during the lad Four Years. 197 



districts, and it is to them I address myself, will value the account 

 which Mr. Fisher* gives of the oat raised from a single ear by 

 Mr. Dyock, near Aberdeen, in 1830. It ripens a fortnight or 

 even three weeks earlier than other kinds, and is equally pro- 

 ductive with potato-oats in the elevated situations to which it is 

 fitted. Its use appears to have spread gradually in Scotland. 

 Mr. Fisher tried this oat for the first time last year in Westmore- 

 land. He sowed it side by side with the potato-oat, reaped the 

 Dyock oat on the last day of August, the potato-oat on the 20th 

 of September, and obtained the largest return from the Dyock 

 oat, as well as the heaviest sample. If this oat should maintain 

 its character, a greater boon could not be given to the moun- 

 tainous parts of Great Britain, since it would remedy at once for 

 their staple crop the main difficulty of their farms. 



But if we have not learned much that is new as yet respecting 

 white crops, the information we have received upon green crops 

 has made amends to us ; nor is there any more interesting branch 

 of farming. It is well known that the stock which furnished our 

 forefathers with meat were fattened on the rich grass lands, but 

 that, by a great revolution in farming, the light arable soils now 

 chiefly supply the country with animal food. In the four-course 

 rotation, consisting of Barley, Clover, Wheat, and Turnips, suc- 

 cessively, while the wheat gives us bread, and the barley beer, a 

 great part of the clover and all the turnips are converted into 

 mutton, or sometimes into beef. But there is another ground for 

 inquiry into green crops. It is commonly said that the farmers 

 of the south of England are greatly inferior to those of the north, 

 and the charge is hardly denied ; yet I do not think that in the 

 South we are at all backward in the management of our corn ; on 

 the contrary, I am told that our corn-fields are more free from 

 weeds : our grass lands have also a decided superiority. It is 

 our turnip-fields, with poor roots and large patches of bare ground^ 

 that offend the sight of those who are accustomed to the neat and 

 vigorous aspect of ridges crowned with close-set heavy bulbs, in 

 northern husbandry. A keen controversy has been carried on 

 for a long time, chiefly in the '^Farmer's Magazine," by practical 

 farmers on this very subject, and has been called "^ The Turnip 

 Question." The chief point on which it turned was, the weight 

 of turnips that could be grown on an acre of land — the north- 

 ern farmers asserting high weights, the southern denying them. 

 Having attentively read the arguments, I will state what appears 

 to me to be the result.f It is clear, I think, that the northern 



* Journal, present Number, Mr. Fisher on the Dyock Oat. 



-!• The relative expense of raising swedes in the north and south has 

 never been fairly compared. In the north it is not uncommon to manure 

 very heavily for swedes, and plough it in the ridges, and also to drill bones 



