Farming of Beclfordshire. 13 



kohl-rabi, cabbages or rape, T place them in the order in 

 which they ought to be put in. These must alternate season by 

 season. 



There is, I am aware, a still prevailing prejudice against man- 

 gold ; but, if I mistake not, it is utterly groundless, and must 

 arise from ignorance of the proper mode of using it. Of turnips, 

 perhaps, nothing need be said beyond the suggestion that where 

 there is a decent subsoil farmers need not be alarmed at fetching 

 it up. Let the experiment be tried on a piece of fallow, on a 

 small scale, if you please, by ploughing two furrows deep, instead 

 of subsoiling ; thus procuring from 9 inches to a foot of staple, 

 according to its quality. The Avriter has done thus with success, 

 both for turnips, mangold, carrots, and potatoes. The virgin 

 earth, thus fetched up, after an exposure to the frosty atmosphere 

 during the winter, will mix admirably with the old cultivated 

 soil. The prejudice against kohl-rabi is perhaps still greater ; but 

 let it be remembered that, in the first instance, the prejudice was 

 scarcely less against Swedish turnips. The root I am recommend- 

 ing, it will be remembered by some of our readers, was intro- 

 duced into the county by the late John Foster, Esq., of Brick- 

 hills. The writer grows them. He has, this year, seen as fat 

 sheep turned out by such means as any butcher would want, and 

 the bulbs are still sound, while the Swedish turnips, close at hand, 

 are more than half rotten. For further evidence as to the fattening 

 quality of kohl-rabi, reference can be had to the Messrs, Bowyer, 

 of Hunts ; or to Mr. Pawlet of Beeston, the successful breeder and 

 feeder of Leicester rams. Of rape I need say nothing ; one great 

 benefit of substituting kohl-rabi and cabbages for turnips as a 

 change is, that they (the kohl-rabi and cabbages) may be planted 

 after a green crop. The seed-bed of both must be sown tolerably 

 early in the spring, and may be planted out after the green crop 

 is fed or mown off. By using the skim coulter, one ploughing 

 will suffice. Of course this portion of the fallows must be cleaned 

 in the previous autumn. 



Before I quit this division I should just say that there are dot- 

 ting the county from east to west some small patches of extremely 

 wild sand, commencing with Sandy Warren on the east, where 

 cultivation may now be seen climbing the hill-top. This is nearly 

 the last piece of barren land to be reclaimed in the county. At 

 Maulden, Ampthill, and Milbrook there are spots of the same 

 kind, finishing at Heath and Reach on the west, which are also 

 yielding to the hand of cultivation. 



There are some important strips of land not exactly compre- 

 hended under either of the heads we have enumerated, namely, 

 the parishes, and portions of parishes, which lie between the clay 

 and the gravelly loams, and that lying between the latter and the 



