lines of the receiving drains must next be determined, and then the direction of the parallel drains. The former must occupy the lowest part of the natural hollows, and the latter must run in the line of the greatest ascent of the ground. In the case of flat land, where a fall is obtained chiefly by increasing the depth of the drains at their lower ends, these lines may be disposed in any direction that is found convenient ; but in undu lating ground a single field may require several distinct sets of drains lying at different angles, so as to suit its several slopes. When a field is ridged in the line of the greatest ascent of the ground, there is an obvious convenience in adopting the furrows as the site of the drains ; but wherever this is not the case the drains must be laid off to suit the contour of the ground, irrespective of the furrows altogether. When parts of a field are flat, and other parts have a con siderable acclivity, it is expedient to cut a receiving drain near to the bottom of the slopes, and to give the flat ground an independent set of drains. In laying off receiving drains it is essential to give hedge-rows and trees a good offing, lest the conduit should be obstructed by roots. When a drain must of necessity pass near to trees, we have found it practicable to exclude their roots from it by the use of coal-tar. In our own practice, a drain carried through the corner of a plantation has by this expedient remained free from obstruction for now fourteen years. In this instance the tar was applied in the following manner : Sawdust and coal-tar being mixed together to the consis tency of ordinary mortar, a layer of this was laid in the bottom of the trench; the drain-pipes were then laid, and completely coated overwiththe same mixture to the thickness of an inch, and the earth carefully replaced in the ordinary way. When a main drain is so placed that parallel ones empty into it from both sides, care should be taken that the inlets of the latter are not made exactly opposite to each other. Indeed, we have found it expedient in such cages to have two receiving drains parallel to each other, each to receive the subordinate drains from its own side only. As these- receiving drains act also as ordinary drains to the land through which they pass, no additional cost is incurred by having two instead of one, provided they arc as far apart as the other drains in the field. Much of the success of draining depends on the skilful planning of these main drains, and in making them large enough to discharge, the greatest flow of water to which they may be exposed. Very long main drains are to be avoided. Numerous outlets are also objectionable, from their liability to obstruction. An outlet to an area of from ten to fifteen acres is a gcod arrangement. These outlets should be faced with mason- work, and guarded by iron gratings. The depths of the parallel drains must next be deter- Depths, mined. In order to obtain proper data for doing so, the subsoil must be carefully examined by digging test-holes in various places, and also by taking advantage of any quarries, deep ditches, or other cuttings in the proximity, that afford a good section of the ground. We have already expressed an opinion that the drains should not be less than four feet deep ; but it is quite possible that the discovery at a greater depth than four feet of a seam of gravel, or other very porous material charged with water, underlying considerable portions of the ground, may render it expedient to carry the drains so deep as to reach this scam. Such a seam, when furnished with sufficient outlets, supplies a natural drain to the whole area under which it extends. When such exceptional cases are met with, they are precisely those in which deep drains, at Avide intervals, can be trusted to dry the whole area. When the subsoil consists of a tenacious clay of considerable depth, it is considered by many persons that a greater depth than three feet is unnecessary. The greater depth is, however, always to be preferred ; for a drain of four feet, if it works at all, not only does all that a shallower one can do, but frees from stagnant water a body of subsoil on Avhich the other has no effect at all. It has indeed been alleged that such deep drains may get so closed over by the clay that water will stand above them. If the surface of clay soil is wrought into puddle by improper usage, water can undoubt edly be made to stand for a time over the shallowest drains as easily as over the deepest. But the contraction which takes place in summer in good alluvial clays gradually estab lishes fissures, by which water reaches the drains. In such soils it is usually a few years before the full effect of draining is attained. This is chiefly due to the contraction and con sequent crackir.g of clay soils in summer just referred to, and partly, as Mr Parkes thinks, to the mining operations of the common earth-worm. Both of these natural aids to drainage operate with greater force with drains f our feetdeep than when they are shallower. The tardy percolation of water through ​OPERATIONS.] AGRICULTURE 333 clay soils seems also a reason why in such cases it should get the benefit of a greater fall, by making the drain deep. Draining is always a costly operation, and it is therefore peculiarly needful to have it executed in such a way that it shall be effectual and permanent. We advocate a minimum depth of four feet, because of our strong conviction that such drains carefully made will be found to have both these qualities. And this opinion is the result of dear-bought experience, for we have found it necessary in our own case to re-open a very considerable extent of 30-inch drains in consequence of their having totally failed to lay the land dry, and to replace them by four feet ones, which have proved perfectly efficacious. In doing this we have seen a 30-inch drain opened up and found to be perfectly dry, and yet when the same trench was deepened to four feet there was quite a run of water from it. Now also that steam power has become available for the tillage of the soil, and is certain, at no distant day, to be in general requisition for that purpose, it is peculiarly expedient to have the drains laid at such a depth as to admit of that potent agency being used for loosening the subsoil to depths hitherto unattain able, not only without hazard to the drains, but with the certainty of greatly augmenting their efficiency. Therefore we earnestly dissuade all parties who are about to undertake drainage works from giving ear to representations about the sufficiency and economy of shallow drains. These, doubtless, cost somewhat less to begin with, but in thousands of cases they fail to accomplish the desired end, and the unfortunate owners, after all their outlay, are left to the miserable alternative of seeing their land imperfectly drained, or of executing the works anew, and thus losing the whole cost of the first and inefficient ones. The extreme reluctance with which the latter alternative is necessarily regarded will undoubtedly operate for a long time in keeping much land that has been hastily and imperfectly drained from partici pating in the benefits of thorough drainage. The distance apart at which the drains should be cut must be determined by the nature of the subsoil. In the most retentive clays it need not be less than 18 feet. On the other hand, this distance cannot safely be exceeded in the case of any sub soil in which clay predominates, although it should not be of the most retentive kind. In all parts of the country instances abound in which drains cut in such subsoils, from 24 to 30 feet apart, have totally failed to lay the land dry. When ground is once pre-occupied by drains too far apart, there is no remedy but to form a supplementary one betwixt each pair of the first set ; and thus, by exceeding the proper width at first, the space betwixt the drains is unavoidably reduced to 12 or 15 feet, although 18 feet would originally have sufficed. It is only with a decided porosity in the subsoil, and in proportion to the degree of that porosity, that the space between drains can safely be increased to 24, or 30, or 36 feet. In those exceptional cases in which drains more than 36 feet apart prove effectual, their success is due to the principle on which Elkington s system is founded. A few years ago an opinion obtained currency, that as the depth of drains was increased their width apart might with safety be increased in a corresponding ratio. And hence it came to be confidently asserted, that with a depth of 5 or 6 feet a width of from 40 to 60 feet might be adopted with a certainty of success, even in the case of retentive soils. We believe that experience has already demonstrated the unsoundness of this opinion. At all events, in recommending a minimum depth of 4 feet, we do so on the ground that (other things being equal) the whole benefits of drainage are more fully and certainly secured by drains of this depth than by those of 2| or 3 feet. In ordinary cases an increase of depth does not compensate for an increase of the width apart of the drains. Draining can be carried on at all seasons, but is usually best done in summer or autumn. The digging is usually paid for by task work, and the setting of the pipes by day s wages. A thoroughly trustworthy and experienced workman is selected for the latter work, with instructions to set no pipes until he is satisfied that the depth of the drains and level of the bottoms are correct. When the soil is returned into the drains all defects are of course buried, and it therefore be hoves the landlord, or his substitute, whether tenant cr bailiff, to exercise a vigilant oversight of draining operations. Unless carefully executed they cannot be efficient; and with out efficient drainage all other agricultural operations must be carried on under grievous disadvantages. The extent of land in Great Britain naturally so dry as not to need artificial drainage is very much less than even practical farmers, who have not studied the subject, are at all aware of. Cylindrical pipes with collars are undoubtedly the best Pipes, draining material that has yet been discovered. The collars referred to are simply short pieces of pipe, just so wide in the bore as to admit of the smaller pipes which form the drain passing freely through them. In use, one of these collars is so placed as to encase the ends of each contiguous pair of tubes, and thus forms a loose fillet around each joining. The ends of these pipes being by this means securely kept in contact, a continuous canal for the free passage of water is infallibly insured, the joinings are guarded against the entrance of mud or vermin, and yet sufficient space is left for the admission of water. Pipes of all diameters, from 1 inch to 1 6 inches, are now to be had ; those from 1 to 2 inches in the bore are used for subordinate drains ; the larger sizes for sub-main and main receiving drains. Collars are used with the smaller sizes only, large pipes not being so liable to shift their position as small ones. In constructing a drain, it is of much importance that the bottom be cut out just wide enough to admit the pipes and no more. Pipes, Avhen thus accurately fitted in, are much less liable to derangement than when laiel in the bottom of a trench several times their width, and into which a mass of loose earth must necessarily be re turned. This accurate fitting is now quite practicable in the case of soils tolerably free from stones, from the excellence of the draining tools that have lately been introduced. The following cut represents the most import ant of these tools. c and e are long tapering spades for digging out the miel- dle and bottom spits. a, d, and/ recurve el scoops for clearing out the debris, and b a pipe-layer, by means of which a workman standing at the margin of a drain hooks up a pipe and collar, and deposits them easily and accurately in the deep narrow trench. If a quicksand is encountered in constructing a drain, it will be found expedient to put a layer of straw in the bottom of. the trench, and then, instead of the ordinary pipe and collar, to use at such a place a double set of pipes one within the other taking care that the joinings of the inner set are covered by the centres of the outer ones. By such precautions the water gets vent, and the running sand ia excluded from the drain. When a brook has been diverted from its natural course for mill-power or irrigating purposes, it often happens that portions of land are thereby deprived of the outfall required to admit of their being drained to Dr. iimii" Tools. ​834 AGRICULTURE [DKAINING a proper depth. In such cases it is frequently practicable to obtain the needed outlet by carrying a main drain through below the water-course, by using at that point a few yards of cast-iron pipe, and carefully filling up the trench with clay puddle, so that there maybe no leakage from the water-course into the drain. While this is being done the water must either be turned off or carried over the tern porary gap in a wooden trough. The cost of draining is so much influenced by the ever- varying price of labour and materials, and by the still more varying character of the land to be operated upon, that it is impossible to give an estimate of the cost that will admit of general application. The following tabular data, taken chiefly from Mr Bailey Denton s valuable treatise, are pre sented to aid those who wish to form such an estimate : TABLE I. Shorving the number of rods of drain per acre at given distances apart, and the number of pipes of given lengths required per acre. Intervals between Rods per 12-inch 13-inch 14-inch 15-inch the drains acre. pipes. pipes. pipes. pipes. in feet. 18 146 24 2234 2074 1936 21 125f 2074 1915 1778 1659 24 110 1815 1676 1555 1452 27 97 1613 1489 1383 1290 30 88 1452 1340 1244 1161 TABLE II. Showing the cost of draining per acre at different intervals between the drains. 18 feet apart. 21 feet apart. 24 feet apart. 27 feet apart. 30 feet apart. Labour, cutting and filling in at 6s. per rod s. d. 3 13 4 259 064 12 2 050 020 016 s. d. 3 210 119 2 055 010 6 050 020 016 s. d. 215 1 14 3 049 092 050 020 016 S. d. 2 811 110 6 043 082 050 020 016 S. d. 240 1 7 5 039 074 050 020 016 Material, pipes for minor drains, 18s. per 1000 Haulage, two miles, and de livery in fields at 2s. 6d. per 1000 ., Pipe-laying and finishing, Id. per rod Superintendence, foreman . . Extra for mains Iron-outlet pipes, and ma sonry, and extra labour... Total 7 6 1 1 2 10 665 019 7 5 11 8 17 1 504 15 3 411 13 8 Add for collars, if used 8 8 11 760 689 5 15 7 548 Various attempts have from time to time been made to lower the cost of draining land by the direct application of animal or steam power to the work of excavation. The Steam Draining Plough. A Engine. a Large drum. a 1 Small drum. B B> Snatch blocks C Anchor / Large rope S Pulley attached toplough. P Draining-plough. G Small rope. H Anchor and sheave for small rope. most successful of these attempts is the steam-draining apparatus invented by Mr John Fowler of Bristol, usually called Foioler s draining plough. A six-horse portable steam-engine is anchored in one corner of the field to be drained. It gives motion to two drums, to each of which a rope 500 yards long is attached, the one uncoiling as the other is wound up. These ropes pass round blocks which are anchored at each end of the intended line of drain, and are attached one to the front and the other to the hinder end of the draining apparatus. This consists of a framework, in which is fixed, at any required depth not exceeding 3 feet, a strong coulter terminating in a short horizontal bar of cylindrical iron, with a piece of rope attached to it, on which a convenient number of drain pipes are strung. This frame being pulled along by the engine, the coulter is forced through the soil at a regulated depth, and deposits its string of pipes with unerring accuracy, thus forming, as it proceeds, a perfect drain. The supply of pipes is kept up by means of holes previously dug in the line of the drain, at distances corresponding to the length of the rope on which they are strung. This machine was subjected to a very thorough trial at the meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society of England at Lincoln in 1854, on which occasion a silver medal and very high commendation were awarded to it. In March 1855 it was publicly stated that five of these im plements are now at work in different parts of England, and that already 10,000 acres of land have been drained by means of them. At the Lincoln trial it was satisfactorily proved that this implement could work at a depth of 3i feet. As it moved along, the soil on each side, to the width of 2 or 3 feet, seemed to be loosened. It is therefore probable that this implement, or at least one propelled on the same principle, may yet be used a-s a subsoil disin tegrator. A great stimulus has recently been given to the improve- Drainage ment of land by the passing of a series of Acts of Parlia- Acts. inent, Avhich have removed certain obstacles that effectually hindered the investment of capital in works of drainage and kindred ameliorations. By the first of these Acts, passed in 1846, a sum of 4,000,000 of the public money was authorised to be advanced to landowners to be expended in draining their lands. The Enclosure Commissioners were charged with the allocation of this money and the superintendence of its outlay. The most important pro visions of this Act are that it enables the possessors of entailed estates (equally with others) to share in the benefits of this fund ; that it provides, on terms very favourable to the borrower, for the repayment of the money so advanced by twenty-two annual instalments ; that before sanctioning the expenditure of these funds on drainage works, the com missioners must have a report from a qualified inspector, to the effect that they are likely to prove remunerative ; and, finally, that the works must be performed according to specifications prepared by the inspector, and approved by the commissioners, who have seldom allowed of a less depth of drain than 3| feet. By the end of the year 1854 the whole of this money was allocated, and more than half of it actually expended. Scottish landowners were so prompt to discern, and so eager to avail themselves of this public fund, that more than half of it fell to their share. The great success of this measure, and the rapid absorption of the fund provided by it, soon led to further legislative Acts, by which private capital has been rendered available for the improvement of land, by draining and otherwise, on conditions similar to those just enumerated. These Acts are 1st, The Private Moneys Drainage Act (12 and 13 Viet, c. 100), limited to draining. 2cZ, The West of England, or South-West Land Draining Company s Act (11 and 12 Viet., c. 142), for the purpose of draining, irrigation and warping, embanking, reclaiming and enclosing, and road-making. ​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, <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 " water runs better in a crooked furrow than in a straight one," 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. ​AGRICULTURE [TILLAGE CHAPTER VIII. TILLAGE OPERATIONS. Sect ion 1 . Plough ing. When the natural green sward, or ground that has been cleared of a cultivated crop, is to be prepared for the sowing or planting of further crops, the plough leads the way in breaking up the compact surface, by cutting from it succes sive slices, averaging about ten inches in breadth by seven in depth, which it turns half over upon each other to the right-hand side. This turning of the slices or furrows to one side only renders it necessary to square off the space to be ploughed into parallelograms, half the slices of which are laid the one way and the other half the other, by the going and returning of the plough. These parallel spaces are variously terined riJgts, stetches, lands, orffirings, which in practice vary in width from a few furrows to 30 yards. When very narrow spaces are used, a waste of labour ensues, from the necessity of opening out and then reclosing an extra number of index or guiding furrows ; while very wide ones involve a similar waste from the distance which the plough must go empty in traversing at the ends. The spaces thus formed by equal numbers of furrow-slices turned from opposite sides have necessarily a rounded outline, and are separated by open channels. In a moist climate and im pervious soil, this ridging of the surface causes rain-water to pass off more rapidly, and keeps the soil drier than would be the case if it was kept flat. Hence the cultivated lands of Great Britain almost invariably exhibit this ridged form of surface. Until the art of under-ground draining Avas discovered, this was indeed the only mode of keeping cultivated ground tolerably dry. But it is at best a very dofsctive method, and attended by many disadvantages. When land is naturally dry, or has been made so by thorough drainage, the flatter its surface is kept the better for the crops grown upon it. We are not forgetful that there are, in various parts of Great Britain, clays so impervious that probably no amount of draining or disintegration of the subsoil will render it safe to dispense with ridging. These, however, are exceptional cases, and, as a rule, such a con dition of soil and subsoil should be aimed at as will admit of this rude expedient of ridging being altogether dispensed with. Unless land can absorb the whole rain which falls upon it, its full range of fertility cannot be developed ; for the same showers which aggravate the coldness and sterility of impervious and already saturated soils carry down with them, and impart to those that arc pervious, ever fresh sup plies of genial influences. Instead, then, of this perennial source of fertility being encouraged to run off by surface channels, or to stagnate in the soil and become its bane, let provision be made for its free percolation through an open stratum several feet in thickness, and then for its escape by drains of such depth and frequency as each particular case requires. When this is attained, a flat surface will generally be preserved, as alike conducive to the welfare of the crops and to the successful employment of machinery for sowing, weeding, and reaping them. Tn all treatises on British agriculture of a date anterior to the first quarter of the present century, we find great stress laid on the proper formation of the ridges, careful cleaning out of the separating channels or water-furrows, and drawing and spading out of cross-cuts in all hollow s, so that no water may stagnate on the surface of the field. As thorough under-draining makes progress, such directions are becoming obsolete. But whether ridging or flat work is used, the one-sided action of the plough renders it necessary, in setting about the ploughing of a field, to mark it off into parallel spaces by a series of equi-distant straight lines. Supposing the line of fence, at the side at which he begins, to be straight, the ploughman takes this as his base line ; and measuring from it, erects his three or more feiring poles perfectly in line, at a distance from the fence equal to half the width of the ridges or spaces in which it is proposed to plough the field. This operation called in Scotland feiring the land is usually entrusted to the most skilful ploughman on each farm, and is regarded as a post of honour. Having drawn a furrow in the exact line of his poles, Avhich practice enables him to do with an accuracy truly admirable, he proceeds, using always the last furrow as a fresh base from which to measure the next one, until the field is all marked off. When this is done, it presents the appearance of a neatly ruled sheet of paper. Besides the poles just referred to, the ploughman is frequently furnished with a cross staff, by means of which he first of all marks off two or more lines perpendicular to the straight side at which he commences, and along these he measures with his poles, which are graduated for the purpose, in laying off his parallel lines. This feiring is only required when a process of fallowing, in preparation for green crop, has obliterated the former ridges. In breaking up clover lea or older sward, the ploughman begins at the open furrows, which afford him a sufficient guide. In ploiighing for a seed-bed the furrow-slice is usually cut about five inches deep. In the case of lea, it should be turned over unbroken, of uniform thickness, and laid quite close upon the preceding one, so as to hide all green sward. The improved wheel-plough already referred to does this work very beautifully, cutting out the slice perfectly square from the bottom of the furrow. The perfect uniform ity in the width and depth of the slices cut by it permits the harrows to act equally upon the whole surface. When the slice is cut unevenly, they draw the loosened soil from the prominences into the hollows, so that one part is scraped bare, and the other remains untouched and unbroken. This must necessarily yield a poor seed-bed, and contrasts un favourably with the uniform tilth produced by harrowing after such work as these wheel-ploughs invariably produce. In the Lothians and west of Scotland, a form of plough is much used for ploughing lea, which cuts out the slice with an acute angle at the land side. This, when turned over, stands up with a sharp ridge, which looks particularly well, and offers a good subject for harrows to work upon. But if a few of these furrow-slices are removed, the firm earth below exhibits the same ribbed appearance as the newly ploughed surface, instead of the clear level sole on which the right-angled slice cut by the wheel-plough is laid over so as to rest upon its lower angle. This ribbing of the unstirred subsoil is exceedingly objectionable in all kinds of ploughing. In the autumn ploughing of stubble-ground in preparation for the root-crops of the following season, a much deeper furrow is turned over than for a seed-furrow. In ordinary cases it should not be less than nine inches, while in very many, if ten or twelve can be attained, so much the better. In all deep soils this bringing up and mixing with the sur face of fresh material from below is highly beneficial. It must not, however, be practised indiscriminately. Siliceous and peaty soils need compactness, and to have the soil that has been artificially enriched kept a-top. For such deep work as we have noticed above, three or even four horses are frequently yoked to the plough. When a field slopes considerably one way, it is good practice to work the plough down the slope only, and return without a furrow. A pair of horses working in this way will turn as deep a furrow, and get over as much ground, as three will do taking a furrow both ways, and with less fatigue to themselves and to the ploughman. After bringing a heavy furrow downhill, they get recruited in stepping briskly back with only the plough to draw. This mode of ploughing one furrow down the slope tends less to gather the soil to​OPERATIONS.] AGRICULTUB E 337 ward the bottom than by using a turn-wrest plough across the slope. It is while giving this deep autumn furrow that the subsoil plough is used. It follows in the wake of the common plough, and breaks and stirs the subsoil, but without raising it to the surface. This is a laborious operation, and engrosses too much of the horse-power of the farm to admit of large breadths being overtaken in any one season. In all indurated subsoils, however, it repays its cost ; for when once thoroughly done, it diminishes the labour of ordinary ploughings for several succeeding rota tions, aids the drainage, and adds to the fertility of the soil. It is in the performance of this deep autumn tillage and breaking up of the subsoil, that the steam-engine, with appropriate tackle, has begun to play an important part, and for which it will probably one day supersede all other msans. Section 2. Harrowing, &c. The harrow, cultivator, and roller, are all more simple in their action and more easily managed than the plough. Har rowing is most effective when the horses step briskly along. The tines are then not merely drawn through the soil, but, in their combined swinging and forward movement, strike into it with considerable force. It is with reference to this that a single application of this implement is called a stroke of the harrows. Rollers are used to aid in pulveris ing and cleaning the soil, by bruising clods and lumps of tangled roots and earth which the other implements have brought a-top ; in smoothing the surface for the reception of small seeds, or the better operation of the scythe and other implements ; and for consolidating soil that is too loose in its texture. Except for the latter purpose, light rollers are much superior to heavy ones. When it is wanted, for example, to bruise clots of quickens, that the after harrowing may more thoroughly free the roots from the adhering earth, a light cast-iron roller, say of 5 cwt., drawn by one horse, effects this purpose as thoroughly as one double the weight drawn by a pair, and does it, moreover, in much less time, at less than half the expense, and without in juriously consolidating the free soil. These light rollers are conveniently worked in pairs, the ploughman driving one horse and leading the other. With a pair of active horses, and such rollers, a good deal more than doiible the space can be rolled in a day, than by yoking them both to one heavy one of the same length of cylinder. For mere clod-crushing, provided the clods are moist, the Norwegian harrow is superior to any roller ; and for compressing a loose surface or checking wire-worm, serrated or smooth- edged discs, such as Crosskill s or Cambridge s, are better than smooth cylinders of the same weight, so that the heavy smooth roller, requiring two or more horses to draw it, is superseded by better implements for all purposes where rollers are used at all, unless it be for the rolling of the grass-lands. As a general rule, none of these tillage operations can be performed to advantage when the soil is wet. When rain falls inopportunely there is a strong temptation to push on the field operations, before the soil has recovered the proper state of dryness. When this is done the farmer almost invariably finds in the issue that the more haste he makes the worse he speeds. Soils with a good deal of clay in their composition are peculiarly susceptible of injury in this way. Nice discrimination is needed to handle them aright. They require, moreover, a full stock of well-conditioned horses, that the work may be pushed rapidly through in favourable weather. To manage such soils success fully, especially when root crops are grown, tries the skill of the farmer to the utmost. So at least it has hitherto been ; but with steam-power to aid him, there is now a probability that the clay land farmer, by being able to break up his soil without treading it, and to get through with a large extent of tillage when his land is in trim for it, may find it practicable to grow root crops on equal terms with the occupier of freer soil. Section 3. Fallowing. When, by such operations as have now been described. land has been reclaimed from its natural state, and rendered fit for the purposes of the husbandman, it is everywhere so charged with the germs of weeds, most of which possess in a remarkable degree the power of reproduction and multiplication, that it is only by the most incessant and vigorous efforts he can restrain them from encroaching upon his cultivated crops, and regaining entire possession of the soil. He can do much towards this by ordinary tillage, and by sowing his crops in rows, and hoeing in the inter vals during the early stages of their growth. But if his efforts are restricted to such measures only, the battle will soon go against him. Besides this, all arable soils in which clay predominates, particularly when undrained, have such a determined tendency to become compact and soured, that under ordinary efforts they fail to yield a genial seed bed. There is a necessity, therefore, for having recourse, from time to time, to that ameliorating process of lengthened tillage called fallowing. This process begins in autumn, immediately after the removal from the ground of the cereal crop, which had been sown upon the land newly broken up from clover lea or natural sward, and extends either to the time for sowing turnips and analogous crops in the following spring, or is continued during the entire summer in preparation for autumn-sown wheat We shall first describe that modification of the fallowing process by which the soil is prepared for the sowing of drilled green crops, and then the more prolonged form of it usually called summer or naked fallow. Green Crop Fallow. The object aimed at being the thorough disintegration and cleaning of the soil, the usual practice is to begin by ploughing as deeply as is found practicable. This first or autumn furrow is accordingly turned over to a depth of 8 or 9 inches ; or by using a stronger plough drawn by three or four horses, it is carried to 1 2 inches in depth ; and in some cases, by following with a subsoil plough in the wake of the common one, the soil is stirred to the depth of 14 or 16 inches. All cultivators are agreed as to the importance of thus deeply and effectually disintegrating all soils that are naturally dry or thoroughly drained. In the case of undrained lands, and even of very unctuous clays, although well drained, such deep stirring of the soil in autumn does but increase its capacity of retaining the rains of winter, and of being thereby more effectually soured, and is therefore to be avoided. Assuming, however, that we have to do with soil thoroughly drained and moderately friable, it is undoubtedly beneficial to loosen it deeply and thoroughly at this stage. But before this deep ploughing is set about, it will be worth while to consider well its bearing upon the cleaning part of the process. On carefully examining the fields at the time of reaping the grain-crops, and from week to week thereafter, the roots of the couch- grass are found at first lying close to the surface ; but in stantly, on their getting the ground to themselves, they begin to send out fresh fibres, and to push their shoots deeply into the soil. In these circumstances, to proceed at once, according to the customary practice, to plough deeply, allows these weeds much time to increase, while this laborious and tedious operation is going on; and although, when performed, it gives some present check to their progress, by burying them under a mass of loosened soil, it not only increases the difficulty of their after removal, but places them out of the reach of frost, and in the beat I. 43 ​338 AGRICULTURE possible position for pervading the entire soil, on the first recurrence of mild weather. The consequence is, that fallows so treated are invariably found in spring more fully stocked with quickens than they were at the time of the autumn ploughing. The observation of this suggested Autumn the practice, now very common in England, of cleaning leaning, fallows in autumn before giving the first deep furrow. For this purpose, such implements as Biddle s scarifier, the broad-share paring-ploughs, or better still, the common plough, divested of its mould-board and fitted with a share a foot broad, are set to work as fast as the grain-crops are reaped, and the whole surface is rapidly pared at a depth of three or four inches. This completely loosens the yet shallow-lying roots of the couch-grass, which are then freed from the adhering earth by the Norwegian and chain- harrow, raked together and burned, or carted off. This pulverising of the surface soil in early autumn is usually followed by the springing up of an abundant crop of annual weeds and of shaken grain, which are thus got rid of by the subsequent ploughing. So great and manifold are the advantages of this modern practice, that in those districts where it is most in use, other autumn work, even wheat- sowing, is comparatively neglected until it is accomplished. When the weeds have been got rid of in this summary and inexpensive manner, deep ploughing is then resorted to with unalloyed benefit. Whenever steam-power becomes fully available for tillage operations, this autiimn cleaning and deep stirring of fallows will be accomplished rapidly and effectually, and the teams will meanwhile be set at liberty for root-storing, wheat-sowing, and other needful work, which can be well done only when accomplished during the brief season of good weather, which usually intervenes betwixt the close of harvest and beginning of winter. In the case of farms that have for a lengthened period been carefully cultivated, the stubble may be found so clean as not to require the whole area to be scarified in the manner now described. Instead of this, it may suffice to have the ground carefully examined, and such patches or stray plants of couch-grass, or other perennial weeds, as are met with, forked out. By this means the fallows are kept clean at little expense, and when spring arrives, those repeated ploughings, and other tedious and costly operations, are wholly avoided, in performing which the condition of the soil is marred and the best seed-time often missed. When fallows are thus cleaned in autumn, it is highly advantageous to cart on to them at once, and cover in with a deep furrow, all the farm-yard dung that is on hand up to the completion of their first ploughing. From the length of time which must elapse before the land can again be touched, it is quite safe, or rather it is highly advantageous, to apply all the recently made dung, although in a very rough state. In doing this, it is necessary that a person precede each plough, and trim the rank litter into the previous furrow, that it may be properly covered up and regularly distributed. Unless this precaution is observed, the ploughs are constantly cho ied and impeded, the manure is drawn together into unsightly hassocks, and the whole operation is imperfectly performed. The recommendations to this practice are First, An important saving of labour; for the manure being carted direct from the yards, &c., on to the land, and evenly spread over it, there is no forming, covering up, and turning of dunghills, or refilling and carting in spring. This heavy work is accomplished at a season when time is less pressing than in spring, and the sowing of the crop can be proceeded with more rapidly when the time for it arrives, and while weather favours. Second, There is a saving of manure by burying it at once in its rough state, instead of first fermenting it in large heaps ; and a large portion of the fallow-break can thus be dressed with home-made manure. Third, The rough dung thus ploughed in decomposes slowly, its virtues are absorbed and retained by the soil, with the whole mass of which it is thoroughly incorporated by the spring tillage, and which, in consequence, is found, after such treatment, in a peculiarly mellow and favourable con dition for receiving the seed. The advantages of autumn cleaning and manuring of land in preparation for green crops are so great that the utmost exertions should be made to secure them. Over a large portion of England the harvest is usually so early as to leave ample time for accomplishing the cleaning process before being arrested by bad weather. From the later harvest season and more humid climate of Scotland, it is there more difficult to carry it out to the whole extent of the fallow-break ; but still, with promptitude and energy, much can be done. One of her shrewd and intelligent suns, Mr Tennant, the inventor of the grubber which bears his Teiinai name, has, however, introduced a system of autumn tillage, founded upon the same principle, and accomplishing vir tually the same end, but less expensive and better adapted to the climate of Scotland than that just described. So soon as the grain crops are harvested, Mr Tennant sets his light grubbers agoing, and by working them over the whole field several times and in opposite directions, stirs the whole surface soil to the depth of six or eight inches, tears up and brings to the surface all root-weeds, where, after being knocked about and freed from adhering soil by repeated harrowings and a final grubbing, they are left for the winter. In our own practice we have latterly improved, as we imagine, on Mr Tennant s plan by broadsharing the land before using the grubbers, and also by employing the Norwegian harrow instead of the common one. The broadsharing ensures that the whole of the couch-grass and other weeds are thoroughly loosened without being buried, and the Norwegian harrow shakes out the roots from the adhering earth better than the common harrow. When it is intended to treat a field in this way, care should be taken at harvest time to reap the crop as close to the ground as possible, as rank stubble seriously encumbers the tillage implements. In setting about the grubbing of a field it is expedient also to begin with the headlands, and to work them thoroughly all round twice over, before they are trodden down by the frequent turning of the horses upon them. If this is omitted it will be found nearly impossible to have the margins of the field as well cultivated as the rest of it. A field thus treated presents for a time a singularly untidy and unpromising appearance ; but the ultimate effects of the practice, as well in the cleaning as the disintegrating of the soil, are very remarkable. When roots of couch-grass, &c., are freed from the soil, and fully exposed to the vicissitudes of the weather at a season when their vital force is at the lowest point, they are unable to resist its effects, and gra dually die. If placed in similar circumstances in spring, with their vital energy in full play, the merest point of & root embedded in, or even in contact with, pulverised soil, enables them to push down fresh fibres, to re-establish their connection with the soil, and to grow as lustily as ever. But so completely is the destruction of these pests secured by this simple process of winter exposure, that on the return of spring they may be ploughed in with impunity. Mr Tennant assures us, that ever since he adopted this practice he has been enabled to dispense with the removal of these weeds. Having had an opportunity of inspecting his farm, we are enabled to testify to its cleanness and high state of fertility. On this plan, then, the cleaning of fallows is accomplished by tillage operations alone, without any outlay for raking or hand-picking, burning, or carting off. Nor is this done at the expense of the pulverising part of the pro cess. On the contrary, Mr Tennant asserts, and we have so far verified his assertion by actual experiment, that by dis​OPERATIONS ] AGRICULTURE integrating the soil in autumn, as is done by this broadshar- ing, grubbing, and harrowing, it receives far more benefit from the alternation of frost and thaw, rain and drought, than when merely ploughed and left lying during winter in compact furrow-slices. This plan affords the same facilities as the other for autumn manuring, if the weeds are raked oft at once from so much of the fallow-break as it is wished to manure before winter. When the remainder is ploughed in April following, more of it may then have the farm-yard dung applied to it in the same way. Agriculturists owe a large debt of gratitude to Mr Tennant for the invention of his beautifully simple and efficient grubber, and for this scientific application of it to the fallowing process. Those who have been pursuing this system of tillage will be much interested in observing that it has been adopted by Mr Smith of Woolston, who is carrying it out to perfection by means of his steam-drawn implements. The autumn tillage of the fallows having been accom plished in one or other of the ways described, the land is left untouched till the return of spring. If it is infested by annual weeds, it is expedient, as soon as it is dry enough to bear treading with impunity, to level and stir the surface by a turn of the harrows. This slight moving of the mellowed surface-soil induces the seeds of weeds to germinate more quickly than they would otherwise do, and thus a crop of them is got rid of by the next tilling. This pre liminary harrowing is useful also in affording a level course for the tillage implements. By the time that the labour connected with the sowing of spring crops is over, the fallows are usually dry enough to be stirred with safety. This point, must, however, be well seen to, as irreparable mischief is often done by going upon them too soon. And now it is, that, instead of rigidly following any customary routine of so many ploughing?, harrowings, and rollings, the skilful cultivator will regulate his procedure by the actual circum stances of his soil, and the object which he has in view. What is needed for the successful growth of drilled green crops is to have the soil free from weeds, thoroughly disin tegrated to the depth of six or eight inches, and yet moist enough to ensure the ready germination of seeds deposited in it. Where such autumn cleaning and manuring as we have described have been successfully carried out, all that is needed, in order to obtain a proper tilth, is to go to work ight with light grubbers, first in the line of the previous furrows libbers, and then across them, and then to harrow, roll, and remove any weeds that have been missed in autumn, after which the soil will be in the best possible condition for drilling. On friable soils, this method of performing the spring tillage by means of the grubber instead of the plough is perfectly practicable, and has manifold advantages to recommend it. The saving of labour is very great, as a man and pair of horses will more easily grub four acres than plough one acre. Weeds are more easily removed, as the grubber pulls them out unbroken, whereas the plough cuts them in pieces. The soil that has been all winter subjected to the mellowing in fluences of the weather, and which, in consequence, is in the best possible condition to yield a genial seed-bed, is retained a-top, whereas ploughing buries it and brings up clods in its stead. And, lastly, the soil being merely stirred, without having its surface reversed, its natural moisture (or ivinter sap) is retained, whereby the germinating of seeds sown in it becomes almost a certainty. The importance of this last point in the cultivation of such crops as the turnip, whose seeds must usually be sown during hot ana dry weather, can scarcely be overrated. This practice is peculiarly appropriate for soils of loose texture, which are invariably injured by repeated ploughings. But it is also resorted to successfully on soils of the opposite extreme. Many farmers in the Lothians now grow abundant and ex tensive crops of turnips on strong clay soils by spreading a liberal dressing of dung on the stubble in autumn, ploughing it in with a deep furrow, leaving the land untouched until sowing-time has fully arrived, and then stirring the mellowed surface soil by the grubbers, removing weeds, and drilling and sowing at once without any ploughing. When this system is adopted on tenacious soils, it is prudent to operate upon portions of the field in detail, taking in only so mucL at a time as can be grubbed and drilled the same day ; foi if rain should intervene betwixt the grubbing and th< drilling, the soil would set like mortar and the tide be lost When once the ridgelets are made up in good condition, they can withstand a fall of rain with comparative impunity r and hence the occurrence of a course of fine weather, wher the season is yet too early for sowing, is sometimes taken advantage of by preparing the land and making it up into ridgelets, although it should require to remain in this staU- weeks, or even months, before sowing takes place. In suck a case, immediately before sowing, the ridgelets are first partially levelled by harrowing length- wise, in order to loosen the soil and destroy annual weeds, and then again made- up by using a double-breasted plough. We must here, however, insist upon the importance of having the grubbing thoroughly performed, which it cannot be unless the tines penetrate the soil as deeply as the plough has done at tho autumn ploughing. It is owing to the neglect of this that the system has failed in the hands of many farmers, who first mismanage the operation, and then throw the blame upon the grubbers. To ensure success, the implement must be set so as to work at its full depth, sufficient motive power being applied by yoking three horses, if necessary, to each grubber at the first and also at the second going over, and there must be vigilant superintendence exercised lest the ploughman do the work slightly. It is sometimes objected to this system of spring tillage, that it fails to rid the land of thistles and other tap-rooted weeds ; but it is surely easier to fork these out as they appear, than to plough a whole field merely to destroy as many thistles as a man, it may be, would dig up in a day. By taking advantage of the tilth obtained by the action of the elements, instead of first ploughing down the mellowed surface, and then attempting laboriously to reduce the obdurate furrows by mechanical means, skilful and energetic farmers now succeed in preparing even tenacious soils for drilled green-crops, at little expense, and with a good measure of certainty. On these opposite classes of soils, then the very loose, and the tenacious spring tillage, in preparation for root crops, is performed to better purpose by means of the grubber than the plough. Betwixt these extremes, however, lies the most valuable class of soils the strong fertile loamy on which the heaviest crops and best quality of Sweden are grown. With these it is usually expedient to have recourse to at least one spring ploughing, as soon, but only as soon, as the soil is dry enough to crumble freely to the very bottom of the furrow. As this usually occurs from four to six sveeks before the time of sowing the crop, it is advisable to plough the entire field, and leave it so until rain falls, when a moderate use of the grabber, harrows, and light roller, usually suffices to produce a good tilth for ridging. When operations are not thus facilitated by a seasonable fall of rain, it is necessary to proceed somewhat differently. The field is lying as it was left by the plough, with a rough dried surface. If harrowed while in this state, an abundant crop of clods is brought to the surface, which quickly harden when thus fully exposed to drought. To avoid this inconvenience, the field is first rolled with a heavy roller, and then grubbed across the direction in wlu ch it was last ploughed. By this means the clods, being partially crushed and pressed down amongst the loose earth, resist the grubber, and are crumbled by it, instead of being ​340 A G R I C U L T U R E [SUCCESSION merely raked out and left entire on the surface, as would happen but for this preliminary rolling. The grubbers are followed closely by harrows and a light roller, and these again by the grabbers ; but this time with seven tines on instead of five, after which a sufficient tilth is usually obtained. All this is on the supposition that the land is clean when these spring operations are commenced ; for should it be otherwise, it is usually better to begin with the grubber on the stale winter furrow, and to get rid of the weeds, before using the plough. If it is found necessary to plough near to the time of sowing, then the harrow and roller must keep pace with the ploughs in order to retain moisture and prevent the formation of clods. The Nor wegian harrow is the proper implement to use in such cases. Let it ever be borne in mind that if the soil is cleaned and sufficiently disintegrated, the less working it gets at this stage the better. It may be well indeed to remind the reader that although the fallowing process can most conveniently be gone about during the period which intervenes betwixt the removal of a grain-crop from the ground and the sowing of the succeed ing root-crop, and on this account is often spoken of in a loose way as being performed " in preparation for the root- crop," it is a fallacy to regard this laborious and costly process of tillage and cleaning as undertaken solely or mainly for the benefit of the turnip or other root-crop, then about to be sown. The other crops of the rotation benefit by it in a far greater degree, and it would be re quired on their account although turnips were not grown at all, as may be seen in the case of clay lands with their periodic naked fallows. It is the overlooking of this fact which has led people to charge the whole cost of this fallow ing process, and of all the manure then applied to the land, against the turnip-crop, and then to represent this crop as the most costly one which the farmer grows, one which often yields him less than it cost to produce it. Undoubt edly the cost of the fallow must be charged equally against all the crops of the rotation. Summer or Naked Fallow. Having thus described at length that modification of the fallowing process by which the soil is prepared for the sowing of green crops, we shall now, as proposed, speak of that prolonged form of it called a summer or naked fallow. From the facilities now afforded, by means of tile-draining and portable manures, for an extended culture of green crops, this laborious and costly process, which in its day was justly regarded as the very key to good and profitable farming, is now restricted to the more obdurate clay soils, or to cases where draining and other modern improve ments are neglected. The manifold advantages of having abundant crops of turnips, or mangel-wurzel, instead of naked fallow, sometimes tempt the occupiers of clay soils to push the cultivation of these crops beyond due bounds. We know of cases where, after large expenditure in draining, the cultivation of turnips has been carried to such an extent, and conducted so injudiciously, that the land has got foul and soured, and its gross produce has been reduced below what it was while the laud was undrained, and under a regular system of all but exclusive naked fallows. However thoroughly drained, clay soils retain their ticklish temper, and are so easily disconcerted by interference during un favourable weather, that the preparing of them for the cultivation of root-crops, and still more the removing of these crops when grown, is at best a hazardous business, and requires to be conducted with peculiar tact. Judicious farmers, who know by experience the difficulties that have to be overcome in cultivating such soils, are of opinion that all that can yet be ventured upon with safety is to prolong the period of the naked fallow s recurrence, rather than entirely to dispense with it. After a series of alternate grain and cattle crops, it is accordingly still their practice to wind up with a summer fallow, by which they rectify unavoidable defects in the tillage of preceding years, and put their land in good humour for entering again upon a fresh course of cropping. This process is begun by a deep ploughing in autumn, in performing which the land is gathered into ridges, that it may be kept as dry as possible during winter. When the more urgent labours of the following spring are so far dis posed of as to afford leisure for it, a second ploughing is given to the fallow, usually by reversing the furrows of autumn. This is followed at intervals by two cross-plough- ings, which are made to reverse each other, in order to keep the land level. As it is the nature of these soils to break into lumps, under the action of the plough, rather than to crumble down, the clods thus produced get so thoroughly parched in dry w r eather, that root-weeds enclosed in them are killed by sheer desiccation. To further this cheap mode of getting rid of them, the land is not rolled, but stirred by the grubber and harrow as frequently as possible, so as to expose the clods freely to the drought. We know by ex perience that fallows can be cleaned effectually by thus taking advantage of the tendency in clay soils to bake excessively under exposure to the hot dry weather which usually prevails in June and July. Should the season happen to be a showery one, this line of tactics must needs be abandoned, and recourse had to the judicious use of the grubber, Norwegian and common harrow, in order to free the weeds from the soil, and then clear them off by raking or hand-picking. This is more costly, and, as we believe, less beneficial to the soil than the simple method first noticed, which should therefore be attempted in the first place. As in hay -making, much can here be done in a few favourable days, by keeping grubbers and harrows at work, and turning the clods frequently. When farm-yard dung is to be applied to such fallows, it is desirable that it should be carted on and ploughed in before July expires. In applying it, two methods are followed. That usually adopted is, after marking off the ridges, to put down the dung in small heaps, at regular distances, and forthwith to spread it and plough it in. In the other, the land is formed into ridgelets, running diagonally across the intended line of the ridges, and the dung is enclosed in them in the manner to be hereafter described in treating of turnip culture. In either way,- after the lapse of several weeks, the surface is levelled by harrowing, and the land is gathered into ridges by the last of this series of ploughings, hence called the seea-furrow. When lime is to be applied to such land, this is the stage of the rotation which is usually chosen for doing so. It is spread evenly over the surface, imme diately before the last ploughing. In finishing off this fallowing process, it is necessary, on undrained lands, to be careful to clean out the ridge-furrows and cross-cuts, in anticipation of winter rains. But if such land is worth cultivating at all, it is surely worth draining, and this operation once thoroughly performed, puts an end to all further solicitude about furrows. CHAPTER IX. SUCCESSION OF CHOPS. Section 1. Rotation necessary. There are few agricultural facts more fully ascertained than this, that the growth, year after year, on the same soil, of one kind of plants, or family of plants, and the removal from it, either of the entire produce, or at least of the ripened seeds of such plants, rapidly impairs the general fertility of that soil, and, in particular cases, unfits it for bearing further crops of the kind by which it has been ex hausted. The explanation of the causes of this phenomenon ​OP CROPS.] belongs to the agricultural chemist or vegetable physiologist, to whom we willingly leave the task. What we have to do with is the fact itself, and its important bearing on agri cultural practice. There is no natural tendency in the soil to deterioration. If at any time, therefore, the earth fails to yield its increase for the use of man, it is owing to his own ignorance and cupidity, and not to any defect in the beneficent arrangements of the Creator. The aim, then, of the agriculturist, and the test of his skill, is to obtain from his farm abundant crops at a remunerative cost, and without impairing its future productiveness. In order to this, two conditions are indispensable, first, that the elements of fertility abstracted from the soil by the crops removed from it be duly and adequately restored ; and, second, that it be kept free from weeds. The cereal grains, whose seeds constitute the staple food of the human family, are neces sarily the most important and valuable of our ordinary crops. The stated removal from a farm of the grain pro duced on it, and its consumption elsewhere, is too severe a drain upon its productive powers to admit of. these crops being grown every j r ear on the whole, or greater part of it, without speedily impairing its fertility. Supposing, how ever, that this waste could be at once repaired by the annual return to the soil of manure equivalent in constituent elements to the produce removed, the length of time which grain-crops occupy the soil, and their habit of growth, inter pose peculiar difficulties in the way of cleaning it thoroughly, either before they are sown, or while they occupy the ground. Again, although bread-corn is the most important product of our soil, other commodities, such as butcher-meat, dairy produce, vegetables, wool, and flax, are indispensably re quired. The economical culture of the soil demands the employment of animal power, which, to be profitably used, must be so distributed as to fill up the year. The mainten ance of the working cattle, and of other live stock, implies the stated culture of a large amount of herbage and forage. Now, these varied conditions are duly met by cultivating grain and cattle crops alternately, and in about eqiial pro portions. In carrying out these general principles, much discrimination is required in selecting the particular plants best adapted to the soil, climate, and other circumstances, of each farm, and in arranging them in the most profitable sequences ; for not only is it necessary duly to alternate grain and green crops, but, in general, there is a necessity, or at least a high expediency, in so varying the species or varieties of the latter class as to prolong, as much as possible, the periodic recurrence of any one of them on the same field. In settling upon a scheme of cropping for any particular farm, regard must be had to its capabilities, to the markets available for the disposal of its products, and to the command of manure. When these things have been maturely considered, it is always beneficial to conduct the cropping of a farm upon a settled scheme. The number of men and horses required to work it is regulated chiefly by the extent of the fallow-break, which it is therefore desirable to keep as near to an average annual breadth as possible. When the lands of a farm vary much as regards fertility, fitness for particular crops, and proximity to the homestead, they must be so apportioned as to make the divisions alloted to each class of crops as equal as possible in all respects, taking one year with another. Unless this is done, those fluctuations in the gross produce of farms which arise from varying seasons are needlessly, it may happen ruinously, aggravated ; or such an accumulation of labour is thrown on certain years which may prove un favourable ones as to weather, that the work is neither done well nor in due season. No better rotation has yet been devised for friable soils of fair quality than the well-known four-field or Norfolk- system. By this course half the arable lands are in "rain- 341 crops, and half in cattle-crops, annually. It is indeed true that, in the way in which this course has hitherto been usually worked, both turnips and clover have recurred so frequently (every fourth year) on the same fields, that they have become subject to disease, and their produce excessively precarious. But the excellence of this course is, that its main features can be retained, and yet endless variation be introduced in its details. For example, instead of a rigid one-fourth of the land being each year under turnips, barley, clover, and wheat or oats, respectively, half only of the barley division is frequently in practice now sown with clover seeds, and the other half cropped in the following year with beans, peas, potatoes, or vetches. On the same set of fields, coming round again to the same point, the treat ment is reversed by the beans, <fec., and clover, being made to change places. An interval of eight years is thus sub stituted for one of four, so far as these two crops are con cerned. Italian rye-grass, unmixed with any other plant, is now frequently taken in lieu of clover on part of the division usually allocated to it, and proves a grateful change both to the land and to the animals which consume it. In like manner, instead of sowing turnips unvaryingly every fourth year on each field, a portion of the annual division allotted to this crop can advantageously be cropped with mangel-wurzel, carrots, or cabbages, care being taken to change the site occupied by each when the same fields again come in turn. The same end is even so far gained by alternating Swedish with yellow or globe turnips. It is also found expedient, either systematically or occasionally, to sow a field with clover and pasture grasses immediately after turnips, without a grain crop, and to allow it to remain in pasture for four years. A corresponding extent of the other land is meanwhile kept in tillage, and two grain crops in succession are taken on a requisite portion to equalise the main divisions, both as respects amount of labour and the different staple products. A closer cover of grasses and a better pasture is obtained in this way than by first taking the customary grain crop after turnips; the land is rested and invigorated for future tillage, the outlay on clover and grass-seeds somewhat diminished, and the land better ma naged for the interests of all concerned than by a rigid adherence to the customary rotation. Section 2. Restrictive Clauses in Leases Hurtful. It is common enough for landlords, or their agents, to tie down the tenantry over large estates to the rigid observ ance of some pet rotation of their own. In an unimproved state of agriculture, and for a tenantry deficient both in capital and intelligence, such trammels, kindly enforced, may be as beneficial to them as to their landlord. But when the culture of the soil is undertaken by men of good education, who bring to the business ample capital, and skill to use it to the best advantage, such restrictions are much more likely to do harm than good to both parties. It is to be observed in regard to those restrictive clauses usually inserted in farm-leases, such as, that two grain- crops shall never be taken in immediate succession ; that no hay, straw, or turnips, shall be sold from the farm ; that only certain limited quantities of potatoes or flax shall be grown ; that land shall be two or more years in grass, (fee., that they all proceed on the supposition that the farm is to maintain its own fertility. They obviously do not con template the stated purchase of large quantities of guano, bones, and similar extraneous manures, or the consumption by live stock of linseed-cake, grain, or other auxiliaries to the green crops produced on the farm. Now, not only are such clauses incompatible with such a system of farming as we h;>ve just now indicated, but their direct tendency, if enforced, is to hinder a tenant from adopting it even when disposed to do so. We hear now-a-days of tena)its wno are ​342 annual purchasers of these extraneous fertilising substances to the extent of 20s. to 30s. worth for every acre occupied by them. To enforce the same restriction on such men as on others who buy none at all is obviously neither just nor politic ; and we believe that any practical farmer, if he had his choice, would rather be the successor of a liberal mauurer, however he may have cropped, than of one who has farmed by rule on the starving system. We are quite aware that, in regard to the first-mentioned of these restric tions (viz., that which forbids taking two grain-crops in immediate succession), the contrary practice is still asserted by agricultural authorities to be necessarily bad farming. Now, we do not concur with this opinion, but believe, on the contrary, that when land is kept clean, and is as highly manured and well tilled as it must be to grow cattle-crops in perfection, the second successive crop of grain will usually be better than the first, its production nowise injurious to the land, and the practice, in such circumstances, not only not faulty, but an evidence of the skill and good manage ment of the farmer. A frequent encomium applied to a particularly well-cultivated farm is, that " it is like a garden." The practice of market-gardeners is also frequently referred to as a model for farmers. Now, the point with them is to have every inch of their ground under crop of some kind at all seasons, and to carry everything to market. Under such incessant cropping, the fertility of the soil is maintained only by ample manuring and constant tillage. By these means, however, it is maintained, and the practice is extolled as the perfection of management. Such a system must therefore be as true in fanning as in gardening, when the like conditions are observed. Undoubtedly he is a good fanner, who, while keeping his land clean and in good heart, obtains the greatest produce from it at the least proportion ate outlay ; and it is no valid objection to his practice merely to say that he is violating orthodox rotations. Section 3. Experiments at Rothamstead and Lois Weedon. Some curious information has been obtained regarding the effects of growing successive crops of one kind of plant on the same field, from two examples of it that attracted much attention. We refer to the experiments of Mr Lawes at Rothamstead, and of the Rev. Mr Smith at Lois Weedon. It is well known that Mr Lawes for a number of years devoted a considerable extent of land to the prosecution of a series of interesting experiments, one field being allotted to experiments with wheat, another to turnips, and another to beans. One acre in the wheat-field bore upwards of twenty successive crops of wheat without any manure whatever. The land was annually scarified and thoroughly cleaned as soon as the crop was removed; it was then ploughed and again, drilled with wheat, which was duly hoed in spring. Now, with occasional variation, due to the character of particular seasons, Mr Lawes found that the average annual produce of this acre was 16 bushels of grain and 16 cwt. of straw, below which he failed to reduce it by these successive crops. His soil was a strong clay loam, resting at a depth of five or six feet upon chalk. In the case of turnips, he found that, when treated in the same way, they cease after a few years to grow larger than radishes, nor could he, by the application of any .amount or variety of manure which he tried, obtain a second successive crop equal to the first. With the wheat, on the contrary, the addition of four cwt. of Peruvian guano at once doubled the produce. Mr Smith s experiments, as is well known, were a revival of Jethro Tull s system of growing wheat continually on the same field, by a plan of alternate strips of wheat and bare fallow, made to change places an- smally. He improved in so far upon Tull s practice, inasmuch ras he thoroughly drained his land, and his fallow spaces deeply trenched every autumn, as well as ploughed [MANURES. and hoed during the growing season. The result was that his land thus treated yielded an average annual produce of 34 bushels per acre for eleven or twelve successive crops. Now, it is not our intention to offer any opinion on this as a system of wheat growing. We refer to it along with Mr Lawes s, for the purpose of showing that, notwithstand ing the prevalent opinion that grain-crops exhaust the fertility of soil;* more rapidly than green crops, this is true only in a very restricted sense. Green crops judiciously interposed do undoubtedly serve a most important purpose in the means which they furnish for maintaining the fertility of a farm ; but it is worthy of note, that whereas, by the addition of suitable manure, thorough tillage, and diligent removal of weeds, clay soil at least will stand an indefinite succession of grain crops, the same means entirely fail to yield the same results with our most popular green crops. Our personal experience quite accords with this ; for we suppose it will be admitted that the corn crops of the country are at the present Jay superior, both in quality and quantity, to those of any preceding period ; whereas potatoes, turnips, and clover, which we have so long regarded as our sheet- anchor, have become increasingly precarious, and threaten to fail us altogether. We offer these facts for the consider ation of those who out-and-out condemn the practice of sowing two white crops in immediate succession. In stating this opinion, we must, however, guard against misappre hension. Unless the land is highly manured and kept thoroughly clean, we are just as much opposed to the practice as any one can be ; but when mischief is done by it, we believe that it is due rather to the presence of weeds than to the second grain-crop. Neither do we plead for the absolute removal of restrictive clauses from farm leases. Human nature being what it is, men who do not see it to be for their own advantage to farm well, will, through ignorance or greed, impoverish their land unless they are restrained. Clauses as to cropping should, however, be pro hibitory rather than prescriptive have reference rather to what is removed from the farm than to what is grown upon it and they should be contingent upon the other practices of the tenant. So long as he continues, by ample manuring and careful tillage, to maintain the fertility and general good condition of the farm rented by him, it can be no ad vantage to his landlord to hinder him from cropping it at his own discretion. It will be seen from these remarks, that we attach more importance to those general principles which should regulate the succession of crops, than to the laying down of formulas to meet supposed cases. The man who cultivates by mere routine is unprepared for emergencies, and is sure to lag in the race of improvement ; while he who studies principles is still guided by them, while altering his practice to suit changing circumstances. CHAPTER X. MANURES. Section 1. Farm-yard Dung. In our remarks on tillage operations and on the succession of crops, we have seen how much the practice of the husband man is modified by the kinds and amount of manures at his disposal. In describing the crops of the farm and their culture, frequent reference will also necessarily be made to the use of various fertilising substances ; and we shall, there fore, before proceeding to that department of our subject, enumerate and briefly remark on the most important of them. In such an emimeration, the first notice is un questionably due to farm-yard dung. This consists of the excrements of cattle, their litter, and the refuse of their fodder ; usually first trodden down in successive layers, and partially fermented in the farm-yard, and then removed to some convenient place and thrown together in heaps, where, by further fermentation and decay, ​MANURES.] AGRICULTURE 343 it is reduced to a dark-coloured, moist, homogeneous mass, in which state it is usually applied to the land. It is thus the residuum of the whole products of the farm, minus the exported grain, and that portion of the other crops which, being first assimilated in the bodies of the live stock, is sold in the form of butcher-meat, dairy-produce, or wool. In applying farm-yard dung to land there is thus a returning to it of what it had previously produced, less the above exceptions, and such waste as may occur during the process of decay by gaseous exhalation or liquid drainage. It is obvious that the value of such dung as a fertilising agent must depend much on two circumstances, viz., 1st, The nature of the food consumed by the animals whose excre ments arc mingled with it; and, 2d, The success with which waste from drainage and exhalation has been prevented. When cattle used during the winter months to be barely kept alive on straw and water, and were confined in an open yard, which, in addition to its own share of rain, re ceived also the drip from the eaves of the surrounding build ings which, after percolating the litter, flowed unchecked into the neighbouring ditch it is needless to say that the dung resulting from such a process was all but worthless. It is much to be regretted that, from the faulty construction of farm-buildings, farmers still find it impossible to guard their dung-stores from injury and waste. When cattle- yards arc slightly hollowed towards their centre, and the surrounding eaves are spouted, the litter absorbs the whole of the urine and the rain which falls upon the uncovered area, while the treading of the cattle goes far to prevent undue fermentation and escape of gases. The same remark applies still more strongly to covered boxes, the dung re sulting from this mode of housing fattening cattle being of the best quality. In the case of byres and stables it is certainly desirable to have a covered depot, into which the litter and solid excrements may be wheeled daily, and to have the urine conveyed by proper drains and distributed over this mass of solid matter. As there is usually more liquid than these can at once absorb, it is well to have a tank at the lowest part of this depot in which to store the surplus, that it may from time to time be returned upon the adjoining mass, or conveyed to heaps in the fields. Advantage is usually taken of frosty weather to cart out to the fallow division of the farm the dung that has accumulated in yards and boxes. It is formed into large square heaps about four feet deep, in situations most convenient for ready application to the land when the season for sowing the crops arrives. It is desirable to prepare a site for these heaps by carting together and spreading down a quantity of earth (or peat, when that can be got), for the purpose of absorbing the ooze from the fermenting mass laid upon it. At the beginning of winter, the loaded dung-carts are driven on to the heaps, and their contents are spread evenly over it, layer above layer, both to equalise the quality of the dung- heap as a whole, and, by the compression thus applied, to prevent a too rapid fermentation. When the heap has attained the requisite bulk, a covering of earth or peat is spread over it to keep it moist and to prevent the escape of its ammonia. When this home-made manure was the only kind statedly at the command of the farmer, it was con sidered necessary, and we believe truly, to have it in an advanced state of decomposition before applying it to a turnip crop. There was a waste of manure by this practice, but unless it was in a state to supply instant nourishment and stimulus to the young turnip plants, the crop was certain to be a deficient one. The application, along with farm-yard dung, of guano, superphosphate of lime, and other portable manures, quite does away with the necessity of having the former much rotted. These concentrated manures stimulate the growth of the plants during their early stage, and put them jn the best condition for making gradual use of the slowly dissolving aung. Excessive decomposition of farm yard dung is now therefore avoided, and pains rather be stowed to improve its quality by protecting it from the weather, and retaining its ammonia and natural juice. The cheapest, and perhaps also the best, way of doing this is to cart the dung direct from the cattle-yard to the fields, and at once to plough it in. /Section 2. Liquid Manures. We have spoken of the importance of carefully retaining the urine of the housed live stock, by having it absorbed in the solid matter of the dung-heap, and of collecting the surplus into a suitable tank, where it may be available for moistening the heap from time to time, and especially when about to be applied to the land. A system has, however, lately attracted much notice, by which pains are taken not only to preserve every drop of urine and ooze from dung- heaps, but, as far as practicable, to apply the whole manure produced on the farm in a liquid form. It is in Ayrshire, and especially on the farm of Myremill, that this system has been carried out most fully. Our reference will be best explained by quoting at length from the Minutes of Infor mation issued by the General Board of Health regarding sewage manure. "The next farm visited was in the .immediate vicinity of Glas gow, where the supply of liquid manure is derived from another source, and distributed in a different manner. The supply is from a dairy of 700 cows, attached to a large distillery ; the entire drain age from the former flows in a full continuous stream into a tank containing 30,000 or 40,000 gallons, whence it is pumped up immediately by a 12-horse power engine, and forced through 4-inch iron pipes, laid about 18 inches under ground, into large vats or cisterns placed on the highest points of the land to be irrigated. From these it descends by gravitation through another system of pipes laid along the ridges of the hills, finding an outlet through stand-cocks placed at intervals, from which it is distributed through movable iron pipes fitting into each other, and laid along the surface in whatever direction the supply is required. The land thus irrigated consists of three farms lying at some distance apart, the farthest point to which the liquid is conveyed being about two miles, and the highest elevation 80 feet above the site of the tank and engine. The principal use to which the irrigation has been applied has been to preserve the fertility of the pastures, the general appearance of which was at first rather disappointing, but this was explained by the fact that they are fully stocked, and that the cows rush with avidity to those parts that have been last irrigated, and eat them down quite bare. As is the case in other instances, however, by far the most profitable application has been found to be Italian rye- grass, of which 15 (Scotch) acres were under cultivation, some with seed supplied by Mr Dickinson, whose successful cultivation of it by similar means near London has long been known. The first cut ting of this had yielded about ten tons the acre, the second nine, and the third, which was ready for cutting, was estimated at eight or nine more. Some crops of turnips and cabbages were pointed out to us in a state of vigorous growth, and with more than common promise of abundance ; these were raised by a dressing of ashes ar.d refuse (of little fertilising value, having been purchased at 2s. 6d. a ton), conjoined with four doses of liquid, one after the preceding crop of oats had been carried, one prior to sowing, and two more at different stages of growth. The enterprising gentleman who has carried out these works at his own expense, and in spite of the dis couragement arising from partial failure in his earlier attempts, though speaking cautiously, as was natural in a tenant on a nine teen years lease, of the pecuniary results of this undertaking, imparted some facts which leave little doubt that it nmst have been largely remunerative. Besides maintaining, if not increasing, the fertility of the pastures, to which the solid manure from the byres was formerly devoted, at a heavy expense of cartage (the whole of which is now saved), he is enabled to sell all this manure, of which we estimated the quantity at about 3000 tons a year, at 6s. a load. For a good deal of the Italian rye-grass not required for his own con sumption, he obtained upwards of 13s. a ton, the profit on which, taking into account the yield before stated, may easily be imagined. Thirteen carts, each containing six barrels of ten gallons each, are used to convey the milk to market, where it is sold at 5d. the Scotch pint, equal to- six pints imperial measure. The income from milk would, therefore, be not less than 43, 6s. 8d. per day, or 15,816, 13s. 4d. per annum. " The next place visited was the farm of Myremill, near llaybole, in Ayrshire, the property of Mr Kennedy, who adopted and improved on the method of distribution just described. On this ​344 form, about 400 imperial acres of which arc laid down with pipes, some of the solid as well as the liquid manure has been applied by these means, guano and superphosphate of lime having been thus transmitted in solution, whereby their value is considerably enchanced. This is especially the case with guano, the use of which is thus rendered in great measure independent of the uncertainties of climate, and it is made capable of being applied with equa 1 advantage in dry as in wet weather. In some respects the farm labours under peculiar disadvantages, as water for the purpose of diluting the liquid has to be raised from a depth of 70 feet and from a distance of more than 400 yards from the tanks where it is mixed with the drainage from the byres. These tanks are four in number, of the following dimensions respectively : 48 x 14 x 12; 43 x 14 x 15; 72 x 14 x 12; 72 x 17 x 12. They have each a separate communication with the well from which their contents are pumped up; which are used in different degrees of ripeness, a certain amount of fermentation induced by the addition of rape- dust being considered desirable. The liquid is diluted, according to circumstances, with three or four times its bulk of water, and delivered at the rate of about 4000 gallons an hour, that being the usual proportion to an acre. The quantity to be applied is determined by a float-gauge in the tank, which warns the engineer, whose business it is to watch it, when to cut off the supply, and this is a signal to the man distributing it in the fit-Id to add another length of hose, and to commence manuring a fresh portion of land. The pumps are worked by a 12-horse power steam-engine, which performs all the usual work on the farm, thrashing, cutting chaff and turnips, crashing oil-cake, grinding, &c., and pumping. The pipes are of iron ; mains, submains, and service pipes, five, three, and two inches in diameter respectively, laid eighteen inches or two feet below the surface. At certain points are hydrants to which gutta-percha hose is attached in lengths of twenty yards, at the end of which is a sharp nozzle with an orifice ranging from one to one and a half inch, according to the pressure laid on, from which the liquid makes its exit with a jet of from twelve to fifteen yards. All the labour required is that of a man and a boy to adjust the hose and direct the distribution of the manure, and eight or ton acres may thus be watered in a day. There are now 70 acres of Italian rye- grass and 130 of root crops on the farm. The quantity they would deliver by a jet from a pump worked by a 12-horsepower steam- engine would be 40, 000 gallons, or 178 tons, per diem, and the expense per ton about 2d. , but a double set of men would reduce the cost. The extreme length of pipe is three quarters of a mile, and with the hose the total extent of delivery is about 1,900,000 yards, or 400 acres. To deliver the same quantity per diem by water-carts, to the same extreme distance, would be impracticable. One field of rye- grass, sown in April, had been cut once, fed off twice with sheep, and was ready (August 20th) to be fed off again. In another, after yielding four cuttings within the year, each estimated at 9 or 10 tons per acre, the value of the aftermath for the keep of sheep was stated at 25s. an acre. Of the turnips, one lot of swedes, dressed with 10 tons of solid farm manure, and about 2000 gallons of the liquid, having six bushels of dissolved bones along with it, was ready for hoeing 10 or 12 days earlier than another lot dressed with double the amount of solid manure without the liquid application, and were fully equal to those in a neighbour s field which had received 30 loads of farm-yard dung, together with 3 cwt. guano and 16 bushels bones per acre ; the yield was estimated at 40 tons the Scotch acre, and their great luxuriance seemed to me to justify the expectation. From one field of white globe turnips sown later, and manured solely u ith liquid, from 40 to 50 tons to the Scotch Acre was expected. A field of carrots, treated in the same manner as the swedes, to which a second application of liquid was given just before thinning, promise from 20 to 25 tons the acre. Similarly favourable results have been obtained with cabbages ; and that the limit of fertility by these means has not yet been reached, was clearly shown in one part of the Italian rye-grass which had acci dentally received more than its allowance of liquid, and which showed a marked increase of luxuriance over that around it. The exact increase of produce has not been accurately determined, but the number of cattle on the farm has increased very largely, and by means of the Italian rye-grass at least four times as many beasts as before can be kept now on the same extent of land, the fertility of the land being at the same time increased. This plant, of all others, appears to receive its nourishment in this form with most gratitude, and to make the most ample returns for it ; and great as are the results hitherto obtained, 1 believe that the maximum of productive ness is not yet reached, and that the present experiment must be earned yet further before we know the full capabilities of this manure. Of one important fact connected with this crop, I am assured, that notwithstanding the rank luxuriance of its growth, animals fed upon it not only are not scoured, but thrive more than on any oth^r kind of grass in cultivation. " Taking into the irrigation account the whole cost of the engine, and the whole of the fuel and wages although half of these might have been deducted the following appears to be the capital account and working expenses for fertilising Myremill fann : " Tanks complete Steam engine . Pumps ..... Iron pipes, laying, and hydrants Gutta-percha distributing pipes, "Annual interest on 1586, and wear and tear, at 74 per cent. .... Annual wages . . Fuel 300 150 80 1000 56 1586 118 19 104 58 10 281 9 This amount, divided by the number of acres, is equal to the annual sum of 1 4s. per acre. " I now come to the practical results of so cheap a mode of fer tilising land. "Mr Young informed me that in one of the fields he had him- self measured the growth of Italian rye-grass, and had found it to be two inches in twenty-four hours ; and that within seven months, Mr Kennedy had cut from a field we were passing at the time 70 tons of grass per acre. Where the whole is cut, four or five heavy crops are thus taken ; but upon some of the land during the last two years 20 sheep to the acre have been penned in hurdles, and moved about the same field from time to time ; after each remove the fluid has been applied, and immediately followed by an abun dant growth of food. There is not the slightest appearance of exhaustion in the land, its fertility appears to increase. I was informed that, before the liquid manure was used, the land would not keep more than a bullock or five sheep to the acre ; now it will maintain, if the crops are cut and carried in, five bullocks or twenty sheep to the acre. Some beans, bran, and oil-cake are bought for the stock ; but, on the other hand, one-third or more of the farm is kept in grain, notwithstanding the great number of live stock. " Canning Park. Mr Telfer s farm, near Ayr. This is a small dairy farm of 40 acres, near the level of the sea, and about a mile and a half west of the town of Ayr. The subsoil is beach gravel with a slight admixture of clay. Water is too abundant. It lies dead within about 20 inches of the surface, and in winter nearer than that. " No bedding or litter is used here. The cows lie on cocoa-nut mats. The ventilation is perfect ; and the air sweeter than in the majority of the dwelling-houses of human beings. " The following appears to be the cost of carrying out the system of Mr Telfer s farm : "Tank 30 Engine 60 Iron pipes and hydrants . . . 100 Distributing hose-pipe, &c. . . . 20 210 " Annual interest on 210, and wear and tear, at 74 per cent ...... Wages and fuel ...... 15 15 11 26 15 " In summer the cows have a quantity of oil-cake, as well as grass ; and in winter they have turnips or mangel-wurzel, bean or barley meal, and cut hay or grass ; the whole mess being steamed together. Miss Bell, the cousin of Mr Telfer, manages the dairy, and said that last year the hay bought would amount to from 30 to 40, and she should think the grain to not less than 200. In general terms, the other food is produced upon the farm. As to the produce of grass, which is the chief article, the first cutting during the present year was in the latter end of March about 18 inches thick. The second was from 18 inches to 2 feet thick. The third was from 3 feet to 4 feet 6 inches thick. The fourth nearly the same. The fifth was 2 feet thick ; and the sixth, in process of cutting at the time I was there, we measured at 1 8 inches thick. Taking the mean, where two dimensions are given for the same crop, I find the aggregate depth of grass, grown and cut off this farm within seven months, to be not less than 14 feet 3 inches. All this is, however, eaten upon the premises, and the whole marketable produce of the farm is represented by the milk and butter. "As to the quantity and value of these, Miss Bell stated that the previous week the butter was 114 Ib and 120 lb together 234 Ib, sold at Is. per pound. This, she stated, was about the average quantity and price. The amotint for butter would therefore be 11, 14s. per week, or per annum 008, 8s. She informed me far ther, that during about eight months in the year, the cold milk rea lises about the same amount as the butter. In the summer months, during hot weather, the market value of the milk is only about half that of the butter. From these data, the amount for milk sol J per annum is 507. " The total receipts for the two articles of milk and butter amount to 1115, 8s. per annum. ​LIQUID.] " I only need to add that, previously to the adoption of the present system of farming, these 40 acres of land were barely sufficient to support eight or nine cows, and would have been well let at a rental of 30s. an acre." The attention now so generally directed to this subject, and the importance attached to it in many quarters, justify this lengthened quotation, and call for some remarks upon it. We have carefully examined two of the instances re ferred to in this report, viz., Port-Dundas and Myremill; and some smaller experiments more cursorily. After doing so we are sorry to say that we have arrived at a very different estimate of this system of manuring from that expressed in the above quotations. We at once, and with pleasure, acknowledge that in so far as concerns the storing up and preparing of the liquid manure, its application to the land, and the production, by means of it, of crops of Italian rye-grass almost surpassing belief in their luxuriance and weight of. produce, Mr Kennedy s experiments have been crowned with complete success. The excellence of this grass as food for live stock, and their relish for it, is also indisputable. Neither do we dispute the statements of those who tell us that manure, when largely diluted with water, and properly applied in the liquid form, is more 345 beneficial to plants than in any other way in which it can. be presented to them. Admitting all this, the question remains, Has it yet been shown that this system can be economically applied to ordinary farms ] Data are still wanting from which to answer this question conclusively, but we shall state some of the reasons which constrain us,, with our present information, to do so in the negative. Supposing an adequate motive power already to exist,, and to be partly employed for other purposes, the capital, that must be invested in providing the tanks and other apparatus necessary for carrying out this system amounts to about 4 per acre over a farm of average extent. If the system be a sound one, the great amount of this outlay can not fairly be urged as an objection to it. The addition of a permanent rent charge of 5s. per acre to an entire farm,, for a benefit which in any one year can be available to but a limited portion of it, is however a serious matter. la each case referred to in the Minutes of Information, the whole annual charge, whether arising from interest on. capital, wear and tear of machinery, or working expenses,, is divided by the whole acreage of the farm. In the first seven cases given in the tabular statement, this mode of calculation is correct, as the whole areas do actually benefit TABLE III. Shmcing Cost, etc., of the Application of Sewerage Waters and Liquid Manures. Name of Place. No. of Eng lish acres. Mode of Application. Cost of Works, and Apparatus. Annual In terest, fec., at 7 pei- cent. Annual Working Expenses. Total Annual Charge per English acre. Observations. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. Edinburgh. Craigentinny Meadows. 63 ( Steam-engine, pumps, and )

