durhify the last Four Years. * 193 



& 



inquiry is needed ; but I do think this question of one-horse carts 

 well deserves that further inquiry, and ought not to be put 

 aside : and I will avow, though living in a country of waggons, 

 that, from what I have seen of one-horse carts, I believe these 

 heavy waggons are doomed. One merit of the carts is their 

 readiness in service. On a large fnrm near Wantage, Mr. W. 

 Edmunds has adopted them ; and last year I witnessed them 

 accidentally carrying barley : it was done most briskly by a man 

 loading on each side, and one on the cart. The time occupied 

 to load a cart high, and tie it by two ropes thrown over from 

 each hind corner (which was done instantaneously), was five 

 minutes by the watch, and the succeeding driver standing in his 

 cart trotted up in his turn, keeping his time regularly, though the 

 field was a hilly one. Carts certainly offer an important saving to 

 a young man entering upon business. For Mr. Hannam says that, 

 where waggons are used, there '' would be required, on a farm 

 of 400 acres, six dung-carts, at 16/.; two Dutch (mould) carts, 

 at 10/.; one marketing-cart, at 16/.; and five waggons, at 35/.: 

 total, 295/." On the other hand, Mr. Hannam uses skeleton 

 harvest-carts ; but, elegant as they are, they are not necessary. 

 His own or any other light cart, fitted with rails and ladders, 

 answers, I find, the same purpose ; and eight of these carts, at 

 16/. each, would amount to 128/. only; so that here would be a 

 saving of capital to the amount of one half. Leaving this sub- 

 ject, however, to the consideration of farmers, I must return for 

 a moment to ploughing. 



As to the modes of ploughing, it is not to be expected that 

 much should have been brought to light in four years : but I may 

 mention one point for which northern farmers have sometimes 

 blamed those of the south — I mean shallow ploughing. On our 

 trial-ground at Liverpool a southern farmer observed to me that 

 the furrow prescribed (6 inches) was too deep, and immediately 

 afterwards a northern farmer found fault with it as being too 

 shallow. I have already detailed the practice of my own neigh- 

 bours in ploughing light barren soils very shallow indeed.* Where 

 they have ploughed sands deep even for turnips, in trying the 

 Scotch practice, it has decidedly failed. P'irmness is, I believe, 

 quite as important for loose land as looseness for land which is 

 over close. On some very loose land of my own I have seen the 

 most remarkable improvement produced on a turnip-crop, for 

 which tightness of soil is least requisite, by the passage of waggons 

 in a previous year, and by the trampling of horses where a rick had 

 been built, for a wheat-crop firmness, as all farmers know, is 

 indispensable. Firmness, however, is not a positive but a relative 



* Journal, vol. u. p. 4UU. On the l^raclice of Farmers in cultivating 

 Peaty Land. 



