100 BRITISH HUSB.\NDRY. [Ch. VII. 



plough during the course of the rotation, while an equal quantity of the 

 arable will be rested, and the other iialf will undergo a different course of 

 cropping during- the next shift. 



DOUBLE CROPS. 



The winter, or half-crops, have been omitted, as the object was to 

 show, as clearly as possible, the order in which the crops that occupy 

 the ground the greater part of the year should succeed each other. The 

 usual half-crops are, winter-tares, rye for sheep food, or stubble-turnips, 

 and are generally sown on tlie land that is intended for summer-turnips. 

 A more varied and extended course is, however, not unfrequently carried 

 on with considerable advantage ; of which we select an instance of a large 

 farm situated upon a soil of very moderate powers in the county of 

 Surrey, but conducted with the greatest vigilance and exertion, as well as 

 with abilities far above the common level. The course there pursued 

 was — 



1. Wheat, after sainfoin, or fallowed. 



2. Tares, cut or fed off very early, and immediately ploughed up for 



turnips. 



3. Barley, lightly ploughed in with rye-grass, and trefoil harrowed in. 



4. The grass early fed off by ewes and lambs, and afterwards dunged. 



5. Wheat upon the ley. 



6. Grey peas, or early beans. 



7. Rye for feed, folded for turnips, which are also fed off in the 



winter. 



8. Barley, with clover. 



9. Clover for hay, and pasture. 



10. Ditto for pasture and seed. 



11. Late wheat upon the ley. 



12. Rape harrowed in, and fed off soon enough for oats, or barley, with 



sainfoin. 

 Thus fifteen crops — three of them wheat — were obtained within twelve 

 years, and tiie land was kept in such good heart by those which were fed 

 off and folded, that the produce was strikingly abundant : it was also 

 maintained in such a state of cleanness by the several hoed crops, that the 

 course was closed with sainfoin in the best possible condition*. 



The practice of double-cropping light lands is indeed pretty generally 

 carried on in some of our southern counties, in regard to winter-tares, 

 turnips, and rape, and no doubt might be in many places advantageously 

 extended f ; it can, however, be only applied to white turnips, for the tares 

 would not be off the ground early enough for Swedes, and tlie land should, 

 besides, be in a very high state of cultivation, or it cannot be got in proper 

 condition for the second crop. Rape, if sown immediately after a corn 

 crop is cut — as in the course above stated — can be raised at a trifling expense, 

 will afford a good bite to sheep as winter feed, and will improve the land 

 for a succeeding crop of oats : but when intended as a crop to stand for 

 seed, it can only be grown with advantage upon fen-lands, or upon deep 

 loams. Stubble-turnips, though sown without manure, and consequently 



* Malcolm's Surv. of Surrey, vol. iii. p. 404. 



f Stevenson's Suirey, p. 199; and Vaucouvti's Surv. of Hampshire, p. 171. On the 

 South Downs the practice is to sow 2^ bushels of tares, and half a gallon of rape ; or winter 

 and sunimer-t.irts are sown on the same field, at different periods, about a month inter- 

 vening betiveen each, by which means succe.isive crops are ensured during the whole 

 summer. — Sussex Rep. p. lOj. 



