On Spade Husbandry. 381 
The average of my neighbourhood, I believe, is about twenty- 
four bushels, but instead of making that a criterion by which to 
make the comparison, I have to state, that in the autumn of 
1819 a good deal of pains was taken to ascertain the quantity 
of wheat upon a field immediately adjoining my land, and which 
was what is considered a remarkably fine crep, by which it ap- 
peared to be thirty-eight bushels per acre; this was on land, 
although adjoining, yet of a naturally better quality than mine, 
and quite as highly manured, worked, in the usual manner of 
this country, with a two-horse plough, and sown broadcast. By 
inspection it will be seen, that the average quantity of my drilled 
and broadcast experiments in 1819 and 1820, is 68} bushels per 
acre : the value of seed wheat has been assumed to be 9s. per 
bushel, I will however for a whole crop take it lower, say 8s. per 
bushel; the comparison in respect to value will then stand thus 
per acre: 
By the spade, 684 bushels per acre at 8s. £27 8 0 
By the plough, 38 bushels per acre at 8s. 15 4 0 
The difference is 12). 45.0 
being an advantage gained by the extra expense of 5s. 
It is of much importance, on this very interesting subject, 
that every circumstance connected with the experiments should 
be known; I therefore state, that the quality of my land on’ 
which they were made, although naturally poor, is of that mid- 
dle texture that will grow the two extremes of turnips and beans; 
that, at the distance of 10 or {2 miles from Newcastle, it would 
be let for, at most, 30s. per acre; that when | got possession of 
it, there were not above 4 to 6 inches of earth, upon a subsoil 
of clay; that every year it has been worked, I have brought up 
to the surface a small quantity, say one inch of the said subsoil, 
and that I have now a depth of earth of one foot, the whole 
equal, or more than equal, to the quality of the 4 to 6 inches 
upon it, when I first had it;—further, that my experiments for 
crop 1519 were made after a crop of turnip seed, the land pre- 
viously manured for the turnips, before the seed was sown, after 
the rate of 20 tons of stable dung per acre, no additional dung 
used for the turnips, when transplanted, nor for the wheat crop, 
the plants and seeds respectively, for the different experiments 
of which wheat crop, were planted and sown at the same time in 
September. The land upon which the experiments for crop 1820 
were made, had previously upon it a three years’ crop of trans- 
planted larches, which of course not ,a little exhausted it; the 
larches were followed by turnips for seed, a two years’ crop, as in 
the former case, and, as will be allowed, a very exhausting one ; 
this land had an allowance of 20 tons of stable manure per acre, 
applied 
