140 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



sheep. More rarely a great farm-house, with stacks and sta 

 bles and great sheep-yards, always so sheltered about by 

 steep slopes and trees, close planted upon some artificially-ele 

 vated soil, that we came by chance and unexpectedly in near 

 proximity before* we saw them. Occasionally, too, even on 

 the downs, and entirely unenclosed, there is cultivated land 

 and very large breadths of some single crop, much of good 

 promise, too, but the wheat universally infested with charlock. 



But the valleys are finely cultivated, and the crops, espe 

 cially of sainfoin and lucerne, which is extensively grown 

 here, very heavy. 



Sainfoin and lucerne are both forage crops, somewhat of 

 the character of clover. Sainfoin only succeeds well, I be 

 lieve, on chalky soils or where there is much lime, and has 

 not been found of value in the United States. Lucerne has 

 been extensively cultivated in some parts, but not generally 

 with us. I have heard of its doing well in a cold, bleak ex 

 posure upon our north-eastern coast, but it should have a 

 warm, rich soil, deeply cultivated, and be started well clean 

 of weeds, when it may be depended upon to yield three to 

 five heavy cuttings of green fodder, equal in value to clover, 

 or three to seven tons of hay, of the value of which I am not 

 well informed. 



The valley lands are sometimes miles wide, and cultivation 

 is extended often far up the hills. The farms are all very 

 large, often including a thousand acres of tillage land, and 

 two, three, or four thousand of down, A farm of less than 

 a thousand acres is spoken of as small, and it often appears 

 that one farmer, renting all the land in the vicinity, gives 

 employment to all the people of a village. Whether it is 

 owing to this (to me) most repugnant state of things, or not, 

 it is certainly just what I had expected to hear in connection 

 with it, that labourers wages are lower than any where else 