open gutters and panes, j 

2000 150 117 12 4 4 11 f Average rental upwards of I 16 per English acre. High-level Sea Meadows. 38 ( Gravitation, open gutters 1 ( and panes, . . . j 700 52 10 19 17 6 1 18 1 ( Worth about 20 per < English acre ; worthless (. before. Old Meadows. 228 Do. do. 2700 202 10 119 5 1 8 2i ( Maximum rental, 25 per I English acre. Nottinghamshire. The Duke of Portland. Clipstone Meadows. Wiltshire. Wiley Meadows. 300 150 ( Cutehmeadow, gravitation, ) t and open gutters, . . f (Beadwork of ridge and j ^ furrow, gravitation and > 36,000 3000 2700 225 150 52 10 9 10 1 17 { Worth upwards of 12 ; pre viously worth from 3s. to 5s. per acre per annum. ( Four heavy crops of grass per ( annum. Devonshire. The Duke of Bedford. Tavistock Meadows. 90 ( open gutters, . . J / Bead work and catch- < meadows, gravitation > ( and open gutters, . . ) 1183 88 14 6 67 10 1 14 8 C Land more than quadrupled s in value after only 4 years ( irrigation. fi Jc.h / Land not previously worth Pusey Meadows. 100 j Catchmeadow, gravitation, ) ( and open gutters, . . j 445 33 7 6 37 18 4 14 3 ) more than 5s. per acre, j yielding six heavy crops >7 /"Steam-engine, pumps, j V. of grass per annum. jriaSCJ010. Mr Harvey s farm. 508 ) underground iron main 1 j pipes and iron distribut- j 1450 108 15 240 10 13 9 {10 feet thick of grass cut from an acre hi six months. V ing pipes, . . . ) A yrshirf. Myremill farm. 508 1 Steam-engine, pumps, " underground iron mains, I gutta-percha hose, and j 1586 118 J9 162 10 11 1 | 70 tons of grass cut from an ( acre in six months. Canning Park farm. 50 jet pipe, . . J Do. do. 210 15 15 11 10 8J ( 14 J feet of grass cut in seven

mouths. 

Leg or DundurT farm. 50 t Gravitation, underground ~) < iron mains, gutta-percha V ( hose, and jet pipe, . . ) 191 14 6 6 3 10 7 1J f 80 stacks per annum ; in

place of 12, as previously. 

Staffo rdsh ire. The Duke of Sutherland. /Steam-engine, pumps, " Hanehureh farm near ^ Trentham. ) 83 J underground iron mains, (_ ) gutta-percha hose, and ( 520 13 4 39 1 Q 18 6 13 9} i Tanks constructed sufficient I for 300 acres. 1 jet pipe, . . J Lancashire. ( One dressing of liquid equal Halewood farm. 120 Do. do. 521 12 39 2 5 19 15 2 9 9J < to 25 or 30 tons of farm- (, yard manure per acre. (A fourth crop of grass being Cheshire. weighed, was found equal Lescard farm. 150 Do. do. 672 1 10

o 8 o

17 11 9 8J to 10 tons per acre. It was the lightest crop cut off tin- same land. Glamorganshire. f Gravitation, underground ( Tanks constructed sufficient Forth Kerry Farm. 50 < iron mains, gutta-percha > 300 22 10 10 13 < for 300 acres. Between 9 ( hose and jet pipe . . j (, and 10 feet of grass cut. each year by the irrigating process. But when we come to those irrigated by machinery, we find that a half or two- fifths only of the land receives the benefits of it in any one year. If the annual charge in this latter class of cases is- divided by the acreage actually irrigated, it becomes evident that the expense is double that of the Pusey meadows, and I. 44 ​346 AGRICULTURE [MANURES. equal to that of the old meadows near Edinburgh, instead of being less, AS it is made to appear. A gain, in estimating the profits an opposite course is followed. While the charges are made to appear less by spreading them over the whole area of the farm, the enormous produce of grass from the irrigated parts is put prominently forward, and little is said about its produce as a whole. In the dairy cases, too, we are told of enormous gross profits, without being pointedly reminded that the larger portion of the keep of the cows, such as distillery offal, bean-meal, hay, and even straw and turnips, is actually purchased ; that in this way a quantity of extraneous manure becomes available for the associated farm, sufficient (however applied) to maintain it in a state of fertility ; and that there would be handsome profits from the dairy, irrespective of the farm altogether. In fact, town dairies usually have no land attached to them. The cows are maintained solely by purchased food, and the sale of manure, liquid and solid, forms one of the stated items of income. In Mr Harvey s and similar cases, two separate businesses are in fact mixed up, and yet the whole is spoken of in such a way as if the profit was mainly due to the use of liquid manure. Indeed, the whole of these Minutes of Information issued by the General Board of Health have an air of special pleading about them, which to us seriously detracts from their value. The entire annual cost of applying manure in this manner is stated to amount to from 10s. to 14s. per acre for the whole extent of the farm. Now this would suffice to provide annually from 1 to l cwt. of Peruvian guano (even at its present high price) for every acre of the farm, or from 2 to 3, cwt. per acre, if applied, as the liquid is, to the portion under green crop only. The stated application of such a dressing of guano, in separate portions, and during showery weather, will be found to yield results little inferior to those obtained by the use of liquid manure. To do this requires no costly apparatus or permanent sinking of capital, and its application can be desisted from at any time when found unremunerative. The adoption of this plan of applying the liquid manure of the farm necessarily demands that the whole system of management be accommodated to it. In order to furnish this liquid manure, the whole green crops must, summer and winter, be conveyed to the homestead, and there consumed in such a manner as that the urine and dung of the animals fed upon it may be scoured into the tanks. It is no such easy matter to replenish these tanks as some persons seem to think. When cattle are housed in boxes or properly protected yards, the whole of the urine is absorbed by the litter, and goes to the field in the dung- cart. This is certainly a more expensive way of conveying it to the fields than by pipes. But then, as in the new system, the urine, <tc., is diluted with at least three times its volume of water, there are four tons of manure to con vey on the one plan for one on the other. Even where pipes -are used, all the litter, and a portion at least of the dung, has still to be carted out, so that no claim of a saving of carriage can validly be put forward on behalf of this system ; but its merits must be grounded solely on the superior efficacy of manure, when applied in a liquid instead of a solid form. In the case of dry and loose soils, the consuming of the turnip crop, by folding sheep upon it, has hitherto been regarded as at once the cheapest way in which it can be converted into wool and mutton, and the land consolidated and enriched, so as to fit it for producing grain and other crops. On tenacious soils, and in a moist climate, which is quite the case at Myremill, it is certainly impracticable to pursue this system in winter. It is perhaps also the case that sheep are healthier, fatten more rapidly, and yield more wool, when fed under cover, than when folded on the open turnip field. Admitting all this, however, we are disposed to think that these benefits are oetter secured by Mr RandeH of Chadbury s plan of littering the pens with burnt clay, which keeps the sheep clean, and their feet in good order, and, when mingled with their urine and dung, forms a most valuable manure for any kind of land. Were this carried out by means of movable covered pens, which could bo erected and easily shifted from place to place in the turnip field, the carriage of the turnips and manure would be greatly reduced, especially if accomplished by means of the portable railway. In the case of dairies near towns, where the cows are largely fed on brewery or distillery offal and other purchased food, the circumstances are totally different from those of ordinary farms, depending solely on their own resources. The liquid manure that would otherwise run to waste, when thus applied, is so much clear gain, in so far as the value of the increased produce exceeds the cost of application. It may form a wholesome caution to some persons to men tion here that, notwithstanding all that has been written about the success of the spirited operations at Port-Dundas, we were told by Mr Harvey, that so dubious is he still about it, that if the thing were to do again, he would rather keep his money in his pocket, and let the urine run into the canal as formerly. If there is doubt even in such a case, how much more when the manure must virtually be purchased. And this leads us to remark that we have better hopes of the ultimate success of this plan of manuring, when it is restricted to the application of the surplus liquid manure of the homestead to some piece of meadow near at hand, supplementing this supply, when necessary, by dissolving guano in water, and sending it through the pipes. These remarks apply even more strongly to the sewage from towns. The liquid, in this case, is highly charged with fertilising ingredients of the most valuable kind, seeing that it con sists largely of night-soil from a population consuming much animal food. With few exceptions, this valuable liquid, which flows in such quantities from all our towns, is not only utterly lost, but is a grievous nuisance, by polluting our streams and generating disease. In applying it as manure, the expense lies entirely in providing and working the necessary apparatus. In such cases, then, with an un failing supply of highly fertilising liquid, costing nothing to begin with, there is every inducement to put into opera tion any plan by which it can be economically applied to field crops. The enhanced value of green forage in tlio vicinity of towns is an additional motive for attempting this. The profitable disposal of town sewage in a way neither injurious to the health nor offensive to the senses of the community, is, however, a problem yet remaining to be solved. The ingenuity and enterprise displayed by Mr Kennedy and others, in their endeavours to cheapen by this means the cost of farm produce, and the frankness and untiring patience with which they have shown and explained their proceedings to the unceasing stream of visitors, which the novelty of the operations attracted from all parts of the kingdom, and even from foreign countries, are altogether BO admirable and praiseworthy that it requires no slight effort to speak of them otherwise than approvingly. The con fidence with which various influential parties have proclaimed the complete success of this scheme of irrigation, and recom mended it for general adoption, seems, however, to require that those who have examined it, and arrived at an opposite conclusion, should publicly say so. It is unreasonable to expect that private parties are to divulge their whole business affairs ; and yet, without a full Dr. and Or. account for some ordinary arable farm treated on this system, it is impossible to arrive at a sound judgment on its merits. Until this can be done, it would be better to abstain from publishing partial statements, which tend only ​GUANO, BONE?.] AGRICULTURE 347 to mislead the public mind. We offer these remarks in no spirit of hostility to this new system of farming. We shall rejoice unfeignedly to find that our opinion of it is erroneous, and that it really warrants the sanguine expectations which some parties entertain regarding it. We simply maintain that as yet the case is " not proven," and our counsel to those who are disposed to try it is, not to embark in it to an extent that would embarrass them, if, as we fear, it should prove a failure. Section 3. Guano. Next to farm-yard manure, which must ever be looked to as the chief means of maintaining the fertility of a farm, guano claims our notice. This substance is the dung of seafowl, and is found on rocky islets in parts of the world where rain seldom falls. The droppings of the myriads of birds by which such places are frequented have in many cases been permitted to accumulate during untold ages, and are now found in enormous deposits. The principal supply, both for quantity and quality, has hitherto come from the Chincha Islands, on the coast of Peru. The introduction of this powerful and exceedingly portable manure gave a prodigious impetus to agricultural improvement. It is about thirty years since a few casks of this article were brought to Liverpool from Peru, where it has been known and prized as a valuable manure from the remotest periods. No sooner had its value been discovered by our British agriculturists than the demand for it became so keen, that the quantity imported rose from 2881 tons in 1841 to 283,300 tons in 1845. The price at which it was sold at first was 20 per ton, from which, with increased supplies, it fell to 11, when the discovery in 1844 of a considerable deposit on the island of Ichaboe, on the coast of Africa, at once reduced the price to 9. Discoveries have from time to time been made of other deposits on the African coast and in Australia. The quality of both is nruch inferior to that from Peru. It is in a more advanced state of decay, and contains more moisture and sand. Great as was the deposit of this valu able fertiliser on the Chincha Islands, it rapidly diminished under the excessive demand for it from Great Britain and other countries. Gradually the quality became very in ferior, and in 1871 it was announced that this deposit was entirely exhausted. Considerable supplies are still obtained from other parts of the Peruvian coast ; but unfortunately the quality is very inferior to that formerly obtained from the Chinchas. This circumstance would not be of much consequence if the guano was offered for sale on fair terms ; but as the agents of the Peruvian Government sell it only at one uniform price per ton, although different cargoes, and even different portions of any one cargo, vary excessively in quality, it is now an unsafe article for farmers to purchase. We give here, from the Board of Trade returns, a table of the quantities of guano imported yearly, with the com puted real value, from 1854 to 1872. Table showing Ike Imports of Guano from 1854 to 1872. Tear. Tons. Value. Year. Tons. Value. 1854 235,111 2,530,272 1864 131,358 1,457,088 1S55 305,061 3,137,160 1865 237,393 2,675,995 1856 191,501 2,136,431 1866 135,697 1,439,679 1857 288,362 3,613,074 1867 192,308 2,109,506 1853 353,541 4,084,170 1868 182,343 2,039,478 1859 I860 84,122 141,435 769,333 1,557,895 1869 1870 210,010 280,311 2,640,983 3,476,680 1861 178,423 2,022,283 1871 178,678 1,994,145 1862 141,636 1,635,322 1872 118,704 1,201,042 1863 233,574 2,658,856 The dung of birds, from its including both liquid and solid excrements, is superior as a manure to that of quadru peds. Pigeons dung has long been in high repute as an excellent fertiliser, and brought a high price in days when portable manures were scarcely to be had. It is now little heard of, guano, the excrement of fowls which feed upon fish, being superior, weight for weight. The dung of domestic poultry is usually mixed with the general dung- heap, but it could be turned to better account if kept by itself. It has been recommended to strew the floors of poul try-houses daily with sawdust or sand, and to rake this with the droppings into a heap to be kept under cover and used like guano. Section 4. Bones. It is now about sixty years since ground bones began to be used by farmers in the east side of England as a manure for turnips. At first bones were roughly smashed by ham mers and applied in great quantities. By and by mills were constructed for grinding them to a coarse powder, in which state they continued to be used as a dressing for turnips, at the rate of sixteen to twenty bushels per acre, in all parts of the kingdom and to a very great extent, until the ad mirable discovery by Baron Liebig of the mode of preparing superphosphate of lime by dissolving bones in sulphuric acid. We shall not attempt to explain on chemical princi ples the wonderful superiority of this substance over simple bone-dust in promoting the growth of the turnip plant. What we should do indifferently, by borrowing from others, will be found well done by various accomplished chemists who write specially on these subjects. We can, however, testify from experience to the important fact, that one bushel of bone-dust dissolved by a third of its weight of sulphuric acid is as a manure superior in value to four bushels of simple bone-dust. It is not merely, or even chiefly, in the lessened cost at which an acre of turnips can be manured that this superiority lies, but especially in this, that from the extraordinary stimulus given by superphosphate of lime to newly germinated turnip plants, they usually arrive at the stage when they are fit for thinning in from ten to fifteen days earlier than when sown over farm-yard dung or simple bone-dust, or both combined. This shortening of the critical period during which the attacks of the insignifi cant but dreaded turnip-beetle so often baulk the hopes of the husbandman is an advantage not easily estimated, and one well fitted to inspire him with confidence in the science to which he owes the discovery, and with grateful respect for the eminent discoverer. This powerful effect in quicken ing the growth of the young turnip plants is possessed in nearly as great a degree by Peruvian guano, when it is supplied with sufficient moisture. In climates and seasons which may be characterised as moist and cool, guano will show best results, whereas in those which are rather hot and dry superphosphate has the advantage. Accordingly we find guano the comparative favourite in Scotland, and it& rival in the drier counties of England. Guano is believed to encourage a great expanse of foliage, and to be more especially suited for early sowings ; and superphosphate to influence development of bulb, and to deserve the preference for a later seed-time. The obvious inference is that, for the turnip crop at least, these valu able fertilisers should be used in combination ; and actual experiment has verified its soundness. The use of them is universal and ever on the increase. They constitute also the standard by which farmers estimate the cost and effects of other purchased manures. The extent to which they are used, their high price, and the facility with which they can be adulterated with comparatively worthless ingredients, have led to almost unparalleled frauds. The adulteration of manures has, in fact, become a regular trade. Had farmers only their bodily senses to aid them, the detection of this fraud would be difficult perhaps impossible. Here, ​348 AGRICULTURE [MANURES. however, they can call the chemist to then- aid, with the certainty of ascertaining the real character of the articles which they are invited to purchase. If purchasers of ma nures would but insist in every instance on getting from the seller an analysis by some competent chemist, and along with it a written warrandice that the stock is of the quality therein indicated, detection and punishment of fraud would be easy. In regard to superphosphate of lime, the farmer can purchase bone-dust and sulphuric acid and prepare it liimself. We conducted this process for several years in the following way: A trough was provided 7 feet x 3 4 x 2 10, made of 2^-inch deal, strongly jointed, and secured at the corners by wooden pegs, as iron nails would be corroded by the acid. This holds conveniently 48 bushels of bones. The heap of bone-dust is then gone over with a barley riddle, and the small dust which passes through this is laid aside to be used as a drying material for the other portion, after it is subjected to the acid. We find that a third part of the bone-dust passes through the riddle. Three bottles, or carboys as they are called, of concentrated acid, averaging 180 tt>. each, are then emptied into the trough and mixed with cold water at the rate of 1| of water, by measure, to 1 of acid. In practice, the water is poured in first and then the acid. Into this mixture 48 bushels of bones, previously measured and laid close to the trough, are rapidly shovelled by two labourers, who will do well to be attired in clothes and shoes past spoiling. So soon as the bones begin to be thrown in, violent ebullition commences. By the time that the whole of the bones are thrown in, there will be barely liquid enough to moisten the last of them. The labourers therefore dig down at one end of the trough till they reach the bottom, and then carefully turn back and mix the whole quantity until they reach the other end. The surface is then levelled and covered with a layer of the dry riddlings two inches thick. In this state it is allowed to remain for two days, when the trough is emptied, and the same process is repeated until the whole quantity is gone over. When shovelled out of the trough the bones are found to have become a dark-coloured paste, still very warm, and emitting a sweetish smell While one person throws it out, another adds to it its proportion of dry riddlings, and mixes them carefully. This mass is heaped up in the corner of a shed, and augmented at each emptying of the trough, until the requisite quantity is obtained. After this the mass is care fully turned over several times, at intervals of five or six days, and is then dry enough for sowing either by hand or machine. Some prefer moistening the bones with boiling water, and then adding pure acid as they are shovelled into the trough ; but by first mixing the acid and water there is greater certainty of all the bones being equally acted upon. There is also great convenience in using the finest portion of the bone-dust for drying the other, as suitable material for this purpose is sometimes difficult to procure. The homely process now described is quite inferior to, and more costly than, that pursued in factories, and should only be resorted to when a genuine article cannot otherwise be obtained. We have referred to superphosphate of lime prepared from bones. A new source of supply has, however, been discovered of late years, the extent and importance of which is becoming more apparent as investigation proceeds. We allude to those phosphoric deposits found in such abundance in the crag, and upper and lower green-sand formations in the south of England. The existence of these fossil animal remains was first pointed out by Drs Mantel and Buckland, though it is to Professor Henslow that we are indebted for having called attention to their eminent agricultural value, and described the localities whence they may be most readily obtained. These remains consist of the fractured and rolled bones of sharks, gigantic sea-lizards, and whales, which at one period of our earth s history must have existed in myriads in our oceans and seas. Mixed with these bones are found many fish-teeth and shells of different species, and likewise immense numbers of rolled, water-worn pebbles, which at one period were imagined to be the fossilised ex crements of the animals themselves, and were on this account called coprolites by Professor Henslow and others. Although this has since been proved a mistake, the name has been adopted, and will probably be continued. These fossil bones, and so-called coprolites of the crag, are found in enormous quantities on the coast of Suffolk, Norfolk, and Essex, whence MrLawes of Bothamstead obtained nearly the whole of the material which he employed in the preparation of his well-known " coprolite manure," or " Lawes super phosphate." Already, it is believed, several thousands of tons of these fossils in one form or other are annually sold for manure, with a rapidly increasing demand. Those found in the crag formation are exceedingly hard, and require to be ground by powerful machinery, and dissolved in sul phuric acid, to render the phosphate of lime available as manure. Fossils, though less abundant in the green-sand, can be reduced to the requisite fineness by simple machinery, and are then fit for agricultural purposes without any chemi cal preparation. They are found plentifully in the parish of Farnham, so long celebrated for the excellence and abun dance of its hops, which are now discovered to be due to the presence in the soil of these fossil remains. The discovery of these mines of manure in various parts of our country was made most seasonably, and has proved of immense national importance. When Liebig predicted that, " in the remains of an extinct animal world England is to find the means of increasing her wealth in agricultural produce, as she has already found the great support of her manufactur ing industry in fossil fuel," he was regarded by many as merely indulging a fine philosophic fancy ; but enough has already been realised to convince the most sceptical of the importance of the data on which he founded his opinion. 1 On mixing a quantity of bone-dust with its own bulk of mould or sand, and wetting the whole with the liquid which oozes from the dung-heap, violent fermentation immedi ately ensues, dissolving the bones, and making them more readily available for the nourishment of the turnip crop. Many farmers are so satisfied with this preparation, that they dispense with the acid. This is not judicious, as the superphosphate of lime is a more valuable manure than bones dissolved by simple fermentation. Bones are sometimes applied as a top-dressing to grass land with singular success. " This Cheshire practice con sists in applying an extraordinary dose of bones to pasture- land. For pasture land, especially the poorer kind, says Mr Palin, there is nothing equal to bone manure, either as regards the permanency of its effects, or the production of a sweet luxurious herbage, of which all cattle are fond. Many thousand acres of the poor clay soils have been covered with this manure during the last eight or ten years. The average quantity used is about a ton and a half to the acre ; it is therefore a landlord s improvement, on which seven or eight per cent, is generally paid. Boiled bones act as long as unboiled bones, retaining the phosphorus, though not so quickly, having lost the animal matter. Boiled bones (1845) cost 3, 10s. per ton ; the outlay then was five guineas per acre, sometimes 7 or 8. I have known/ says a correspondent, many instances where the annual value of our poorest clay lands has been increased by an outlay of from 7 to 8 an acre, at least 300 per cent. ; or, in other words, that the land has been much cheaper after this outlay at 30s., than in its native state at 10s. per acre ; with the satisfaction of seeing a miserable covering 1 Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, vol. ix. p. 56, and vol. xii. p. 91. ​RAPE, BLOOD, ETC.] AGRICULTURE 349 of pink-grass, rushes, hen-gorse, and other noxious weeds, exchanged for a most luxuriant herbage of wild clover, trefoil, and other succulent grasses. Though much of the clover and trefoil may disappear in five or ten years (some times they last fifteen years), an excellent herbage remains. Draining/ the writer adds, may be carried too far where bones are used, for boned lands suffer by a dry summer. The land should be kept cool. I have found the same thing on water meadows. The freer the grass is growing, the more it suffers from drought ; and this is natural, for a larger supply of sap is required. This writer adds, I have known many a poor, honest, but half-broken man, raised from poverty to comparative independence, and many a sinking family saved from inevitable ruin, by the help of this wonderful manure. Indeed, I believe, land after boning will keep three cows where two fed before. As to this practice, however, caution is necessary. It seems to belong to cold clays for grass in Cheshire, though on such soil it would hardly answer elsewhere, even for turnips. A Cheshire landlord told me that he had tried it vainly for grass in Suffolk. I know no case of its success out of Che shire, unless in the bordering counties, and have heard some cases of its failure even in those. It will not do, therefore, at all to adopt it hastily. We only know it to have succeeded about Cheshire, which is on the red marls geo logically, and on the rainy side of the country, and must remember that it is a costly proceeding, striking in its success, but as yet circumscribed in its practice, and there fore in the proof of its efficacy." 1 Section 5. Rape-Cake, &c. Rape-cake reduced to powder forms an excellent manure for wheat and other crops. It is usually applied at the rate of from tour to eight cwt. per acre. The cakes result ing after oil has been expressed from camelina, hemp, and cotton seeds, and from pistachio and castor-oil nuts, from beech and other mast, all possess considerable value as manure, and were at one time available for that purpose. Most of them now command a price for cattle feeding that forbids their use as manure unless when in a damaged state. Section 6. Blood, <kc. All parts of the carcases of animals form valuable manure, and are now carefully used in that way whenever they are unfit for more important uses. The blood and other refuse from shambles and from fish-curers yards, when mixed with earth and decomposed, make a valuable manure, and are eagerly sought after by farmers to whom such supplies are accessible. In London a company has been formed by whom the blood from the shambles is purchased, and em ployed instead of water in preparing superphosphate of lime, which, when thus manufactured, contains an amount of ammonia which adds considerably to its efficacy as a manure. In Australia and South America it has long been the practice to slaughter immense numbers of sheep and cattle for the sake of their hides and tallow only, there being no market for them as beef and mutton. To obtain the whole tallow, the carcases are subjected to a process of boiling by steam and afterwards to pressure, and are then thrown aside in great piles. This dried residuum is afterwards used as fuel in the furnaces of the steaming apparatus, and the resulting ashes constitute the bone-ash of commerce, which is now an important raw material in our manure factories. After many abortive attempts to convey Australian beef and mutton to the British market, the difficulty has at last been overcome by enclosing the meat in a par-boiled state in tin cases, hermetically sealed. This has already grown 1 Article by Mr Pusey. See Journal of Royal Society of England, ol .i. p. 409. to a large trade, with every likelihood of its increasing rapidly. As the meat in these cases is sent free from bone, a plan has been found for rendering the bones also a pro fitable article of export. For this purpose they are crushed into compact cakes 6 inches square by 3 inches thick, in which form they can be stowed in comparatively small space. The refuse from glue-works ; the blubber and dregs from fish-oil ; animal charcoal that has been used in the process of sugar-refining ; the shavings and filings of horn and bones from various manufactures, and woollen rags, are all made available for manure. Section 7. Night-Soil. Night-Soil is a powerful manure ; but owing to its offensive odour it has never been systematically used in Britain. Various plans are tried for obviating this objec tion, that most in repute at present being its mixture with charred peat. From the universal use of water-closets in private dwellings, the great mass of this valuable fertilising matter now passes into sewers, and is carried off by streams and rivers, and is for the most part totally lost as a manure. When sewage water is used for irrigation, as in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, it is to the night-soil dissolved in it that its astonishing effects in promoting the growth of grass are chiefly due. We have already expressed our views in regard to the use of it in this diluted form of sewage water. That mode of applying it is necessarily restricted to lands in the vicinity of towns. Hitherto the numerous and costly attempts that have been made to separate the fertilising matter from the water in which it is contained have proved utter failures. The most feasible plan for the utilisation of night-soil that we have hitherto heard of is that brought forward by the Rev. Henry Moule, Fordington Vicarage, Devon. In a tract addressed to cot tagers he says, " Now, my discovery is this : The earth of your garden, if dried or dried and powdered clay will suck up the liquid part of the privy soil ; and, if applied at once and carefully mixed, will destroy all bad smell and all nasty appearance in the solid part, and will keep all the value of the manure. Three half pints of earth, or even one pint, will be enough for each time. And earth thus mixed even once is very good manure. But if, after mixing, you throw it into a shed and dry it, you may use it again and again; and the oftener 3^0x1 use it the stronger the manure will be. I have used some seven and even eight times ; and yet, even after being so often mixed, there is no bad smell with the substance ; and no one, if not told, would know what it is." To adapt a privy for using dried earth in this way, he says, " Let the seat be made in the com mon way, only without any vault beneath. Under the seat place a bucket or box, or, if you have nothing else, an old washing-pan. A bucket is the best, because it is more easily handled ; only let it have a good-sized bail or handle. By the side of the seat have a box that will hold (say) a bushel of dried earth, and a scoop or old basin that will take up a pint or a pint and a half, and let that quantity of earth be thrown into the bucket or pan every time it is used. The bucket may be put in or taken out from above by having the whole cover moved with hinges ; or else, through a door in front or at the back." He has also in vented and patented an earth-closet, as a substitute for the ordinary water-closet, which he describes thus : "The back contains dried and sifted earth, which enters the pan through a hole at the back of it, and covers the bottom. The bottom is moved by the handle and lever ; the side of the pan acts as a scraper ; and all that is upon the bottom is pushed off, falling into the bucket or shaft below. The earth thus applied at once prevents fermentation, and almost all exhalation and offensive smell The bottom returns to ​350 AGRICULTURE [MANURES. its place by means of a spring, and a fresh supply of the earth falls upon it from the box." 1 This scheme has now been tested for a sufficient length of time, and on a wide enough scale, to show that in the case of private houses in rural districts, as well as in prisons, asylums, hospitals, public schools, military camps, and fac tories, it is entirely successful as regards the sanitary results of its use, and the value of the manure when applied to gardens attached to the premises from which it is obtained. But the cost and annoyance of moving so bulky a substance, and the small percentage of fertilising matter contained in it, forbid the expectation of its being adopted in towns. Section 8. Sea-Weed. Along our sea-board large supplies of useful manure are obtained in the shape of drifted sea-weed. This is either applied as a top-dressing to grass and clover, ploughed in with a light furrow, for various crops, or mixed in dung- heaps. It requires to be used in large quantities per acre from 40 to 60 loads and is evanescent in its effects. Grain grown on land manured with sea-weed is generally of fine quality, and is in repute as seed corn. Section 9. Manure Crops. Crops of Buckwheat, Rape, Vetches, and Mustard are some times ploughed in, while in a green, succulent state, to enrich the land. It is, however, more usual to fold sheep on such crops, and so to get the benefit of them as forage, as well as manure to the land. The leaves of turnips are frequently ploughed in after removing the bulbs, and have a powerful fertilising effect. Section 10. Lime. Besides manures of an animal and vegetable origin, vari ous mineral substances are used for this purpose. The most important and extensively used of these is lime. In the drier parts of England it is not held in much esteem, whereas in the western and northern counties, and in Scot land, its use is considered indispensable to good farming. Experienced farmers in Berwickshire consider it desirable to lime the land every twelve years, at the rate of from 120 to 200 bushels of the unslacked lime per acre. It is found especially beneficial in the reclaiming of moory and boggy lands, on which neither green nor grain crops thrive until it has been applied to them. Its use is found to improve the quality of grain, and to cause it in some cases to ripen earlier. It facilitates the cleaning of land, certain weeds disappearing altogether for a time after a dressing of lime. It is the only known specific for the disease in turnips called " fingers-and-toes," on which account alone it is frequently used in circumstances which would otherwise render such an outlay unwarrantable. The practice, still frequent, of tenants at the beginning of a nineteen years lease, liming their whole farm at a cost per acre of from 3 to 5, proves conclusively the high estimation in which this manure is held. The belief in which we fully concur is however gaining ground, that moderate and frequent applications are preferable to these heavy doses at length ened intervals. When bare fallowing was in use, it was commonly to- Vvards the close of that process that lime was applied. Having been carted home and laid down in large heaps, it was, when slaked, spread evenly upon the surface and covered in by a light furrow. It is now frequently spread upon the autumn furrow preparatory to root crops, and worked in by harrowing or grubbing, and sometimes by throwing the land into shallow ridgelets. Another method 1 Manure for the Million, by Rev. Henry Moule, price Id. Mr Moule has also published a pamphlet on the same subject, entitled rational Health and Wealth. much used is to form it into compost with decayed quickens, parings from road-sides and margins of fields, &c., which, after thorough intermixture by frequent turnings, is spread evenly upon the land when in grass. A cheap and effectual way of getting a dressing of such compost thoroughly com minuted and incorporated with the surface soil, is to fold sheep upon it, and feed them there with turnips for a few days. The value of such compost is much enhanced by mixing common salt with the lime and earth, at the rate of one part of salt by measure to two parts of lime. A mixture of these two substances in these proportions prepared under cover, and applied in a powdery state, is much approved as a spring top-dressing for corn crops on light soils. I u whatever way lime is applied, it is important to remember that the carbonic acid which has been expelled from it by subjecting it in the kiln to a red heat, is quickly regained from the atmosphere, to which therefore it should be as little exposed as possible before applying it to the land. A drenching from heavy rain after it is slaked is also fatal to its usefulness. Careful farmers therefore guard against these evils by laying on lime as soon as it is slaked ; or when delay is unavoidable, by coating these heaps with, earth, or thatching them with straw. In order to reap the full benefit of a dressing of lime it must be so applied as, while thoroughly incorporated with the soil, to be kept near the surface. This is more particularly to be attended to in laying down land to pasture. This fact is so well illustrated by an example quoted in the article " Agriculture" in the 7th edition of the present work that we here repeat it. " A few years after 1754," says Mr Dawson, "having a consider able extent of outfield land in fallow, which 1 wished to lime previous to its being laid down to pasture, and finding that I could not obtain a sufficient quantity of lime for the whole in proper time, I was induced, from observing the effects of fine loam upon the surface of similar soil, even when covered with bent, to try a small quantity of lime on the surface of this fallow, instead of a larger quantity ploughed down in the usual manner. Accordingly, in the autumn, about twenty acres of it were well harrowed in, and then about fifty- six Winchester bushels only, of unslaked lime, were, after being slaked, carefully spread upon each Knglish acre, and immediately well harrowed in. As many pieces of the lime, which had not been fully slaked at first, were gradually reduced to powder by the dews and moisture of the earth, to mix these with the soil, the land was again well harrowed in three or four days thereafter. This land was sown in the spring with oats, with white and red clover and rye-grass seeds, and well harrowed without being ploughed again. The crop of oats was good, the plants of grass sufficiently numerous and healthy ; and they formed a very fine pasture, which continued good until ploughed some years after for corn. " About twelve years afterwards I took a lease of the hilly farm of G rabbet, many parts of which, though of an earthy mould toler ably deep, were too steep and elevated to be kept in tillage. As these lands had been much exhausted by cropping, and were full of couch- grass, to destroy that and procure a cover of fine grass, I fallowed them, and laid on the same quantity of lime per acre, then harrowed and sowed oats and grass-seeds in the spring, exactly as in the last- mentioned experiment. The oats were a full crop, and the plants of grass abundant. Several of these fields have been now above thirty years in pasture, and are still producing white clover and other line grasses ; no bent or fog has yet appeared upon them. It deserves particular notice, that more than treble the quantity of lime was laid upon fields adjoining of a similar soil, but which being fitter for occasional tillage, upon them the lime was ploughed in. These fields were also sown with oats and grass seeds. The latter throve well, and gave a fine pasture the first year; but afterwards the bent spread so fast, that in three years there was more of it than of the finer grasses." The conclusions which Mr Dawson draws from his ex tensive practice in the use of lime and dung deserve the attention of all cultivators of similar land : " 1. That animal dung dropped upon coarse tenty pasture pro duces little or no improvement upon them ; and that, even when sheep or cattle are confined to a small space, as in the case of folding, their dung ceases to produce any beneficial effects aftfr *. few years, whether the land is continued in pasture or trcc.glit under the plough. ​MANURES.] AGRICULTURE 351 " 2. That even when land of this description is well fallowed and dunged, but not limed, though the dung augments the produce of the subsequent crop of grain, and of grass also for two or three years, its effects thereafter are no longer discernible either upon the one or the other. " 3. That when this land is limed, if the lime is kept upon the surface of the soil, or well mixed with it, and then laid down to pasture, the finer grasses continue in possession of the soil, even in elevated and exposed situations, for a great many years, to the exclusion of bent and fog. In the case of Grubbet-hills, it was observed, that more than thirty years have now elapsed. Besides this, the dung of the animals pastured upon such land adds every year to the luxuriance, and improves the quality of the pasture, and augments the productive powers of the soil when afterwards ploughed for grain ; thus producing upon a benty outfield soil effects similar to what are experienced when rich infield lands have been long in pasture, and which are thereby more and more enriched. 4. That when a large quantity of lime is laid on such land, and ploughed down deep, the same effects will not be produced, whether in respect to the permanent fineness of the pasture, its gradual amelioration by the dung of the animals depastured on it, or its fertility when afterwards in tillage. On the contrary, unless the surface is fully mixed with lime, the coarse grasses will in a few years regain possession of the soil, and the dung thereafter deposited by cattle will not enrich the land for subsequent tillage. " Lastly, It also appears from what has been stated, that the four-shift husbandry is only proper for very rich land, or in situa tions where there is a full command of dung ; that by far the greatest part of the land of this country requires to be continued in grass two, three, four, or more years, according to its natural poverty; that the objection made to this, viz., that the coarse grasses in a few years usurp possession of the soil, must be owing to the surface soil not being sufficiently mixed with lime, the lime having been covered too deep by the plough." Farmers Magazine, vol. xiii. p. CD. Section 11. Marl. Our remarks hitherto have had reference to carbonate of lime in that form of it to which the term lime is exclusively applied by farmers. But there are other substances fre quently applied to land which owe their value chiefly to the presence of this mineral. The most important of these is marl, which is a mixture of carbonate of lime with clay, or with clay and sand, and other compounds. When this substance is found in the proximity of, or lying under, sandy or peaty soils, its application in considerable doses is attended with the very best effects. The fen lands of England, the. mosses of Lancashire, and sandy soils in Norfolk and elsewhere, have been immensely improved in this way. In Lancashire, marl is carried on the mosses by means of portable railways at the rate of 150 tons, and at a cost of about 3 per acre. In the fens long trenches are dug, and the subjacent marl is thrown out and spread on either side at an expense of 54s. per acre. By this process, often repeated, of claying or marling, as it is variously called, the appearance and character of the fen lands have been totally changed, excellent wheat being now raised where formerly only very inferior oats were produced. As the composition both of peat and of clay marl varies exceed ingly, it is always prudent, either by limited experiment or chemical analysis of both substances, to ascertain the effect of their admixture. Lime is always present in those cases which prove most successful ; but an overdose does harm. Section 12. Shell-Marl. Under some mosses and fresh-water lakes extensive de posits of shell-marl are frequently found. It contains a larger percentage of lime than clay marl, and must be applied more sparingly. Section IZ.CJcalk. Throughout the extensive chalk districts of England, the practice of spreading this substance over the surface of the la ml has prevailed from the remotest times. In the case or fhe Lincolnshire Wolds, once as celebrated for desolate barrenness as they now are for high culture and smiling fertility, chalking was one important means of bring ing about this wonderful improvement, as it still is ia maintaining it. " The soil being but a few inches in depth, and often containing a large proportion of flints, naturally possesses very little fertility often being a light sand, not strong enough naturally to grow turnips so that the farmers were at first obliged to make a soil, and must now maintain its new-born productiveness. The three principal means by which this is done are the processes of chalking, and boning, and manuring ivith sheep. A dressing of 80 or 100 cubic yards per acre of chalk is spread upon the land, and then a crop of barley is obtained if possible, being sown with seeds for grazing. The fit-Ids are grazed with sheep two years, the sheep being at the same time fed with oil cake ; and then the land will be capable of producing a fine crop of oats. Bones are also used frequently for the barley crop, and when they first came into use were thrown upon the land in a chopped state, neither broken nor crushed, and as much as 40 or even 50 bushels per acre. The boning and sheep-feeding are in constant operation, but chalking is required only at intervals of a few years. On the western side of the Wold district, wherever the chalk adjoins the white or blue marl, an extensive application of it is made to the surface. Thus immense quantities of earth and stone have been added by manual labour and horse carriage to the thin covering of original soil ; and, besides this, the soil is being continually deepened by deep ploughing, the chalk fragments thus brought to the surface crumbling into mould." 1 In Dorsetshire "it is usual to chalk the land once in twenty years, the sour description of soil being that to which it is found most advantageous to apply it. The chalk is dug out of pits in the field to which it is applied, and it is laid on sometimes with barrows, but chiefly with the aid of donkeys. The first method costs 40s. an acre, the last 35s. when hire donkeys are used ; 20s. to 25s. where the donkeys are the property of the farmer. The chalk is laid on in large lumps, which soon break down by the action of frost and exposure to the weather. Chalk is occasionally burned and applied as lime, in which state it is preferred by many farmers, notwithstanding the additional cost of the burning." 2 Section 14. Shell-Sand and Limestone Gravel. On the western shores of Great Britain and Ireland are found great quantities of sand mixed with sea-shells in minute fragments. This calcareous sand is carried inland considerable distances, and applied to the land as lime is elsewhere. Limestone gravel is also found in various places and used in the same way. Section 15. Gypsum. Sulphate of lime or gypsum is considered an excellent top-dressing for clover and kindred plants. It is thought by some that the failure of red clover is to be accounted for by the repeated crops of that plant having exhausted the gypsum in the soil. Its application has been followed by favourable results in some cases, but has yet quite failed in others. It is applied in a powdered state at tho rate of two or three cwt. per acre when the plants are moist with rain or dew. Section 16. Burnt Clay. About fifty years ago burnt clay was brought much into notice as a manure, and tried in various parts of the country, but again fell into disuse. It is now, however, more exten sively and systematically practised than ever. Frequent 1 " Farming of Lincolnshire," by John Algernon Clarke ; Jour.tal of Royal Agricultural Society, xii. 331. 1 See Caird s English Agriculture, 1850 and 1851, p. 61. ​352 AGRICULTUB E [MANURES. reference to the practice is to be found in the volumes of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England. This burning of clay is accomplished in several ways. -Sometimes it is burned in large heaps or clamps containing from 80 to 100 cart-loads. A fire being kindled with some faggots or brushwood, which is covered up with the clay, taking care not to let the fire break out at any point, more fuel of the kind mentioned, or dross of coals, is added as required, and more clay heaped on. A fierce fire must be .avoided, as that would make the clay into brickbats. A low, smothered combustion is what is required ; and to maintain this a good deal of skill and close watching on the part of the workman is necessary. A rude kiln is sometimes used for the same purpose. Either of these plans is suitable where the ashes are wanted at a homestead for absorbing liquid manure, &c. ; but for merely spreading over the land, that called clod-burning is preferable, and is thus described in volume viii. page 78, of the Royal Agricultural Society s Journal : " Roll and harrow, in dry weather, till the majority of clods are about the size of a large walnut ; no thing so good as the clod-crusher to forward this operation : when perfectly dry, collect them into rows about six yards apart, with iron-teethed rakes ; take a quarter of a whin faggot, or less, according to size, previously cut into lengths by a man with an axe ; place these pieces about four yards apart in the rows, cover them with clods, putting the finest mould upon the top of the heap, to prevent the fire too quickly escaping ; observe the wind, and leave an opening accordingly ; having set fire to a long branch of whin, run from opening to opening till two or three rows are lighted, secure these, and then put fire to others, keeping a man or two behind to attend to the fires and earthing up till the quantity desired may be burned, which will generally take four or five hours, say from 25 to 35 loads per acre of 30 bushels per load. This work is often put out to a gang of men at about 10s. per acre for labour, and the whins cost 4s. 6d. per acre, not including the carting. "When the heaps are cold, spread and plough in. The great advantage of burning clods in these small heaps, in preference to a large one, is the saving of expense in collect ing and spreading ; there is much less red brick earth and more black and charred ; no horses or carts moving on the land whilst burning ; and a large field may be all burned in a day or two, therefore less liable to be delayed by wet weather. In the heavy land part of Suffolk, the fanners purchase whins from the light land occupiers, and often cart them a distance of fourteen or sixteen miles, when there is no work pressing on the farm. These are stacked up and secured by thatching with straw, that they may be dry and fit for use when required. Bean straw is the next best f ue to whins or furze, and it is astonishing to see how small quantity will burn the clods if they are of the proper size and dry. Observe, if the soil is at all inclined to sand, it will not burn so well. I will here mention, that I often sift and store up a few loads of the best blackened earth to drill with my turnips, instead of buying artificia manure, and find it answers remarkably well, and assists in maintaining the position that a heavy land farm in Suffolk can be farmed in the first-rate style without foreign ingredients." Burnt clay is an admirable vehicle for absorbing liqui manure. A layer of it in the bottom of cattle-boxes does good service, at once in economising manure, and in yielding to the cattle a drier bed than they would otherwise hav< until the litter has accumulated to some depth. ValuabL results have also been obtained by using it for strewing ove the floors of poultry-houses, and especially of pens in whicl sheep are fed under cover. In the latter case it is mixec with the excrements of the sheep as they patter over it, anc brms a substance not unlike gua.no, nor much inferior to t as a manure. As an application to sandy or chalky soila t is invaluable. It is mainly by this use of burnt clay, in

