268 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



populated counlry of the whole v.-orld, namel.y, in China ; 

 •for we believe that a Chinese farmer, with not lialf the mejms 

 and advanta^res that an English one has, will make a given 

 quantity of land, say 10 or 20 acres, grow aimually more than 

 twice the produce that an English farmer does, or can. 

 Hence, Mr. Editor, believing that we thin-seeders consider 

 it to be neither sinful nor presumptuous to believe also that 

 the present system of agriculture practised in this country, 

 with all our means at command, namely, onr immense 

 capital and our mechanical and chemical knowledge, ought 

 long since to have been overturned, and that another 

 system, worthy of our age and means, been erected in its 

 stead, and in which what is called thin seeding ought 

 to have'been one of its chief features, or principal parts : 

 I write one of the chief parts emphaticallj% as I wish to 

 guard your readers, Mr. Editor, against concluding that I 

 consider the bare seeding land, with a smaller quantity of 

 seed, would alone effect all the improvements the tliin- 

 seeders have in view ; on the contrary, they consider that 

 four things are absolutely necessary for complete farming, 

 and I might add one or two more, and not one only, 

 namely— Istly, the freeing the land from stagnant water ; 

 2ndly, ploughing at least two or three times deeper than 

 ploughing is now anywhere commonly done, or, if instead 

 of ploughing it be done by the spade or fork, still the 

 better ; 3rdly, keeping the land, also, in good heart, never 

 allowing it to become poverty stricken or poor ; and 4thly, 

 comes thin-seeding, and then to make all complete and 

 insure good crops, the lands should be kept scrupulously 

 clean. But I may be asked, would not all this require a 

 vast expense and much extra labour.'^ I reply, it would 

 not, for the additional outlay, whatever it might be, would 

 be repaid in two or three years by the vast improvements 

 of the crops. But it is not required that all the draining 

 be done in one, or even two years ; nor all the deeper culti- 

 vation, as a few acres, say 10, 20, or 30, might be done 

 each year, until the whole fiirm should be completely 

 drained 4 or 5 feet deep, and the whole land completely 

 comminuted, wherever this could be done, at least 18 inches 

 or 2 feet deep. Should your readers, Mr. Editor, faint- 

 heartedly exclaim. This is all very well on paper, but it 

 cannot, without an immense outlay, be carried into 

 practice ; I inform them that I know "more than one farm 

 thus acted upon, Avhereat the increase of the crops was so 

 great, and especially the root crops, that the outlay in the 

 fields where these were grown paid the first year,' though 

 the land was drained 4 feet, and dug by forks more than 

 1(J inches deep. 



In the county of Essex there are vast quantities of land 

 which might be cultivated to almost any depth, and yet the 

 epidermis only is scratched over three or four inches deep ; 

 how then in very dry seasons can the spongioles of the 

 roots descend into the ground after the pabula to feed 

 upon, and to be out of the influence of the burning sun in 

 hot weather? They cannot descend, and hence thousands 

 of acres of cereals and pulse are annually burnt up a month 

 or two before harvest, and the crops, which in spring 

 promised to be abundant, turn out to be complete failures. 

 This, also, and over-thick-seeding are the real causes of the 

 louse attacking beans and peas, and often destroying the 

 crops entirely ; but talk to the intelligent farmers, as 

 Professor Johnston used jocularly to designate them, and 

 they, one and all, tell you the lice are brought to their 

 fields by the east wind. It is true the east wind dries uj) 

 their shallovvly cultivated lands, but the lice are the effect 

 and not the cause of the evil they suffer. It is the same, 

 also, with turnip and mangold crops on undrained and 

 badly cultivated lands; these dry up also, as the dry harsh 

 winds and hot sun greatly injure or destroy them. But do 

 not farmers see that these effects never take place except 

 on half or badly cultivated farms ? A market gardener 

 has never lice on his peas or beans, nor do his turnips 

 Welter and wither away on his well dug lands; indeed, 

 these effects are only on lands called farms, they are never 

 on lands called gardens ; but surely the cause is not in the 

 name.^ A rose, says the divine Shakespere, would smell 

 as sweet if called by any other name; and peas and beans 

 would be as secure from lice in fields as in gardens, if they 

 were cultivated in the same way. 



