Book I. 



AGRICULTURE OF DERBYSHIRE. 



1153 



placed under his care.** A mos* productive garden, at Belper, 

 on a verv poor soil, but irrigated in winter from a cesspool, in 

 which centres the liquid manure of fifty cottages, belonging to 

 Messrs. Strntt's cotton mills. 



Orchards seldom planted, though the soil is well adapted for 

 them in roanv places. 



10. Woods and Plantations 



A good manv coppices, the produce of which is much in 

 demand both for mining and agricultural purposes. Sir Joseph 

 Banks, at Ashover, has planted some exposed sites in a new 

 manner : first planting narrow slips of Scotch fir at the dis- 

 tance of 1-JO vards, then intersecting them by others, so as to 

 leave the surface checkered ; after the Scotch firs are grown a 

 few vears, it is the intention to fill the intervening patches with 

 .arches, at such a distance as that they will never require any 

 thinning. This plan, as Farey justly hints, is more ingenious 

 or fanciful than likely to be useful ; the mixture of the larch 

 and Scotch firs, with a proper attention to thinning, would t>e 

 a more effectual, speedy, and economical mode of producing 

 timber. Some judicious observations on pruning trees, and the 

 proprietv of Fontey's mode, pointed out by various examples. 

 Hedge row trees, spannglv introduced and well trained, are 

 nearly all that fertile agricultural land ought tocontrihute to the 

 national s-ock of timber. Key-bearing a>h trees or any forest tree 

 much given to bearing seeds, no longer increases much in tim- 

 ber, and therefore ought to be cut down ; hence male ashes pre- 

 ferable to females, or >uch as have both male and female flowers 

 on the same tree. The use of the spray and buds of the oak 

 as bark recommended, as practised in Cheshire and South 

 Wales; when collected, they should be immediately sent to a 

 mill and crushed. A most complete seasoning kiln for timbtr at 

 Belper. Timber often sold by ticket sale, — thus described : the 

 vender m c ets the proposed purchasers, writes his price in an 

 envelope, and puts it in a g ass ; the offerers do the same ; the 

 vender opens the envelopes, and if any price comes up to his, 

 then he accepts it, if not, the process is three times repeated, 

 and then tht.- vender must show his price, if none has come up, 

 but not if am one has gone beyond it* In fe:l ; ng trees with an 

 axe, cut disking) if young shoots are expected 10 succeed, as the 

 sooner the centre rots thebe.ter thewavers thrive. Larch trees 

 bear neg'ect better than any others, as they never produce 

 timber boughs. 



Birch wine has been made from an open grove of about 100 

 birch trees, near Overton Hall, for sixty or seventy years past. 

 Thirty trees or more are tapped in a season, about six or e-ght 

 mches abovetheground,in March. A piece of bark, about three 



auarters of an inch in diameter, is cut out with a gouge, and 

 tie wood penL-trated an inch or more; an iron spout C/fc.l00o.a). 



1005 



is then driven into the bark below the hole, which conducts the 

 sap to a bottle \c). In warm weather the holes soon grow up, 

 and will cease to run in four or five days ; but in windy weather 

 they will run for a month. Some trees will run twenty-four 

 galfons in twenty-four hours, others not half a pint. The 

 water is sold at sixpence a gallon, to those who make small 

 wine as a substitute for small beer. If the water is scalded 

 (not boiled), it may be kept a month before it is made into 

 wine ; if not, it will not keep above a day or two. For making 

 the wine, two pounds of coarse sugar, and a quarter of a pound 

 of Malaga raisins, are added to every gallon of birch water, 

 when cold : it is then boiled about an hour, until it is observed 

 to grow clearer, when it is set to cool ; and when about at the 

 same heat that beer is set to work, a toast of bread, spread 

 with yeast, is put into it, and for four days suffered to work 

 freelv", when it is barrelled, and the same quantity of raisins as 

 before, and about an ounce of isinglass to every twenty gallons 

 is added. It seldom works out of the barrel, and in two or 

 three weeks is ready for close bunging down,to remain for three 

 monfbs,w hen it should be bott ed ofr. and in two or three wteks 

 after it is fit for drinking, but is the better for k epii.g long r. 



11. Improvement. 



Magnesian or hot ime very thinly spread ha< its inimical 

 properties ; and it would seem such limes may be used where 

 a stimulant rather than an addition of calcareous earth is 

 required. I. ime over-burned mtlts and runs together, will not 

 slack, and becomes useless ; the consequence of too strong a fire 

 being app led to m\gnesian limes more especially. Might 

 not the dried mud of limestone roads bj used instead of 

 lime? Manv bone mills in use: they are composed of 

 ratchet-like iron wheels and rollers, between which the back- 

 bone of horses, with their adhering ribs, pass with facility, and 

 are crushed into small pieces ; the tones collected in London, 

 from the churchvards and other sources ; seven quart ers dress 

 an acre. Coal ashes almost entirely neglected, though a valu- 

 able manure. Imjjortance in draining of bearing in mind the 

 difference between surface and spring draining, and bog and 

 upland draining. 



12. Livestock 



Cow stock for the dairy the prevalent stock in "Derbyshire ; 

 no particular bret-d ; nor iced nine breeds and nine crosses of 

 th-?se. Manv consider that rather poor land makes the best 

 cheese, and old sward more and better than artificial grasses. 

 In some cases some slacked and powdered lime strewed on the 

 willow trees within the reach of cows, to prevent their eating 

 them, and tasting the butter. Milk set to raise its cream in 

 yellow dishes, with lips ; in some places in slate troughs; car- 

 ried home in suspended tubs. (.fig. 1006.) 



