and with the object of advising those who have the task in 

 front of them the Department addressed enquiries to a large 

 number of farmers in different parts of the country. 



Up to the time of writing over 300 replies have been 

 received from 55 counties. In view of the difficulties 

 attending the work last spring, the inexperience of many of 

 the farmers in breaking up old grass, and the unskilled 

 'labour that had often to be employed, the results secured 

 have been very satisfactory. For every failure reported there 

 have been four successes, and, though some of the failures 

 cannot be accounted for, most of them are due to reasons 

 which further experience should enable farmers to avoid. 



I. 



SUCCESSES AND FAILURES. 



Successes are reported in growing many kinds of crops on 

 the newly broken grass. Oats, wheat, barley, peas, beans, 

 potatoes, mangolds, mustard, rape, turnips, linseed, are all 

 mentioned as having given satisfaction, and it is evident that 

 a farmer who knows his work has a considerable choice of 

 crops available. As little of the land reported upon had been 

 taken in hand until after the New Year, and most of it was 

 broken up between the middle of February and the end of 

 April, few of the reports relate to autumn sown crops, and 

 in by far the larger proportion of cases spring oats was the 

 crop grown. 



The illustrations cited in the Appendix are arranged under 

 county headings, and reports from counties have been classi- 

 fied so that those relating to similar climates come together. 

 The English counties are grouped into Northern, North 

 Midland, South Midland and Southern, and within these 

 groups the arrangement has been from east to west. Welsh 

 counties form a separate group. Few examples have been 

 given from Wales ; the breaking up of long leys is there the 

 ordinary practice, and the breaking up of old grass land is 

 not uncommon. 



The first intention was to have giver examples of about an 

 equal number of successes and failures, but the successes 

 so greatly outnumber the failures, and the failures 

 have been so uniformly attributed to wireworms and 

 insufficient consolidation of the soil, that nothing would 

 be gained by repeating examples. It will be noticed that 

 there is a great similarity in the experience of those who 

 have grown good crops, and that thorough pressing or heavy 

 rolling is the usual explanation of success. The testimony 

 from all parts of the country as to the effectiveness of a firm 

 seed bed is very striking. The benefits due to consolidation 

 were, of course, specially noticeable this year because of the 

 long period of dry weather in early summer. 