ombination with fattening of sheep under cover, that Mr

landell of Chadbury has so astonishingly increased the productiveness of his naturally poor clay soil. A Berwick shire proprietor, himself a practical farmer, who visited Mr ElandelPs farm in the summer of 1852, thus writes : " I lave visited most of the best managed farms in England, at east those that have so much of late been brought under eneral notice ; but without exception, I never saw laud in the splendid condition his is in. The beauty of the system les in the cheap method by which he has imparted to it his fertility, and in the manner in which he keeps it up. A large part of the farm consisted, fourteen years ago, of poor clay, and was valued to him at his entry at 7s. Gd. per acre. It is now bearing magnificent crops of all kinds, the wheat being estimated to yield from 6 to 7 quarters per acre. " Mechi has enriched Tiptree-heath, it is true ; but then it is effected at a cost that will make it impossible for him to be repaid. Mr Randell, on the other hand, has adopted a course that is nearly self-supporting, his only cost being the preparation of the clay. The great secret of his success lies in his mode of using it ; and as I never heard of a similar process, I will briefly explain to you how it is done : His heavy land not permitting him to consume the turnip and mangold crops on the ground, he carts them home, and feeds his sheep in large sheds. They do not stand on boards or straw, but on the burnt clay, which affords them a beautiful dry bed ; and whenever it gets the least damp or dirty, a fresh coating is put under them. The mound rises in height ; and in February, when the shearlings are sold (for the sheep are only then twelve months old), the mass is from 7 to 8 feet deep. He was shearing his lambs when I was there, as he considers they thrive much better in the sheds without their fleeces. They are half-bred Shropshire downs ; and at the age I mention, attain the great weight of 24 Ibs. per quarter. " I walked through the sheds, but of course they were then empty. I saw the enormous quantity of what he called his home-made guano ; the smell from it strongly indicated the ammonia it contained. He had sown his tur nips and other green crops with it, and what remained he used for the wheat in autumn. He assured me he had often tested it with other manures, and always found 10 tons of the compound quite outstrip 4 cwt. of guano, when they were applied to an acre of land separately." Section 17. Charred Peat. Charred peat has been excessively extolled for its value as a manure, both when applied alone, and still more in combination with night-soil, sewage water, and similar matters, which it dries and deodorises. So great were the expectations of an enormous demand for it, and of the benefits to result to Ireland by thus disposing of her bogs, that a royal charter was granted to a company by whom its manufacture was commenced on an imposing scale. This charcoal is doubtless a useful substance ; but, as Dr Anderson has proved, peat, merely dried, is a better absorber and retainer of ammonia than after it is charred. Section 18. Soot. Soot has long been in estimation as an excelle nt top dressing for cereal crops in the early stage of their growth, and for grasses and forage plants. It is applied at the rate of 15 to 30 bushels per acre. On light soils the additior of 8 or 10 bushels of salt to the above quantity of soot is said to increase materially its good effect. This mixture trenched, or deeply ploughed in, is also re​MANURES.] AGRICULTURE 353 commended as one of the most powerful of all manures for carrots. In London Labour and the London Poor we find the following statistics as to metropolitan soot : Bush, of Soot per annum. " 53,840 houses, at a yearly rental above 50, producing six bushels of soot each per annum . . . 323,040 90,002 houses, at a yearly rental above 30 and below 50, producing five bushels of soot each per annum 450,010 163,880 house;), at a yearly rental below 30, producing two bushels of soot each per annum . . . 327,760 Total number of bushels of soot annually pro duced throughout London 1,100,810 The price of soot per bushel is but 5d., and sometimes 4^d., but 5d. may be taken as an average. Now, 1,000,000 bushels of soot at 5d. will be found to yield 20,833, 6s. 8d. per annum." 1 Section 19. Salt. Common salt has often been commended as a valuable manure, but has never been used in this way with such uni form success as to induce a general recourse to it. We have already spoken of it as forming a useful compound with lime and earth. It can also be used beneficially for the destruction of slugs, for which purpose it must be sown over the surface, at the rate of four or Jive bushels per acre, early in the morning, or on mild, moist days, when they are Been to be abroad. It is used also to destroy grubs and wireworm, for which purpose it is sown in considerable quantity on grass land some time before it is ploughed up. It can be used safely on light soils, but when clay pre dominates, it causes a hurtful wetness, and subsequent incrustation of the surface. Its application in its unmixed state as a manure is at best of doubtful benefit; but in combination with lime, soot, nitrate of soda, and perhaps also superphosphate of lime, it appears to exert a beneficial influence. Section 20. Nitrate of Soda. Cubic saltpetre, or nitrate of soda, has now become one of our staple manures. The fertilising power of common saltpetre or nitrate of potass has been known from the earliest times, but its high price has hitherto hindered its use as a manure, except in the form in which it is obtained as refuse from the gunpowder mills. The cubic nitre is brought from Peru, where there are inexhaustible supplies of it. The principal deposits of nitrate of soda are in the plain of Tamarugal, at a distance of 18 miles from the coast. The beds are sometimes 7 or 8 feet in thickness, and from these it is quarried with ease. It is not found in a perfectly pure state, but contains a mixture of several sub stances, chiefly common salt. To fit it for certain uses in the arts, it is subjected to a process of purification by boiling and evaporation. But for its use as a manure this is altogether unnecessary, and the cost would be greatly lessened if the nitrate were imported as quarried. As cubic nitre and guano contain very nearly the same per centage of nitrogen (the element to which the fertilising power of all manures is mainly due), it may seem sur prising that the former should ever be used in preference to the latter. In practice, however, it is found that when applied as a top-dressing in spring, the former frequently yields a better profit than the latter ; and hence the importance to farmers of getting it at a more reason able price. Nitrate of soda is used as a manure for grain and forage crops. It is now extensively used as a top- dressing for wheat. For this purpose it is applied at the rate of 84 ft per acre, in combination with 2 cwt. of salt. The nitre and salt are thoroughly mixed, and carefully sown, 1 Farmers Magazine for March 1852, p. 254. by hand, in two or three equal portions, at intervals of several weeks, beginning early in March, and finishing by the third week in April. If nitre alone is used, it has a tendency to produce over-luxuriance, and to render the crop liable to lodging and mildew. But the salt is found to correct this over-luxuriance, and a profitable increase of grain is thus obtained. Mr Pusey 2 informs us that an application of 42 ft of nitrate of soda and 84 B) of salt per acre, applied by him to ten acres of barley that had been injured by frost, had such an effect upon the crop, that he had seven bushels more grain per acre, and of better quality, than on part that was left undressed for comparison. These seven bushels per acre were attained by an outlay of 6s. 4d. only. This nitre is also applied with advantage to forage crops. Mr Hope, Fenton Barns, East Lothian, states that he finds the use of it as a top-dressing to clover, at the rate of one cwt. of nitrate and two of guano per acre, profit able. Its beneficial effects are most apparent when it is applied to light and sterile soils, or to such as have been exhausted by excessive cropping. Section 21. Potash. Crude potash, or kainite, has of recent years been largely imported from Germany, and has been somewhat exten sively used in combination with other manures for potatoes and other root crops two cwt. per acre being a common rate for the potash. Section 22. Artificial Manures. Besides those substances, the most important of which we have now enumerated, which are available as manure in their natural state, there are various chemical products, such as salts of ammonia, potash, and soda, copperas, sul phuric and muriatic acid, &c., which, in combination with lime, guano, night-soil, and other substances, are employed in the preparation of manures, with a special view to the requirements of particular crops. In some cases these pre parations have been eminently successful, in others but doubtfully so. Many failures are probably due to the spuriousness of the article made use of ; as it is known that enormous quantities of worthless rubbish have, of late years, been sold to farmers, under high sounding names, and at high prices, as special manures. We would recom mend those who desire information regarding the pre paration and use of such compounds to study the article on Agricultural Chemistry, by Mr Lawes of Rothamstead, in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England (vol. viii. p. 226) ; the accounts of experiments with special manures in the Transactions of the Highland and Agri cultural Society of Scotland ; and the articles relating to Agricultural Chemistry in Morton s Cyc^cedia. Those who purchase manures of this kind ought to be very care ful to insist in every instance upon the seller producing an analysis by some chemist of established character, and granting a written warranty that the article sold to them is at least equal to the value indicated by the analysis. Were all farmers to insist upon this mode of buying their manures, they would at once put an end to that wholesale system of fraud by which they have been so enormously cheated of late years. In applying these concentrated manures, those only of a slowly operating character should be used in autumn or winter, and at that season should invariably be mixed with the soil Those in which ammonia abounds should in spring also be mixed with the soil when crops to which they are applied are sown. When used for top-dressing growing crops they should be applied only in wet weather. 2 Journal of Royal Agricultural Society, vol. xiii. p. 349. I. - 45 ​354 AGRICULTURE CHAPTER XL CULTIVATED CROPS GRAIN CROPS. Pursuing the plan announced at tlie outset, we have now to speak of field crops, and shall begin with the cereal grasses, or white-corn crops, as they are usually called by farmers. Section 1. Wlieat. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the value of this grain to the farmer and to the community. It constitutes emphati cally our bread-corn our staff of life. While its increased consumption is, on the one hand, an indication of an improved style of living among the general population, its extended culture points, on the other, to an improving agriculture, as it is only on soils naturally fertile, or that have been made so by good farming, that it can be grown with success. Wheat is sown both in autumn and spring, from which circumstance attempts have been made to classify its varieties by ranging them under these two general heads. This distinction can only serve to mislead ; for while it is true that there are varieties best adapted for autumn and for spring sowing respectively, it is also true that a majority of the kinds most esteemed in Britain admit of being sown at either season, and in practice are actually so treated. It is not our intention to present a list of the varieties of wheat cultivated in this country. These are very numerous already, and are constantly being augmented by the accidental discovery of new varieties, or by cross- imprcgnotion artificially brought about for this purpose. The kinds at present in greatest repute in Scotland are the hardier white wheats, among which Hunter s white still retains the first place. There are many kinds which, in favourable seasons, produce a finer sample ; but its hardi ness, productiveness, and excellent milling qualities, render it a general favourite both with farmers and millers. Its most marked characteristic is, that in rubbing out a single ear, part of the grains are found to be opaque and white, and others flinty and reddish coloured, as if two kinds of wheat had been mixed together. Selections from Hunter s wheat have been made from time to time, and have obtained a measure of celebrity under various local names. The most esteemed of these is the Hopeton wheat. On very rich soils both these varieties have the fault of producing too much straw, and of being thereby liable to lodge. Hence, several new kinds with stiffer straw, and consequent lessened liability to this disaster, are now in request in situations where this evil is apprehended. Fenton wheat, possessing this quality in an eminent degree, and being at the same time very productive, and of fair quality, is at present extensively cultivated. It has the peculiarity of producing stems of unequal height from the same root, which gives a crop of it an unpromising appearance, but has perhaps to do with its productiveness. The red-straw white and Piper s thick-set have properties similar to the Fenton. Piper s had the repute of being the shortest and stiffest strawed wheat in cultivation, but after a brief popularity is now never heard of. The red-chaff white is productive, and yields grain of beautiful quality, but it requires good seasons, as it sheds its seeds easily and sprouts quickly in damp weather. The Chiddam,, Trump, tvhite Kent, and Talavera, have each their admirers, and are all good sorts in favourable seasons ; but, in Scotland at least, their culture is attended with greater risk than the kinds previously named; they require frequent change of seed from a sunnier climate, and are only adapted for dry and fertile soils with a good exposure. A new sort, called square-head, has quite recently been introduced, and is reported to be so exceedingly prolific as to yield from six to eight bushels more per acre than any wheat previously in cultivation. As red wheats usually sell at from 2s. to 4s. [GRAIN CROPS, less per quarter than white wheats of similar quality, they are less grown than heretofore. But being more hardy and less liable to mildew and sprouting than the finer white wheats, a recurrence of unfavourable seasons always leads to an increased cultivation of them. Some of these red wheats are, however, so productive that they are preferred in the best cultivated districts of England. Spalding s prolific holds a first place among these, being truly prolific, and producing grain of good quality. In Scotland it shows a tendency to produce a rough quality of grain. The Northumberland red and the golden creeping are there in estimation; the former being well adapted fur spring sowing, and the latter for poor soils and exposed situations. Several new varieties of wheat have recently been intro duced by Mr Patrick Sheriff of Haddington, formerly of Mungoswells. One is a large-grained red wheat, another somewhat resembles Hunter s in colour, and the third has grain of a pearly whiteness. They have all the peculiarity of being bearded. They are all true autumn wheats ; but they seem also well adapted for spring sowing, as they ripen early. A red bearded variety, usually called April ivhcat, from its prospering most when sown in that month, and which indeed is a true summer wheat, is sometimes grown with advantage after turnips, when the season is too advanced for o ther sorts. But except upon poorish clay soils, it seems only doubtfully entitled to a preference over barley in such circumstances. The list now given could easily be extended ; but it comprises the best varieties at present in use, and such as are suited to the most diversified soils, seasons, and situations in which wheat can be grown in this country. In regard to all of them it is reckoned advantageous to have recourse to frequent change of seed, and in doing this to give the preference to that which comes from a soil and climate better and earlier than those of the locality in which it is to be sown. Every farmer will find it worth his while to be at pains to find out from whence he can obtain a change of seed that takes well with his own farm, and having done so, to hold to that, and even to induce his correspondent to grow such sorts as he prefers, although he should have to pay him an extra price for doing so. An experienced farmer once remarked to the writer, that by changing his seed he got it for nothing; that is, his crop was more abundant by at least the quantity sown, from the single circumstance of a suitable change of seed. It is proper, however, to state, that this practice of changing the seed is founded more upon mere opinion than upon well-ascertained facts, and that in those instances where it has been followed by beneficial results nothing is known of the causes to which such success is due. It is much to be desired that our agricultural societies should address themselves to the thorough investigation of a question of such vital importance. In fixing upon the kind of wheat which he is to sow, the farmer will do well to look rather to productiveness than to fine quality. For however it may gratify his ambition to show the heaviest and prettiest sample in the market, and to obtain the highest price of the day, no excellence of quality can compensate for a deficiency of even a few bushels per acre in the yield. It is of importance, too, to have seed-corn free from the seeds of weeds and from other grains, and to see that it be true of its kind. Farmers who are systematically careful in these respects frequently obtain an extra price for their produce, by selling it for seed-corn to others ; and even millers give a preference to such clean samples. But there are seeds which no amount of care or accuracy in dressing can remove from seed-corn viz., those of certain parasitical fungi, which must be got rid of by a different process. The havoc caused to wheat crops by bunt, blackball, or pepper-brand (Uredo caries or Tilletia caries], before the discovery of the mode of preventing it ​GRAIN CROPS.] AGRICULTURE 355 by steeping the seed-corn in some acrid or caustic bath, was often ruinous. The plan at first most usually adopted was to immerse the seed-wheat in stale chamber-lie, and afterwards to dry it by mixture with quick -lime. This pickle, as it is called, is usually efficacious ; but the lime vexes the eyes and excoriates the hands and face of the sower, or clogs the hopper of the sowing-machine, and has therefore been superseded by other substances. Blue vitriol (sulphate of copper) is as good as anything for this purpose, and is used in the following manner. A solution is prepared by dissolving powdered sulphate of copper in water, at the rate of two ounces to a pint for each bushel of wheat. The grain is emptied upon a floor ; a little of it is shovelled to one side by one person, while another sprinkles the solution over it, and this process is continued until the whole quantity is gone over. The heap is then turned repeatedly by two persons working with shovels opposite to each other. After lying for a few minutes, the grain absorbs the moisture, and is ready for sowing either by hand or machine. The season for wheat-sowing extends from September to April, but ordinarily that succeeds best which is committed to the ground during October and November. When summer- fallows exist the first sowings are usually made on them. It is desirable that the land neither be wet nor very dry when this takes place, so that the precise time of sowing is determined by the weather; but it is well to proceed as soon after 1st October, as the land is moist enough to insure a regular germination of the seed. Over a large portion of England wheat is the crop usually sown after clover or one year s " seeds." In such cases the land is ploughed in the end of September, imme diately harrowed, and wheat sown upon it by a drilling machine. On loose soils the land-presser is frequently used to consolidate the soil and to form a channel for the seed, which in such cases comes up in rows, although sown broad cast. It is more usual, however, first to level the pressed furrows by harrowing, and then to use the drill, by means of which various portable manures are frequently deposited along with the seed-corn. The sowing of wheat after clover or " seeds," as now described, is rarely practised in Scotland, where it so invariably fails as to show that it is unsuited to our northern climate. It is here not unusual, however, to plough up such land in July or August, and to prepare it for wheat-sowing by what is called rag-fallowing. After the first ploughing the land is harrowed lengthwise, so as to break and level the surface of the furrows and close the interstices withoitt tearing up or exposing any green sward. It is then allowed to lie for ten or fourteen days to allow the herbage to die, which it soon does at this season when light is thus excluded from it. A cross ploughing is next given, followed by repeated grubbings, harrowing, and rollings, after which it is treated in all respects as a summer- fallow. The fallow and clover leas being disposed of, the land from which potatoes, beans, pease, or vetches have been cleared off will next demand attention. When these crops have been carefully horse and hand hoed, all that is required is to clear off the haulm to plough and sow. If the land is not clean, recourse must be had to a short fallowing process before sowing wheat. For this purpose the surface is loosened by the broadshare and grubber, the weeds harrowed out and raked off, after which the land is ploughed and sown. On soils well adapted for the growth of beans and wheat, viz., those in which clay predominates, any lengthened process of autumn cultivation is necessarily attended with great hazard of being interrupted by rain, to the loss of seed-time altogether. Every pains should there fore be taken to have the land so cleaned beforehand that these unseasonable efforts maybe dispensed with; and to have the 1 sowing and harrowing to follow so closely upon the ploughing as to diminish to the utmost the risk of hindrance from wet weather. As the crops of mangolds, carrots, or turnips arrive at maturity, and are either removed to the store-heap or consumed by sheep where they grow, succes sive sowings of wheat can be made as the ploughing is accomplished and as the weather permits. It is to be noted, however, that it is only on soils naturally dry, or made so by thorough draining, and which are also clean and in a high state of fertility, that wheat-sowing can bo continued with advantage during the months of December and January. If the whole of these conditions do not obtain, it is wiser to refrain until February or March. When these late winter sowings are made, it is of especial importance to sow close up to the ploughs daily, as a very slight fall of rain will, at this season, unfit the land for bearing the harrows. This sowing and harrowing, in de tail, is the more easily managed, that in the circumstances cross-harrowing is neither necessary nor expedient. Under the most favourable conditions as to weather and drainage, soils with even a slight admixture of clay in their composi tion will at this season plough up somewhat clammy, so that cross-harrowing pulls the furrows too much about, and exposes the seed, instead of covering it more perfectly. Two double turns of the harrows lengthwise is as much as should be attempted at this season. The sowing of spring-wlicat is only expedient on dry and fertile soils with a good exposure. Unless the whole con ditions are favourable, there is much risk of spring-sown wheat being too late to be properly ripened or well har vested. On the dry and fertile soils in the valley of the Tweed, where the entire fallow-break is sown with turnips, and where consequently it is difficult to get a large breadth cleared in time for sowing wheat in autumn, it is the practice to sow it largely in February and March, and frequently with good success. Many judicious farmers are, however, of opinion that, taking the average of a twenty years lease, barley is a more remunerative crop than spring-sown wheat, even under circumstances most favour able to the latter. When it is resolved to try it, a very full allowance of seed should be given not less than three bushels per acre, and 3J will often be better. If the plants have room they will tiller ; and thus the ripening of the crop is retarded, the risk of mildew increased, and the quality of the grain deteriorated. As much seed should therefore be sown as will yield plants enough to occupy the ground fully from the first, and thus remove the tendency to tillering. By such full seeding a fortnight is frequently gained in the ripening of the crop, and this frequently makes all the difference between a remunerative crop and a losing one. Much controversy has taken place about the quantities of seed-wheat which should be used per acre. The advo cates of thin seeding have been so unguarded and extra-i vagant in their encomiums of their favourite method, some of them insisting that anything more than a few quarts per acre does but waste seed and lessen the produce, that many persons have been induced to depart from, their usual practice to their serious cost. It is true that with land in a high state of fertility, and kept scrupulously clean by frequent hoeings, a full crop of wheat may be obtained from half a bushel of seed per acre, provided that it is sown in September, and deposited regularly over the surface. But what beyond a trifling saving cf seed is gained by this practic ,! ? And at what cobt and hazard is even this secured 1 li; is a mere fallacy to tell us, as the advocates of excessively thin seeding so often do, that they obtain an increase of so many hundred-fold, whereas thick seeders cannot exceed from twelve to twenty fold, when after all the gross produce of the latter may exceed that of ​350 AGRICULTURE [GRAIN CROPS. the former by more than the quantity of seed saved, with less expense in culture, less risk from accidents and disease, an earlier harvest, and a better quality of grain. Such a crowding of the ground with plants as prevents the proper development of the ear is of course to be avoided ; but the most experienced growers of wheat are convinced of the benefit of having the ground fully occupied at the time when active spring growth begins. This is secured by using two bushels per acre for the sowing made early in October, and by increasing this quantity at the rate of half a peck per week until three bushels is reached, which may be held as the maximum. Less than this should not be used from the middle of November to the end of the season. These are the quantities to be used in broad-cast sowing ; when drilling or dibbling is resorted to, two-fifths less seed will suffice. In Scotland, at least, often repeated trials have shown that larger crops are obtained by broad casting than by drilling. The latter mode is, however, to be preferred wherever the land is infested by annual weeds, which can then be got rid of by hoeing. When clover and grass-seeds are sown with the grain crop, it is believed also that they thrive better from the grain being sown in rows, probably because in this case light and air are less excluded from them. It is believed also that in highly-manured soils of a loose texture, grain deposited somewhat deeply in rows is less liable to lodge than when sown broad-cast and shallower. When drilling and hoeing are resorted to, the latter is effected most cheaply and effectively by using Garret s horse-hoe. The mere stirring of the soil is con sidered by many farmers to be so beneficial to the wheat crop that they use the horse-hoe irrespective of the presence of weeds. Others are of opinion that, apart from the destruction of weeds, hoeing is injurious to grain crops, alleging that the cutting of their surface roots weakens the stems and increases their liability to fall over. Carefully conducted experiments are required to settle this point. We have no personal experience bearing upon it beyond this, that we have repeatedly seen a wheat crop much benefited by mere harrowing in spring. It is always use ful to roll wheat, and indeed all cereal crops, in order to facilitate the reaping process, although no other benefit should result from it. When the plants have been loosened by severe frosts, or are suffering from the attacks of the wire-worm, the use of CrosskuTs roller is usually of great benefit to the crop. A plan of growing wheat year after year on the same field without the use of manure was practised for a mirnber of years by the late Rev. Mr Smith of Lois Weedon, North amptonshire, and detailed by him in the pages of the Royal Agricultural Society s Journal, and in a pamphlet which has passed through many editions and had a very extensive circulation. His plan is to a certain extent a revival of that of Jethro Tull, but with this important difference, that whereas Tull occupied his ground with alternate double rows of wheat a foot apart, and vacant spaces, five feet wide, which were carefully cultivated by ploughings and horse-hoeings repeated at intervals from the springing of the wheat until midsummer, Mr Smith intro duced two important elements in addition, viz., thorough draining, and trenching the vacant spaces in autumn, so as to bring portions of subsoil to the surface. A field treated on this system consists of alternate strips of wheat and bare fallow, which are made to exchange places year by year, so that each successive crop occupies a different site from its immediate predecessor. It has also the benefit of the fresh soil brought up by the previous autumn s double- digging, which is subsequently mellowed and pulverised by lengthened exposure to the atmosphere, and by frequent stirrings. The produce obtained by Mr Smith from his acre thus treated was very nearly 34 bushels each year for the first five years ; but as his crops steadily improved, his average at the end of fourteen years was fully 3G bushels. Writing in July 18G1, he said, "The growing crop for 1861, notwithstanding the frost, looks strong and well, with scarcely a gap. Thus year after year gives growing confidence in the scheme." On steam-power being intro duced, Mr Smith became convinced of the practicability of carrying out his system with advantage on an entire farm. At first he restricted himself to the employment of manual labour, but he subsequently invented a set of implements for sowing, covering in, rolling, and hoeing his crops by horse labour. We give in his own words his directions for carrying out this system, what he believed to be the advantages of it, and the cost of thus cultivating an acre : " I suppose, at the outset, the land intended for wheat to be wheat land ; having besides a fair depth of staple, and a subsoil, as will generally, though not universally be the case, of the same chemical composition with the surface. I suppose it dry, or drained three feet deep at least; well cleaned of weeds ; the lands cast ; acd the whole tolerably level. "1. First of all, then, plough the whole land, when dry, one inch deeper than the used staple. If it turn up cloddy, bring the clods down with the roller or the crusher. Let this be done, if possible, in August. Harrow deep, so as to get five or six inches of loose mould to admit the presser. Before sowing wait for rain. After the rain wait for a fine day or two to dry the surface. With this early commencement a week or two is of no material import ance compared with that of ploughing dry and sowing wet. "As early as possible, however, in September, get in your seed with the presser-drill, or with some implement which forms a firm- bedded channel in which to deposit the seed, grain by grain, a few inches apart. Cover over with the crusher or rough roller. " 2. When the lines of wheat appear above ground, guard against the rook, the lark, and the slug a trite suggestion, but ever needful, especially here. And now, and at spring, and all through summer, watch for the weeds, and wage constant warfare against them. The battle may last for a year or two, or in some foul cases even more ; but, in the end, the mastery, and its fruits, without fail, will be yours. " 3. The plant being now distinctly visible, dig the intervals two spits deep, increasing the depth, year after year, till they come to twenty or twenty-four inches. Bring up at first only four, or five, or six inches, according to the nature of the subsoil, whether tena cious, or loamy, or light. To bring up more at the outset would be a wasteful and injurious expense. " The digging is done thus : Before proceeding with the work, a few cuts are made within three inches of the wheat, the back of the spade being towards the rows. A few double spits, first of all, at the required depth, are then thrown out on the headland, and there left for the present. After this, as the digging proceeds, the staple is cast to the bottom, and the subsoil thrown gently on the top. This process is carried on throughout the whole interval ; at the end of which interval, just so much space is left vacant as was occupied by the soil thrown out at the beginning of it. In commencing the second interval at that finished end, the eitrth is thrown out as at first, not on the headland, however, but into the vacant space of the first interval. And so on all over the acre. " 4. Late in winter, and early in spring, watch your opportunity, in dry weather, before the roots of the plant are laid bare, to press them with the crusher. "5. In the spring and early summer stir the spaces between the rows as often as the surface becomes crusted over ; and move the settled intervals four or five inches deep with the common scarifier, set first of all about twenty-eight inches wide, reducing the width till it come by degrees to twenty-four and eighteen inches. Continue the process, if possible, at the last-named width, up to the time of flowering in June. " These operations are indispensable to full success, and happily can be carried on at little cost ; for, while the intervals of each acre can be scarified in fifty minutes, the horse-hoe implement, covering two lands at once, can stir between the rows in twenty-five. " 6. Immediately the crop is carried, clean the intervals, and move them with the scarifier in order to sow, without delay, the shed grains. When these vegetate and come up into plant, move the intervals again five or six inches deep, and so destroy them. After that, level with the harrow implement, and the land is ready for the drill. "If anything occur to prevent the sowing early in September, and to drive you to the end of October, set the drill for a thicker crop. But, if possible, sow early for this reason. Tillered wheat has a bad name. But that has reference only to wheat which has tillered late in the spring. And certainly, in that case, there is the fear of danger to the crop, and danger to the sample. For ​GRAIN CHOPS.] AGRICULTURE 357 supposing no mildew to fall on it, even then the plant _ ripens unevenly ; the early stems being ready for the sickle, while the late-grown shoots have scarcely lost their verdure. But if mildew come when the stem is soft, and succulent, and porous, instead of being, as it should be at that time, glazed and case-hardened against its attacks, the enemy enters in and checks the circulating sap ; and the end is, blackened straw, light ears, and shrivelled grain. Therefore, sow early. Let the plant tiller before winter. Give every stem an equal start at spring ; and then, with a strict adherence to rule, there need be no alarm as to the result, subject only to those visitations from which no wheat, on any system, in the same description of soil, and under the same climate, is secure." (See pamphlet, Word in Season, p. 36.) "The advantages of the system of corn-growing which I have described are principally these : First, while one crop of wheat is growing, the unsown intervals of the acre are being fallowed and prepared for another. This the farmer well knows to be of infinite moment, meeting, as it does, one of the greatest difficulties he has to contend with. Next, upon this half-portion of the acre, tilled as I describe, there is a yield equal to average crops on a whole acre. Then, for half the portion of an acre, there is, of course, only half the labour and half the expense of an entire acre required for cultivation. And, lastly, the hand-labour required finds constant employment for the poor." (Ibid., p. 17.) "After harrowing, and cleaning, and levelling the whole, I marked out the channels for the seed with my prcsscr implement, which is drawn with one horse, and presses two lands at once. My scheme of implements, to be complete, embraced a drill, which was to act immediately behind the presser-wheels, and to drop seed by seed into the hard channels. The spindle of the presser was to turn the drill-wheels, and the boxes were to be made removable. Being unable to accomplish this in time for this year s sowing, 1 had the seed, as heretofore, dropped by hands, and covered over by rollers. These rollers form the roller implement in the same frame, and are managed thus : the three-wheeled pressers are removed from their sockets, and in their place two rough rollers, formed of several wheels on the self-cleaning principle, are introduced, and cover over two lands at once. The portion of the field thus seeded will lie in this firm but rough state till spring time. Then, when the rollers have been applied again to keep the roots of the plant well in their place, they too will be removed from the frame, and light wheels and hoes will be attached, forming the horse-hoc implement, for hoeing and stirring between the wheat. "There is yet one other use for the implement frame. The intervals of the wheat having been trenched in autumn, and well and frequently stirred by the common scarifier at spring, are shut out by the wide-spreading wheat-plant in June from all further processes till the crop is cut and carried. They are then to be moved and levelled by the common one-horse scarifier for seed time. After this will follow the harrow. The hoes will be removed from the frame, and two small harrows will be attached, to cover two lands at once ; and with this implement the horse will walk on the stubble-laud, between what before were the intervals ; and the cycle of operations is now complete. "In all these operations (excepting in that of scarifying) the sown lands, and lands about to be made ready for sowing, are untouched by the foot of man or horse. "The time occupied in scarifying the land is about an hour the acre ; in heavily pressing the channels for the seed, half an hour ; in the other operations about 20 or 25 minutes." (Pp. 25, 26.) "The presser-drill, spoken of in p. 25, is completed, and I now sow the four acres in 90 minutes, timed by watch ; being at the rate of 18 or 20 acres a day in a day of 8 hours, with a horse of average power and speed. "It has been thought advisable to keep the drill in its own frame, devoting another frame to the roller-wheels or crusher, the hoes, the scarifiers, and harrows, all of which are made removable, and which, with the exception of the spade, the hand-hoc, and the common scarifier for stirring the intervals, perform the whole cycle of operations for cultivating the land for wheat." (Pp. 33, 34.) " I have only to show now, by my fresh balance-sheet, how with suitable implements, on wheat-land, the whole scheme I propose is economical, as well as eaay and expeditious. " One double digging in autumn . . . 1 10 Three stirrings with scarifier at spring (6d.) . 030 One ditto with scarifier and harrow implement, before sowing . . . . . .010 Two pecks of seed (5s. the bushel) . . . 026 Pressing and drilling . . . . . 010 Kough rolling . . . . . . .006 Four hoeings between wheat with horse-shoe im plement (Gd.) 020 Bird-keeping . . . . . . .020 Carried forward 220 Brought forward All the operations from reaping to marketing Kates, taxes, and interest .... 220 120 10 Total amount of outlay 3 H "The produce, supposing it equal to that of former years, in round numbers, would be : " Four quarters and two bushels of wheat (at 40s.) . 810 One ton and 12 cwt. of straw (at 2 the ton) . 340 Deduct outlay 11 14 3 14 Total amount of profit . 8 0" (Ibid., p. 30.) Particular attention was directed to this system of wheat culture by a lecture on Tull s husbandry, delivered by Professor Way, at a council meeting of the Royal Agri cultural Society of England, and by the animated discus sion which followed ; when several gentlemen who had visited Mr Smith s farm bore testimony to the continued excellence of his crops, and intimated that they and others had begun to test the system upon their own farms. If such a practice can indeed be pursued on the generality of clay-soils, then the puzzling problem of how to cultivate them Avith a profit is solved at once. It is not to be thought that practical farmers would regard otherwise than with incredulity a system which so flatly contradicts all existing theory and practice. The facts submitted to them by Mr Smith being beyond challenge, they would naturally imagine there must be some peculiarity in the soil at Lois Wcedon which enabled it to sustain such heavy and continued demands on its fertility; and that the issue, there and elsewhere, must eventually be utter sterility. For our own part, believing that we have exceeding much to learn in every department of agriculture, we cannot thus summarily dispose of these facts. We simply accept them as true, and leave the exposition of them to experience, whose verdict we await with much interest. But Mr Smith is not the only person who has furnished us with information regarding the continuous growth of wheat for a series of years on the same soil. Mr Lawes, at Rothamstead, in Herts, so well known by his interesting papers on agricultural chemistry in the Royal Agricultural Society s Journal, has furnished some facts in connection with the culture of wheat on clay soils to which farmers were little prepared to give credence. Mr Caird, who visited Rothamstead early in 1851, thus refers to the sub ject in his valuable work: " On a soil of heavy loam, on which sheep cannot be fed on tur nips, 4, 5, and 6 feet above the chalk, and therefore uninfluenced by it, except in so far as it is thereby naturally drained, ten crops of wheat have been taken in succession, one portion always without any manure whatever, and the rest with a variety of manure, the effects of which have been carefully observed. The seed is of tho red cluster variety, drilled uniformly in rows at 8 inches apart, and two bushels to the acre, hand-hoed twice in spring, and kept perfectly free from weeds. When the crop is removed the land is scarified with Ben tail s skimmer, all weeds are removed, it is ploughed once, and the seed for the next crop is then drilled in. During the ten years, the land, in a natural state, without manure, has produced a uniform average of 16 bushels of wheat an acre, with 100 Ib. of straw per bushel of wheat, the actual quantity varying with the change of seasons between 14 and 20 bushels. The repetition of the crop has made no diminution or change in the uniformity of the average, and the conclusion seems to be established, that if the land is kept clean, and worked at proper seasons, it is impossible to exhaust this soil below the power of producing 1 6 bushels of wheat every year. " But this natural produce may be doubled by the application of certain manures. Of these, Mr Lawes s experiments led him to conclude that ammonia is the essential requisite. His conclusions are almost uniform, that no organic matter affects the produce of wheat, except in so far as it yields ammonia ; and that the whole- of the organic matter of the corn crop is taken from tho atmosphere by the medium of ammonia. There is a constant loss of ammonia going on by expiration, so that a larger quantity must be supplied than is contained in the crop. For practical purposes, 5 Ib. o ​358 AGRICULTURE ammouia is found to produce a bushel of wheat, and tlie cheapest fonn of ammonia at present being Peruvian guano, 1 cvt. of that substance may be calculated to give 4 bushels of wheat. The natural produce of 16 bushels an acre may therefore be doubled by an application of 4 cwt. of Peruvian guano. To this, however, there is a limit climate. Ammonia gives growth, but it depends on climate whether that produce is straw or corn. In a wet, cold summer a heavy application of ammonia produces an undue de velopment of the circulating condition of the plant, the crop is laid, and the farmer s hopes are disappointed. Seven of corn to ten of straw is usually the most productive crop ; five to ten seldom yields well. The prudent farmer will therefore regulate his application of ammonia with a reference to the average character of the climate in which his farm is situated. "The practical conclusion at which we arrive is this, that in the cultivation of a clay -laud farm, of similar quality of soil to that of Mr Lawes, there is no other restriction necessary than to keep the land clean ; that while it is very possible to reduce the laud by weeds, it is impossible to exhaust it (to a certain point it may be reduced) by cleanly cultivated corn corps ; that it is an ascertained fact that wheat may be taken on soils of this description (provided they are manured) year after year, with no other limit than the neces sity for cleaning the land, and that may best be accomplished l>y an occasional green crop turnip or mangold, as best suits at great intervals, the straw being brought to the most rotten state, and applied in the greatest possible quantity to insure a good crop, which will clean the land well. If these conclusions are satisfac torily proved, the present mode of cultivating heavy clays may be greatly changed, and the owners and occupiers of such soils be better compensated in their cultivation than they have of late had reason to anticipate." (CiitiJL s English Agriculture, in 1850 and 1851, pp. 460-462.) ! It is certainly curious to observe, tliat the addition of four cwt. of guano brings up the produce of Mr Lawes s acre from its average annual rate of sixteen bushels, under its reduced normal state, to very nearly the same as Rev. Mr Smith s acre under his system of alternate strips of corn and summer fallow. From information carefully gathered, Mr Caird gives it as his opinion, that the average produce of wheat per acre in 20 of the 32 counties of England visited by him is 26 bushels, or 14 per cent, higher than it was estimated at in the same counties by Arthur Young 80 years before. Were the country generally anything like as well cultivated as particular farms that are to be met with in all parts of it, we should have the present average increased by at least eight bushels per acre. G3 Ib per bushel is a weight indi cating a good quality of grain. A good crop of wheat will yield a ton of grain and about two tons of straw per acre. Besides its uses on the farm, wheat straw, in certain limited districts in the south of England, is an article of some value, as the raw material of a not unimportant native manufacture, namely, Straio-Plait. The first straws used for this purpose in this country were grown in the neigh bourhood of Luton in Bedfordshire. This town is still the principal seat of the straw trade and straw bonnet manufac ture, and the district around still produces the finest quality of straws ; but straw-growing is now also carried on in parts of Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, and Berkshire. Light, rich soils are best adapted for this pur pose. The kinds of wheat grown with this view are the Red Lammas and the Chiddam. A bright, clean, tough straw being required, it is necessary to begin reaping before the flag of the straw falls. If the straw is exposed to rain, it becomes rusted or spotted ; if to very hot and dry weather, it gets sunburnt and brittle. The utmost care and energy must, therefore, be used to get the crop dried, carried, and stacked as quickly as possible. In favourable seasons an acre of wheat will yield (besides the grain) from 15 cwt. to a ton of cut straws, of the value of G to 3 per ton, clear of all expenses. The fanner sells his straw to a class of men called straw-factors, who draw and 1 Mr Lawes continues these experiments of growing successive crops of wheat year after year on tlie same site, with no material change in the results after a trial of thirty years. [GRAIN CROPS. cut the straws in his barn. The drawing and cutting-off of the cars being there perf ormed, the factors remove the straw to their own premises. There it undergoes a farther cutting, is exposed to the fumes of sulphur, assorted into proper lengths, and made up into marketable bunches of various sizes and qualities. These bunches are disposed of to the plaiters at the various markets of the district. About 50,000 females and boys are engaged in plaiting. Xo plait is made in factories, the work being performed by the wives and children of agricultural labourers in their own cottages, where it is carried on all the year except in harvest. The straw trade, in its various departments, is of considerable importance and is steadily increasing. The gross returns are supposed not to fall short of 1,250,000 per annum. There is now also a small demand for wheat straw for the manufacture of paper. Section 2. Barley. In Great Britain barley is the grain crop which ranks next in importance to wheat, both in an agricultural and commercial point of view. Its use as bread-corn is confined to portions of the lowlands of Scotland, where unleavened cakes, or " bannocks o barley meal," still constitute the daily bread of the peasantry. It is more largely used in preparing the " barley broth" so much relished by all classes in Scotland. To fit the grain for this purpose, it is pre pared by a peculiar kind of mill, originally introduced from Holland by Fletcher of Saltoun, in which a thick cylinder of gritty sandstone is made to revolve rapidly within a case of perforated sheet-iron. The barley is introduced betwixt the stone and its case, and there subjected to violent rubbing, until first its husk and then its outer coatings are removed. It is, however, in the production of malt liquor and ardent spirits, and in the fattening of live stock, that our barley crops are chiefly consumed. We have no doubt that it would be better for the whole community if this grain were more largely used in the form of butcher-meat and greatly less in that of beer or whisky. It has been customary for farmers to look upon distillation as beneficial to them from the ready market which it affords for barley, and more especially for the lighter qualities of this and other grain crops. But this is a very short-sighted view of the matter; for careful calculation shows that when the labouring man spends a shilling in the dram-shop, not more than a penny of it goes for the agricultural produce (bnrlcy) from which the gin or whisky is made ; whereas, when he spends the same sum with the butcher or baker, nearly the whole amount goes for the raw material, and only a frac tion for the tradesman s profits. And not only so, but the man who spends a part of his wages upon strong drink diminishes, both directly and indirectly, his ability to buy wholesome food and good clothing ; so that, apart from the moral and social bearings of this question, it can abundantly be shown that whisky or beer is the very worst form for the fanner in which his grain can be consumed. Were the 50,000,000 at present annually spent in Great Britain upon ardent spirits (not to speak of beer), em ployed in purchasing bread, meat, dairy produce, vege tables, woollen and linen clothing, farmers would, on the one hand, be relieved from oppressive rates, and, on the other, have such an increased demand for their staple pro ducts as would far more than compensate for the closing of what is at present the chief outlet for their barley. There are many varieties of barley in cultivation, and some of them are known by different names in different districts. Those most esteemed at present in Berwickshire and neighbouring counties arc the Chevalier, the Annat, and the common-early long-eared. The chevalier produces the finest and heaviest grain, weighing usually from 54 Ib to 5G Ib per bushel, and is in high estimation with maltsters. ​GRAIN CHOPS.] AGRICULTURE 359 It is also tall and stout in the straw, which is less liable to lodge than that of the common barley; and when this accident does happen, it has the valuable property of not producing aftershoots or greens. It requires about fourteen days longer than the common-early to reach maturity, but as it admits of being sown earlier than the latter sort, this is in practice no drawback to it. The Annat barley resembles the chevalier in its leading features, but is yellower in its complexion, and not quite so round in the grain. It ripens a few days earlier than the chevalier, and in our own experience is more productive. The common- early is more liable than those just noticed to suffer from over-luxuriance. It is generally used for the latest sowings on those portions of land from which the turnip crop has been longest in being removed. In the elevated or northern parts of the kingdom, four- rowed barley, usually called bere or bigg, is cultivated, as it is more hardy, and ripens earlier than the two-rowed varieties. A new variety, called Victoria bere, is said to be so productive, and to yield such a heavy sample, as to be worthy of cultivation even in lowland districts. Barley delights in a warm, friable soil, and thrives best when the seed is deposited rather deeply in a tilthy bed. Being the grain crop best adapted for succeeding turnips that have been consumed by sheep- folding, advantage must be taken of favouring weather to plough up the land in successive portions as the sheep-fold is shifted. So much of it as is ploughed before 1st February will usually get so mellowed by the weather as to be easily brought into suitable condition for receiving the seed. In Scotland the usual practice is to sow broadcast on this stale furrow, and to cover the seed by simple harrowing. A better way is first to level the surface by a stroke of the harrows, and then to form it into ribs twelve inches apart by such an implement as has been described when speaking of Tennant s grubber. Over this corrugated surface the seed is sown broadcast, and covered by another turn of the harrows. The ribbing loosens the soil, gives the seed a uniform and sufficient covering, and deposits it in rows. The only advantage of such ribbing over drilling is, that the soil is better stirred, and the seed deposited more deeply, and less crowded than is done by the ordinary drills. It is certainly of great advantage to have the seed- corn deposited in narrow lines, so far as the working of the horse-hoe is concerned ; but we are convinced that stiffer stems, larger ears, a more abundant yield, and a brighter sample, are likely to be obtained when the seed is loosely scattered in a channel three or four inches wide than when crowded into a narrow line. This grain is now sown considerably earlier than heretofore. When the soil is enriched by plentiful manuring, its temperature raised by thorough draining, and the climate and exposure favour able, it should be sown as early in March as possible, and will often do remarkably well although sown in February. This early sowing counteracts that tendency to over- luxuriance by which the crop is so often ruined in fertile soils. It is chiefly owing to this early sowing (although aided by the use of hummelling machinery) that the average weight of barley is so much greater now than it was thirty years ago. From 54 Ib to 56 Ib per bushel is now about the average weight in well-cultivated districts ; while 57 Ib and 58 Ib is by no means rare. The produce per acre ranges from 30 to 60 bushels, 36 bushels being about the average. The quantity of seed used per acre is from 2 1 to 3 bushels for broadcast sowing, and about a third less when drilled. As already remarked in regard to wheat, it is well, as the season advances, to avoid, by a fuller allowance of seed, the temptation to excessive tillering, and consequent unequal and later ripening. A good crop of barley yields about 1 ton each per acre of grain and straw. Section 3. Oats. Over a large portion of England oats are grown only as provender for horses, for which purpose they are fully ascertained to be superior to all other grains. Except, therefore, on fen-lands and recently-reclaimed muiry soils, the cultivation of oats in South Britain bears a small proportion to the other cereals. It is in Scotland, " the land o cakes," that tlu s grain is most esteemed and most extensively cultivated. Considerably more than half of the annual grain crops of Scotland consists, in fact, of oats. The important item which oatmeal porridge forms in the diet of her peasantry, and of the children of her other classes, has something to do with this extensive culture of the oat ; but it arises mainly from its peculiar adaptation to her humid climate. As with the other cereals, there are very numerous varieties of the oat in cultivation. In Messrs Lawson s Synopsis of the Vegetable Products of Scotland, it is said (Div. i. p. 80), " Our collection comprises nearly sixty varieties, about thirty of which are grown in Scotland; but of these not more than twelve are in general cultivation. These twelve varieties, enumerated in the order of their general cultivation, are, the Potato, Hopetoun, Sandy, Early- Angus, Late- Angus, Grey-Angus, Blainslie, Berlie, Dun, Friesland, Black Tartarian, and Barbachlaw." The first four kinds in this list are those chiefly cultivated on the best class of soils. It is to the produce of these that the highest market prices usually have reference. The weight per bushel of these sorts usually runs from 42 Ib to 46 K>. From 50 to 60 bushels per acre is a usual yield of oats. The two last named kinds are chiefly esteemed for their large produce, and adaptation to inferior soils; but being of coarse quality, they are chiefly used for provender. A variety which stands the winter is now frequently grown in England, for the double purpose of first yielding a sea sonable supply of green food to ewes and lambs in early spring, and afterwards producing a crop of grain. It has already been stated that in Scotland wheat does not prosper when sown after clover or pasture ; but with the oat it is quite the reverse, as it never grows better than on land newly broken up from grass. It is, accordingly, almost invariably sown at this stage of the rotation. The land is ploughed in December or January, beginning with the strongest soil, or that which has lain longest in grass, that it may have the longest exposure to the mellowing influences of wintry weather. In March or April the oats are sown broadcast on this first ploughing, and covered in by repeated harrowings. These are given lengthwise until the furrows are well broken down, for if the harrows are worked across the ridges before this is effected, they catch hold of the edges of the slices, and, partially lifting them, permit the seed-corn to fall to the bottom, where it is lost altogether. As it is only when a free tilth is obtained that the crop can be expected to prosper, care must be taken to plough early and somewhat deeply, laying the furrows over with a rectangular shoulder, to sow when the land is in that state of dryness that admits of its crumbling readily when trode upon, and then to use the harrows until they move smoothly and freely in the loose soil, two or three inches deep. The Norwegian harrow is an important auxiliary to the common ones in obtaining this result. When wild mustard and other annual weeds abound, it ia advisable to drill the crop and to use the horse-hoe. When the land is clean, the general belief in Scotland is that the largest crops are obtained by sowing broadcast. When the latter plan of sowing is adopted, from 4 to 6 bushels per acre is the quantity of seed used. The latter quantity is required in the case of the Hopetoun and other large- grained varieties. The condition of the soil as to richness and friability must also be taken into account in deter​360 AGRICULTURE [LEGUMINOUS mining the quantity of seed to be used. When it is in high heart and likely to harrow kindly, a less quantity will suffice than under opposite conditions. In breaking up a tough old sward, even 6 bushels per aero may be too little to sow. The following very interesting experiment bearing on this point was made in the county < if Fife : "Mr Gulland, Wemyss, offered a sweepstakes in IS 50, that 4 bushels of oats, sown per Scotch acre, in poor land, would yield a better produce than 8 bushels sown under similar conditions. The late Mr Hill, maintaining the contrary, accepted the sweepstakes, and a number of others took up the same. Experiments were made by Mr Dingwall, Ramornie, and Mr Buist, Hattonhill : In Mr Buist s experiments, " 4 bush, sown yielded 28 bush, per acre, 34 tt> per bush. 8 bush, sown yielded 36 ,, ,, 34| Ib ,,

