THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



133 



reduce the labour of a farm to a mere bagatelle com- 

 pared with what animal-power now costs. 



Messrs. Child and Owen had a churn of novel con- 

 struction. It consists of a plain barrel, without any 

 beaters on the inside. It is hung, by gudgeons fixed on 

 its centre, on a strong frame, and is perfectly air-tight. 

 An air-pump is fixed on the top ; and when the milk 

 or cream is put into the cask, air is pumped into it as 

 long as the pump will work. The aperture is then 

 closed, and the cask is turned backwards and forwards 

 by a wiuch fixed to the gudgeon. In ten or eleven 

 minutes the butter is " come" ; and it is said to be of 

 superior quality, and more in quantity, than that ob- 

 tained by the common churn. Mr. Child has also im- 

 proved his smutter by the addition of a draught-pipe 

 (or chimney) on each side, to catch and convey away 

 the dust from the wheat. This obviates an inconvenience 

 which the machine laboured under, in dispersing the 

 dust about the place in which it was worked. This 

 machine is now getting extensively into use by millers 

 and corn-merchants, 



Messrs. Clayton and Shuttleworth exhibited an excel- 

 lent brick-making machine, which turns out 25,000 

 bricks, of the best quality and make, per day. Mrs. 

 Wedlake's successors had a new chafl"-cutter, on an im- 

 proved principle. The price is only £i, and it does as 

 much work with the same power as a large machine. 



But my letter is getting to very large dimensions, 

 and I must bring it to a conclusion. This year's 

 " Show" has been most successful, so far as the in- 

 creasing interest manifested by the public in general ; 

 and it bodes well for agriculture when all classes, and 

 professions, and callings in society thus consider it 

 worth devoting their time to an examination of its 

 attractions. I trust the time will never arrive when the 

 Exhibition of the Smithfield Club will have lost its 

 patronage from atiy class, either by a change of its 

 locality, or inattention to its efiiciency on the part of 

 its conductors. Yours, &c., 



An Old Norfolk Farmer. 



London, Dec. 18. 



PRINCIPLES OF MANURING. 



THE ROTHAMSTED EXPERIMENTS WITH SPECIAL MANURES nESCRIBED.— THE COMPETENCE OF 

 ARTIFICIAL MANURES, ALONE, TO PROCURE SUSTAINED AND REMUNERATIVE FERTILITY IN 



ROTATION-CROPPING PROVED EXPERIMENTALLY. THE CATTLE CROPS SHOWN TO EXHAUST THE 



LAND MORE THAN THE CORN CROPS. 



There probably is no industrial expedient whose 

 economic policy has presented itself in so many different 

 aspects, as that of green crop husbandry. When, at its 

 first introduction into this country (now about two cen- 

 turies ago), it merely consisted in the appropriation of 

 a small part of the then universal quadrennial bare- 

 fallow to turnip growing, its office was deemed well-ful- 

 filled, if roots were raised sufficient to prevent the ravages 

 of disease and death from hunger amongst the live stock 

 of the farm during winter ; and whose only sustenance 

 aforetime, during this inclement season of the year, had 

 been the miserable herbage of the neighbouring common? 

 supplemented by a scant and innutritions modicum of 

 corn-straw. In the end of the 17th century and be- 

 ginning of the next, the device then came to subserve a 

 double duty, for now roots had attained so important a 

 position on the farm as to supply not only abundant 

 winter keep to the lean stock and milch cows (for at this 

 time winter fattening was unknown), but to form a con- 

 siderale source of direct money-profit through sales to 

 the grazier, whose difficulties with his beasts and sheep 

 during the dead months of the year were scarcely less 

 than those of the tillage-farmer. Meanwhile the culture 

 of clover had likewise gained a considerable footing ; 

 and in process of time both hay and turnips so glutted 

 the market which had sprung up for these products as 

 jointly with the great trouble and expense of trans- 

 porting such bulky commodities, soon gave rise to 

 another phase in the economy of this newly- emerged 

 branch of husbandry. This consisted in the corn-farmer 



now employing the abundant keep thus thrown on his 

 hands in prosecuting an extended and improved system 

 of lean-stock management conjointly with the more 

 hereditary and staple industry of corn-farming. At this 

 period the relative available proportions in which the 

 forage and cereal crops occupied the area of the farm 

 were altogether arbitrary; but, ere long, the enlightened 

 and enterprizing agriculturists of the eastern counties 

 of England gave to the world that symmetrical and 

 cyclic method of which the Norfolk four-course rotation 

 was the aboriginal type ; and henceforward roots and 

 clover not only obtained an equal dominion with corn 

 in the tillage fields, but were now made the basis of an 

 entirely new branch of husbandry — namely, the winter- 

 fattening of beasts under cover and of sheep by folding 

 on the turnip field. At first there was thought to be 

 direct substantive profit derivable from this expedient : 

 but the conviction at last became universal, that, except 

 in so far as the device was abundantly productive of 

 farm-yard manure, it possessed no economic value ; 

 and hence this unsatisfactory fluctuation of opinion 

 respecting the true industrial office of the intercalation 

 of green crops with corn, has finally settled down on tho 

 admission, that but for its manurial results, such, as 

 these are, it cannot be deemed of any real advantage. 

 Coincident with these progressive changes of creed re- 

 specting cattle-crop and cattle-husbandry, a belief had 

 been springing up that the intervention of roots and 

 clover between successive corn crops, originally resorted 

 to on mere economical grounds, was in reality a physio- 



