AGRICULTURE. 



And if these examples are insufficient to shew 

 the desirableness of extending cottage-farming 

 and spade-husbandry, we have only to refer to 

 the prosperous cultivators of Belgium and Flan- 

 ders on this system distinguishing between the 

 industrious habits and skilful husbandry, both in 

 tillage, rotation of crops, and manuring, found in 

 those countries, and the absence of these essentials 

 of success in so many parts of Ireland, where 

 small-farming does not preclude poverty. 



We will now consider the general management 

 and practical details of cottage-farming. The 

 homestead is to consist of a cottage with several 

 apartments, which, with every convenience of 

 copper, oven, well, outhouse, &c. can be erected 

 f r ? r .80 ; a cow-house, pigsty, and barn. 

 The size of the farm is supposed to vary from 

 three to six, eight, or more acres, according to the 

 capital and amount of labour which the occupier 

 possesses, and to be laid out in a suitable number 

 of field-plots by proper fences. If the land be in 

 a waste condition, it must be cleared and drained. 

 If moss, dig open drains round it to draw off 

 the water ; scarify the surface with the spade, and 

 burn the heaps of turf ; scatter the ashes over the 

 land, with any sandy material or lime which can 

 be procured, and then delve all from one end 

 to the other. If the land be. choked with stones 

 or roots, all these must be removed to the depth 

 to which the after-digging will have to go. In the 

 case of strong or clay land, under-drainage will be 

 necessary ; and this is easily effected in small plots 

 of land, when there exists an adequate outfall, by 

 burying broken stones, thorn-fagots, &c. in drains 

 three or four feet deep, and moderately near 

 together. 



The tools required by the cottage-farmer are 

 simple and inexpensive. They consist of two or 

 three spades of different sizes ; one or two of the 

 light steel digging-forks now manufactured, which 

 wonderfully reduce the labour of delving soil that 

 has been stirred before ; a pickaxe, hoes, rakes, 

 scythe, reaping-hooks, hay-forks, flail, wheel- 

 barrow, &c. according to means. A grinding-stone 

 and a few carpenters' tools are also exceedingly 

 useful. No horse or paid servant is kept, all the 

 work being supposed to be done by the manual 

 labour of the farmer and his family. The live- 

 stock consists of a cow or cows, pigs, and poultry. 

 To preserve manure without waste, a pit should 

 be provided adjoining the cow-house, into which 

 all the solid refuse and all that may be collected 

 from the dwelling-house is to be removed. Liquid 

 manure, and the drainings from the cow-house, 

 &c. should be collected in a barrel sunk in the 

 ground, and protected from the air. This is a 

 most valuable liquid for throwing over the land to 

 feed a young growing crop, especially for grass, 

 &c. mown for the cow. A few shovelfuls of earth 

 must be laid upon the solid manure whenever a 

 layer of it is added to the quantity in the pit, so 

 as to arrest the escape of any volatile and offen- 

 sive gases during the process of partial fermenta- 

 tion. Rubbish of all kinds, withered leaves, 

 stalks, clippings of branches, roots, &c. should be 

 gathered into a heap, and occasionally moistened 

 with urine from the cow-house, or mixed with a 

 little lime, so as to rot down into valuable manure. 

 Whether it would be preferable to devote a 

 cottage-farm to a mixture of green and grain crops, 

 as in ordinary husbandry, or make it chiefly a 



dairy-farm, in which the raising of green crops for 

 fodder is the main object, must depend on local 

 circumstances. Generally speaking, it will be 

 found advisable to make the maintenance of the 

 cows the principal object, the crops consisting of 

 rye, lucern, clover, Italian rye-grass, cabbage, 

 tares, mangel-wurzel, turnips, wheat, and oats; 

 the cows being kept on straw and roots in winter, 

 and upon green fodder mown for them during the 

 summer. Of course, the animals must not be 

 allowed to graze on any portion of the artificial grass 

 crops ; but being fed in a shed or lodge, may have a 

 small open space in which to move about for their 

 health. It is found that not only the cow gives a 

 great deal more milk when kept warm in a house, 

 but that the land yields a much larger proportion 

 of food for her than when she is suffered to de- 

 pasture and trample it. Indeed, three roods, or 

 half an acre of artificial grasses, according to the 

 application of liquid manure to the surface after 

 each cutting, will suffice to keep one cow. There 

 may be more than one crop in a year on part of 

 the land : say that rye is the first thing cut green 

 in spring, dig the land, manure, and sow mangel 

 and turnips ; the next cutting is of winter barley 

 and tares, which are to be followed by late-sown 

 turnips and planted cabbages ; and the Italian 

 rye-grass and clover yield several successive 

 cuttings in the course of a summer, by plentiful 

 waterings with liquid manure. 



A portion of ground is to be set apart as a 

 garden for potatoes, parsnips, carrots, onions, 

 cabbage, and various table- vegetables ; a few 

 currant and gooseberry bushes, and an apple-tree 

 or two, a few flowers near the house, and perhaps 

 a hive of bees, not being forgotten. 



From many reasons, the spade is found to be a 

 far more efficient cultivator than the plough ; the 

 soil is not only deeply broken up, for the penetra- 

 tion of the roots of plants and for the admission of 

 fertilising rain-water and atmospheric air from 

 which the soil is continually absorbing gaseous 

 nutriment for crops, but it is more completely sub- 

 divided and pulverised ; there is no glazed pan, as 

 left by the sliding pressure of the plough, to 

 oppose the descent of rootlets, of water and air ; 

 and by the more accurate inversion of the soil, the 

 seeds of weeds and larvas of insects which are 

 about the surface are turned down and destroyed. 

 The greatest advantage of spade-husbandry is in 

 the trenching or very deep digging which can be 

 practised. Instead of recruiting the productive 

 power of the land by fallowing, as in ordinary 

 farming, the cottage-husbandman brings up an 

 under-stratum of soil to take the place of that 

 which has been bearing a crop upon the surface. 

 This layer, which we may call No. 2, lies, say 

 from nine to eighteen inches below the surface, 

 supposing a nine or ten inch spade to have been 

 employed in the ordinary digging. After two or 

 three years' cropping, a considerable portion of 

 the manure delved in will have been washed down 

 and imbibed by this lower stratum, and the upper 

 layer will have been largely robbed of the mineral 

 ingredients necessary for the sustenance of good 

 crops. The art, then, consists of raising up this 

 layer, No. 2, and turning down No. i in its stead. 

 In some districts, the depth of available soil may 

 not be so much as eighteen inches, the layer 

 beneath being rock or chalk ; in which case it 

 will often be worth while to expend great labour 



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