• In Mr Dingwall s experiments,

" 4 bush, sown yielded 45 bush, per acre, 384 Ib F er tush. 8 bush, sown yielded 49 ,, 39 Ib The advocates for thin seeding will of course regard even the least of these qiiantities as foolishly redundant. It is quite true, that if the land is in good heart, the crop will ultimately stand close on the ground from a very small seeding ; but it will take two or three weeks longer to do this than if the land had been fully stocked with plants from the first, by giving it seed enough. In our precarious climate, where a late harvest and bad crops usually go together, it is of the utmost importance to secure early, uniform, and perfect ripening ; and as liberal seeding tends directly to promote such a result, practical farmers will do well to take care how they omit such a simple means of attaining so important an end. We believe that it is on the principle now indicated that the superior result, both as respects quantity and quality of produce, in the double- seeded lots in the experiments now cited, is to be explained. As with wheat, the vigour and productiveness of the oat is much enhanced by frequent change of seed. Our agricultural authorities usually assert that the change should, if possible, always be from an earlier climate and better soil. This is undoubtedly true as regards high-lying districts ; but with a good soil and climate we have always seen the best results with seed from a later district. A homely old couplet tersely expresses the experience of our ancestors in this matter of the changing of seed-corn by directing us to procure " Oats from the hills, bere from the sea, Gude wheat and pease, wherever they be." On poor hard soils it is usually remunerative to apply a cwt. of guano per acre to the oat crop, sowing it broad cast, and harrowing it in along with the seed. As much additional produce is thus ordinarily obtained as more than pays for the manure, and the land is, in all respects, left in better condition for the succeeding green crop. In the case both of very light and strong clay soils, we have obtained excellent results by applying a liberal dressing of farm yard dung in autumn to grass-land about to be broken up for oats. By using in this way the dung produced during the summer months, we have obtained abundant crops of oats from portions of land which, but for this, would have yielded poorly; and, at the same time, by applying the bulky manure at this stage of the rotation, instead of directly for the succeeding green crop, an important saving of time and labour has been effected, as we shall have occasion to notice when treating of turnip- culture. When the young oat plants have pushed their second leaf, it is always beneficial to use the roller, as it helps to protect the crop from the evil effects of drought, and Agricultural Gazette, 20th November 1852. facilitates the reaping of it. The oat frequently suffers much from a disease called "segging" or "tulip root," which appears to be caused by the presence of a maggot in the pith of the stems close to the ground. On land which is subject to this disease it is advisable not to sow early. A dressing of lime is also believed to be serviceable as a preventative. On muiry soils this crop is also not unfre- quently lost by what is called " slaying." This seems to result from the occurrence of frosty nights late in spring, when the crop is in its young stage, which, when grown on such soils, it cannot withstand. The application of largo dressings of lime to light muiry soils greatly aggravates this tendency to slaying in the oat crop. The only effectual remedy is to improve the texture of the soil by a good coat ing of clay. Oats yield about 1 ton of grain and 1 J ton of straw per acre. Section 4. Rye. The extensive cultivation of this grain in any country being alike indicative of a low state of agriculture, and of a poor style of living among its peasantry, it must be regarded as a happy circumstance that it has become nearly obsolete in Great Britain. It is still occasionally met with in some of our poorest sandy soils, and patches are occa sionally grown elsewhere for the sake of the straw, which is in estimation for thatching, for making bee-hives, and for stuffing horse-collars. Its cultivation as a catch crop, to furnish early food for sheep in spring, is on the increase. Section 5. LEGUMINOUS CROPS Beans. The only members of this family statedly cultivated for their grain are beans and pease. Before the introduction of clover and turnips these legumes occupied a more important place in the estimation of the husbandman than they have done since. Indeed, in many districts naturally well adapted for the culture of turnips, that of beans and pease was for a time all but abandoned. Recently, however, increasing precariousness in the growth of clover, and even of turnips, where they have been sown on the same ground every fourth year for a lengthened period, has compelled farmers to return to the culture of beans and pease for the mere purpose of prolonging the intervals in the periodic recurrence of the former crops. But it is found, in regard to the bean itself, in districts where it has long occupied a stated place in rotations of six or seven years, that its average produce gradually diminishes. We have thus an additional illustration of the importance of introducing as great a variety of crops as possible into our field culture. It is on this principle that beans and pease are now again extensively cultivated on dry friable soils. Winter beans, or pease of some early variety, are generally preferred in such cases. The grain of these legumes, though partially used for human food, is chiefly consumed by horses and by fattening cattle and sheep. Being highly nutritioiis, they are well adapted for this purpose. By growing beans on a limited portion of the land assigned to cattle crops, a larger weight of beef and mutton can be produced from a given number of acres, than by occupying them wholly with roots, forage, and pasturage. Several varieties of field beans are cultivated in Great Britain, such as the common horse bean, the tick, the Heligoland, and the uinter bean. The latter was introduced into England about the year 1825, and there rises steadily in estimation. It has been tried in many parts of Scotland, and proves quite hardy, but is objected to from the exceeding shortness of its straw. But for this, it is a valuable acquisition, as it ripens so much earlier than the spring-sown varieties. Beans should never be sown on land that is foul. By diligent horse and hand hoeing, land that is clean to begin with can be kept so under beans, and left in fine condition for carrying a white ​CROPS.] AGRICULTURE corn crop; but in opposite circumstances it is sure to get into utter confusion. It is found advisable, therefore, to take beans after the white crop that has succeeded roots or a bare fallow. In Berwickshire, where a five-years course, consisting of turnips, wheat, or barley, two years seeds, and oats, has long prevailed, beans are now not unfre- quently introduced by substituting them for the second year s grass. A four-years course with beans instead of a portion of the seeds is certainly preferable. In cultivating this crop the land is ploughed with a deep furrow in autumn, a dressing of dung being first spread over the surface and turned in by the plough. As early in March as the state of the soil admits, it is stirred by the grubber and harrowed. The seeds are then deposited either in narrow rows 14 inches, or in wider rows 27 inches apart. The latter width has long been preferred in Scotland, because of its admitting of the free use of the plough and the drill-grubber, in addition to the hoe, during the early stages of the plant s growth, and also from a belief that the free entrance of light and air, of which the wide rows admits, increases the productiveness of the crop. We shall describe both modes of culture, and then state the grounds upon which, after long sharing in the opinion just noted, and following that practice, we now give a decided preference to sowing in narrow rows. In sowing at the wider intervals, the soil, having been prepared as already stated, is formed, by a single turn of the common plough, into shallow drills 27 inches apart. Ten or twelve such drills being formed to begin with, the seed is scattered broadcast, at the rate of 3 bushels per acre, by a sower who takes in six of these drills at a time, and gives them a double cast, or by a drilling-machine, which sows three rows at once. The beans either roll into the hollows as they fall, or are turned in by the ploughs, which now proceed to open each a fresh drill, in going down the one side of the working interval, and to cover in a seeded one in returning on the other side. If tares are cultivated on the farm, it is usual to sow a small quantity (say a peck per acre) amongst the beans, on which they are borne up, and so ripen their seeds better, and yield more abundantly, than when trailing on the ground. When the crop comes to be thrashed the tares are easily separated from the beans by sifting. Ten days or so after sowing, the drills are partially levelled by a turn of the chain harrow ; and if the land is cloddy, it is smoothed by a light roller. If showers occur when the bean plants are appearing above ground, or shortly after, the common harrows may be used again with the best effect in pulverising the soil and destroying newly-sprung weeds. A horse and hand hoeing is then given, and is repeated if weeds again appear. When the plants have got about 6 inches high it is beneficial to stir the soil deeply betwixt the rows by using Tennant s grubber, drawn by a pair of horses. For this purpose the tines are set so close together as to clear the rows of beans, and the horses are yoked to it by a main tree, long enough to allow the horses to work abreast in the rows on either side of the one operated upon. The soil is thus worked thoroughly to the depth of 6 or 8 inches, without reversing the surface and exposing it to drought, or risk of throwing it upon the plants. Just before the blooms appear some farmers pass a bulking- plough betwixt the rows, working it very shallow, and so as merely to move the surface soil towards the plants. This may do good, but a deep earthing up is hurtful. When the blooms open all operations should cease, as otherwise much mischief may be done. Such an amount of culture as has now been described may be thought needlessly costly and laborious, but unless a bean crop is kept clean, it had better not be sown. And it is to be remembered that the benefit of this careful tillage is not confined to it, but will be equally shared in by the wheat crop that follows. The culture of winter beans differs only in this, that they require to be sown as early in autumn as the removal of the preceding grain crop admits of. When it is determined to sow in 14-inch rows, the seeds are deposited by any of the corn drilling-machines in common use, set for the specified width of rows, or (which we prefer) the soil is formed into narrow ribs or drills by means of the one-horse plough, the seeds are scattered broadcast by hand or machine over this corrugated surface, and they are covered by a double turn of the common harrows, and rolled by a light roller. As soon as the bean plants appear, care must be taken to keep down weeds by diligent hoeing. Two good hoeings will usually suffice, for by the time that the second is accomplished, the crop will speedily so close in as to render any further hoeing impracticable and unnecessary. After repeated trials of these two modes of cultivation, made alongside of each other, we have found that the produce from the narrow rows has been at the rate of from 4 to G bushels more per acre than that from the wide rows, and that the soil has been left decidedly cleaner after the former than after the latter mode. It is certainly somewhat startling to find results so opposed as these are to preconceived opinion and approved practice. And yet, when the matter is well considered, it becomes obvioiis enough why it should be so. The wide rows admit of a most effective process of tillage and hoeing up to the time when the beans come into bloom, when, however, it must wholly cease. But when farther culture is precluded, the need for it by no means ceases,, seeing that the rows of bean plants usually remain suffi ciently apart to admit of the continued growth of weeds during the long period which intervenes betwixt the blooming and the ripening of the crop. And hence it happens especially if the spring prove cold and parching^ that although the vide-rowed beans have been kept scrupulously clean up to the time of blooming, their upright habit of growth renders it impossible that they can so close in upon the wide space betwixt the rows, as to preoccupy and overshadow the ground sufficiently to keep it clean during the long period that the crop must neces sarily be left to its own resources. By sowing in narrow rows the crop is soon in a condition to defend itself against weeds and drought, and hence the saving of labour, the more bulky crops, and the cleaner stubble, which result from sowing beans at 14 rather than 27 inch intervals. In Scotland the haulm of beans is esteemed an excellent fodder for horses and other live stock, whereas in England it is thought unfit for such a use. The reason of this appears to be, that in the southern counties beans are allowed to stand until the leaf is gone and the stems, blackened before reaping ; whereas in Scotland they are reaped so soon as the eye of the grain gets black. When well got, the juices of the plant are thus, to some extent, retained in the haulm, which in consequence is much, relished by live stock, and yields a wholesome and nutritious fodder. A good crop of beans yields about 1 ton of grain and 1 1 ton of straw per acre. Section 6. Pease. Pease are sown in circumstances similar to those just detailed, but they are better adapted than beans to light soils. They too are best cultivated in rows of such a width as to admit of horse-hoeing. The early stage at which they fall over, and forbid further culture, renders it even more needful than in the case of beans to sow them only on land already clean. If annual weeds can be kept in check until the pease once get a close cover, they then occupy the ground so completely that nothing else can live- under them ; and the ground, after their removal, is found I. 46 ​AGRICULTURE [HARVESTING OF in the choicest condition. A thin crop of pease should never be allowed to stand, as the land is sure to get perfectly mid. The difficulty of getting tliis crop well harvested renders it peculiarly advisable to sow only the early varieties Section 7. Other Crops. The cereals and legumes now enumerated constitute the staple grain-crops of Great Britain. Others are grown occasionally, but more for curiosity than profit. Zealous attempts were made by the late William Gobbet to introduce maize or Indian corn as one of our regular crops. It has been conclusively proved that none of its varieties yet tried can be ripened in the ordinary seasons of this country. It has indeed been suggested that it might form a useful addition to our garden vegetables, using it, as it is done in America, by cooking the unripe cobs, and also that we might grow it beneficially as a forage crop. Lentiles have recently been grown in different parts of the country ; but both of these grains can be imported of better quality, and at less cost, than they can be grown at home. There is great inducement to agriculturists to endeavour more earnestly to obtain improved varieties of grain by cross-impregnation of existing ones. Something has already been accomplished in this direction, but only enough to show what encouragement there is to persevere. Whenever the same skill and perseverance are directed to the improve ment of field crops that our gardeners are constantly exerting, with such astonishing results, on fruits, flowers, and vegetables, we may anticipate a great increase of produce, not only from the discovery of more fruitful varieties, but of such as possess a special adaptation to every diversity in the soil and climate of our territory. Section 8. Harvesting of Grain Crops, and preparing them for Market. Several distinct modes of reaping grain are in use. The most ancient, and still the most common, is by the sickle or reaping-hook, which is used either with a smooth or serrated edge. The latter was at one time preferred, as by it the work was performed most accurately. The smooth- edged instrument is, however, now the favourite, as it requires less exertion to use it, and the reaper can, in consequence, get through more work in a day; and also because in using it the stalks are less compressed, and consequently dry faster when made into sheaves. In some parts of England the crops are reaped in a method called fagging or lagging. The cutting instrument used is heavier, straighter, and broader in the blade than the common reaping-hook. The workman uses it with a slashing stroke, and gathers the cut corn as he proceeds by means of a hooked stick held in his left hand. It is a similar process to the mode of reaping with the Hainault scythe an instrument which has been tried in this country, but never adopted to any extent. The common scythe, -especially with that form of handle known as the Aberdeen handle or sned, is very extensively used for reaping grain in all parts of the kingdom. Indeed, the practice of mowing grain has been increasing of late years, and would extend more rapidly but for the greater difficulty of finding good mowers than good reapers. A greater amount of dexterity is required to cut grain well by the scythe than by the sickle. The difficulty lies not in making smooth and clean stubble, but in so laying the swathe as to admit of the corn being sheaved accurately. When the mower lays his swathe at right angles to his line of progress, and the gatherer is skilful and careful, corn may be handled as neatly in reaping by the scythe as by the sickle. When the crops are not much laid or twisted, mowing is somewhat the cheapest of these modes of reaping. Its chief recom mendation, however, is tnat mown sheaves dry most quickly, and suffer least from a drenching rain. This arises from the stalks being less handled, and so forming an open sheaf, through which the wind penetrates freely. Tightly bound sheaves are always difficult to dry. In Berwickshire and adjoining counties the reaping of the crops has hitherto been accomplished by employing, at day s wages, such a number of reapers as suffices to cut down the crops on each farm in from twelve to twenty days. The rate of wages paid to reapers for a number of years has ranged from 2s. 6d. to 3s. Gd. each per diem, with victuals in addition, costing about eightpence for each person. In marshalling the band, two reapers are placed on each ridge of 15 or 18 feet in breadth, with a binder to each four reapers, and a steward, or the farmer in person, to superintend the whole. When the crop is of average bulk, and lies favourably for reaping, each bandwin, or set of four reapers and a binder, clear two acres in a day of ten hours, but 1| to 1| acre only, if it is bulky and lodged. The cost of reaping by this method is therefo e from 10s. to 15s. per acre. With a reaping-machine cutting say six acres per diem, and requiring in all ten persons (five men and five women or stout lads) to attend to and clear up after it, at an average wage, including victuals, of 3a each, and allowing 3s. per diem to cover tear and wear, and interest on- its prime cost, there seems a reasonable prospect of a goodly portion of our future crops being reaped for about 6s. per acre. The labour of the horses employed in working the reaper is not included in this estimate, as at this season they would otherwise be idle, and yet eating nearly as much food as when at work. There would thus be a saving in actual outlay of about 5s. per acre. But this is the least important view of the matter. On a Berwickshire farm producing 200 acres of crop, there are usually at least six pairs of horses kept, with a resident population sufficient to yield about thirty persons (including women and youths) available for harvest labour. The stated forces of such a farm will therefore suffice to man three reaping-machines, which, if the weather is favourable, and the crops standing erect or lying in one direction, will cut down the crop in about ten days. When portions of the crop are much lodged and twisted, it becomes necessary to employ part of the labourers in clearing out such portions by the scythe or sickle. It is often possible to manage these awkward-lying portions by setting one or more men, each with a steut staff, to raise up the crop and lay it towards the machine. When two or more machines are used on the same farm, it is best to work them together by cutting the whole length or width of the field in whichever direction the general lay of the crop admits of them working to most advantage. As each machine completes its cut, it returns empty to the side from which it started ; and they follow each other at such an interval as gives time to the lifters and binders, who are placed equidistant along the whole line, to keep the course clear. In such cases a man is usually employed to sharpen the spare knives, to assist in changing them from time to time, and to attend to the oiling and trimming of the whole machinery. It is good economy to have a spare machine at hand ready to put in the place of one that may be disabled by some breakage, and thus avoid interruption to the urgent work of reaping while the damage is being repaired. Great progress has been made in recent years in working these machines skilfully and systematically; they are in general use in all well-cultivated districts, and the time appears to be at hand when the whole grain crops of the country will be reaped by means of them. It is now agreed on all hands that grain should be reaped before it becomes what is called dead ripe. In the case of wheat and oats, when the grains have ceased to yield a ​GRAIN CROPS.] AGRICULTURE 363 milky fluid on being pressed under the thumb-nail, and when the ears and a few inches of the stem immediately under them have become yellow, the sooner they are reaped the better. Barley requires to be somewhat more matured. Unless the pink stripes on the husk have disappeared, and the grain has acquired a firm substance, it will shrink in drying, and be deficient both in weight and colour. When allowed to stand till it gets curved in the neck, the straw of barley becomes so brittle that many ears break short off in the reaping, and it then suffers even more than other grain crops under a shaking wind. It is of great consequence to see that corn is dry when it is tied up in sheaves, that these are not too tightly bound, and that every sheaf is kept constantly on foot. From the increased demand for harvest labourers, and the rapidity with which operations must be carried forward, stocking is not now performed with the same accuracy that it was wont to be. There is therefore the greater need for employing a person to review the stooks daily, and keep every sheaf erect. It was formerly the practice in Scotland to set up oats and barley in full stooks of twelve sheaves each, viz., five pairs and two hood-sheaves. These hood-sheaves are an excellent defence when wet weather sets in, but they retard the drying of the corn in fine weather, and there are now few binders who can set them up so as to stand securely. It is better, therefore, to aim at rapid drying, and for this purpose to have the sheaves small individually, and to set but four or six of them together. Large sheaves the worse to dry than small ones, not only from their greater bulk, but from their being almost inevitably tighter bound. The utmost vigilance is required on the part of farmers to avoid this fault. Beans and pease are reaped by the sickle. The former are usually not bound into sheaves at once, but left prostrate in handfuls for a few days until they have withered a little. But it is on the whole safer to stook them as they are reaped. They are then sheaved and bound with ties of twisted straw, which must be provided beforehand. In stacking beans, the tops of the sheaves are kept outwards, as by this means fewer pods are exposed to the weather, or to the depredations of fowls, etc., than when the butts are to the outside. Pease are rolled into wisps as they are reaped, and afterwards turned daily until they are fit to carry. When stacked, they must instantly be thatched, as they take in wet like a sponge. It requires no little discrimination to know when sheaves are dry enough to keep in a stack. The farmer finds it for his profit to consult his most intelligent and experienced labourers on this point. On thrusting the hand into a sheaf sufficiently dried, there is a lightness and kindliness to the touch not easily mistaken when once understood. Whenever this is ascertained, the crop is carried with the utmost possible dispatch. This is best accomplished by using one-horse carts, and by building the sheaves into round stacks of ten or twelve ]oads each. Very large stacks are for ostentation, not for profit. The labour of pitching up the sheaves to them is needlessly great ; corn is much sooner in a state to keep in small stacks than in large ones, and sooner gets into condition for market ; the crop is more accessible for thrashing in ten load quantities than in huge ricks ; and the crop of different fields and kinds of grain more easily kept separate. While naming ten or twelve loads as a convenient quantity to put together in each stack, let it be observed that this assumes the sheaves to be in a thoroughly dry condition ; for in wet seasons it frequently happens that the sheaves have a sufficient degree of dryness to keep safely in stacks of five or six loads each, although they will certainly heat if double these quantities are put together. Judicious farmers therefore accommodate the size of their stacks to the condition of the sheaves, and are more concerned to get their crops secured rapidly and safely than to have their stacks of uniform size. For the same reasons, it is often expedient to stack portions of the crop either in the field where it grew or at some convenient site nearer than the homestead, but on the way towards it, and where two carts will suffice to keep each stacker in work. An incidental benefit from having the stacks in detached groups is, that it lessens the risk from fire. It is always desirable to have the stacks built upon frames or stools elevated 18 or 20 inches from the ground. Besides the security from vermin thus attained, there is a free admission of air to every part, particularly when aided by a triangle of rough timber in the centre, which speedily insures thorough dryness in the whole stack. When stacks are built upon the ground Avith a mere bedding of straw under them, the grain from the basement tiers of sheaves is often lighter by several pounds per bushel than that from the rest of it. A farmer who has his rick-yard fully furnished with these frames can often carry his crop without risk when, if built on the ground, it would inevitably heat and have the grain in condition for market earlier by months than in the latter case. As the stacks are built, Young s Stack-Stool. they are thatched without delay. For this purpose, careful farmers provide beforehand ample stores of thatch and straw ropes. The thatch is not elaborately drawn, but merely straightened a little as it falls from the thrashing- mill, tied into large bundles, and built up into stacks, where it gets compressed, and so lies more evenly than ii used direct from the mill. A good coating of such thatch secured by straw ropes, interlacing each other in chequers, forms a secure and cheap covering, easily put on by ordinary farm labourers, and possesses, with all its rough ness, an air of unpretending rustic neatness which har monises well with surrounding objects, and which we greatly prefer to the elaborate ricks of the southern counties with their shaved sides, combed thatch, and weather-cock a-peak. Apart from its cost, the shaving of stacks is objectionable, as they then suffer more from a beating rain or snow-drift than when the natural roughness is left upon them, on the same principle that a coarse, shaggy topcoat shoots off wet better than a smooth broadcloth. A stout two-ply cord made of cocoa-nut fibre, or coir, is coming into use as a substitute for straw ropes in the thatching of stacks. With proper machinery propelled by steam or water, the thrashing and dressing of grain is a simple and inexpensive process. As grain is now universally sold with a reference to its weight per bushel, its relative value depends much upon its dryness and thorough freedom from chaff, dust, light grain, and seeds of weeds. Farmers who are syste matically careful in the cultivation, harvesting, thrashing, and dressing of their crops, can always command the best prices of the day. In preparing a parcel of grain for market, it is a good plan to measure a few sacks very carefully, ascertain the average weight of these, and then fill every remaining sack to that weight exactly. ​3(54 AGRICULTURE [ROOT CROPS. CHAPTER XII. CULTIVATED CROPS ROOT CROPS. Section 1. Potato. The events of late years render it necessary to regard this root somewhat differently than was warranted by its previous history. Its value as an article of food, relished alike by prince and peasant, its easy culture, its adaptation to a very wide diversity of soil and climate, and the largeness of its produce, justly entitled it to the high esteem in which it was universally held. Like many other good gifts, it was, however, grossly abused, and diverted from its legitimate use ; and advantage was taken of its amazing productive powers to elevate it from the place of an agreeable, wholesome addition to the daily food of the community to that of " the staff of life." In Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland, the people, already in a pain fully degraded condition, and contented with the potato as their sole food all the year round, took occasion, from its very productiveness, under the rudest culture, to sub divide their lands, and marry prematurely, with reckless improvidence, and amid an ever-deepening degradation. We know now, from the utter prostration and helplessness into which this wretched population was at once thrown by the memorable potato disease, the terrible penalty which this abuse of " a good gift" has brought directly on the miserable sufferers, and indirectly on the whole com munity. It will be well if the stern lesson, enforced by famine and pestilence, have the effect of leading to a better social condition. Viewed in this light, the potato disease may yet prove a blessing to the nation. Its continued prevalence, although in a mitigated form, cannot well be regarded otherwise, when we remember the frantic eagerness with which the Irish peasantry replanted their favourite root on the first indication of its returning vigour, and the desperate energy with which they cling to it under repeated disappointments. Apart from this speciality, the precarious health of this important esculent is much to be regretted. It seems contrary to analogy to suppose that it is likely either to be entirely lost or to manifest a permanent liability to disease. It seems more natural to suppose that by-and- by the disease will disappear, or that some efficient remedy for it will be discovered. Railways afford great facilities for transporting this bulky commodity at little expense to great distances, and thus render the market for it available to a wider district. Apart from disease, this facility of transport would naturally insure its more extended cultiva tion. This enlarged cultivation of a crop which, to be grown successfully, requires a soil rich in fertilising matters, has moreover been rendered practicable by the facilities which the farmer now has of obtaining guano and other portable manures. The varieties of the potato, whether for garden or field culture, are exceedingly numerous, and admit of endless increase by propagating from seeds. It would serve no useful purpose to enumerate here even a selection from the sorts in use in different parts of the country. In Messrs Lawson s Synopsis of the Vegetable Products of Scotland a description of 175 kinds is given, to which the reader is referred for particulars. When the crop is grown for cattle food, bulk of produce will be the primary consideration; but for sale or family use, flavour, keeping quality, and handsome appearance, will be particularly attended to. Exemption from disease is now a momentous consideration, whatever the use for which it is grown. There is this difficulty, however, connected with selections on the score of healthiness, that while in each season since the disease broke out certain varieties have escaped, it is observed from year to year that the exempted list varies, certain kinds that had been previously healthy becoming as obnoxious to disease as any, and others in a great measure escaping that had suffered much before. Indeed, certain parties, from observing that diseased tubers left in the ground have produced healthy plants in the following season, have been induced purposely to plant diseased potatoes, and with good results. This, however, is probably due to the mere fact of their being kept in the earth. In field culture the potato is frequently grown on a portion of the fallow break ; but its appropriate place in the rotation is that usually assigned to beans, with which, in an agricultural point of view, it has many features in common, and in lieu of which it may with advantage be cultivated. As the potato requires to be planted as early in spring as the weather will admit of, thus leaving little opportunity for cleaning the land, and as its mode of growth forbids any effective removal of root-weeds by after culture, it is peculiarly necessary to have the land devoted to this crop cleaned in autumn. Winter dunging facilitates the planting, and is otherwise beneficial to the crop by producing that loose and mellow condition of the soil in which the potato delights. The quality of the crop is also believed to be better when the dung is thoroughly incor porated with the soil, than when it is applied in the drill at the time of planting. A liberal application of manure is necessary if a full crop is expected. The rank growth thus induced renders it, however, more obnoxious to the blight, and hence at present it is more prudent to aim rather at a sound crop than an abundant one, and for this purpose to stint the manure. When it is applied at the time of planting, the mode of procedure is the same as that which will presently be described in the section on turnip culture. The potato sets are prepared a few days before they are expected to be needed. Tubers about the size of an egg do well to be planted whole ; and it is a good plan to select these when harvesting the crop, and to store them by themselves, that they may be ready for use without further labour. The larger tubers are cut into pieces having at least one sound eye in each, although two are better. It is of great consequence to have seed-potatoes stored in a cool and dry pit, so that if possible they may be prepared for planting before they have begun to shoot. If there has been any heating in the pit, the potatoes are found to be covered by a rank crop of shoots, which are necessarily rubbed off, and thus the most vigorous eyes are lost, and much of the substance which should have nourished the young plant is utterly wasted. A sufficient number of dormant eyes are no doubt left, but from the comparatively exhausted state of the tubers, these produce stems of a weaker and more watery character, and more liable to disease than those first protruded. To avoid these evils, gardeners are at pains to invigorate their seed potatoes and husband their whole powers for early and vigorous growth by greening them in autumn, storing them in a cool place with a current of air passing through it, and then in early spring exposing them to light on a floor, whence they are carefully removed and planted with their short green shoots unbroken. Neither the greening nor the sprouting under cover and in the light can ordinarily be practised on the scale on which the field culture of the potato is conducted. But the important feature in it, viz., so treating potatoes intended for seed that the crop shall be produced from the first and most vigorous shoots, and that these shall obtain the full benefit of the natural pabulum stored up for their use in the parent tuber, should be care fully considered and imitated if possible in field culture. The report of the meeting of the Edinburgh Botanical Society, on 8th January 1852, bears that "Professor Simpson communicated the results of some experiments made by himself and Mr Stewart relative to the growth of alpine plants after having been kept artificially covered ​LOOT CDOPS.] with snow in an ice-house for many months. Seeds and plants when kept in this way during winter, and then brought into the warm air of summer, germinate and grow with great rapidity. Mr Stewart had also made experi ments with animals, and he found that the chrysalis so treated produced a moth in eleven days after being brought into the atmosphere, while another chrysalis of the same moth did not do so for three or four months after. In arctic regions the rapid growth of plants during the short summer was well known. Professor Simpson alluded to the importance of similar experiments being made on the different kinds of grain. He referred to the rapidity of harvest in Canada and other countries where the cold lasted for many months, and he was disposed to think that if grain was kept in ice-houses during the winter, and sown in spring, there might be an acceleration of the harvest." The suggestion for the treatment of seed corn is cer tainly deserving of trial ; but the known difficulty of hinder ing the premature germination of potato sets in the ordi nary method of storing them seems to point to them as the peculiarly appropriate subjects of such an experiment. Potato drills should not be less than 30 inches wide, nor the sets less than 10 or 12 inches apart in the rows. The usual practice is to take the sets to the field in sacks, which are set down at convenient distances for replenishing the baskets or aprons of the planters. When a large breadth is to be planted, a better way is to have the sets in carts, one of which is moved slowly along in front of the planters. A person is seated in the cart, who has by him several spare baskets which he keeps ready filled, and which are handed to the planters in exchange for empty ones as often as required. This greatly economises the time of the planters, and admits of a greater amount of work being accomplished by them in a day. Single-bout drills are quite sufficient, so far as the success of the crop is concerned. So soon as the young potato plants are fairly above ground, the drill- grubber should be set to work and followed up without delay by hand-hoeing. Mr Wallace, North Berwick Mains, a most successful cultivator of potatoes, has for many years taken off all the shoots, save one, from the potato sets as they appear above ground, and the prunings are used in filling up blanks; the result has been that the produce of the solitary stem is both larger and of more equal size and quality than when the shoots are all left. A turn of the horse-hoe and another hand-hoeing after a short interval are usually required, after which the common practice is to earth up the rows by the double mould-board ploughs. There is reason to believe that this latter practice usually does harm rather than good. It no doubt prevents the uppermost tubers from getting greened by exposure to the light, but it is believed that the injury inflicted on the roots which spread into the intervals betwixt the rows far more than counterbalances any benefits that result, or have been supposed to result, from this earthing up. After the plants are a foot high, a slight stirring of the surface to keep down weeds is all the culture that is admissible con sistently with the well-doing of the crop. When the crop is matured, which is known by the decay of the tops and the firmness of the epidermis when the tubers are forcibly rubbed by the thumb, advantage is taken of every dry day in harvesting the crop. With small plots, the fork is certainly the most efficient implement for raising the tubers; but on the large scale, when expedition is of great consequence, they are always unearthed by the double mould-board plough. Alternate rows are split open in the first instance, and then the intervening ones, as the produce of the first is gathered. When a convenient breadth has thus been cleared, a turn of the harrows is given to uncover such tubers as have been hid from the gleaners at the first going over. This work is now very 3G5 generally accomplished by means of a bulking-plough divested of its wings, and having attached to its sole a piece of iron terminating in radiating prongs. This being worked directly under the row of potato plants, unearths the tubers, and spreads them on the surface by one opera tion. The potatoes are gathered into baskets, from which they are emptied into carts and conveyed at once to some dry piece of ground, where they are piled up in long narrow heaps and immediately thatched with straw. The base of the heaps should not exceed a yard in width, and should be raised above the surface level rather than sunk below it, as is very usually done. As the dangers to be guarded against are heating and frost, measures must be taken with an eye to both. The crop being put together in as dry and clean a state as possible, a good covering of straw is put on, and coated over two or three inches thick with earth, care being taken to leave a chimney every two yards along the ridge. By thus keeping the heaps dry and secure from frost, it is usually possible, even yet, to preserve potatoes in good condition till spring. Such diseased ones as have been picked out at the gathering of the crop can be used for feeding cattle or pigs. The fact that pigs fatten appa rently as well on diseased potatoes when cooked by steaming or boiling, as on sound ones, is certainly a very important mitigation of this dreaded calamity. There are several varieties of the potato, such as " yams," " lumpers," "mangel-wurzel potato," <fec., which, although unfit for human food, are much relished by cattle, and which, from their abundant produce, healthiness, and great fattening quality, are well deserving of being more generally cultivated for the purpose of being used in combination with turnips and other substances in the fattening of cattle. The turnip crop of recent years has been nearly as much diseased as the potato crop, and as one remedy against " fingers-and- toes" in the former is to let longer intervals of time inter vene before their recurrence in the same field, and as it has been ascertained that an acre each of beans, potatoes, and turnips will produce more beef than three acres of turnips alone, it is worthy the consideration of those con cerned whether it would not be prudent to substitute a crop of these coarser potatoes for a portion of their turnip crop on fields or parts of fields that have borne diseased turnips in previous rotations. Eight tons per acre is a good crop of potatoes. Section 2. Turnips. The introduction of turnips as a field crop constitutes one of the most marked epochs in British agriculture. To the present day no better criterion exists by which to estimate its state in any district, or the skill of individual farmers, than the measure of success with which this or other root crops are cultivated. We have already, in our section upon fallowing, described in detail the process of preparing the soil for drilled green crops. Referring the reader to what is there said, we now proceed with our description of turnip culture. Previous to the introduction of bone-dust and guano, farm-yard dung formed, in the majority of cases, the only available manure for the turnip crop. It was almost in variably formed into heaps in the field to which it was to be applied, and repeatedly turned, as great stress was laid on having it well rotted. The introduction of these invalu able portable manures has, however, not only immensely extended the culture of the turnip, but has materially modified the course of procedure. On the first introduc tion of bone-dust the practice was to use the fold-yard dung as far as it would go, and to apply bone-dust alone, in quantities of from sixteen to twenty bushels per acre, to the remainder of the crop. Guano, too, for a time was used to some extent on the same principle; but now it is ​3G6 A G R I C U L T II K E most satisfactorily proved that whereas very good crops of turnips can be obtained by manuring either with dung alone, at the rate of from fifteen to twenty tons per acre, or bones alone, at the rate of sixteen to twenty bushels, or guano alone, at the rate of three or four cwt., much letter crops can be obtained by applying to each acre its propor tion of each of these kinds and quantities of manures. A portion of the bones is now usually applied in the form of superphosphate of lime; and as this substance, and also guano, have a remarkable power of stimulating the growth of the turnip in its earliest stage, forcing it to the state fit for thinning from ten to fourteen days earlier than hereto fore, there is now no occasion for the dung being in the advanced state of decomposition that was formerly found necessary. When farm-yard dung alone was used, it behoved to be in a soluble state, ready to furnish nourish ment to the plant from the beginning. But in bringing it to that state a considerable loss is sustained by fermentation, and its bulk is so much reduced that it becomes difficult to distribute evenly the allowance which would be available for each acre, in order to give the whole crop a share of it. This, however, it is most desirable to do, as good farm yard manure contains in itself the whole elements required by the crop; and hence an additional reason for the plans of applying farm-yard dung which have already been noticed. If that made during the previous summer has been applied in autumn to the lea before ploughing for oats, as far as it will go, and another portion of the con templated turnip break dunged before the winter furrow, with all that has been made up to that time, and the future accumulations up to April formed into heaps, to be applied in the drills for the latest sowings, the manures produced on the farm may be made to go over nearly the whole breadth under root crops. In proceeding to sow those portions that were dunged before the oat crop and on the stubble, all that is required is to form the drills, and apply the guano or bones, or mixture of both, by hand. In doing this, ten or twelve drills are set out the evening before, that all may be ready for a good start. The light manure is taken to the field in carts, which are unyoked at convenient distances for replenishing the aprons of the young persons (one for each plough) or the machine by which it is distributed along the drills. The sowers of the manure being started on the outside drills, the ploughmen proceed to open fresh ones inside in going, and to cover in the manure by reversing the first formed ridgelets as they return. The seed machine, sowing two rows at a time, follows close up to the ploughs, and thus the work goes rapidly on, each plough getting over from 2^ to 3 acres a-day. When farm-yard dung is applied at the time of sowing, the process is the same, except that the drills must be opened somewhat deeper, and that the dung-carts, followed by an adequate number of spreaders, precede the sowers of the light manures. In filling the dung-carts, one able-bodied labourer is required for each plough employed in drilling; and where these amount to three, six spreaders are required to distribute it evenly along the drills. In some districts the double- breasted plough is used in forming the drills and covering in the dung. In the hands of a skilful ploughman that implement does certainly make neater work to look at; but so far as the success of the crop is concerned, the common swing-plough is preferable, for in covering in with it the earth is made to run over the top of the ridgelet, by which means the clods fall into the hollow, and the finest of the mould is left on the top, where the seed is to be deposited. With the double mould-board this cannot so well be done, and the consequence is, that a groove is formed on the top of the ridgelet, in which the small dry clods, carried up by the tail of the mould-board, are left, forming the worst [BOOT CROPS. possible bed for the seed. In parching weather it is usual to pass a light roller over the drills immediately after sowing, to retain the moisture and insure germination. The seed is deposited near the surface, half an inch of mould being a sufficient covering. The quantity sown is 2 Ib per acre of globe or yellow turnip seeds, and 3 to 4 Bb of swedes. Care must be taken that the seed is fresh, so as to have a vigorous and thick plant. Thick sowing increases the difficulty of thinning out the plants, but it hastens their growth, and diminishes the risk of failure from the depredations of the turnip beetle. The time of sowing in the south of Scotland extends from the begin ning to the end of May for swedes, and thence to the middle of June for yellows and globes. A partial sowing of yellow or globe is, however, made by careful stock- masters before sowing the swedes, to be ready for use by the end of August or beginning of September, when pasturage fails. Sowings of early varieties, such as the stubble turnip and certain yellow kinds, are also made after winter tares or other catch crops, until the middle of July ; but in Scot land they cannot be sown later than this with advantage, unless for the production of a crop of seed. The average weight per acre of swedes may be stated at 18 tons, and of turnips at 22 tons, but double these rates have occasionally been obtained. Recent experiments go to show that with liberal manuring and early sowing, the weight of the crop is considerably increased by thinning out the plants at wider intervals than has hitherto been customary. The usual practice in Scotland has been to sow in ridgelets 27 inches apart, with 9 or 10 inches be twixt the plants. Recent experiments establish the fact that, with 15 inches from plant to plant, much larger bulbs and a greater acreable produce are obtained. As it is ascertained that in the case of swedes the largest bulbs are also the best in quality, it is of the greater consequence to allow them ample room. The thinning is commenced as soon as the rough leaf is fairly developed. Previous to this operation the horse-hoe is worked betwixt the rows for the double purpose of destroying weeds and facilitating the operation of thinning. This operation is sometimes still farther facilitated by using Huckvale s machine, which slaps out the rows so as to leave tufts of plants at regular distances apart The singling of the plants is performed by the hand-hoe. The young persons by whom this work is usually performed advance in echelon with their backs to the untouched work, the steadiest and most expert worker leading the band. This arrangement insures a uniform rate of progress, saves the finished work from being trodden upon, and keeps the workers closely under the eye of the steward. This thin ning of the rows, so as to leave single plants at regular intervals of 12 to 15 inches apart, is accomplished by an alternate thrusting and drawing motion of the hoe, which a little practice enables the workers to perform with such precision that very rarely do they either make a gap or leave double plants, and still more rarely do they require to stoop dow T n to disentangle them with their fingers. Three of these workers can usually thin an acre in a day. With ordinary care on the part of the overseer, there is no great difficulty in getting the plants left single at proper intervals ; but it is very difficult to get the hoers trained to select and leave only the stoutest plants. And yet so important is this, that, all other things being equal, a difference of two to three tons per acre in the rate of pro duce has been ascertained to result on comparing rows that had been thinned by a person who took pains to select and leave the best plants, with others on which they had been left indiscriminately. When the plants have rallied after the thinning, and begun to grow rapidly, the usual practice has been to turn a furrow from either side ​HOOT CROPS.] AGRICULTURE 3(37 of them into the middle of the interval by a one-horse plough, and then to level this down by a turn of the horse- hoe. A great improvement on this practice is to use Tennant s grubber instead, adjusted for drill work in the manner already described. By thus using a strong imple ment drawn by two horses, the soil in the intervals betwixt the rows can be stirred a foot deep if required, without any risk of hurting the young plants, and this, too, is accomplished by a single operation. A second hand-hoeing is then given, which usually completes the after culture. The nature of the soil will generally determine the mode of consuming the crop. On all loose, dry soils, feeding off by sheep is the most profitable plan; whereas on deep, strong loams, it is advisable to withdraw the whole produce, and have it eaten by cattle, as, unless in very favourable weather, when even a fourth is fed off by sheep, the extra manuring does not compensate to the after crops for the injury which they usually sustain from the treading and poaching. On the poorest class of light soils the whole crop should, if possible, be consumed where it grows by sheep; but on those of a better description, a third, a half, or two-thirds n y be withdrawn for the feeding of cattle, according to circumstances. Whatever the proportion left on the ground, care is to be taken to regulate the intervals so as to distribute the treading and droppings of the sheep as equally as possible over the field. The management of the turnip crop so as that it may be supplied to the live stock in the best possible condition during the entire season, is a point of the greatest import ance. The portion that is to be used as cattle food is removed from the ground as soon as the crop is suffi ciently matured, and before the time when drenching rains and severe frosts may ordinarily be looked for. The best way of preserving turnips is by storing in broad flat heaps, not exceeding 20 inches deep, on some dry and sheltered situation, open to the sun, and covering them with a good coating of straw. It takes less labour to put them together in this way, and less straw to cover them; and being less exposed to frost and parching winds, they retain their juices much better than when stored in long narrow heaps. The pulling of swedes preparatory to stor ing is much facilitated by passing under them a sharp share, and so cutting across the tap-roots without displacing the bulbs. The thatch of the corn-stacks that are thrashed in autumn is usually reserved for covering turnip heaps. After 1st November it is well to make diligent use of every favourable hour in thus securing the turnip crop. The portion to be fed off by sheep must necessarily be treated in a different manner. What is to be used after Christmas can be very readily defended against frost by earthing up in the drills with the common plough. But as what is to be consumed by the young sheep must be pulled and trimmed at any rate, in order to be sliced, the best way is to throw the tuwiips into heaps at regular distances, and cover them with a thin coating of earth. By this means the turnips are kept from running to stems, and the sheep get them clean and fresh, whatever the state of the weather. 1 The same end is secured by opening a trench by a bout of the common plough, into which the turnips from two drills on either side are laid in regular order with their tops uppermost, and the earth turned over upon them by reversing the course of the plough. When wanted for use they ars again unearthed by means of the plough. The feeding qualities of turnips are so seriously impaired by exposure to frost, even when they 1 During the unusually wet winter of 1852-53 a large quantity of turnips and swedes intended for cattle food was stored in this way. The trimming and storing was carried on every dry day, and the carting postponed until the occurrence of frost or drought admitted of its being done without injury to the land. escape actual destruction, that the expense of securing them by one or other of these methods is always amply repaid. In very mild winters, again, storing is equally effective in preventing the virtues both of the turnips and the soil from being wasted by the pushing of the seed stems. The turnip is liable in the early stages of its growth to the attacks of various insects. The most formidable of these enemies is the turnip beetle, which frequently settles upon the plants as soon as they appear above ground in such numbers as totally to destroy the whole of them. The best way of guarding against these nimble adversaries is to endeavour, by careful preparation of the soil, liberal manuring, and thick seeding, to secure a thick plant and rapid growth; for whenever the rough leaf is expanded the risk from this quarter is over. From time to time the young turnip plants are assailed by the larvae of certain butterflies and moths, which sometimes appear in such num bers as to cause serious alarm, but ordinarily their attacks occasion but a slight check to the growth of the crop. A far more formidable evil is the disease called " fingers and toes," which, although long known, seems to be steadily extending, and has been wider spread and more virulent since 1851 than in previous years. This truly formidable disease sometimes shows itself by the time that the plants are ready for thinning, but more usually it is about the stage when the second hoeing is given that unmistakable indications of its presence are observed. The crop appears in high health, and is making rapid growth, when suddenly, under hot sunshine, numbers of the plants are seen to droop with flaccid leaves ; and examination being made, it is found that the disease has already made serious progress. In some cases it is chiefly confined to the tap-root, which is distorted with knobby excrescences. In others, the roots present a thickened, palmated appearance, giving rise to the popular name for the disease, " ringers and toes;" while in others the lateral roots expand into glandular-looking tubers, which frequently appear partially above ground at distances of several inches from the central stem. For a time all these forms of the excrescences present a smooth healthy looking skin, yielding no trace of the presence of insects of any kind, cither externally or internally. By-and-by the skin cracks over the excrescences, which speedily assume a gangrenous appearance. Indeed, the whole symptoms pre sent a striking analogy to cancer in the animal system. By the time that the healthy plants are approaching near to maturity, the most diseased ones have usually lost all resemblance to turnips, and there remains on the land a substance like rotten fungus. In very bad cases whole acres together are found in this state, with here and there a sickly distorted turnip still showing a few green leaves. At other times a few only of the plants are wholly destroyed; the field, to a casual observer, looking not much amiss, though a closer inspection proves that the general crop is of stunted growth, with few plants entirely free from the disease. Such partially diseased roots are not absolutely rejected by sheep, but they are evidently unpalatable and innutritions, while the crop as a whole is more speedily consumed than its general appearance would lead one to expect. When this disease appears on farms that have previously been exempt from it, it is usually confined for a year or two to small patches, which, however, in the absence of remedial measures, steadily and rapidly extend, not only on the recurrence of a turnip crop on the same fields, but over the other parts of the farm. Indeed, there are not wanting indications of its being propagated by contagion; as, for instance, when tainted roots are carted into pastures, and the disease shows itself most in those places where they have been consumed, when, in course of rotation, the field comes afterwards to bear a turnip crop. When they are consumed by cattle in fold-yards, the dung ​368 AGRICULTURE [ROOT CROPS. may be the medium of contamination, on the supposition that this conjecture is well-founded. Ploughing land in a wet state evidently aggravates the disease. We know of one instance where a strip down the middle of a field was ploughed in autumn while soaked by rain, on which wet ploughed portion the turnips were evidently more diseased than over the rest of the field. In another instance which came under our personal observation, a ditch running along part of the top of a field of upwards of 50 acres, was scoured in spring, and the mud spread back over the head land. The whole field was, in the same season, sown with turnips, which proved an excellent crop, entirely free from " fingers and toes," with the exception of that portion of headland on which the mud was spread, where every plant was diseased. Although wholly in the dark as to the nature and propagation of this disease, it is well to know that the judicious application of lime is a certain remedy. In order, however, to its efficacy, it must be applied in a powdery state after the autumn ploughing, and immediately incorporated with the soil by harrowing; or else, as a com post with earth, spread on the lea before breaking up for oats. We know from experience that a very moderate dose (say four tons of unslaked shells to the acre) applied in this way will suffice to prevent the disease. It is on light soils that its ravages are most frequently experienced, and to these heavy doses of lime are unsuitable. Indeed, whether for promoting the general fertility of soils, or for warding off the attacks of this disease, moderate applications of lime every twelve years or so seem preferable to heavier dressings at longer intervals. The name " fingers and toes " is not unfrequently applied to a distinct disease to which the turnip, in common with the cabbage and other coleworts, is liable namely anbury or club root. When the knobby excrescence which is found on plants affected by anbury is broken up, it is found to encase a white maggot, whose presence is the obvious cause of the mis chief. We have seen young cabbages which had begun to droop from clubbing, when pulled up, freed from the parasite, and replanted, regain healthy growth and come to prosperous maturity. In the case of the " finger and toe," the most careful investigation, aided by the microscope, has hitherto failed to detect any insect cause for this disastrous malady. Section 3. Mangel-Wurzel. This root has been steadily rising in estimation of late years. It is peculiarly adapted for those southern parts of England where the climate is too hot and dry for the suc cessful cultivation of the turnip. A competent authority declares that it is there easier to obtain 30 tons of mangold than 20 tons of swedes, and that it is not at all unusual to find individual roots upwards of 20 Ib in weight. In Scotland it is just the reverse, it being comparatively easy to grow a good crop of swedes, but very difficult to obtain 20 tons of mangold. This plant is very susceptible of injury from frost, and hence in the short summer of Scot land it can neither be sown so early nor left in the ground so late as would be requisite for its mature growth. These difficulties may possibly be got over either by the selection of hardier varieties or by more skilful cultivation. Its feeding quality is said to be nearly equal to that of the swede; it is much relished by live stock pigs especially doing remarkably well upon it; and it has the very im portant property of keeping in good condition till mid summer if required. Indeed, it is only after it has been some months in the store heap that it becomes a palatable and safe food for cattle. It is, moreover, exempt from the attacks of the turnip beetle. On all these accounts, there fore, it is peculiarly valuable in those parts of Great Britain where the summer is usually hot and dry conditions of climate which are favourable to the mangold and peculiarly unfavourable to the turnip. Up to the act of depositing the seed, the processes of pre paration for mangold are identical with those described for the turnip; winter dunging being even more appropriate for the former than for the latter. The ridgelets being formed 28 inches apart, and charged with a liberal allowance of dung and guano, the seeds are deposited along the top, at the rate of about 4 Ib per acre. The common drilling machines are easily fitted for sowing its large rough seeds, which should be sown from the 10th to the 25th April. The after culture is also identical with that of the turnip. The plants are thinned out at distances of not less than 15 inches apart. Transplanting can be used for filling up of gaps with more certainty of success than in the case of swedes. But we find it much more economical to avoid such gaps by sowing a little swede seed along with the mangold. Several varieties of the plant are cultivated those in best repute being the orange globe, the long yellow, and the long red. This crop requires a heavier dressing of manure than the turnip to grow it in perfection, and is much benefited by having salt mixed with the manure at the rate of 2 or 3 cwt. per acre. The crop requires to be secured in store heaps as early in autumn as possible, as it is easily injured by frost. The following graphic descrip tion of this process is by Mr Morton of Whitfield : "The mode of harvesting our root crop which we have adopted for several years is this : We let the lifting, cutting off the leaves and the roots, and putting the roots into the cart at so much per acre, according to the weight of the crop to one man, who gets other men to join with him in the work and share in the profits ; and the arrangement I require to be adopted is, that the one-horse carts, which I employ to haul the roots, shall be constantly employed, and I require from 16 to 20 loads or tons of roots to be filled hourly. The number of carts required is according to the distance of the field from the store ; thus the distance from the middle of the field to the store being 15 chains, four carts arc required ; 22 chains require five carts ; and 30 chains require seven carts. " The mode of lifting the roots. Five men are employed to pull up the roots ; each man pulls up two rows ; standing between the rows, he takes with his left hand a root from the row on his left side, and with his right hand a root from the row on his right side, and pulling both up at the same time, places them side by side, across the row where he pulled up the roots with his right hand, so as to have the tops lying in the space between the two rows he has pulled up ; the next man takes the two rows at the right hand of the last two rows we have just described, and he, with each of his hands, pulls up a row, and places them on the line of the row which he has pulled up with Ids-left hand, with the root end lying towards the root end of the first row, so that we have now four rows of roots lying close together in two rows, side by side, with their leaves on the outside of each of these rows, and the roots of each row nearly touching each other ; and every four rows, when growing, are thus, when pulled, laid in two rows, root to root, occupying not more than 27 inches. Now, as the next four rows are lifted in the same way, and placed in like manner, we have a space unoccupied of three times 27 inches, or 6 feet 9 inches between each double row of roots, for the cart to go between them (viz. , this double row of bulbs after they have had the leaves and roots cut off), to carry off the bulbs to the store. After the five men who are pulling the roots there follow ten women or boys, with knives made of pieces of old scythes, who, with repeated blows, cut off the leaves and roots without ever moving one of them with their hands ; this is constant but not hard work, and it requires ten active women or boys to keep up with the five men pulling. "Immediately on the heels of the cutters follow the carts between the two double rows of bulbs as they lie, having theii leaves and roots cut off ; and a man, one of the principals of the gang, and nine young active boys and girls, throw up the bulbs as fast as they can into the cart, the man speaking to the horse to move forward or stop as they clear the ground ; when one cart is full, an empty one has been brought by one of the boys who drive the carts, and placed immediately behind the full one ; so that, as he moves off with the full cart, the man calls the horse with the empty cart to move forward, and they proceed to throw the roots into the cart as fast as they did into the one that has just gone off the field. "The pulling of the roots and the filling of the carts being the principal work, one of the leaders is in each of these departments of ​KOOT CROPS.] the work ; so that, by his example, he shows those with him how he wishes them to work, and thus the work proceeds with the utmost regularity and despatch ; 20 cart-loads are hourly filled in the fields and delivered in the store ; 180 to 182 loads of 22 cwt. and 23 cwt. each in a day of nine hours ; thus a cart-load is filled every three minutes by 10 pairs of hands, which are pulled by five pairs of hands, and the leaves and roots cut off by 10 pairs of hands in all 25 pairs of hands, men, women, and boys. This has been repeatedly done in a day. The stores are made of posts and rails, enclosing a space 9 feet apart and 4 feet high, and of any length, if the space will admit, and as near to where they are to be consumed as possible. The posts are 5 feet apart, let into the ground 18 inches, and 4J feet above, with five rails above, 4 or 5 inches wide, nailed to the inside of the posts ; and each of these stores is 3 feet apart. I have 1 4 of them, about 70 feet long each, which is sufficient to store from 1000 to 1200 tons of bulbs." The heaps are carefully thatched, and the spaces betwixt them filled with straw to keep out frost. It is believed that in many cases crops of turnip and mangold could be more cheaply stored by means of the portable railway than by carts, and with less injury to the land. This is especially the case with clay soils and in wet seasons. In using it, eight drills of roots are trimmed and laid in two rows, as Mr Morton describes ; the rails are shifted between the pairs of rows in succession; and the roots are pitched into light trucks, which a man pushes before him to the headland, where the contents are discharged by tipping. Being there heaped up and thatched, the roots are carted to the homestead as required. Section 4. Carrot. This root, though so deservedly esteemed and univer sally grown in gardens, has not hitherto attained to general cultivation as a field crop. This is owing chiefly to certain practical difficulties attending its culture on a larger scale. Its light feathery seeds cannot easily be sown so as to secure their regular germination; the tardy growth of the young plants, and the difficulty of discriminating between them and weeds makes the thinning a troublesome affair; the harvesting of the crop is comparatively expensive; and it is only on sandy and light loamy soils, or those of a peaty character, that it can be grown successfully. The increasing precariousness in the growth of potatoes, turnips, and clover, and the consequent necessity for a greater variety of green crops, entitle the carrot to increased atten tion as a field crop. Its intrinsic qualities are, however, very valuable, especially since the introduction of the white Belgian variety. On light soils it is alleged that larger crops of carrots can be obtained than of turnips, and with less exhaustion of their fertility, which is explained as arising from the greater depth to which the carrots descend for their nourishment. This root is eaten with avidity by all kinds of farm stock. Horses, in particular, are very fond of it, and can be kept in working condition with a considerably smaller ration of oats when 20 ft of carrots are given to them daily. It can also be readily kept to an advanced period of spring when stored with ordinary care. The mode of culture is very similar to that already de scribed for mangel-wurzel. A usual practice is to prepare the seed for sowing by mixing it with moist sand, and turning the mass repeatedly for several days until germina tion begins, when it is sown by hand at the rate of 6 Ib per acre of the dry seeds, in a seam opened by the coulters of the corn or turnip drill, according as it is wished to have it on the flat or on ridgelets. Some prefer merely to rub the mixture of seeds and sand or mould betwixt the palms, until the seeds are thoroughly separated from each other, and so divested of their hairs as, when mixed with sand, to run from a drilling machine. It is of the utmost importance to secure seeds of the previous year s growth, as if older their germination cannot be depended upon. Much care is also needed in saving the seed only from selected roots, as 369 carrots have a decided tendency to degenerate. The white Belgian variety is certainly the best for farm use, not only from the weight of crop, but from its growing more rapidly in its earliest stage than other approved sorts, and showing a broader and deeper coloured leaf, which can more easily be discriminated from weeds, and thus admitting of the earlier use of the hoe. When the sowing and first hoeing and thinning of the crop are got over successfully, the after culture of the crop is very simple; all that is needed being the occasional use of the horse and hand hoe to keep down weeds. The fork must be used in lifting the crop. The greens are then cut off and given to young stock or cows, and the roots stored in long narrow heaps, exactly as mangold. Fifteen tons per acre is an average crop, although on suit able soils, with liberal manuring and skilful cultivation, double the weight. is sometimes obtained. Those who in tend to cultivate this crop statedly will do well to raise their own seeds from carefully-selected roots. Unless genuine and fresh seed is sown, failure and disappointment can scarcely be avoided. Section 5. Parsnip). This plant bears so close a resemblance to the carrot, and its culture and uses are so similar, that they need not be repeated. It can, however, be cultivated successfully over a much wider range of soils than the carrot, and, unlike it, rather prefers those in which clay predominates. It is grown extensively and with great success in the Channel Islands. The cows there, fed on parsnips and hay, yield butter little inferior, either in colour or flavour, to that produced from pasture. About 1 ft of seed are required per acre. It requires, like that of the carrot, to be steeped before sowing, to hasten germination, and the same care is needed to have it fresh and genuine. It should be sown in April. The roots, when matured, are stored like carrots. Section 6. Jerusalem Artichoke. This root, although decidedly inferior to the potato in flavour, is yet deserving of cultivation. It grows freely in inferior soils, is easily propagated from the tubers, and requires little attention in its cultivation. When once established in the soil, it will produce abundant crops for successive years on the same spot. It is sometimes planted in woods to yield shelter for game, for which purpose it is admirably fitted, as it grows freely under the shade of trees, and yields both food and covert. In properly-fenced woods it might yield abundant and suitable food for hogs, which could there root it at their pleasure, without damage to anything. Where they had mast along with these juicy tubers, they would undoubtedly thrive apace. After they had grubbed up what they could get, enough would be left to reproduce a crop for successive seasons. Such a use of this esculent seems well deserving of careful trial. CROPS ANALOGOUS TO DRILLED ROOT CROPS. (Sections 7, 8, 9.) There are several crops which, under a strict classifica tion, should be noticed among forage crops rather than here, but which, in an agricultural point of view, are so closely analogous to drilled root crops that we regard this as the suitable place in which to notice them. Section 7. Callage. On strong rich soils large crops of very nutritious food for sheep or cattle, and of a kind very acceptable to them, are obtained from the field culture of the Drumhead cab bage. A seed-bed is prepared in a garden, orchard, or other sheltered situation, about the second week in August, either by sowing in rows 12 inches apart, and thinning the plants I. 47 ​370 AGRICULTURE [GRASSES. about 3 inches in the rows, or broadcast in beds. As early in spring as the land on which the crop is to be grown is dry enough for being worked, let it be thoroughly and deeply stirred by one or more turns of the grubber. Assuming that a liberal dressing of dung has been put into it at the autumn ploughing, 3 or 4 cwt. of guano are now scattered evenly over the surface and ploughed in by a deep square furrow. A lot of plants being brought from the seed-bed, a band of planters, each provided with a dibble and a piece of rod 27 inches long, proceed to insert a row of plants the length of the rods apart in each third plough-seam, the result of which is that the plants stand in regular rows 27 inches apart every way, and can afterwards be kept clean by horse and hand hoeing like any other drilled green crop. Cabbages are much in repute with breeders of rams and prize sheep, which fatten rapidly on this food. Cabbages are usually drawn off and given to sheep on their pastures, or to cattle in byres and yards ; but they are also fed off, where they grow, by sheep, in the same way as turnips. It is an exhausting crop when wholly drawn off, and on this account is sometimes grown with advantage on spots greatly enriched by irrigation with sewage or otherwise, and where the succeeding grain crop is expected to suffer from over-luxuriance, the cabbages being grown, as the phrase goes, to " take the shine out of it." In favourable circumstances, from 30 to 40 tons per acre of this nutritious crop may be obtained. From what has been said it is evidently not adapted for extensive field culture ; but on most farms a few acres might be grown annually with great advantage. It is a peculiarly suitable food for either sheep or cattle during the autumnal tran sition from grass to turnips. Section 8. Rape. This plant is peculiarly adapted for peaty soils, and is accordingly a favourite crop in the fen lands of England, and on recently reclaimed mosses and moors elsewhere. Its growth is greatly stimulated by the ashes resulting from the practice of paring and burning. In these cases it is sown broadcast ; but when such soils are brought into a regular course of tillage, it is drilled, and otherwise treated in the same manner as turnips. As we shall consider its culture under the head of " Oil-producing Plants " (chap, xiv. sec. 5), we shall only say further here, that its highly nutritious leaves and stems are usually consumed by folding sheep upon it where it grows, and that there is no green food upon which they fatten faster. Occasionally it is carried to the homestead, and used with other forage in carrying out the system of soiling cattle. Section 9. Kold-Rdbi. This plant has been frequently recommended to the notice of farmers of late years. Like mangold, it is better adapted than the turnip for strong soils and dry and warm climates. It may be either sown on drills in the same manner as the turnip, or sown in a seed-bed and afterwards transplanted. The latter plan is expensive, if it is desired to cultivate the crops to any extent ; but is commendable for providing a supply of plants to make good deficiencies in the rows of other crops, or when a small quantity only is wanted. By sowing a plot of ground in March in some sheltered corner, and transplanting the crop early in May, it is more likely to prosper than in any other way. Cattle and sheep are fond of it, and it is said not to impart any unpleasant flavour to milk. We have seen a few trials of it in Scotland as a field crop ; but, from whatever cause, the weight of food produced per acre was greatly less than from the mangolds and swedes growing alongside of it. For further information about this plant, the reader is referred to the Book of the Farm, vol. ii p. 87 ; Hewlett Davis s Farming Essays, p. 90 ; Lawson s Synopsis of the Vegetable Products of Scotland, div. ii. p. 109. Lawson says that the pulp or flesh of kohl has the same taste as the leaves of the cabbage, and hence its adaptation as food for milch cows. CHAPTER XIII. CULTIVATED CHOPS. HERBAGE AND FORAGE CROPS. Section 1. Grasses, <kc. Under this general heading we propose to include what we have to say concerning the grasses, whether natural or cultivated, and those other crops which are grown expressly for the sake of the cattle food yielded by their leaves and stems. This kind of farm produce is either consumed where it grows by depasturing with live stock, or mown and given to them in a green state under cover, or dried and stored for after use. It thus embraces the cultivation of these crops, and their disposal, whether by grazing, soiling, or haymaking. Following this method, we shall first of all briefly describe the cultivation of those pasture and forage crops which are of best repute in British husbandry. Tillage lands are now everywhere cropped according to some settled rotation, in which the well-recognised principles of the alternate husbandry are carried out accord ing to the actual circumstances of each locality. With rare exceptions, such lands at stated intervals bear a crop of the clovers or cultivated grasses. As these are visually sown in mixture, especially when intended for pasturage, the resulting crop is technically called "seeds." As it is of importance to have the land clean and in good heart when such crops are sown, they usually follow the grain crop which immediately succeeds the fallowing process. Being for the most part of a lower habit of growth, these can be sown and grown along with white corn crops without injury to cither. When the latter are harvested, the former, being already established in the soil, at once occupy it, and grow apace. By this arrangement there is therefore secured an important saving both of time and til lage. Barley being the crop amongst which the seeds of the clovers and grasses are most frequently sown, and amongst which, upon the whole, they thrive best, it is customary to sow these small seeds at the same time as the barley, and to cover them in with a single stroke of the common harrows. This is erroneous practice, both as regards the time and manner of sowing these small seeds. We have already mentioned, in the proper place, that barley should be sown as early in March as possible. Now, if the clovers, &c., are sown as early as this, they are almost certain to get so forward as both to rob the barley of its due share of nourishment, and, when it is reaped, to bulk so largely in the sheaves as to retard their drying, and aggravate the risk of their being ill harvested. It is found, too, that if there be plants enough, the clovers stand the winter better, and ultimately yield a better crop, when, at the reaping of the grain crop, they are puny-looking than when they are very strong. It is better, therefore, to delay the sowing of the small seeds till the end of April or beginning of May. As to the manner of covering them in, we have to remark that the smallness of these seeds and their mode of germinating alike require that they receive only the very slightest covering of soil. This important fact is so well illustrated in the following table, which exhibits the results of some carefully-conducted experiments, reported to the Highland Society by Mr Stirling of Glenbervie, that we shall here quote it : " Column I. contains the scientific names. Column IT. contains the average weight of the seeds per bushel in pounds. ​GRASSES.] AGRICULTURE 371 Column III. contains the average number of seeds in one ounce. Column IV. shows, in inches, the depth of cover at which the greatest number of seeds brairded. Column V. shows, in inches, the depth of cover at which only about half the number of seeds brairded. Column VI. shows, in inches, the least depth of cover at which none of the seeds brairded. I. II. III. IV. V. VI. Agrostis stolonifera, 13 500,000 to i 4 to f 1 vulgaris, .... 12 425,000 Aira cxspitosa, . 14 132,000 o to 4 ftol 21 Alopecurus pratensis, . Anthoxanthum odora- tum, .... 5 6 76,000 71,000 o to 4 o to 4 1 toli 1 tol| 2 Arrhenatherum avena- ceum 7 21,000 4 to f 14 to If 4 Brachypodium sylva- j ticum, . . . . ) 10 15,500 to i ito f 2 Cynosurus cristatus, 26 28,000 Dactylis glomcrata, 12 40,000 to i fto l 2J glomerata gigantca, 10 34,000 Elymus arenarius, . . 11 2,320 1 to 14 2 to 24 5" gcniculatus, . .. . 12 2,300 Festuca duriuscula, 10 39,000 to i ftol 21 14 20,500 to i 1 toll 2f elatior gigan ea, 13 17,500 to i 11 to 14 3 hetcrophylla, 12 33,000 to i 1 toli 21 16 8,600 ovina, 14 64^000 to i ftol 2" ovina tcnuifoUa, . 15 80,000 pratensis, . . . 14 26,000 to 4 ftol 24 pratensis loliacea, . 15 24,700 rubra, .... 10 39,000 Glyceria aquatica, . 13 58,000 Ito 4 fto l 21 fluitans, .... 15 33,000 Holcus lanatus, . . . 7 95,000 ito | fto l 24 6 85,000 Lolium italicum, 15 27,000 to 1 1 toll 31 perenno, ; 18-30 15,000 ito 4 14 to If 34 M ilium elTusum, 25 80,000 ito 4 1 to | 23 Ph alar is arundinacea, . 48 42,000 Phleum pratense, . . 44 74,000 to ftol 2 Poa nemoralis, . 15 173,000 nemoralis semper- j mrens, 15J 133,000 to i Ito 4 1 pratensis, 13 243.000 trivialis, .... 15 217,000 to 1 4 to 3 1| Psarama arundinacea, . 15 10,000 4toi 14 to If 4 Trisetum flavescens, . 64 118,000 to 1 ftol 2 Achillea Millefolium, . 30 200,000 Ito 4 ito f ji Cichorium Intybus ) (chicory), 32 21,000 Lotus corniculatus, 62 23,000 to i i to 4 IJ major, .... 64 51,000 Medicago lupulina, 63 16,000 to 1 3toi i i sativa, .... 60 12,600 Onobrychis sativa, . . 26 1,280 ftol 2 to 21 4i Petrosalinum sativum, 41 12.800 Plantago lanceolata, 52 15,600 i to 4 11 to 14 24 Poterium Sanguisorba (burnet), 25 3,320 i to 3 14 to If 4 Trifolium filiforme, 65 54,000 to 1 ito 4 1J hybridum, . 63 45,000 to i 4 to f li pratense 64 16 000 Ofr* Utr 1 * pratense pcrcnnc, . 64 16^000 t<J ^ o to 4 tO 1 i 11 tol| 2 repens, .... 65 32,000 to I 4 to J i "The results in the three last columns of the preceding table were obtain ed_ by sowing the seed in finely-sifted dark loam, which was kept moist throughout the process of germination, to which is attributable the circumstance of so many of the sorts vegetating best (as shown in Column IV.) without covering, and under full exposure to the light. ^The combination of such favourable circumstances of soil and moisture can, however, seldom be calculated upon in field sowing, therefore a covering of mould for the seeds, however slight, is always advisable. But it will be seen, by the results in Column VI., that a great number of seeds must be inevitably lost from over-depth of covering, unless the ground be in all cases care fully prepared and pulverised before sowing either the natural or artificial grasses. " 1 From tliis it is evident that to scatter these tiny seeds over a cloddy surface, and then to harrow it, may more 1 Morton s Cydopadia of Agriculture article "Grasses," vol. i. p. 999. aptly be called burying than sowing them. The following is a more rational mode of proceeding : When these seeds are to be sown among winter wheat, it is expedient to begin by using the horse-hoe (supposing the wheat to have been drilled), as well to loosen the surface and produce a kindly bed for the seeds as to destroy weeds. In the case of broadcasted wheat, a turn of the harrows secures the same end. In the case of the more recently sown barley all that is needed is to smooth the surface with the one- horse roller. Over the ground thus prepared the small seeds are distributed by a broadcast sowing-machine, which covers at once a space of 15 or 18 feet in width. The covering is then effected by simply rolling with the smooth roller, or by dragging over the surface the chain- harrow, which may either be attached to the sowing- machine or to a separate frame ; or by using Cambridge s or Crosskill s roller, with a very light chain harrow attached to it. On clay soils the chain-web is to be preferred; but on loose soils Crosskill s roller imparts a beneficial firmness, and, with its tail-piece of chain-web to fill up the indentations, gives an accuracy of finish which rivals the neatness of a newly-raked garden plot. We have long regarded this covering in of grass seeds as the most important use to which Crosskill s valuable implement is put. The only drawback to it is, that it makes a heavy demand on the horse-power of the farm at a pressing season. As it can only be worked in dry weather, it is advisable, when the land is in trim, to work it double tides by means of a relay of horses. This mode of procedure is alike applicable to the sowing of mixed clovers and grasses, "and to that of the clovers alone, and is the course usually pursued in sowing for one or two years " seeds." When it is intended to lay down arable land to grass for several years, or to restore it to permanent pasture or meadow, it is always advisable to sow the seeds without a corn crop. This doubtless involves an additional cost at the outset, but it is usually more than repaid by the en hanced value of the pasture thus obtained. To grow the grasses well, the soil should be pulverised to the depth of 3 or 4 inches only, and be full of manure near the surface. There is no better way of securing these conditions than by first consuming a crop of turnips on the ground by sheep folding, and then pulverising the surface by means of the grubber, harrow, and roller, without ploughing it. Much diversity of practice exists in regard to the kinds and quantities of seeds used in sowing down with a grain crop. In Scotland from 2 to 4 pecks of ryegrass seeds, with from 10 to 14 R> of those of red, white, alsike, and yellow clovers, in about equal proportions, is a common allowance for an acre. A pound or two of field parsley ia occasionally added, or rather is substituted for an equal weight of clover seeds. The natural grasses are seldom sown, and only when the land is to be laid to permanent pasture. In England ryegrass is in much less repute than in Scotland, the clovers being there very generally sown unmixed, and always in larger quantities than we have just named 20 ft> per acre being a common allowance. There can be little doubt that both these plans are faulty. When a good natural pasture is carefully examined, it is found to consist of an amazing number of different grasses and other plants. Not only does a natural pasture contain a great variety of herbage at any one time, but it has its plants which replace each other at different seasons; and some also which are prominent only in wet years and others in dry ones. The provision thus made for affording at all times such a variety of food as is at once grateful and whole some to the animals which browse on it, and for keeping the ground fully occupied under every diversity of seasons and weather, is truly admirable, and the study of it well ​372 fitted to interest and instruct the husbandman. The importance of this subject is beginning to be appreciated by agriculturists; as one proof of which we now see our leading seedsmen regularly advertising for sale an extensive list of grasses and other pasture plants. Most of them also, for the guidance of their customers, point out the kinds and quantities per acre which are appropriate for diversity of soils and other circumstances. We refer, as an example of this, to the manual of Messrs Lawson of Edin burgh, who have devoted much attention to this subject. The following Tables will be found useful : "I. FOR ALTERNATE HUSBANDRY. For 1 year s Hay For 1 year s Hay For 1 year s Hay. and and 1 year s Pasture. 2 years Pasture. It) tb It) Lolium italicum 999 perenne 18 18 18 Dactylis glomerata 2 2 Phleum pratense 1 2 2 Medicago lupulina 1 1 Trifolium hybridum 122 pratense 8 4 2 pratense perenne 2 4 repens 244 39 44 " For sheep pastures it will often be found advantageous to add from 2 to 4 ft per acre of parsley seed to the above mixtures ; and for pastures in certain upland districts established practice will jus tify the introduction of an additional pound or two of yellow clover (Medicago lupulina), together with from 2 to 3 ft of ribgrass (Plantago lanceolata). And for very heavy as well as for peaty soils, 1 to 1 4 lb of Phleum pratense may be added advantageously, both for hay and pasture. " II. FOR PERMANENT PASTURE, No. I. rb A lopecurus pratensis 2 Dactylis glomerata 6 Festuca duriuscula 2 elatior 2 pratensis 2 Lolium italicum 6 perenne 8 Phleum pratense 2 Poa nemoralis sempervirens 2 trivialis 3 Medicago lupulina 1 Trifolium pratense 1 perenne 3 repens 6 46 " In certain cases the following additions to Table II. may be made namely, 1 to 2 ft each of Festuca rubra and Poa pratensis on dry sandy soils ; 1 ft of A:hillea Millefolium, and 1 to 2 ft of Petrosalinum sativum in sheep pastures ; 2 ft chicory (Cichorium Intybus) in cattle pastures, 6 or 10 ft of Onobrychis sativa and 4 to 6 ft of Poterium Sanguisorba (burnet) in dry calcareous soils. When a crop of hay is taken the first year, both the ryegrasses (Lolium) may be increased by a third ; and 2 ft of Trifolium pra tense added. Also J to 1 ft per acre of Anthoxanthum odoratum when occasional crops of hay are to be taken. " * When land has been thus sown for a permanent pasture, care should be taken not to allow a sheep to set foot upon it for the first two years, for if these industrious nibblers are allowed to crop the tender clover seedlings before they are fully established in the soil, they are certain to remove the crown from most of them, and thus ruin the pasture at the very outset. Innumerable instances of failure in the attempt to obtain good permanent pastures are entirely owing to this premature grazing by sheep. The first growth should therefore be mown, care being taken to do so before any of the grasses have flowered. Then roll repeatedly, and stock with young cattle only until the second season is over. Having described the means to be used for obtaining 1 Morton s Cyclopaedia of Agriculture article " Grasses," vol. i. >. 