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THE FARMER'S MAGAZIiN'E. 



Sir Charles Teinpest, and Jonas Webb, with com- 

 paratively new men, like Mr. Robinson of Clifton, 

 and Mr. Fowler of Henlow." Our portrait of 

 Fidelity was taken by Mr. Davis at this Meet- 

 ing. 



In the month following, at the Yorkshire So- 

 ciety's show at Hull, Fidelity took the first prize 

 of £10 for two-year-old heifers in calf, beating the 

 Colonel's Pearl (the second prize), and Captain 

 Gunter's Moss Rose and Mr. T. R. Middle- 

 borough's heifer, both highly commended. In the 

 same month, at the Meeting of the Royal Lan- 

 cashire Society held at Blackburn, Fidelity took the 

 first prize of £5 in her class and the silver medal 

 as the best cow or heifer in all the entry. As a 

 yearling heifer Fidelity was only commended at 

 Chester, Mr. Booth's Queen of the Isles (first 

 prize) and Colonel Towneley's Diadem (second 

 prize) being both placed before her. However, the 

 white heifer, as we have shown, had her revenge in 

 the year following ; Queen of the Isles not even being 

 noticed at Warwick, where Fidehty won, an over- 



sight that caused some sensation at the time. Not 

 that many would have again given the Queen her 

 Roodee rank ; for Fidelity is a beautiful heifer, of 

 a truly symmetrical deep frame and fine touch, 

 with a really lovely head, and wonderfully good 

 line along the back, while she is unquestionably far 

 better behind than Mr. Booth's heifer. Fidelity 

 had a fine healthy bull-calf in February, 1860, and 

 is now in calf again. 



The fame of the Towneley Herd is spread 

 throughout the world, and very justly so too. 

 With the careful culture of Mr. Culshaw, it has 

 gradually got from good to better, until we may 

 fairly now put it at its zenith. There is no stock 

 sells so well ; although with the tempting prices 

 always to be had, the numbers still keep increasing. 

 Since the commencement of this year eight bulls 

 have been sold and two let; while from the 25th 

 of November, ISGO, to the 15th of March, 1861 

 there have been, singularly enough, ten calves 

 dropped to replace them. Seven of these are heifers 

 and three bulls. 



SALT FOR MANGOLD-WURTZEL, 



How few farmers know the use of salt ! Its power 

 to destroy and to revive we are alike unacquainted with. 



Some years ago, being troubled on my grass-land 

 with a weed which I could not eradicate by mechanical 

 means, I sowed a heavy dose of salt, and at once effected 

 the object. A season or two back, it struck me that if 

 the experience was worth anything, it should teach me 

 a quick way to rid my land of weeds generally — the 

 arable land, I mean. The consequence was, that when 

 the autumn arrived, the fields that were intended for 

 fallow, received a very heavy coat of salt — coarse- 

 grained, agricultural salt ; which is, in fact, the sweep- 

 ings from the salt-works, and the refuse of the pans. 

 The quantity sowed was quite 12 cwts. The winter 

 which followed was a severe one, and, in connection 

 with the frost, the chemical action of the salt upon the 

 soil was charming to the eye, which delights iu the 

 sight of a beautiful friable mould, in place of a churlish, 

 unkindly clay, which usually resists the expansive 

 and disintegrating glacial influence of winter. The 

 field, too, on which the experiment was tried had long 

 possessed a reputation for couch-grass, and that par- 

 ticular species of it known as water-grass, the most 

 hopeless and troublesome of all. The hoe would not 

 kill it; the twitch-rake would not gather it, and the 

 children, in seeking it upon the surface after the harrows 

 had left it exposed, usually secured half of it; and 

 stamped the rest into the soil to perpetuate the kind. 

 This water-grass, then, which the hoe would not kill, 

 which the rakes could not collect, nor the children pick 

 off, was quietly disposed of, never more to trouble me, 

 while it lay at its winter repose. The salt had slain the 

 thief of my profits, noiselessly as the ferret sucks the life- 

 blood from the rabbit in its retreat ; and when the first 

 spring-furrow was turned, the view of the shrivelled 



enemy— the enemy which had baffled all my ingenuity 

 and kept my exchequer low — was cheering indeed. One 

 length after another of the sinuous, wiry weed was ex- 

 amined, but there was no sign of life : not even at that 

 critical point, the knot, could I detect, by means of the 

 microscope, any indication of vitality. The "foal's 

 foot," which runs down far into the substratum, were 

 many of them dead, though not all. In looking round 

 for the butter-cup roots, also, scarcely any were to be 

 found : and glad I was ; for bother enough they had been 

 to me. 



The land then received one or two furrows to in- 

 corporate the salt thoroughly, and diffuse its power 

 beneficially, so that it might invigorate everywhere, and 

 yet not remain in sufficient force in any one place fo 

 endanger the seed which followed. 



At the proper season, and without any other pre- 

 paration, the mangold seed was sown, and speedily 

 vegetated. There were but few weeks to hoe, for the 

 salt had attacked the principle of vitality in the seed of 

 the annual, as it lay secreted in the clod, as well as that 

 of the couch-grass, and the mangolds grew without let 

 or hinderance to be a finer crop than ever before 

 flourished upon the same plot of land. The foliage was 

 thoroughly vigorous, and the bulbs were remarkably 

 well matured and sound. The weight per acre reached 

 25 tons, when before the maximum had been 20 tons — 

 by the aid of several loads of dung, and an immense 

 amount of labour. 



The following year, upon a field of the same cha- 

 racter, I tried the same experiment, varying the course 

 of management in some degree. I applied in October 

 12 cwt. of salt upon the upturned and weedy surface of 

 that land destined for the root-crop, and allowed it there 

 to lie and do its silent work as before, until, in February 



