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Tlic Country Gcntlanaiis Magazine 



reduced to ;i niininium. In many parts of 

 the kingdom, particularly in Scotland and 

 Ireland, much time is unnecessarily lost m 

 haymaking, and it is quite common to see 

 "cocks" of various sizes remaining in the 

 fields long after the hay should have been 

 secured in the stack. This dilatoriness occa- 

 sion a considerable amount of loss, owing to 

 that portion which occupies the top and 

 bottom of the cocks becoming spoilt by 

 damp. In other cases— such as in some 



parts of England — the hay is ricked before it 

 is quite ready, and then we have heat gene- 

 rated, sometimes to such an extent as actually 

 to set the rick on fire. A moderate degree of 

 heat is by no means injurious to hay; but 

 when it is suffered to proceed too far, the 

 hay becomes sapless, and so full of dust as. 

 to be injurious to the horses which consume 

 it, inducing, as we have frequently had rea- 

 son to believe, broken wind and similar 

 disorders. 



TRANSPLANTING FOR FILLING UP BLANKS IN ROOT CROPS. 



THAT the hopes of the husbandman are 

 not always realized is a trite saying ; 

 rather, indeed, would it be the better way to 

 say, that they are more frequently doomed to 

 disappointmenr than to realization. And in 

 view of this, with which unfortunately every 

 farmer is too familiar, everything is of import- 

 ance bearing upon modes of operation, which 

 have for their aim the averting of losses, or if 

 not averting them, in lessening their extent. 

 And hence we deem a few remarks upon a 

 subject, of which it may be said, that if not 

 much attention has hitherto been paid to it, 

 at least deserves that attention should be 

 paid to it. The fact that a practice is not 

 followed is no reason why that practice may 

 be bad, and it often happens that a good 

 practice is long in working its way into what 

 may be called thorough popularity. In this 

 category we may place that which forms the 

 subject of the present brief paper. That trans- 

 planting is a process more of gardening than 

 of farming is true enough, but that it may be 

 useful in the practice of the latter, as it un- 

 doubtedly is in that of the former calling, is 

 also as tme ; not merely because transplant- 

 ing is sometimes used in the farm, as in 

 the case of cabbages, and because it 

 might be further extended in the case of 

 other crops, as for example in that of kohl- 

 rabi and of rape — the former of which crops we 

 believe to give the best results when grown in 



the field from transplanted plants — but because 

 transplanting is eminently useful, and of high 

 practical value, in the case of filling up 

 of " blanks " in other crops, as'turnips, man- 

 gold, and the like, do we deem a few remarks 

 upon it likely to be useful. We say the plan 

 is of high practical value, and this is evident 

 when we consider that, by its adoption, much 

 land may be availed of which is left blank in 

 the case of failure of such crops as the turnip ; 

 for it is to be remembered that the point is, 

 in such cases, not whether the farmer shall 

 have a small crop on the blank spaces, but 

 that it is certain if he leaves them blank he 

 will have none. This seems a very absurd 

 way of stating what must very evidently be to 

 all a truth ; it not only seems but really is, 

 yet in some cases the only way to gain atten- 

 tion to a point of importance is thus to state 

 it — the "reductio ad absurdum " is not always 

 a useless way of arguing a point. If these 

 blank spaces exist in our fields, it seems after 

 all but a very reasonable way to put the 

 matter, that it will be better to fill them up 

 with some useful plant than to allow them to 

 remain growing none. And we know of no 

 plan of utilizing such spaces so valuable and 

 so easily carried out withal, as filling them up 

 with some useful forage crop, such as cabbage 

 or the lik-. . 



That a large amount of land is really 

 allowed to stand idle in the case of root 



