CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



in gradually breaking it up with the pick, and in- 

 corporating portions of it with the upper soil. 

 Indeed, in no case is it advisable to bury the top 

 staple at once, and attempt to grow a crop upon 

 the raw unmitigated, unameliorated subsoil brought 

 up in its place ; the principle is, to deepen gradu- 

 ally, bit by bit, and so, in effect, add to the extent 

 of land cultivated without increasing the superficial 

 area. 



The Rev. Mr Smith, late of Lois-Weedon, 

 Northamptonshire, obtained immense crops by 

 following this principle, together with that of 

 having fallow-intervals between the rows of crop- 

 ping. By deeply burying farm-yard manure, and 

 well dressing with guano, superphosphate of lime, 

 &c. beside, he produced thirty-eight bushels of 

 winter beans and fourteen tons of carrots upon 

 the same acre of land the beans being in single 

 rows, no less than five feet apart, and the carrots 

 in rows between. This he found very profitable ; 

 and besides interlining various other root or green 

 crops with success, he grew wheat without a parti- 

 cle of manure year after year upon the same fields, 

 with an average yield of thirty-four bushels per 

 acre, and a profit of ^5 per acre, with wheat at 

 2 per quarter. The wheat was in triple rows, 

 one foot apart in the rows, with intervals of three 

 feet. The intervals were dug two spits deep before 

 winter, scarified in spring, and horse-hoed through 

 the summer ; this stirring being found to feed the 

 corn-plants growing on each side, as well as pre- 

 pare a fine and fertile seed-bed for the rows of 

 wheat the following year. The wheat-rows and 

 fallow -intervals succeeded each other alternately, 

 the same strip being thus bare-fallowed every 

 other year ; and it was found from a long course 

 of years, both on clay and gravelly land, that the 

 annual produce, reckoned for the whole field, 

 equalled that which other farmers obtain only 

 once in two years. The cottage-farmer will do 

 well to make himself acquainted with the parti- 

 cular directions laid down in Mr Smith's pamphlet, 

 the Word in Season, and in his little book entitled 

 Lois-Weedon Husbandry; as we believe tillage, 

 such as that which a small occupier can accom- 

 plish with facility, has never before been brought 

 to produce such remarkable returns, alike in pro- 

 duce and in a cleanly condition of the land. 



In working a cottage-farm, unremitting industry 

 is required ; and it should be an object to make 

 the very most of every day out of doors when the 

 season and weather permit, and to occupy the 

 dead of winter and days of bad weather at work 

 in the barn or house. Trenching an acre two 

 spits deep will take from thirty to thirty-five days ; 

 and one-spit digging ten inches deep, from twenty 

 to twenty-five days, according to the nature of the 

 soil. To make ridges for potatoes, plant the sets, 

 mould them up with the hoe, and finally take them 

 up, will take about twenty-four days for one acre. 

 In digging, it should be borne in mind that a man 

 can effect about one-sixth more work with a proper 

 steel fork than he can with an ordinary spade. 



In a Report of the Emigration Committee, pub- 

 lished some years ago by the House of Commons, 

 is the following estimate of the expense attendant 

 upon the location of a family, consisting of a man, 

 his wife, and three children, upon four acres of 

 waste land fit for cultivation, in any part of the 

 United Kingdom : 



541 



' 





 Transport of the family say, on an | 



average, 50 miles to their location \ 3 



Implements ................................... 2 10 o 



Household furniture ......................... 500 



Cottage, cow-shed, and pigsty ............. 26 o o 



Potatoes and seed ............................. 400 



Provisions for one year ...................... 25 o o 



Cow, pig, and poultry ........................ 900 



Proportion of the cost of superintend- 



ence.... 



o 10 o 



7S o o 



The items for the buildings and the live-stock are 

 much too low for the present day, so that ^100 

 will be nearer the sum required. It was consid- 

 ered that by the produce of the four acres culti- 

 vated by the spade, the family could maintain 

 themselves, and, after a lapse of five to seven 

 years, dispose of produce to the value of 22 per 

 annum, after paying 8 yearly rent. 



A cottager is described, in the Cottage Farmer's 

 Assistant, as keeping two cows upon three acres 

 of light land in Sussex, with the following results : 



s. 

 13 18 



d. 



278 pounds of butter, in 6 months, 



sold at is. per pound 



Skim-milk, sold for 3 pints id. or 



given to the pigs, estimated for the 



year at 



Two calves, sold for 5 18 o 



.Half an acre and 8 rods of land, yield- [ 



ing 19 bushels of wheat, at 8s 



A quarter of an acre, producing 14 



bushels of oats, at 45 



Making a gross produce off half an 



acre of pasture, and z\ acres of 



arable, of. 



Rent, taxes, and tithes 12 12 6 



Seed 200 



Hired labour. ... 200 



10 o o 



7 12 o 

 2 16 o 



40 4 o 



16 12 6 



Making a clear profit of ^23 n 6 



And the butter looked for in the remaining five- 

 and-a-half months was expected to make a total 

 gain, from the labour of the cottager and his wife, 

 of 30. 



We have not space to enter upon the subject 

 of the use of the spade in conjunction with the 

 plough on farms large enough to support a team 

 of horses ; but it is placed beyond a doubt, that 

 more produce is raised for human subsistence 

 space, soil, and climate being equal by small 

 farmers using only manual labour, than by large 

 farmers with horses and ploughs. 



In these days of farming-capitalists, and the 

 appliance of steam-power, not only to mill-work, 

 but the tillage of estates, the claims of the poor to 

 a share of land, and to independence, as a pro- 

 spective reward for their industry, are not very 

 likely to be remembered ; but if it be true that the 

 system of large tenancies, and still more of mono- 

 polised proprietorship, has not been able to pre- 

 vent a decrease of our rural population, and an 

 immense amount of pauperism, it becomes high 

 time for the community to demand that the waste 

 grounds be utilised, and the people provided with 

 the means of earning an honourable livelihood in 

 that healthy and ever-coveted employment the 

 culture of the soil. 



