740 



PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



ploughing for this article is not of much consequence. Ploughing with a view to clean 

 soils of the description under consideration, has little effect, unless given in the summer 

 months. This renders summer fallow indispensably necessary, and without this radical 

 process, none of the heavy and wet soils can be suitably managed, or preserved in a good 

 condition. 



4567. To adopt a judicious rotation of cropping for every soil, requires a degree of 

 judgment in the farmer, which can only be gathered from observation and experience. 

 The old rotations were calculated to wear out the soil, and to render it unproductive. 

 To take wheat, barley, and oats in succession, a practice very common thirty years ago, 

 was sufficient to impoverish the best of land, while it put little into the pockets of the 

 farmer ; but the modern rotations, such as those which we have described, are founded 

 on principles which ensure a full return from the soil, without lessening its value, or 

 impoverishing its condition. Much depends, however, upon the manner in which 

 the different processes are executed, for the best arranged rotation may be of no 

 avail, if the processes belonging to it are imperfectly and unseasonably executed. (See 

 2158.) 



Sect, II. Of the working of Fallows. 



4568. The practice of falloiving, as we have seen in our historical view of Greek and 

 Roman agriculture, has existed from the earliest ages ; and the theory of its beneficial 

 effects we have endeavored to explain. (2125.) The Romans with their agriculture in- 

 troduced fallows in every part of Europe, and two crops, succeeded either ar's 

 fallow, or by leaving the land to rest for two or more years, became the rotation on 

 all soils and under all circumstances. This mode of cultivating arable land is still the 

 most universal in Europe j its prevalence till very lately in Britain created a powerful 

 aversion to naked fallows, by which a crop was lost every year they occurred, and called 

 forth numerous attempts to shew that they were unnecessary, consequently an immense 

 public loss. This anti-fallowing mania, as it has been called, was chiefly supported by 

 Arthur Young, Nathaniel Kent, and others, members or correspondents of the Board of 

 Agriculture: it was at its greatest height about the beginning of the present century, 

 but has now spent its force, and after exhausting all the arguments on both sides, as 

 an able author has observed, " the practice does not appear to give way, but rather to 

 extend." 



4569. The exjiediency or inexpediency of pulverising and cleaning the soil by a harefal' 

 /oWjis a question that can be determined only by experience, and not by argument. No 

 reasons, however ingenious, for the omission of this practice, can bring conviction to the 

 mind of a farmer, who, in spite of all his exertions, finds, at the end of six or eight years, 

 that his land is full of weeds, sour and comparatively unproductive. Drilled and horse 

 hoed green crops, though cultivated with advantage on almost every soil, are probably in 

 general unprofitable as a substitute for fallow, .and after a time altogether inefficient. 

 It is not because turnips, cabbages, &c. will not grow in such soils, that a fallow is re- 

 sorted to, but because, taking a course of years, the value of the successive crops is found 

 to be so much greater, even though an unproductive year is interposed, as to induce a 

 preference to fallowing. Horse-hoed crops, of beans in particular, postpone the recur- 

 rence of fallow, but in few situations can ever exclude it altogether. On the other hand, 

 the instances that have been adduced, of a profitable succession of crops on soils of this 

 description, without the intervention of a fallow, are so well authenticated, that it would 

 be extremely rash to assert that it can in no case be dispensed with on clay soils. In- 

 stances of this kind are to be found in several parts of Young's Annals <f Agri- 

 culture ; and a very notable one, on Greg's farm of Coles, in Hertfordshire, is 

 accurately detailed in the sixth volume of The Communications to the Board of Agricul- 

 ture. 



4570. The principal causes of this extraordinary difference amovg men of great experience, may probably 

 be found in the quality of the soil, or in the riature of the climate, or in both. Nothing is more vague 

 than the names by which soils are known in different districts. Greg's farm, in particular, though the 

 soil is denominated " heavy arable land," and " very heavy land," is found so suitable to turnips, that a 

 sixth part of it is always under that crop, and these are consumed on the ground by sheep; a system of 

 management, which every farmer must know to be altogether impracticable on the wet tenacious clays of 

 other districts. It may indeed be laid down as a criterion for determining the question, that wherever this 

 management can be profitably adopted, fallow, as a regular branch of the course, must be not less absurd 

 than it is injurious, both to the cultvator and to the public. It is probable, therefore, that, in debating 

 this point, the opposite parties are not agreed about the quality of the soil ; and in particular, about its 

 property of absorbing and retaining moisture, so different in soils, that in common language have the same 

 denomination. 



4571. Another cause of difference must be found in the climate. It is well known, that a great deal more 

 rain falls on the west than on the east coast of Britain ; and that between the northern and southern coun- 

 ties there is at least a month or six weeks' difference in the maturation of the crops. Though the soil 

 therefore be as nearly as possible similar in quality and surface, the period in which it is accessible to agri- 

 cultural operations must vary accordingly. Thus, in the south-eastern counties of the island, where the 

 crops may be all cut down, and almost all carried home by the end of August, much may be done in cleans- 

 ing and pulverising the soil, during the months of September and October, while the farmers of the north 

 are exclusively employed in harvest work, which is frequently not finished by the beginning of November. 



