478 Farming of Waricicltshire. 



followed by a lighter and more compendious spring tillage. The 

 success of this method has induced others to adopt it. 



The wheat is drilled in October and November, beginning 

 with 2 bushels, ending with 2^ bushels per acre. Only a small 

 quantity of white wheat is grown, perhaps not one acre to twenty 

 of red ; there is some Talavera and a little Coin, but the latter 

 requires a strong clay soil, and on the loams produces very thin 

 light grains. Varieties have much increased froin the natural 

 desire to improve so important a cereal ; the favourite sorts, 

 however, are Burrels, American Red, and Red Lammas — 

 the latter is decreasing. The clover ley is seldom dunged for 

 wheat ; the young plant depends for support on the dressing left 

 by the sheep pastured on it : in spring, guano, nitrate of soda, or 

 some other manure is given if the plant require it, and the farmer 

 can afford it. Beans (the White-eye and Water-bean for spring, 

 and sometimes winter beans) are dibbled or drilled in autumn or 

 in February ; the latter season is preferred ; and when following 

 the wheat crop, the stubble is forked and the land ploughed once 

 before winter, and again for sowing : a point is made of dunging 

 for beans. Of barley many sorts are grown, but chiefly Cheva- 

 lier. It is drilled after once ploughing, as the turnips are fed 

 off, up to the beginning of May. About 12 lbs. of clover and a 

 mixture of other seeds is sown in the barley ; Italian rye-grass or 

 Pacey's is sown in the place of common rye-grass. But the 

 former, though probably preferable, seems to be declining in 

 use ; a prejudice has been raised against it, partly from the 

 quantity of couch-seed sold with it, partly from an idea that it is 

 liable to grow stalky in spring. The first of these evils of course 

 is avoidable, the latter may be remedied by early pasturing in 

 spring, and keeping down the hard inedible stalks. The plants 

 will' then become leafy, and an evil, not easy of after remedy, 

 will be prevented. In addition to that which is cut for fodder, 

 a portion of the seeds, regulated by the quantity of pasturage on- 

 the farm, is cut for hay, and the greater part depastured with 

 sheep and cattle. A coat of 10 or 12 tons of dung laid on the 

 seeds in autumn is left exposed to the weather through the 

 winter, and, notwithstanding, produces an effect on the vegetation 

 in spring which warrants the application of the practice. This 

 is one more instance of the scientific and we may say the 

 common-sense view of top-dressing with dung being falsified by 

 the practical results.* 



* Not so. Science and common sense are agreed that top-dressings are only 

 precarious at the time of year when evaporation is on the increase, or at its height. 

 It declines in the autumn, and almost ceases during the ■winter months: at such 

 time the application of dung on the surface, both as a protector from frost to the 



