1110 



STATISTICS OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part IV, 



it appears by the marks of ridges, to have been formerly every 

 where arable), and the applicvlion chietly cheese-niaklnu. 

 Droppings of cattle and horses on pastures spread by rakes, which 

 iniure the grass less than any other implement. Fern and other 

 weeds collected from wastes, and dried and burned, arid 

 their ashes made into balls, and laid aside, to be used as ley for 

 washing. This practice declines with the frequency of enclo- 

 sures. When worms are engaged formini; worm-casts in 

 fields, scatter barley chafl", fresh and dry from the winnowing 

 machine, which, sticking to the worms when they come out, 

 pfick them, and prevent their return to their holes, tiil rooks, 

 &c. deTour them. 



9. Gardens and Orchards. 



Good market-gardens at all the principal towns, and few of 

 the farm-houses and cottages without gardens. " Samuel 

 Oldknow, Esq. of Ulellor, keeps a professed gardener, on three 

 acres of rich sheltered land, by the river Goyte, on the Cheshire 

 side of it, who cultivates, gathers, prepares, and delivers, all 

 the useful vegetables and common garden fruits in season, to 

 his cotton mill work-people and tenants, and renders an account 

 once a fortnight to the mill-agent, who deducts what they 

 have purchased from the garden, from their several wages : 

 the pwfection and utility ofhis arrangement for these purposes 

 cannot but prove highly gratifying to those who wish to see the 

 laboring class well and comfortably provided for from the 

 fruits'of their industry. Proper rooms, for drying, cleaning, and 

 preserving garden-seeds and fruits, and his wool-chamber and 

 other like offices, are attached to the gardener's house, and 

 placed under his care." A most productive garden at Belper, 

 on a very poor soil, but irrigated in winter from a cess-pool, in 

 which centres the liquid manure of fifty cottages, belonging to 

 Messrs. Strutt's cotton mills. 



Orchards seldom planted, though the soil is well adapted for 

 them in many places. 



10. IVoods and Plantations. 



A good many coppices, the produce of which is much in 

 demand both for mining and agricultural purposes. Sir Joseph 

 Banks, at Ashover, has iilanttxi some exposed sites in a new 

 manner; first planting narrow slips of Scotch lir at the dis- 

 tance of 100 vards, then intersecting them by others, so as to 

 leave the surface checkered ; after the Scotch firs are grown a 

 few years, it is the intention to fill the intervening patches with 

 larches, at such a distance as that tbev will nevor require any 

 thinning. This plan, as Farey justly liints, is more ingenious 

 or fanciful than likely to be useful ; the mixture of the larch 

 and Scotch firs, with a proper attention to thinning, would be 

 a more effectual, speedy, and economical modeof producing tim- 

 ber. Some judicious observations on pruning trees, and the pro- 

 priety of Poiitey's mode, pointed out by various examples. Ht dge- 

 row trees, sparingly introduced and well framed, are nearly al 

 that fertile agricultural land ouaht to contribute to the national 

 stock of timber. Key bearing ash trees, or any forest tree much 

 given to bearing seeds, no longer increases much in timber, 

 and therefore ought to be cut down ; hence male ashes prefer- 

 able to females, or such as have both male and female flowers 

 on the same tree. The use of the spray and buds of the oak as 

 bark recommended, as practised in Cheshire and South 

 Wales; when collected, they should be immediately sent to a 

 mill and crushed. A most complete seasoning kiln for timber at 

 Belper. Timber often soldby ticket sale, thus described : the 

 wender meets the proposed purchasers, xvrites his price in an 

 envelope, and puts it in a glass ; the oflerers do the same ; the 

 render opens tne envelopes, and if any price comes up to his, 

 then he accepts it, if not, the process is three times repeated, 

 and then the vender must show his price, if none has come up, 

 but not if any one has gone beyond it. In felling trees with an 

 axe, cut diMng, if young shoots are expected to succee<l, as the 

 sooner the centre rots the better the wavers thrive. Larch trees 

 bear neglect better than any others, as they never produce 

 timber boughs. 



Birch wine has been made from an open grove of about 100 

 fcirch trees, near Overton Hall, for sixty or seventy years past. 

 Thirty trees or more are tapped in a season, about six or eight 

 inches above the ground, in March. A piece of bark, about three 

 quarters of an inch in diameter, is cut out with a gouge, and 

 *he wood penetrated an inch or more ; an iron spout (Jig. 791 a.) 



is then driven into the bark 'below the hole, which conducts the 

 sap to a liottle (c). In warm weather the holes soon grow up, 

 and will cease to run in fourorAve<lays; but in windy weather 

 they will run for a month. Some trees will run twenty -four 

 gallons in twenty-four hours, otliers not half-a-pint. The 

 water is sold at sixpence a gallon, t those who make small 

 wine as a substitute tfor small beer. If the water is scalded, 

 (not boiled) it may be kept a month before it is made into 

 wine; if not, it will not keep alwve a day or two. For making 

 the wine, two pounds of coarse sugar, and a quarter of a pound 

 of Malaga raisins, are added to every gallon of birch water, 

 when cold : it is then boiled about an hour, until it is observed 

 to^ow clearer, when it is set to cool, and when about at the 

 same heat that beer is set to work, a toast of bread, spread 

 with yeast, is put into it, and for four days suffered to work 

 freely, when it is barrelled, and the same quantity of raisins as 

 before, and about an ounce of isinglass to every twenty gallons, 

 are added : it seldom works out of the barrd, and in two or 

 three weeks is ready for close bunging .down, to remain for 

 three monttis, when it should be bottled off, and in two or three 

 weeks after it is -fit for drinking, but Is the better for keeping 

 longer. 



