[ H ] 



When the green crops are carted home, the plant is thrown into 

 a mill, constructed with a heavy iron ribbed roller, something like 

 that which is used for bruising bark and other substances; by this 

 process it is cut and bruised to a pulp. It is then laid in small 

 heaps, pressed close and smooth ; and as the crust formed on the 

 outside cracks, it is closed again to preserve the strength of the 

 substance. After lying about a fortnight in this state, the heaps 

 are broken up ; the outside worked into the mass, and the whole 

 formed by the hand, and sometimes by wooden moulds, into oval 

 balls ; which are then dried on hurdles under a shed exposed to the 

 sun. 



They turn black or of a dark brown on the outside when well 

 manufactured ; and are valued in proportion to their specific weight 

 and a purplish cast in the inside. Thus they are sold to the dyer ; 

 and it is scarcely necessary to add further, that the use of this arti- 

 cle in dying consists in forming the ground of the indigo blue. The 

 crop is generally a profitable one. The quantity per acre near a 

 ton and half. The nett profit of course must be governed by the 

 goodness and price of the article. But it seems on an average to 

 be so lucrative a culture, that few farmers who can raise it ever 

 discontinue the practice. It however exhausts the land exceed- 

 ingly, and more than two years crops must not in general be taken. 

 To this crop succeed wheat and beans. 



I shall now proceed to a description of that system of improve- 

 ment for which this district is remarkable. I mean the marling 

 system. 



The parishes of Midsomer Norton, Stratton on the Foss, Kil- 

 mersdon, Radstock, Timsbury, Farmboro', High Littleton, Paul- 

 ton, Stone Easton, and Chilcompton, comprehend a district of 

 land, part of which is rendered remarkably fertile by the applica- 

 tion of marl. 



The soil consists of an earth more or less loamy, of a mixed co- 

 lour, between brown and red, with a prevalence of one or the 

 other ; very stony, resembling that kind of soil usually denomi- 

 nated corn grit, and naturally so barren, that when in common 

 field at the beginning of the present century the lands were not fet 

 at more than 3s. 6d. per statute acre. 



By 



