Ch. v.] WINTER FALLOW. 65 



they should be carefully cleaned out with the spade, so as to allow a free 

 passage for the water into the cross-grips and ditches. Thus close the 

 labours of the summer fallow ; and if conducted in the manner described, 

 the laud will probably carry crops of grain and pulse for a number of years, 

 without any necessity for a repetition of the process. When the operation 

 has been w'ell performed, the ground will also be undoubtedly rendered 

 both more productive as well as more easy to be worked ; and when it may 

 again require to be fallowed, it will demand fewer ploughings than those 

 stated as necessary for foul land. 



WINTER FALLOW. 



The labours of winter fallowing, when intended for the preparation of 

 spring crops, though conducted nearly in the same manner as those already 

 detailed, are necessarily more confined in their operation : seldom, indeed, 

 exceeding three ploughings, and not unfrequently consisting of only two ; 

 for it is a prevalent opinion that light soils — particularly if they be of a 

 sandy nature — are frequently much injured by being overworked ; and it 

 is clear that they neither require, nor will bear, to be more pulverized than 

 may be absolutely necessary for the destruction of weeds and the production 

 of a good seed-bed. If the land, however, be of a firmer nature, and 

 especially if it partake of the qualities of loam, the best practice is to give 

 three ploughings, the last of which is preceded by the effectual operation 

 of the grubber ; for although strong loams with a good bottom, having 

 been once thoroughly cleaned by a well- wrought summer fallow, may after- 

 wards be kept in order by drilled crops, yet to maintain them in that con- 

 dition requires the most constant attention and the most careful manage- 

 ment, or they will again inevitably become foul. 



The first of these ploughings should be given as soon as possible after 

 harvest, and if it can be effected early in the autumn, then a second with a 

 deeper furrow can be given in the course of the winter : the grubber follows 

 when the weeds have begun to sprout in the spring, and the last ploughing 

 is the seed-furrow. 



It is thus that the sowings of the spring crops should be prepared ; but 

 on many farms both time and strength are wanting, and the tenants are 

 obhged to content themselves with two ploughings, of which the first is 

 not unfrequently very imperfect. Oats being a common crop on poor land, 

 and being put into the ground early, are very commonly sown in this man- 

 ner ; but this species of culture is evidently insufficient for the destruction 

 of weeds, or for the due amalgamation of the manure with the soil ; so that 

 the dung is sometimes found in the following year in hard lumps, like turf, 

 which are not broken up without much difficulty, and it consequently 

 cannot afford nourishment to the ground until the following crop. Those 

 who trust to dung for the production of good crops of corn, should also 

 consider, that unless the ground be previously relieved from the load of 

 weeds with which it is encumbered, they can never expect it to produce the 

 same benefit that it would if it had been brought into proper order. 



It has been not unaptly remarked by a man of known experience in hus- 

 bandry, that the science of agriculture is nothing more than an endeavour to 

 discover and cure nature's defects ; and the grand outlines of it are — " hoio 

 to make heavy land lighter, and light land heavier ; cold land hotter, and 

 hot land colder. He that knows these secrets is a farmer, and he that does 

 not know them is no farmer *." From want of attending to these general 



* Davis's Survey of Wiltshire. 