11. Improvement. 



Magnesian or hot lime very thinlv spread has its inimical 

 ^opertie; an* it wuSd setnoi iuch limev may be used where 



a stimulant rather than an addition of calcareous earth is 

 required. lame over-burned melts and runs together, will not 

 slack, and becomes useless ; the consequence of too strong a fire 

 being applied to magnesian limes more especially. Might 

 not the dried mud of limestone roads be used instead of 

 lime .' Many bone mills in use : they are composed of 

 ratchet-like iron wheels and rollers, between which the back- 

 bones of horses, with their adhering ribs, pass with facility, and 

 are crushed into small pieces ; the bones collected in London, 

 from the church-yards and other sources ; seven quarters dress 

 an acre. Coal ashes almost entirely neglected, though a valu- 

 able manure. Importance in draining of bearing in mind the 

 difference between surface and spring draining, and bog and 

 upland draining. 

 12. Live Stocl: 



Cow stock for the dairy the prevalent stock in Derbyshire ! 

 no particular breed ; noticed nine breeds and nine crosses ot' 

 these. Many consider that rather poor land makes the best 

 cheese, and old sward more and better than artificial grasses. 

 In some places some slacked and powdered lime strewed on the 

 willow trees within the reach of cows, to prevent their eating 

 them, and tasting the butter. Milk set to raise its cream in 

 yellow dishes, with lips; in some places in slate troughs. 



792 



S/iecp. Ten different breeds and seven crosses of thes 

 and others ; wool chambers generally form a part of the accom- 

 modations of the farmeries. 



Horse). Those of Derbyshire ranked next to those of 

 Leicestershire, for being stout, honey, and clean-legged. 



Asaes in considerable number used by the smaller manufac 

 turers, and in the coul-works, potteries, &c. ; also on the iron 

 railways. 



Swine. The Earl of Chesterfield supplies his table with 

 delicious sucking pigs, of a fortnight old, from his Otaheite 

 sow ; plan of shaving off the gristly or horny projection of the 

 snout, to prevent di^ng, recommended. Tethering by the 

 neck also suggested tor eating down sturdy herbage crops. A 

 pin and screw to be used like those for fixing down Salmon's 

 harmless man-trap. (Trans. Soc. Arts, vol. xxvii. p. IS.?.) 



Potdtrij. The Earl of Chesterfield's poultry yards at Bretby 

 perhaps' as complete as any in the kingdom. The roosting 

 house is well contrived, with covered places for the ducks and 

 geese under the fowls, and the whole is constantly kept strewed 

 with fiesh saw-dust. The sitting-house, and which serves also 

 for laying, is furnished w ith flues, to preserve an equal temper- 

 ature in frosts, in the feeding-houses the fronts, partitions, 

 and floors of the pens are all of lattice-work, which readily 

 take out in order to wash them thoroughly ; shallow drawers 

 with fresh saw -dust pass under each pen to catch the dung. 

 The fatting poultry are fed twice a day, and after each the 

 food is taken away,' and the day-light excluded, for them to 

 rest and sleep. 



A breed of hromn American turkeys at Brailsford ; they roost 

 upon trees or the high parts of buildings ; cocks weigh twenty 

 pounds when fat, but the hens much smaller. 



Geese when let out have a stick almut two feet long slung be- 

 fore the breasts of the old ones, which is found to prevent 

 them creeping through hedges, &c. ; feed on festuca fluitans, 

 &c. When waters are much impregnated with lime, the 

 eggs of geese and ducks that frequent them, cure so much thick- 

 ened that hatching becomes diflicult. 



Hens. At Fleshy a fine breed of black fowls ; round Winger- 

 worth many game fowls kept for cocking. In Tansley the 

 cockpit converted to a methodist meeting house. Eggsjii 



served hung in nets, and turned into a fresh position each day ; 

 n preserving eggs, whose yolks 

 vea, and come at length to touch 



this Ijeing the main essential in 

 subside slowlv w^hen left unmove , 



the shells on "the lower side, when rottenness almost immedi- 

 ately commences. 



Bees ke}it in various places. 



Fish. Certain ponds in Sir Thomas Windsor Hunlocke's 

 Park, in Wingerworth, are appropriated to the feeding of cas- 

 trated male carp and tench, which are found very superior 

 in size and flavor to other fish : the late Sir Windsor Hunlocke 

 saw this practised in Italy, many years ago, and had one ofhis 

 servants, who was with him, instructed hi performing the ope- 

 ration ; which is less difficult or dangerous than might be sup- 

 posed, and in consequence of which, not more than.one in four- 

 teen or fifteen of the fish die. 



Angling permitted at Combs-brook reservoir of forty-five 

 acres, the angler paying sixpence per pound for the fish taken. 

 Salmon pass and trap on the Derwent, at Belper bridge. 



31. Rural Econotny. 



Rewards are offered by the Agricultural Society at Derby, as 

 bv most others in the kingdom, for long and meritorious hired 

 of day service, but seldom for having performed the greatest 



?|uantities of iob work, or earned the most money by such at 

 air prices. At the beginning of the present century it was cal- 

 culated, faking the laborer's wages at two shillings and six- 

 pence 'per day, that he must work four and a half times as manr 

 days to earn 'the same Quantities of food, as from three to five 

 centuries back, he could, when his daily wagps was fourpenr*- 

 to twoj>ence ptr day ! Part of this was doubtless occasion 