1000 [GRASSES. good pastures, let us now consider how to use them pro fitably. The art of grazing embraces the practical solution of two important problems, viz., 1st, How to obtain the greatest amount and best quality of herbage from any given pasture; and 2d, How to consume this herbage by live stock so as to make the most of it. The grazier has ever to keep in view what is best for his land and what is best for his stock; and must take his measures throughout the entire season with an eye to both these objects. As regards the first of them, experience yields the following maxims for his guidance : Never to stock his pastures in spring until genial weather is fairly established. Never to allow the grasses to run to seed, nor parts of a field to be eaten bare, and others to get rank and coarse. Duly to spread about the droppings of the cattle, to remove stagnant water, and to extirpate tall weeds. Some time about midsummer to make a point of having the pasture eaten so close that no dead herbage or " fog- gage " shall be left on any part of it. In what more immediately concerns the welfare of the live stock he is in like manner taught in stocking his pastures To adapt the stock, as regards breed, size, condition, and numbers, to the actual capabilities of the pasturage. To secure to the stock at all times a full bite of clean, fresh-grown, succulent herbage. In moving stock from field to field to take care that it be a change to better fare not to worse. Pasturage consists either of natural herbage or of " seeds." In the south-eastern counties of Scotland there is little good old grass; all the really fertile soils being employed in arable husbandry, with the exception of small portions around the mansions of landowners. The pasturage consists, therefore, for the most part of the cultivated clovers and grasses. Comparatively few cattle are there fattened on grass; the object of graziers being rather to stock their pastures with young and growing animals, and to get them into forward condition for being afterwards fattened upon turnips. The grazing season is there also much shorter than in England, old grass seldom affording a full bite for a well-conditioned bullock before the middle of May, or later than the middle of September. It is quite otherwise in England, various parts of which abound with old grass lands, of the very richest description, on which oxen of the largest size can be fattened rapidly. These, in many cases, admit of being stocked towards the end of April, and under judicious management continue to yield excellent pasturage for half the year. When stocked with cattle in fresh condition, two sets or " runs " are not unfrequently fattened in such pastures in the same season. These grass-fed cattle begin to come to market early in July, and for four or five months thereafter constitute the chief supplies of beef in our markets. Cattle already well-fleshed are alone suitable for turning into these rich old pastures. When this is attended to, and care taken not to over-stock the pastures until they yield a full bite, the progress of the oxen will usually be very rapid. It is now customary to hasten this progress by giving about 4 lb of oilcake to each beast daily. The dust and crumbs being sifted out, the bits of cake are strewn upon the clean sward, from whence they are quickly and carefully gleaned by the cattle. This is usually a profitable practice. It brings the beasts forward rapidly, improves their appearance and handling, and, besides enriching the land, admits of about twelve per cent, more numbers being fed upon a given acreage. These choice old pastures are usually occupied in combination with others of inferior quality. The most forward lot of cattle having been fattened and sold off from the former, ​GRASSES.] AGRICULTURE 373 they are ready to receive a fresh stock. If it is con templated to get them also fattened before the expiry of the season, they are not put on the best land instantly on the first lot being sold ; but a crowd of sheep or store- beasts being turned upon it for a few days, the existing herbage is cleared off, and the pasture (Anglice) " laid in " or (Scottice) " hained," until a fresh clean growth fits it for receiving a suitable number of the best cattle from the other pastures. It is inexpedient to graze sheep promis cuously with cattle on these best lands, as they pick out the sweetest of the herbage, and so retard the fattening of the oxen. Neither do we approve of having horses among such cattle ; not so much from their interfering with their pasturage as from the disturbance which they usually cause by galloping about. This does not apply to the draught- horses of a farm, which are usually too tired and hungry when turned out from the yoke to mind anything but food and rest, but it is better thrift to soil them; and frolic some, mischievous colts are unsuitable companions for sedate, portly oxen. In favourable seasons, the grass often grows more rapidly than an ordinary stocking of cattle can consume it, in which case they select the best places, and allow the herbage on some parts to get rank and coarse. If these rank places are neglected until the herbage gets dry and withered, the finer plants die out, the coarser-growing grasses usurp the ground, and the pasturage is injured for future years. To check this evil in time, these neglected places should be mown, and the grass either brought to the homestead for soiling, or left to dry where it grew ; in which state the cattle will eat up most of it, and be the better for it, especially if their bowels are unduly relaxed by the succulence of the growing herbage. The remarks now made apply equally to all old pastures employed for the fattening of cattle, although not of the first quality. All that is required is, to observe a due proportion between the capabilities of the pasturage and the breed and size of the cattle. A pasture that will fatten a fifty-stone ox may be quite inadequate for one of seventy, and the hardy Galloway or West Highlander will thrive apace where the heavier and daintier shorthorn could barely subsist. With the exception of the best class of rich old pastures, grass is usually consumed to greater profit by a mixed stock of sheep and store cattle than by one kind of animals only. This holds true both as regards the natural herbage of pastxires or water meadows, and cultivated grasses, clovers, or sainfoin. When old pastures and mixed " seeds " are grazed chiefly by sheep, the same rules apply that have already been noticed in connection with cattle. The herbage should if possible be fully established in a growing state, and so far advanced as to afford a full bite, before the pasture is stocked in spring. If the sheep are turned into it prematurely, their close nibbling hinders the plants from ever getting into a state of rapid growth and productiveness, and the necessity imposed upon the stock of roaming over the whole field, and keeping long afoot before they can glean enough to appease their appetite, is prejudicial alike to them and to their pasture. The prudent grazier endeavours to avoid these evils by having stores of swedes or mangolds to last until the full time at which he may reckon on having good pasturage. In distributing the flocks to different fields, the best pasturage is allotted to those that are in most forward condition. It is advan tageous to have the pastures so subdivided that one portion may be double stocked while another is rested. By fre quently removing the stock from the one portion to the other the herbage of each by turns gets time to grow and freshen, and is more relished by the sheep, and more whole some than when the whole is tainted by their uninterrupted occupation of it. In the case of clover, trefoil, sainfoin, and water-meadows, this principle is yet more fully carried out by folding the flock and giving thorn a fresh piece daily. The crop is thus eaten close off at once in daily portions, and the plants being immediately thereafter left undisturbed, and receiving over the whole area their due share of the excrements of the flock, grow again more rapidly than when subjected to constant browsing under a system of promiscuous grazing. This plan of folding sheep upon such crops has the same advantages to recommend it as soiling, only that it is cheaper to shift the fold daily than to mow and cart home the forage and carry back the manure. In the case of water-meadows it is the practice to irrigate them afresh as each crop of grass is fed off. This is attended with considerable risk of the sheep getting tainted with rot, which must be guarded against as much as possible. In the first place, it is well to give them a daily allowance of bran, beans, or cake, and salt ; and besides this, to put on this land only such sheep as are nearly ready for the butcher. They will thus fatten very rapidly, and be slaughtered before there is time for harm to ensue. The modes of grazing which we have now described are appropriate for sheep in forward condition. The poorer pastures are usually stocked with nursing ewes and lean sheep bought in from higher grazings. Lambs, both before and after weaning, require clean pastures, and of course frequent changes. If kept on tainted pastures, they are certain to become subject to diarrhoea, to be stinted in their growth, and to have their constitution so weakened that many of them will die when afterwards put upon turnips. To avoid these evils, they must be frequently moved from field to field. A sufficient number of store cattle must be grazed along with them, to eat up the tall herbage and rank patches avoided by the sheep. After the lambs are weaned, the ewes require to fare rather poorly for a time, and can thus be made use of to eat up the worst pasturage, and the leavings of the young and fattening sheep. When the latter, with the approach of autumn, are put upon aftermath, clover stubbles, rape, cabbages, or turnips, their previous pastures should in succession be thickly stocked by the ewes and other store stock, so as to be eaten bare and then left to freshen and get ready for the ewes by rutting-time, when they require better food. In depasturing sheep on poor soils it is usually highly advantageous to give them a daily allowance of grain or cake in troughs, which must be shifted daily, so as to distribute the manure regularly over the land. By means of this auxiliary food sheep can be fattened on land the herbage of which would not alone suffice for the purpose. It admits also of a larger number of sheep being kept per acre, and of the pasturage being fed off more closely than could otherwise be done. The produce of poor siliceous soils, both in grass and after crops, is much increased by the additional manuring and treading which the con sumption of such extraneous food upon them occasions. It is always advantageous to have pastures provided with a shed, under which the stock can find shelter from sudden storms, or from the attacks of insects and the scorching rays of the summer s sun. When such sheds are regularly strewed with dried peat or burnt clay, much valuable compost for top-dressing the pasture can be obtained. The dung of the cattle, thus secured and applied, benefits the pastures more than that which is dropped upon it by the animals. Such clots require to be spread about from time to time. The temperate climate of Britain is so peculiarly favour able to the growth of the grasses and other pasture plants, and to the keeping of live stock with safety in the open fields for a large part of the year, that the practice of con suming these crops by depasturing, as already described, has hitherto been decidedly preferred to soiling. One con​374 AGKICULTUKE [GRASSES. sequence of this is, that forage crops have been compara tively neglected. There is now, however, a growing conviction among agriculturists that it is more convenient to keep neat cattle and horses, during summer, in yards or loose boxes, and to feed them with succulent forage, mown and brought to them daily as it is needed, than to turn them adrift to browse in the fields. The pasturing plan is preferred by many because it involves the least labour, and is alleged to be more healthful to the animals. In behalf of the soiling plan it is urged that a given space of ground under green crop keeps nearly twice as much stock, when its produce is mown and consumed elsewhere, than when it is constantly nibbled and trodden upon ; that housed cattle being exempted from the vicissitudes of the weather, the attacks of insects, mutual disturbance, and the labour of gathering their food, eat less and yet fatten more rapidly than they do at pasture ; that more good is gotten of their excrements when mixed with litter and trodden down under cover, than when dropped about in the open fields ; and that land from which a green crop has been mown, when ploughed up, is freer of weeds and (other things being equal) bears a better corn-crop than that which has been pastured. It is a further recommend ation to the soiling plan that it admits of oilcake or meal being administered along with green food with a precision and economy that is unattainable in the pasture fields. There being so many and such cogent reasons in favour of the practice of soiling, we may warrantably anticipate that it will in future be much more generally adopted. It is proper, however, to notice that the success of this system is absolutely dependent on the following conditions: The green food must be mown and brought home at least twice a-day, owing to the rapidity with which it ferments when put together ; it must be given to the stock not less than four times daily, and only in such quantity at each feed as they can eat clean up in the interval betwixt meals ; they must have constant and ample supplies of pure water and of fresh litter ; and, in particular, matters must be so arranged that there shall be an unfailing supply of green forage of the best quality through the entire season. This is accomplished either by successive cuttings of one kind of crop from the same ground as of irrigated meadow or Italian ryegras? or by a combination of such crops as naturally come to maturity in succession, or are made to do so by a sequence of sowings. From what has been said it is obvious that soiling can only be carried out successfully with a moderately good soil and climate, a liberal use of manure, and skill and foresight on the part of the farmer. With these, however, its results will usually be highly satis factory. It is peculiarly adapted for clay soils, on which the culture of root crops is attended with much difficulty, and where there is, therefore, abundance of litter for use in summer, and much need for the soiling system to get it converted into good manure. Section 2. Natural Meadow Grass. In proceeding to notice the crops most usually cultivated in Britain for green forage we shall begin with natural meadow grass. In the south-western parts of England abundant crops of grass are obtained by irrigation with water alone. Our remarks will here, however, be re stricted to those situations where sewage from towns or villages is available. "Wherever a few scores of human families are congregated together, and have their dwellings properly drained and supplied with water, there is an opportunity for manuring a considerable extent of meadow with the sewage-water accruing from them throughout the year. The celebrated meadows in the environs of Edin burgh are interesting illustrations of the value of such water for irrigating purposes, and o the astonishing bulk of rich herbage which can be obtained in the course of a year from an acre of land thus treated. From the thick ness of the crop in these meadows, and the rank luxuriance of its growth, the grass must be cut before it exceeds ten inches in height, as otherwise the bottom gets blanched and the grass rots out. The mowing begins usually in April and continues till November, so that by fitly pro portioning the head of stock to the extent of meadow, and having the latter arranged in plots to be mown in regular succession, soiling can be practised throughout the season by the produce of the meadow alone. This practice is necessarily limited to situations where sewage-water is available. The following excerpts from a paper read before the Koyal Scottish Society of Arts in January 18G7 On the Collection, Removal, and Disposal of the Refuse of the City of Edinburgh, by Charles Macpherson, C.E., burgh engineer, to which the society s silver medal was awarded, will explain this system and exhibit its results : " The waters of the Craigcn tinny Burn, the Lochrin Burn, the Jordan Burn, and the Broughton Burn, are used in irrigating part of the lands adjoining the course of the respective streams. The waters of the Craigentinny Bum are used for irrigating aLout 250 acres; Lochrin Burn, about 70 acres; Jordan Burn, about 11 acres;, and Broughton Burn, about 5 acres being 336 acres in all irrigated by the water flowing in these four natural outlets for the drainage of Edinburgh. "The area within the city draining towards the Craigentinny Burn to the meadows irrigated by the waters of which I shall confine these remarks is about one square mile and a half in extent. From this district there flows about 20 cubic feet of spring-water per minute ; the surplus rainfall being the non-absorbed portion of 24 inches per annum; and the sewage from a population of 95,589 persons, according to the census of 1861, with a water supply of say 25 gallons per head. Of this population about 60,000 have the use of water-closets ; and excrementitious matter from about 15,000 or 20,000 of the remainder finds its way to the sewers connected with the burn at the rate of about 265 feet per minute of sewage. " Various kinds of soil are irrigated. The subsoil of the part of the meadows nearest the city is peat, with loam over it near the course of the burn ; while to the northward it is naturally sand, but the sand has been taken away, and the ground made up with rubbish of buildings, &c., dressed oft with soil. Further down the course of the stream the soil is reddish clay, or loamy clay, or sandy clay ; while at the part of the Figgate "VVhins adjoining the sea-shore it is pure sand, with a coating of rich loam, varying from 1 inch to 4 or 5 inches deep, entirely derived from repeated applications of the sewage, no soil having been ever spread over the sand. The deeper soil is nearest the channels for conveying the sewage to the land. The meadows on the farm of Lochend, at Kestalrig, and at Craigen tinny, have a slope transversely to the course of the stream, varying frum the steepest part, 1 in 25, which is of small extent, to about 1 in 50, which is the slope of the greatest part of these meadows. The Figgate "VVhins were artificially levelled to allow of irrigation. " It is important to remark that the land (except the sand at the Figgate Whins) has been drained thoroughly to a depth of 4 feet below the surface. It was found that with shallower drains the sewage was drawn off by the drain, leaving the lower part of the ground without irrigation. At the Figgate Whins the sewage soaks into the sand, and oozes out upon the sea-shore. " The kinds of grasses grown are Italian ryegrass and meadow grass. The ryegrass requires to be resown every third year ; but the meadow grass has not required resowing, not even on the Figgate "VVhins, which were sown about forty years ago, when the ground was first irrigated. Opinions differ as to which grass is best adapted for the purpose ; but ryegrass seems to produce the heavier crops. The irrigated ground is let off in small plots or squares for the season to the highest bidder. The grass is cut by the tenant as required, so that the annual yield of any particular plot has never been accurately ascertained ; but an average crop is considered to be from 30 to 40 tons per acre, in four cuttings. The first cutting takes place at the beginning of April, and the last at the end of September, the let of the ground expiring at 1st October. The time of cutting the intermediate crops depends upon the wants of the tenant. "The whole grass is eaten by about 3100 cows the number previous to the cattle plague in Edinburgh, Newhaven, Leith, and Portobello ; but after the fourth crop is cut, sheep are turned on some parts of the ground about the beginning of November, and remain for about a fortnight, should the weather be favourable. The sheep do not seem to thrive, however, although the food is plentiful. The grass has been found most suitable for feeding cows the attempts to use it for feeding other animals having been found not to answer, and ​GRASSES.] AGRICULTURE 375 the cost of converting it into hay being proved to be such as to render the process unprofitable. " The price paid for the plots varies considerably, the best being known to bring 40 per acre, while others are as low as 15 or 20. Last season, owing to the cattle plague, the former high prices could not be obtained. The best land produces the heaviest crop ; but on the Figgate Whins, mere irrigated sand, the first crop is earlier in the season a matter of such consequence that, although the annual yield is less, the rent paid for these plots is about as high as for the plots producing the heavier crop. The rental of the Figgate Whins previous to the irrigation was, I have been informed, about 20s. per acre ; while, when irrigated, parts have been let for some years at 40 per acre. The only works having been the levelling of the sandy hillocks and formation of channels for the sewage neither of them very costly operations and the annual outlay being small, the increased annual value of that land may be stated at not much less than the difference between the two sums. "It might be an interesting speculation to consider how far the cost of the works necessary for collecting and removing the sewage from the district of the city draining towards Craigentinny_might hare boon defrayed by the advance of rent obtained by the disposal of the sewage in irrigating the land along the course of the stream. The cost of the whole sewerage works (including many of the branch drains) constructed within the district in the city which is drained to the Craigentinny Burn, may be stated at 96,000. Assuming that the annual rent of the 250 acres irrigated was 5 per acre on an average previous to being laid out for irrigation, while the rent was raised to 25, then the difference, 20 per acre, is the annual value of the irrigation. There being 250 acres, gives 5000 as the return, or upwards of 5 per cent, on the cost of the sewers. " The produce of the various irrigated meadows round Edinburgh is sufficient to supply the present demand for grass ; necessitating any further application of the sewage to some other kind of crop, unless a more extensive market is obtained for the grass produced." Section 3. Italian Ryegrass. Italian ryegrass can be cultivated over as wide a range of soils and climate as any forage crop which we possess, and its value for soiling is every day getting to be more generally appreciated. When first introduced, and indeed until very recently, it was chiefly sown in mixture with other grasses and clovers for pasturage, a purpose to which it is well adapted from its early and rapid growth in spring. Its true function, however, is to produce green food for soiling, for which purpose it is probably unrivalled. It is in connection with the system of irrigation with liquid manure that its astonishing powers have been most fully developed. When grown for this purpose it is sown in April, on land that has borne a grain crop after turnips or summer fallow. If sown with a grain crop as thickly as is requisite, it grows to nearly the height of the grain, and both are injured. A liberal dressing of farm-yard dung is spread upon the stubble in autumn, and immediately ploughed in. In the end of March or beginning of April the land is prepared for the seed by being stirred with the grubber and then well harrowed. The seed, at the rate of 4 bushels per acre, is then sown in the way already described for clover and grass seeds. When the liquid manure system is practised, the crop is watered as soon as the young plants are about an inch high, and so rapid is its growth in favourable circumstances that a cutting of 10 tons per acre has in some cases been obtained six weeks after sowing. When there is no provision for supplying liquid manure, a top-dressing of guano, nitrate of soda, soot, or the first two articles mixed, is applied by hand-sowing, care being taken to give this dressing when rain seems at hand or has just fallen. A similar top-dressing is repeated after each cutting, by which means three cuttings are ordinarily obtained from the same space in one season. A very great quantity of stock can thus be supported from a very limited extent of ground. This grass is also found to be very grateful to the palates of horses, cattle, and sheep, which all thrive upon it. Though so very succulent, it does not produce purging in the animals fed upon it. It is peculiarly suitable feeding for milch cows, as appears from the published account at Canning Park. Such results as those obtained by Mr Kennedy and others are not to be expected unless under similar conditions ; but on good loams, clean and in good heart, and under such treatment as is described at the beginning of this section, as large crops of this grass as of red clover may be reckoned on, with at least equal feeding powers, and with a degree of certainty which the farmer cannot now entertain in regard to the latter crop. If it is regularly mown when the ear begins to show, and care taken never to allow the seed to form, it is fully ascertained that this grass will grow abundantly for a second year, with the advantage of being ready for use very much earlier than in its first season. It is sometimes sown in autumn, but those who have had the fullest experience in its cultivation give a decided preference to spring sowing, either after a grain crop which has followed a green crop or fallow, or at once after turnips. It is of great import ance to get fresh and genuine seed. That directly imported from Italy yields the best crop when otherwise good. As a proof of the fondness of sheep for this grass, it has been observed that when it had been sown in mixture with red clover and cut for hay, sheep, on being turned into the aftermath, eat down the Italian ryegrass in preference to the clover. Section 4. Crimson Clover. Crimson clover, though not hardy enough to withstand the climate of Scotland in ordinary winters, is a most valuable forage crop in England. It is sown as quickly as possible after the removal of a grain crop at the rate of 18 fi> to 20 ft) per acre. It is found to succeed better when only the surface of the soil is stirred by the scarifier and harrow than when a ploughing is given. It grows rapidly in spring, and yields an abundant crop of green food, peculiarly palatable to live stock. It is also suitable for making into hay. Only one cutting, however, can be obtained, as it does not shoot again after being mown. Section 5. Red Clover. This plant, either sown alone or in mixture with ryegrass, has for a longtime formed the staple crop for soiling; and so long as it grew freely, its power of shooting up again after repeated mowings, the bulk of crop thus obtained, its palatableness to stock and feeding qualities, the great range of soils and climate in which it grows, and its fitness either for pasturage or soiling, well entitled it to this pre ference. Except on certain rich calcareous clay soils, it has now, however, become an exceedingly precarious crop. The seed, when genuine, which unfortunately is very often not the case, germinates as freely as ever, and no greater difficulty than heretofore is experienced in having a full plant during autumn and the greater part of winter ; but over most part of the country, the farmer, after having his hopes raised by seeing a thick cover of vigorous-looking clover plants over his field, finds to his dismay, by March or April, that they have either entirely disappeared, or are found only in capricious patches here and there over the field. No satisfactory explanation of this clover failure has yet been given, nor any certain remedy, of a kind to be applied to the soil, discovered. One important fact is, however, now well established, viz., that when the crop ping of the land is so managed that clover does not recur at shorter intervals than eight years, it grows with, much of its pristine vigour. The knowledge of this fact now determines many farmers in varying their rotation so as to secure this important end. At one time there was a somewhat prevalent belief that the introduction of beans into the rotation had a specific influence of a beneficial kind on the clover when it came next to be sown ; but the true explanation seems to be, that the beans operate favour ably only by the incidental circumstance of almost neces​376 sarily lengthening the interval betwixt the recurrences of clover. When the four-course rotation is followed, no better plan of managing this process has been yet suggested than to sow beans, pease, potatoes, or tares, instead of clover, for one round, making the rotation one of eight years instead of four. The mechanical condition of the soil seems to have something to do with the success or failure of the clover crop. We have often noticed that head-lands, or the converging line of wheel tracks near a gateway at which the preceding root crop had been carted from a field, have had a good take of clover, when on the field generally it had failed. In the same way a field that has been much poached by sheep while consuming turnips upon it, and which has afterwards been ploughed up in an unkindly state, will have the clover prosper upon it, when it fails in other cases where the soil appears in far better condition. If red clover can be again made a safe crop, it will be a boon indeed to agriculture. Its seeds are usually sown along with a grain crop, any time from 1st February to May, at the rate of 12 Ib to 20 fib per acre when not com bined with other clovers or grasses. Italian ryegrass and red clover are now frequently sown in mixture for soiling, and succeed admirably. It is, how ever, a wiser course to sow them separately, as by substi tuting the Italian ryegrass for clover, for a single rotation, the farmer not only gets a crop of forage as valuable in all respects, but is enabled, if he choose, to prolong the in terval betwixt the sowings of clover to twelve years, by sowing, as already recommended, pulse the first round, Italian ryegrass the second, and clover the third. These two crops, then, are those on which the arable- land farmer mainly relies for green forage. To have them good, he must be prepared to make a liberal application of manure. Good farm-yard dung may be applied with advantage either in autumn or spring, taking care to cart it upon the land only when it is dry enough to admit of this being done without injury. It must also be spread very evenly so soon as emptied from the carts. But it is usually more expedient to use either guano, nitrate of soda, or soot, for this purpose, at the rates respectively of 2 cwt., 1 cwt., and 20 bushels. If two or more of these substances are used, the quantities of each will be altered in proportion. They are best also to be applied in two or three portions at intervals of fourteen to twenty days, beginning towards the end of December, and only when rain seems imminent or has just fallen. When manure is broadcast over a young clover field, and presently after washed in by rain, the effect is identical with that of first dissolving it in water, and then distribut ing the dilution over the surface, with this difference, namely, that the first plan costs only the price of the guano, &c., and is available at any time and to every one, whereas the latter implies the construction of tanks and costly machinery. Section 6. Vetches. Vetches are another very valuable forage crop. Being indigenous to Britain, and not fastidious in regard to soil, they can be cultivated successfully under a great diversity of circumstances, and are well adapted for poor soils. By combining the winter and spring varieties, and making several sowings of each in its season at intervals of two or three weeks, it is practicable to have them fit for use from May till October, and thus to carry out a system of soiling by means of vetches alone. But it is usually more expedient to use them in combination with grass and clover, beginning with the first cutting of the latter in May, taking the winter vetches in June, recurring to the Italian ryegrass or clover as the second cutting is ready, and [FORAGE CROPS. afterwards bringing the spring vetches into use. Each crop can thus be used when in its best state for cattle food, and so as gratefully to vary their dietary. Winter Vetches. There is no botanical difference between winter and spring vetches, and the seeds being identical in appearance, caution is required in purchasing seed to get it of the right sort. Seed grown in England is found the most suitable for sowing in Scotland, as it vegetates more quickly, and produces a more vigorous plant than that which is home-grown. As the great inducement to cultivate this crop is the obtaining of a supply of nutritious green food which shall be ready for use about the 1st May, and so as to fill up the gap which is apt to occur betwixt the root crops of the previous autumn and the ordinary summer food, whether for grazing or soiling, it is of the utmost importance to treat it in such a way that it may be ready for use by the time mentioned. To secure this, winter tares should be sown in August if possible, but always as soon as the land can be cleared of the preceding crop. They may yield a good crop though sown in October, but in this case will probably be very little in advance of early-sown spring vetches, and possess little, if any, advan tage over them in any respect. The land on which they are sown should be dry and well sheltered, clean, and in good heart, and be further enriched by ploughing into it from 12 to 15 loads of farm-yard manure. Not less than 3 1 bushels of seed per acre should be sown, to which some think it beneficial to add half a bushel of wheat. Rye is frequently used for this purpose, but it gets reedy in the stems, and is rejected by the stock. Winter beans are better than either. The land having been ploughed rather deeply, and well harrowed, it is found advantageous to deposit the seed in rows, either by a drilling-machine or by ribbing. The latter is the best practice, and the ribs should be at least a foot apart and rather deep, that the roots may be well developed before top-growth takes place. As soon in spring as the state of the land and weather admits of it, the crop should be hoed betwixt the drills, a top-dressing at the rate of 40 bushels of soot or 2 cwt. of guano per acre applied by sowing broadcast, and the roller then used for the double purpose of smoothing the surface so as to admit of the free use of the scythe, and of pressing down the plants which may have been loosened by frost. It is thus by early sowing, thick seeding, and liberal manuring, that this crop is to be forced to an early and abundant maturity. May and June are the months in which winter vetches are used to advantage. A second growth will be produced from the roots if the crop is allowed to stand ; but it is much better practice to plough up the land as the crop is cleared, and to sow turnips upon it. After a full crop of vetches, land is usually in a good state for a succeeding crop. When the whole process has been well managed, the gross amount of cattle food yielded by a crop of winter vetches, and the turnip crop by which it is followed in the same summer, will be found consider ably to exceed what could be obtained from the fullest crop of turnips alone, grown on similar soil, and with the same quantity of manure. It is vain to sow this crop where game abounds. Spring Vetches, if sown about the 1st of March, will be ready for use by 1st July, when the winter vetches are just cleared off. To obtain the full benefit of this crop, the land on which it is sown must be clean, and to keep it so a much fuller allowance of seed is required than is usually given in Scotland. When the crop is as thick set as it should be, the tendrils interwine, and the ground is covered by a solid mass of herbage, under which no weed can live. To secure this, not less than 4 bushels of seed per acre should be used if sown broadcast, or 3 bushels if in drills. The latter plan, if followed by hoeing, is certainly ​FORAGE CROPS.] AGRICULTURE 377 the best ; for if the weeds are kept in check until the crop is fairly established, they have no chance of getting up afterwards. With a thin crop of vetches, on the other hand, the land is so certain to get foul, that they should at once be ploughed down, and something else put in their place. As vetches are in the best state for use when the seeds begin to form in the pods, repeated sowings are made at intervals of three weeks, beginning by the end of February, or as early in March as the season admits, and continuing till May. The usual practice in Scotland has been to sow vetches on part of the oat break, once ploughed from lea. Sometimes this does very well, but a far better plan is to omit sowing clover and grass seeds on part of the land occupied by wheat or barley after turnips, and having ploughed that portion in the autumn to occupy it with vetches, putting them instead of "seeds" for one revolution of the course. When vetches are grown on poor soils, the most pro fitable way of using them is by folding sheep upon them, a practice very suitable also for clays, upon which a root crop cannot safely be consumed in this way. A different course must, however, be adopted from that followed when turnips are so disposed of. When sheep are turned in upon a piece of tares, a large portion of the food is trodden down and wasted. Cutting the vetches and putting them into racks does not much mend the matter, as much is still pulled out and wasted, and the manure unequally dis tributed over the land. To avoid those evils, hurdles with vertical spars, betwixt which the sheep can reach with head and neck, are now used. These are set close up to the growing crop along a considerable stretch, and shifted for ward as the sheep eat up what is within their reach. This requires the constant attention of the shepherd, but the labour is repaid by the saving of the food, which being always fresh and clean, does the sheep more good. A modification of this plan is to use the same kind of hurdles, but instead of shifting them as just described, to mow a swathe parallel to them, and fork this forward within reach of the sheep as required, repeating this as often during the day as is found necessary, and at night moving the sheep close up to the growing crop, so that they may lie for the next twenty-four hours on the space which has yielded food for the past day. During the night they have such pickings as have been left on the recently-mown space, and so much of the growing crop as they can get at through the spars. There is less labour by this last mode than the other, and having practised it for many years we know that it answers well. This folding upon vetches is suitable either for finishing off for market sheep that are in forward condition, or for recently-weaned lambs, which, after five or six weeks folding on this clean, nutritious herbage, are found to take on more readily to eat turnips, and to thrive better upon them, than if they had been kept upon the pastures all the autumn. Sheep folded upon vetches must have water always at command, otherwise they will not prosper. As spring-sown vetches are in perfection at the season when pastures usually get dry and scanty, a common practice is to cart them on to grass land and spread them out in wisps, to be eaten by the sheep or cattle. It is, however, much better either to have them eaten by sheep where they grow, or to cart them to the homestead. Section 7. Beans. The common field bean has not hitherto been recog nised as an available forage plant. Mr Mechi has, we believe, the merit of first showing its great value for this purpose. In the hot dry summer of 1868, when pastures utterly failed, and men were at their wits end how to keep their stock in life, he had recourse to his bean crop, then at its full growth, and its green pods filled with soft pulse. His plan of using it was, to mow the needed quantity daily, pass it through a chaff-cutter, and then send it out in troughs to his sheep in their pastures, and to his cattle in their stalls. The quantity of green food per acre yielded by a full crop of beans when used in this way is very great, and probably exceeds that of any other crop we grow. As Mr Mechi observed, on first announcing his practice, " no farmer need to be at a loss for food for his live stock who has a crop of beans at command." We know that many farmers availed themselves of this seasonable hint with the very best results. That pre-eminently successful grazier, Mr William M Combie, M.P., Tillyfour, has, in his instructive pamphlet, shown how useful it is to have a few acres of mixed beans, peas, and tares ready to give to cattle in forward condition in the month of August, by laying down to them daily on their pastures a supply of this very palatable and nourishing forage. By this ex pedient they make rapid progress at a season when they would lose the condition they had already gained if left dependent on the then failing pasturage. We can testify from experience that we never have our cattle make such rapid progress on any kind of food as when thus supplied with green pulse on autumn pastures. Section 8. Mustard. After a crop of vetches has been consumed, if the season is too far advanced to admit of turnips being sown, it is not unusual to take a crop of white mustard or crimson clover. By means of the crops now enumerated, the practice of soiling can be carried out in all cases where it is practicable. There are other valuable crops of this kind, several of which we shall now describe ; but their culture is either limited by their requirements in regard to soil and climate, or attended with too great expense to admit of their com peting with those already described. Section 9. Sainfoin. This very important forage plant would be well entitled to a more prominent place in our list but for the circum stance that it is only on dry calcareous soils that its excellences are fully developed ; and to these, accordingly, its culture may be said to be confined. In all the chalk districts of England sainfoin occupies an important place in the rotation of crops. Referring to the chalky downs round Ilsley in Berks, Mr Caird says : " About a tenth part of the land is kept under sainfoin, in which it remains for four years, being each year cut for hay, of which it gives an excellent crop. A farmer having 40 acres of sainfoin sows out 10 acres and breaks up 10 acres annually. This goes regularly over the whole farm, the sainfoin not returning on the same field for considerable intervals, and when its turn comes round the field receives a rest of four years from the routine of cultivation. It is then ploughed up in spring, and sown with oats on one furrow, the crop of which is generally excellent, as much as 80 bushels an acre not being uncommon." l The seed, at the rate of 4 bushels per acre, is drilled in immediately after barley or oats has been sown, working the drill at right angles to its course when it deposited the grain. It is frequently pastured for one or more years before being mown either for green forage or for hay. It is sometimes allowed to stand for eight or ten years, but the plan described in the above quotation is the more approved one. A variety called giant sainfoin has been introduced by Mr Hart of Ashwell, Herts. As compared with the common sort it is more rapid in its growth in 1 Caird s English Agriculture, p. 1!4 L48 ​878 AGRICULTURE [FOKAOB CROPS. spring, and still more so after tlie first and second cuttings. ThrecT cuttings for hay, and one of these ripening the seed, have been yielded by it in one year, and a good eddish after all. The yield from it in the first year after sowing is large in comparison with the common sainfoin, from its attaining maturity much sooner ; but for the same reason it is thought judicious to break it up after three years, while still in vigour. Section 10. Lucerne. Lucerne is much cultivated as a forage crop in France and other parts of the continent of Europe, but has never come into general use in Britain. It is, however, frequently met with in small patches in districts where the soil is very light, with a dry subsoil. Its thick tap-roots penetrate very deeply into the soil ; and if a good cover is once obtained, the plants will continue to yield abundant cuttings of herbage for eight or ten years, provided they are statedly top-dressed and kept free from perennial weeds. lu cultivating lucerne, the ground must first be thoroughly cleaned, and put into good heart by consuming a turnip crop upon it with sheep. In March or April, the surface- soil having first been brought to a fine tilth, the seed, at the rate of 10 Ib per acre, is sown in rows 15 to 18 inches apart. As soon as the plants appear they must be freed from weeds by careful hoeing and hand-weeding, repeated as occasion requires. Little produce is obtained from them the first season, and not a very heavy cutting the second; but by the third year two or more abundant crops of herbage will be produced, peculiarly suitable for horse- feed. It is the slow growth of the plants at first, and the difficulty of keeping them free from weeds on those dry soils which alone are adapted for growing lucerne, that have deterred farmers from growing it more extensively than has hitherto been done. We have grown it success fully in Berwickshire on a muiry soil resting on sandstone rock, in an exposed situation, at an elevation of 400 feet. The time to cut it is, as with clover and sainfoin, when it i; Jii full flower. Section 1 1. Chicory, <L~c. Chicory, burnet, cow-parsnip, and prickly comfrey, all known to be palatable to cattle and yielding a large bulk of produce, have probably been less carefully experimented with than their merits deserve. Although they have long figured in such notices as the present, or in occasional paragraphs in agricultural periodicals, they have never yet, that we are aware of, been subjected to such a trial as either conclusively to establish their claim to more extended culture, or to justify the neglect which they have hitherto experienced. Section 12. Gorse or ]V7tin. Notwithstanding its formidable spines, the young shoots of this hardy evergreen yield a palatable and nutritious winter forage for horses and cattle. To fit it for this purpose it must be chopped and bruised to destroy the spines. This is sometimes done in a primitive and laborious way by laying the gorse upon a block of wood and beating it with a mallet, flat at one end and armed with crossed knife-edges at the other, by the alternate use of which it is bruised and chopped. There are now a variety of machines by which this .is done rapidly and efficiently, and which are in use where this kind of forage is used to any extent. The agricultural value of this plant has often been over-rated by theoretical writers. In the case of very poor, dry soils, it does, however, yield much valuable food at a season when green forage is not otherwise to be had. It is on this account of importance to dairymen ; and to them it has this further recommendation, that cows fed upon it give much rich milk, which is free from any unpleasant flavour. To turn it to good account, it must be sown in drills, kept clean by hoeing, and treated as a regular green crop. If sown in March, on land fitly pre pared and afterwards duly cared for, it is ready for use in the autumn of the following year. A succession of cuttings of proper age is obtained for several years from the same field. It is cut by a short stout scythe, and must be brought from the field daily ; for when put in a heap after being chopped and bruised it heats rapidly. It is given to horses and cows in combination with chopped hay or straw. An acre will produce about 2000 faggots of green two-year-old gorse, weighing 20 Bb each. This plant is invaluable in mountain sheep-walks. The rounded form of the furze bushes that are met with in such situations shows how diligently the annual growth, as far as it is accessible, is nibbled by the sheep. The food and shelter afforded to them in snow-storms by clusters of such bushes is of such importance that the wonder is our sheep farmers do not bestow more pains to have it in adequate quantity. Young plants of whin are so kept down by the sheep that they can seldom attain to a profitable size unless protected by a fence for a few years. Section 13. Tussac Grass. The tussac grass of the Falkland Islands has of late years attracted considerable attention as a forage plant. From its gigantic growth, even in those ungenial regions, and the extraordinary relish manifested for it by horses and cattle, sanguine hopes were entertained that it was to prove a truly valuable addition to our present list of forage plants ; but the attempts hitherto made to introduce it in Britain have not been of a very encouraging kind. The only successful cases have been in the Orkneys and in Lewis. Messrs Lawson of Edinburgh, who have given much attention to it, say " Our own experience leads to the conclusion, that localities within influence of the sea spray, the soil being of a peaty nature, are without doubt the best adapted for the growth of the tussac; and in such places it is likely to be of great service, as few other nutritive grasses will exist there. In our own experi mental grounds it does not thrive well; which may perhaps be accounted for by the nature of the soil, which is light and dry. Regarding its value as a forage plant, we have before us an analysis made, at our request, by Professor Johnston, the results of which show that the tussac grass ought to be very nutritive. Propagation, in the absence of seed, is easily effected, under favourable circumstances, by subdivision of the roots." We have thus noticed all the more important of our forage crops of ascertained value. Additions will probably be made to them from time to time, especially from the increased attention now bestowed on green crops of all kinds. It has lately been suggested that maize and also lupins, although unfit for our climate as grain crops, might with advantage be tried as forage plants. Both are successfully grown for this purpose in Germany. Being unable to withstand frost, they should be sown not earlier than May. The maize requires a deep rich soil; the lupins again are said to do best on light siliceous soils. Both should be sown in rows 15 to 18 inches apart, and seeded at the rate of 2 bushels per acre. A trial which we made with lupins (both the blue and the yellow sorts) in 1858, on a light moorland, proved a total failure. Section 14. Haymaking. Having spoken of the cultivation and use in a green state of herbage and forage crops, it remains to describe the process by which they are preserved for use in a dry state, or made into hay. On every farm a supply of good ​HAY.] AGRICULTURE 379 hay, adequate to the wants of its own live stock, is, or at least ought to be, statedly provided. This is no doubt an expensive kind of food, but on the other hand it is highly nutritious, and conduces much to the healthfulness of the animals fed upon it. Many a valuable farm horse is annually sacrificed to a false economy in feeding him solely on innutritions straw or ill-gotten hay. The owners of such stock would do well to consider that the death of a horse yearly, and the impaired health and condition of the whole stud, more than counterbalance any saving that can be effected by using bad fodder instead of good. But the great consumption of hay is by the numerous horses constantly required in this country for other purposes than farm labour. In the vicinity of towns hay is therefore a staple agricultural product, and hay making an important branch of rural economy. It is one in the practice of which English farmers generally excel their brethren north of the Tweed. In the counties near the metropolis, in particular, this process is conducted with admirable skill. In converting the grasses and forage plants into hay, the object is to get quit of the water which they contain, amounting to nearly tivo-tldrds of their weight, with the least possible loss of their nutritive qualities. In order to this the crops must be mown at that stage of their growth when the greatest weight of produce with the maximum of nutritive value can be obtained; and then it is necessary so to conduct the drying process that the inspissated juices shall not be washed out and lost by external wetting. A simple and sufficiently accurate rule for determining the first point is to mow when the plants are in full flower. If this stage is exceeded, both the quality of the hay and the amount of the foggage or aftermath are seriously impaired. It follows from this that mowing should be commenced somewhat earlier than the stage indicated, otherwise, before the whole can be cut the last portion will have exceeded the proper degree of ripeness. By cutting a part too soon a slight loss of weight is incurred, which, however, is compensated for by a better aftermath ; whereas if part is allowed to mature the seeds, there is a loss of weight, quality, and aftermath. Haymaking, to be done well, must be done quickly, and in order to this a full supply of labourers is indispensable. As a good mower can cut on an average an acre in a day, as many must be engaged as can overtake the extent of crop while it is in the best state for cutting. It is of great importance, too, to have the grass cut close to the ground. A loss of from 5 to 10 per cent, on the gross produce is frequently incurred by unskilful or careless mowers leaving the sward too high. Now that efficient mowing-machines can be had, this work can be performed with a celerity and accuracy hitherto unattainable. To admit of accurate and expeditious mow ing, whether by scythe or machine, care must be taken, at the proper season, to remove all stones and other obstruc tions, and to make the surface smooth by rolling. Confining our attention, in the first place, to natural meadow grass, let us glance at the process as conducted by those who are most proficient in it. The mowers having commenced their work at sunrise, the haymakers, in the proportion of two men and three women to each mower, so soon as the dew is off, shake out the swathes evenly over the whole ground, until they have overtaken as much KS they can get into cocks the same day. This quantity they now turn and toss about as frequently as possible, getting it, before evening, either into a compact windrow, or forming it into very small cocks. Next day these cocks are again opened out, and as much more of the grass in swathe as can be overtaken, all of which is anew subjected to the same repeated turnings, and again, as evening approaches, secured from dew and rain by windrowinf and cocking ; that which is driest being put into larger cocks than on the previous day. If the weather is hot and parching, that which was first cut is by the fourth day ready for the stack, and is immediately carried. A large rick-cloth is drawn over the incipient stack until more hay is in condition to be added to it, and then, if weather favour, the whole process, from mowing to stacking, for a time goes on simultaneously, and is speedily completed. As the building of the stack proceeds, its sides are, by pulling, freed from loose hay, and straightened ; and when completed it is thatched with the least possible delay. If the weather prove showery, the grass is left untouched in the swathe until it begins to get yellow on the under side, in which case it is usually turned over without opening out until weather again favour. To produce fine hay, care must be taken to secure from dew or rain by cocking before nightfall all that has been spread out during the day never to touch it until dew or wet is off to shake all out so thoroughly as that the whole may be dried alike and never to suffer it, after being tedded out, to lie so long as to get scorched on one side. When these operations are conducted successfully, the hay is of a fine light-green colour, delightfully fragrant, and retains its nutritious matter unimpaired. To accomplish this in our variable climate much skill and energy, and an ample command of labour, are necessary. The cost and labour of this process are now, indeed, much reduced by the use of machinery, consisting of mower, tedder, and rake, by means of which a man and pair of horses can do the work of ten scythemen, and another man and horse can toss, turn, and draw into windrows as much grass as could be overtaken in the same time by fifteen people. The hay-tedder, moreover, shakes out the grass more thoroughly than it can be done by hand. After the hay is gathered into rows, horse labour is also sometimes employed to collect it into heaps by means of a sweep, that is, a piece of plank with a rope attached to each end of it, by which a horse draws it along on cd<je, while two lads hold it down, and the hay is thus pushed forward in siiccessive portions, which are then by hand labour made into orderly cocks. The yield of meadow hay ranges from 1 to 2 tons per acre, and the cost of making it is about 10s. per ton. In London hay is brought to market in trusses, each weighing 56 ft>, 36 of which are called a load. In cutting up a stack these trusses are removed from it in compact cubes, which are then neatly secured by bands of twisted hay. In converting the cultivated forage crops, such as clover (either pure or mixed with ryegrass), sainfoin, lucerne, or vetches, into hay, the procedure varies considerably from that pursued with the natural grasses. A considerable part of these plants consists of broad tender leaves, which, when scorched by the sun, become so dry and brittle that, on the least rough handling, they fly into dust, and are totally lost. These crops, therefore, do not admit of being shaken asunder and tossed about like the natural grasses, a circumstance which unfortunately forbids the use of the tedding-machine in getting them. The swathes are accordingly left untouched until they have got slightly withered on the upper side, after which they are turned several times with as little breaking up as possible ; made up first into small cocks, opened out again, gently turned, and made into larger cocks, which as speedily as possible are carried and stacked. These crops can be stacked with safety in a very green state by mixing with them frequent layers of clean dry straw, by which the redundant juices are absorbed, and injurious heating prevented. The straw thus impregnated acquires a flavour which renders it palat able to cattle ; but it is advisable, when this practice ia adopted, to cut the whole into chaff before using it as fodder. ​380 AGRICULTURE [FLAX. When it is desired to save the seeds of Italian or common ryegrass, the crop, after being mown, is allowed to lie for a day or two in swathe, and is then neatly gathered into sheaves, bound, and stooked, precisely like a crop of oats. When sufficiently dried, the seed is either thrashed out in the field, the straw stacked like other hay, and the seed spread thinly over a granary floor, and turned several times daily until it is dry enough to keep in a bin or in sacks ; or the sheaves are built into small round stacks, which stand until the seed is wanted, when it is thrashed out by machinery like grain. Of late years we have frequently secured considerable quantities of useful hay by mowing seeds that had been pastured by sheep in the early part of the season. In July we run the mowing-machines over such fields, taking care to set the cutting-bar high enough to leave the fresh-grown herbage untouched, and to remove only that of older and taller growth. The mown stuff is left untouched for two or three days ; is then drawn together by the horse rake, and put into cocks for a short time, or carted at once to the rick-yard as weather permits. In this way much herbage that would otherwise go to waste is converted into useful winter fodder, and a fresh-grown clean pasture secured for lambs or other stock. CHAPTER XIV. CULTIVATED CROPS CROPS OF LIMITED CULTIVATION. Under this head we shall notice a variety of crops which, Lowever valuable in themselves, and important to the farmers of particular localities, are, from one cause or other, not adapted for general cultivation. Section 1. Flax. Flax is probably the most important of these crops. In deed, from the rapid growth of our linen trade, the growing demand for linseed and its products, and the fitness of the soil and climate for the successful growth of flax, it is not without cause that its more extended cultivation has been so strenuously urged upon our farmers, and that influential societies have been organised for the express purpose of promoting this object. Viewed merely as an agricultural crop, the cultivation of flax is exceedingly simple, and could be practised as readily and extensively as that of the cereal crops. The difficulty is, that before it can be disposed of to any advantage, it must undergo a process of partial manufacture ; thus there is required not only an abundant supply of cheap labour, but such an amount of skill and personal superintendence on the part of the farmer as is incompatible with due attention to corn and cattle husbandry. If a ready and remunerative market were available for the fibre in its simple form of flax straw, this, in combination with the value of the seed for cattle feeding, would at once hold out sufficient motive to our farmers to grow it statedly and to any required extent. Until this is the case, its culture cannot extend in the corn-growing districts of Great Britain. In Ireland and parts of the Highlands of Scotland, where there is a redundant popula tion much in want of such employment as the flax crop furnishes, and where the climate is suited for its growth, it is highly desirable that its culture should extend, and probable that it will do so. Flax prospers most when grown upon land of firm texture resting upon a moist subsoil. It does well to succeed oats or potatoes, as it .requires the soil to be in fresh condition without being too rich. Lands newly broken up from pasture suit it well, as these are generally freer from weeds than those that have been long under tillage. It is usually inexpedient to apply manure directly to the flax crop, as the tendency of this is io produce over-luxuriance, and thereby to mar the quality of the fibre, on which its value chiefly depends. For the same reason it must be thickly seeded, the effect of this being to produce tall slender stems, free from branches. The land having been ploughed in autumn, is prepared for sowing by working it with the grubber, harrow, and roller, until a fine tilth is obtained. On the smooth surface the seed is sown broadcast by hand or machine, at the rate of 3 bushels per acre, and covered in the same manner as clover seeds. It is advisable immediately to hand-rake it with common hay-rakes, and thus to remove all stones and clods, and to secure a uniform close cover of plants. When these are about 3 inches long the crop must be carefully hand-weeded. This is a tedious and expensive process, and hence the importance of sowing the crop on land as free as possible from weeds of all kinds. To obtain flax of the very finest quality the crop must be pulled as soon as the flowers fall, but in the improved modes of steeping, whether by Schenck s or Watt s patent, the value of the fibre is not diminished by allowing the seeds to mature. It must not, however, be allowed to become dead ripe, but should be pulled whenever the seeds appear, on opening the capsule, to be slightly brown-coloured. The pulling requires to be managed with much care. It is performed by men or women, who seize a small quantity with both hands and pull it by a slight jerking effort. The important point to be attended to is to keep the butts even as successive quantities are seized and twitched from the ground. When a convenient handful has been pulled it is laid on the ground, and the next parallel to it at a foot or so apart. The next handfuls are laid across these, and so on until a small pile is made, after which another is begun. After lying in this position for a few days, the seed-vessels or bolls are separated from the flax by lifting each handful separately and pulling the top through a ripple or iron comb fixed upon a piece of plank. As many of these handfuls as will make a small sheaf are then laid very evenly together, and bound near both ends with bands formed of a few stems of flax. These sheaves are set up in stocks, and when dry enough to keep without heating are stacked and thatched until an opportunity occurs of disposing of the flax straw. Sometimes the flax is bound into sheaves and stooked as it is pulled, and treated exactly like a grain crop. In this case the seed is separated from the straw by passing the head of each sheaf between iron rollers. The only objection to this plan is that the bolls of separate sheaves get so entangled in each other as to render it exceedingly difficult to handle them in carrying the crop, and in building and taking down the stacks, without dis arranging the sheaves and wasting much straw and seed. It would be tedious to enter here into a minute detail of the ordinary method of separating the flax fibre from the woody part of the stem. Suffice it to say that in the ordinary practice the sheaves or beets of flax straw are immersed in a pit or pool filled with clear soft water. The sheaves are kept under water by laying boards upon them loaded with stones to keep them down. Here the flax undergoes a process of fermentation by which the parts are separated. About nine or ten days are usually required for this purpose, but this is much influenced by the temperature. A good deal of skill and close watching is required to know exactly when it has been watered enough. The flax is now taken from the pit and evenly spread upon a smooth, clean, recently-mown meadow, where it lies for about ten days more, receiving several turnings the while. When the retting, as this is called, is perfected, the flax is carefully gathered up when perfectly dry, and again tied into sheaves, in which state it is stored under cover until the breaking and scutching can be overtaken. All this necessarily requires much skilful watching and nice manipulation, more, as we have already said, than is ​HOPS.] AGRICULTURE 381 compatible with the other avocations ol an extensive farmer. There are, however, improved modes of accomplishing this preliminary manufacture of flax which, wherever estab lished, pave the way for the growth of flax as an ordinary field crop. For these see article FLAX. The extent of flax cultivation in Ireland is considerable, but the acreage has been gradually diminishing during late years. In 1864 it reached the maximum, 301,693 acres; next year it fell to 251,433. Since 1869 it has steadily declined, there being 229,252 acres in flax crop that year, and only 122,003 in 1872. Hemp, although at one time very generally grown in Great Britain, is now so rarely met with that it is unneces sary to enter into details of its cultivation. Section 2. Hops. The hop is an important crop in several of the southern counties of England. Although an indigenous plant, it was originally brought into England for cultivation from Flanders in 1525. It is cultivated to a considerable extent in Belgium, Bavaria, in the United States of America, and more recently in Australia. Hops, as is well known, are chiefly used for preserving and imparting a peculiar flavour to beer. Probably the only parts of the hop flower which enter into the composition of the beer are the seeds, and the yellow glutinous matter which surrounds the outer in teguments of the seed, and lies at the bottom of the petals. This yellow matter (technically termed the condition of the hop) has an intensely bitter taste, and emits a peculiar and very agreeable aroma, which, however, is extremely volatile ; and hence the necessity for close packing as soon as possible after the hops are dried. When kept over a year, much of this aroma flies off, and hence new hops are indispensable in brewing the first kinds of beer. Several varieties of the hop are cultivated in England. Of these, the Farnham and Canterbury whitebines and goldings are esteemed the finest. These are tall varieties, requiring poles of from 14 to 20 feet. The grapes, so called from grow ing in clusters, and of which there are several varieties of various quality, require poles from 10 to 14 feet long. Jones s, adapted for lighter and inferior land, requires these but 8 to 10 feet. The colegates are a hardy and late-ripening variety, which grow best on stiff soils ; and the Flemish redbine, only cultivated from its less liability than the other to be attacked by the aphis or black blight. The hop is a very exhausting crop for the land, requir ing to be planted only on the most fertile soils, and to have them sustained by freq lent and large dressings of manure rich in nitrogen. Hops are principally cultivated in the counties of Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hants, Worcester, and Hereford, and to a more limited extent in Essex, Suffolk, and Nottingham. The best quality of hops are grown at Farnham in Kent, upon the outcrop of the upper greensand formation, from whence the phosphatic nodules or coprolites now so well known in the manure market are obtained. In 1871 the land under hop cultivation in Great Britain measured 60,030 acres; in 1872 it amounted to 61,927 acres, of which there were in Kent 37,927, in Sussex 9738, and in Hereford 6106 acres. In forming a new plantation, the ground soon after Michaelmas is trenched to the depth of 18 inches, if it has previously been in meadow or old pasture, taking care not to bury the surface-soil above half that depth. Subsoil-ploughing will suffice with land that is in tillage. If the land is wet, drains are made from 4 to 5 feet deep, laid with pipes, and a foot of broken stones over them, to prevent the roots of the hops from obstructing the pipes. The distance between the drains is determined by the necessities of each ca.se. Terfect draining is essential to the success of the crop ; and the hops are planted in squares or triangles at equal distances, varying from C to 7 feet, according to the fertility of the soil and the greater or less luxuriant habit of growth of the variety selected. The plants are raised by cutting off the layers or shoots of the pre ceding year, which are bedded out during the month of March in ground previously prepared, and in the succeeding autumn become what are called nursery plants or bedded sets. Early in November these are planted, one, two, or three being used for a hill according to the strength of the plants. Care must be taken to introduce a sufficient number of male plants, six hills to the acre being deemed sufficient. The presence of these is found to induce earlier matu rity, and to improve both the quality and weight of the crops. The ground must at all times be kept free from weeds and have a good depth of pulverised soil. From the first, a stick, 6 feet high or so, is placed to each hill, to which all the young bines, as they shoot out during summer, must be tied. A liberal dressing of superphosphate of lime and guano is in June hoed in around each hill, which is repeated in July, under which treatment 2 or 3 cwt. of hops is obtained the first year, in addition to a crop of mangolds, turnips, or potatoes, grown in the intervals between the hills. On newly broken up ground lime is applied the following spring. When a plantation has been established, the annual routine of culture begins in autumn, as soon as the crop has been gathered, when the haulm is stripped from the poles, and stored away as a substitute for straw. The poles are stacked or piled in quantities of 400 or 500, at regular distances on the ground. During winter they are sorted and repointed when required, and new ones substi tuted for those that are broken or decayed ; this work and the carrying on of manure being accomplished in frosty weather. The ground is dug over by the fork at this season. In March the earth is removed from the plants by a beck or pronged hoe till the crown is exposed, that the plant may be pruned. Immediately after this the poles are set, the length and number of these for each hill depending upon the kind of hops and amount of growth anticipated. They are fixed into holes made for them by a hop-bar. As the season advances, the ground is hoed and again dug or stirred by a nidget or scarifier drawn by a horse. Early in May the bines or young shoots, as soon as long enough, are tied to the poles with rushes or bast. This tying is repeated several times as the bines get higher, and has even to be done by step-ladders. In June the hops are earthed up or hilled, at whici time weak plants get a dressing of guano. Throughout the summer weeds are destroyed as they appear, and the soil kept loose by the nidget or the hand-hoe. If poles are blown over by high winds, they are immediately replaced. The picking of the hops usually begins about the second week in September, and furnishes ample employment for several weeks to the entire population of the districts, and to a large influx of strangers ; men, women, and children all engaging in it. The hop-pickers are arranged into companies, and are supplied with baskets or bins, holding 7 or 8 bushels each, which are gauged with black lines inside to save the trouble of measuring. Each company is under the superintendence of a hop-bailiff, who keeps an account of the earnings, &c. Under him are several men called pole-pullers, whose duty it is to supply the pickers with poles of hops, and to assist in carrying the picked hops to the carts. They use an iron lever called a hop-dog in pulling up the poles. The hops are picked, one by one, into the bins, care being taken that no bunches, nor leaves, nor mouldy hops, are included. The hops are dried in kilns or oast-houses, on floors of haircloth. Great improve ments have been made of late years in the construction of these oasts. Much nice discrimination is required in managing the drying so as to produce the best quality of hops. As soon as they are removed from the kiln they are packed into pockets, which during the process are suspended from a hole in the floor, and the hops trodden into them by a man. This is now done more accurately by machines, in which a piston presses the hops into the pockets. Hop-growing is a hazardous speculative business, the return at times being very great, and at other times not covering expenses. This arises from the liability of the hop to the attacks of insects, but more especially to blight and mould. The blight is caused by innumer able hordes of the Aphis humuli, which sometimes destroy the plants altogether. The mould is a parasitical fungus. It is believed that a means has at last been discovered of checking the ravages of these assailants, by enveloping each plant separately in a light covering, and subjecting it to the fumes of tobacco in the case of blight, and to a cloud of powdered brimstone in the case of mildew. In blight years it usually happens that some grounds altogether escape, in which case the returns from them are enormous, owing to the enhanced price. Section 3. Sugar-Beet. The Silesian white beet has long been cultivated in various states of continental Europe for the production of sugar, and in several of them is now a staple product of very great value and importance. After several abortive attempts to introduce this industry into our own country, it seems at last to have obtained a firm footing in England, through the enterprise and perseverance of Mr James ​382 AGRICULTURE [SUGAR-BEE! 1 . Duncan, sugar-refiner, of Mincing Lane, London, who five years ago erected the necessary buildings and machinery at Lavenham, in Suffolk. Through the kindness of Mr Duncan we are enabled to submit to our readers the follow ing details regarding this most interesting enterprise. The sugar factory at Lavenham was erected in 1868, although not completed until February 1869. Mr Duncan had first of all contracted with various farmers in that neighbourhood to grow beet for him at the price of 20s. per ton of clean roots, delivered at his factory, with the option to the growers of receiving back the resulting pulp at 12s. per ton, if removed as made. Mr Duncan also procured from the continent the necessary supplies of seed of the best sort, and furnished the growers with in structions as to the proper mode of cultivation. In grow ing mangolds farmers try to grow the largest possible weight per acre, and for this purpose they manure heavily, and give the individual plants ample space. This will not do in the case of sugar-beet, as it is found that small roots are richest in sugar, and that 2| fi> each is the best size to aim at. The endeavour, therefore, must be to have the roots small individually, and yet to secure a good weight per acre. As the part of the bulb that grows above ground contains very little sugar, a further object is to have as little of it exposed to light as possible. All this is accom plished by sovdng the crop in rows about 16 inches apart, and leaving tho plants close to each other. If all is well managed, the crop should yield from 15 to 20 tons of cleaned roots per acre. The delivery of the roots at the factory begins about the end of September, when they are carted direct from the field as they are pulled. The exi gences of wheat-sowing and other field labour at that season induce the growers to store a considerable part of their beet crop at home, and to deliver it at the factory from time to time as they can overtake this heavy cartage. The roots lose weight rapidly when kept in clamps, to cover which a little extra price is given as the season advances. The convenience of the growers is much fur thered by this arrangement ; but it sometimes results in irregular supplies, and consequent loss to the manufacturer. Owing to the extreme drought of 1868 the beet was late in being sown, and the crop was small, amounting only to 1200 tons; but it was exceedingly rich in sugar. The following season was moist, and the yield per acre good, but the area under crop was small, and the total quantity delivered at the factory about 3000 tons. The year 1870 was again an extremely hot and dry one, with a gross produce of 4500 tons, which yielded 12 per cent, of syrup. The produce in 1871 was 6000 tons, yielding 10 per cent, of syrup, and that of 1872 exceeded 7000 tons of very good roots ; but the wetness of the season and strikes among the labourers so protracted the factory work, that instead of being completed in December it was prolonged until March, and the percentage of sugar was smaller than it ought to have been. The particulars of this last crop are as follows. The total weight of clean roots from 571 acres was Delivered fresh from the fields, Clamped by growers at their farms, 2370 tons. 5435 7855 , Of the 571 acres, 89 by 2 growers averaged 17 tons per acre. 115 61 21 147 10 33 18 15 62 -bv26 So that with a total average of 13f tons per acre, two-thirds of the crop averaged 15 tons, and the remaining third only 9 tons. The proportion of feeding pulp has been large in 1871 and 1872, both having been moist seasons, and has been 22 per cent, of the weight of the roots. In 1870 it was only 19 per cent. The details of the disposal of the pulp from crop 1872 are also interesting. Of 1235 tons of pulp purchased by nine farmers 597 tons were taken by one, 326 ,, by another, 116 ,, by another, 95 ,, by another, not a grower of beet. In addition to these quantities sold, about 500 tons were stored at the factory, where at the same time about 100 tons of crop 1871 were still on hand, and in excellent condition. To this latter fact we can add our own testi mony, having been favoured by Mr Duncan with a sample of it after it had been eighteen months in store, when we found it perfectly sweet and good, retaining unimpaired the taste and smell of fresh beet-root. The mode of storing the pulp is very simple. On a piece of dry ground a trench is dug out about 7 feet wide and 1 foot deep. Into this trench the pulp is firmly trodden by the feet of the labourers, and gradually drawn to a point, precisely as is done in storing roots. The whole is then covered with earth to the depth of 1 2 inches ; and thus stored, the pulp keeps well for two or three years. In using it, a thin crust from the outsides is rejected. In Germany and Austria tanks of brick-work are used to economise space, but not in France or Belgium. Three tons of this pulp are esti mated to be equal in feeding value to one ton of good hay. Hitherto farmers give the preference to fresh-made pulp ; but Mr Duncan regards this as quite a mistake, as in his own practice he finds that pulp a year old is a better feeding material than when newly made. In 1872 he fattened 50 cattle on pulp three years old, and in the summer of 1873 he had 60 cattle consuming the surplus of the previous season. These cattle (27 yearlings and 33 two -year-olds) consumed daily 35 cwt. of pulp and 4 cwt. of cut chaff (of hay and barley straw) mixed together. The older beasts received daily in addition 7 Ib each of bean-meal, on which ration they made good progress. To meet the cart age difficulty, Mr Duncan contracted that year (1873) with one grower to perform the haulage of 2000 tons of beet roots a distance of 5 miles by a traction engine. Several joint-stock companies have been formed for prosecuting this industry, but Mr Duncan s is the only factory as yet in actual operation. It is known also that Mr Lawes and Dr Gilbert have for several years been engaged in extensive experiments on sugar-beet, and with most successful results. The manufacture of sugar from beet-root has attained to very great dimensions on the continent of Europe. It is known that from the crop of 1872 there has been produced 1,025,000 tons of sugar, worth 24 per ton, and 250,000 tons of molasses, worth 3 per ton, and that new factories, some of them on a gigantic scale, are now in course of erection. A most important fact connected with this rapidly-extending industry is that the erection of a sugar factory is immediately accompanied by an improvement in the agriculture, and an increase in the value of the land, of the surrounding district. In many places farmers gladly contract to supply beet-root at 18s. per ton for ten years, on condition that they receive back pulp in fair proportion to the quantity of root supplied by them. Russia pro duces the finest quality of beet, instances being known in which the roots yielded 10 per cent, of loaf-sugar. There are good grounds for concluding that Russia will at no very distant date take a prominent place as a sugar- producing country. There seems at present a reasonable prospect that the ​SEEDS.] AGRICULTURE 383 cultivation of sugar-beet will be adopted in various parts of our own country. It has already been proved that the beet grown in the south-eastern counties of England is richer in sugar than that produced in the north of France, And it seems well worth while to ascertain, by careful ex periment, whether in certain parts of Scotland, such as the Lothians, Fife, and the carses, sugar-beet could not with advantage be substituted for the precarious and exhausting potato crop. The repeal of the sugar-duty would give a great stimulus to this enterprise, and should be pressed for in the interest of our native agriculture. Section 4. - -Chicory (for its Roots], The very extensive and constantly increasing consump tion of the roots of chicory as a substitute for coffee, renders it now an agricultural crop of some importance. The soils best adapted for its growth are deep friable loams. The process of cultivation is very similar to that required for the carrot, excepting only that it is not sown earlier than the first week of May, lest the plants should run to seed. "When this happens, such plants must be thrown aside when the crop is dug, else the quality of the whole will be injured. About 4 Ib of seed is the quantity to sow- per acre, either broadcast or in rows. The latter is undoubtedly the best mode, as it admits of the land being kept clean, and yields roots of greater weight. The crop is ready for digging up in November. A long stout fork is the best implement for this purpose. In using it, care must be taken to get out the roots entire, not only for the sake of the roots, but to lessen an inconvenience attendant on the culture of this plant, namely, that the fragments left in the soil grow amongst the after crops, and are as trouble some as weeds. The roots, when dry, are carefully washed, cut into thin slices, and kiln-dried, when they are fit for the coffee-grinder. From 1 to 1 tons per acre of the dried root is an average produce. Section 5. Oil-yielding Plants. Various plants are occasionally cultivated in Britain for the sake of the oil which is expressed from their ripened seeds. "We have already noticed the value of flax-seed for this purpose, although the fibre is the product which is chiefly had in view in cultivating it. The plants most commonly sown expressly as oil-yielding crops are rape (Srassica Napus), colza (Brassica campestris oleifera), gold of pleasure (Camelina sativa), and the poppy (Papaver somniferum). Eape is the plant most frequently and ex tensively grown for the production of oil. The colza is said to yield better crops of seed than the other species. This plant is much .cultivated in Flanders for this purpose. In Great Britain it seems rather on the decline. It is chiefly on rich alluvial soils that this crop is grown. For a seed-crop rape is sown in June or July, precisely in the manner already described for turnips. The young plants are thinned out to a width of 6 or 8 inches apart, and afterwards kept clean by hoeing. The foliage may be eaten down by sheep early in autumn, without injuring it for the production of a crop of seed. In spring the horse and hand hoe must be used, and the previous application of 1 or 2 cwt. of guano will add to the productiveness of the crop. It suits well to lay down land to clover or grass after a crop of rape or turnip seed, and for this pur pose the seeds are sown at the time of giving this spring culture. The crop must be reaped as soon as the seeds are observed to acquire a light brown colour. The reaping is managed precisely as we have described in the case of beans. As the crop, after being reaped and deposited in separate handfuls on the ground, very soon gets dry enough for thrashing, and as the seed is very easily shed after this is the case, this process must be performed as rapidly as possible. Sometimes it is conveyed to the thrashing-mill on harvest carts, on which a cloth is stretched to save the seeds knocked out in the loading and unloading, but more usually the flail is used on temporary thrashing-floors pro vided in the field by spreading down large cloths. The crop is gently lifted from the ground and placed, heads innermost, on a blanket which two persons grasp by the corners, and carry to the thrashing-floors. A large niimber of people are required to push this process through rapidly, for unless the crop is quickly handled, a great loss of seed ensues. The seed is immediately spread thinly upon a granary floor, and frequently turned until dry enough to keep in sacks, when it is cleaned and disposed of. On good soil and in favourable seasons the yield sometimes reaches to 40 bushels per acre. The haulm and husks are either used for litter or burned, and the ashes spread upon the land. It makes good fuel for clay-burning. Section 6. Seeds of Agricultural Crops. In the case of seed-corn it is customary for farmers either to select from the best of their own growth, to ex change with or purchase from neighbours, or, if they wish a change from a different locality, to employ a commission- agent to buy for them. In all districts there are careful farmers who, by occupying land that produces grain of good appearance, and being at pains to have good and pure sorts, are stated sellers of seed-corn, and manage in this way to get a few shillings more per quarter for a part of their produce. It is therefore only in the case of new and rare varieties that professional seedsmen ordinarily deal in seed-corn. There are, however, other field crops, such as clovers, grasses, turnip, mangold, carrots, winter vetches, &c., the seeds of which, to a large extent, pass through tho hands of seedsmen, and the growing of which is restricted to particular districts, and is in the hands of a limited number of farmers. These seed crops are sometimes very remunerative to the grower ; but are hazardous ones for farmers to attempt at their own risk. The only safe course is to grow them at a stipulated price, to the order of some thoroughly respectable seedsman, and to hold to the pro duction of the particular kind or kinds which he requires. This applies in a less degree to the clovers, and to the more commonly cultivated grasses, than to the other seeds just referred to. Such an arrangement is beneficial to all concerned. We have already described (chap. xiii. sec. 13) the mode of saving the seeds of Italian or common ryegrass ; and as other grasses are managed in the same way, it is unneces sary to say more regarding them. It is only in the southern parts of England that clover is grown for the sake of its seeds. When it is meant to take a crop of seed, the clover is fed off with sheep, or mown early in the season, and then allowed to produce its flowers and ripen its seeds. This preliminary eating or cutting over causes the plants to throw up a greater number of seed-stems, and to yield a fuller and more equally ripening crop. The crop is mown when the seeds are seen to be matured. In the case of white clover the cutting takes place while the dew is upon the crop, as working amongst it when dry would cause a loss of seed. After mowing and turning the crop, the ground is raked with close-toothed iron rakes, to catch up loose heads. The thrashing is a twofold process first the separation of the heads or cobs from the stem, called " cobbing," and then of the seeds from the husks, called " drawing." This was formerly accomplished by a laborious and tedious process of thrashing with flails, but it is now done by machinery. In favourable seasons the yield is about 5 or 6 bushels (of 70 ft> each) per acre. Turnip seed is the next most important crop of this kind, ​384 AGRICULTURE [LIVE STOCK From the strong tendency in tlie best varieties of turnips and swedes to degenerate, and the readiness with which they hybridise with each other, or with any member of the family Brassica, no small skill and pains are needed, to raise seed that can be depended upon to yield roots of the best quality. Turnip seed is saved either from selected and transplanted roots, or from such as have been sown for the express purpose, and allowed to stand as they grow. The first plan, if the selection is made by a competent judge, is undoubtedly that by which seed of the purest quality is obtained. But it is an expensive way, not only from the labour required in carrying it out, but from the yield of seed being generally much less than from plants that have not been disturbed. Professional seed-growers usually re sort to a compromise by which the benefit of both plans is secured, viz., by selecting with great care and transplant ing a limited number of bulbs, and saving the seed obtained from them to raise the plants which are to stand for their main seed crop. The latter are carefully examined when they come into bloom, and all plants destroyed the colour of whose flower varies from the proper shade. Turnips that are to bear seed are purposely sown much later in the season than when intended to produce cattle food, as it is found that bulbs about 1 B> weight are less liable to be injured by frost or to rot before the seed is matured, than those of larger size. The management of a turnip-seed crop, both as regards culture and harvesting, is identical with that of rape for its seeds, which has already been described. Mustard. Both the white and brown mustard is culti vated to some extent in various parts of England. The former is to be found in every garden as a salad plant ; but it has of late been coming into increasing favour as a forage crop for sheep, and as a green mamire, for which purpose it is ploughed down when about to come into flower. The brown mustard is grown solely for its seeds, which yield the well-known condiment. When white mus tard is cultivated for its herbage, it is sown usually in July or August, after some early crop has been removed. The land being brought into a fine tilth, the seed, at the rate of 12 Ib per acre, is sown broadcast, and covered in the way recommended for clover seeds. In about six weeks it is ready either for feeding off by sheep or for ploughing down as a preparative for wheat or barley. White mustard is not fastidious in regard to soil When grown for a seed crop it is treated in the way about to be de scribed for the other variety. For this purpose either kind requires a fertile soil, as it is an exhausting crop. The seed is sown in April, is once hoed in May, and requires no further culture. As soon as the pods have assumed a brown colour the crop is reaped and laid down in handfuls, which lie until dry enough for thrashing or stacking. In removing it from the ground it must be handled with great care, and carried to the thrashing-floor or stack on cloths, to avoid the loss of seed. The price depends much on its being saved in dry weather, as the quality suffers much from wet. The yield varies from 20 to 30 bushels per acre, and the price from 10s. to 20s. per bushel. It is chiefly grown on rich alluvial soils in the south-eastern counties of England. This great evil attends its growth, that the seeds which are unavoidably shed in harvesting the crop remain in the soil, and stock it permanently with what proves a pestilent weed amongst future crops. Market Gardening.- In Essex and Kent no inconsider able extent of land is annually occupied in growing the seeds of the staple crops of our kitchen and flower gardens. Wholesale seedsmen contract with farmers to grow these seeds for them at a stipulated price. The growth of fruits and of culinary vegetables is in various parts of Great Britain an important department of farming for the scale on which it is conducted allies it quite as much to agriculture as to horticulture. In the counties contiguous to London thousands of acres are occupied in growing vegetables and in producing fruit. Very large numbers of persons find employment in these market gardens. The system of cultivation pursued in them is admirable. The soil is trenched two spits deep for nearly every crop ; it is heavily manured and kept scrupulously clean by incessant hoeing. Whenever s. crop is removed, some other suited to the season is instantly put in its place, and not an inch of ground is suffered to be unproductive. A young farmer, bent on knowing his business thoroughly, could not occupy a few months to better purpose than by placing himself under one of these clever market gardeners. Kent has long been peculiarly celebrated for its orchards. The best of them are on the borders of the greensand for mation, or ragstone as it is provincially called. Apples, pears, plums, cherries, and nuts are produced in immense quantities. The filbert plantations alone are said to occupy 5000 acres. An abundant and cheap supply of fruit and vegetables for the inhabitants of our towns is undoubtedly an important object, and is likely to occupy increased attention wherever a suitable soil and exposure, with facility of carriage by railway, are combined. In Cornwall and in the Channel Islands the cultivation of brocoli and early potatoes is an important and growing industry. CHAPTER XV. LIVE STOCK IIORSES. The breeding and rearing of domesticated animals has ever been a favourite pursuit in Great Britain, and has been carried to greater perfection than any other department of rural affairs. In no other country of similar extent can so many distinct breeds of each class of these animals be found most of them excellent of their kind, and admirably adapted to the particular use for which they are designed. Observing the usual order, we notice first Horses. /Section 1. Breeds. Here we shall confine our attention to those breeds which are cultivated expressly for the labours of the farm ; for although the breeding of saddle-horses is chiefly carried on by farmers, and forms in some districts an important part of their business, it docs not seem advisable to treat of it here. It is a department of husbandry requiring such a combination of fitness in the soil, climate, and enclosures of the farm, of access to first-class stallions, and of taste and judgment on the part of the farmer, that few indeed of the many who try it are really successful. The morale too of the society into which the breeding of this class of horses almost necessarily brings a man is so unwhole some, that none can mingle in it freely without experienc ing to their cost that " evil communications corrupt good manners." We have noted it as a fact of peculiar signifi cance, in this connection, that of the few men who really make money by this business, scarcely one desires to see it prosecuted by his sons. The immense size and portly presence of the English black horse entitle him to priority of notice. This breed is widely diffused throughout England, though found chiefly in the midland counties. It is in the fens and rich pas tures of these counties that the celebrated dray horses of London are bred and reared. These horses are too slow and heavy for ordinary farm-work, and would not be bred but for the high prices obtained for them from the great London brewers, who pride themselves on the great size, majestic bearing, and fine condition of their team horses. The breeders of these horses employ brood mares and young ​HOUSES.] colts exclusively for their farm-work. The colts are highly fed, and worked very gently until four years old, when they are sold to the London brewers, often at very great prices. The same breed is largely used in England for ordinary farm labour, although not found of such gigantic proportions as in those districts where they are bred for the special destination just referred to. Although very docile, their short step, sluggish gait, large consumption of food, and liability to foot lameness, render them less pro fitable for ordinary farm-work than the breeds about to be mentioned. The Suffolk Punch is a well-marked breed which has long been cultivated in the county from which it takes its name. These horses are, for the most part, of a sorrel, bay, or chestnut colour, and are probably of Scandinavian origin. They are compact, as their name imports, hardy, very active, and exceedingly honest pullers. These horses at one time were very coarse in their form and rather slow ; but they have now been so much improved in form and action that we find them the chief prize-takers at recent exhibitions of the Royal Agricultural Society. The Cleveland Bays are properly carriage-horses ; but still in their native districts they are largely employed for field work. Mr Milburn says " The Cleveland, as a pure breed, is losing something of its distinctiveness. It is running into a proverb, that a Cleveland horse is too stiff for a hunter, and too light for a coacher ; but there are still remnants of the breed, though less carefully kept dis tinctive than may be wished by advocates of purity. Still, the contour of the farm-horses of Cleveland has the light ness, and hardiness, and steadiness of the breed; and it is singular that while the lighter soils have horses more cal culated for drays, the strong-land farmer has the compact and smaller, but comparatively more powerful animal." In the north-eastern counties of England, and the ad jacent Scottish borders, compact, clean-legged, active horses, of medium size, with a remote dash of blood in them, are generally preferred to those of a heavier and slower kind. One needs only to see how such horses get along at turnip- sowing, or with a heavy load in a one-horse cart, to be convinced of their fitness for the general work of a farm. The Clydesdale Horses are not excelled by any cart breed in the kingdom for general usefulness. They belong to the larger class of cart-horses, sixteen hands being an average height. Brown and bay are now the prevailing colours. In the district whose name they bear the breeding of them for sale is extensively prosecuted, and is conducted with much care and success. Liberal premiums are offered by the local agricultural societies for good stallions. Horses of this breed are peculiarly distinguished for the free step with which they move along when exerting their strength in cart or plough. Their merits are now so generally appreciated that they are getting rapidly diffused over the country. Many small farmers in Clydesdale make a business of raising entire colts, which they either sell for stallions or send into distant counties to serve for hire in that capacity. In the Highlands of Scotland, a breed of hardy and very serviceable ponies, or " garrons, " as the natives call them, are found in great numbers. In their native glens they are employed in tillage, and although unfit for stated farm-work in the low country, are even there often used in light carts for work requiring despatch rather than great power. Similar ponies abound in Wales. Section 2. Breeding of Cart-Horses. In breeding cart-horses regard must be had to the pur pose for which they are designed. If the farmer contem plates the raising of colts for sale, he must aim at a larger frame than if he simply wishes to keep up his own stock 385 of working cattle. These considerations will so far guide him as to the size of the mares and stallions which he selects to breed from ; but vigorous constitutions, perfect freedom from organic disease, symmetrical form, and good temper are qualities always indispensable. Nothing is more common than to see mares used for breeding merely because, from lameness or age, they have ceased to be valuable for labour. Lameness from external injury is, of course, no disqualification : but it is mere folly to expect valuable progeny from unsound, mis-shapen, ill-tempered, or delicate dams, or even from really good ones, when their vigour has declined from age. A farmer may grudge to lose the labour of a first-rate mare for two or three months at his busiest season ; but if he cannot make arrangements for doing this, he had better let breeding alone altogether ; for it is only by producing horses of the best quality that it can be worth his while to breed them at all. It is always desirable that both sire and dam should have arrived at maturity before being put to breed. The head of the cart-horse should not be large, at least not heavy in the bones of the face and jaws, nor loaded with flesh. Full development of brain is, indeed, of great importance, and hence a horse somewhat wide between the ears is to be preferred. Prick ears and narrow forehead have by some been reckoned excellences, but we have so invariably noticed such horses to be easily startled, given to shying, and wanting in courage and intelligence, that we regard such a form of head as a defect to be avoided. The eye should be bright, full, and somewhat prominent, the neck inclining to thickness, of medium length, and slightly arched, and the shoulders oblique. Upright shoulders have been commended as an advantage in a horse for draught, it being alleged that such a form enables him to throw his weight better into his collar. It should be remembered, however, that the horses which display the greatest power in drawing heavy loads are characterised by muscular vigour and nervous energy rather than mere weight of carcase ; and these qualities are more usually found in connection with the oblique shoulder than the upright one not to mention that this form is indispensable to that free and full step so necessary in a really useful farm-horse. "The back should be straight and broad, the ribs well arched, and the false ribs of due length, so as to give the abdomen capacity and roundness. The tail should be well set out, not too drooping, and the quarters should be full and muscular. The horse should girth well, and have his height in his body rather than in his. legs, so as to look leess than measurement proves him to be. The forelegs should be strong, and flat below the knee, and by no means round and gummy either before or behind, neither should they have white hair about them, nor much hair of any colour. The hocks should be broad in front, and neither too straight nor too crooked, nor yet cat-hammed. All diseases of this joint, whether curbs, spavins, or thoroughpins, are sufficient grounds for rejecting a horse. The feet are a matter of very much importance. The tendency of many heavy horses is to have thin horn and flat feet. A stallion possess ing such feet is eiceedingly objectionable. Plenty of horn is o recommendation, and the feet had better be too large than too small. The brood mare should possess as many of the points now enumerated as possible. If the mare is small but symmetrical, we may very properly select a large stallion, provided he has good action. If, on the other hand, the mare is large and has a tendency to coarseness, we should select a middle-sized horse of symmetrical appearance. " 1 Sixteen hands is a good height for a farm-horse. Except for very heavy land, we have always had more satisfaction from horses slightly below this standard than above it. We have repeatedly put a well-bred saddle mare to a cart-horse, and have invariably found the produce to prove excellent farm-horses. The opposite cross, betwixt a cart- mare and blood stallion, is nearly as certain to prove un gainly, vicious, and worthless. These horses are generally 1 Morton s Cyclopedia, of Agriculture article "Horse." I. 49 ​386 AGRICULTURE [LIVE STOCK- much stronger than their appearance indicates, have great powers of endurance, and can be kept in prime working condition at much less cost than bulkier animals. It is on muscular power and nervous energy that the strength of animals depends, and this, therefore, should be sought after in the farm-horse rather than mere bulk. Cart-mares should not foal earlier than May. Provided they are not unduly pushed or put to draw heavy loads, they may be kept at work almost up to their time of f oaling, and are thus available for the pressing labours of spring. It is of importance, too, that the pasture should be fresh and the weather mild ere their nursing duties begin. Mares seldom require assistance in bringing forth their young, and although it is. well to keep an eye upon them when this event is expected, they should be kept as quiet as possible, as they ara.impatient of intrusion, and easily disturbed in such circumstances. A sheltered paddock with good grass, and where there are no other horses, is the most suitable quarters for a mare that has newly foaled. There must be no ditch or pond in it, as young foals have a peculiar fatality for getting drowned in such places. A mare, in ordinary condition, receives the stallion on the ninth or tenth day after foaling, and with a greater cer tainty of conceiving than when it is delayed until she is again in heat. If the mare s labour can at all be dis pensed with, it is desirable to have her with her foal for two months at least. She may then be put to easy work with perfect safety, so that she is not kept away from the foal longer than two or three hours at a time. When the foal has got strong enough, it may even be allowed to follow its dam at her work, and to get suck as often as it desires it. Towards the end of September foals are usually weaned, and are then put under cover at night, and receive a little corn, along with succulent food. Good hay, bran, carrots, or swedes, and a few oats, must be given regularly during the first winter, with a warm shed to lie in, and an open court for exercise. At weaning it is highly expedient to put a cavasin on colts, and lead them about for a few times. A few lessons at this early age, when they are easily controlled, saves a world of trouble afterwards. Before being turned to grass in spring, they should, on the same principle, be tied up in stalls for a week or so. It is customary to castrate colts at a year old. Some, indeed, advise its being done a few weeks after birth, when, of course, the pain to the animal and risk of death are less. It must, however, be borne in mind that this early emascu lation will probably ensure a skranky neck, whereas a natural tendency to this defect can in good measure be remedied by deferring the operation. We have seen a puny colt much improved in figure by being left entire until he was two years old. By giving good pasture in summer, and a liberal allowance of hay, roots, and oats in winter, colts may with safety, and even benefit, be put to moderate work in their third spring. Some time before this is done they should be put through a short course of training, to use them to the bit, and make them quiet and handy. Many good cart-horses are ruined for want of a little timely attention in this way. When they have got familiar with the harness, they should be yoked to a log of wood, and made to draw that up and down the furrows of a fallow field, until they become accustomed to the restraint and exertion, after which they may with safety be put to plough alongside a steady and good-tempered horse, and, what is of equal consequence, under the charge of a steady, good-tempered ploughman. As they should not have more than five hours work a-day for the first summer, it is always an advantage to have a pair of them to yoke at the same time, in which case they take half-day about, and do a full horse s work betwixt them. With such moderate work and generous feeding their growth will be promoted. By midsummer, the press of field labour being over, it is advisable to turn the striplings adrift, and let them enjoy themselves in a good pasture until after harvest, when they can again be put to plough. Horses should not be required to draw heavy loaded carts until they are five years old. When put into the shafts earlier than this they frequently get strained and stiffened in their joints. On every farm requiring four or five pairs of horses it is highly expedient to have a pair of young ones coming in annually. This enables the farmer to be provided against contingencies, and to have his stable occupied at all times with horses in their full vigour, which go through their work with spirit, and never falter for a little extra pushing in emergencies. Section 3. Feeding and General Management of Farm-Horses. As there is true economy in employing only the best quality of horses, and these in their prime, so also is there in feeding them uniformly well, and looking to their com fort in all respects. The following quotation from the Transactions (for October 1850) of the Highland and Agri cultural Society of Scotland, describes the practice of some of our most experienced farmers in this particular : "The system of feeding I adopt is as follows .-From the middle of October till the end of May my horses get one feed of steamed food and two feeds of oats daily, with the best oat or wheat straw for fodder. ! never give bean straw unless it has been secured in fine condition, having often seen the bad effects of it, partly owing, I think, to its long exposure to the weather. In our variable climate, and from the quantity of sand which adheres to it, I use it generally for litter. The steamed food used is well washed Swedish turnips and potatoes in equal proportions, mixed with sifted wheat-chaff. In those years when we had a total loss of potatoes Swedish turnip alone was used, but not with the same good effect as when mixed with potatoes. This year, having plenty of diseased potatoes in a firm state, I give a larger proportion of potatoes than turnip, and never upon any occasion give oat husks, commonly called meal- seeds, having often seen their injurious effects. At five o clock in the morning each horse gets 6 ft weight of bruised oats, at noon the same quantity of oats, and at half-past seven P.M. 47 ft weight of steamed food. I find that it takes 62 ft weight of unsteamed potatoes and turnip to produce 47 ft steamed ; to each feed of steamed food, 4 oz. of common salt are added, and mixed up with one-fourth part of a bushel of wheat-chaff, weighing about 1 ft, a greater quantity of wheat-chaff than this having generally too laxa tive an effect. Each horse eats from 14 ft to 18 ft of fodder during the twenty-four hours, besides what is required for litter. In spring I sometimes give a mixture of bruised beans and oats, instead of oats alone ; from June to the middle of October those horses that are required for the working of the green crop, driving manure, and harvest-work, are fed with cut grass and tares in the house ; and about 7 ft of oats each day, given at twice, increasing or decreasing the quantity according to the work they have to do ; and I turn out to pasture only those horses that are not required until the busy season. I disapprove of horses that are regularly worked being turned out to grass, and exposed to all the changes of our variable climate, as I believe it to be the origin of many diseases. By this mode of feeding the horses are always in fine sleek condition, and able for their work. I have acted upon this system for the last fifteen years, have always had from 16 to 20 horses, and during that period I have only lost 7 horses, 3 of them from accidental causes ; and I attribute this, in a great measure, to the mode of feeding, and in particular to the steamed food." The treatment of horses differs somewhat in other places from that now detailed. In Berwickshire, for example, they are usually turned to pasture as soon as the mildness of the weather and the forwardness of the pasture admit of it. While employed in carrying the crop, their fodder consists largely of tares, and afterwards till Martinmas they are fed on hay. From this date oat and bean straw, with 8 or 10 lb of raw swedes to each per diem, is substituted till the 1st of March, when, with the recurrence of harder labour, hay is again given till the return of the grazing season. During three-fourths of the year they receive about 16 lb of oats per diem, in three separate feeds. From the close of turnip-sowing until harvest, oats are either withheld or given only when a harder day s work occurs. The practice

