250 OF FALLOWING. 



It may be proper also to add, that Mr Curvven, who, at 

 one time, was strongly prejudiced against naked fallows, 

 when he saw the crops which resulted from that process, 

 and heard the arguments in its favour, from individuals, 

 second to none for intelligence, and skill in their pro- 



they may not continue through winter in good condition, and at any rate 

 might then be with difficulty removed from the ground; arid, if they 

 were at all of any material benefit, they would require to be made use of 

 in the beginning of winter, a period so limited, as greatly to diminish 

 their value to the cultivator. Probably, therefore, in most clayey lands, 

 situated 400 feet or upwards above the level of the sea, where the cli- 

 mate is cold, and the harvest late, fallow crops will be found unsuitable. 

 In lower-lying grounds, again, it will be found that the soil must possess a 

 certain degree of fertility : , before fallow crops of beans, or any other 

 species adapted for a clayey soil, will so far answer, as to admit of being 

 raised on a large scale, and to become preferable to a summer-fallo\T, 

 with the total loss of a crop for the year. Where the land is poor, or 

 the means of rendering it duly productive, manure namely, is not at 

 hand, the bean or cabbage crop, or any other such, might prove, compa- 

 rativelyt of no great value ; and on such land, the seed of the wheat 

 crop that succeeds them, would require to be earlier sown, to ensure suc- 

 cess from it as a crop. A fallow, well conducted, will be more favour- 

 able for the timely sowing of the wheat seed, than tillage with and after 

 beans, poor crops of which might not compensate for the injury that 

 might be produced by the delay in the wheat sowing, a consideration 

 which will be admitted by those, who understand the advantage derived 

 from a summer-fallow, in giving a superior tilth to the land, above what 

 can be done with a fallow crop. Most probably, wherever a clayey or 

 loamy soil, is so poor as not to yield five Lothian bolls of beans, (20 Win- 

 chester bushels), per English or statute acre, it had much better be culti- 

 vated by a summer-fallow, than by any such fallow crop. If it possess 

 such a degree of productiveness, as to yield seven bolls, or 28 bushels, of 

 beans per acre, then that fallow crop may take the place of a summer- 

 fallow, either occasionally or more constantly ; and it might do so al- 

 most constantly, on land that has been once rendered to a full degree 

 clean, if the fallow crop be employed at proper intervals, not at too dis- 

 tant periods, and if its culture be properly managed. Again, should th 



