Ch.XLV.] SPADE HUSBANDRY. 569 



there however seen, that although they are in common seasons enabled to 

 rear a sufficiency of food for their consumption, it yet merely consists of 

 potatoes ; and the comforts found in the Dutch pauper colonies are supplied, 

 in the first instance, by the advance of capital,"\vhich places the settler upon 

 the footing of a small farmer ; or in the second, by subscriptions, which can 

 only be looked upon in the light of poor-rates. 



It is thus evident, that if by the superior industry and habits commonly 

 ascribed to the English peasantry, they may possibly be enabled to acquire 

 something more of the common necessaries of life, either by extraordinary 

 labour or occasional assistance aflbrded by their wealthy neighbours ; yet 

 the question of their entire and comfortable support can only be decided by 

 rendering them independent of all aid except that derived from their own 

 personal toil, and sufficient land, of fair quality, at a rent equal to that of 

 any other tenant. 



To prove the possibility of it by the use of the spade, various statements 

 have been made showing the superiority of the crops thus produced over 

 those grown by the plough*. This, indeed, hardly needs any elucidation 



* George Brooker, of Upper Wootton, in Hampshire, has grown 4 bushels of beans, 

 5 bushels of barley, and 16 sacks of potatoes upon a quarter of an acre of indiflferent 

 land. The labour was entirely that of his wile and family, and of himself at leisure 

 hours only. He did not lose a single day's work from his employer; but he estimates 

 that the labour done would have occupied him three weeks, had he performed it all 

 himself at working hours : as the land, when he took it, was full of couch-grass, a 

 wheat stubble in bad order. See the address of the Rev. L. B, Wither, to the farmers 

 of North Hampshire. 



Mr. Lance, of Lewisham, has exhibited at the Adelaide Gallery, in London, ninety 

 straws from one root, and by one division of a root of wheat, 190 ears of corn have been 

 grown from one seed, being 13,000 grains from one, as there exhibited. They were, 

 however, grown in beds upon garden-ground, cultivated by the spade, and the stems 

 were afterwards transplanted. He says, also, in his '•' Cottage Farmer," that Mr. Col- 

 gate, of Chevenlng, in Kent, obtained" four quarters from halt an acre, by adopting the 

 process of digging the land 12 inches deep by two 6-inch spits, burying the weeds as 

 manure, and dibbling the seed in 12-inch rows, and three inches apart, but hoed out iu 

 the second hoeing to six inches distance. The seed was half a bushel soaked in the 

 liquor from a dunghill and wood-ashes cast over it. The crop was hoed three times 

 with Lord Vernon's hoe; and the expense, including 30s. for rent and taxes, was 5^. 15*. 

 The ears had 90 corns each on an average. — p. 11. 



]Mr. Falla, of Newcastle, also grew wheat during several years upon land of a me- 

 dium quality cultivated by the spade, and never in any season had less, though planted 

 two years successively, than 52 bushels per acre. In two other experiments made upon 

 wheat sown in drills and broadcast, as well as transplanted from beds, the produce of 

 the transplanted crop was however inferior, besides occasioning the additional expense 

 of 4/. 7s. Ihd. for the labour of transplanting 232,323 plants, at 4^cZ. per 100; from 

 which there was to be deducted the sowing of the seed, which only amounted to two 

 pecks. The following is the account of the produce of each trial : — 



No. 1. 

 No. 1. Transplanted from the seed-bud into 6-inch lines — per acre, 62J bushels. 



2. Do. do. 9 do. — .., '" ' 



3. Do. do. 1 2 do. — „ 



4. Sown in drills of . . . 12 do. — „ 



5. Sown broadcast ..... — » 



No. 2. 

 No. 1. Transplanted from the seed-bed into 6-inch lines — per acre, 

 2. Do. do. ^ 9 do. — „ 



2. Do. do. 12 do. — „ 60J „ 



4. Sown in drills of . . . 12 do. — ,, 73^ „ 



5. Sown broadcast ..... — ,, 76J „ 



A portion of No. 4 in the last detailed experiment, it must however he observed, was 

 laid down by wet, when in flower, and proved very abortive ; otherwise Mr. F. has little 

 doubt that No. 4 — as iu the former year — would have exceeded No. 5 in (quantity. A 



