THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



them when they first appear, and again whenever tliey 

 re-appear, and their permanent destruction will be en- 

 sured at a quicker rate than is generally supposed. 



The Carduus acaxilis and Carllna vulgaris are so 

 essentially weeds of the poor pasture, that we may quite 

 conclude that anything which will contribute to its en- 

 richment will rapidly diminish their numbers. We have 

 seen the closely folding of sheep on these drier lands 

 taken at night from the damp, but rich water-meadows 



effect the nearly total destruction of these pests in a 

 single season. In fact, improvement and real cultiva- 

 tion of such wild spots is the quickest and most pro- 

 fitable method of dealing with them. Mixtures of soot, 

 salt, town-rubbish, guano, superphosphates, and the like, 

 and spring rolling with a Crosskill, all being treatment 

 which these wilderness plants cannot survive. 



The injurious grasses which come under the list just 

 treated of must be considered in our next. 



A CHAT ABOUT C ORN-GRO WING. 



We had a nice little dinner the other day — (your 

 readers need not be too curious as to locality and per- 

 sonality), — and after having exhausted the tit-bits and 

 delicacies of the season, discussed the commercial treaty, 

 naturally introduced by the hock and champagne, 

 made a digression on the subject of Garibaldi, and 

 settled the question, Whether we are likely to have a 

 wheat-seeding this year, with the still more impor- 

 tant inquiry, What prices we may hope for in the future 

 corn market, — our talk turned upon the Farmer's 

 Club discussion, on successive wheat-growing. Two of 

 the party had visited Lois-Weedon, and testified their 

 confidence in the exact truthfulness of every statement 

 published by Mr. Smith. One of the Club speakers had 

 attributed the good vicar's successful culture to the 

 famous quality of land he had to work on. " True," 

 said these gentlemen of our party, " the soil is rich 

 enough after the tillage that it has received ; but had it 

 been ploughed four or five inches deep, and worked 

 in the ordinary manner ever since it was broken up 

 from tolerable grass sixteen years ago, it would not have 

 produced wheat crops in annual succession. There is 

 not a field in the neighbourhood that does more than 

 yield ordinary fair crops taken in judicious rotation, 

 with frequent fallows and good manuring; and so 

 far from Mr. Smith's ground possessing any such ex- 

 traordinary native fecundity as would account for 

 his unparalleled produce without manure, it had a na- 

 tural staple of five inches good strong soil, with a stiff" 

 yellow clay underneath, so that his first spade-work 

 provoked the prophecy of practical neighbours that be 

 would never get a crop, and that his land was now 

 spoilt. The event has proved that it is " famous land" for 

 the purpose of deep trenching and the TuUian husbandry ; 

 and if so, then there are thousands of acres of similar 

 character, and tens of thousands of acres having a clayey 

 subsoil free from absolutely noxious qualities, equally 

 well adapted to the system." 



" Well," said several friends, " its impossible to 

 carry out spade-husbandry in ordinary business, and the 

 subject will, perhaps, revive again when steam-ploughing 

 has become a regular part of everybody's farm-manage- 

 ment." " Nay," replied our host, "there have been 

 many instances of several good wheat-crops in suc- 

 cession grown upon loams as well as clays; and 

 Mr. Clarke's own experience of ten acres appears 

 quite satisfactory as to the possibility of getting 



several fair crops in yearly succession off moderately 

 strong loamy soil." Here Mr. Rental, our agent (a 

 nice fellow, as you know, though I name him ficti- 

 tiously) observed " that Mr. Clarke's land was 

 probably much better than was represented ; he knew 

 those Lincolnshire marshes very well ; there were many 

 splendid pieces of ground, and very little land so light 

 and silty as to be of poor quality. He had heard of 

 one piece in the district which had produced, under 

 common husbandry, crops after the fashion of the rich 

 soils of Virginia ; more than a dozen fair yields of wheat 

 without being worn out ; and around Long Sutton, 

 wheat and potatoes alternately was quite a common 

 course." Frank Clayfield, a strong-land farmer, denied 

 that Mr. Clarke's experimental piece was particularly 

 good land ; he had visited the farm, seen the field, and 

 ascertained its history, and found that it was a piece of 

 old arable, which had been cropped time out of mind, 

 and was exhausted, and treated precisely as the Farmer's 

 Club paper stated, and not by any means worth more 

 than 30s. per acre to rent. He was quite satisfied from 

 that example, that by ploughing and subsoiling in the 

 same way, at least, several annual crops of wheat may 

 be grown, without manure upon any ordinarily good 

 wheat soil. 



" Let us consider it," I said, " as proved, that on 

 fair wheat land, two or three crops each of 4 to 4| or 

 even 5 quarters per acre average, may be taken, pro- 

 vided the straw be returned as manure every third or 

 fourth year, in which year you may have beans, peas, 

 roots, or any crop that will bear a good dose without 

 fear of being overdone. The profit, according to Mr. 

 Clarke'scarefullykeptbookof expenses, will be £2 10s. to 

 £'i 10s. per acre on each wheat crop when the price is 

 as low as 40s. a quarter, and will be no less than £^ 

 10s. to nearly £5 per acre when the price rises to 56s. 

 Now, this is extraordinary, and demands attention, for 

 who can realize such profits as these by common me- 

 thods of farming ?" 



" Why," said Rental, " in that potato-growing 

 country they commonly make ^£"20 an acre of the crop, 

 and I have heard of £iO per acre; they also get 40 

 tons of mangolds and sell at 10s. a ton, that is £20 an 

 acre. Where they can do this, whoat is for them a 

 losing crop." 



" All very well," chimed in Frank," but its only on 

 a small scale, where plenty of town manure is available, 



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