356 



NEW 



ENGLAND 



FARMER 



MAY 13, 1S4J. 



From the Farmer's Monthly Visitor. 



FARMING IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



frest Tisbury, Muss., M(irch20, 1841. 



(jov. Hii.L — Dear Sir — I see by your paper lliat 

 you have done me the honor to publish the remarks 

 made by me at the Agricultural Meeting at the 

 State House, Feb. 4th. The request made by the 

 Chair that I should state my European reminiscen- 

 ces, took rne entirely unprepared. Cor I had not so 

 much as even thought that I should be called upon 

 to address the meeting. One day of preparation 

 would have enabled me to-have said inuch, for the 

 recollections of any man of common capacity, fond 

 to a fault of agricultural life, and mixing most 

 pleasantly in that society, cannot but interest, when 

 they are of the best farming country under Heaven. 

 For whatever opinion we may form of Britain — her 

 pride, arrogance, insolence, presumption, vanity, 

 faults, (mark my words,) that will have to be amend- 

 ed within ten years by the compulsory process of 

 a general alliance of lations against her — yet we 

 must all confess that her agriculture is the most 

 stupendous thing under heaven. When it is re- 

 membered that the crop of turnips grown in Nor- 

 folk alone is greater than the value of lier trade 

 with China ; that the market price of the geese 

 brought from the Lincolnshire fens, is more than 

 her trade with Denmark ; that you shall see as a 

 common thing, a hundred acres of turnips, or a 

 liundred acres of beans, or thirty acres of cabbages 

 in a single field — a farm of 300 acres nil mowed — 

 on a farm of the same size, 300 acres, all in crops ; 

 the live stock on a farm worth £10,000 — twenty or 

 more horses employed on one farm every working 

 day in the year, and by means of thrice ploughing 

 (heavy clays) turning 900 acres in a single year ; — 

 I say, when this is remembered, it will be seen 

 that "Great" as Britain is in every thing, the su- 

 perlative degree of greatness is in her agriculture 

 — in her soil, naturally poor, but made rich by the 

 application of capital and of unwearied assiduity, 

 good sense and enterprise. 



In this country wo fail, most from want of capi- 

 tal, and from the circumstance that agriculture 

 does not rank as an employment with others, espe- 

 cially with trade. It is not valued as it ought to 

 be. 'I'lie English contend that it never was so 

 valued in a detnocratic country. Agriculture, they 

 say, is substantially an aristocratic employment. 

 This is certainly true of England, and I believe of 

 Europe generally. In England, to be wanting in 

 the dio-nity conferred by landed possessions, is to 

 want that which conducts to the highest offices 

 and most exclusive society. The terju "country 

 gentleman," is in England almost an actual patent 

 of precedence. So far do they carry this, that no 

 man in trade can marry into a family of landed de- 

 scent and possessions, unless he add to large 

 wealth an eminent character for talent. It is from 

 the all-absorbing influence of men of landed prop- 

 erty, that the agriculture of Great Britain has be- 

 come an interest that has never had a parallel in 

 the history of the world. For whilst the annual 

 value of the exports from the United Kingdom is 

 about two hundred and seventy millions of dollars, 

 the annual value of the agricultural produce is 

 reckoned at more than eleven hundred millions ; 

 and this when the valuation of the immense crops 

 of vegetables is at the minimum price they are 

 worth in feeding stock. 



I am, dear sir, yours, respectfully, 



JAMES ATHEARN'jONES. 



We copy the following from tlie Mark-lane Ex- 

 press, an English paper: 



THE TURNIP QUESTION. 



Sir, — In consequence of p. former letter that I 

 wrote to you relative to the growth of Swedish tur- 

 nips, and (he weight per acre I had grown here, I 

 have had several letters requesting me to state the 

 method adopted by me in obtaining what the appli- 

 cants call " enormous crops." I am always glad 

 to give any information I am possessed of, for the 

 benefit of agriculturists ; and in reply, therefore, to 

 the different qufries put to me, I may state gener- 

 ally, that the field from which I had upwards of 

 fortythree tons of Swedish turnips per statute acre, 

 in 1840, is what I call a clayey loam, with a reten- 

 tive subsoil. It was drained with tiles some years 

 ago efTeclually, by cutting the drains, not more 

 than from five to six yards apart. In 1839 it was 

 broken up from pasture for oats; the crop was 

 good, and so soon as the oats were cut and remov- 

 ed from the field, I had the stubble skim-ploughed, 

 say from three to four inches deep, and in that 

 state I allowed the field to remain a month or five 

 weeks, and tlien I had it ploughed from sixteen to 

 eiglitcen inches deep, with Smith's subsoil plough. 

 After this operation, the field was not more dis- 

 turb(^d until the spring of 1S40, when I had it har- 

 rowed so soon as it was sufficiently dry. Between 

 the end of March and the third week of May, I had 

 it ploughed and harrowed tliree different times. 