​ ​388 AGRICULTURE [LIVE STOCK Utica, when 108 animals realised $380,000. Of these 10 were bought by British breeders, 6 of which, of the Duchess family, averaged $24,517, and one of them, " Eighth Duchess of Geneva," was bought for Mr Pavin Davies of Gloucestershire at the unprecedented price of 8120. Choice specimens of these cattle are now also being sent in large numbers to our Australian colonies and to various parts of the continent of Europe. Indeed, it may be said of them, that, like our people, they are rapidly spreading over the world. As already hinted, the Hereford is the breed which in England contests most closely with the short-horns for the palm of excellence. They are admirable grazier s cattle, and when of mature age and fully fattened, pre sent exceedingly level, compact, and massive carcases of excellent beef. But the cows are poor milkers, and the oxen require to be at least two years old before being put up to fatten defects which, in our view, are fatal to the claims which are put forward on their behalf. To the grazier who purchases them when their growth is somewhat matured they usually yield a good profit, and will generally excel short-horns of the same age. But the distinguishing characteristic of the latter is that, when properly treated, they get sufficiently fat and attain to remunerative weights at, or even under, two years old. If they are kept lean until they have reached that age their peculiar excellence is lost. From the largeness of their frame they then cost more money, consume more food, and yet do not fatten more rapidly than bullocks of slower growing and more compactly formed breeds. It is thus that the grazier fre quently gives his verdict in favour of Herefords as compared with short-horns. Even under this mode of management short-horns will usually yield at least as good a return as their rivals to the breeder and grazier conjointly. But if fully fed from their birth so as to bring into play their peculiar property of growing and fattening simultaneously, we feel warranted in saying that they will yield a quicker and better return for the food consumed by them than cattle of any other breed. Unless, therefore, similar qualities are developed in the Herefords, we may expect to see them more and more giving place to the short-horns. These remarks apply equally to another breed closely allied to the Herefords, viz., the North Devons, so much admired for their pleasing colour, elegant form, sprightly gait, and gentle temper, qualities which fit them beyond all other cattle for the labour of the fiell, in which they are still partially employed in various parts of England. If it could be proved that ox-power is really more economical than horse-power for any stated part of the work of the farm, then the Devons, which form such admirable draught oxen, would be deserving of general cultivation. It is found, however, that when agriculture reaches a certain stage of progress, ox-labour is inadequate to the more rapid and varied operations that are called for, and has to be superseded by that of horses. Scotland possesses several indigenous breeds of heavy cattle, which for the most part are black and hornless, such as those of Aberdeen, Angus, and Galloway. These are all valuable breeds, being characterised by good milking and grazing qualities, and by a hardiness which peculiarly adapts them for a bleak climate. Cattle of these breeds, when they have attained to three years old, fatten very rapidly, attain to great size and weight of carcase, and yield beef which is not surpassed in quality by that of any cattle in the kingdom. The cows of these breeds, when coupled with a short horn bull, produce an admirable cross-breed, which com bines largely the good qualities of both parents. The great saving of time and food which is effected by the sarlier maturity of the cross-breed has induced a very extensive adoption of this practice in all the north-eastern counties of Scotland. Such a system is necessarily inimical to the improvement of the pure native breeds; but when cows of the cross-breed are continuously coupled with pure short-horn bulls, the progeny in a few generations become assimilated to the male parent, and are characterised by a peculiar vigour of constitution and excellent milking power in the cows. With such native breeds to work upon, and this aptitude to blend thoroughly with the short-horn breed, it is much more profitable to introduce the latter in this gradual way of continuous crossing than at once to substitute the one pure breed for the other. The cost of the former plan is much less, as there needs but the pur chase from time to time of a good bull ; and the risk is incomparably less, as the stock is acclimatised from the first, and there is no danger from a wrong selection. The greatest risk of miscarriage in this mode of changing the breed is from the temptation to which, from mistaken economy, the breeder is exposed of rearing a cross-bred bull himself, or purchasing a merely nominal short-horn bull from others. From this hurried review of our heavy breeds of cattle it will be seen that we regard the short-horn as incom parably the best of them all, and that we anticipate its ultimate recognition as the breed which most fully meets the requirements of all those parts of the country where grain and green crops are successfully cultivated. 2d. Dairy Breeds. The dairy breeds of cattle next claim our attention, for although cattle of all breeds are used for this purpose, there are several which are cultivated chiefly, if not exclusively, because of their fitness for it. Dairy husbandry is pro secuted under two very different and well-defined classes of circumstances. In or near towns, and in populous mining and manufacturing districts, it is carried on for the purpose of supplying families with new milk. In the western half of Great Britain, and in many upland districts, where the soil and climate are more favourable to the production of grass and other green crops than of corn, butter and cheese constitute the staple products of the husbandman. The town dairyman looks to quantity rather than quality of milk, and seeks for cows which are large milkers, which are long in going dry, and which can be readily fattened when their daily yield of milk falls below the remunerative measure. Large cows, such as short-horns and their crosses, are accordingly his favourites. In the rural dairy, again, the merits of a cow are estimated by the weight and quality of the cheese or butter which she yields, rather than by the mere quantity of her milk. The breeds that are cultivated expressly for this purpose are accordingly characterised by a less fleshy and robust build than is requisite in grazier s cattle. Of these we select for special notice the Ayrshire, the Suffolk dun, and the Jersey breeds. The Ayrshires, by common consent, now occupy the very first rank as profitable dairy cattle. From the pains which liuve been taken to develop their milk-yielding power it is now of the highest order. Persons who have been conversant only with grazing cattle cannot but be surprised at the strange contrast between an Ayrshire cow in full milk and the forms of cattle which they have been used to regard as most perfect. Her wide pelvis, deep flank, and enor mous udder, with its small wide-set teats, seem out of all proportion to her fine bone and slender forequarters. As might be expected, the breed possesses little merit for grazing purposes. Very useful animals are, however, obtained by crossing these cows with a short horn bull, and this practice is now rather extensively pursued in the west of Scotland by farmers who combine dairy husbandly with the fattening of cattle. The function of the Ayrshire cattle is, however, the dairy. For this they are unsurpassed, either as respects the amount of produce yielded by them in proportion to the food which they consume, or the faculty which they possess of converting the herbage of poor exposed soils, such as abound in their native district, into butter and cheese of the best quality.

​ ​390 AGRICULTURE [LIVE STOCK much for their interest to aid their tenantry in at once procuring really good bulls. Cattle shows and prizes are useful in their way as a means of improving the cattle of a district, but the introduction of an adequate number of bulls from herds already highly improved is the way to accomplish the desired end cheaply, certainly, and speedily. We must here protest against a practice by which short horn bulls are very often prematurely unfitted for breeding. Their tendency to obesity is so remarkable that unless they are kept on short commons they become unwieldy and unserviceable by their third or fourth year. Instead, how ever, of counteracting this tendency, the best animals are usually " made up," as it is called, for exhibition at cattle shows or for ostentatious display to visitors at home, and the consequence is, that they are ruined for breeding pur poses. We rejoice to see that the directors of our national agricultural societies are resolutely setting their faces against this pernicious practice. It is needful certainly that all young animals, although intended for breeding stock, should be well fed, for without this they cannot attain to their full size and development of form. But when this is secured, care should be taken, in the case of all breeding animals, never to exceed that degree of flesh which is indispensable to perfect health and vigour. The frequent occurrence of abortion or barrenness in high- pedigreed herds seems chiefly attributable to overfeeding. The farmer who engages in cattle-breeding with the view of turning out a profitable lot of fat beasts annually, will take pains first of all to provide a useful lot of cows, such as will produce good calves, and if well fed while giving milk will yield enough of it to keep two or three calves a-piece. That he may be able to obtain a sufficient supply of good calves he will keep a really good bull, and allow the cottagers residing on the farm or in its neighbourhood to send their cows to him free of charge, stipulating only that when they have a calf for sale he shall have the first offer of it. Cows are an expensive stock to keep, and it is therefore of importance to turn their milk to the best account. It is poor economy, however, to attempt to rear a greater number of calves than can be done justice to. Seeing that they are to be reared for the production of beef, the only pro fitable course is to feed them well from birth to maturity. During the first weeks of calf-hood the only suitable diet is unadultered milk, warm from the cow, given three times a-day, and not less than two quarts of it at each meal. By three weeks old they may be taught to eat good hay, linseed cake, and sliced swedes. As the latter items of diet are relished and freely eaten, the allowance of milk is gradually diminished until about the twelfth week, when it may be finally withdrawn. The linseed cake is then given more freely, and water put within their reach. For the first six weeks calves should be kept each in a separate crib ; but after this they are the better of having room to frisk about. Their quarters, however, should be well sheltered, as a comfortable degree of warmth greatly promotes their growth. During their first summer they do best to be soiled on vetches, clover, or Italian ryegrass, with from 1 Ib to 2 tt> of cake to each calf daily. When the green forage fails, white or yellow turnips are substi tuted for it. A full allowance of these, with abundance of oat straw, and not less than 2 Ib of cake daily, is the appropriate fare for them during their first winter. Swedes will be substituted for turnips during the months of spring, and these again will give place in due time to green forage or the best pasturage. The daily ration of cake should never be withdrawn. It greatly promotes growth, fattening, and general good health, and in particular is a specific against the disease called blackleg, which often proves so fatal to young cattle. Young cattle that have been skil fully managed upon the system which we have now sketched, are at 18 months old already of great size, with open horns, mellow hide, and all those other features which indicate to the experienced grazier that they will grow and fatten rapidly. This style of management is not only the best for those who fatten as well as rear, but is also the most profitable for those who rear only. We have already stated that in Scotland comparatively few cattle are fattened on pasturage. An increasing number of fat beasts are now prepared for market during the summer months by soiling on green forage ; but it is by means of the turnip crop, and during the winter months, that this branch of husbandry is all but exclusively con ducted in the northern half of Great Britain. But a few years ago the fattening of cattle on Tweedside and in the Lothians was conducted almost exclusively in open courts, with sheds on one or more sides, in which from two to twenty animals were confined together, and fed on turnips and straw alone. Important changes have now been in troduced, both as regards housing and feeding, by means of which a great saving of food has been effected. Under the former practice the cattle received as many turnips as they could eat, which, for an average-sized two-year-old bullock, was not less than 220 Ib daily. The consequence of this enormous consumption of watery food was, that for the first month or two after being thus fed the animals were kept in a state of habitual diarrhoea. Dry fodder was, indeed, always placed within their reach ; but as long as they had the opportunity of taking their fill of turnips, the dry straw was all but neglected. By stinting them to about 100 Ib of turnips daily, they can be compelled to eat a large quantity of straw, and on this diet they thrive faster than on turnips at will. A better plan, however, is to render the fodder so palatable as to induce them to eat it of choice. This can be done by grating down the tur nips by one or other of the pulping-machines now getting into common use, and then mixing the grated turnip with an equal quantity, by measure, of cut straw. Some persons allow the food after being thus mixed to lie in a heap for two days, so that fermentation may ensue before it is given to the cattle. There is, however, a preponderance of evidence in favour of using it fresh. To this mess can conveniently be added an allowance of ground cake, whether of linseed, rape, or cotton seed, and of meal of any kind of grain which the farmer finds it most economical at the time to use. The ground cake and meal are, in this case, to be thoroughly mixed with the pulped turnip and cut straw. The same end can be accomplished by giving a moderate feed (say 50 tt>) of sliced roots twice a-day, and four hours after each of these meals, another, consisting of cut straw, cake, and meal. In this case the chaff and farinaceous ingredients should be mixed and cooked by steam in a close vessel; or the meal can be boiled in an open kettle, with water enough to make it of the consistency of gruel, and then poured over the chaff, mixed thoroughly with it, and allowed to lie in a heap for two or three hours before it is served out to the cattle. From 2 to 4 Ib of meal, &c., a-head per diem is enough to begin with. But as the fattening process goes on it is gradually increased, and may rise to 7 or 8 ft) during the last month before sending to market. It is advisable to mix with the cooked mess about 2 ounces of salt per diem for each bullock. An important recommendation to this mode of preparing cattle food is, that it enables the farmer to use rape- cake freely ; for when this article is reduced to a coarse powder, and heated to the boiling point, it not only loses its acrid qualities, but acquires a smell and flavour which induce cattle to eat it greedily. Moreover, if the rape-seeds should have been adulterated with those of wild mustard before going to the crushing-mill (as not unfrequently happens), ​SHEEP. AGBICULTUKE 391 and a cake is thus produced which in its raw state is poisonous to cattle, it has been ascertained that boiling deprives such spurious cake of its hurtful qualities and renders it safe and wholesome. As rape-cake possesses fattening elements equal to those of linseed-cake, and can usually be bought at half the price, it is well worth while to have recourse to a process by which it can so easily be rendered a palatable and nourishing food for cattle. Fattening cattle are usually allowed to remain in the pastures to a later date in autumn than is profitable. The pressure of harvest work, or the immature state of his turnip crop, often induces the farmer to delay housing his bullocks until long after they have ceased to make progress on grass. They may still have a full bite on their pastures ; but the lengthening nights and lowering temperature lessen the nutritive quality of the herbage, and arrest the further accumulation of fat and flesh. The hair of the cattle begins also to grow rapidly as the nights get chilly, and causes them to be housed with rougher coats than are then ex pedient. To avoid these evils the farmer should early in August begin to spread on the pasture a daily feed of green forage, consisting of vetches, peas, and beans grown in mixture in about equal proportions, which if well podded and full of soft pulse, supplies exactly the kind of food required to compensate for the deteriorating pasturage. Early in September cabbages and white globe turnips should be given on the pasture in lieu of the green forage. After ten days or so of this treatment they should be transferred to their winter quarters. For the first two months after they go into winter quarters they make as good progress on yellow turnips as on any kind of roots ; for the three following months well stored swedes are the best food for them ; and from the beginning of March until the end of the season, mangolds and potatoes, in the proportion of four parts of the former to one of the latter. The chaff of wheat, oats, or beans, if tolerably free from dust, is quite as suitable as cut straw for mixing with the pulped roots and cooked food. The addition of a small quantity of chopped hay, or of the husks of kiln-dried oats, to the other food, usually induces cattle to feed more eagerly. In short, the animals must be closely watched, and occasional variations made in the quantity and quality of the food given to particular individuals or of the general lot as their circumstances may require. Besides the food given in the manger it is desirable that each animal should receive a daily allowance of fresh oat straw in a rack to which he has access at pleasure. A better appreciation of the effects of temperature on the animal economy has of late years exerted a beneficial influ ence upon the treatment of fattening cattle. Observant farmers have long been aware that their cattle, when kept dry and moderately warm, eat less and thrive faster than under opposite conditions. They accounted for this in a vague way by attributing it to their greater comfort in such circumstances. Scientific men have now, however, showed us that a considerable portion of the food consumed by warm-blooded animals is expended in maintaining the natural heat of their bodies, and that the portion of food thus disposed of is dissipated by a process so closely an alogous to combustion that it may fitly be regarded as so much fuel. The fat which, in favourable circumstances, is accumulated in their bodies, may in like manner be regarded as a store of this fuel laid up for future emer gencies. The knowledge of this fact enables us to under stand how largely the profit to be derived from the fattening of cattle is dependent upon the manner in which they are housed, and necessarily forms an important element in determining the question whether yards, stalls, or boxes are best adapted for this purpose. A really good system of housing must combine the following conditions : 1st, Facilities fur supplying food and litter, and for re moving dung with the utmost economy of time and labour; 2d, Complete freedom from disturbance ; 3d, A moderate and unvarying degree of warmth. ; 4th, A constant supply of pure air ; 5th, Opportunity for the cattle having a slight degree of exercise ; and 6th, The production of manure of the best quality. We have no hesitation in expressing our opinion that the whole of these conditions are attained most fully by means of well-arranged and well-ventilated boxes. Stalls are to be preferred where the saving of litter is an object, and yards for the rearing of young cattle, which require more exercise than is suitable for fattening stock. These yards are now, however, in the most improved modern homesteads, wholly roofed over, and thus combine the good qualities of both yard and box. CHAPTER XVII. LIVE STOCK SHEEP. When Fitzherbert so long ago said, " Sheep is the most profitablest cattle that a man can have," he expressed an opinion in which agriculturists of the present day fully conciir. But if this was true of the flocks of his time, how much more of the many admirable breeds which now cover the rich pastures, the grassy downs, and the heath- clad mountains of our country. Their flesh is in high estimation with all classes of the community, and con stitutes at least one-half of all the butcher meat consumed by them. Their fleeces supply the raw material for one of our most flourishing manufactures. They furnish to the farmer an important source of revenue, and the readiest means of maintaining the fertility of his fields. Section 1. Breeds. The distinct breeds and sub-varieties of sheep found in Great Britain are very numerous. We have no intention of describing them in detail, but shall confine our observa tions to those breeds which by common consent are the most valuable for their respective appropriate habitats. They may be fitly classed under three heads viz., the heavy breeds of the plains, those adapted for downs and similar localities, and the mountain breeds. st. Heavy Breeds. Of the first class, the improved Leicesters are still the most important to the coiintry. They are more widely diffused in the kingdom than any of their congeners. Although, from the altered taste of the community, their mutton is less esteemed than formerly, they still constitute the staple breed of the midland counties of England. Leicester rams are also more in demand than ever for crossing with other breeds. It is now about a century since this breed was produced by the genius and persever- ence of Bakewell, in whose hands they attained a degree of excellence that has probably not yet been exceeded bj the many who have cultivated them since his day. The characteristics of this breed are extreme docility, extra ordinary aptitude to fatten, and the early age at which they come to maturity. The most marked feature in theii structure is the smallness of their heads, and of their bones generally, as contrasted with their weight of carcase. They are clean in the jaws, with a full eye, thin ears, and placid countenance. Their backs are straight, broad, and flat, the ribs arched, the belly carried very light, so that they present nearly as straight a line below as above; the chest is wide, the skin very mellow, and covered with a beautiful fleece of long, soft wool, which weighs on the average from 6 to 7 ft. On good soils and under careful treatment ​392 AGRICULTURE [LIVE STOCK these sheep are currently brought to weigh from 18 to 20 ft> per quarter at 1 4 months old, at which age they are now usually slaughtered. At this age their flesh is tender and juicy ; but when feeding is carried on till they are older and heavier, fat accumulates so unduly as to detract from the palatableness and market value of the mutton. Lincolns. These were at one time very large, ungainly animals, with an immense fleece of very long wool. By crossing them with the Leicesters the character of the breed has been entirely changed, and very greatly for the better. It is now, in fact, a sub-variety of the Leicester, with larger frame and heavier fleece than the pure breed. Their wool, however, retains its distinctive characteristics viz., great length of staple, an unctuous feeling, and, in particular, a brightness or lustre which adds largely to its value. Sheep of this kind are reared in immense numbers on the wolds and heaths of Lincolnshire, and are sold when about a year old in the wool, and in very forward condition, to the graziers of the fens and marshes, who ultimately bring them to very great weights. Cotswolds, sometimes called Glo sters or New Oxfords, are also large and long-woolled sheep, with good figure and portly gait. Great improvement has been effected in this breed during the last 30 years, in consequence of which they are rising rapidly in public estimation. The qualities for which they are prized are their hardi ness, docility, rapid growth, aptitude to fatten, and the great weight to which they attain. Their chief defect is that they yield mutton somewhat coarse in the grain and with an undue preponderance of fat. But in addition to their great merits as a pure breed they are especially valuable for the purpose of crossing with Downs and other short-woolled sheep. Of this we shall speak more particularly when we come to notice the Cross-breeds. Teeswaters. This breed, found formerly in the vale of the Tees, used to have the reputation of being one of the largest and heaviest of our native breeds. They had lighter fleeces than the old Lincolns, but greater aptitude to fatten. Like them, however, they have been so blended with Leicester blood as to have lost their former charac teristics. As now met with, they constitute simply a sub-variety of the latter breed. The Kents or Romney Marsh Sheep, are another distinct long- woolled breed which have much in common with the old Lincolns, although they never equalled them either in the weight or quality of their fleece. They too have been much modified by a large infusion of Leicester blood ; but as their distinctive qualities fit them well for a bleak and humid habitat, there is now an aversion to risk these by further crossing. As they now exist they are a great improvement upon the old breed of the Kentish marshes ; and this, in the first instance at least, was the result of crossing rather than selection. 2d. Down and Forest Breeds. The breeds peculiar to our chalky downs and other pastures of medium elevation next claim our notice. Southdowns. Not long after Robert Bakewell had begun, with admirable skill and perseverance, to bring to perfection his celebrated Leicesters, which, as we have seen, have either superseded or totally altered the character of all the heavy breeds of the country, another breeder, Mr John Ellman of Glynde, in Sussex, equal to Bakewell in judgment, perseverance, and zeal, and wholly devoid of his illiberal prejudice and narrow selfishness, addressed himself to the task of improving the native sheep of the downs, and succeeded in bringing them to as great perfection, with respect to early maturity and fattening power, as they are perhaps susceptible of. Like Bakewell, he early began the practice of letting out rams for hire. These were soon eagerly sought after, and the qualities of his improved flock being rapidly communicated to others, the whole race of down sheep has more or less become assimilated to their standard. Thess improved Southdowns have, in fact, been to all the old. forest and other fine-woolled breeds what the Leicesters have been to their congeners. Many of them have entirely disappeared, and others only survive in those modifications of the improved Southdown type which are to be found in particular localities. These down sheep possess certain well-marked features which distinguish them from all other breeds. They have a close-set fleece of fine wool, weighing, when the animals are well fed, about 4 Ib. ; their faces and legs are of a dusky brown colour, their neck slightly arched, their limbs short, their carcase broad and compact, their offal light, and their buttocks very thick and square behind. They are less impatient of folding, and suffer less from a pasture being thickly stocked with them than any other breed. It is in connection with this breed that the practice of folding as a means of manuring the soil is so largely carried out in the chalk districts of England. It is well ascertained that the injury done to a flock by this practice exceeds the benefit conferred on the crops. Now that portable manures are so abundant, it is to be hoped that this pernicious practice of using sheep as mere muck machines will be everywhere abandoned. These sheep are now usually classed as Sussex Downs and Hamp shire Downs, the former being the most refined type of the class, both as regards wool and carcase, and the latter, as compared with them, having a heavier fleece, stronger bone, and somewhat coarser and larger frame. The Shropshire sheep, while partaking of the general character istics of the Southdown, is so much heavier both dn fleece and carcase, and is altogether so much more robust an animal, that it now claims to be ranked as a separate breed. The qualities just referred to as distinguishing it from other downs seem, however, to be the result of selection rather than of crossing with other breeds, and thus the Shropshire sheep, while a pure down, is yet of so distinct a type from the high-bred "Southdown," that it is well entitled to be recognised as a distinct and very valuable breed, as has been done by the Eoyal Society, which now assigns it a separate class at its annual meetings. Shropshire rams are eagerly sought after, and many breeders of eminence in that county have now their annual sales of these animals. These breeds are peculiarly adapted for all those parts of England where low grassy hills occur, interspersed with, or in proximity to, arable land. In such situations they are prolific, hardy, and easily fattened at an early age. It is to their peculiar adaptation for cross ing with the long-woolled breeds that they are indebted for their recent and rapid extension to other districts. Dorscts. This breed has from time immemorial been naturalised in the county of Dorset and adjacent parts. They are a white-faced, horned breed, with fine wool, weighing about 4 Ib per fleece. They are a hardy and docile race of sheep, of good size, and fair quality of mutton. But the property which distinguishes them from every other breed in Great Britain is the fecundity of the ewes, and their readiness to receive the male at an early season. They have even been known to yean twice in the same year. Being, in addition to this, excellent nurses, they have long been in use for rearing house lamb for the London market. For this purpose the rams are put to them early in June, so that the lambs are brought forth in October, and are ready for market by Christmas. But for this peculiarity, they would ere now have shared the fate of so many other native breeds, which have given place either to the Leicesters or Southdowns, according to the nature of the pastures. So long, however, as the rearing of early house lamb is found profitable, there is a sufficient inducement to preserve the Dorset breed in their purity, as they are unique in their property of early yeaning, 3d. Mountain Breeds. Cheviots. As we approach and cross the Scottish border we find a range of hills covered with coarser herbage than the chalky downs of the south, and with a climate considerably more rigorous. Here the Southdown sheep have been tried with but indifferent success. This, however, is not to be regretted, seeing that the native Cheviot breed rivals them in most of their good qualities, and possesses in addition a hardihood equal to the necessities of the climate. This breed, besides occupying the grassy hills of the border counties, is now found in great force in the north and west Highlands of Scot land. In the counties of Sutherland and Caithness, where they were introduced by the late Sir John Sinclair, they have thriven amazingly, and in the hands of some spirited breeders have attained to as great perfection as in their native district. During the last 30 years this breed has undergone very great improvement in size, figure, weight of fleece, and aptitude to fatten. In proof of this, it is enough to mention that Cheviot wether lambs are now in the border counties brought to market when weaned, and are transferred to the low country graziers, by whom they are sent fat to the butcher at sixteen months old, weighing then from 16 to 18 ft per quarter. This is particularly the case in Cumberland, where Cheviot lambs are preferred to all other breeds by the low-country farmers, by whom they are managed with great skill and success. It is not at all unusual with them to realise an increase of from 20s. to 25s. per head on the purchase price of these lambs, after a twelvemonth s keep. This fact is peculiarly interesting from the proof which it affords of a hitherto unsuspected capacity in Cheviots, and probably in other upland breeds, to attain to a profitable degree of fatness and weight of carcase at almost as early an age as the lowland breeds when the same attention and liberal feeding is bestowed upon them. There is no breed equally well adapted for elevated pastures, con sisting of the coarser grasses with a mixture of heath ; but when ever, from the nature of the soil or greater elevation, the heaths un mistakably predominate, a still hardier race is to be preferred, viz. The Blackfaccd or Heath Breed. They are accordingly found on the mountainous parts of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumberland, and Westmoreland ; over the whole of the Lammermuir range, the upper part of Lanarkshire, and generally over the Highlands of Scotland. Both male and female of this breed have horns, which in the former are very large and spirally twisted. The face and legs are black or specked with black, with an occasional tendency to this colour on the fleece ; but there is nothing of the brown or russet colour which distinguishes the down breeds. The choicest flocks of these sheep

