132 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



Barly Season is over, and is called the Fallow, which they som- 

 times make by a casting tilth, i. e. beginning at the out sides of the 

 Lands, and laying the Earths from the ridge at the top. After 

 this, some short time before the second tilth, which they call 

 stirring, which is usually performed about the latter end of June, 

 or beginning of July, they give this Land its manure; which if 

 Horse-dung or Sheeps-dung, or any other from the Home-stall, 

 or from the Mixen in the Field, is brought and spread on the 

 Land just before this second ploughing: But if it he folded (which 

 is an excellent manure for this Land, and seldom fails sending a 

 Crop accordingly if the Land be in tillage) they do it either in 

 Winter before the fallow, or in Summer after it is fallowed. . . . 



'' After it is thus prepared, they sow it with Wheat, which is 

 its proper grain . . . and the next year after (it being accounted 

 advantagious in all tillage to change the grain) with Beans; and 

 then ploughing in the bean-brush at All-Saints, the next year with 

 Barly . . . ; and then the fourth year it lies fallow, when they 

 give it Summer tilth again, and sow it with Winter Corn as before. 

 But at most places where their Land is cast into three Fields, 

 it lies fallow in course every third year, and is sown but two ; the 

 first with Wheat, if the Land be good, but if mean with Miscel- 

 lan, and the other with Barly and Pulse promiscuously. And at 

 some places where it lies out of their hitching, i. e. their Land for 

 Pulse, they sow it but every second year, and there usually two 

 Crops Wheat, and the third Barly, always being careful to lay 

 it up by ridging against winter; Clay Lands requiring to be kept 

 high, and to lie warm and dry, still allowing for Wheat and Bar- 

 ly three plowings, and somtimes four, but for other grains seldom 

 more than one. . . . 



" As for the Chalk-lands of the Chil tern-hills . . . when de- 

 signed for Wheat, which is but seldom, they give it the same til- 

 lage with Clay, only laying it in four or six furrow'd Lands, and 

 soiling it with the best mould . . . and so for common Barly 

 and winter Vetches, with which it is much more frequently sown, 

 these being found the more suitable grains. But if it be of that 

 poorest sort they call white-land, nothing is so proper as ray- 

 grass mixt with Non-such, or Melilot Trefoil. . . . 



