40 BAD CUSTOM IN FARMING. 



passage of the wheel, or frame, of teasels. Should the 

 hook of the chaff, when in use, become fixed in a knot, 

 or find sufficient resistance, it breaks without injuring 

 or contending with the cloth, and care is taken by suc- 

 cessive applications to draw the impediment out : but 

 all mechanical inventions hitherto made use of offer re- 

 sistance to the knot ; and, instead of yielding and break- 

 ing as the teasel does, resist and tear it out, making a 

 hole, or injuring the surface. The dressing of a piece 

 of cloth consumes a great multitude of teasels it re- 

 quiring from 1500 to 2000 heads to accomplish the 

 work properly. They are used repeatedly in the different 

 stages of the process ; but a piece of fine cloth gene- 

 rally breaks this number before it is finished, or we may 

 say that there is a consumption answering to the pro- 

 posed fineness pieces of the best kinds requiring one 

 hundred and fifty or two hundred runnings up, according 

 to circumstances. 



Our small farmers here have a vile practice of pick- 

 ing from their turf, in the spring of the year, all the 

 droppings of their autumn and winter fed cattle to carry 

 on their arable land for the potato, or some grain crop : 

 this affords no great supply to plowed land, and is very 

 injurious to their grazing grounds ; but the answer 

 generally is, " that the corn must have manure, and the 

 beast can take care of itself;" and in many cases, I fear, 

 from the starved appearance of the young cattle, that 

 their best endeavors have afforded a very inadequate 

 supply. 



This picking of the field was formerly very generally 

 resorted to in the midland counties ; but the farmers at 

 that time had a sufficient excuse in the scarcity of com- 

 mon fuel. The droppings of the cows were collected 

 in heaps, and beaten into a mass with water ; then press- 

 ed by the feet into moulds like bricks, by regular pro- 

 fessional persons, called clatters (dodders) ; then dried 

 in the sun, and stacked like peat, and a dry March for 

 the clat-harvest was considered as very desirable. These 

 answered very well for heating water for the dairy and 

 uses of the farm back-kitchen, giving a steady, dull 

 heat, without flame ; but navigable canals, and other 



