MS 



FARMERS' REGISTER— CURING CLOVER If AY. 



manure is undesirable. One drill completes eight 

 acres per day, and the (juantity of seed, per acre, 

 varies Ironi three and a half to four and a half 

 bushels, according to the state of the land, and the 

 season. Mr. Coke's tenant, Mr. Blomfield, has 

 even sown so much as five bushels per acre, with 

 the best results, and an experiment was stated to 

 me, in which much more than the rental of any 

 land was obtained by thicker sowing. A material, 

 indeed on this light sandy soil, an essential, part 

 of the management, is the rolluag, which is effec- 

 tually performed by heavy h'on rollers. To those 

 persons, occupiers of sandy soil, who consider the 

 cultivation of Avheat may not be successfully at- 

 tempted on their farms, the following statement 

 resjjecting the wheat crop of 1832 may be instruc- 

 tive and useful. Mr. Coke kindly permitted me 

 to extract it from the farming accounts:— 

 306 acres produced 2632 coombs of wheat. — Aver- 

 age per acre a fraction over 34 bushels, disposed 

 of as follows, viz. : — 



Sold £2273 3 



Seed ---------- 329 2 



Poor at Christmas -------700 



Inferior tail to pigs, poultry, &c. - - 21 3 



£2632 8 



It is not to Holkham alone that Mr. Coke has 

 confined his attention, or limited his creative 

 power. The reference which he permitted me to 

 make to his books and statements of accounts, 

 presented many similar instances of successful en- 

 terprise in other places. From among these I 

 was particularly tempted to select that afforded by 

 Elmham Park. In the year 1817 he commenced 

 improving (his property, by means of draining, 

 clearing ditches, and top-dressing witli the soil 

 taken from them. In these labors a sum of £510. 

 15s. was expended, by means of which tlie annual 

 value ol" the estate had increased froiii 1817 1o 

 1827 to the amount of £500, and a progressive 

 increase of value has, since the last-named year, 

 regularly continued. 



ON TXIE CURING OF CLOVER. 



The common method of curing clover is bad. The 

 object to be attained is, to cure it in the cheapest 

 and best manner. I'he common practice of spread- 

 ing clover from the swath, causes the leaves and 

 blossoms to dry and crumble, ere the haulm or 

 stalks are sufficiently cured. Tims either the finer 

 parts of the hay are lost, or the crop is housed with 

 so much moisture, as to cause it to heat, and often 

 to spoil. Clover should only be spread when it has 

 become wet in the swath and should be gathered 

 again before the leaves dry and crumble. Both 

 these evils may be avoided, and labor saved withal, 

 by curing the grass wholly in the swath and cock. 

 After experiencing the serious disadvantages of 

 the old method, I adopted the one I am about to 

 recommend, and have pursued it satisfactorily ten 

 or a dozen years. My practice has been to leave 

 the clover to wilt in the swath, and when partially 

 dried, either to turn the swaths, or to make grass 

 cocks the same day, so as to secure the dried por- 

 tions from the dew. That which is not put into 

 cocks the first day, is thus secured the second day, 

 or as soon as it becomes partially dried. TIrese grass 



according as the weather is, and as the curing 

 process has progressed, when they are opened at 

 nine or ten o'clock on a fair day, the hay turned 

 over between eleven and three, and soon after 

 turning, gathered again for the cart. Thus cured, 

 the hay is perfectly bright and s-weet, and hardly a 

 blossom or a leaf wasted. Some cave is required 

 in making tlie cocks. The grass is collected with 

 forks and placed on dry ground, between five 

 swaths, in as small a compass as convenient at the 

 base, say two or three feet in diameter, and rising 

 in a cone to the height of four or five leet. 



The^advantages of this mode of curing clover 

 are: 



1. The labor of spreading from the swath iy 

 saved. 



2. The labor of the hand rake is abridged, or 

 may be wholly dispensed with, if the horse rake is 

 used to glean the field when the hay is taken oft", 

 the forks sullicing to collect it tolerably clean in tho 

 cockujg. process. 



3. It prevents in a great measure, injuiy from 

 dew and rain — for these cocks if rightly construct- 

 ed, (not by rolling) will sustain a rain of some days 

 — that is, they have done this with me — with- 

 out heating, or becoming more than superficially 

 wet. 



4. Clover hay made in this way may almost 

 invariably be housed in good condition; and if rain 

 falls after the grass is mown, the quality of the hay 

 is infinitely superior to what it would be under the 

 old process of curing. 



The rationale is this: the outside of the clover 

 parts with much of its moisture while in the swath, 

 and what is called sweating in cock is merely the 

 passage of moisture remaining in the succulent 

 stalks, to their exterior, and to their leaves and 

 blossoms — it is adiifusion — an equalization of tlie 

 remaining moisture in the cock. When tliis has 

 tfiken place, evaporation is greatly facilitated, and 

 the whole mass acquires a imiform dryness on 

 ofiening the cocks to the influence of the sun, and 

 winds, if too long an exposure is guarded against. 

 Evaporation progresses in the cocks, after the hay 

 is gathered for the cart, and during the operation 

 of loading and unloading. — Cultivator. 



EXPERIMENTS PROPOSED. 



From the British Fanners' Magazine, [May 1834.] 



The following hints upon experiments in agri- 

 culture have been just received by the committee 

 [of the Saffron Walden Agricultural Society] and 

 printed, in the hope that as it is quite unnecessary, 

 in order to arrive at a practically useful result, that 

 any experiment should be tried upon a large scale, 

 some of the members of the society may turn their 

 attention to the subjects. 



The celebrated De Candolle, in his Vegetable 

 Physiology, has pointed out several ways in which 

 persons who are engaged in various scientific or 

 economic pursuits, may assist in perfecting the 

 general theory of vegetation. To each class he 

 proposes a separate series of experiments to be 

 undertaken by them; and, among other notices, he 

 lays down a few rules by which an agricultural 

 experinjenter should direct his researches. We 

 would more particularly refer to the following: — 



1. That a set of com/?ara/ /re experiments shoidd 

 be instituted, in all cases where any positive result 



cocksarepermittedtostaiidone,tvvo, ortlueedays, 'may be desired. For instance, if we wish to 



