224 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. 



several years taken a crop of wheat every other year ; and that on such soil as 

 that of his farm, as long as ho manured accorilingly, he considered tliat he 

 was not using the land (one-half of which is his own freehold) unfairly." 

 This AYeald of Sussex farm shall be our third example ; and we adduce it to 

 show what may be done with the most intractable class of retentive soils. A 

 few years ago it was divided into enclosures of from four to eight acres each 

 by broad hedge-rows, many of them witli ditches on both sides. It was among 

 the evils ot these small enclosures that they facilitated the old make shift plan 

 of draining by surface furrows to shallow sub-drains of bushes, because the 

 water had not fiir to run. A partial cure postpones completer remedies. In 

 the numerous hedges, according to the custom of the county, the landlord 

 grew oak timber and the tenant underwood for fuel and for mending fences. 

 Before railways had made coal cheaper than hedgrow cuttings, the laborers 

 were employed in fine weather during the winter in trimming the hedges, and 

 clearing out furrows and ditches ; in wet weather they retreated to a large 

 barn and threshed out wheat or oats with a flail, in a damp atmosphere, the 

 most unfavorable for the condition of the corn, and a time of the year most 

 convenient for pilfering it. The usual course of cropping was — 1, fallow ; 2, 

 wheat ; 3, oats ; 4, seeds. The seed crops were fed until the beginning of 

 June with all the stock of th« farm, and then broken up for a bare fallow with 

 a wouden turn wrist plow. The crops were about twenty oushels of wheat 

 per acre once in four years, about forty-eight bushels of oats the year follow- 

 ing, and hay and seeds in the third year. The stock consisted of about twen- 

 ty-five cows, and ten young beasts, which were sold half fat. The horses 

 plowed four at a time in a line, and were usually the plumpest animals on the 

 farm. Sheep there were none, nor was it believed possible to. keep them with- 

 out Down feed. Lime was. the only manure purchased, and hay the only 

 winter food. The present owner and farmer of Ockley Manor, after traveling 

 through England to study the best specimen of modern tenant farming, began 

 by reducing a hundred enclosures to tA'enty, and by borrowing enuugh money 

 from ihe public loan to drain the whole of his clays, the stilTest imaginable, 

 three feet six inches deep. He would have preferred four feet deep, but the 

 expense lopped off six inches. This indispensable preliminary process enables 

 him to grow roots and keep a large stock of Southdown sheep on his clovers 

 and seeds, with plenty of cake, running them on the land almost all the year 

 round. To assist in disintegrating the drained clay he avails himself of 

 " Warne's box feeding " system, manufacturing a large quantity of long 

 straw dung, which, wlien plowed in, exercises a mechanical as well as a fer- 

 tilizing effect. 



There are three modes of feeding cattle in use — open yards, stalls, and 

 boxes. Well built yards are surrounded by sheds for shelter, the open space 

 is dish-shaped, thinly sprinkled with earth, and thickly covered with straw, 

 which is renewed from time to time as the cattle trample it into manure. The 

 roofs of all the surrounding buildings are provided with gutters, and the rain 

 is carried into underground drains. The liquid manure is pumped back upon 

 the prepared dung-heaps. These yards are attached to all root feeding farms, 

 and by their appearance and the quality of the cattle fed in them, a fair opin- 

 ion may be formed of the management of the tenant. In stalls the cattle are 

 tied by the heid under cover, with more or loss straw under them, according 

 to the proportion of arable land. On the " box system," each beast is penned 

 in a separate compartment under cover, and supplied from day to day with 

 just as much straw as will cover the solids and absorb the liquid dung. By 

 the time the beast is fat his cell is full of solid, well fermented manure, of the 

 most valuable description for clay land. The cattle, whether in yards, stables 

 or boxes, and all are often to be found on the same farm, ought to be bounti- 

 fully fed with sliced or pulped roots, mixed with chaff, hay, oil-cake, linseed, 

 or corn. The extra buildings make boxes the most expensive plan, but in no 

 way do the animals thrive better, and where there is an ample supply of straw 