 From the subsoil ploughing in the autumn, the 

 ground was very mellow in the spring; and after 

 it was three different times ploughed and harrowed, 

 the soil was very fine. The next operation was 

 forming the drills, which were about thirty inches 

 apart. While this was going on, I had the dung 

 in a moist state carted out and spread in the hol- 

 low between the drills, with some bone-dust sown 

 over it, and covered in immediately (to prevent 

 evaporation) by having the drills split out overlhem. 

 The quantity of dung per statute acre applied, was 

 about from twentysix to twentyeight tons, and over 

 this dung I had sown with the hand, about half a 

 ton of the best raw-bone dust p§r statute acre. — 

 .After the dung and bone-dust were covered in, say 

 about from two to three inches from the drills, I 

 immediately, while the dung and ground were moist, 

 had the seed sown by a machine, at the rate of 

 about three pounds weight per statute acre, taking 

 care that it was deposited in the dung; and thus 

 by being so deposited, it vegetated immediately, 

 and grew out of the way of the fly in course of 

 eight or ten days. The moisture of the dung and 

 stiil, and the heat occasioned by their admixture 

 with the bone dust, forced the plnnts for the first 

 fortnight the same as if they had been in a hot-bed. 

 At the enil of this period the plants were almost 

 ready for singling out, which as soon as they would 

 bear the operation, 1 liad done with the hand hoe, 

 from fourteen to sixteen inches apart. 



The above is the method that I have adopted at 

 this [ilace for these last eighteen years, and I have 

 never once missed a crop; and I believe the light- 

 est crop I have ever had during that period, has 

 exceeded thirtysix tons per statute acre. I never 

 sow later than the last week in May. If weight of 

 crop is wanted, it is absolutely necessary to sow 

 in May. As 1 stated in my former letter, I have 

 always had the seed from Mr Skirving, of Liver- 

 pool ; and I consider the turnip growers in Eng- 

 land more indebted to that gentleman than to any 

 other individual, for the improved species of Swe- 



dish turnip which have for a number of years 

 benn known and successfully cultivated in this 

 neighborhood. I am satisfied that I should not 

 have had more than two thirds the weight of crop, 

 had J trusted to the seed which is generally sold to 

 the poor farmer as the improved Swede. 



I ought to have stated that the turnips were 

 twice hoed, and once hand-hoed after singling. I 

 had last season all the crop removed from the ground 

 by the latter end of October, and had the whole 

 ground ploughed and sown with wheat during the 

 first week in November. 



ALEXANDER OGILVIE. 



Mtre, near Knutsford, Feb. 6, 1841. 



From the Farmer's Gazette. 



DAIRY HOGS. 



Mr SroRER — Considering the arguments in a 

 former communication sufficient, I shall pass on, 

 in favor of old hogs, second, by eiperiment. 



Sir, I will premise that I have no great experi- 

 ence in the dairy business, having kept but a small 

 one, but I have made one or two little experiments 

 on dairy pigs, which may pass for good witnesses 

 on the occasion ; for I contend the smaller the ex- 

 periment, the greater the accuracy. 



In the spring of 183!>, I had four cows come in, 

 had wintered four shoats, and bought four spring 

 pigs. The latter I shut up in a little lot of grass, 

 witli a comfortable cot ; and they soon took all the 

 dairy slops, consisting of whey, loppered and but- 

 ter milk, while the former ran in the gtreets, and 

 received nothing but the wash of the house, the 

 dish-water, potato skins, &c., and that very sparse, 

 my family consisting only of four. What surpris- 

 ed me was, in the fall, when I put up my hogs to 

 fatten, which I did altogether, I found my winter 

 shoats were in as fine order, and had grown as 

 well as the spring pigs. But mark the sequel — 

 they all went on eating and fattening finely for a 

 while, but presently the old grunters were conquer- 

 ed of their hoggish propensities, became lazy, lay 

 down quiet, and lined themselves well inside ; 

 while the pigs, them etarnal squealers ! went on 

 eating and squealing, squealing and eating, to the 

 end of the chapter — having never been able to sa- 

 tiate their voracious jaws, nor consequently to put 

 on inside fat. Now I know there is a great dif- 

 ference in the breeds of hogs ; from the finest 

 Berkshires down to the old Irish hogs, ai.d even 

 the Alligators and Landpikeg! of more modern 

 memory. I know too, that I bought these pigs of 

 Mr Anson Gregory, and the race were then cele- 

 brated, and known by the name of the Gregory 

 hogs. 



The deduction I am compelled to bring from the 

 premises is, that throwing away the balance due 

 dairy slops, over house slops — in other words, milk 

 over dish water — it took as much more to fatten 

 the pigs than the old hogs, as the expense of win- 

 tering the latter ! Consequently, we have an old 

 liog, well fatted, to hitch on to the steelyards, in 

 the one case, and a pig in the other ! 



My second experiment was this. Last spring, 

 my little boy came home with a little pig under 

 his arm, which one of the neighbors had given him. 

 I finally consented he might nurse it. Well, he 

 soon took most, and finally all the dairy of the 

 four cows, through the latter part of the summer ; 

 leaving my three old hogs minus, as in the former 

 case. Along in the fall, we butchered the pig, 



