YALE AGRICULTURAL LECTURES. 85 



broadcast than drilled in Scotland. The women were at that 

 time at work reaping ; five women with sickles, to one man 

 binding, and the whole gang paid 12 shillings sterling, say $3 

 per acre. 



One of the last visits before leaving England had been made 

 in quite an opposite direction, namely, among the hop-gardens 

 of Kent. As there was one lecture in the course devoted to 

 that plant, he gave a few facts in regard to the general system 

 of farming pursued. The farm he had seen was one of two 

 hundred and seventy acres, and a vineyard rotation was prac 

 tised. For example : 1, turnips ; 2, barley, or oats ; 3, wurtzel; 

 4, wheat ; 5, red clover ; 6, wheat ; 7, barley, or oats ; 8, beans, 

 or peas; and 9, wheat thus securing five white crops, three 

 of them wheat, to four green crops. To take this rotation from 

 the beginning, the turnip crop will have been preceded by 

 wheat ; after that was harvested, a kind of plow or cultivator, 

 called a broadshare, was passed over the land, a flat point 

 eighteen inches wide being carried about three inches below 

 the surface, not turning over the ground at all, but cutting off 

 the roots, and killing the weeds. By this operation and the 

 subsequent harrowing, the ground is so stirred that the seeds 

 of noxious plants, as well as those self-sown by the last crop, 

 will vegetate. Immediately after the broadshare, the harrow 

 is twice used to free the ground from the stubble, which is 

 gathered in rows every fifteen or twenty rods, according to 

 quantity, and if thought worth the labor, or in default of straw 

 enough, this is carried to the yards, to be trodden into manure ; 

 otherwise it is burnt. A second plowing takes place, if possi 

 ble, before the middle of October, say eight inches deep, bury 

 ing any vegetation that has started, and throwing the soil into 

 furrows as rough as possible, in order that the frost may act 

 upon it ; for the rougher and the larger lumps in which it lies, 

 the better will a spontaneous disintegration be effected during 

 winter. The next process is a plowing the last of March or the 

 first of April, after which the land is harrowed twice, and roll- 



