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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



There are, therefore, we may conclude, several 

 modes of adding phosphate of lime to our old pas- 

 ture lands, each of which may be preferable in dif- 

 ferent locahties, and in the other varying circum- 

 stances in which the stock-owner is placed. 



But we must not consider that the phosjjhate, on 

 which we have been dwelling on this occasion, is 

 the only mineral substance profitably available for 

 the more permanent improvement of our pastures; 

 other salts of lime are available. The sulphate of 

 lime, or gypsum, is often a powerful and very pro- 

 fitable dressing for certain grasses, and is a manure 

 very light of carriage, two cwt. sufficing for an 

 acre of grass, and the same good results are still 

 more frequently obtained by the use of lime or its 

 carbonate. It not unfrequently happens, in fact, 

 that the carbonate of lime is present in the soil in 

 proportions much too limited for the production 

 of a considerable amount of grass: this is especially 

 the case in the district of North Wales, in which I 

 am now writing. Hence the farmers employ lime 

 brought out of the isle of Anglesea, as a dressing 

 for their soils ; but not to so considerable an ex- 

 tent as is desirable. The farmers of other districts, 

 who possess more capital, also lime their pastures. 

 Chalk, or carbonate of lime, is used by the Essex 

 farmer for the same purpose. And these salts of 

 lime, let us remember, are not, like the organic or 

 other nitrogenous dressings, useful for only one 

 grass season : their good effects are felt for years. 



I have said nothing in this paper of the necessity 

 for the drainage of pastures, their cleansing, or 

 other necessary treatment, since those are essential 

 matters of which no farmer with whom I have do 

 is unacquainted ; neither have I said anything 

 of dressings, for these, of ordinary farm-yard ma- 

 nure : the inferior pastures, on which I have been 

 on this occasion occupied, are rarely enriched in 

 this way. They have hitherto been left to natures 

 care ~ to the dews and rains, and to the minute 

 portions of ammonia poured over our hills in their 

 downfalls. I have not dwelt, I repeat, on these, 

 but have rather been anxious to direct my reader's 

 attention to fertilizers, which being light of carriage, 

 and yet powerful and permanent in their effects, 

 would, I feel well assured, supply essential ingre- 

 dients for the permanent improvement of many 

 of the pastures of our island. The effort is one of no 

 small importance in this great cattle-breeding prin- 

 cipality. To those, indeed, who have had occasion 

 to reflect on the yearly increasing value of the nu- 

 merous and valuable herds of cattle which tenant 

 our western pastures, no arguments are needed to 

 convince them of the fact. All these will readily 

 agree in the conclusion, that whatever materially 

 adds to the value of the food of our live stock, 

 promotes not only the breeders prosperity, but in an 

 equal degree adds to the general comfort of a 

 meat-consuming community, now so steadily and 

 so considerably enlarging. 



AUTUMNAL CU LT I V ATI O N— A S A MEANS FOR GOOD FARMING. 



It is highly necessary we should possess clear and 

 distinct views upon every subject connected with the 

 practice of agriculture ; and we again revert to the 

 system of autumnal cultivation, because we feel it to 

 bo a subject of vast importance to the farming interest 

 of the kingdom at large, while it is our observation and 

 conviction that the practice is neither generally under- 

 stood nor sufficiently appreciated. It is certainly 

 but partially and imperfectly carried out both as to 

 efficiency and in extent. 



We do not presume to the position of tutors in 

 agriculture ; but we do desire to see viore of the au- 

 tumnal fallow, and less of the curse of creation in the 

 shape of the thorn and the thistle, and the commingled 

 mass of grass and rubbish which feast upon and im- 

 poverish the soil. We want go d farming to be 

 general : we want bad farming to be the exception. 

 We desire to see comparative garden-culture abound- 

 ing; and well may you who have already attained to it 

 plume yourselves at your will and at your pleasure 

 upon your superior skill and surpassing judgment; 

 but, where weeds exist and abound, there is other and 

 more important work to bo done. Weeds and self- 



laudation and self-satisfaction will not do: they are 

 our admitted enemies : they are as a stealthy foe, and 

 as insidious robbers. Therefore Extirpation ! must be 

 our watchword and our cry, whilst the autumn system 

 of fallow must be our practice. It is unquestionably 

 the cheapest and best means by which to secure and 

 maintain a clean occupation, and it has but to be 

 tried in practice to be appreciated ; and, when appre- 

 ciated, it will be considereAworthy of strenuous efforts 

 to be carried out generally as a common system of 

 culture. The time is coming when it must be viewed 

 not as secondary, but of primary, importance; for the 

 future will be far too competitive an age for the farmer 

 manacled awA. tied with the fetters of his couch to 

 stand a chance, or find either existence or breathing- 

 space in the straining cxeitions of the hard-fought 

 race for profit. He must be distanced. Extra weight 

 will tell. If clean farming won't pay, foul larming 

 can't; and the landed proprietors are gradually 

 learning the worth of a good tenant, whilst they reject 

 and eject the bad. 



Autumn cultivation has for its main object the 

 eradication and destruction of all the perennial weeds 



