Ch. v.] SUMMER FALLOW. 57 



advantage to the farmer*." AVhile another learned professor, who upholds 

 the svstem, yet ascribes its wliole value to the effects of solar light upon 

 the soil ; which, if true, would tend to prove that land must be rendered 

 more productive in proportion as it is exposed to the rays of the sun, 

 though every farmer knows that, when impenetrably shaded by a dense 

 crop of clover, it afterwards produces the weightiest crop of cornf. 



Leaving, however, the specious arguments of theorists for the sound 

 practical proofs of experienced men, we yet find much prejudice amongst 

 them, occasioned by their taking a limited view of the subject without suf- 

 ficient attention to the cliriiate, as well as the soil of the district which they 

 mean to describe ; for, although the nature of all soils, of any particular 

 description, may be the same in every county, yet the superiority of the 

 climate in one may enable tlie farmer to work his land more frequently and 

 more effectually, and thereby to keep it more clean than it can be main- 

 tained in another where the seasons are dissimilar : which in a great mea- 

 sure accounts for the difference of opinion prevailing among the agricul- 

 turists of the North, and many of those in the South, of the United King- 

 dom. Among the former, the more intelligent class in general contend 

 that summer fallowing is indispensable on wet, strong clays ; for that 

 having, in various instances, endeavoured to avoid it, the land, after a cer- 

 tain lapse of time, invariably became foul, and they were compelled to have 

 recourse to it in order to render the soil clean ; that some of it is subject, 

 after two or three crops, to run together, and is of such an untoward nature 

 that all the art and industry of man cannot keep it in good order for any 

 considerable length of time without the intervention of a summer fallow to 

 render it mellow; and that it is the most certain remedy, the speediest, 

 and, in the end, the cheapest t. Many of the latter, however, insist, on the 

 contrary, that land, to the full as strong as any to be found in Scotland, 

 can be cropped continually by the mer/e process of carefully drilling their 

 crops, without ever i-ecurring to the operation of a naked fallow. Here, 

 then, the question is at issue upon two points — namely, can clays be kept 

 constantly dean, or, if they chance to become foul, can they be made clean 

 without the intervention of a summer fallow ? And this may, perhaps, be 

 decided by a brief statement of the practice adopted by both parties for the 

 attainment of their object. 



That of the south country farmer consists in sowing winter tares, beans, 

 and clover alternately with corn ; for of course we do not allude to soils 

 which admit of the turnip husbandry. His crops come so early off 



* Sir Humphry Davj', Agric. Chem., Lecture the First. 



■j- See a ' Treatise on the Scientific Practice of Fallowing," &c., by James Reunie, 

 A. M., Prof, of Zoology, King's Coll., London ; Quart. Journ. of Agric, No. XXX., and 

 also the ansv.er to it in the following Number, b}- James Main, author of Vegetable 

 Physiology, &c. &c. The influence of light and heat upon vegetable productions is well 

 known, but their effect upon the soil is but very imperfectly understood ; and it can only 

 be supposed from analogy that certain combinations and decompositions take place by 

 means of their agency, which are never performed by cold and darkness. 



J See Boys' Survey of Kent, p. 6, and also Stevenson's Surrey, p. 1"1, in which it is 

 stated, that •• when the clays of the weald," which lie in a fiat and unventilated situation, 

 " get thoroughly wet iu September or October, there is very little chance of their being in 

 a fit condition to sow with wheat that year. On such soils, therefore, the command of a 

 complete season seems necessary to work them properly, and get the seed into a dry bed." 

 The remark may, indeed, be applied to land of the same kind, similarly situated, in any 

 part of the kingdom, and is supported by many of the reports on the state of the 

 southern counties ; and in the General Report of Scotland it is said that " it may be fore- 

 told of ever)' farmer on a strong soil, in such a climate as that of the north, that his 

 affluence and prosperity will always be in proportion to the excellent state of his fallows." 

 — Vol. i., p. 424, 



