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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



yield of 18 bushels. My average of three unfortunate 

 years has been 2G bushels, thus leavi-.ig 8 bushels, or £1 

 per acre for interest and clear profit. The nett profit 

 of the crop of 1858, 30 bushels per acre (or 12 bushels 

 over and above the outlay), was therefore £3 per acre ; 

 and, as I have before said, had the land been 

 in better order, the produce would undoubtedly 

 have been considerably more than this. Of course, if 

 you dare hope for the old standard market of 563. a 

 quarter, the profit may be placed at £4 4s. per acre ; 

 and those who can make a sovereign a ton of their 

 straw must add about another pound, and so bring up 

 the gain in that case to no less than five guineas an acre ! 

 Some people may say that £2 or ^^3 per aero clear 

 profit is no such great thing for a wheat-crop, even 

 though the price be down at 40s. But remember that 

 this profit is obtained every year, or at least for a num- 

 ber of years in succession, off the same land ; whereas 

 the large balance left by a wheat-crop in common farm- 

 ing is not clear, but has to defray the previous outlay 

 for fallowing and the loss by certain crops which cost 

 more to grow than they realize in return. But to show 

 the advantage of growing wheat on the Lois-Weedon 

 system, I will take an illustrative case. I am quite satis- 

 fied, from the experience already related, that on any 

 proper wheat-soil (that is, of course, containing a fair 

 proportion of clay in its composition), at least two good 

 wheat-crops in succession may be grown by the system 

 described. I say "two" crops; because after the 

 examples I have adduced, no person can reasonably dis- 

 pute the feasibility of such a moderate cropping of land 

 in fair order. And you must bear in mind that of these 

 two successive crops, the first will be — say after beans, 

 peas, oats, clover, vetches, or roots ; while the second 

 will be sown upon the fallowed intervals of the first ; 

 so that wheat will nowhere follow wheat exactly upon 

 the same portions of ground. Such being the case, my 

 unhesitating belief is that a yield of more than four 

 quarters per acre would be obtained from each crop ; 

 but say four quarters. And if Mr. Smith's light-land 

 piece, tilled thirteen inches deep, has brought nine crops 

 of 34 bushels each, surely a loamy soil, tilled ten inches 

 deep, may be expected to bring two crops of 32 bushels 

 each. Now, suppose 300 acres arable to be farmed on 

 a three-course rotation (which, by the way, would be 

 rather a novelty), as represented by the following 

 diagram : — 



Let 200 acres, A and B, be in wheat; and 100 acres, 

 C, in other corn or green-cropping. Next year, have 

 B and C in wheat, and A in other produce. The year 

 after that, C and A in wheat, and B in other produce. 

 That is, each division would be one year occupied by a 

 variety of cropping; the next year it would be under 

 Lois-Weedon wheat-rows ; the third year, again under 

 wheat sown between the stubble-stripes of the former 



crop ; and then broken up for the various cropping. 

 The assumed yield of 32 bushels would give a clear 

 profit (including interest) of £,Z 10s. per acre, with the 

 expenses already stated, and wheat at only 40s. a 

 quarter. The 200 acres of wheat would thus bring 

 £700 nett annual income. Then, as no manure is re- 

 quired for the wheat, the other 100 acres would have the 

 benefit of all the straw from the 200 acres; and with 

 this large quantity of straw for manure, enriched with 

 corn and cake as in present practice, there would be a 

 chance of a good profit also from the produce of this 

 division. The result, then, is a clear surplus — say of 

 £800 to £900, over and above all expenses, on 300 

 acres of land, when wheat is down at 40s. There 

 may be difficulties in the way of such a system of 

 husbandry; but the principal one, that of having so 

 much horse-work to be done in the wheat-field at seasons 

 when other crops require their labour, is already ob- 

 viated in anticipation by the steam trench-plough and 

 grubber. And of course 1 do not set up this threefold 

 rotation as advisable beyond all others ; nor do I pre- 

 clude the use of artificial manures for the triple-row 

 wheat, seeing that more than 40 bushels per acre may 

 stand and ripen on the land (as at Lois-Weedon) ; and 

 provided you do not overdo the crop in luxuriance, 

 guano or nitrate will pay handsomely for their use here 

 as well as in ordinary farming. 



4. Having now suggested a variety of practical 

 matters for your consideration, flowing from the facts I 

 have detailed, I must add a few words, in conclusion, on 

 the scientific side of the subject. For the chemist ena- 

 bles us to take a reasonable view of these wonderfully 

 prolific effects of mechanical tillage, dispels our fears 

 about premature exhausion of the land, and shows us 

 how to provide against it, A soil-analysis is a capital 

 process for opening a young farmer's eyes. And it cer- 

 tainly is wonderful to see a spit of earth crumbled, 

 roasted, boiled, and, finally, separated into a number of 

 brown, red, and white powders, having the same ap- 

 pearance, taste, and chemical and medicinal properties 

 as similar substances kept in bottles in the druggist's 

 shop. More mar. ellous still, to learn that the silica and 

 alumina, the lime and magnesia, soda and potash, are 

 simply the rusts of certain metals. Thus, the alumina 

 is compounded of three parts of oxygen gas combined 

 with two parts of the silvery-looking metal called alu- 

 minium ; so that on strong land containing sixty per 

 cent, of clay, there is enough of this precious metal (in 

 a state of oxide or rust) in one acre of ground, six 

 inches deep, to make ninety tons weight of tea-spoons ! 

 Why, it is almost past belief that the principal portion 

 of the sticky clay we find so awkward to cultivate, is 

 really the rust of this light shining silver ; and as a 

 matter of fact, is at the same time nothing less than the 

 dust of rubies, sapphires, and other gems, existing in 

 immense quantities in the form of a white powder, 

 easily extractable by the chemist. 



The wheat plant, like others feeds to some extent 

 upon these mineral substances contained in the soil ; and 

 a crop of thirty bushels, weighing sixty pounds per 

 bushel, and having over one and three-quarters tons of 



