60 Cultivation of Arable Land. Oats. Preparation for. 



Jy fuperior to it, though apt to leave the land in a more foul and compact con* 

 dition.* On the cold, tenacious, fenny, and wet defcriptions of foils, the oat 

 may indeed in many cafes be fovvn with more advantage than any other kinds of 

 crop, and likewife where lands cannot be put in a proper condition for barley- 

 crops. 



Oats fucceed well after almoft every fort of green and root crops, but mould not 

 be cultivated after wheat, rye, or barley, where it can poflibly be avoided, as ths 

 foil by fuch cropping wouid be too greatly exhaufted. It has been obfervedj 

 that in diftricts where improved methods of hulbandry are adopted, oats ars 

 generally grown upon fuch hinds as have been newly broken up from the ftate 

 of grafs, and that the practice is (hewn to be perfectly correct, by the abunv 

 dance of the produce in fuch cafes. The cuftorn of cultivating oat crops in fuc- 

 ceilion for feveral years is equally abfurd and improper, and mould be generally ex 

 ploded, t 



In regard to the preparation for this fort of crop, it is recommended by an in* 

 telligent cultivator that when it is intended to be grown after cole, tares, early 

 peas, or fuch other crops as do not come off the ground later than the beginning 

 of June, on foils that are too wet to admit of being ploughed in the. winter feafon 

 to make a clean baftard fallow, laying the land up into ridges proper for being 

 fown in the early fpring. Or when after fuch clean crops as come off too late 

 to admit of baftard fallowing, to plough only once, which mould be as early as the 

 bufinefs of the farm will admit, into ridges proper for the put-ting the feed in. J 



In all cafes, it is a good practice to have the land in a fine (late for the growth of this 

 crop which is bed effected in the fame way as for barley. It is perfectly abfurd to 

 fuppofe that.it will not be equally profitable to the farmer to have the. land in as 

 good a ftate of preparation fox this fort of crop as that :of barley. 



It is remarked by Mr, Donaldfoa, in his account of the prefeot ftate of hufban^- 

 dry in this country, that whatever may have been the nature of the crop that pre-*. 

 ceded this, it. is but in very few cafes that more than one clean furrow is afforded, 

 Jn fome diftricts it is, he afferts, the. common practice to plough the lands over 

 that are intended for oats, in the autumn in a particular manner, fo as to exppfe 

 as large an extent offurface to the influence of the atmofphere as poflible. This 

 in fbme places is termed by farmers rib-furrowing, and in othersy/^-///rroa;wg- j .it 



* Corroded Report of Middlefe x. t Modern Agriculture, vol. II. 



Ibid, 



