AGRICULTURE. 



oil-cake at two guineas an acre.' This is admir- 

 ably stated, and shews that, at that period, money- 

 making farmers had adopted the snorter and in- 

 tensified system which was afterwards carried out 

 by Lord Leicester. 



It is rather singular, however, that Lord 

 Leicester, as it would appear, had been struck 

 with Arthur Young's reasoning, and had pursued 

 the very course he recommended; for, in 1783, 

 Arthur Young paid a visit to Holkham, and his 

 lordship was following the five and six course 

 shift, or of having two or three years in grass. 

 The objections to this system were, that it allowed 

 the land to become foul, and three or four plough- 

 ings instead of one were necessary to bring it into 

 a proper condition for wheat. Commenting on 

 this practice, Young again writes : ' On our good 

 lands we never think of giving more tillage than 

 one ploughing, and get as fine crops as can be 

 seen ; now, the necessity of tearing a loose soil to ' 

 pieces, the fault of which is too great looseness, | 

 while no such necessity exists on much stiffer j 

 soils, appears to be quite a paradox.' This extra 

 cultivation of the grass-land, however, has always 

 been found necessary on the lighter lands in the 

 drier counties of England for obtaining crops of 

 wheat, when the land has been allowed to remain 

 for a longer period than one year in grass. Thus 

 the Norfolk farmer is in a great measure shut up 

 to the necessity of having two white crops in four 

 years, and of expending large sums in the pur- 

 chase of cake for feeding and of artificial manures. 



The climate of Norfolk is not so well suited to 

 the growth of turnips as the west of England, 

 Ireland, or Scotland, but the turnip is a more 

 prominent crop in Norfolk than it is in any of 

 those places. Turnips are an expensive crop, and 

 in the feeding of stock, do not directly pay the 

 farmer for raising them. They, however, are a 

 necessary part of the system in Norfolk, even 

 when sown to so great an extent as one-fourth of 

 the arable land. 



In the Norfolk rotation, one-half of the land is 

 in equal parts of barley and wheat, which are both 

 high-priced grains. The raising of these two 

 grains can better afford a loss to be made upon 

 the turnip-crop, than if oats had taken the place 

 of either the one or the other. In the moister 

 climates, which only admit of inferior grains being 

 sown, the turnip, though easily raised, never occu- 

 pies a fourth of the extent of the farm, as is the 

 case in Norfolk. The raising of the crop for 

 feeding cattle or sheep does not pay of itself ; and 

 hence, on farms where oats are the principal grain 

 raised, pasturing the arable land for more than 

 one year is the course always followed. 



It is highly important to draw the distinction 

 between the cattle crops that pay the farmer and 

 those that do not. Mr Mechi and Mr Caird have 

 expressed very different opinions on the economy 

 of feeding opinions, indeed, quite antagonistic. 

 The former maintains that live-stock do not pay 

 at all, while the latter affirms that they are the 

 most lucrative sources of profit to British farmers. 

 The truth, however, is, that such crops as turnips, 

 which are raised at a great expenditure of labour 

 and manure, do not yield, on the average, a direct 

 return equivalent to the expense of raising them. 

 On the other hand, grasses and clovers, which 

 grow without cultivation and manure, yield a 

 return in the feeding of stock equivalent to the 



landlord's rent and tenant's profits. Looking at 

 the expenses connected with the two crops, we 

 have always thought that the ordinary rates which 

 a grazier will give for a field of turnips and a 

 field of grass are sufficient to guide us on this 

 question. 



A large breadth of turnips can only be econom- 

 ically raised as part of a rotation, where, as is the 

 case in Norfolk, barley and wheat are raised to a 

 great extent. It is for this reason that agricultural 

 tourists, from the days of Arthur Young, have 

 remarked with surprise, that this crop is never 

 raised so extensively in those districts which have 

 a climate particularly well suited to it. as it is in 

 Norfolk. 



Turnips, being an ameliorating and less profit- 

 able crop, are never so extensively cultivated on 

 rich land as upon poor. On rich land, potatoes 

 or beans, yielding more profit, are substituted ; so 

 that even where the soil is well adapted for tur- 

 nips, this crop, on high-priced land, does not 

 usually exceed one-sixth or one-seventh of the 

 arable land of the farm. 



It would be out of place, in this short article on 

 agriculture, to enter particularly upon this interest- 

 ing subject ; and we shall only contrast the Scotch 

 and Welsh systems of rotation with the Norfolk. 



In moist climates, the general system is to rely 

 to a great extent upon grasses for renovating the 

 fertility of the land, when it has been exhausted 

 by crops of cereals. Though cereals, as is well 

 known, are inferior in quality in moist climates, 

 yet they are there raised at less expenditure for 

 manure. This circumstance, and the less amount 

 of labour expended in cultivation, form a certain 

 compensation, so that arable land is fully as valu- 

 able when devoted to cereals in the west side of 

 the island as on the east. These principles are 

 well brought out in Mr Read's essay on the Farm- 

 ing of South Wales, contained in the Journal of 

 the Royal Agricultural Society. In answering 

 the question, ' How far is it desirable to adopt the 

 four-course shift in the moist climate of the west 

 of England ? ' he writes : 



' The only artificial manure that has been exten- 

 sively tried is guano, which has been found to 

 answer admirably for corns, root-crops, and grass ; 

 indeed, the effects are sometimes double those 

 which are produced by the same manure in the 

 east of England. The great activity and increased 

 luxuriance which are imparted to all crops by the 

 application of good fertilisers, are conspicuous to 

 any one who has seen the small returns produced 

 by heavy dressings given to the gravels of Norfolk. 

 The Welsh farmer, therefore, should adapt his 

 system of improvements to his own soil and 

 climate, and not to that of Norfolk, or any other 

 totally different portion of the kingdom. It is 

 always considered abominable farming to take 

 two white straw-crops in succession ; still, with 

 moderately high farming, on good soils in this 

 country, that abomination may be successfully 

 practised. Experience has proved that, on the 

 better lands, barley, after a drawn crop of turnips, 

 will frequently lodge. Although the following 

 course cannot be defended on the principles upon 

 which a rotation of crops is founded, yet it is one 

 best suited to the good land of this district : I, 

 turnips ; 2, wheat ; 3, clover ; 4, wheat ; 5, barley. 



In Scotland, the necessity of having a large 

 extent of land under turnips was not felt up to 



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