during the last Foitr Years. 171 



merely by the additional bushels of corn that may be grown on an 

 acre ; though I believe five or six bushels of wheat per acre would 

 be a fair estimate of the increase ; for such land is usually thrown 

 up into very narrow ridges, perhaps 10 feet wide, and no corn grows 

 in the bare furrow ; so that one-tenth of the land is lost altogether ; 

 the lower half of the ridge, too, on each side of the furrow bears 

 often only straggling ears ; long tracts of such fields must have 

 been seen between Birmingham and Liverpool last year by many 

 of our members ; and it may be useful for landowners to know 

 that every arable field which is laid up in ridges probably requires 

 more or less to be drained; in fact these deep furrows were 

 devised by our ancestors for drying the ridges piled up between 

 them. An intrinsic advantage, however, of draining is this, 

 that the character of the farm is changed. It is difiicult to obtain 

 a good tenant for a cold clay farm ; and I am inclined to think that 

 some of these farms have gone backwards in the last fifty years. 

 On two such farms, now in wretched condition, I found it was in the 

 memory of living persons that they had once borne far better crops. 

 No long time ago it was the clay lands that fed the country; but 

 since the great change effected in light-land farming by turnip 

 husbandry, every farmer wishes to occupy what is called a stock- 

 farm, a farm where he can fold his sheep on the land at all 

 seasons, consequently the clay-farms have become less and less 

 popular; and, in some cases, have fallen into inferior hands."'' 

 Nor can we be surprised at the unpopularity of a wet farm_, for 

 its discomforts are endless, as well as its losses. The acts of hus- 

 bandry are at all times liable to interruption by excess of rain. 

 The farm.er does not know when he can plough or sow ; often 

 his teams cannot go on the land ; so that the work to be done 



* A main reason why clay-farms have, to a considerable extent, fallen 

 into *' inferior hands" is the circumstance that they are the only farms which, 

 from the moderate outlay required to enter, come within the reach of a cer- 

 tain class. If, for instance, a farming servant or cottager, either by mar- 

 riage, bequest, or a long course of industry, shall have become possessed of 

 a few hundred pounds, and desire to be himself an occupier, he is debarred 

 from entering upon a grazing, a mixed, or a con-vertible farm, by the capital 

 necessary to purchase stock or artificial manures ; but for a small clay-farm 

 a team of horses and a few implements are alone essential. He ploughs, 

 sows, and reaps, and converts his straw into what he calls manure by the 

 mouths and feet of a few starved calves or yearlings, mainly aided by the 

 winter rains, and then carts it on his land, little better than rotted straw. 

 No wonder the condition of small clay-farms should be low. Yet, however 

 disagreeable the enumerated drawbacks to a clay-farm, and I admit they 

 are many, there is none more gratefid for capital expended, either in drain- 

 ing or manure. Once drained, the art of clay-farming consists in the art of 

 ploughing, and the art of making manure. If, on the one hand, the clays 

 could advantageously spare their superfluous moisture to the thirsty, gra- 

 velly, or sandy soils, on the other hand, they do not burn, like these, under 

 a summer sun, and at all events carefully retain, until required by the crop, 

 whatever manure is put into them.— H. Handley, 



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