40 BAD CUSTOM IN FARMING. 



tending with the cloth, and care is taken by succes- 

 sive applications to draw the impediment out : but 

 all mechanical inventions hitherto made use of offer 

 resistance to the knot ; and, instead of yielding and 

 breaking as the teazle does, resist and tear it out, 

 making a hole, or injuring the surface. The 

 dressing of a piece of cloth consumes a great multi- 

 tude of teazles it requiring from fifteen hundred 

 to two thousand heads to accomplish the work pro- 

 perly. They are used repeatedly in the different 

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

 nerally breaks this number before it is finished, or 

 we may say that there is a consumption answering 

 to the proposed 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 

 picking 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 ploughed 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 endeavours have afforded a very 

 inadequate supply. 



This picking of the field was formerly very 

 generally resorted to in the midland counties ; but 

 the farmer at that time had a sufficient excuse in 



