Agriculture of Shropshire. 51 



beyond question the cheapest and most effectual mode, and if 

 done immediately after harvest we take the plant at its weakest 

 time, and when its appearance amono;st the stubble is most 

 readily noticed. Some who are scrupulous respecting the value 

 of vegetable matter hesitate about burning it, and prefer putting 

 it in heaps and rotting it, whereby much is again distributed 

 over the ground. To so great a pest no quarter should be given, 

 nor should we be satisfied that it will not cause more trouble 

 until we see its ashes. 



The land being cleaned of the couch-grass and its kindred — 

 for it has the black-grass and other near relatives in different 

 neighbourhoods — the surface may be cleared off by the broadshare 

 and harrows, and the weeds thus collected burnt and spread upon 

 the ground. Some may consider it a loss to adopt this mode : 

 a slight and very temporary organic loss does occur, but it is 

 incomparably the least loss of the two. We are not half 

 careful enough against the re-distribution of weeds. We often 

 take great care in gathering, and making into a rotten mass, 

 and then spreading again over the land much that is destined to 

 give us future trouble. This is especially the case with farmyard 

 dung, into which the seeds of weeds are allowed to pass in the 

 assurance of their destruction during the rotting of the dung. It 

 is forming far too low an estimate of the vitality of seeds to 

 think so ; and there are few farmers, if any, who are not adding 

 foul manure to the land, which is to give them trouble at some 

 future time. It is far better effectually to destroy such matter by 

 burning than, from any false notions of economy, to perpetuate 

 these troublesome trespassers. 



The next step is the breaking of the land ; and the most suc- 

 cessful growers of mangold-wurtzel always double-plough their 

 land, by allowing one plough to follow on the track of the pre- 

 ceding, whereby they gain a furrow of 12 or 15 inches deep, 

 and thus it lies for tlie winter. Early in the spring it is again 

 ploughed 8 inches deep, and is then thrown into ridges 27 inches 

 wide, between which dung is spread at the rate of about 12 to 

 16 yards per acre. Tlie artificial manure used is generally 

 drilled with the seed, but I very much prefer sowing the guano 

 broadcast before the ridges are split upon the dung. The usual 

 allowance of artificial manure is, guano 2 cwt., and superphos- 

 phate of lime 2 cwt , mixed with ashes, so as to make 25 or 

 30 bushels per acre for drilling. The quantity of artificial 

 manure may be often increased with considerable advantage ; for 

 it should be remembered that, whilst the general tillage expenses 

 remain the same, whether we have a large crop or a small one, 

 yet it frequently happens that, by a more liberal dose of the 

 artificial manure, we make a very great increase in our crop 



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