Sheep. Ten different breeds, and seven crosses of these and 

 others ; wool chambers generally form a part of the accommo- 

 dations of the farmeries. 



Hones. Those of Derbyshire ranked next to those of 

 Leicestershire, for being stout, bony, and dean-legged. 



1006 



Asses in considerable number used by the smaller manuf ac« 

 turers, and in the coal-works, potteries, &c. ; also on the iron 

 railwavs. 



Sn-iiie. The Earl of Chesterfield supplies his table with 

 delicious sucking pigs, of a fortnight old, from his Otaheite 

 sow ; plan of shaving off the gristly or homy projection of the 

 snout, to prevent digging, recommended. Tethering by the 

 neck also suggested for eating down sturdy herbage crops. A 

 pin and screw to be used like those for fixing down Salmon's 

 harmless man-trap. \7Yan-j. Soc. Arts, vol. xxvii. p. 1S5.) 



Poultry. The Earl of Chesterfield's poultry yards at Bretby, 

 perhaps as complete as any in the kingdom. The roosting- 

 house is well contrived, with covered places for the ducks and 

 geese under the fowls, and the whole is constantly kept strewed 

 with fresh saw-dust* The sitting-house, and which serves a'so 

 for laying, is furnished with flues, to preserve an equal temper- 

 ature in frosts. In the feeding-houses, the fronts, partitions, 

 and floors of the pens, are all of lattice-work, which readily 

 take out in order to wash them thoroughly ; shallow drawers 

 with fresh sawdust pass under each pen to catch the dung. 

 The fatting poultry are fed twice a day, and after each the 

 food is taken away, and the daylight excluded, for them to 

 rest and sleep. 



A breed ofbrovn American turkeys at Brailsford; they roost 

 upon trees or the high parts of buildings ; cocks weigh twenty 

 pounds when fat, but the hens much smaller. 



Geese when let out have a stick about two feet long slung be- 

 fore the breasts of the old ones, which is found to prevent 

 them creeping through hedges, Sec. ; feed on Festuca fluilans, 

 Sec When waters are much impregnated with lime, the 

 eggs of geese and ducks that frequent them are so much thick- 

 ened that hatching becomes difficult. 



Hens. At Fleshy a fine breed of black fowls ; round Winger- 

 worth manv game fowls kept for cocking. In Tansley the 

 cockpit converted into a methodist meeting-house. Eggs pre- 

 served hung in nets, and turned into a fresh position each day ; 

 this being the main essential in preserving eggs, whose yolks 

 subside slowly when left unmoved, and come at length to touch 

 the shells on "the lower side, when rottenness almost immedi- 

 ately commences. 



Bees kept in various places. 



Fish. Certain ponds in Sir Thomas Windsor Hunlocke's 

 Park, in Wingerworfh, are appropriated to the feeding of cas- 

 trated male carp and tench, which are found very superior 

 in size and flavour to other fish ; the late Sir Windsor Hunlocke 

 saw this practised in Italy, many years ago, and had one of his 

 servants, who was with him, instructed in performing the ope- 

 ration ; which is less difficult or dangerous than might be sup- 

 posed, and in consequence of which, not more than one in four- 

 teen or fifteen of the fish die. 



Angling permitted at Combs-brook reservoir of forty-five 

 acre,, tl e angler paving sixpence per pound for the fish taken. 

 Salmon pass and trap on the Derwent, at Belper bridge. 

 31. Rural Economy. 



Rewards are offered by the Agriculf ral Society at Derby, as 

 bv most o.hers in the kingdom, for long and meritorious hired 

 or dav service, but seldom for having performed the greatest 

 quantities of ob work, or earned the most money by such at 

 fair prices. At the u ginning of the present cenlury, it was cal- 

 culated, taking the labourer's wages at two shillings and six- 

 pence per dav, that he must work four and a halt Times as many 

 davs to earn the same quantity of food, as from three to five 

 centuries back he could, when his daily wages was from four- 

 pence to twopence per day ! Part of this was doubtless occa- 

 sioned bv the manv idle saints' days which the church of 

 Rome imposed on the peop'e at the earlier periods. 

 14. Political Economy. 



Varinus concave roads formerlv, made through the influ- 

 ence of Joseph Wills, Esq. of Measbarn ; these in a very in- 

 different state, and illustra e the absurdity of the principles on 

 w hich thev are contracted. To level across a road a string 

 level used.' It consisted of a piece of boxwood eleven inches 

 long, one and a half broad, and one and a quarter deep, into 

 the top of which a spirit-level tub ■ was deeply sunk, and to the 

 top, at each end of ihis level, several ?ards of strong whipcord 

 was fasten d. In using this instrument, a labourer was 

 on each side of the road, having 'he cord in his hami. 

 thev pulled verv tightlv, and steadily against each other, ai d 

 thereby made the bubhle assume the middle of the till* or 

 either "end, according as the two ends of the string were hi tl 

 level or one higher than the other. 



Some remains of wavy roads (-j.il.', but nothing to msWj 

 any deviation from the e nerr.l form of 

 with stra ght or even surfaces as to length. 

 Riple. and Little Eaton, where washing or rrruraiion 1 

 adopt.d as a mode of clearing {Com. B. A*, vol. ■.) w as miser- 

 ably deep, loose, and bad." c _ 



In Manufactures Derbyshire ranks next to Lancashire, Staf- 

 fordshire, and Warwickshire. ,__._. *., , 



1. Trades, Sec. depending on the Animal Products of the cowirj/. 



Blanket-weaving, and scouring. 



Bone-crushing mills. 



■i V. 



