YALE AGRICULTURAL LECTURES. 79 



A brief recapitulation of the measures to which English agri 

 culture probably owes its progress was then given, including 

 among earlier improvements, root crops, rotation, the sowing 

 of grasses and clovers, and the imperfect drainage of the land 

 by open ditches or otherwise, as the most prominent ; among 

 later ones, the increased use of machinery and better imple 

 ments, purchased fertilizers, and food for stock; the deeper 

 drainage of the land by tile and pipe ; and, perhaps most prom 

 inent of all, the improvement effected in the different races of 

 domestic animals, and the increased attention given to feeding 

 them for the sake of their manure. 



A brief account followed of a visit upon a Hertfordshire farm 

 where one of Fowler's steam-plows was in operation. The 

 Norfolk or four-course system was there practised, extended 

 sometimes over a fifth year by retaining the clover-crop a second 

 season, or, if the land was in good order, by adding a grain 

 crop, generally oats. The remainder of the hour was devoted 

 to a narrative of some of Mr. Mechi's modes of farming an 

 account of his method of feeding, stabling, and managing his 

 manures, and a statement of the crops he has obtained at Tip- 

 tree Hall. 



Mr. Mechi went on to this farrn fifteen or twenty years ago, 

 when he gives the place rather a hard character. " Almost 

 surrounded by barren heath," he found the land so retentive 

 of Water that a large part of it was constantly in a state vary 

 ing in consistency " between putty and bird-lime, according to 

 the season." He sold half of it, determined to get as much as 

 possible out of the remainder, and went on to make such ex 

 penditures as really frightened sober and practical men ; he 

 underlaid his fields with pipes^ conveying manure in a liquid 

 form by means of hydrants to every part of the farm ; and 

 now, not only all the stable manure, but also guano is dis 

 tributed by steam pumps through this channel, and even the 

 carcasses of dead horses and cattle are put into the same tanks, 

 macerated by degrees, and sprinkled out through the hose. 