You roust excuse me, Mr, Editor, if you please, for de- 



taining you with this long exordium ; I have done so to show 

 that thin seeders do not rashly advocate the principles they 

 adopt, or preach what they do not successfully practise. You 

 observe, and I can also affirm from my own experience and 

 my acquaintance with the thin-seeders, that in general they 

 are thoughtful men, often, also, learned and scientific men ; 

 frequently, also, patriotic men, as their chief object is the 

 rescuing of their country from the anomalous and degrading 

 condition of being the richest and, it is said, the most 

 powerful nation on earth, and yet is indebted to all other 

 nations of the earth for the necessaries of life. For it is 

 quite certain that were those other countries to withhold 

 their supplies of food from us, and oirr country left to the 

 food grown only by our own farmers, in one single year 

 half the inhabitants of Britain, or more, would perish 

 through dearth and famine, or of diseases the inevitable 

 consequence of dearth and famine. Hence, the object thin- 

 seeders have in view is the most patriotic pos?ible ; in fact, 

 it is to co-operate with the Deity to supply all created 

 beings with a sufficiency of food without wilful or ignorant 

 waste, such as we oftf n witness in the thick-seeders' fields. 

 Whether the advocate of it be the profound chemist, 

 Liebig, or a gardener. Hard}', or some parish minister 

 quietly pursuing his studies and experiments and practice 

 in some retired and remote village, he is certainly deserv- 

 ing, I opine, Mr. Editor, of more praise than censure ; and 

 I also opine, if he meet with little but censure rr ridicule 

 from his fellow men, he will so far be on the very best 

 terms v/ith the partner I have above referred to, with 

 whom, I observe, he is a co-operator, and such a firm, I 

 still further opine, cannot by any possibility accomplish 

 anything but the utmost benevolence and the most possible 

 good. 



Having proceeded so far, Mr. Editor, should you deem 

 what I have already written not unworthy your excellent 

 journal, I think it prudent not to intrude further upon you 

 this week than merely to add that thin-seeding is flourish- 

 ing more this year than in iiny former one ; and that all 

 the reports I receive— and they are not a few, nor from 

 ignorantmcn— prove that it is progressing securely, though, 

 1 admit, slowly, among the scientific and thoughtful of our 

 country. 



I will, therefore, now only add that Mr. Sheriff Mechi's 

 crops are the best he has ever had ; that Mr. Piper's also, 

 though last year, after allowing for rent and all expenses, 

 his profit was upwards of £10 an acre, this year's pros- 

 pects are still better. Mr. Bentall, also, the celebrated 

 implement maker, of near Maldon, has entered the field 

 and tried his hand at thin-seeding, and with so much 

 success that, though he drilled but 3 pecks of wheat only 

 per acre, both himself and his unprejudiced farming bailiff 

 are convinced that their crop is very much too thick in 

 the rows, amd that the produce would have been more and 

 better, had they drilled instead of 3 pecks not more 

 than half that quantity; a mistake, however, which they 

 have informed me they will remedy this next seeding season. 



But the most wonderful crops are the Messrs. Hardy'f> 

 as these are magnificent and almost beyond belief, or that 

 part of them for which they were enabled to put the seed 

 in early, and for which they could well clean and cultivate 

 their land. I am particular in making these observations, 

 that viiitors may not expect impossibilities, because the 

 Hardys have only lately taken these farms, which were 

 the foulest and in the worst condition I had almost ever 

 seen land to be in before. So that, although their crops 

 are not all equally alike, yet some of them I fearlessly pro- 

 nounce to be wonderful, and to be a complete triumph of 

 the system they have adopted. 



To enable readers of this article to judge somewhat of 

 the effect of their system, I observe that the rows of wheat 

 are 2 feet asuiulcr, and some even more, and yet so wonder- 

 fully has the wheat tillered, that the ground is all so well 

 covered over that as the visitor looks up or across the field, 

 the crops appear as if every foot of ground had contained 

 seeds and plants, and until he walks between the rows he 

 cannot believe but all the land had been so planted. The 

 ears, also, are so wonderfidly large, that the yield must be 

 splendid and of the liest quality of gram. I am particular 

 in this statement, because, although I myself am an out- 

 and-out thiii-sccder, yet I never put my rows in wider 



