FAL 



FAL 



131 



can be done more easily, or with 

 more benefit than ours. Our win- 

 ter sets in early. We cannot of- 

 ten plough till Christmas. Our 

 frosts are very severe. Our 

 ground more open than that of 

 our easterly neighbours ; and high- 

 ly beneficial effects must be pro- 

 duced in pulverising the soil by 

 the power of frost, one of the most 

 irresistible agents in nature. 



The following observations from 

 English writers of great respecta- 

 bility will serve to corroborate 

 some of the sentiments which we 

 have advanced on this subject. 



" The raising clean, smothering, 

 green crops, and feeding stock 

 with them upon the land, is not 

 only much more profitable, as far 

 as relates to the value of the crop 

 substituted in lieu of a fallow, but 

 is also a more effectual method of 

 procuring large crops of wheat, or 

 any other crop, which may suc- 

 ceed the green crop. 



" The smothering and hoeing 

 crops of tares, turnips, potatoes, 

 cabbages, savoys, cale, hemp, and 

 other plants, which cover the 

 ground, and cause a stagnation of 

 air, preserve the moisture of the 

 soil, and promote the putrefaction 

 and decomposition of such animal 

 and vegetable matter, as may be 

 contained in the soil, are more 

 likely to prove economical and 

 beneficial than any system of fal- 

 lowing." Code of Agriculture. 



" When weeds are buried in 

 the soil, by their gradual decom- 

 position they furnish a certain 

 quantity of soluble matter ; but it 

 may be doubted whether there is 

 as much useful manure in the land 



at the end of a clean fallow, as at 

 the time the vegetables clothing 

 the surface were first ploughed in. 

 Carbonic acid gas is formed during 

 the whole time by the action of 

 the vegetable matter upon the 

 OX) gene of the air, and the greater 

 part of it is lost to the soil in which 

 it was formed, and dissipated in 

 the atmosphere. 



" The action of the sun upon 

 the surface of the soil tends to dis- 

 engage the gaseous and the vola- 

 tile fluid matters that it contains ; 

 and heat encreases the rapidity of 

 fermentation: and in the summer 

 fallow, nourishment is rapidly pro- 

 duced at a time when no vegeta- 

 bles are present capable of ab- 

 sorbing it. 



" Land, when it is not employ- 

 ed in preparing food for animals, 

 should be applied to the purpose 

 of the preparation of manure for 

 plants ; and this is effected by 

 means of green crops, in conse- 

 quence of the absorption of carbon- 

 aceous matter in the carbonic acid 

 of the atmosphere. In a summer's 

 fallow a period is always lost in 

 which various vegetables may be 

 raised, either as food for animals, or 

 as nourishment for the nest crop ; 

 and the texture of the soil is not 

 so much improved by its exposure 

 as in winter, when the expansive 

 powers of ice, the gradual dissolu- 

 tion of snows, and the alternations 

 from wet to dry, tend to pulverize 

 it, and to mix the different parts to- 

 gether. Agricultural Chemistry, 



FALSE QUARTER, a rift or 

 chink in the quarter of the hoof of 

 a horse, from top to bottom. It 

 happens generally on the inside, 



