114 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



leaf and green stem, is not without its share of rea- 

 sonableness. If the vertical stalks and branching flags 

 of wheat can arrest this gaseous nutriment from the air, 

 it may be worth while to load the atmosphere imme- 

 diately around them with this useful element, by placing 

 upon the soil, and beneath the overshadowing mass of 

 leafage, substances which will gradually dissipate it 

 into the air. As an illustration, we may take Professor 

 Buckman's allusion to one of the uses of farmyard- 

 manure to the turnip crop: " It is buried in the soil 

 and gradually decomposes, at first slowly, but faster the 

 longer it is exposed to atmospheric and chemical 

 actions, giving its inorganic matters in solution through 

 the roots, whilst ammonia is given off into the 

 atmosphere ; indeed, so quickly in some of the warm 

 close days of the early part of September, that evei'y 

 farmer knows when this valuable crop is growing fast 

 by the peculiar odour that he is then aware of, in passing 

 a turnip-field." 



Of course, as a general rule, we would advise the 

 farmer to bury his manure in the safe-keeping of his 

 soil, or if applied as a top-dressing, choose cool weather, 



to obviate waste by evaporation, and showers to wash in 

 the soluble riches ; but we are by no means sure that 

 these are the only methods that should be pursued. 

 For some purposes, and in particular stages of the 

 growth of some crops, it may be quite reasonable and 

 profitable to manure the atmosphere as well as the 

 soil : that is, to place rather volatile ammoniacal 

 manure underneath the foliage of a crop, as well 

 as mix it into the land. Considerable loss there would 

 evidently be ; but when artificial manures are ploughed 

 or harrowed in, there is also a large proportion carried 

 out of reach of the roots of the plants, or locked up in 

 a form useless for their requirements. And it should 

 be borne in mind that the kind of top-dressing referred 

 to is not at all of the prodigal and absurd character of 

 the scheme by which the farmer was to generate 

 immense quantities of carbonic-acid gas and ammonia 

 at his farmstead, dissipating them into the atmosphere, 

 so that the winds highly charged with these invigora- 

 ting and fertilizing elements might amazingly force-on 

 the vegetation of his farm ! 



THE NEW FOREST, HANTS. 



Sir. — In these comparatively enlightened and improving 

 times, when the arts and sciences have arrived at a climac- 

 teric of unsurpassed excellence : when the rude innateness 

 of barbarism has been superseded by the courteous smiles of 

 civilization, it does, indeed, appear somewhat like an 

 anomaly that the legislators of this country should prove 

 so indifferent to the advancement of the most interesting 

 of all subjects that can possibly come under their cognizance 

 and observation. I mean the agricultural interests. 



At the distant period when the first Norman aggressor 

 invaded the rights of the people of this country, which 

 were swayed under Saxon rule, his great and, indeed, 

 primary object was to depopulate the territorial districts 

 abutting on the coast immediately opposite his Norman do- 

 minions, as a ready means of admitting his followers into 

 the country, without being subjected to resistance or moles- 

 tation. It was from a spirit, the most selfish and tyrannical 

 in its nature, that the above forest commenced and still 

 continues, after an uninterrupted lapse of seven hundred 

 and seventy-seven years. Independent of the sacrilegious 

 fact of thirty six mother churches having been destroyed, 

 numerous Norman nobles were appointed to hold roydon, 

 or royal lands, in those unchurched and desecrated villages, 

 whilst the poor inhabitants were turned out for 30 miles 

 together, that the New Forest should be established on the 

 most unrighteous and unjustifiable grounds. 



Heav}'^ fines and most grievous penalties were rigorous!}' 

 imposed upon many of his servile subjects, who should be 

 detected trespassing upon his game and retirement ; and, to 

 sum the matter up in as few words as possible, a smiling, 

 fertile, and prosperous territory was, by the wanton and 

 capricious mandate of a despoiliating monarch, converted 

 into a barren and desolate wilderness. 



About five years since an act of Parliament was passed, 

 and shortly afterwards came into operation, to the effect 



that the forests throughout the kingdom, including that 

 known as the New Forest, the same of Dean in Gloucester- 

 shire, and Hainhault, with others of a like character, should 

 be undeered, and the same brought into a state of cultiva- 

 tion. As far as the removing the vert was concerned, the 

 spirit of the act was carried faithfully out to the letter ; but 

 in relation to the cultivation of the royal wastes, the less 

 that is said about it, perhaps, the better. 



From the last returns of Sweinmote, issued in 1840, it ap- 

 pears that there remained a clear area of waste amounting 

 in extent to 63,540 acres, including the enclosures which 

 are paled round for the growth and preservation of oak, ash, 

 beech, and other timber, for the use of the royal dockyards. 

 Since iron has been found to answer the purposes of elbow- 

 joints in ship-building, the curvi-formed branches of the 

 oak have gone greatly out of use, and on an equitable scale 

 of valuation it has been found that the expenses attendant 

 upon keeping up the establishments of the above forest, are far 

 greater than the returns therefrom can warrant or justify. 

 From a long uninterrupted course of custom, a numerous 

 class of people, termed squatters, have continued from time 

 to time to encroach upon this royal domain. They have 

 succeeded in constituting villages in different parts of the 

 waste,and exist, themselves and their families, in a precarious 

 manner. Many are employed in making charcoal, 

 some' in constructing brooms out of the heather, which 

 grows in abundance throughout the forest, whilst the re- 

 mainder are chiefly occupied in poaching and smuggling. At 

 sundry periods valu.ible grants of land have been made by 

 the crown to private individuals, who have been owners of 

 estates contiguous to the forest. The Duke of Buccleugh 

 possesses one of these eligible tenures at a hamlet called 

 Beaulieu, situated between Lymington and Hythe. There 

 are some highly cultivated farms upon his manor, which are 

 very productive and remunerating to the farmers who oc- 



