475 



for the past four years. He applies eight loads per acre of farm-yard 

 manure once in three years, and every year j^ives his crops a top-dress- 

 ing, costing at least 25 shillings per acre. The result of this treatment 

 is an average of 47 bushels of wheat per acre, or iS bushels of barley. 

 His last crop of wheat, after potatoes, was 53^ bushels per acre. He 

 employs five men and five boys regularly, and occasionally five extra 

 men and six to eight girls of thirteen to sixteen years of age. 



Professor George H, Cook, of the New Jersey Agricultural College, 

 reports the practice of Eobert Leeds, an English farmer of considera- 

 ble reputation. Mr. Leeds's farm embraces 1,160 acres ; 1,000 acres be- 

 ing in active tiHage under four-field rotation — roots, wheat, barley and 

 oats, clover and timothy — the remainder in pasture or permanent 

 meadow. Last year there were 300 acres in beets, ruta-bagas, and tur- 

 nips, yielding 900 bushels of roots per acre, the wholfe of which were con- 

 sumed upon the farm. The stock consists of 2,000 sheep and 150 beeves, 

 besides horses, calves, and pigs. The sheep are chiefly Southdowns, 

 the beeves Durham, all in fine condition. Mr. L. calculates to add $30 

 to $80 to the value of a steer in eight or nine months. He practices 

 the system of box-feeding. These boxes are about ten feet square, 

 quite high, sheltered and well ventilated, in which the steer can turn 

 around and lie or stand at pleasure. The water and feed boxes are 

 movable up and down, as in a month after going in they may need to 

 come up a foot to clear the bedding. One box has oil-meal, another 

 cut roots, another hay, and a fourth water. He can help himself at any 

 time, and such generous bedding of clean straw is thrown to him that 

 he eats some of it, while he tramples the remainder and converts it with 

 his droppings into the best of manure. The bullock stays in this box 

 until ready for the knife, and when he comes out, fat, he leaves, per- 

 haps, ten cubic yards of rich compost beneath him. Mr. Leeds sells, an- 

 nually, 200 to 250 beeves, and 500 sheep. 



William Smith, of Vv'oolston, Bucks, reports the cost of steam culture 

 upon his farm, in prejiaration of seed-bed for wheat, barley, beans, and 

 roots. A field of 39 acres of heavy clay land, sown to wheat, which is 

 the seventeenth crop under steam culture, cost an average of 4s. 7^d. 

 A field of 29 acres heavy land, which i^roduced a crop of beans in 1870, 

 when the preparation cost 4s. 8(7. per acre; wheat in 1871, at 5s. ll^d. per 

 acre, has been x^repared for beans next year at a cost of 6s. 2d^ The 

 field is not quite clean, but will be so when the beans come off next 

 year. The ridges will be forked and picked this winter at an expense 

 of about OS. per acre. Another field of heavy laud, 24 acres, has been 

 prepared for barley next year. The ridges will, after picking, as in the 

 preceding case, need splitting by a subsoiler worked by horses, in the 

 winter, at a cost of 3s. per acre. This, added to the ridging and sub- 

 soiling at Gs. 2d. per acre, makes the total cost of the seed-bed ds. 2d. 

 per acre. A field of light land, 14 acres, prepared for barley — the sixth 

 white straw crop in succession — costs Us. 2d. per acre, requiring only 

 ridging and subsoiling. Thirty years ago this field was in grass of the 

 poorest sort, giving a very light produce on an average of years, and 

 when plowed up, twenty to thirty years ago, the yellow clay, which 

 plowed up at not over four inches from the surface, looked like good 

 stuff to adulterate butter with ; yet, by the aid of the ridger and sub- 

 soiler, this clay has been converted into black mold to the depth of 

 a foot. A lot of 13 acres of light land has been similarly prepared for 

 beans at the same expense, and neither the spade nor plow, worked by 

 man or horse, can equal it in quality at any cost. To steam culture Mr. 

 Smith attributes his success in keeping his land clean under a yearly 



