382 On Spade Husbandry. 
applied when the turnip seed was sown, and no more added 
when they were transplanted: but, considering the state of the 
Jand, from the effect of the larches and the turnip seed, it. was 
thought that justice would not be done to the wheat without an 
application of a smaller portion of the same sort of manure, and 
I gave it 10 tons per acre. 
I have not yet made any experiments, by spade culture, on 
oats and barley, but I am intending to make one or more upon 
each of those grains, and perhaps on beans, the ensuing spring : 
I am at present digging part of one of my fields for that purpose, 
the results of which shall be detailed to you. 
Being desirous of ascertaining how far, and at what expense, 
it may be practicable to work land by the spade, by women, boys, 
girls, and feeble old men, in order, among cther reasons, to the 
employment of paupeis of that description, in which, alas! this 
country, south of the Tweed, superabounds; I-have this autumn 
made an experiment on a piece of Jand containing 1728 square 
yards, by digging or rather trenching by two short spits with 
girls, and I have the pleasure of saying tnat the work is better 
done by two such short spits, each about five to six inches deep, 
the one following the other, than digging is done by men at one 
full spit or spade full, about nine to ten inches deep. The com- 
mon wages I pay to these girls is 10d. per day, and they did 
the work in nineteen days, for one girl, which cost 15s. 10d. : 
—an acre at the same rate, containing 4840 square yards, would 
cost 2/. 4s. 4d., this is lls. 4d. per acre more than by men at 
one spit, but I am satisfied that the superiority of the girls’ 
work is well worth the difference: I may add, that this being 
the girls’ first attempt with spades, I am persuaded that by 
further practice they would in a short time do it for the men’s 
price, 33s. The girls work with quite light spades made for the 
purpose, the best size for which I think to.be 93 inches long, 
S inches broad, and weighing, with the light handle, about 47 Ibs. 
" avoirdupois. tr. 
A few months ago I took the liberty of stating to you, that 
as a parochial concern, for the employmeut of the poor, at pre- 
sent dependent on their respective parishes for relief, your sys- 
tem might be adopted with very great effect ; and one principal 
object, as I have already said, in making the last detailed experi- 
ment, was to ascertain how far it is practicable to employ, in 
the cultivation of the soil, persons who are so dependent on 
parish relief, of the descriptions of women, boys, girls, and feeble 
old men, at present doing little more than sitting over the poor- 
house fire; the greatest part of whom miay, as it is now ascer- 
tained, be employed to great effect in the heaviest manual la- 
bour, in the cultivation of the soil; and of course in the easier 
operations 
