Farming of South Wales, 



159 



grasses, but using a good plough with a skim coulter will mate- 

 rially remedy this. It may be found advisable to plough the land 

 in July, immediately after the hay is carted, and make a bastard 

 fallow for wheat. This will be found useful to eradicate root- 

 weeds ; and, with a dressing of lime and manure, will often pro- 

 duce better crops than the ley ground. Barley after wheat often 

 yields more corn, and it is decidedly of better quality; for when 

 barley lodges, as, before observed, it frequently does when fol- 

 lowing turnips, the grain is light and it readily sprouts, and in 

 addition to this it kills the layer. By far the most profitable 

 course of farming weak and shallow land in this moist climate is, 

 a fallow, oats and tinniips, barley, grass. Suppose a field of light 

 soil ; clean it thoroughly, put it in goud heart by lime and dung, 

 and take a crop of turnips. Eat the j^rincipal part of these on 

 the land by sheep or cattle ; give the field two sliallow ploughings, 

 sow the barley thin and seed thick with white clover and good 

 perennial rye-grass. This land will not only keej), but feed, a 

 great quantity of stock, and will continue to do so for a series of 

 years. The time for breaking up will be denoted by its mossing 

 and fogging; and when ploughed, take but one crop of oats, 

 turnips, barley, and then down again as before. Shallow land, 

 when laid down for a course of grass, is often infested with furze 

 and brambles. The plan of burning them, so often resorted to, 

 only increases and strengthens their growth. When the ground 

 is taken up for a ley crop, a boy with a mattock should follow the 

 plough, and tear up deeply all the roots which have escaped the 

 share. As soon as the shoot of the young furze makes its appear- 

 ance in the grass land, it should be immediately stumped up ; 

 and if brambles are cut in a young state, and their branches not 

 allowed to strike root or shed their seed, the increase of the evil 

 will be effectually stopped. 



As a simple profit-and-loss statement of the old system has 

 been given, it is only fair that a similar account of this rotation 

 should be here rendered. First, the good land, well farmed :— ^ 



Dr. ' Cr. 



This being a calculation iorjive years only, but half the quan- 

 tity of lime put on for the old ten-years course is supposed to be 



