552 Abstract Report of Agricultural Discussions, 



arable land. They cannot be made to do well after tbey are weaned 

 upon the pastures where they have been kept with the ewes. 



Assuming, then, the worst — that the land in tillage is clay, the 

 crops to be grown upon half of it (the other half alternately being 

 wheat) will be mangolds, cabbages, kohl-rabi and vetches. These 

 crops may with certainty be grown upon clay land, where it is always 

 difficult, and sometimes quite impossible, to grow swedes or turnips. 

 In the northern portion of the kingdom, where the climate is more 

 favom-able to the latter crops than to mangold, these would be 

 substituted. At present we leave the men of the "far north" to 

 take care of themselves, as they are well able to do. The vetches 

 will be useful to put the yearling ewes upon, and the old ones when 

 their lambs are weaned, and should be eaten through iron hurdles. 

 While this crop is being got through, the pastm'es will get fresh, 

 the best of them to feed off the draft ewes, the others to carry the 

 stock ewes till tupped. Of kohl-rabi a few acres should be gi-own 

 and stored as mangolds, i. e., with their roots and crowns left on, and 

 covered with soil only, and kept until a fortnight before the ewes 

 begin to lamb. These pulped and mixed with chaff will greatly 

 improve the milk, and should be continued after the ewes have yeaned, 

 until an abundance of grass makes them no longer necessary. Early 

 cabbages, planted in October upon wheat stubble, well mashed, will be 

 ready when the lambs are weaned, and with them must be given some 

 hay-chaff, and to the wether lambs ilb. of cake ; some cut mangold of 

 the previous year (for these may be kept till July) may also be added, 

 and will make the cabbages last out as long as may be necessary. The 

 late York and di'umhead cabbages will succeed the early ones, and 

 carry on the lambs until it is time to plough up the land for wheat 

 and put the lambs to mangolds. This should be done in yards ; the 

 roots being pulped and mixed with wheat-chaff, and wheat-straw cut 

 into chaff. If a little hay can be spared to mix therewith so much the 

 better, but it is not essential. It is quite necessary, however, that feeding 

 shcej) should have cake or corn (the former the better), and hay-chaff 

 mixed with it. Malt coombs and bran are useful additions, where 

 they can be bought at 5Z. per ton. In this way all the wheat-straw 

 that is not required for cutting in chaff will be converted into good 

 manui'e, and in order to economise the straw it is well to cover the 

 yards one foot, and the shedding two feet thick, with biu'nt soil. It 

 will very rarely hajipcn upon a farm such as we are assuming that 

 clay cannot be found to burn. There is usually plenty of such raw 

 material to be obtained from road-sides, hedge and ditch banks, 

 borders, &c. The portion of this with which the open yard is 

 bottomed will absorb the urine, and improve the quality, while it 

 increases the quantity, of the dimg-heap, and that which goes dry, as it 

 should do, into the shed, must be turned as often as required until it 

 becomes so saturated with dung and urine that turning no longer 

 provides dry bedding for the sheep. It is desirable, then, where 

 practicable, to cover these ashes over -with fresh ones, but this cannot 

 always be done. Carting upon that sort of land in winter is a 



