52 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



condition, the first crop sown is rape or cole, a plant very much 

 resembling mustard. This is twice fed off, in the season, by 

 sheep which are folded upon it. To my American readers let 

 me say that by folding, in this case, is meant that a certain por 

 tion of the field is enclosed by a light fence, it may be of hur 

 dles or of twine net-work, (which is somewhat dangerous, from 

 the sheep getting their heads into the meshes and becoming 

 strangled, or tearing the fence down,) or of light rails, which are 

 movable from one part of the field to the other, so that, when 

 one part of the crop is consumed, another portion of the field is 

 enclosed, into which they are driven, until the whole field is 

 gone over. This gives it a thorough dressing, especially as the 

 sheep, in such cases, generally receive some grain with their 

 feed. After this the field is clayed again, and then sowed with 

 oats ; second year, wheat ; third, cole with manure ; fourth, 

 oats ; fifth, wheat ; sixth, cole or turnips, well manured ; and 

 then clayed again. In the same time, the farmer, of whose 

 cultivation I am speaking, consumed six or eight tons of oil 

 cake, with about twelve acres of meadow-land hay, to assist in 

 converting his straw into manure ; all which was divided, upon 

 his cultivated land, on a farm consisting of 100 acres. With this 

 very thorough cultivation, he obtained forty bushels of wheat to 

 the acre, and about seventy bushels of oats. In other cases, the 

 course of crops has been first, turnips ; second, oats ; third, 

 wheat; fourth, seeds mown or grazed, that is, the land laid 

 down to grass ; fifth, wheat again. 



How far such a course of crops could be advantageously in 

 troduced upon the peat lands of the United States, I am not pre 

 pared to say. The culture of rape, within my observation, is 

 unknown : but the practice of consuming a crop upon the land, 

 by folding sheep upon it, is an admirable foundation for good 

 husbandry, and will be, I hope, one of the earliest improve 

 ments that we shall adopt.* 



* A curious circumstance is mentioned in a letter from Mr. Wingatc to Mr. 

 Pusey, in his thorough essay upon the Improvement of Peaty Ground, to which 1 

 acknowledge myself much indebted, which I shall quote : 



&quot; In Lincolnshire they never sow rape so early as May, but chiefly in the mid 

 dle and latter end of June, and stock it as soon as the weather becomes suf 

 ficiently cool, so that it will not injure the lambs, which in warm weather are 

 subject to have the blood-vessels of the car much enlarged, and often lose a part 



