114 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



with magnificent crops of this grain, likely to yield full forty 

 bushels an acre, which would be worth at least $6000. The 

 wheat is all drilled, and looked to me particularly clean 

 and even. The alternate crops are carrots, mangel-wurzel, 

 ruta-baga, potatoes, and clover. Of the latter, forty acres ; 

 of the roots, mangel-wurzel occupied the largest space. Mr. 

 Morton told me that he had, of late, much preferred it to 

 turnips ; thought he could get thirty tons from an acre that 

 would only yield twenty of ruta-baga, with similar expense. 

 A few acres were devoted to vegetables and fruit for the 

 family, and to the raising of seeds for the root-crops. I do 

 not recollect to have seen a weed on the farm, except among 

 the potatoes, which were being hoed by labourers, with very 

 large hoes made for the purpose. 



Of course the expense of such improvement as I have de 

 scribed was very great; but the proprietor considers it to 

 have been a good investment. It is now leased by Mr. Mor 

 ton and his son. 



It is called the &quot; Example Farm ;&quot; how appropriately, may 

 be judged by the following description of an ordinary farm 

 of the neighbourhood, by the &quot; Times Commissioner :&quot; 



&quot; An inconvenient road conducted us to the entrance-gate of a dilapi 

 dated farm-yard, one side of which was occupied by a huge barn and 

 wagon-shed, and the other by the farm-house, dairy, and piggeries. The 

 farm-yard was divided by a wall, and two lots of milch-cows were accom 

 modated in the separate divisions. On one side was a temporary shed, 

 covered with bushes and straw. Beneath this shed there was a compara 

 tively dry lair for the stock ; the yard itself was wet, dirty, and uncom 

 fortable. The other yard was exactly the counterpart of this, except that 

 it wanted even the shelter-shed. In these two yards are confined the 

 dairy-slock of the farm during the winter months ; they are supplied with 

 hay in antique, square hay-racks, ingeniously capped over, to protect 

 the hay, with a thatched roof, very much resembling the pictures of Eobin- 

 son Crusoe s hut. In each yard two of them are placed, round which the 

 shivering animals station themselves as soon as the feeder gives them 

 their diurnal ration, and then patiently nominate the scanty contents. A 



