740 



FARMERS^ REGISTER. 



equally enriched, and similarly cultivated ; except 

 that the labor is very much lessened by the upe ol' 

 a weeding plough called a skimmer. They are 

 drilled by the hand as thick as the rorn men gar- 

 den pea, in a shallow furrow on ihe summit of ihe 

 ridges, and covered with tho hand hoe. If tlie 

 land is rich, they will cover the whole irround, so 

 that liitle is lost by the distance required in reler- 

 ence to the succeeding corn crop ; and a small 

 spot of land will produce the necesi^ary quantity. 

 The best kind of pea lor the end in view, 

 (which is extremely important to a well managed 

 farm) known to me, is white with black eyes. 

 But as there are many peas which answer this de- 

 ecription, besides a creat number of others, the 

 reader must be referred to his own experience or 

 inquiries for the necessary selection. 



LIVE STOCK. 



Among the queries proposed by the Richmond 

 Society to awaken the dormant science of agri- 

 culture, the eighth is so propounded as to admit 

 that which I deny, "that keeping a large stock, 

 and inclosing to improve land by excluding stock, 

 are rival and incompatible systems." I shall 

 therefore consider this iuimission as a prevalent 

 opinion, which powerfully combats, and exten- 

 sively retards a system upon which the regenera- 

 tion of our lands possibly depends. 



It must be admitted that keeping a slock, equal 

 at least to the whole grass, produced both by tlie 

 arable and meadow grounds of the larm, and not 

 the inclosing system, has generally prevailed ; 

 and, therelbrc, as such a stock is nor. only a large 

 one, but the largest capable of being kept, it Ibl- 

 lows, that one of the experiments of the proposed 

 comparison, has heen completely tried in Virginia. 



And what is the result? It is (bund by com- 

 puting the consequences reaped by Virginia, li"om 

 her system of keeping these enormous s'ocks; 

 enormous in proportion to their food. She exports 

 neither meat, butter nor cheese. She is unable to 

 raise as much of eitlier as she consumes. She 

 cannot breed a sufficiency of dnift animals, lor her 

 own use. And after havinc; ruined her lands by 

 grazing, so far from deriving a profit from it, she 

 is obliged lo deduct annu illy a considerable sum 

 from the profits of her agriculturp, wretched as it 

 is, to supply the deficiencies of her mors wretched 

 system of grazing. If it is a lact, that lands will 

 sink under a system of oppressive taxation by 

 crops, is it not conceivable that they will also sink 

 under excessive grazing? And if by cropping 

 ihem less, more bread can be raised, may it not 

 Ibllow, that more mi^at may also be raised by 

 grazing them less? Fertility is as necessary a 

 requisite tor raising stocks as for raising bread, 

 and whatever will produce it, is a harbinger ol 

 both; a system of grazing, therelbre, which im- 

 poverishes a country, is as likely to terminate in 

 large stocks, as a system of culture having the 

 same etlect, in lorjjje crop^. 



The opinion "that by calling in Ihe aid of in- 

 closing to recover the lost li^rtiliiy of the country, 

 we must sacrifice our stocks," defeats its own ob- 

 ject ; slocks depend as intimately upon this reco- 

 very, as bread stuff, and aie, in facr, unattainable 

 without it, except by a vast depopulation of the 



country, to make up the loss of food for stocks, 

 occasioned by the impoverishment of the land, by 

 extending the space of their ranije. 



!t was hardly to be expected that a crood sys- 

 tem of grazintj would have been fmuid in uninn 

 with an execrable system of aiiriculture, and 

 therefore, instead of inquiring whether we ought 

 to sacrifice our mode of tillage to raising stock, or 

 our mode of raising stock to our mode of tillage ; 

 the true qups'ion probably is, whether we ought 

 not to abandon both, because both modes obvious- 

 ly impoverish our lands, and gradually diminish 

 both crops and stocks. 



In Britain, generally, arable lands are not 

 grazed, though grazing is pursued probably to an 

 injurious excess. There, meadows, natural or ar- 

 tificial, and well tur/isd standing pastures, are pre- 

 pared and used for grnzins ; and if these precau- 

 tions are useful to a moist climate and a rich soil, 

 they cannot be dispensed with by a dry climate 

 and a poor soil. 



To raise lari'e stocks, we must first raise large 

 meadows and rich pastures, defended by a sod 

 both sufficient to withstand the hoofand the tooth, 

 and capable nf becoming rifher under their attacks. 

 If any local difficulties in effecing this are discern- 

 ed, they point directly to another view of the sub- 

 ject. Supposing that raising larse stocks and en- 

 closing arable lands against grazin<r, were really 

 incompatible objects, our attention is of course 

 turned towards our climate and soil, for the pur- 

 pose of making the election ; and it is very obvious 

 that a warm dry climate and a sandy soil ought 

 not to make the same choice, with a climate cool 

 and moist, and a clay soil. 



Still those who have to struirirle with natural dis- 

 advantages in raising stocks, will not find them 

 insurmountable, so far as it is their interest to sur- 

 mount them, if they will resort to the very system 

 fijr lertilizinij their lands, suppo-^ed to obstruct the 

 object. This system itself requires strong teams, 

 meat lor laborers, and stock sufficient lo consume 

 the ofl'al of all the crops. Inclosing is only a coad- 

 jutor to manuring, and had it excluded the means 

 for the latter, it would have excluded a more valu- 

 able objpct than itself. So far from it, that it vastly 

 advances those means, by a regular, and ultimate- 

 ly a great increase of crops, and consequently of 

 litter, offal and stocks. 



Suppose a farm under the system recommended 

 in these essays, to have trebled its crops on the 

 same fields in twelve years — if the whole addition- 

 al crop thus gained was devoted to stocks, is it not 

 certain that it would support far greater, than the 

 same farm could do in its grazed state? Is it not 

 obvious that the oflTal of this treble crop will sup- 

 port a stock three times as large through the win- 

 ter, as the offal of one third of it ; and that the 

 three fold crop of grain will admit of large drafts 

 for the still fiarther increase of stocks, whilst one- 

 third of such a crop might admit of no such con- 

 tribution 1 The supposition is a fact. It may be 

 farther discerned, that as the crops by the acre in- 

 crease, the space cultivated may be gradually di- 

 minished, EG as to release a portion of the labor for 

 the purposes of draining, manuring, and raising 

 artificial grasses ; and in that view constituting a 

 difl'erent mode of providing for stocks, from that 

 of grazing exhausted arable lands. A glance of 

 intellect decides between the two modes. 

 The grazier and the ploughman are characters 



