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THE FARMEB/S MAGAZINE. 



the roots are piled in the stable a few hours, and thus during 

 the winter season attain a temperature more suitable to the 

 stomachs of the animals. The cut roots for the bullocks are 

 mixed with the warm steamed chaflF. A wise farmer will 

 never forget this golden masim, that one pound of coal, which 

 costs less than half a farthing, contains more carbon than 

 many times its ^alue in food ; therefore he will use coal in- 

 stead of food to give animal heat, and lay on fat cheaply. 



The time will come when all our bullockries will be heated 

 with warm water or steam pipes in cold weather. See how 



particular our groom is to keep his horses warmly clad in cold 

 weather, and how nicely he regulates the ventilation and tem- 

 perature. Should not this show us the right way ? I often 

 think so, when I see on a bleak winter's day unsheltered ani- 

 mals eating grass or turnips, the air and the food being at a 

 temperature scarcely above the freezing point. 



Surely the farmer who permits this can know nothing of 

 the heat-forming theory, or he would not waste his food in 

 creating an artificial furnace with ao costly a combustive ele- 

 ment as provender. Yours, &c., J.. J, Mechi. 



PRINCIPLES OF MANURING, 



LAWES AND tlEBIG'S CONTROVERSY ON THE PRINCIPLES OF MANURING POPULARLY EXPLAINED— 

 THE ROTHAMSTED EXPERIMENTS WITH SPECIAL MANURES IN TURNIP-GROWING DESCRIBED AND 

 EXAMINED. 



The history of the introduction and spread of turnip- 

 husbandry in this country admits of a very concise re- 

 cital. It dates back to the time of the Commonwealth, 

 and was borrowed from the Flemings ; the original 

 theatre of its naturalization being the county of Norfolk. 

 To Sir Richard Weston — one of Cromwell's foreign 

 diplomatists, who on retiring from public life settled in 

 that county— is generally attributed the merit of having 

 successfully inculcated its value as an immense addition 

 to the farmers' resources ; and, indeed, to the Norfolk 

 farmer in particular it was a peculiar boon, since at that 

 period the soil of that district consisted of a weak sandy 

 loam, little qualified to raise an abundant produce of 

 cattle provender of any kind. As yet, the old system of 

 three corn crops and a bare fallow prevailed in Norfolk, 

 as throughout England generally ; the cultivation of 

 clover or artificial grasses having then obtained no foot- 

 ing. And how of live-stock in those days ? In Nor- 

 folk each farm consisted of a portion devoted to corn- 

 growing exclusively, and of a much more extensive 

 track of open down-land used as a sheep-walk ; and 

 there, as over the entire kingdom, the grand difficulty 

 was the maintenance of the animals of the farm during 

 winter. For lack of succulent food the dairy cow 

 became dry for several months. Stall-fed beef or fat 

 mutton was a luxury which even the rich could not 

 command beyond Christmas ; and the only endeavour 

 of the farmer in days antecedent to the introduction of 

 roots and clover was, not to keep his beasts and sheep 

 in good condition, but to preserve them from disease 

 and death induced by actual starvation. At first the 

 cultivation of roots was of course confined to the arable 

 part of the farm, but in Norfolk portions of the Downs 

 came in process of time to be broken up, in order to 

 extend the area of tillage ; meanwhile a conviction 

 of the value of cultivated clover as a cattle food had 

 been gaining ground, and in the course of ninety or one 

 hundred years after Weston's successful advocacy of 

 turnip husbandry, very great progress had been made in 

 the county here particularized, in converting the sheep- 

 runs into tillage !and, and in subjecting the thus largely 



extended arable farms to that quadrennial routine of 

 management which since has become prevalent in all 

 the well-farmed districts of England, under the name of 

 " the Norfolk four-course rotation." 



Still confining these introductory remarks to the his- 

 tory of the new system as it evolved itself in its original 

 birth-place, it has been remarked by all intelligent ob- 

 servers that an unequivocal change in the texture of the 

 Norfolk soil has ever since been going on ; and which 

 in few words may be described as consisting of a gradual 

 conversion of the sandy loam which characterized the 

 district, into a vegetable soil of more compact texture 

 and of greater capacity to retain moisture. To what 

 was this due ? Undoubtedly to the vast amount of 

 organic matter abstracted year after year from the 

 atmosphere by the bulky green crops, and by the 

 straw of the cereals, and deposited in the soil 

 every fourth year, in ten, fifteen, or twenty tons of farm- 

 yard dung to the acre. For very many years the term 

 " four-course rotation " expressed the beau-ideal of 

 both theoretic and actual husbandry ; but of late years, 

 as is but too well known, its supposed infallibility has 

 been rudely assailed by the alarming fact, that out of 

 the four ordinary members of rotation— turnips, barley, 

 clover, and wheat — the first three have manifested wide- 

 spread symptoms of chronic degeneration and disease. 

 Anbury and rot destroy the turnips. The barley sends 

 up a feeble straw and unprolific head. The clover re- 

 fuses to grow at all. How is this, seeing that tillage and 

 dunging have alike been increasing both in amount and effi- 

 ciency for more than three half -centuries ? Now in answer, 

 we remark that whilst a large application to the soil of 

 the content? of the dung-court is plain evidence that 

 a corresponding large amount of adventitious organic 

 matter has been accumulated in the staple, it no less 

 conclusively testifies that a proportional amount of in- 

 digenous mineral or inorganic matter has been with- 

 drawn in the waggon loads of corn and droves of fatted 

 animals sent to market. Thus, at the outset of this 

 system a duplex alteration in the constituency of the 

 soil was initiated, and for long its continuance was pro- 