​ ​394 AGRICULTURE [LIVE STOCK months old, from 20th September to 20th October, accord ing to the climate of the particular locality, is a usual time for admitting rams to ewes. A few weeks before this takes place the ewes are removed from bare pasture, and put on the freshest that the farm affords, or, better still, on rape; failing which one good feed of white turnips per diem is carted and spread on their pastures, or the ewes are folded for part of the day on growing turnips. The rams are turned in amongst them just when this better fare has begun to tell in their improving appearance, as it is found that in such circumstances they come in heat more rapidly, and with a greatly increased likelihood of conceiving twins. On level ground, and Avith moderate- sized enclosures, one ram suffices for sixty ewes ; but it is bad economy to overtask the rams, and one to forty ewes is better practice. Sometimes a large lot of ewes are kept in one flock, and several rams, at the above proportion, turned among them promiscuously. It is better, however, when they can be placed in separate lots. The breasts of the rams are rubbed with ruddle, that the shepherd may know what they are about. Those who themselves breed rams, or others who hire in what they use at high prices, have recourse to a different plan for the purpose of getting more service from each male, and of knowing exactly when each ewe may be expected to lamb ; and also of putting each ewe to the ram most suitable to her in point of size, figure, and quality of flesh and fleece. The rams in this case are kept in pens in a small enclosure. What is techni cally called a teaser is turned among the general flock of ewes, which, on being seen to be in heat, are brought up and put to the ram that is selected for them. They are then numbered, and a note kept of the date, or otherwise a common mark, varied for each successive week, is put on all as they come up. The more usual practice is to mark the breast of the ram with ruddle, as already described, for the first seventeen days that they are among the ewes that being the time of the periodic recurrence of the heat and then to use soot instead. When lambing-time draws near, the red-rumped ewes, or those that conceived from the first copulation, are brought into the fold, and the remainder after the lapse of the proper interval. If all goes on well, six weeks is long enough for the rams to remain with the flock. The. ewes are then put to more moderate fare, taking care, however, not to pinch them, but to preserve the due medium betwixt fatness and poverty. Under the first-mentioned extreme there is great risk of losing both ewe and lamb at the time of parturition ; and under the second, of the ewe shedding her wool, and being unable to nourish her lamb properly either before its birth or after. When there is a consider able breadth of grass-land, the grit or in-lamb ewes are run thinly upon it so long as the weather continues moderate. As the pasturage fails or winter weather sets in, they receive a daily feed of turnips or hay, or part of both. In districts where the four-course rotation is pursued, and wheat sown after seeds, there is a necessity for keeping the ewes wholly on turnips and chopped hay or straw. In this case they are made to follow the fattening sheep, and to eat up their scraps, an arrangement which is suitable for both lots. A recently-introduced practice is better still namely, to feed the ewes at this season on a mixture of one part by measure of pulped turnips or mangel-wurzel to two of chopped straw, which is served out to them in troughs set down in their pastures. From the large quantity of straw which ewes are thus induced to eat, they can be allowed to take their fill of this mixture, and be kept in a satisfied and thriving state with a very moderate allowance of roots. As their time to lamb draws near, the mess should be made more nourishing by adding to it ground rape-cake, bean-meal, and bran, at the rate of from |th to Jd of a pound of each of these articles to each ewe daily. The period of gestation in the ewe is twenty-one weeks. No lambs that are born more than twelve days short of this period survive. Before any lambs are expected to arrive a comfortable fold is provided, into which either the entire flock of ewes, or those that by their markings are known to lamb first, are brought every night. This fold, which may either be a permanent erection or fitted up annually for the occasion, is provided all round with separate pens or cribs of size enough to accommodate a single ewe with her lamb or pair. The pasture or turnip fold to which the flock is turned by day is also furnished with several temporary but well-sheltered cribs, for the reception of such ewes as lamb during the day. It is of especial consequence that ewes producing twins be at once consigned to a separate apartment, as, if left in the crowd, they frequently lose sight of one lamb, and may refuse to own it when restored to them, even after a very short separation. Some ewes will make a favourite of one lamb, and wholly repudiate the other, even when due care has been taken to keep them together from the first. In this case the favourite must either be separated from her or be muzzled with a piece of network, to prevent it from getting more than its share of the milk in the shepherd s absence. Indeed the maternal affection seems much dependent on the flow of milk, as ewes with a well-filled udder seldom trouble the shepherd by such capricious partialities. As soon as the lambs have got fairly afoot, their dams are turned with them into the most forward piece of seeds, or to rape, rye, winter-oats, or water-meadow, the great point being to have abundance of succulent green food for the ewes as soon as they lamb. Without this they cannot yield milk abundantly, and without plenty of milk it is im possible to have good lambs. It is sometimes necessary to aid a lamb that has a poor nurse with cow s milk. This is at best a poor alternative ; but if it must be resorted to, it is only the milk of a farrow cow, or at least of one that has been calved six months, that is at all fit for this pur pose. To give the milk of a recently-calved cow to a young lamb is usually equivalent to knocking it on the head. Ewe milk is poor in butter, but very rich in curd, which is known to be also in a measure the character of that of cows that have been long calved and are not again pregnant. We have found the Aberdeen yellow bullock turnip the best for pregnant and nursing ewes. Mangel- wurzel is much approved of by the flockmasters of the southern counties for the same purpose. It is of impor tance at this season to remove at once from the fold and pens all dead lambs, and filth of every kind, the presence of putrefying matter being most hurtful to the flock. Should a case of puerperal fever occur, the shepherd must scrupulously avoid touching the ewe so affected ; or if he has done so, some one should take his accoucheur duties for a few days, as this deadly malady is highly contagious, and is often unconsciously communicated to numbers of the flock by the shepherd s hands. Unnecessary inter ference with ewes during parturition is much to be depre cated. When the presentation is all right, it is best to leave them as much as possible to their natural efforts. When a false presentation does occur, the shepherd must endeavour to rectify it by gently introducing his hand after first lubricating it with fresh lard or olive-oil. The less dogging or disturbance of any kind that ewes receive during pregnancy the less risk is there of unnatural presentations. As soon as lambs are brought forth the shepherd must give them suck. When they have once got a bellyful, and are protected from wet or excessive cold for two or three days, there is no fear of their taking harm from ordinary weather, provided only that the ewes have plenty of suit​SHEEP.] AGRICULTURE 395 able food. Lambs are castrated, docked, and ear-marked, with least risk when about ten days old. Ewes with lambs must have good and clean pasturage throughout the sum mer. For this purpose they must either be run thinly among cattle or have two or more enclosures, one of which may always be getting clean and fresh for their reception as the other gets bare and soiled. We have not found any advantage in allowing lambs yeaned in March to run with their dams beyond 20th July. A clover eddish or other perfectly clean pasture is the most suitable for newly- weaned lambs. Such as abound in tath, as it is called in Scotland that is, rank herbage growing above the drop pings of sheep or other animals are peculiarly noxious to them. Folding upon rape or vetches suits them admirably, so that fresh supplies are given regularly as required. Sheep, when folded on green rye or vetches, require a good deal of water, and will not thrive unless this is supplied to them. All sheep are liable to be infested with certain vermin, especially " fags " or " kaids " (MelopJuigus ovinus) and lice. To rid them of these parasites various means are resorted to. Some farmers use mercurial ointment, which is applied by parting the wool, and then with the finger rubbing the ointment on the skin, in three or four longitudinal seams on each side, and a few shorter ones on the neck, belly, legs, &c. Those who use this salve dress their lambs with it immediately after shearing their ewes, and again just before putting them on turnips. More frequently the sheep are immersed, all but their heads, in a bath in which arsenic and other ingredients are dissolved. On being lifted out of the bath, the animal is laid on spars, over a shallow vessel so placed that the superfluous liquor, as it is wrung out of the fleece, flows back into the bath. If this is done when the ewes are newly shorn, the liquor goes farther than when the process is deferred until the lambs are larger and their wool longer. It is a good practice to souse the newly-shorn ewes, and indeed the whole flock at the same time, in a similar bath, so as to rid them all of vermin. 1 As turnips constitute the staple winter fare of sheep, it is necessary to have a portion of these sown in time to be fit for use in September. Young sheep always show & reluctance to take to this very succulent food, and should therefore be put upon it so early in autumn that they may get thoroughly reconciled to it while the weather is yet temperate. Rape or cabbage suits admirably as tran- sitionary food from grass to turnips. When this trans ference from summer to winter fare is well managed, they usually make rapid progress during October and November. Some farmers recommend giving the hoggets, as they are now called, a daily run off from the turnip-fold to a neigh bouring pasture for the first few weeks after their being put to this diet. We have found it decidedly better to keep them steadily in the turnip-fold from the very first. When they are once taiight to look for this daily enlarge ment, they become impatient for it, and do not settle quietly to their food. If possible, not more than 200 should be kept in one lot. The youngest and weakest sheep should also have a separate berth and more generous treatment. Turnips being a more watery food than sheep naturally feed upon, there is great advantage in giving them from the first, along with turnips, a liberal allowance of clover hay cut into half-inch chaff. When given in this form, in suitable troughs and in regular feeds, they will eat up the whole without waste, and be greatly the better for it. To 1 The mercurial and arsenical salves and washes commonly in use are believed often to have a hurtful effect on the health of the flocks to which they are applied, and have sometimes caused very serious losses. Having used Macdougall s dip (a preparation of carbolic acid) for many years, we can testify to its efficacy and safety. economise the hay, equal parts of good oat straw may be cut up with it, and will be readily eaten by the flock. A liberal supply of this dry food corrects the injurious effects which are so often produced by feeding sheep on turnips alone, and at the same time lessens the consumption of tho green food. We believe also that there is true economy in early beginning to give them a small daily allowance, say Bb each, of cake or corn. This is more especially desir able when sheep are folded on poor soil. The extraneous food both supplies the lack of nutrition in the turnips and fertilises the soil for bearing succeeding crops. An im mense improvement has been effected in the winter feeding of sheep by the introduction of machines for slicing turnips. Some careful farmers slice the whole of the turnips used by their fattening sheep, of whatever age ; but usually the practice is restricted to hoggets, and only resorted to for them when their milk-teeth begin to fail. In the latter case the economy of the practice does not admit of debate. When Mr Pusey states the difference in value between hoggets that have had their turnips sliced and others that have not, at 8s. per head in favour of the former from this cause alone, we do not think that he over-estimates the benefit. Those who slice turnips for older sheep, and for hoggets also as soon as ever they have taken to them, are, we suspect, acting upon a sound principle, and their ex ample is therefore likely to be generally followed. There is no doubt of this at least, that hoggets frequently lose part of the flesh which they had already gained from the slicing of the turnips being unduly delayed. By 1st December their first teeth, although not actually gone, have become so inefficient that they require longer time and greater exertion to feed their fill than before ; and this, concurring with shorter days and colder weather, operates much to their prejudice. When the slicing is begun, it is well to leave a portion of growing turnips in each day s fold, as there are always some timid sheep in a lot that never come freely to the troughs ; and they serve, moreover, to occupy the lot during moonlight nights, and at other times when the troughs cannot be instantly re plenished. As the sheep have access to both sides of the troughs, each will accommodate nearly as many as it is feet in length. There should therefore be provided at least as many foot-lengths of trough as there are sheep in the fold. The troughs should be perpendicular at their outer edges, as the sheep are less apt to scatter the sliced turnips on the ground with this form than when they slope out wards. It is expedient to have a separate set of similar troughs for the cake or grain and chopped fodder, which it is best to use mixed together. As the season when frost and snow may be expected approaches it is necessary to provide in time for the flock having clean unfrozen turnips to eat in the hardest weather. To secure this, care must be taken to have always several weeks supply put together in heaps and covered with earth to a sufficient thickness to exclude frost. The covering with earth is the only extra cost incurred from using this precaution, for if slicing the roots is practised at all, it necessarily implies that the roots must be pulled, trimmed, and thrown together, and this again should be done in such a way as to insure that the dung and urine of the sheep shall be equally distributed over the whole field. This is secured by throwing together the produce of 18 or 20 drills into small heaps, of about a ton each, in a straight row and at equal distances apart. For a time it will suffice to cover these heaps with a few of the turnip leaves and a spadeful of earth here and there to prevent the leaves from being blown off. This arrangement necessitates the regular moving of the troughs over the whole ground. As the heaps are stript of their covering special care must be taken to scatter the tops well about, otherwise thera ​39(5 AGRICULTURE [LIVE STOCK wall be corresponding rank spots in the grain crop that follows. On light dry soils it is usually most profitable to con sume the whole turnip crop where it grows by sheep, and to convert the straw of the farm into dung by store cattle kept in suitable yards, to which a daily allowance of rape or cotton cake is given, with wholesome water con stantly at their command. But it may at times be more profitable to use young sheep instead of cattle for this purpose, and it is quite practicable to do so. In the winter of 1865-66, in consequence of the prevalence of rinder pest, we had recourse to this expedient with entire success. A lot of 200 hoggets was put into two contiguous yards, of a size which ordinarily had accommodated 15 cattle each; the hoggets were fed on hay cut into chaff, which was served to them in troughs so placed as to be protected from rain. Along with this chaff they received 2 ft> each daily of mixed cakes and grain, and a constant supply of water. A coveied passage by which the yards communicated was coated with quicklime, which was stirred up daily and added to twice a-week. Care was taken to drive the whole lot of sheep over this limed passage once every day, with liberty to them to pass and repass as much as they liked at all times. The yards were kept clean by being thinly covered over with fresh straw every day. By this means, and by an occasional paring of the hoofs when seen to be necessary, their feet were kept perfectly sound. In other respects they throve well, and the death-rate was unusually small. To clear the ground in time for the succeeding grain crop a portion of the turnip crop is usually stored on some piece of grass or fallow, where the flock is folded until the pas tures are ready to receive them. As the date of this varies exceedingly, it is well to lay in turnips for a late season, and rather to have some to spare than to be obliged to stock the pastures prematurely. If corn or cake has been given in the turnip field, it must be continued in the pasture. Hoggets that have been well managed will be ready for market as soon as they can be shorn, and may not require grass at all. They usually, however, grow very rapidly on the first flush of clovers and sown grasses, especially when aided by cake or corn. When the soil is of poor quality, it is expedient to continue the use of such extra food during summer. The best sheep are generally sent to market first, and the others as they attain to a proper degree of fatness. Store sheep or cattle are then purchased to occupy their places until the next crop of lambs is weaned. Lowland flocks are for the most part shorn in May, although many fat sheep are sent to market out of their wool at a much earlier date. Indeed railway transit has made it practicable to forward newly-shorn sheep to market so quickly that there is now little risk of their suffering from exposure to bad weather, and accordingly few fat sheep are now sent to market rough after the 1st of April. But in the case of nursing ewes and store sheep of all kinds it is highly inexpedient to deprive them of their fleeces until summer weather has fairly set in. Accordingly, the latter half of May and the first half of June are, in average seasons, the best shearing time, beginning with the hoggets and ending with the ewes. This practice of shearing a portion of the flock so early as April renders it necessary to make a change on that mode of sheep-washing so well described by the author of the Seasons. Artificial washing-pools are accordingly now pro vided by damming up some small stream of clean water. The bottom is paved and three sides faced with bricks set in cement, with a sluice to let off the foul water when necessary. The most accessible side of the pool is formed of strong planks, securely jointed, behind which the men engaged in washing the sheep stand dry, and ac complish their work much in the way that a washer woman does hers at her tub. A sloping passage at the upper end of the pool allows the sheep to walk out, one by one, as they are washed. One such pool is often made to accommodate several neighbouring farms. Section 3. Management of Mountain Sheep. We have already taken notice of the extent to which Cheviot sheep have of late years been introduced in the Highlands of Scotland. Many of the immense grazings there are rented by farmers resident in the south of Scot land, who only visit their Highland farms from time to time, and intrust the management of their flocks and shepherds, which rival in numbers those of the ancient patriarchs, to an overseer, whose duty it is to be constantly on the grounds, to attend in all respects to the interests of his employer, see his orders carried into effect, and give him stated information of how it fares with his charge. The following pertinent remarks we quote from an extensive and experienced Highland sheep-farmer : "The management of flocks in the Highlands is much the same as on high and exposed farms in the higher districts of Roxburgh- shire, Dumfriesshire, and Selkirkshire, as regards the ewe hirsels ; the ewe lambs either not being weaned, or that only for eight or ten days, so that they may continue to follow their mothers. The wether lambs are sent to the wether ground about the beginning of August, and herded on the part of it considered most adapted for their keep till about the middle of October, when they are sent to turnips mostly in Ross-shire, where they remain till the middle of March or beginning of April. This is one of the heaviest items of expense in Highland farming, amounting to fully 4s. per head ; and thus, upon a farm eqxially stocked with ewes and wethers, adds just about one-third to the rental of the farm. On the return of the wether hogs they are put to particular parts of the wether ground, at large amongst the other ages of wether stock, where they remain until drawn out when three years old at the iisual season to send to market ; with this exception, that the year follow ing (when they are dinmonts), the smallest of them, those that are not considered capable of wintering at home, say to the extent of two or three to the score, are again drawn out and sent with the hogs to turnips. "Mr Sellar, in his Report of the County of Sutherland, gives a very minute and detailed account of the mode of management as practised on his farms. This, however, does not apply to extensive West Highland farms, which have no arable farms attached, no fields to bring in the diseased or falling-off part of the stock to, nor Is it ever practicable to shift any part of the stock to different parts of the farm from that on which they have been reared." Slieep Farming on the hills drained ly the Tweed. Until quite a recent date the grassy hills enclosing the upper valley of the Tweed and its numerous tributaries were stocked almost entirely with Cheviot sheep, and the highest and most heathery portions of the Lammermuir hills with the blackfaced breed. Since about the year 1850, under the stimulus of a growing demand and rapidly advancing price for cross-bred lambs, a great change of practice has been going steadily on. Formerly, on such hill-country farms, cultivation of the soil was restricted to a very small scale indeed, but latterly it has been extending up the valleys and hill-sides at a rapid rate. Large areas of rough natural pasture are yearly being converted into fields, which are well enclosed by substantial stone walls, and by draining, liming, and the liberal application of portable manures, are made to produce luxuriant crops of turnips, oats, and the cultivated clovers and grasses. As this pro cess of reclamation goes on, half-bred sheep (Leicester- Cheviots) are substituted for pure Cheviots, the lambs of this cross breed being at weaning-time worth from 10s. to 15s. more per head than Cheviots, their fleeces heavier by 2 Ib each as well as more valuable per Ib, and the draft ewes also more valuable in about the same proportion as the lambs. These half-bred sheep must be kept almost exclusively on the reclaimed lands, which, however, will keep about double the number of this more valuable breed of ​SHEEP.] AGRICULTURE 39 sheep than they did of the less valuable when in their natural unreclaimed state. When the lowest-lying and kind liest soils of such farms have thus been improved and devoted to the keeping of half-bred sheep, the higher and poorer parts are often unfit for keeping Cheviot sheep, and are stocked with the hardier blackfaced breed. Cheviots are in consequence rather at a discount at present as com pared with a period still recent. The general management of these hill-country half-bred flocks does not differ materially from those of the plains. They require generous feeding, and being prolific and good nurses, they pay well for it. The oats grown on such farms are disposed of most profitably when consumed by the flock. We begin our description of the management of strictly hill flocks with autumn, and assume that the yearly cast of lambs and aged ewes has been disposed of, and only as many of the ewe lambs retained as are required to keep up the breeding stock. A former practice was to keep these ewe lambs or hoggets by themselves on the best portions of the respective walks, or rakes as they are called on the Borders. Now, however, they are kept apart from their dams only as long (eight or ten days) as suffices to let the milk dry up ; whereupon they are returned to the flock or hirsel to which they belong, and at once associate again each with its own dam. The hoggets, under the guidance of the ewes, are thus led about over the ground, according to varying seasons, and under the promptings of an instinct which far surpasses the skill and care of the best shepherd. The latter, indeed, restricts his interference chiefly to keep ing his flock upon their own beat, and allows them to dis tribute themselves over it according to their own choice. When thus left to themselves each little squad usually selects its own ground, and may be found, the same individuals about the same neighbourhood day after day. This plan of grazing the hoggets and ewes together has been attended with the best results. There are far fewer deaths among the former than when kept separate, and being from the first used to the pasturage and acquainted with the ground, they get inured to its peculiarities, and grow up a healthy and shifty stock, more easily managed and better able to cope with trying seasons than if nursed elsewhere, and brought on to the ground at a more advanced age. Each hogget and its dam may be seen in couples all through the winter and spring, and with the return of summer it is a pretty sight to see these family groups grown into triplets by the addition to each of a little lamb. As the autumn advances, the flockmaster makes his preparations for smearing or bathing. The smearing material is a salve composed of tar and butter, which is prepared in the following manner : Six gallons of Arch angel tar and 50 Ib of grease-butter are thoroughly incor porated, and as much milk added as makes the salve work freely. This quantity suffices for 100 sheep. This salve destroys vermin, and by matting the fleece is supposed to add to the comfort and healthiness of the sheep. It adds considerably to the weight of the fleece, but imparts to it an irremediable stain, which detracts seriously from its value per t>. A white salve introduced by Mr Ballantyne of Holylee is now in repute on the borders. It is prepared as follows : 30 Ib butter, 14 S) rough turpentine, and 3 ft) soft soap are melted and mingled in a large pot; 2 R) soda and | Ib arsenic are then dissolved in a gallon of boiling water, and this, along with 12 gallons more of cold water, is intimately mixed with the other ingredients, and yields enough for dressing 100 sheep at the rate of a quart to each. Some persons, believing the arsenic an unsafe application, substitute for it half-a-gallon of tobacco juice. Instead of the rough turpentine, some also use half-a-gill of spirit of tar for each sheep; this ingredient being mixed in each quart-potful at the time of application. In applying these salves, the sheep are brought to the homestead in daily detachments, according to the number of men employed, each man getting over about sixty in a day. A sheep being caught and laid upon a stool, the wool is parted in lines running from head to tail, and the tar salve spread upon the skin by taking a little upon the fingers and drawing them along. In using the white salve each shepherd has a boy assistant who pours the liquid salve from a tin pot with a spout, while he holds the wool apart. This white salve destroys vermin, and is believed to nourish the wool and to promote its growth. Of late years the practice of dipping has largely been substituted for salving or pouring. It is practised as already described in the case of low-country flocks, save only that with large flocks it is expedient to have it performed at some central and other wise convenient part of the grounds. Instead of a movable tub and dripping board of wood, it is better to have a fixed one built of concrete, or bricks set in cement, with a paved dripping pen large enough to hold 50 sheep in each of its two divisions. The other requisites are a boiler to supply hot water for dissolving the dipping stuff, a pipe to convey cold water to the bath, and a waste pipe to empty it for cleansing. This salving or dipping must all be accomplished before the 20th November, about which time the rams are admitted to the flock. Before this is done another pre liminary is required. As the ewe hoggets graze with the flock, it is necessary to guard them from receiving the male, for which purpose a piece of cloth is sewed firmly over their tails, and remains until the rams are withdrawn. This is called breeding them. On open hilly grounds about forty ewes are sufficient for each ram. To insure the vigour and good quality of the flock, it is necessary to have a frequent change of blood. To secure this by purchasing the whole rams required would be very costly, and therefore each flockmaster endeavours to rear a home supply. For this purpose he purchases every autumn, often at a high price, one or two choice rams from some flock of known ex cellence, and to these he puts a lot of his best ewes, care fully selected from his whole flock. These are kept in an enclosed field until the rutting season is over, and after receiving a distinctive mark are then returned to their respective hirsels. From the progeny of these selected ewes a sufficient number of the best male lambs is reserved to keep up the breeding stock of the farm. The rams are withdrawn from the flock about 1st January, and are then kept in an enclosed field, where they receive a daily feed of turnips. Except in heavy falls of snow and intense frosts, the flocks subsist during the entire season on the natural produce of their pastures. It is necessary, however, to be provided for such emergencies both as regards food and shelter. For this purpose each shepherd has at suitable parts of his beat several stells or artificial shelters, such as are described at p. 402, and beside each of them a stack of hay from which to fodder the flock when required. So long as the sheep can get at heather or rushes by scraping away the snow with their feet they will not touch the hay, but when the whole surface gets buried and bound up, they are fain to take to it. The hay is laid out in handfuls over the snow, twice a day, if need be. The hay should, however, be administered with caution, and never to a greater extent than is absolutely necessary. Whenever there is a lull in the storm, the shepherd should use his utmost endeavour to move the flock out from their shelter to the nearest piece of rough heather or ground from which the wind has drifted off the snow, and where the sheep can by scraping with their feet get at their natural food. This should be done not merely to economise hay, but because ​398 AGRICULTURE [LIVE STOCK- it is found that sheep invariably come through the hard ships of winter in better condition when thus encouraged to shift as much as possible for themselves, than when fed to the full on hay, and allowed to keep to their shelter all the day. Much vigilance, promptitude, and courage, are required on the part of shepherds in these wild and stormy districts in getting their flocks into places of safety on the breaking out of sudden snow-storms, and tending them skilfully there. In spring advantage is taken of any dry weather that occurs to set fire to the roughest portions of the old heather and other coarse herbage, and this being thus cleared off, a fresh young growth comes up, which yields a sweeter pasture to the flocks for several succeeding years. Careful shepherds are at pains to manage the muir-burning so as to remove the dry effete herbage in long narrow strips, and thus to secure a regular intermixture of old and young heath. The lambing season is one of much anxiety to the master ; and to his shepherds and their faithful sagacious dogs it is one of incessant toil. They must be a-foot from " dawn till dewy eve," visiting every part of their wide range several times a-day, to see that all is right, and to give assistance when required. The ewes of these hardy mountain breeds seldom require man s assistance in the act of parturition, but still cross presentations and difficult cases occur even with them. Deaths occur also among the newly-dropt lambs, in which case the dam is taken to the nearest stell, and a twin-lamb (of which there are usually enough to serve this purpose) put in the dead one s place. The dead lamb s skin is stript off, and wrapt about the living one, which is then shut up beside the dam in a small crib or parik, by which means she is usually induced in a few hours (and always the sooner the more milk she has) to adopt the supposititious lamb. As the lambing season draws to a close, each shepherd collects the unlambed ewes of his flock into an inclosure near his cottage, and examines them one by one to ascertain which are pregnant. To the barren ones he affixes a particular mark, and at once turns them again to the hill, but the others are retained close at hand until they lamb, by which means he can attend to them closely with comparatively little labour. The lambs are castrated and docked at from 10 to 20 days old. For this and for all sorting and drafting purposes an ample fold and suit of pens, formed of stout post and rail, are provided on some dry knoll con venient for each main division of the flock. To this the flock is gently gathered, and penned off in successive lots of 10 or 12, taking care that each lamb has its own dam with it before it is penned, and to do this with as little dogging and running as possible. The male lambs of the pure blackfaced breed, when designed to be kept as wethers, are not castrated until they are eight or ten weeks old, partly because when this is done sooner their horns have a tendency to get so crumpled as to grow into their eyes, and partly because a bold horn is thought to improve the appearance of an aged wether. On these elevated sheep-walks shearing does not take place until July. It cannot, in fact, be performed until the young wool has begun to grow or rise, and so admit of the shears working freely betwixt the skin and the old matted fleece. The sheep are previously washed by causing them to swim repeatedly across a pool with a gentle current flowing through it. They are made to plunge in from a bank raised, either naturally or artificially, several feet above the surface of the water. This sousing and swimming in pure water cleanses the fleece far more effect ually than could be supposed by persons accustomed only to the mode pursued in arable districts. Shearing takes place three or four days after washing, and in the interim much vigilance is required on the part of the shepherd to prevent the sheep from rubbing themselves under banks of moss or earth, and so undoing the washing. In the case of blackfaced flocks washing is now not unfrequently altogether dispensed with, because the greater weight of unwashed wool more than counterbalances the difference in price betwixt washed and unwashed fleeces. Each man usually shears about 60 sheep a-day. It is neither practicable nor expedient to shear these mountain sheep so closely as the fat denizens of lowland pastures. For this operation each shearer is provided with a low-legged sparred stool, having a seat at one end, or with a bench built of green turf. These are arranged in a row close in front of a pen, in which the unshorn sheep are placed. The shearers being seated, each astride his stool or bench, with their backs to the pen, a man in it catches and hands over a sheep to each of them. The sheep is first laid on its back upon the stool, and the wool shorn from the under parts, after which its legs are bound together with a soft woollen cord, and the fleece removed, first from the one side and then from the other, by a succession of cuts running from head to tail. The fleeces are thrown upon a cloth and immediately carried to the wool-room, where, after being freed from clots, they are neatly wrapped up and stored away. Before the shorn sheep are released each receives a mark or buist by dipping the owner s cypher in melted pitch, and stamping it upon the skin of the animal. To discriminate different ages and hirsels, these marks vary in themselves or are affixed to different parts of the sheep. Once or twice a year all stray sheep found upon the farms of a well-defined district are brought to a fixed rendezvous, where their marks are examined by the assembled shep herds, and each is restored to its proper owner. Weaning takes place in August or early in September. A sufficient number of the best ewe lambs of the pure breeds are selected for maintaining the flock, and are treated in the way already noticed. With this exception, the whole of the lambs are sold either to low-country graziers or as fat lambs to the butcher. The wether lambs usually go to the former, and the ewe lambs of the cross betwixt blackfaced ewes and Leicester rams to the latter. These ewes being excellent nurses, make their lambs very fat in favourable seasons, in which case they are worth more to kill as lambs than to rear. Immediately after the weaning, the ewes which have attained mature age are disposed of, generally to low-country graziers, who keep them for another year, and fatten lamb and dam. To facilitate the culling out of these full-aged ewes, each successive crop of ewe lambs receives a distinctive ear mark, by which all of any one age in the flock can be at once recognised. Section 4. Wool. Wool is such an important part of the produce ol our flocks that it seems proper to offer a few remarks upon it before leaving this subject, although it will fall to be considered under its proper heading. We here insert with much pleasure the following communication received from the late John Barff, Esq., of Wakefield : " I willingly give you a reply to your various inquiries regarding wool, as far as 1 am able. As to the kinds grown in the various counties of the United Kingdom, this I cannot fully answer, as there are some counties wools which have not come much under my inspection ; but generally I may remark that wherever the turnip can be cultivated and has been introduced, the Leicester, Lincoln shire, Cotswold, and the half-breds from Down and Cheviot, are to be found ; and in the same counties, in several instances, you have several kinds, if we except Lincolnshire and Leicestershire, which have entirely the long-wool sheep. The great bulk also of York, Warwick, Oxford, Cambridge, Gloucester, Northampton, and Nottingham shires, have this description of sheep, but they ​GOATS.] AGRICULTURE 399 have also Downs and half-breds. Kent has its own sheep, called Rents ; the wool being much finer than the real long-wool sheep, running in quality and weight of fleece between the latter and the Down, something like your half-breds from Cheviot ewes by Leicester rams. They have somewhat of a similar sheep in Devon, Cornwall, Hereford, and Shropshire, but the quality in the two former counties scarcely so fine as the two latter, or the Kent wools. Norfolk has the original Down and the half-bred ; Surrey, Suffolk, Essex, Sussex, and Hampshire are nearly all Down wools, though in these counties, upon some of their best lands, where they can cultivate the turnip, the half-bred are being introduced ; and I need scarcely say to you, the Leicester sheep, as well as half-breds and Cheviots, are to be found in Durham, Northumberland, Berwickshire, Roxburghshire, Lothians, and other parts of Scotland where the turnip is cultivated ; and in those parts where it is not, and on the hills, the Cheviot and blackfaced prevail. The black- faced are used for low padding cloths, carpets, and horse-rugs. The Down wools were formerly all used for cloths and flannels ; but now, from the improvement in worsted machinery, one-third is used for worsted yarns and goods ; and as the portion suitable for comb ing purposes is more valuable for this purpose than for cloths or flannels, the grower aims at getting it as deep-stapled as possible ; and this has led to a great increase in the weight of the fleece, but at the same time a deterioration in the quality. The Leicester, Lincolnshire, and half-bred, and Cotswolds, as well as the Kents and Devons, are entirely used for worsted yarns and goods ; and a very small portion of the wools imported come in competition with them. The nearest approach is a little imported from Holland and Denmark ; but they partake more of your cross from a blackfaced ewe by a Leicester ram. The Irish wools are either the long- woolled sheep similar to the Leicester, the mountain sheep similar to your Cheviot, or the small Welsh sheep. The Irish wools are generally open-haired, and have not the richness of the Leicester or our English, and are not so much esteemed or valuable as English wool of apparently the same quality by d. to Id. per lb. Richness of handle is now very desirable, as there is a demand for what are called glossy yarns, which wools fed on pasture or good new seeds only can produce, and which cannot be obtained from the wools grown on chalk or hard lands, such as our midland counties viz., Oxford, Bedford, and Northampton generally produce. In every fleece of wool there are two or three qualities not more than two or three in the blackfaced, four or five in the long- woolled sheep, five or six in the half-bred, and seven or eight in a Down fleece ; and I may say every fleece undergoes this sorting or separation before being put into any process of manufacture. Of course the more there is of the best quality in any fleece the more desirable and valuable the fleece is ; in blackfaced, to be free from dead hair or kemps ; and we find in all the other wools that the more close the staple and purly the wool, the more it yields of the finer qualities, whilst the open-haired makes more of the lower quality. The breeder should therefore, in selecting his tups with a view to good wool, choose them with a close purly staple. A great deal of the excellence, however, of wool depends upon the nature of the soil on which the sheep are fed. Upon the chalk and sandy hard lands we always find the worst qualities of wool of its kind, whilst the best comes from the rich good lands, where there is plenty of old grass or seeds. Thus the wools of Roxburghshire, as a general rule, are better than Berwickshire or Lothian ; Leicester, Lincoln shire, Nottingham, and Warwickshire, superior to Oxford, Cam bridge, Bedford, or Northampton ; and in Downs, Sussex and Surrey, better than Essex and Norfolk, from their downs being more grassy and the land better. The principal quality required in wool is a rich soft handle, as such is always found to improve in every pro cess it is put through in the various stages of its manufacture, whilst tho wools grown on chalk or hard lands, and which have a hard bristly handle, get coarser as they progress in the manufacture. "With regard to the salves or baths used for destroying vermin, we do not know what kinds are used in the different localities, but of those used with you we dislike the spirit of tar and tobacco. Wilson of Coldstream s dip appears to answer, and one called Ballantyne s, used in Selkirkshire ; but in all these a great deal depends upon their being properly attended to, and being put on at the proper season. If put on in the autumn, we don t perceive that they have been used, and whenever we have to make a complaint on this head, we find it arises from the baths having been used in spring." CHAPTER XVIII. LIVE STOCK GOATS, &C. Section 1. Goats. Goats never occupied an important place among the domesticated animals of the British Islands, and, with the exception of Ireland, their numbers have been constantly diminishing. By the statistical returns it appears that in 1871 there were 232,892 goats in Ireland, which in 1872 had increased to 242,310. The value of goat s milk, as a source of household economy, is much greater than is usually supposed. This is so well shown by Cuthbert W. Johnston, Esq., in an article in the Farmers Magazine, that we shall quote from it at some length. " The comfort derived by the inmates of a cottage from a regular supply of new milk need hardly be dwelt upon. Every cottager s wife over her tea, every poor parent of a family of children fed almost entirely on a vegetable diet, will agree with me that it is above all things desirable to be able to have new milk as a varia tion to their daily food of bread and garden vegetables. Tho inhabitant of towns and of suburban districts, we all know, is at the mercy of the milk dealer ; the milk he procures is rarely of the best quality, and under the most favourable circumstances he receives it with suspicion, and his family consume it with sundry misgivings as to its wholesomeness. "Having personally experienced these difficulties, and having about three years since commenced the attempt to supply my family with goat s milk, and as our experience is cheering, I desire in this paper to advocate the claims of the milch goat to the attention of the cottager, and the other dwellers in the suburban and rural districts. " Few persons are perhaps aware of the gentleness and playful ness of the female goat how very cleanly are its habits, how readily it accommodates itself to any situation in which it is placed Confined in an outhouse, turned on to a common or into a yard, tethered on a grass plat, it seems equally content. I have found il readily accommodate itself to the tethering system, fastened by a leathern collar, rope, and iron swivel, secured by a staple to a heavy log of wood. The log is the best (and this with a smooth even surface at the bottom), because it can be readily moved about from one part of the grass plat to another. The goat, too, uses the log as a resting-place in damp weather. The goat should be fur nished with a dry sleeping-place, and this, in case of its inhabiting open yards, can be readily furnished ; anything that will serve for a dry dog-kennel will be comfortable enough for a goat. "The milk of the goat is only distinguishable from that of the cow by its superior richness, approaching, in fact, the thin cream of cow s milk in quality. . The cream of goat s milk, it is true, separates from the milk with great tardiness, and never so com pletely as in the case of cow s milk. This, however, is of little consequence, since the superior richness of goat s milk renders the use of its cream almost needless. The comparative analysis of milk of the cow and goat will show my readers how much richer the latter is than that of the former ; 100 parts of each, according to M. Regnault, gave on an average Cow. Goat. Water 847 82 6 Butter 4 4 5 Sugar of milk and soluble salts 5 4 5 Caseine (cheese), albumen, and insoluble salts, 3 6 9 - So that, while the milk of the cow yields 12 6 per cent, of solid matters, that of the goat produces 17 per cent., goat s. milk yield ing rather more butter, rather less sugar of milk, but considerably more caseine (cheese) than that of the cow. " It must not be supposed that the taste of the milk of the goat differs in any degree from that of the cow ; it is, if anything, sweeter, but it is quite devoid of any taste which might very reasonably be supposed to be derivable from the high-flavoured shrubs and herbs upon which the animal delights to browse. "The amount of the milk yielded by the goat varies from two quarts to one quart per day ; it is greatest soon after kidding time, and this gradually decreases to about a pint per day, a quantity which will continue for twelve months. This is not a large supply, it is true ; but still it is one which is available for many very useful purposes ; and be it remembered that when mixed with more than its own bulk of lukewarm water, it is then in every respect superior to the milk supplied by the London dairymen. " In regard to the best variety of goat to be kept, I would recom mend the smooth-haired kind, which are quite devoid of beards or long hair. In this opinion I am confirmed by an experienced correspondent, Mr W. H. Place of Hound House, near Guildford, who remarked, in a recent obliging communication I found that the short-haired goats with very little beards were the best milkers ; but from these I seldom had more than four pints a-day at the best (I should say three pints were the average), and this quantity decreases as the time for kidding approaches (the goat carries her young 21 to 22 weeks). They should not be fed too well near the time of kidding, or you will lose the kids. In winter I gave them hay, together with mangel-wurzel, globe and Swedish turnips, carrots, and sometimes a few oats, and these kept up their milk as well as anything, but of course it was most abundant when ​400 AGRICULTURE [LIVE STOCK- Ihey could get fresh grass. The milk I always found excellent, but I never had a sufficient quantity to induce me to attempt mak ing butter except once, as an experiment : my cook then made a little, which was easily done in a little box-churn ; the butter proved very good. I found the flesh of the kids very tender and delicate. " I can add little to Mr Place s information as to their food ; mine have generally fed out of the same rack as a Shetland pony, with whom they are on excellent terms. The pony throughout the summer is soiled with cut grass, and I notice that the goats pick out the sorrel, sow thistle, and all those weeds which the pony rejects. "In the garden (if they are, by any chance, allowed to browse), I notice that they select the rose-trees, common laurels, arbutus, laurestinas, and the laburnum. Of culinary vegetables they prefer cabbages and lettuces ; they also bite pieces out of the tubers of the potato. They carefully pick up the leaves, whether green or autumnal, of timber trees ; of these they prefer those of the oak and elm, and delight in acorns and oak-apples. We are accustomed to collect and store the acorns for them against winter ; spreading the acorns thinly on a dry floor, to avoid the mouldiness which follows the sweating of acorns laid in a heap. As I have before remarked, none of these astringent substances affect the taste of their milk ; and I may here observe that, with ordinary gentleness, there is no more difficulty, if so much, in milking a goat than a cow. "The he-goat engenders at a year old. The she-goat can produce when seven months old. She generally yeans two kids. The manure of the goat is perhaps the most powerful of all our domestic animals. "Such are the chief facts which I have deemed likely to be useful in inducing the extended keeping of the milch goat. It is an animal that, I feel well assured, may be kept with equal ad vantage by the cottager and the dwellers in larger houses. It is useless to compare it with the cow, or to suppose that the goat can supplant it in situations where the cow can be readily kept ; but in the absence of pastures, and in places where there is too little food for cows, I feel well convinced that, with ordinary care and atten tion, and a moderate firmness in overcoming the prejudices of those unaccustomed to the goat (and unless these are found in the owner, live stock never are profitable), the value and the comfort of a milch goat are much greater than is commonly known. The waste produce of a garden is exceedingly useful in the keep of a goat. By them almost every refuse weed, all the cuttings and clearings which are wheeled into the rubbish-yard, are carefully picked over and consumed. To them the trimmings of laurels and other evergreens, pea-haulm, and cabbage stalks, &c., are all grate ful variations of their food. In winter a little sainfoin, hay, or a few oats, keeps them in excellent condition. In summer, the mowings of a small grass-plot, watered with either common or sewage water, will, with the aid of the refuse garden produce, keep a goat from the end of April until October." Section 2. Hogs. Although occupying a less prominent place in the estima tion of the farmer than the ox and sheep, the hog is never theless an animal of great value. He is easily reared, conies rapidly to maturity, is not very nice as to food, consuming offal of all kinds, and yields a larger amount of flesh in proportion to his live weight and to the food which he has consumed, than any other of our domesticated animals whose flesh is used for food. To the peasantry he is invaluable, enabling the labouring man to turn the scraps even from his scanty kitchen, and from his garden or allotment, to the best account. On such fare, aided by a little barley or pollard, he can fatten a good pig, and supply his family with wholesome animal food at the cheapest possible rate. The breeds of swine in Great Britain are numerous, and so exceed ingly blended that it is often impossible to discriminate or classify them properly. The original breeds of the country seem to be two, viz., " The old English Hog," tall, gaunt, very long in the body, with pendent ears and a thick covering of bristles. The represen tatives of this old breed are found chiefly in the western counties of England, especially in Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Cheshire, where hogs of immense size are still reared, but greatly improved as com pared with their ancestry. Their bones are smaller, their hair finer and thinner set, their skin thinner and with a pink tint, the ears still pendulous but much thinner, the carcase much thicker, and thoir propensity to fatten greatly increased. This large breed is exceedingly prolific, and the sows are excellent nurses, it being quite common for them to farrow and rear from 12 to 18 pigs at each litter. They are somewhat tardy in arriving at maturity, and do not fatten readily until that is the case. After sixteen months old they, however, lay on flesh very rapidly, grow to very great weights, and produce hams of excellent quality, with a large pro portion of lean flesh in them. The Berkshire and Hampshire hog seems originally to have been from the same stock, but by some early cross acquired the thicker carcase, prick-ears, shorter limbs, and earlier maturity of growth, by which they are characterised. The other native breed is found in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. They are very small, of a dusky brown colour, with coarse bristles along the spine, and prick-ears. They are exceed ingly hardy, and subsist on the poorest fare, being often left to range about without shelter, and support themselves as they best can on the roots of plants, shell-fish, seaweed, and dead fish cast up by the tide. The improved breeds now so abundant have been obtained by crossing these old races with foreign hogs, and chiefly with the Chinese and Neapolitan. Our modern white breeds, with prick-ears, short limbs, fine bone, delicate white flesh, and remarkable pro pensity to fatten at an early age, are indebted for these qualities to the Chinese stocks. The improved black breeds, of which the Essex may be selected as the type, and which possess the qualities just enumerated in even a greater degree, are a cross from the Neapolitan. They are characterised by their very small muzzle, fine bone, black colour, and soft skin nearly destitute of hair. They can be brought to profitable maturity at from eight to twelve months old, the white breeds at from twelve to sixteen months. Both kinds are peculiarly suitable for producing small pork to be used fresh, or for pickling. The flesh of these smaller breeds pro duces, however, excellent bacon when used in that manner, and at less cost than that of the larger breeds, for this reason, that it is only from the flesh of a hog that has reached maturity that bacon of the first quality can be produced ; and as these have reached that point at an age when the others are but ready for beginning the fattening process, it follows that the carcase of the former, in a state fit for curing, is produced at less cost than that of the latter. Sows of the Neapolitan breed and its crosses are better mothers and nurses than the Chinese. Both kinds require peculiar care to pre vent the pregnant sow from becoming hurtfully fat. Unless kept on poor and scanty fare they inevitably become useless for the purpose of breeding. The Berkshire hog combines the good quali ties of the larger and smaller breeds already referred to, so happily, that he deservedly enjoys the reputation of being as profitable a sort for the farmer as can be found. With proper treatment he arrives at maturity at about sixteen months old, yields a good weight of carcase for the food which he has consumed, and his flesh is well adapted for being used either as fresh meat, pickled pork, or bacon, according to the age at which he is slaughtered. A very profitable hog is also obtained by coupling sows of the larger breeds with males of some of the smaller races. It too frequently happens that less care is bestowed on the breeding of pigs than of the other domesticated animals. From the early age at which they begin to breed there is need for constant change of the male, to prevent the intermingling of blood too near akin. These animals, too, are exceedingly sensitive to cold, and often suffer much from the want of comfortable quarters. Whether for fattening hogs, or sows with young pigs, there is no better plan than to lodge them in a roomy house with a somewhat lofty thatched roof, the floor being carefully paved with stone or brick, and the area partitioned off into separate pens, each furnished with a cast-iron feeding-trough at the side next the dividing alley, and with adequate drainage, so that the litter in them may be always dry. The period of gestation with the sow is sixteen weeks, and as her pigs may be weaned with safety at six weeks old, she usually farrows twice in the year. In this climate it is desirable that her accouchement should never occur in the winter months. It is a common arrangement to have a pig-shed so placed that the store pigs lodged in it can have access to the cattle-courts, where they grub amongst the litter, and pick up scattered grains that have escaped the thrashing-mill, and fragments of turnips and other food dropped by the cattle. On such pickings, and the wash and offal from the farm kitchen, aided by a few raw potatoes, Swedes, or mangold, and in summer by green vetches, a moderate number of store pigs can be got into forward condition, and afterwards fattened very quickly, by putting them

