12 THE FIRST AND FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE IN AGRICULTURE. 



It cannot be too clearly put before landed proprietors and 

 farmers that it is the effects left behind the use of these manures, 

 i.e., the removal or non-removal from the land of the crops to 

 which they are applied, that constitutes them either fertilisers 

 or exhausters of fertility. When applied to the bare soil, to raise 

 a turnip crop or a grain crop, they reduce vegetable matter, and 

 thus allow a larger quantity of it to be carried off the land, leav- 

 ing the soil so much the poorer ; but when applied to grass land, 

 and the produce consumed thereon, they add fertility abundantly; 

 and I caimot see that ground bones form any exception to this 

 rule, but, being less soluble than other manures of this class, they 

 reserve their strength for the grass period of the rotation, and 

 so come in as a fertiliser, and, consequently, have always been a 

 favourite manure with all good farmers under any circum- 

 stances. 



A few words more about Shetland farming might be interesting. 

 Almost without exception farmers have a right to pasture cattle 

 and ponies on the adjacent hills. This allows them to carry a large 

 stock in comparison to the extent of their arable land. The quan- 

 tity of corn and fodder produced from the arable land to supply 

 food for their animals during a stormy winter rules the number 

 of animals that can be maintained upon the pasture at their com- 

 mand. This induces the Shetland farmer to have every foot of 

 his arable land under continuous cropping, and the crops of oats 

 and here are considered of more importance than turnips ; hence 

 the byre dung is applied to the corn crops. And what kind of 

 manure is it ? In summer a large quantity of thin green turf is 

 cut from the side of a hill outside the town dykes and dried, 

 then carried home and built into stacks. This vegetable matter 

 is alone used for litter, and the whole of the fodder, and a con- 

 siderable quantity of the corn as well, is used for food. The 

 byres are not cleaned out perhaps from harvest until seedtime, but 

 the cattle bindings are raised up as the manure accumulates, and 

 the cattle are moved from one side of the byre to the other. We 

 have here the principle of covered court-yards in a primitive 

 fashion. There is nothing new under the sun. In good weather 

 the cattle are pastured on the hills outside the town dykes 

 bringing their droppings to the townships. In spring this home- 

 made nitrogen, i.e., vegetable matter, is applied to the land, and 

 ploughed, or dug down, and some very fine crops are raised by 

 this method, and where they are not good it is generally the 

 result of bad tillage, probably performed by Shetland ponies. 

 Where these townships have been put dowm to permanent 

 pasture, they have invariably become the finest of grass land, 

 and form a very interesting study. In the Island of Unst, where 

 the rotation system has lately been introduced, I have seen the 

 strongest crops of clover on these townships that ever I remember 

 having seen in my experience. The fact is here again established 



