288 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



acre^' I mean — as you know, tut many do not — the whole 

 superficial aero, including the fallow intervals. 1 mean 

 that the crop of 5 qrs. was taken from only the moiety, or 

 — as some will liave it— three-fifths of the acre; the other 

 moiety beine a well-tilled bed for the succeeding crop. 



I liave said that none of this tall and heavy wheat-crop 

 was laid. 1 believe the case is almost ]icculiar. With the 

 exception of another piece of wheat in this parish, on my 

 plan, I know of no other bulky crop that was not in part 

 or wholly beaten down ; and had only ten days' fall of rain 

 come upon it in that condition, the loss to tlie country 

 would have been immense, and in some cases ruinous. We 

 were only saved bj' a providential succession of many weeks 

 of sunshine unprecedented in our climate. Could we reckon 

 npon such a season year after year, the open-handed, intcd- 

 ligent farmer, with the aid he now has from artificial ma- 

 nure, might safel}' reckon year after year upon a yield of (i 

 qrs As it is, the best authorities despair of any means, in 

 the ordinarj- mode of farming, of guarding against an evil 

 which so often partially hlights or utterly destroys liis hopes. 



I owe mj' general immunity from this disaster, not so 

 much to the greater comparative stoutness of my straw, as 

 to the broad space of my fallow intervals, which enables 

 me to earlh-up my wheat with the mouldboard 



Though my wlieat crop on the clay, with reference to 

 the principles and practice of Lois-Weedon husbandry, is 

 the nmst important crop of the two, you will like to hear of 

 the four-acre piece on the gravel land. It is in stack, and 

 can only be estimated at a full average. The crop, though 

 short in the straw, and not bulky, was very beautiful, and 

 upstanding throughout ; and the large and heavy ears — 

 nearly double the size of those in the adjoining fields — 

 cleariv owed their excellence to a peculiar process in tillage 

 — a last deep and effectual stirring, at the commencement 

 of flowering ; and when I speak of such a stirring, I mean 

 what is tantamount to a dressing of guano. 



My winter beans, in sinc/le rows 5 fett apart, yield, 1/y 

 measurement, 5 qrs. to the acre ; with an interlining light 

 crop of carrots. Last year the yield of beans, grown in the 

 same way, was f! qrs. 2^ bushels, which sold at 483. ; with 

 somewhat under i) tons of red carrots in the intervals. 



This very remarkable produce of beans was correctly 

 given in the Mark Lane Express a short time since ; but 

 when reference was made to the wheat crop on the clay, 

 there was an error, as the yield was actually 4h qrs., 

 after being estimated at G qrs. Faithfully yours, 



S. Smith. 



The successive yields in bushels per acre on the 

 renowned " clay piece" have been as follows — in the 

 harvest of — 



The straw varies from 1.^ to more than 2 tons per 

 acre. Thus, while the average of the twelve years is 

 about 35 bushels an acre, the aver.ige of the last four 

 years is ;38| bushels — tliat is, 5i bushels more than the 

 average of five earlier years. There are no symptoms 

 of exhau.stion in such a stateof things, though the land 

 has been kept in heart without a single application of 

 either farm-yard, liquid, artificial, or any other 

 manure — the grain, of course, being sold, and the 

 straw and stubble carried-ofl[" and consumed as fodder 

 and litter for the enrichment of other fields. The soil 

 being so mellow and productive, unlike its original 

 self in tenacity and temper, possesses evidently no 

 smaller amount of " humus," or unctuous warmth- 

 yielding vegetable matter, than it formerly did ; and 

 from the absorbent, altered texture of the soil and 



subsoil, there is obviously more instead of less of the 

 carbon, ammonia, and other organic substances. So 

 that the non-mineral i)ortion of the crop — that is, the 

 great bulk of all the twelve years' grain and straw, has 

 been acquired from the atmosphere, cither directly by 

 the plant during its vegetation, or indirectly through 

 the agency of the soil. But the silica, potash, soda, 

 lime, jihosphorus, sulphur, and other mineral ingre- 

 dients — abstracted some by stones' weight, some by 

 only pounds' weight per acre — have clearly been re- 

 moved from the field without any return or restitution; 

 and when the stock of these, or but one of these, con- 

 stituents is reduced to a certain quantity, the land will 

 be soon exhausted and the crops will fail. Year by 

 year Mr. Smith deepened his staple with the fork, 

 every inch of fresh soil providing a hundred thousand 

 tons for an acre's crop to search in for minerals, and, 

 while he thus deepened, all might be well. But when 

 deep digging became too expensive and tedious, how 

 long would the supply of earth-food beforthcoming? 

 Twenty inches down Mr. Smith stayed his hand, and 

 the last four crops have been grown we believe, on 

 intervals worked only half-depth— snowing that one 

 crop cannot glean out the nutriment contained in a 

 single fresh inch of such soil. The clay is not a shallow 

 stratum, but has a similar constitution for several feet 

 down, at least as far as minerals are concerned ; and 

 as the ground grows richer in organic matter as the 

 tillage opens it to the air, Mr. Smith may prepare 

 mineral nourishment below as fast as the wheat crops 

 consume it at the surface. This land is not peculiar 

 for this homogeneous nature; but thousands and tens 

 of thousands of acres of deep loams and clays, or soils 

 now shallow because of the culture, but which might be 

 worked to treble their depth, have subsoils minerally 

 as good as the staple. Only prepare these minerals by 

 contact with the atmosphere and its various agencies, 

 sufficiently fast for the demands of your crops, and no 

 number of crops in succession can exhaust them — the 

 minerals, in fact, lasting while you have any soil left. 

 On a shallow loam on raw gravel or rock, you cannot 

 thus permanently maintain the supply : the hard 

 material will disintegi-ate and furnish fresh soil, but f-o 

 slowly that the minerals in the loam must be carefully 

 husbanded, and fertility be preserved by restoring in 

 manures wliat is stolen by the crops. On a gravelly 

 subsoil, poor in wheat minerals, Mr. Smith only 

 practises after-dressing with clay ; and his four-acre 

 piece has produced an admirable harvest eight years in 

 succession without any other species of manure than 

 that one moderate spreading of clay, though the land 

 was both foul and exhausted when lie began his culture. 



With expenses and jirofits we meddle not just now — 

 merely saying that with wheat down to forty shillings 

 a quarter, Mr. Smith gets a liandsomo return for his 

 outlay. But we would reiterate, that year after year 

 brings new proofs to substantiate the system ; and now 

 that steam trenching and subsoiling are within every 

 farmer's reach, by which the Lois-Weedon tillage can 

 be greatly cheapened, we really hope it will be taken 

 up in enrnost, in every suitable locality. 



