AGRICULTURE. 



wall or bank-fencing ; and a large portion having 

 been pared, and burned, and limed, is now 

 growing roots and grass, and indeed oats also 

 with great success. One of the most remarkable 

 features of the Exmoor improvements consists in 

 the control of the water. Instead of the drenching 

 rains being suffered to wash away fine particles of 

 soil, manure, lime, or ash down the hill-sides, the 

 water is caught in carrier-canals and reservoirs, 

 conducted along the sides of the declivities, and 

 made to trickle down over water-meadows, or, 

 with soil in suspension, allowed to rush over the 

 surface where wanted, or else employed to turn 

 mill-wheels and machinery at the farm-steads. 



This leads us to notice very briefly the subject of 



Irrigation. The object to be obtained is to 

 flood the land at pleasure in such a manner as to 

 maintain an incessant shallow flow or trickling 

 amongst the blades of herbage. To give the 

 surface the requisite inclination in every part, to 

 design and lay out the carriers which bring the 

 water, and the intervening drains which convey 

 away the spent floods, according to the levels of 

 the land, and have the water under perfect 

 command, requires very considerable knowledge 

 and judgment. The water is to run in the months 

 of October, November, December, and January, 

 from fifteen to twenty days at a time, with inter- 

 vals of five or six days for the ground to dry and 

 air. The question as to what water is suited or not 

 for the purpose, is also one of some difficulty. 



The Duke of Portland's water-meadows at 

 Clipstone Park, in Nottinghamshire, are the most 

 famous in England : many miles of a swampy 

 valley, thick set with hassocks and rushes, the 

 favourite haunt of wild ducks and snipes ; hill-sides 

 covered with gorse and heather ; and a rabbit- 

 warren, over which a few poor sheep wandered, 

 having been changed into a succession of the 

 richest meadows, producing a marvellous quantity 

 of green cuttings and pasturage. 



The Scottish moors are too frequent and 

 extensive to be particularised. The moor of 

 Rannoch, in the neighbourhood of Ben Nevis, 

 includes a vast tract of rocks, lakes, and morasses, 

 elevated about 1000 feet above the level of the 

 sea, and is one of the most dreary, wild, and 

 worthless districts imaginable. It is not in- 

 habited, and seldom even visited. There is a 

 somewhat similar district on the west coast of 

 Cromarty and Sutherland; though without any 

 great hills, and not very elevated, it is extremely 

 rugged, bleak, and miserable. The soil of most 

 of the Scotch moors, as well as of many of the 

 mountains, is peat. On the granite formation, the 

 soil is thin and poor, and situated in a cold bleak 

 climate. It is of no agricultural value, so far as 

 the production of corn and roots is concerned, 

 and is covered with heather and coarse grass. 

 On the whinstone or trap hills, the soil is of a 

 very light character, and was first improved by 

 the introduction of bone-manure, so that now oats 

 and turnips are grown nearly 1000 feet above the 

 level of the sea. In the Highlands, prodigious 

 improvements have been made by clearing moors 

 of stones, burning heather, extensive planting, 

 draining mosses by open ditches, collecting and 

 distributing the water along the hills by means of 

 artificial canals ; and improving the natural grass 

 growing upon a thin soil, by draining and by 

 grazing with sheep. 



The most extensive of the heaths and sands of 

 England are those of Surrey, Dorset, Hants, and 

 some other counties, as Norfolk and Suffolk. 

 The heaths of Surrey, particularly that of Bagshot, 

 consist of a sterile and apparently unimprovable 

 sand, for the most part level, but elevated between 

 400 and 500 feet above the sea. Only a few 

 patches of good loam are to be found ; so that the 

 district will probably remain worthless, in an 

 agricultural point of view, and its products be 

 confined to a growth of heath, gorse, fern, and to 

 a few plantations of larch and Scotch fir. ' On 

 Bradley Common,' says Mr Evershed (Royal 

 Agricultural Society's Journal), 'an extent of 

 more than 100 acres is being reclaimed at an 

 expense of 7 or 8 per acre ; but it appears 

 doubtful if the larch and fir which have been 

 planted will thrive. The process of breaking up 

 the ground consists in paring, burning the heath, 

 and trenching, by spade and pick, to the depth 

 of twenty inches, or more, according to circum- 

 stances. This depth is generally sufficient to 

 break through the 'iron crust,' which is invariably 

 found below the surface of the sand, and which, 

 being impervious to water, is the cause of the 

 heath's being frequently wet and boggy.' 



The heaths in Dorsetshire and Hampshire are 

 very extensive. In the former county, plots of 

 twenty or thirty acres are taken at nominal rents 

 by small farmers for reclamation. Mr Ruegg 

 (Royal Agricultural Journal), says : ' The land 

 is broken up with large mattocks, at a cost of 2 

 per acre ; the surface is either burnt or worked 

 about until the turf decomposes. The next 

 process, chalking, is very expensive; as they go 

 from three to five miles for the chalk, and though 

 it costs at the pit only 6d. a ton, its cost on the 

 land is 3 an acre. It might pay to sink a shaft, 

 as they do in Hampshire. The general dressing 

 is twenty tons an acre ; but on sandy soil this is 

 thought too much. It is worked down with 

 Crosskill's clod-crusher, and scarified, and sown 

 with turnips or rape. It is well dunged, and two 

 or three good crops are taken from it, but at a 

 heavy cost. The green crop is eaten off, and very 

 large crops of oats obtained as many as sixty or 

 seventy bushels per acre.' 



The chalk Downs of our southern counties 

 remain to be noticed including Salisbury Plain, 

 in Wiltshire an elevated table-land, with a thin, 

 light, and flinty soil, covered by a fine greensward. 

 In Dorsetshire, a very great extent is being 

 broken up every year ; and land, but lately the 

 habitation of foxes and rabbits, producing furze, 

 fern, and a scanty portion of sheep-feed, with a 

 return of only 2s. 6d. an acre, is now yielding !. 

 Breast-ploughing and burning the turf is the first 

 operation ; and after a crop of rape, wheat, and 

 clover has been taken, the land receives an 

 application of chalk. 



Although it might not pay the farmer to break 

 up very lofty, steep downs, having scarcely any 

 soil, still thousands of acres in Sussex, Wilts, and 

 other counties, now depastured by flocks of sheep 

 folded on arable land at night, and extensive 

 tracts, producing little but heath and furze, might 

 be brought into profitable tillage, and made to 

 yield in sainfoin, clover, and other artificial 

 grasses, an amount of food immensely greater 

 than that afforded by the natural herbage. Many 

 trials have been commenced, and afterwards 



