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ANSWERS to the QUERIES propofed by the Board of Agriculture 



To Mr. VANCOUVER, 



Jls they apply to the Neighbourhood and FanJJj of Boreham in EJfex. 



i' X HE foil of this neighbourhood is very variable; gravel, fand, loam, and clay, being 

 fometimes to be found within loo yards of each other. 



2. Our lands are occupied in farms of all fizes from lo or 12 to 300 or 400 acres. 



3. And are chiefly employed in hufbandry ; many of our farms having only a clofc or two of 

 pafture adjoining to the farm-yard, for the convenience of the cattle, that are wintered at 

 the barn-door. 



4. Our lands being chiefly arable, there is not much ftock kept more than draught hoifes, 

 except three or four cows for fuckling, and the ufe of the family, and a few flieep to pick 

 up from the fallows, under the hedge-rows, that which would otherwife be loft; but little 

 Itock therefore is bred, andof the little our farmers do rear, they are wretchedly inattentive 

 to the breed: in Ihort, chief of the ftock, whether horfes, cows, or flieep, are bought of 

 dealers, who bring them to our markets from diftant counties. The farmers are therefore 

 induced to buy fuch as coft them leaft money, fo that their lands exhibit a bad fample of 

 ftock of all kinds. 



This obfervation relates to the generality of middle fized farms, without any meadows 

 attached to them: not but there are ^farms which have the advantage of con fiderable por- 

 tions of meadow land by the fides of our rivers and rivulets, and on thofe lands a larger 

 proportion of ftock is kept, and of a better quality. 



5. Watering land is not at all praaifed or underftood here, though we have fome grounds capa- 

 ble of that improvement. 



6. Wheat, barley and oats, are the grains principally cultivated, though peas and beans, and 



alfo a little rapefeed, are occafionally fown. 



7. The general rotation of crops (on fuch lands however as are light enough for the purpofe) 



is—ift. turnips, for which a very clean fallow is made, and the land manured ; 2dly, barley 

 or oats J 3dly, clover j 4thly, wheat, after which, when a farmer is about quitting his 

 farm, or towards the expiration of his leafe, he will take another crop of oats. And we are 

 inclined to think that this mode of cultivation is the moft advantageous. 



8. The leafes of this country, not admitting more than two crops of grain to be taken fucces- 



fively, the farmer is compelled to make a fallow every third year; but where the foregoing 

 rotation of crops is attended to, he may be faid to fallow his land every other year, for the 



C c clover 