​ ​402 CHAPTER XIX, IMPROVEMENT OF WASTE LANDS. Notwithstanding the great progress which agriculture has made, and the immense amount of capital, energy, and skill which for generations has been brought to bear upon the improvement of our soil, there are still large portions of the surface of our country lying in their natural state, and usually classed under the head of Waste Lands, in contradistinction to those which are under tillage, or have at some time been subjected to the plough. Of this (so called) waste land but a limited portion is absolutely unproductive. Much of it is capable of being converted into arable land, and doubtless will in course of time be so dealt with, but in the meantime this class of waste lands, and very much more that will never be tilled, is of great and steadily increasing value as sheep-walks. Even for this purpose most of it is susceptible of great im provement, and would well repay it. These lands are comprised under the following descriptions : 1st, Those hilly and mountainous parts of Great Britain which, from their steep and rugged surface and ungenial climate, are unfit for tillage ; 2d, Those which lie uncultivated owing to natural poverty of soil, its wetness, or the degree to which it is encumbered with stones ; 3d, Bogs and mosses ; 4f.k, Lands so near the sea-level as to be more or less liable to be submerged ; and 5th, Blowing sands. Section 1. Improvement of High-lying S/teej) Pastures. The lands referred to under the first of these heads are of very great extent, embracing the whole of the mountain ous parts of Scotland and Wales, and much of the high grounds in the north of England and south of Scotland. These high grounds afford pasturage for innumerable flocks of sheep of our valuable mountain breeds. The business of sheep-farming has received a great stimulus of late years trom the ever-growing demand for sheep to consume the green crops of arable districts. These upland sheep-walks are accordingly rising in value, and their improvement is becoming every day of increasing importance. The im provement of these hill grazings embraces these leading features, viz., drainage, shelter, and enclosure. Until of late years our hill flocks were peculiarly liable to the rot and other diseases arising from the presence of stagnant and Hood water upon their pastures. Many grazings that had at one time an evil reputation on this account now yield sound and healthy sheep, solely from the care with which they have been drained. To guard against the pernicious effects of flooding, the courses of brooks and runnels, which in heavy rains overflow their grassy margins, are straight ened, deepened, and widened, to such an extent as is required to carry off all flood water without allowing it to overflow. Some grounds are naturally so dry that this is all that is required to render them safe. But in general the slopes and hollows of hilly grounds abound with springs and deposits of peat, and with flats on which water stag nates after rain. On well-managed grounds such places are covered with a network of open drains or shallow ditches, about 30 inches wide afc top and half as many deep, by which superfluous water is rapidly carried off. The cutting of these drains costs from 8s. to 10s. per 100 rods (of six yards each). In pastoral districts there are labourers who are skilled in this kind of work, and to whom the laying out of the lines is frequently entrusted, as well as the exe cution of the work. On very steep places they are careful to avoid a run directly down the declivity, as a strong current of water in such circumstances gutters the bottom of the drain, and chokes those below with the debris thus produced; but with this exception the drains are always run straight down the greatest slope of the ground. [iMPKOVEMENT OP When such drains have been properly made, it is neces sary to have them statedly overhauled and kept in good order. Next in importance to drainage is good and sufficient shelter. This, in the absence of natural coppices of birch or hazel, is provided by means of clumps and belts of fir plantation. These should always be of such extent that the trees may shelter each other as well as the sheep. Trees planted in a mass always shoot up faster than in narrow strips, and restrain the snow-drift which passes through the latter. A shepherd who knows the ground well should always be consulted about the sites of such plantations. The conditions requisite are, that the soil be such as trees will grow in ; that it be so far removed from any brook, ravine, or bog, as to be accessible to the flock from all sides ; that there be rough herbage, such as heather, gorse, or rushes, near at hand, which the sheep may be able to get at in deep snow ; that it be contiguous to the sheep-walk, and placed so as to afford defence against the most prevalent winds. A less costly shelter is formed by building what are called stells, which consist of a simple dry-stone wall enclosing a circular space twenty yards or so in diameter, with an opening on one side ; or forming a cross, in one angle of which the sheep find shelter from whatever point the wind blows. A haystack is a necessary adjunct to such defences. It is a further point of importance to have such grazings surrounded with a ring fence, consisting either of dry- stone walls, turf walls with wire a-top, or a simple wire fence. This prevents trespass ; and the sheep having freedom to range, without watching, up to the boundary, more of them can be kept on the ground than when they are ever and anon turned back by the shepherd. These needful and inexpensive improvements are now generally attended to over the wide pastoral districts of the Scottish border counties. In the remote Highlands they are still much neglected. There are, however, few agricultural im provements which yield so quick and certain a return. Section 2. Reclaiming of Moor Lands. The improvement of the second class of these unre claimed lands is now much facilitated by the readiness with which portable manures can be obtained for them. Drain ing and enclosing here necessarily demand the first atten tion. In some cases the land is so encumbered with stones that careful trenching of the whole surface is the only way of getting rid of them. In the north of Scotland many thousands of acres formerly useless have been converted into valuable arable land by this means. In nearly all parts of the country there are extensive tracts of this muiry soil, producing only a scanty and coarse herbage, which are susceptible of remunerative im provement. We are happy in being able to submit to the reader the following detailed account of a successful instance of this, kindly furnished to us by George A. Grey, Esq. of Millfield Hill, Northumberland : "It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. I was told by some of my friends that I had given too high a price for this estate, and that it would be a dearer farm to me now than when I rented it from Lord Grey. To overcome this opinion or fact, I thought of several plans of making it more remunerative, and decided on that which I am now about to describe. " On the high part of the farm, at an elevation of from 400 to 500 feet above the sea, I had upwards of 100 acres, of moorland of a poor description, which had never been under the plough. This consisted of short heath, bilberry bushes, and dry white bent grass, and a soft dry deep moss, delightful as a Turkey carpet under foot, and excel lent excursive ground for old hunters, with a small portion of spratty grass and rushes in the damp hollows. The soil is of a free turnip and barley loam on the rotten whinstone. By planting on the west side, and in some places suitable for shelter, I reduced the quantity to about 100 acres. This I divided into three fields of about 33 acres each. ​WASTE LANDS.] " My great dread was the length of time which such a rough dry surface would require to decompose sufficiently to allow of cultivation, having seen heathery moors in many parts of Scotland lying for two, three, and four years before crops could he obtained, owing to the great cover of coarse vegetation preventing the furrow from lying over, and keeping the land so open and dry through summer that if a braird of corn or green crop was obtained, it would wither away in dry weather. I had heard of paring and burning, but knew nothing of the process. I, however, obtained the necessary information very much from Mr Langlands of Bewick, who had practised it to a consider able extent. With what I saw there I was so much pleased that I determined to proceed at once. " I also saw Mr Langlands s work done by a paring-plough, such as is used in the south of England, with a wide plate to cut a furrow of 10 or 12 inches in width. On the point of this is an upright piece of steel, which cuts and divides the heath, the mould-board turns the furrow over flat on its back, and from end to end of the landing the furrows lay side by side like planks from a saw-mill, and were about half an inch in thickness. I must, however, remark, as a caution to others against falling into the same error as I did, that this land had been in tillage at some former time, and was in ridges with a regular surface, so that when the plough was set, it cut the whole furrow at a uniform depth, and was drawn by two horses with ease, and at an expense of about eight shillings per acre. I got this plough, and gave it a fair trial, but from my land never having been laid smooth, it cut one part as thin as was wished, and the next yard perhaps six or twelve inches thick, which caused a great extra expense in drying, lifting, and burning, and wasted more soil than was necessary or desirable. Also my land having a great deal of small whinstone below the turf, the steel plate frequently got injured and broken. It was therefore with great reluctance laid aside, and the ordinary method of paring by hand adopted, which is slower and much more expensive, but very perfect. It saves soil and cheapens the burning operation, the paring being so thin when the heath, &c., was divided, that light could be seen through the sod, which was only held together with the roots and fibres. " I began with No. 1 field in July 1849. I let the paring and burning to a company at 25s. per acre, but they made low wages, and after getting more than their work came to, gave up the job. I then got some experienced hands to pare, and paid them the usual wages, at that time 9s. per week, and gave them their food, say 13s. per week, the work being very hard. The total cost of this averaged me 24s. 9d. per acre. A portion of the top part of No. 1 was left undone owing to the lateness of the season. This was dry benty turf. It was ploughed in the common way, and grew no oats in 1850. It was again ploughed and much harrowed and rolled, and sown with the remainder of the field in 1851 with rape, and has grown only a few plants at wide distances. It is still in such a dry undecomposed state that although it is on the high part of the field where sheep draw to lie, I do not expect that it will grow a crop of corn next year ; while a portion which was pared down the middle of it grew good corn and rape. " A portion of No. 2 field was also ploughed in the ordinary way. This was moist land, growing shorter and sweeter grass than any other. It grew a very thin irregular crop of oats in 1850, not within three-quarters per acre of the pared land, but is now (1851) bearing a good crop of oats, that field being a second time in oat crop. To return : " I had a fair crop of rape in the autumn of 1849 on a consider able portion of No. 1, where it was sown in tolerable season during all August ; after that it appeared to be too late. All was, however, ploughed up at once to secure the ashes, and was well harrowed and sown with oats in the spring of 1850. The pared land turned out to be much too thickly sown at four bushels per acre. Corn tillers so much on such land that in some parts it prevented it from coming to maturity. I have since sown much thinner, say three bushels per acre, and even in some degree I find the same fault, there being from five to eight stems from one root. My crop of 1850 turned out to be 30 bushels per acre, but it was on the point of being cut when the high wind in August devastated this district, and that lying high and fully exposed to the wind suffered most severely. I should say it was not below six quarters per acre, and the quality of the grain good. _ In June and July 1850 I pared No. 3 by the same hands who finished my work the previous year. I let the burning of it to an Irishman at 2s. 6d. per acre, binding him to burn it closely piled up in good-sized heaps like hay-cocks, to prevent the escape of the ashes in the shape of smoke into the atmosphere. " This, with the paring, cost me on 36 acres 19s. 6d. per acre. I got 20 acres of it ploughed and sown with white turnips, broadcast in July and August. I had a close nice crop, though the roots were small, which kept a large flock of sheep for several weeks. This had the good effect of treading down the land and making it plough up better for oats. " Nos. 1 and 2 were limed at the rate of 7 loads per acre. In 403 June 1851 No. 1 was sown broadcast with rape, by mixing 4 Ib. of rape seed with one bushel of oat shellings for an acre, and sowing them out of a grass-seed machine. The crop is very close and fine, and has kept twenty scores of sheep from an early day in August to this date (September 27th). " No. 2 in 1851 was again sown with oats, which proved a very fine crop, as also did No. 3. The produce was about nine quarters per acre . The oats are very thick and tall, and have very long, large heads, and the grain is plump and good ; the stalks being strong, the crop is not lodged so as to injure the yield. I estimate it at cer tainly 7i quarters per acre, but shall calculate it at 6 quarters. " I sow on that land the sandy oat, being early, not liable to lodge nor to shake in moderately high winds, although it was not proof against that of 1850. " Previously to breaking up I drained with pipes all the land which required drying, of which I shall give a statement, along with the expenses and profits of the whole. The result shows that if I had, some years ago, when prices of grain were good, done as a tenant what I have done now, I should have been amply repaid by the first or second crops, and have had my farm for the remainder of a twenty-one years lease worth fully 100 a year more than when I began. "The result of my experience is, that I neither agree with the generality of Scotsmen nor with many Southerns. The former are of opinion that burning wastes the vegetable matter, which should be kept to decompose and enrich the soil, not considering that at once the land receives a rich dressing of ashes quite equal to two quarters of bones, or 4 or 5 cwt. of the best guano ; and that, during the several years which such a slow process would require to take place, the land might be much more enriched by growing and having eaten upon it fine crops of rape and turnip, and by producing heavy corn crops, which would in a much shorter space be returned to it in the shape of manure ; and also that by the process of burn ing the land is freed from the larva; of insects, such as grubs, slugs, wireworms, &c. &c., which are engendered among the rough grass, and fostered for a length of time under the rough, dry, undecomposed turf ; to say nothing of the length of time which the speculator is kept out of a large amount of capital and interest, instead of having the former returned with the latter after the first or at most the second year. " The latter, again (the Englishmen), are too much in the habit of repeating the operation of burning, even after the land has lain in grass only for a few years, when it might as well be ploughed and cultivated without such expense, thereby unnecessarily reducing the soil, there not being the same difficulties to be overcome nor the same advantage to be gained from it. " I should certainly burn all land with a rough harsh surface, and should as certainly plough and sow all land with a sweet grassy face upon it. ! " In my opinion there are few farms in this country which do not contain certain portions of land capable of remunerative improvement, and I have shown that such improvement is quite within the scope- of a tenant with a lease, without which no man can farm well, at least in the Northumbrian system. "Would it not be better, then, for landlords, tenants, and the country generally, were tenants to employ labourers on works so speedily remunerative to themselves, rather than ran to their landlord whenever they feel the screw, and ask for abatement of rent, or to be allowed to plough out some pieco of valuable old grass, or otherwise cross crop their land, with a view of obtaining some temporary advantage, but in the end to the inevitable injury of all concerned ? (Signed) "G. A. GREY. "Millfield Hill, Dec. 1, 1851." From a statement of outlay and returns appended to the above paper it appears that the profits on the three fields were respectively 50, 12s. 5d., 84, 19s. 3d., and 39, 2s. 9d., from which, however, there falls to be deducted the expense of fencing (35), leaving a gross profit of 139, 14s. 5d. Section 3. Reclaiming of Bogs. The reclamation of extensive bogs, or deposits of peat, is a more arduous undertaking, requiring a considerable expenditure of capital and longer time before a return is obtained from it. The extent of land of this description in Great Britain and Ireland is very great. Very exagge rated statements of the profits to be derived from its improvement have often been published, and not a few persons have incurred serious loss by rashly undertaking this kind of work. On the other hand, when bogs are favourably situated with reference to a command of marl or other calcareous matter, to assist in their decomposition and consolidation, and of manure to enrich them, their ​404 AGRICULTUKE [IMPROVEMENT OF reclamation has proved a very profitable speculation. The well-known instance of Chat Moss in Lancashire affords so interesting an example of this that we shall here quote a description of it. "Chat Moss, well known as that black barren swamp between Liverpool and Manchester, contains 6000 acres, one-half of which is in the township of Barton, and the remainder in the townships of Bedford, Astley, and Worsley. " The principal part of this moss, which lies in Barton township, belongs to the Trafford family, and is entailed, but the ancestor of the present Sir Thomas de Trafford appears to have obtained, at the latter end of the last century, an Act of Parliament to grant a ninety-nine years lease of 2500 acres to a Mr Wakefield, who about the year 1805 disposed of his interest in it to the late "William Roscoe, of literary celebrity, who spent a large sum in a fruitless endeavour to improve it, failing in which, the lease was sold in 1821 to other parties. J. A. Brown, Esq., of "Woolden Hall, bought 1300 acres ; the late Edward Baines, M.P. for Leeds, purchased the remaining 1200 acres. The most extensive and successful efforts at improving this moss have been made on a part of the 1200 acres bought by Mr Baines, who, besides occupying the part operated upon by Mr Roscoe, improved a considerable breadth himself, and let several portions to other parties, who have made considerable progress in improving small portions. The most extensive opera tions, however, upon the whole, have been carried out by a company to whom Mr Baines, in 1828, granted a lease of 550 acres for 68 years, the remainder of the original term, at a nominal rent for the first year, increasing gradually till at the end of five years the rent attained its maximum of 165 per annum for the 550 acres. This company, which was formed at the time the Liverpool and Man chester Railway was in progress of being made on the property, consisted, amongst others, of some practical farmers, and originated with William Reed, who for the three first yea)-s was the manager, and resided on this farm, which they called Barton Moss farm. During that period I had the pleasure of paying my friend Reed a visit, and of witnessing the skill and success attending his enterprise and various experiments. " The first operation, that of draining, had been effected by open ing side drains at intervals of fifty yards, into which were laid covered ones six yards apart, at right angles with and emptying into the open side drains. " The moss being in a semi-fluid state, it was necessary to proceed slowly with draining, taking out only one graft or depth at a time, allowing it to remain a week or a month, according to the state of the weather, before taking out the second graft ; this admitted of the sides becoming consolidated, and of the second graft being taken out without the moss closing in. It was again allowed to remain as before till sufficiently diy to admit of the third being removed. The open drains were made 3 feet wide and 3 feet 6 inches deep, and the covered drains 16 inches wide and 3 feet deep ; the last graft of the latter being only about 6 inches wide at the top, tapering to 4 inches at the bottom, and being taken out of the middle of the cut, left a shoulder on each side. The sod or graft first taken out had by this time become tough and dry, and was placed, with the heath side downwards, in the shoulder, thus leaving the narrow spit at the bottom open for a depth of about 14 inches ; the other square sod being put on the top, completed the drain." The cost of this mode of draining, including the side drains, was about 38s. per acre. The drains first put in required to be renewed in a few years, in consequence of the moss becoming so much consolidated and reduced in height that the plough, as well as the horses feet, broke through the roof, although the horses were shod with pattens, or boards of about 10 inches square, with the angles taken off. The second draining, however, was more perma nent, and would probably not have required renewing for many years but for the moles, which have been very troublesome in working down to the drains, and filling them up in various places ; so that the operation of draining has required to be partially renewed in every field, and in many of them entirely so ; and thus these little animals have been the cause of a very considerable increase in the cost of labour. It has subsequently been found advisable to put the under drains in at 4 yards, instead of 6 yards asunder, and the advantage in one crop has been quite sufficient to pay the extra cost. A two-horse engine was erected, which drives the thrashing-machine, straw-cutter, and crushing-mill ; and the escape-steam from it steams the horses food. "The buildings were erected principally of timber, covered with asphalted felt. "After draining, making roads, and burning off the heath plant, the land was scarified lengthwise of the fields by an implement with knives shaped like coulters, reversed, sharp on the convex side, fixed in two bars, and drawn by three horses yoked abreast. " The tough surface was by this means cut at every four inches ; the land was then ploughed across the scarifying ; a roller, sur rounded with knives, was next passed across the plough ; after this the land was well harrowed till sufficiently reduced. "From 60 to 100 cubic yards of marl were put on an acre, and in the following summer the land was manured, also by means of the movable railway, at the rate of fifty tons of black Manchester manure per acre, and planted with potatoes, which were followed by wheat, sown with red clover and ryegrass, for mowing for one or two years ; then oats and potatoes, &c., as before. These weie all flourishing crops ; the wheat in particular looked bright and beautiful. The potatoes were sold for 25 and 30 per acre, which more than paid the whole cost of improvement. Mr John Bell, resident bailiff, has made many valuable experiments relative to the improvement of raw moss, one of which has resulted in a dis covery likely to be of considerable importance, which is, that a mixture of lime and salt applied a while before seeding, with the addition of a good dressing of guano, in the proportion of four tons of lime and five cwt. of salt per acre, qualifies it to produce a crop of potatoes or oats equal to that after the application of 60 yards of marl per acre. It is essential that the mixture should be spread while it is hot. Mr Evens (one of the proprietors) is con vinced that the peat on the surface ought never to be burned ; he has always found that, when the heath sod is turned down to decay, much better crops have been obtained than when it has been burnt oft", or than when the top has been taken away either for fuel or other purposes. What are termed moss-fallows, that is, parts which have had the moss taken off for fuel, will never bear so good a crop as the upper surface, however deep the moss may be underneath. " (Notes on the Agriculture of Lancashire, with Suggestions for its Improvement, by Jonathan Binns.) About a century ago, Lord Kames, on becoming pro prietor of the estate of Blair-Drummoncl, in the county of Perth, began the improvement of a large tract of worth less moss by a totally different process from that now detailed. In this case the moss had accumulated upon a good alluvial clay soil. Instead, therefore, of attempts being made to improve the moss itself, it was floated off piecemeal into the neighbouring Firth of Forth. The supply of water required for this purpose was obtained from the river Teith, from which it was raised to the requisite height by a powerful water-wheel. Being conveyed through the moss in channels, successive layers of peat were dug and thrown into these channels,which were shifted as occasion required, until the whole inert mass was removed. A. thin stratum next the clay was burnt, and the ashes used as manure. An immense extent of moss has thus been got rid of on that estate and on others in the neighbourhood, and "an extensive tract of country, where formerly only a few snipes and muir-fowl could find subsistence, has been converted, as if by magic, into a rich and fertile carse of alluvial soil, worth from 3 to 5 per acre." Section 4. Reclaiming of Fen Lands. We next notice the fen lands of England. " In popular language, the word fen designates all low wet lands, whether peat-bog, river alluvium, or salt marsh ; but in the great Bedford level, which, extending itself in Cambridge shire and five adjoining counties, is the largest tract of fen land in the kingdom, the farmer always distinguishes, and it is thought conveniently and correctly, between fen land and marsh land. By the former they mean land partly alluvial and formed by river floods, and partly accumulated by the growth of peat. Such lands are almost invariably of a black colour, and contain a great percentage of carbon. By marsh lands they mean low tracts gained from the sea, either by the gradual silting up of estuaries or by artificial embankments." Low-lying peat occurs in small patches in nearly every maritime county of Britain, being usually separated from the sea or from estuaries by salt marsh or alluvium. There is a large extent of such land in Somerset shire yet but partially drained, and a still larger breadth in Lancashire, where its improvement makes steady pro gress. In Kent, on the seaboard of Norfolk, on both shores of the Humber, and stretching along the sides of its tribu taries, there are immense tracts of this description of land. But these are all exceeded in importance by the " great level of the fens, which occupies the south-eastern quarter of Lincolnshire, the northern half of Cambridgeshire, and ​WASTE LANDS.] AGRICULTURE 405 spreads also into the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Hunting don, and Northampton. Its length is about 70 miles, its breadth from 3 or 4 to 30 or 40 miles, the whole area being upwards of 1060 square miles, or 680,000 acres. On the map the fens appear like an enlargement of the Wash, and in reality have the aspect of a sea of land, Ijing between that bay and the high lands in each of the above-named counties, which seem to form an irregular coast-line around it." This fen country has for centuries been the scene of drainage operations on a stupendous scale. The whole sur face of the great basin of the fens is lower than the sea, the level varying from four to sixteen feet below high- water mark in the German Ocean. The difficulty of drain ing this flat tract is increased from the circumstance that the ground is highest near the shore, and falls inland towards the foot of the slope. These inland and lowest grounds consist of spongy peat, which has a natural tendency to retain water. The rivers and streams which flow from the higher inlands discharge upon these level grounds, and originally found their way into the broad and shallow estuary of the Wash, obstructed in all direc tions by bars and shifting sand-banks. These upland waters being now caught at their point of entrance upon the fens, are confined within strong artificial banks, and so guided straight seaward. They are thus restrained from flooding the low grounds, and by their concentration and momentum assist in scouring out the silt from the narrow channel to which they are confined. The tidal waters are at the same time fenced out by sea-banks, which are pro vided at proper intervals with sluice doors, by which the waters escape at ebb-tide. To show the extent of these operations, it may be mentioned that the whole sea-coast of Lincolnshire and part cf Norfolk, a line of at least 1 30 miles, consists of marsh lands lower than the tides, and is protected by barrier banks, besides which there are hun dreds of miles of river embankments. When this does not provide such a drainage as to admit of cultivation, the water is lifted mechanically by wind or steam mills into the main aqueducts. The first use of steam-engines for the purpose of drain ing was in Deeping fen, where, in 1824-5, two, of 80 and 60 horse-power respectively, were erected. By means of these two engines upwards of 20,000 acres have now a good drainage, whereas formerly forty-four wind-mills, with an aggregate power of 400 horses, failed to keep them sufficiently dry. The scoop-wheel of the larger engine is 28 feet in diameter, and the float-boards are 5 feet wide. It was intended to have a " dip " of 5 feet, but the land has subsided so much in consequence of the draining that it seldom has a dip of more than 2 feet 9 inches. The water is lifted on an average 7 feet high. When both engines are at work they raise 300 tona weight of water per minute. The soil of the fens consists for the most part of dark- coloured peat, from 1 to 8 or 10 feet in depth. The surface in general is not pure peat, but is mixed with silt or other soil. Under this there is in general a stratum of brown spongy peat, which sometimes rests upon gravel, but for the most part upon clay, which usually contains a portion of calcareous matter. The removal of the water has of course been the primary improvement ; but subsidiary to this the rapid amelioration and great fertility of the fen lands are largely due to this fortunate conjunction of clay and peat. The early practice ot the fen farmers was to pare and burn the surface, grow repeated crops of rape, oats, wheat, etc., and burn again. The subsidence of the soil subsequent to the draining and repeated paring and burning, brought the surface nearer to the subjacentclay, which the cultivators by and by began to dig up and spread over the surface. This practice is now universal, and its continued use, together with careful cultivation and liberal manuring, has changed a not very productive peat into one of the most fertile soils in the kingdom. Nowhere in our country has the industry and skill of man effected greater changes than in the fens. What was once a dismal morass, presenting to the view in summer a wilderness of reeds, sedges, and pools of water, among which the cattle waded, and in winter almost an unbroken expanse of water, is now a fertile corn land. The fen men, who formerly lived upon the adjacent high lands, and occupied themselves with fishing, fowling, and attending to their cattle, have now erected homesteads upon the fen lands, divided them by thorn hedges, and brought them into the highest state of cultivation. We referred at the outset to the distinction betwixt fen land and marsh land. The following pertinent observa tions on the reclamation of marsh land are extracted from Mr David Stevenson s paper in the Highland and Agricul tural Society s Transactions, vol. iii., 1871. First, In order to insure success, the space to be reclaimed must be within the influence of water containing much alluvial matter, and not on the shores of an open sandy estuary. Secondly, The spaces to be reclaimed should be allowed to receive the deposit left by the tide for as long a period as possible, and no attempt should be made entirely to exclude the water from them, until they have by gradual accretion attained the level of at least ordinary spring tides. The first case to which I shall refer is Loch Foyle, a situation where the amount of salt water greatly preponderates over the fresh. Extensive reclamations have been made there, and I have received from Mr G. Henry Wiggins, of Londonderry, some notes regarding them, from which I extract the following interesting information: "After the salt water had been excluded, shallow surface drains were made with spades or forks, and in about two years ryegrass grew pretty freely : exceptional spots remained barren for some time. The grass was followed by oats, which improved as the salt left the soil. Deeper draining allowed the cultivation of flax and clover ; afterwards, on deeper draining, all ordinary crops began to grow well wheat, beans, turnips, mangold, and carrots but all requirin" fully as much manure as any old upper land. These sloblands? says Mr "Wiggins, yield a great return for manure, but must have manure on the lower and damper portions. Feorin grass grows well without manure. "Whenever the ditches have so far drained the soil as to allow of its becoming cracked and open to the air, the crops begin to increase in produce, but the full value of the soil is never known until thoroughly under-drained with tile or stone ; it then mostly yields excellent crops of almost any produce, clover and ryegrass for hay being perhaps the most profitable. Grazing the land does not answer, _except from the beginning of May to the end of September; after this the soil is too cold and damp for the beasts to lie down, and they begin to fail." The expense of these intakes on the Foyle may be taken at about 20 an acre to get them from the sea ; the expense of bring ing the land when got into cultivation will come to at least 10 more ; making a total of 30 per acre. The best lands are worth 50s. to 40s. the Cunningham or Scotch acre, and the lowest and wettest parts perhaps not more than 10s. say 80s. round as a fair average. To this has to be added the expense of keeping up the banks and pumping water ; so that I believe Mr Wiggins is right when he says that no great profit can be expected, and that tliese matters are generally undertaken by hopeful and energetic enthu siasts, who seldom realise their expectations, and afterwards fall into the hands of other parties, who are perhaps rather more successful. The reclamations made by the Diversion and Lancaster Railway in Morecambe Bay were rapidly formed by the embankment for carrying the railway, which was made in pretty deep water. Like the Foyle, there is also predominance of sea- water. Mr G. Drewry, of Holker in Lancashire, has favoured me with the following informa tion : "A portion of the land enclosed by the railway in 1856 was grassed over, and the remainder was sand without any vegetation on it. After it was levelled it was divided into fields by open ditches and wire fences ; the ditches had to be made very wide at the top, in order to get them to stand. The land was then drained with 3-inch pipes, each drain opening into the ditch at each side of the field. The tiles were all covered round with peat moss, to act as a filter to prevent the sand from running into them. The sand is so fine that without this precaution the drains would have filled up very quickly. The drainage is the great difficulty, as they are very apt to fill up after every precaution has been taken. "On the portion which was grassed over, two crops of oats were first taken, and then it was green-cropped. It grew for a few years ​40G AGRICULTURE [WASTE LANDS. good crops of wheat, beans, and clover, as well as Swedish turnips and mangolds ; but though a great quantity of manure was used, the crops fell off, and at present it is nearly all in grass. Tho portion which was bare sand was treated in the same way, except as to the first two crops of oats. It was green-cropped after it had been enclosed about two years. After the railway was made there was no means of silting the land. The tide was entirely kept out ; had it been admitted, this land would have been much more valu able and much higher we would then have had a better drainage and a richer sand. That portion which was grassed over at the time it was enclosed is still much the best. " When laud is reclaimed from the sea, the first thing to be looked to is a good outfall for the water, and, when it is possible, no doubt it is very desirable that the land should be silted up gradually. In our case this could not be done, as the reclamation of the land was a very secondary affair." In the district called Marshland, in Norfolk, extending between the Ouse and the Nen; in that called South Holland, in Lincolnshire, stretching between the Nen and the Welland ; northward of Spalding, and also north-east of Boston, there is a considerable tract of marine clay soil. In Marshland this is chiefly arable land, producing large crops of wheat and beans ; but in Lincolnshire it forms exceedingly fine grazing land. This tract lies within the old Roman embankment by which the district was first defended from the ocean. Outside this barrier are the proper marsh lands, which have been reclaimed in portions at successive periods, and are still intersected in all direc tions by ranges of banks. The extraordinary feature of this tract is, that the surface outside the Roman bank is 3 or 4 feet higher than that in the inside, and the level of each new enclosure is more elevated than the pre vious one. The land rises step by step as the coast is approached, so that the most recently reclaimed land is often 12 or even 18 feet higher than the lowest fen land in the interior, the drainage from which must nevertheless be conveyed through these more elevated marshes to the sea. Lands such as some of those which we have just been describing are often greatly improved, or rather may be said to be made, by means of a peculiar mode of irrigation called " warping." It is practicable only in the case of land lying below the level of high tide in muddy rivers. It is little more than a century since it was first practised in England, the first instance of it being near Howden, on the banks of the Humber. But although the practice is comparatively new in Britain, it has long been in use on the continent of Europe, particularly in Italy, and is thus described by Mr Cadell : " In the Val de Chiana, fields that are too low are raised and fertilised by the process called colmata, which is done in the following manner : The field is surrounded by an embankment to confine the water. The dike of the rivulet is broken down so as to admit the muddy water of the high floods. The Chiana itself is too powerful a body of water to be used for this purpose ; it is only the streams that flow into the Chiana that are thus used. This water is allowed to settle and deposit its mud upon the field. The water is then let off into the river at the lower end of the .field by a discharg ing course called scolo, and in French canal d ecoulement. The water-course which conducts the water from a river, either to a field for irrigation or to a mill, is called yora. In this manner a field will be raised 5J and sometimes 1 feet in ten years. If the dike is broken down to the bottom, the field may be raised to the same height in seven years; but then in this case gravel is also carried in along with the mud. In a field of 25 acres, which had been six years under the process of colmata, in which the dike was broken down to within 3 feet of the bottom, the process was seen to be so far advanced that only another year was requisite for its completion. The floods in this instance had been much charged with soil. The water which comes off cultivated land completes the process sooner than that which come off hill and woodland. Almost the whole of the Val di Chiana has been raised by the process of colmata" l Section 5. Blowing Sands. On many parts of our sea-coasts, and especially in the Hebrides, there occur extensive tracts of blowing sands, which are naturally not only sterile themselves, but a source of danger to better lands adjoining them, which in some instances have been quite ruined by the sand deposited upon them by the winds. This mischief is effectually pre vented by a process beautifully simple and useful, namely, planting the sand-banks with sea bent-grass (Arundo arenaria), the matting fibres and stems of which not only bind the sand, but clothe it with a herbage which is relished by cattle, and which, being able to resist the severest winter weather, furnishes a valuable winter forage in those bleak situations. The bent-grass can be propagated by seed, but in exposed situations it is found better to transplant it. This operation is performed betwixt October and March, as it succeeds best when the sand is moist and evaporation slow. CHAPTER XX. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. According to the method proposed at the outset, we now offer a few observations on several topics connected with our subject. Section 1. Of the Tenure of Land. The extent of land in Great Britain occupied by its owners for agricultural purposes bears a very small pro portion to the whole area. The yeoman class is still numerous in several parts of England, but must have diminished greatly from that continuous amalgamation of small estates into large ones which has formed a marked feature in our social history during the present century. This change, although to be regretted on public grounds, has had a favourable influence on the cultivation of the soil, for it almost invariably happens that a larger produce is obtained from land when it is occupied by a tenant than when it is cultivated by its proprietor. As a matter of fact, the land of the country is now, with trifling exceptions, let out to professional farmers in quantities varying from the rood-allotment of the village labourer to the square miles of the Highland grazier. Farms of all sizes are usually to be found in any district, and most important it is that this should be the case ; but the extent of farms is chiefly determined by the amount of hired labour employed upon them, and the measure of personal superintendence on the part of the tenant which the kind of husbandry pursued upon them calls for. We accordingly find that in very fertile tracts, in the vicinity of towns, and in dairy districts, they seldom exceed 200 acres ; where the ordinary alternate husbandry is practised the average ranges from 300 to 400 ; in more elevated tracts, where a portion of natural sheep-walk is occupied along with arable land, it rises to 800 or 1000; while that of the sheep grazings of our hills and mountains is limited only by the capital of the tenant. About a century ago there occurred in various parts of Great Britain a similar amalgamation of small holdings into farms of the sizes which we have now re ferred to as is at present in progress in Ireland. This enlargement of farms, with the employment of increased capital in their cultivation, insures a more rapid reclama tion of waste lands, and general progress of agriculture up to a certain point, than would otherwise take place. But as every step in advance beyond this point implies an 1 Journey in Carniola, Italy, and France, by W. A Cadell, Esq., F.R.S. ​LAND TENURE.] AGRICULTURE 407 increase of outlay in proportion to the extent, and the need for closer superintendence, it seems likely that, in future, the size of arable farms will not further increase, but may rather be expected to approximate towards that which at present obtains in suburban districts. Farms are held either by yearly tenancy or under leases for a specified number of years. The latter plan is that upon which nearly the whole lands of Scotland are let ; and it obtains also to a considerable extent in the northern counties of England, in West Norfolk, and in Lancashire. But with these and other exceptions, amounting altogether to about a tenth part, the farms of England are held by yearly tenancy, which can be terminated by either of the contracting parties giving the other six months notice to that effect. This precarious tenure has been attended by far fewer changes than a stranger might suppose, owing to the highly honourable conduct for which English pro prietors as a class have long been noted. On all the large estates it is quite common to find families occupying farms of which their ancestors have been tenants for generations, or even for centuries. The mutual esteem and confidence which usually subsist between such landlords and tenants are undoubtedly much to the credit of both, but not the less has the system, as a whole, operated unfavourably for all concerned ; for however numerous and striking the excep tions, it is yet the fact that under this system of tenancy- at-will less capital has been invested in the improvement of farms, less labour has been employed, and less enterprise displayed in their ordinary cultivation, less produce has been obtained from them by the occupiers, and less rent has been rsceived for them by the owners, than in the case of similar lands let on leases for a term of years. These different results ensue, not because tenants with leases are abler men or better farmers than their neighbours who are without them, but solely bcause the one system re cognises certain important principles which the other ignores. It is contrary to human nature to expect that any body of men will as freely invest their capital, whether in the shape of money, skill, or labour, in a business yielding such slow returns as agriculture, with no better guarantee that they or their families shall reap the fruits of it than the continued good- will of existing proprietors or those who any day may succeed them, as they will do with the security which a lease for a term of years affords. It does therefore seem strange that a majority of the farmers of Great Britain should be tenants-at-will, and still more strange that they should be so of choice. It is nevertheless true that a considerable portion of the tenantry of England are even less disposed to accept of leases than their landlords are to grant them. The latter cling to the system because of the greater control which they thereby retain over their estates, and the greater political influence with which it invests them : the former do so because low rents are one of its accompaniments. Since the removal of restrictions on the importation of foreign agricultural produce, there are indications that neither landlords nor tenants are so well satisfied with this system of tenancy-at-will as they once were. Not only is the granting of leases becoming more common than it has hitherto been, but there is a growing desire on the part of tenants to obtain the benefit of that guarantee for the realising of their capital which tenant-right affords to en terprising farmers who may have unexpectedly to quit their farms. In certain districts of England this claim, called tenant-right, has been recognised so long that, apart either from written stipulation or statutory enactment, it has, by mere usage, attained to something like a legal standing. In Lincolnshire an out-going tenant can, by virt ie of this isage, claim from his landlord or successor repayment, in certain definite proportions, of the cost of such ameliora tions of a specified kind as he may have made during the last years of his occupancy, and the benefits of which his removal hinders him from realising in the natural way. Tenant-right is certainly a valuable adjunct to tenancy- at-will, but still it does not meet the real exigencies of the case. There are feelings inherent in man s nature which cause him to recoil from exertions the fruits of which are as likely to be enjoyed by a stranger as by himself or his family. This repugnance, and its paralysing influence, is not to be removed by a mere " right " to pecuniary com pensation. It is certainty of tenure so far at least as human arrangements can be certain which will really induce a farmer to throw his whole heart into his business. It is accordingly to this principle that leases owe their value, and by it also that the only weak point in them is to be accounted for. The first years of a lease are usually characterised by an energetic performance of various improvements, whereas towards its close there is usually such a withdrawing even of ordinary outlay as is unfavour able to the interests of both landlord and tenant. There is at present a very generally entertained opinion that this inconvenience would be obviated by engrafting the system of tenant-right upon that of leases. So strongly has the current of opinion been running in this direction that a bill has been submitted to the legislature for the purpose of conferring on out-going tenants a legal claim to compensation for certain specified investments which may have been made by them, but of which their removal hinders them from reaping the benefit. This bill further provided that in the event of a tenant having erected buildings for his own accommodation without the sanction of his landlord, he should have a right to remove the materials if the landlord or incoming tenant declined to purchase them. Through accidental circumstances this bill was withdrawn without being discussed, but it is certain to be re-intro duced, and sooner or later to be passed. It is now admitted on all hands that land cannot be cultivated to its full measure of productiveness without a large investment of capital, and that this outlay, when once incurred, cannot be recouped for several years at the least. It is in vain, therefore, to expect that these so much needed investments will be made until those who should make them are secured against having their property confiscated by a six months notice to quit. It seems to be generally admitted that twenty-one years is the proper duration for an agricultural lease. Such a term suffices to give confidence to the tenant in embarking his capital, and secures to the landlord his legitimate control over his property, and due participation in its varying value. It is generally felt by tenants that the lease or document in which their agreement with their landlord is engrossed might with advantage be much shortened, as well as simplified in its terms. When treating of the succession of crops we have already expressed our views regarding those restrictive clauses which usually occupy a prominent place in such writings. Such restric tions are of course introduced with the view of guarding the property of the landlord from deterioration ; but when he is so unfortunate as to meet with incompetent or dishonest tenants, they entirely fail to secure this object, and yet are a hindrance and discouragement to enterprising and con scientious tenants. It is probable that the existence of the laws of distraint in England and hypothec in .Scotland, which give to landlords a lien over the effects of their tenantry in security for the payment of the current year s rent, has had its influence in adding to the number and stringency of these clauses, and has encouraged the practice of letting lands by tender to the highest offerer. For the law in question, by rendering landlords to a considerable extent independent of the personal character and pecuniary ​408 AGRICULTURE [GENERAL circumstances of the occupiers of their land, has obviously a direct tendency to render them less cautious than they would otherwise be, and to induce them, when tempted by the promise of high rents, to trust more to this legal security than to the moral character, business habits, pro fessional skill, and pecuniary competency of candidates for their farms. Section 2. Capital required for working a Farm. The amount of capital that is required in order that the business of farming may be conducted advantageously, is largely determined by the nature of the soil, &c., of each farm, the system of management appropriate to it, the price of stock and of labour, and the terms at which its rents are payable. In the case of land of fair quality, on which the alternate husbandry is pursued, and when the rents are payable as the produce is realised, 10 per acre may be regarded as an amount of capital which will enable a tenant, to prosecute his business with advantage and com fort. In letting a farm, a landlord not only does a just and prudent thing for himself, but acts as a true friend to his proposed tenant, when he insists upon being shown that the latter is possessed of available funds to an amount adequate to its probable requirements. The importance of the topics to which we have thus referred is happily expressed by Mr Pusey, when, after enumerating various agricultural desiderata, he says, " In some degree none of us carry out all that is in our power ; but want of capital and want of confidence in the tenure of farms are, I suppose, the two principal causes of this omission." Section 3. Education of Farmers. But the mere possession of capital does not qualify a man for being a farmer, nor is there any virtue inherent in a lease to insure his success. To these must be added probity, knowledge of his business, and diligence in pro secuting it. These qualifications are the fruits of good education (in the fullest sense of that term), and are no more to be looked for without it than good crops without good husbandry. Common school instruction will, of course, form the groundwork of a farmer s education ; but to this should be added, if possible, a classical curriculum. It has been the fashion to ask, " Of what use are Greek and Latin to a farmer?" Now, apart from the benefit which it is to him, in common with other men, to know the structure of language, and to read with intelligence the literature of his profession, which more and more abounds in scientific terminology, we believe that no better discipline for the youthful mind has yet been devised than the classical course which is in use in our best public schools. Of this discipline we desire that every future farmer should have the advantage. But the great difficulty at present lies in finding appropriate occupation for such youths between their fifteenth and twentieth years. In many cases the sons of farmers are during that period put to farm labour. If they are kept statedly at it, and are made proficient in every kind of work performed on a farm, it is a good pro fessional training as far as it goes. The more common one at least as regards the sons of the larger class of farmers which consists of loitering about without any stated occupation, attending fairs and markets, and pro bably the race-course and hunting-field, is about the most absurd and pernicious that can well be imagined. Such youths are truly to be pitied, for they are neither inured to bodily labour nor afforded the benefits of a liberal educa tion. It need not surprise any one that such hapless lads often prove incompetent for the struggles of life, and have to yield their places to more vigorous men who have enjoyed the benefit of "bearing the yoke in their youth." Unless young men are kept at labour, either of mind or of body, until continuous exertion during stated hours, confinement to one place, and prompt obedience to their superiors have ceased to be irksome, there is little hope of their either prospering in business or distinguishing themselves in their profession. Owing to the altered habits of society, there is now less likelihood than ever of such young persons as we are referring to being subjected to that arduous training to bodily labour Avhich was once the universal practice ; and hence the necessity for an appropriate course of study to take its place. Many Scottish farmers en deavour to supply this want by placing their sons for several years in the chambers of an attorney, estate-agent, or land surveyor, partly in order that they may acquire a know ledge of accounts, but especially for the sake of the whole some discipline which is implied in continuous application and subjection to superiors. It is also common for such youths to be sent to Edinburgh for a winter or two to attend the class of agriculture in the University, and perhaps also that of chemistry, and the Veterinary College classes. This is well enough in its way ; but there is wanting in it an adequate guarantee that there is real study the actual performance of daily mental work. The agricultural college at Cirencester appears to come more fully up to our notion of what is needed for the professional training of farmers than any other institution which we yet possess. We shall rejoice to see such opportunities of instruction as it affords multiplied in Great Britain. After enjoying the benefits of such a course of training as we have now indicated, young men would be in circumstances to derive real advantage from a residence with some ex perienced practical farmer, or from a tour through the best- cultivated districts of the country. We are well aware that what we have now recommended will appear sufficiently absurd to the still numerous class of persons who believe that any one has wit enough to be a fanner. But those who are competent to judge in the case can well afford to smile at such ignorance. They know that agriculture is at once an art, a science, and a business ; that the researches of naturalists, chemists, geologists, and mechanicians are daily contributing to the elucidation of its principles and the guidance of its practice ; and that while its pursuits afford scope for the acutest minds, they are relished by the most cultivated. As a business it shares to the full in the effects of that vehement competition which is experienced in every other branch of industry, and has besides many risks peculiar to itself. The easy routine of the olden time is gone for ever; and without a good measure of tact, energy, and industry, no man can now obtain a livelihood by farming. It is desirable that all this should be known, as nothing has been more common than for parents who have sons too dull to be scholars or too indolent for trade, to put them to farming; or for persons who have earned a competency in some other calling to covet the (supposed) easy life of a farmer, and find it to their sorrow a harassing and ill-requited one. Section 4. Farm Labourers. The agriculture of a country must ever be largely affected by the condition and character of the peasantry by whom its labours are performed. An acute observer has shown that in England a poor style of farming and low wages that good farming and high wages, usually go together ; and that a low rate of wages is significantly associated with a high poor-rate. The worst paid and worst lodged labourers are also the most ignorant, the most prejudiced, the most reckless and insubordinate. The eminence of the agriculture of Scotland is due in large measure, to the moral worth and intelligence of her peasantry. For this she is indebted to the early establish​OBSERVATIONS.] AGRICULTURE 409 ment ot her parochial schools, and to the sterling quality ot the elementary education which the children of her tenantry and peasantry have for generations received in these schools together. These schools had unfortunately become inadequate to the increased population ; but still in the rural districts of the Scottish lowlands it is a rare thing to meet with a farm labourer who cannot both read and write. Apart from higher benefits, the facilities which the services of such, a class of labourers have afforded for the intro duction and development of improved agricultural practices, the use of intricate machinery, and the keeping of accurate accounts, cannot well be over-rated. It is an interesting testimony to the value of a sound system of national education that our Scottish peasantry should be in such request in other parts of the kingdom as bailiffs, gardeners, and overseers. Recent legislation warrants the expectation that this inestimable blessing will speedily be enjoyed by our entire population. The pernicious influence of the present law of settlement and removal upon the English labourer is now attracting the attention which it so urgently demands. The pro prietors and tenants of particular parishes in various parts of England at present combine to lessen their own share of the burden of the poor-rate by pulling down cottages and compelling their labourers to reside otit of their bounds. The folly and cruelty of such short-sighted policy cannot be too strongly reprobated. These poor people are thus driven into towns, where their families are crowded into wretched apartments, for which they must pay exorbitant rents, and where they are constantly exposed to moral and physical contamination of every sort. From these com fortless abodes the wearied and dispirited men must trudge in all weathers to the distant scene of their daily labours. One cannot conceive of a prosperous agriculture co-existing with such a system, nor feel any surprise that thieving, incendiarism, and burdensome rates should be its frequent accompaniments. It is pleasant to contrast with this close- parish policy the conduct of some of our English nobility, who are building comfortable cottages and providing good schools for the whole of the labourers upon their princely estates. About the middle of the 18th century, when the old township system began to be broken up, and the land to be enclosed and arranged into compact farms of considerable size, it happily became the practice in the south-eastern counties of Scotland, and a portion of the north of England, to provide each farm with its own homestead, set down as near its centre as possible, and with as many cottages as would accommodate all the people statedly required for the work of that farm. These cottages, always placed in con venient proximity to the homestead, are let to the tenant along with the farm as a necessary part of its equipment. The farmer hires his servants by the year at stipulated wages, each family getting the use of a cottage and small garden rent free. The farmer has thus always at hand a staff of labourers on whose services he can depend ; and they, again, being engaged for a year, are never thrown out of work at slack seasons, nor are they liable to loss of wages from bad weather or casual sickness. This arrangement has the further advantage of the men being removed from the temptations of the village alehouse. So successfully has this system worked that the counties in which it pre vails have long had, and still have, an agricultural popula tion unequalled in Great Britain for intelligence, good conduct, and general well-being. Over a very large portion of Scotland, and more especially in the counties lying betwixt the Forth and the Moray Frith, while the arrangement of farms and mode of management are substantially the same as those of the border counties, there is this marked difference, that the ploughmen as a rule live by themselves in bothies. They are for the most part unmarried men, although not a few of them have wives and children living under the most unfavourable conditions in distant towns and villages ; and so it comes to pass, under this bothy system, that about two-thirds of all the men statedly employed in farm labour are shut out from all the comforts and blessings of family life, and have become in consequence rude, reckless, and immoral. Until a quite recent date this system, because of its supposed economy, was stoutly defended both by landlords and farmers ; but its evil effects have become so manifest as to convince them at last that the system is wrong, and there is now in con sequence a general demand for more cottages on farms. The condition of the agricultural labourers in the southern counties of England has long been of a most unsatisfactory character. The discontent that had long existed among them has at last, in the summer of 1873, culminated in wide-spread combinations and strikes for higher wages and better terms. To a large extent the labourers have been able to make good their demands, although at the cost of much unhinging of old relations betwixt them and their employers, and a great deal of mutual grudging and jealousy. The thorough healing of chronic social maladies is always difficult, and usually demands the patient use of a variety of remedial measures. We venture to express the opinion that much benefit would ensue from the adoption in southern England of the essential parts of the border system, viz., cottages on each farm for all its regular labourers, yearly engagements, and a cow s keep as part of the wages of each family. l Section 5. What the Legislature should do for Agriculture. The further progress of our national agriculture is un doubtedly to be looked for from the independent exertions of those immediately engaged in it ; but important assist ance might be, and ought to be, afforded to them by the legislature, chiefly in the way of removing obstructions. What we desiderate in this respect is the repeal, or at least the important modification, of the law of distraint and hypothec ; the commutation of the burdens attaching to copyhold lands ; the reformation of the law of settlement ; the removal of the risk and costs which at present interfere with the transference of land ; the endowment of an adequate number of agricultural colleges, with suitable museums, apparatus, and illustrative farms ; and the com pulsory adoption of a uniform standard of weights and measures. We desire also to see the arterial or trunk drainage of the country undertaken by government. Until this is done, vast tracts of the most fertile land in the kingdom cannot be cultivated with safety and economy, or attain to the productiveness of which they are capable. It is the opinion of Mr Bailey Denton, the eminent draining engineer, that not more than three millions of acres of the land of Great Britain have yet been drained. Our national interests surely require that its agriculture should be freed from such obstructions as these, and that it should receive the benefit of a fair share of public provision, such as ia made for training youths for the learned professions and for the public service ; and of such grants as are given in aid of scientific research for the encouragement of the fine arts, and for the furtherance of manufactures and commerce. We cannot close this section without referring to another grievance which has long had a most depressing effect on the agriculture of particular districts of our country, and is now, we regret to say, spreading rapidly to all parts of it, 1 For confirmation and full illustration of the statements and opinions in the above section on agricultural labourers, the reader is referred to the reports of, and the evidence collected by, the " Com mission on the Employment of Children, Young Persons, and Women in Agriculture," in 1S70. I. - 5 ​410 in the excessive preservation of game. This evil has been greatly aggravated since that mode of sporting called the battue has unhappily become the fashion. For this amuse ment a very large head of game is reckoned to be indis pensable, and proprietors who engage in it are naturally enough led to vie with each other as to who shall show the greatest quantity of game, and report the heaviest bag, at their respective shooting parties. All this necessarily implies a grievous waste of farm produce, and frightful loss to farmers whose crops are exposed to the incursions of the privileged vermin. Worst of all, these hordes of game present such irresistible temptation to poaching that the rural population is demoralised by it to an alarming extent. So long as field sports were in a great measure restricted to resident landowners and their personal friends, they were, with rare exceptions, careful not to allow their tenants to be injured by game. Now, however, there are multitudes of men who, having acquired wealth in business, are eager to engage in field sports, and ready to give almost any amount of money for the privilege of doing so. These game tenants are often utterly regardless of the interests of farmers, and cause them both loss and annoyance. All this is occasioning such an amount of heart-burning and aliena tion of feeling between different classes of society as cannot fail to have disastrous consequences. A few years ago the removal of hares and rabbits from the list of animals pro tected by the game-laws would, so far at least as landlords and their tenants are concerned, have put an end to all this misery, The refusal of so moderate a concession has in all likelihood sealed the fate of these oppressive laws which have so long embittered society and disgraced our country. Section 6. Concluding Remarks. On carefully comparing the present condition of British agriculture with what it was forty years ago, the change for the better is found to be very great indeed. But on all hands there are many indications warranting the an ticipation that the progress of discovery and improvement in future will be more steady, more rapid, and more general than it has hitherto been. There is not only a more general and more earnest spirit of inquiry, but practical men, instead of despising the aids of science, seek more and more to conduct their investigations under its guidance. Experi ments are made on an ever-widening scale and upon well- concerted plans. Their results are so recorded and published that they at once become available to all, and each fresh investigator, instead of wasting his energies in re-discovering what (unknown to him) has been discovered before, now makes his start from a well-ascertained and ever-advancing frontier. Formerly the knowledge of the husbandman con sisted very much of isolated facts, and his procedure was often little better than a groping in the dark. As the rationale of his various processes is more clearly discovered/ he will be enabled to conduct them with greater economy and precision than he can do at present. A clearer know ledge of what really constitutes the food of plants, and of the various influences which affect their growth, will necessarily lead to important improvements in all that relates to the collection, preparation, and use of manures. What may truly be called a revolution in agriculture is now in the act of rapid development, in the application of steam-power to the tillage of the soil, which is spreading on every side. Enough has already been accomplished to show that, under the combined influence of drainage and steam tillage, the clay soils of England will speedily have their latent fertility brought into play in a manner that will mightily augment our supplies of home-grown bread- [PROGRESS. corn and butcher-meat. It may indeed now be reasonably anticipated that these hitherto impracticable soils will again take their place as our best corn-growing lands, and that those large portions of the country where for a long time our national agriculture presented its poorest aspect, may ere long exhibit its proudest achievements. In closing this rapid review of British Agriculture, it is gratifying and cheering to reflect that never was this great branch of national industry in a healthier condition, and never were there such solid grounds for anticipating for it a steady and rapid progress. The time has hardly yet gone by when it was much the way with oiir manufacturing and trading men, and our civic population generally, to regard our farmers as a dull, plodding sort of people, greatly inferior to themselves in intelligence and energy. Many of them seem now, however, to be awakening to the fact that their rural brethren possess a full share of those qualities which so honourably distinguish the British race. Nay, some of them may have experienced no little surprise when they became aware that in a full competition of our whole industrial products with those of other nations, as at Paris in 1855, and at similar and more recent international expositions, the one department in which Britain con fessedly outstripped all her rivals was not in any of her great staple manufactures, but in the live stock of her farms, and in her agricultural implements and machinery Plate List of Plates accompanying this Article. No. III. Plan of Covered Homestead for a small Farm, by Mr J. Cowie. IV. Ground Plan of Steading and Offices on the Home Farm of the Earl of Soutkesk. V. Shorthorn Bull and Cow. VI. Hereford Bull, and South Down Eve and Lamb. VII. Cheviot Ewe and Blackfaced Heath Sheep. VIII. Leicester Ram and Ewe. IX. Eomsey Marsh Ewe, and Sow of the Large English Breed. The following description has been supplied along with the plan given in Plate IV. : " It represents the ground plan of a steading of offices recently built on the home farm of the Earl of Southesk, planned by Charles Lyall, Esq., his lordship s factor. It contains a powerful thrashing- mill, corn-bruiser, oil-crusher, chaff-cutter, and turnip- slicer, all driven by a portable steam-engine ; and is amply supplied with water for the troughs, and is lighted by gas. It may be regarded as a .model, containing as it does all the conveniences and appliances necessary for the complete development of the stock and implement departments. It is calculated for an occupancy of 500 acres, and was built, including the steam-engine, at a cost of about 5000." This plan may very well illustrate the present state ol opinion as to whether or not cattle should be kept wholly under cover. It gives an affirmative answer to this ques tion in the case of fattening cattle ; but for breeding stock of all ages it provides accommodation in open yards. This we consider the best arrangement ; for it is impossible in the case of breeding stock to retain that fine coat of hair which so enhances the good looks and value of high-class cattle without such an amount of exposure to the weather as is afforded by open yards with covered sheds. There is one feature in this plan which we cannot but regret, viz., its bothy. It is indeed one of the best of its kind, having a separate sleeping-place for each of its inmates, and suitable arrangements for their cleanliness and com fort ; but the meanest cottage in the country, inasmuch as it admits of family life, is to be preferred to the most perfect bothy. (j. w.) ​AGEICULTUEE 411 CHAPTER XXI. LARGE AND SMALL FARMING. leases No treatise on agriculture will in these days be con sidered complete which does not take note of some of the various modes in which the treatment of the soil may be affected by variations in the cultivating occupier s form of tenure. A farm may be the property of its occupier, or be held by him at will or on lease. According to its extent it will be the subject of grande or of petite culture, expressions which in the following pages will be Anglicised as large and small culture or fanning. If a farm be of small size, and if its occupant be also its owner, peasant proprietorship comes into play. If it be let, its rent may consist of a payment of predetermined amount in money or in kind, or may, instead of a fixed portion, be a pre determined proportion of the annual produce. It may be let to one individual, singly responsible for the rent and for all imposts, fiscal or other, and exclusively entitled to the whole of the remaining net produce; or it may be held in common by any number of coparceners, all co-operating in the cultivation, and jointly and severally responsible for the rent and other dues, and all participating in the net profits. Each of these systems has its advocates, and of one of them, at least, the admirers are so much enamoured as to be unable to perceive merit in any of the rest. A judgment upon them that would be generally acceptable is therefore impossible, and need not be attempted here. Nothing more will be aimed at than such an impartial estimate of the advantages and disadvantages of each as may help an unbiassed reader to judge for himself. Tenancies I. In regard to tenancy at will and to leases, little at will and need be added to the observations made in previous chapters of this article. For the consideration, how ever, of those who insist on the undoubted fact that in Great Britain, where tenancy at will is still the rule, and leases as yet only the exception, the same families, although liable to be ousted at six months notice, are nevertheless often found occupying the same land from generation to generation, the following may be suggested as a not improbable explanation of the landlord s non- exercise of the power of eviction. It may perhaps be not so much that the farmers really confound past continuity with future permanency of tenure, as that their want of security for the future prevents their investing liberally in improvements, and thereby bringing the land into a con dition calculated to attract higher bidders for its possession. Such increase as does take place in its lettable value is chiefly due to enhancement of the prices of produce; and to a rise of rent proportionate to such enhancement the old tenants readily submit rather than be removed. The principal loser here is the landlord, whose short-sighted policy deters his tenants from a species of enterprise the benefit of which would eventually become principally his own. If the tenants took the trouble to make the com parison, they might, it is true, deliberately prefer the mere chance of a long series of years at a low rent to the cer tainty of the same low rent for a limited term, coupled with the nearly equal certainty of a rise of rent at the end of the term. Their gains in the former case, they might argue, however meagre, might at least be easily earned; whereas materially to increase them in the latter case, although perhaps possible, would be possible only at the expense of much anxiety of mind as well as of much extra sweat of the brow. II. Of grande culture, or large farming, it may perhaps be thought almost superfluous here to enumerate the recom mendations, which indeed on one condition are obvious and incontrovertible. Provided a large farmer ba possessed of Large. Carmine capital duly proportioned to the extent of his holding, and of intelligence to employ his capital judiciously, his husbandry can scarcely fail to prove abundantly satisfactory. In a territory entirely parcelled out among farmers of this de scription there would, from a purely agricultural point of view, seem little left to desire. The system certainly ap proaches towards the realisation of the great object of all agriculture that of the production of the greatest pos sible quantity and the best possible quality of raw material for the use of man. The distinguishing characteristic of large culture is the scope it affords for the appli cation to husbandry of the great principle of division of labour. A well-managed large farm is indeed a factory for the production of vegetable and animal substance. The extensive scale on which operations are there carried on necessitates the employment of several persons, to each of whom some special occupation may be assigned, and constant practice naturally increases the labourer s skill. Time, too, is saved which would otherwise be lost in turning frequently from one occupation to another; and there is also a further saving in implements, large and small, and in draught cattle, fewer of which will suffice for the tillage of a given area held entire than would be needed if the same acreage were divided amongst numerous tenants. Some, again, of the more important of agricultural operations, and notably those of drainage and irrigation, are in many situations incapable of being efficiently performed except on a large scale ; and though they may be, and often are, most efficiently performed on the very largest scale by a combination of small land holders, still every such combination must necessarily be preceded by negotiations involving indefinitely pro longed delay, with which a single individual, occupying the entire tract, could at his option dispense. And a similar remark applies to the costlier implements and machines, in the adoption of which associations of small farmers may slowly follow the example of individual large farmers, but which they would not, without such example, have themselves adopted which, indeed, unless previ ously patronised by large farmers, would never have been offered for their adoption. Probably no inventive genius, however disinterestedly ardent, would have been at the pains to devise a steam thrashing-machine or a steam plough, had there not been wealthy agriculturists, some of whom might readily be persuaded to risk, at their own cost and charges, an immediate trial of any promising invention. Farmers of limited means, even when living in the same neighbourhood, would have to be educated into faith in the novel apparatus before the inventor would get a single specimen taken off his hands. Besides, wherever large fanning prevails, large properties are its invariable concomitants ; and wherever it is the fashion for pro prietors to reside on their estates, many of them are sure to amuse themselves with fanning. Very likely, if they were to count the cost, they might find the amusement an expensive one. Not im possibly they often spend on the land as much as they get back from it, or even more, the expenditure in that case at best producing only its bare equivalent. But the same expenditure, unless so applied, would as likely as not have remained utterly unproductive, being devoted to some other amusement, or to mere parade 01 luxury, from which no tangible return whatever would be possible ; so that its application to agricultural extravagance is virtually a gain, in the sense, at all events, of preventing total loss. Nor in that sense only ; for rich men who take to fanning as a pastime are precisely those most likely to be forward in putting new inventions and new processes to the test of experiment ; while the experience thereby acquired, instead of being jealously concealed, is liberally published far and wide, so becoming the property of the whole, body of farmers by profession, and serving thorn, according to circntn ​412 stances, as a. guide to follow or a beacon to avoid. Every one interested in such matters knows how much has been done in this way by successive Dukes of Bedford and Portland and Marquesses Townshend ; by the late Earls of Leicester and Scarborough and Earl Spencer ; and by the present Earl of Ducie and Earl Grey ; nor are there many ways in which a landed aristocracy can better rebut the reproach of inutility than by thus doing honour to agriculture, and having the honour reflected tack on themselves. As already hinted, however, it is only on condition of being con ducted with adequate capital that large farming can succeed. True, with deficient capital small farming could succeed no better, per haps indeed not so well ; but then there is much more danger of the needful capital being wanting to a large farmer than a small one. Whatever, from 5 to 20, be the desirable proportion per acre, the number of persons possessing the 50 or 200 required for stocking a farm of ten acres is likely to be everywhere many times more than fifty-fold that of those possessing the 2500 or the 10,000 which a single farm of 500 acres would require. Besides, in coun tries abounding with fortunate individuals able to count their pounds sterling by the thousand, promising modes of investing such considerable sums abound proportionally; and even in a country so exceptionally rich as our own, the number of capitalists prepared to invest their thousands in farming is sadly below the number of farms which would be all the better for having the same thousands so invested. We are justified then by experience in saying, that wherever large farming is the rule, there will probably be very many farmers without adequate capital. Now, in agricul ture, inadequate capital means, among other things, insufficient live stock and insufficient manure, and, as an inevitable consequence, defective crops. It means, in short, imperfect cultivation. III. From these premises it would apparently result that small farmers will generally be more nearly pro vided with the capital required for their business than large ones; and such seems to be actually the fact where- ever peculiar circumstances have not been at work as pre ventives. It is not indeed so in Ireland, where feudal oppression or anarchy, alternating with alien misrule, has in all generations made destitution the heritage of the peasantry. Neither is it so in France, where the swarms of petty landholders had little of either precept or example to teach them that to employ their spare napoleons in thoroughly cultivating the few acres they already possess, would be a much better investment of their money than the purchase with it of an additional acre or two to be as imperfectly cultivated as the rest. In England the system of small cultivation, strictly so called, has probably ceased to exist, now that amateur farming has come so much into fashion, and that the instances have become comparatively so numerous of men of considerable substance turning to fanning for a livelihood. It will not, however, help us much, when endeavouring to ascertain the relative merits of two rival agricultural systems, to contrast good specimens of the one and bad specimens of the other. If we would accurately gauge their respective capabilities, we should take them both at their best, and the comparison here of large with small farming will accordingly be of the former as it presents itself in England, and of the latter as developed in Flanders. Now, in the territory first named the average capital of occupants of 100 acres and upwards would certainly not be understated, and would probably be materially overstated, at 6 per acre; yet M. de Laveleye, while giving 8 as the average for Flanders (where the medium size of farms is but 7 acres in the western, and no more than 5 acres in the eastern province), adds that good farmers, judging of others by themselves, would call that sum much too low even for an average; and further remarks that, although a small tenant may, on entering, have only 8 an acre, the additions he is con tinually making to his live stock, and his continually increasing purchases of manure, commonly raise the 8 to 16 before the expiration of his lease. He also informs us that in other Belgian districts in the Hesbayan portions of Brabant and Hainault, whereof one-sixth is occupied by farms of 100 acres and upwards, and in the Condrusian portion of the province of Namur, where farms of 250 and iipwards are pretty numerous a fanner s average capital is estimated at between 5, 12s. and Q, 8s., and between 3 and 4 per acre respectively. True, as already intimated, there are certain descriptions of stock on which the small farmer s expenditure must necessarily somewhat exceed his rival s ten Flemish farmers of 10 acres each being probably obliged to keep ten horses, while an Eng lish farmer of 100 acres might not perhaps have occasion for more than a pair, reducing also his number of carts, ploughs, and the like, in similar proportion. But after all reasonable deduction on this account, the balance of capital remaining for the purchase and maintenance of those animals and materials of which no farmer ever has too many or too much, is in general much greater in the Fleming s case than in the Englishman s. " It would startle the English farmer of 400 acres of arable land," said Mr Rham forty years ago, " to be told that he should constantly feed 100 head of cattle, yet this would not be too large a proportion if the Flemish system were strictly followed, a beast for every 3 acres being a common Flemish proportion, and on very small occupations, where spade husbandry is used, the pro portion being still greater. " That the occupier," he pro ceeds, "of only 10 or 12 acres of light arable soil should be able to maintain four or five cows may appear astonish ing, but the fact is notorious throughout the Vaes country. 1 These statements are of somewhat ancient date, but are still as applicable as ever. During a recent tour through Belgium, the present writer visited two farms near St Nicolas, in the Pays de Waes the first two that came in his way. On one, of 10 acres, he found four cows, two calves, one horse, and two pigs, besides rabbits and poultry. On the other, of 38 acres, one bull, six cows, two heifers, one horse, and seventy-five sheep these last, however, being allowed, in addition to what they got on their owner s ground, the ran of all the stubbles in the commune; the whole commune, on the other hand, being allowed the use of the bull gratis. A few days later the writer went over a fann a few miles from Ypres. On this, of 32 acres in extent, he counted eight cows, six bullocks, a calf eight weeks old, and four pigs. To possess plenty of live stock is to possess in an equal abundance the first requisites of sustained fertility. "No cattle, no dung; no dung, no crop," is a Flemish adage; and the wealtliiest of English agriculturists are less prodigal of manure than the Flemish peasantry. Mr Caird, in his instructive and interesting treatise on English Agriculture, cites as something extra ordinary that, for a farm six miles from Manchester, manure should have been bought at the rate of 1 2 or 1 3 tons an acre ; but this, which in England passes for lavishness, might seem more like niggardliness in Flanders; for there from 10 to 15 tons of good rotten dung and 10 hogsheads of liquid from the urine tank, per acre, are quite common sacrifices and libations to the Sterculine Saturn, and some 30s. worth of purchased fertilisers bones, wood-ashes, linseed-cake, and guano are not unfrequently superadded. Nay, when potatoes are the crop for whose increase the deity is invoked, GO tons of manure per acre are no unusual quantity to lay on. The holder of the farm of 32 acres near Ypres, just alluded to, assured the writer, in his land lord s presence, that, over and above what his own cattle supply, he purchases manure to the value of no less than 200 annually. One of the respects in which small culture has been admitted to stand at some disadvantage in comparison with large is that of division of labour ; but against whatever loss of time or even infe riority of skill may result from the necessity there is for each of the labourers engaged in the former culture to occupy himself with a variety of operations instead of confining himself to one, are to be set the additions voluntarily made to the labour employed, and also its superior heartiness. The tillage of a small farm ia executed often entirely, and always in great measure, by the farmer himself and the members of his family ; and when these have adequate security that the entire increase of the soil, over and above a specified ​SMALL FAKMING.] AGRICULTURE 413 quantity, will belong to themselves, they generally do their utmost to make the increase as large as possible. Not, indeed, always. Industry, in common with other virtues, is greatly influenced by example ; and small leaseholders, or even small freeholders, thinly interspersed among numerous tenants- at- will, are much more likely to accept as their standard of becoming exertion the habitual list- lessness of the latter than to set up an independent standard of their own. Where, however, small farmers are in a decided majority, they are, unless some extraordinary circumstances are in operation to depress their energy, sure to appear as models of dili gence. Their activity is not then restricted within set hours of work. Whenever a thing requires to be done is with them the proper time for doing it, and early and late, consequently long before the hired journeyman comes in the morning and long after he has gone home in the evening they may be seen afield, doing, too, whatever they do, not only with all their might, but with all the heed which people usually bestow on their own affairs, even though they bestow it on nothing else. In particular, they waste nothing least of all anything that can be used as manure. Now, there arc no crops which would not be the better for such special attention, and there are some to which it is an almost indispensable condition of excellence. Flax, hemp, hops, wine, oil, and tobacco furnish instances of culture in which the individual plants require, or at any rate abundantly repay, separate care. But such minute attention no supervision can ensure no rate of hire can command. It is habitually rendered by those only who are directly interested in rendering it, or otherwise directly stimulated by the small farmer and the small farmer s wife and children all working with their own hands for their own behoof, and by his servants, if he have any ; for that must be a pitiful creature indeed who, with his employer working by his side, will let his employer work harder than himself. Herein, then (in the greater quantity and better quality of work which the same number of persons will do in small as compared with large farming) consisting the distinctive excel lence of the former system, how far does this counterbalance the superiority of large farming in regard to the saving of labour and implements ? There can be no more conclusive mode of answering this question than by contrasting the substantial results of the two systems, adopting as tests the respective amounts both of gross and of net produce. Now, in England the average yield of wheat per acre M as in 1837 only 21 bushels, the highest average for any single county being no more than 26 bushels. The highest average since claimed for the whole of England is 32 bushels ; but this is pro nounced to be much too high by the best, perhaps, of all authori ties, Mr Caird, who gives 26^ bushels as "the average of figures furnished to him by competent judges in all parts of the kingdom," adding, as the result of his own observation, that 32 bushels, as an average produce, is to be met with only on farms where both soil and management are superior to the present average of England." In Jersey, however, where the average size of farms is only 16 acres, the average produce of wheat for the five years ending with 1833 was, by official investigation, ascertained to be 40 bushels. In Guernsey, where farms are still smaller, 32 bushels per acre was, according to Inglis, considered, about the same time, "a good, but still a common, crop ; " and the light soil of the Channel Islands is naturally by no means particularly suitable for the growth of wheat. That of Flanders, originally a coarse silicious sand, is par ticularly unsuitable, and accordingly little wheat is sown there, but of that little the average yield, at least in the Waes district, is, according to a very minute and careful observer, from 32 to 36 bushels. Of barley, a more congenial cereal, the average is in Flanders 41 bushels, and in good ground 60 bushels ; while in England it is probably under 33, and would certainly be over stated at 36 bushels. Of course the English averages are consider ably exceeded in particular localities on such farms, for instance, as those of Mr Paget, near Nottingham, and of Mr Stansfeld, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, wheat crops of 46 bushels per acre being not extraordinaiy, and of 56 bushels not unknown ; but these exceptional cases may be more than matched in Guernsey, where the largest yield of wheat per acre, in each of the three years ending^ with 1847, was proved to the satisfaction of the local agricultural society to have been not less than 76, 80, and 72 bushels respec tively. Of potatoes, 10 tons per acre would anywhere in England, even on the rich "warp lands" bordering the tidal affluents of the Humber, be considered a high average crop ; but in Jersey the average is reckoned at 15 tons, and near Tamise, in eastern Flanders, Mr Eham found a cultivator of 8 acres of poor land rais ing nearly 12 tons from one of them. Clover, again, "the glory of Flemish farming," "is nowhere else found in such perfect luxuri ance" as in Flanders, where it exhibits "a vigour and weight of produce truly surprising," especially when it is discovered "that such prodigious crops are raised from 6 ft of seed per acre." Most of the other green crops, and also most of the root crops, grown in Flanders deserve to be spoken of in similar terms ; and to the extraordinary number of cattle fed upon these green and root crops reference has already been made. If any reliance may be placed on these statistics, it cannot, however startling at first hearing, be too much to affirm that in the Channel Islands and in Flanders the average of gross produce is greater than in England by fully one- fourth, or say by the equivalent of 9 bushels of wheat per acre. Gross produce, however, is not the only thing to be considered, for there is no doubt that on equal areas small farming employs more hands than large ; and it might be that the entire produce of a small farm was not more than sufficient to feed the extra mouths. This would not necessarily be an evil, unless on the assump tion that the condition of agricultural labourers is neces sarily so wretched that an increase in their number is tantamount to an increase of wretchedness. Possibly, however, the extra produce might be less than sufficient to feed the extra mouths, so that the quantity of net pro duce remaining available for sale to the non-agricultural portion of the community would be diminished ; and, if this were really the fact, it might be conclusively con demnatory of small farming. Nor, to prove that it is not the fact, will it suffice to urge that land, when divided among numerous occupants, commonly fetches a much higher rent than when united into a few extensive hold ings that whereas, for example, 30s. an acre would in England be considered a fair and even a high rate for middling land, it must be very middling land indeed which in Guernsey will not let for at least 4, while in Switzerland, another territory of petite culture, the average rent is 6. For these higher rents might be the results of an incident, not of culture, but of tenure of that excessive competition for land which is unhappily a too frequent accompaniment of small farming. Neither will it suffice to show that, although the agricultural popula tion of a minutely-divided territory is always far denser than that of one of large farms, certain territories of the former description are nevertheless among those which maintain the largest manufacturing and commercial popu lation Belgium, for instance, being second to England alone in that respect, and Switzerland and Rhenish Prussia being likewise cases in point. For it may obvi ously be replied that the non-agricultural classes of a community need not be entirely dependent for food on home produce, but may derive part of their supplies from abroad, and it may generally be impossible to ascertain what is the proportion imported. This objection does not, indeed, apply to the Channel Islands ; and Mr W. T. Thornton has, in a new edition of his Plea for Peasant Proprietors, been at considerable pains to prove that in Guernsey two, and in Jersey four, non-agricultural inhabi tants are maintained on the produce of every acre and a half of cultivated land, whereas in England only one such person is so fed. Be this as it may, a preferable, or at any rate more generally applicable, test is the propor tion between the extra production of small farming and the consumption of the extra labourers therein employed. Now, in Flanders and in the two principal Channel Islands the agricultural population is about four times as dense as in England, being at the rate of about one person for every 4 acres, instead of one for every 1 7 ; but cause has also been shown for believing that in Flanders and in the same islands the average produce of the soil is greater than in England by the equivalent of 9 bushels of wheat per acre, or of 153 bushels for every 17 acres. But 153 bushels, or say 19 quarters, of wheat is much more than three persons and these not all adult males, but, more likely, a man, a woman, and a child would consume, even if it were supplied to them, and there were nothing else for them to eat, and is fully three times as much as three such persons of the farm labourers class in any part of Europe have the means of procuring. After deduction, therefore, of their consumption, there would still remain available for sale to non-agriculturists, from the produce of ​414 AGRICULTURE [LARGE AND 17 acres under small culture, the equivalent of nearly 100 bushels of wheat more than could be spared for the same purpose from an equal extent of land under a large farmer. These conclusions are not put forward as more than roughly approximate, nor, indeed, in the present disgrace fully defective state of British agricultural statistics, are any but rough approximations on the subject possible. But, unless very wide indeed of the truth, they must be acknowledged to furnish adequate reason why rural magnates should not engross all our praises, and why the honest agricultural muse should reserve a share of com mendation for small leaseholding farmers also. Peasant IV. And while so much can be said for small leaseholders, pro- it is obvious that every one of the arguments adduced in prietors. favour of that class applies with redoubled force to small freeholders cultivating their own freeholds. A peasant proprietor, whose whole produce belongs to himself, is of course richer than he would be if he had to pay rent can more easily bear the expenses of cultivation, of procuring proper implements and manure, of drainage and irrigation, and of the keep of live stock. Small lease holders, as a class, lay out more money on their land, in proportion to its extent, than large occupiers; but a small freeholder has more money to lay out than a leaseholder of the same degree, and has besides stronger motives for laying it out on improvements. " A small proprietor," says Adam Smith, " who knows every part of his little terri tory, who views it with all the affection which property, especially small property, naturally inspires, and who, upon that account, takes pleasure not only in cultivating but in adorning it, is generally of all improvers the most indus trious, the most intelligent, and the most successful." It might have been added, that he is likewise the most enter prising. He need not carefully calculate whether his outlay will be fully recovered by him within a certain term of years; he has only to consider whether the increased value of his land will be equal to fair interest on the sum which the improve ments will cost. He does not require that the principal should ever be returned. He is satisfied to sink it for ever in his own land, provided that, in that safest of all invest ments, it promise to yield a perpetual annuity equal to what would be its annual increase in another employment. Again, the peasant proprietor has the strongest possible incentives to diligence. A man never works so well as when paid by the piece ; but even then, the more he is paid, the better he works. The small leaseholder, not less than the small proprietor, is paid in proportion to his labour; but the latter is paid at a higher rate, for he takes to himself the whole fruit of his labour, while the former must content himself with part. The proprietor, too, knows that, so long as his labour continues equally pro ductive, his remuneration will remain the same ; while that of the tenant, though augmented solely by his own exertions, may be diminished at the expiration of his lease. Besides, many rural operations yield no profit until after a long lapse of time; and the annual profit of others is so small that the enjoyment of it in perpetuity is requisite to recompense the labour expended. Such operations are seldom undertaken except by proprietors. No tenant would think of planting an orchard such as Arthur Young saw near Sauve on a tract consisting " seemingly of nothing but bare rocks;" or, as in the mountains of Languedoc, would " carry earth in baskets on the back to form a garden where nature had denied it ;" or would enclose and till fields and gardens on a " wretched blowing sand naturally as white as snow." But, as Young exclaims, " give a man the secure possession of a bleak rock, and he will turn it into a garden!" There is "no way so sure of carrying tillage to a mountain-top as by permitting the neighbouring villagers to acquire it in property. The magic of property turns sand to gold." It may perhaps be objected that the gold does not repay the cost of trans mutation, and that therefore the labour expended upon it has been wasted; and no doubt a monied speculator, who should engage in such alchemy with hired labour, might never recover the amount of his outlay. But and here comes a conclusive answer to those who, instead of admir ing such achievements, condemn them as mere waste of power- the peasant who performs them on his own account performs them with labour which would otherwise be valueless at that particular time. When the hired journey man has earned his day s wages, and gives himself up to rest or amusement, the little landowner is content to recreate himself by turning to some lighter work. It is sufficient amusement for him to weed or water his cabbages, or to train or prune his fruit-trees; and, in wet or wintry weather, when outdoor work is scarce worth paying for, and when the day-labourer must often remain idle because no one will employ him, then it is that the independent cottager builds up terraces on the steep hillside, or lays the site of a garden among rocks. It is, in short, one prime excellence of peasant proprietorship that it stirs into activity labour which otherwise would not have been exerted in other words, would not have existed, and the fruits of which, consequently, however insignificant, are at any rate all pure gain. The pastoral tribes, by which, most civilised countries were originally occupied, have almost invariably been followed, either immediately or after a certain interval, by a race of peasant pro prietors. The revolution has taken place at different stages of national progress, but scarcely an instance can be mentioned in which it has not occurred sooner or later. In territories of very small extent, very barren or much intersected by mountains, rivers, or other natural barriers, it has commonly been coeval with the first appropriation of land by individuals. In such situations, the original tribes of nomad herdsmen must necessarily have been small for want of pasture ; and the same cause must have prevented any individual from acquiring very great numbers of cattle, and from very greatly surpassing his companions in wealth and power. All must have been nearly equal in rank ; and, whenever a partition of their common territory was resolved upon, every one, no doubt, made good his claim to a share. On the other hand, in countries containing abundance of good pasture, separate tribes might expand indefinitely, and the cattle of single proprietors be counted by thousands and tens of thousands. Great wealth would then imply great disparity of rank, and rich herdsmen would have many poor retainers entirely indebted to their bounty, and consequently entirely devoted to their service. Such dependants, when the community passed from a migratory and pastoral to a stationary and agricultural condition, could put forward no pretensions on their own behalf. Their relation to their masters would remain the same as before, or rather would be exchanged for a more stringent form of bondage. From servants they would become serfs, and the duty assigned to them would be that of tilling their masters fields, as they had previously tended his herds. In the course of ages, however, they would imperceptibly acquire some important privileges. Residing for many successive generations on the lands allotted to them for their own subsistence, and paying to their lord always the same, or nearly the same, portion of the produce, they would come at length to be regarded as conditional proprietors of their respective holdings, or as perpetual lessees at a quit and almost nominal rent. Their proprietary title, although at first merely prescriptive, would be- eventually legalised ; and thus it is that from villeins and serfs lias descended a progeny no less respectable than English copy-holders and German bauers. V. In one or other of these ways almost every country Metaya: on the face of the globe which has passed regularly through the various stages that separate barbarism from civilisa tion, has been at some period, as many are still, occupied in great measure by peasant proprietors. In those countries, however, in which peasant proprietorship has been evolved from serfdom, there must have been, inter mingled with the lands held by servile tenure, others, not less extensive, in the immediate occupation of a rural aristocracy. These seignorial domains would long con tinue to be cultivated by the serfs or slaves of their re spective owners, but as feudal and domestic slavery fell ​SMALL FARMING.] AGRICULTURE 415 into desuetude, the landlords, in order to get their lauds tilled, would be reduced to the necessity of holding out inducements to free husbandmen to lend their assistance. In England, where, thanks to the comparative security enjoy oil by industry, plebeians of some substance were already not rare, it might suffice to offer tenancies for terms of years or for lives; but, in those continental countries in which feudal misrule had given way, only to be replaced by monarchical tyranny, it was generally necessary for the landowner, who desired that his farms should be tolerably stocked, to stock them himself. Hence arose a system which, having never existed in England, has no English name, but which in certain provinces of Italy and France, where it was once almost universal, and is still very common, is called mezzeria and metayage, or halv ing the halving, that is, of the produce of the soil between landowner and landholder. These expressions are not, however, to be understood in a more precise sense than that in which we sometimes talk of a larger and a smaller half. They merely signify that the produce is divisible in certain definite proportions, which must obviously vary with the varying fertility of the soil and other circum stances, and which do in practice vary so much that the landlord s share is sometimes as much as two-thirds, some times as little as one-third. Sometimes the landlord supplies all the stock, sometimes only part the cattle and seed perhaps, while the farmer provides implements ; or perhaps only half the seed and half the cattle, the farmer finding the other halves taxes too being paid wholly by one or the other, or jointly by both. Now, with whatever virtue a system like this may be condition ally credited, it plainly can have no virtue at all except on con dition of its being believed to be permanent. The m&ayer must have full confidence that the landlord, although authorised by law, will be prevented by respect for custom, from increasing his exac tions ; but even on this condition the system is open to the serious objection, that the metayer will deem it his interest to lay out on the land as little as possible, if anything, of his own, except labour. If in England, previously to tithe commutation, a farmer was discouraged from spending money on improvements by the knowledge that the parson would claim one out of every ten ad ditional sheaves of corn or pounds of butter produced in conse quence, what chance is there of a metayer risking a similar expendi ture, while knowing that the landlord s share of the consequent produce would be a moiety or more instead of a tenth ? In this particular, metayage closely resembles English tenancies at will, which practically render it almost equally incumbent on the land lord to bear the entire expense of all costly improvements, and over which me tayage, in another and nearly allied particular, possesses a marked advantage. Although the metayer may, for one very cogent reason a reason, however, likely to bo somewhat counteracted by belief, whether well or ill founded, in the fixity of his tenure be reluctant to use in his business any capital of his own, he will, for the converse of that same reason, be anxious to make the most of the capital entrusted to him by his landlord. He is his landlord s partner, entitled to a moiety or thereabout in his landlord s gains. It is his interest, then, to get the most out of the land that can be brought out of it by means of the landlord s stock. Virtually, indeed, he is himself, in a qualified sense, a peasant proprietor, pos sessing in a minor degree all the stimulants to diligence, heedful- ness, and thrift, incidental to that character ; and there can scarcely, therefore, be inherent in his constitution any such incurable vice as would warrant his being condemned a priori. Equally with other people he is entitled to be judged by his behaviour. As to this the testimony of experience is very conflicting. English writers who see nothing of metayage at home, and may be suspected of looking with not wholly unprejudiced eyes at what they see of it abroad, were, until Mr J. S. Mill adopted a different tone, unani mous in condemning it. They judged it, however, by its appear ance in France, where it has never worn a very attractive aspect. In that country every form of agriculture still retains many of the traditions of the ante-Revolutionary period, and me tayage, in par ticular, labours under great difficulties in consequence. Under the ancien regime not only were all direct taxes paid by the metayer, the noble landowner being exempt, but these taxes, being assessed accord ing to the visible produce of the soil, operated as penalties upon all endeavours to augment its productiveness. No wonder, then, if the metayer fancied that his interest lay less in exerting himself to augment the total to be divided between himself and his landlord, than in studying how to defraud the latter of part of his rightful share ; nor any great wonder either if he has not yet got entirely rid of habits so acquired. Rather would it be strange if he had, especially when it is considered that he still is, as his predecessors were formerly, destitute of the virtual fixity of tenure without which metayage cannot reasonably be expected to prosper. French metayers, in Arthur Young s time, were "removable at pleasure, and obliged to conform in all things to the will of their landlords," and so in general they are still. Yet even in France, according to M. de Lavergne, although "metayage and extreme rural poverty usually coincide," there is one province, Anjou, where the contrary is the fact, as it is also in Italy. Indeed, to every tourist who has passed through the plains of Lombardy with his eyes open, the knowledge that metayage has for ages been there the prevailing form of tenure ought to suffice for the triumphant vindication of metayage in the abstract. Its perfect compatibility with the most flourishing agriculture must be clear to any one who, noting the number and populousness of the cities in the Lombard provinces, is at the same time aware how much of agricultural produce those provinces export and how little they import. An explanation of the contrasts presented by metayage in different regions is not far to seek. Metayage, in order to be in any measure worthy of com mendation, must be a genuine partnership, one in which there is no sleeping partner, but in the affairs of which the landlord, as well as the tenant, takes an active part. If he do this, he cannot be an absentee. He must be on the spot to judge when and what advances are required from him, and to watch over their proper application ; to that end conferring habitually with the metayer, and taking as well as giving counsel on the subject, as on one in which both are equally concerned. This exhibition of common interest on one side is sure to beget it, if previously wanting, on the other ; feelings of mutual attachment insensibly spring up, and the spirit which governs the mutual relations becomes one of friendly and almost affectionate association. Such is, or at any rate used to be, the state of affairs in Piedmont, in Lombardy, and in Tuscany ; and wherever the same description applies, the results of metayage appear to be as eminently satisfactory, as they are de cidedly the reverse wherever the landlord holds himself aloof, contenting himself, as it were, with putting out his stock to usury, and never intervening except to carp at the smallness of the returns. Instead of community, there is then conflict, of interests. Anta gonism takes the place of association. The landlord grudges the scantiest advances, and even of those the fanner does his best to cheat the soil, which, starved by them who ought to feed it, leaves them to starve in return. On the whole, and according to preponderance of testimony, metayage must perhaps be admitted to be everywhere showing a tendency to degenerate after the above fashion ; yet even so, the worst that need be said of it is, that it is becoming an anachronism ; this, moreover, being perhaps a reproach less to itself than to the age in which we live. It is the present generation of mankind who are chiefly to blame if the ties which anciently linked together employers and employed in more or less kindly fellowship, are now- a-days, in agriculture as in other departments of industry, visibly decaying, and if each section of the agrarian class, bidding the others keep their distance, prefers to perform its own functions separately, and without more of natural intercourse than business obligations, arranged beforehand, render indispensable. But whenever, from whatever cause, landowners have come to be regarded by landholders as mere receivers of rent, metayage cannot possibly thrive, and it is accordingly dying out, even in the quarters to which it has hitherto appeared most congenial. Even in the Milanese, where the minute and assiduous attention to details which metayers, next after peasant proprietors, can best be depended on for bestowing, is in especial de mand for sericulture and viticulture, metayage is undergoing changes which M. de Laveleye (Economic Eurale de la Lombardie) describes as follows : " The primitive conditions of contract which fixed, according to local and traditional usage, the cultivator s share, are daily more and more departed from. For a considerable time past, in the parts about Como and Milan, to the arrangement for sharing by halves, which now applies only to plantation crops, grasses, and cocoons, has been added a clause providing for the annual payment of a determinate quantity of corn ; and, as this quantity is settled no longer by local custom, but by the demands of the proprietors and the offers of intending tenants, it follows that metayage is losing its character of fixity, and falling under the law of increase which governs farming rent. The clause in question is continually be coming more and more of a habit ; and, even where it has . not yet been adopted, the ancient contract has undergone other and not less regretable modifications. The high price of commodities, particu larly of silk, having markedly augmented the profits of the meta yers, the landlords nave availed themselves of this circumstance to introduce new stipulations sometimes taking more than half of the cocoons, sometimes claiming a quantity of mulberry leaves to sell for their own profit, sometimes taking tithes first and then halving the residue. All this is done with the same aim and the ​A G K I C U L T U K E rvsu.lt. the T2i being to secure to tht landlord the whole benefit cf continually rising prL-*s, the result that of depriving the Eetaver of the secaritv which- the prlmitiTe agr^i-ient ga velum. and of subjecting hin to ail the disadvantages of & leaseholder the latter s VL The plan of industrial partnerships, wherever it has had a fair trial has invariably been attended by the hap piest results: but it has hardly yet been fairly tried in farming, where, however, its application would in one respect be comparatively easy. In most other kinds of business, to determine to the satisfaction cf both parties concerned how much, if any. of extra profits had been due to extra zeal on the pan of the employed, might be an operation of some difficulty : but there need never be any dout-t whether the crops of a given acreage were or were not above the average, or what, therefore, if any, was the sra] ".us in which, according to the agreement, the employed were entitled to participate. That fanners would risk cut little and only occasional loss, and in the long run would be sure to gain considerably, by permitting their labourers to share with them in a surplus which the labourers would have by voluntary exertion to create before they could share in it. may perhaps to an indifferent bystander seem a self-evident proposition. Farmers in general, however. may long be prevented from recognising its truth by an intervening hruv of traditional prejudice, which must first be cleared away, and the removal may occupy so much time that not improbably another and more advanced form of agricultural co-operation, not needing the farmers con- . :ime coine into vogue. multitudinous peasant proprietary much larger number of well-to-do is commonly supposed, but also a _ of rural magnates, who, even beside English dukes, might well p<iss for extensive land- owners. Among these latter are representatives of some of the oldest and noblest French families men rejoicing in the grand historic names of Ec-chefoucauld, Xoailles. Luynes. Montemart, D Usez. and the like who having at the restoration been partially reinstated in the domains of which the first revolution had despoiled them, dis appeared, on the second expulsion of the Bourbons, from court and office, and. returning to their country seats, be took themselves, under the Orleanist dynasty and second empire, to the improvement of their estates. A difficulty which here confronted them was that of finding tenants possessed of capital enough for any but very small farms. and this they have latterly endeavoured to obviate by devising, under the name of metayage par gr^yvp-ft. an ex panded modification of a discredited tenure. This consists in letting a. considerable farm, not to one metayer, but to an association of several, who work together for the general a marked success, it may become the starting-point of much further progress. One easy and important step in advance would be for a body of metayers to persuade their landlord to let them have their farm on lease, and at a fixed rent, thus raising themselves to that higher stage of agri cultural co-operation of which an imperfect but encourag ing example has been afforded among ourselves by Mr Guidon s well-known experiment at Assington in Suffolk. Of the two or three scores of labourers who are there par ties to the leases by which two farms one of 130, the other of 212 acres are held, not more than ten or a dozen have regular work in their own fields, the rest being therefore little more than passive capitalists, sleeping partners in the concern, while the active members receive, in addition to wages at the rates current in the neighbour hood, no larger shares in the profits than the members who do not exert themselves to increase those profits. Never theless, to sum up in a single phrase of especial significance for our present purpose the praises of the results achieved, Mr Gurdon declares that " he has no other land so well

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thus partially applied. It would seem, therefore, that the adoption of the same principle in its integrity would result in better farming still, and it may be hoped that the ques tion will, at Assington or elsewhere, be ere long put to the

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