AGRICULTURE. 



AGRICULTURE. 



to the very skin." This is the first notice we 

 have of feeding off turnips ; and the same 

 authority adds, " ten acres sown with clover, 

 turnips, &e., will feed as many sheep as one 

 hundred acres would have done before." 

 (Houg/iton's Collections on Husbandry, &c., iv. 

 142 144.) Brown, Donaldson, and all other 

 Avriters upon agriculture, agree, that the intro- 

 duction of the improved mode of cultivating 

 these crops revolutionized the art of hus- 

 bandry. Previously, light soils could not be 

 cropped with advantage ; there was no rotation 

 that the judgment could approve. Tusser, in 

 the sixteenth century, in the following homely 

 lines, tells us that two corn crops were grown 

 consecutively and then a fallow; and many 

 authorities could be quoted to show that some 

 soils 'were fallowed on alternate years, so that 

 they afforded only one crop in two years. 



" First rie and then bnrlie, the champion saies, 

 Or wheat before bnrlie, be champion waies: 

 But drink before bread-corn, with Middlesex men, 

 Then laie on more compas, and fallow agen." 



But now, by the aid of green crops, a fallow 

 usually occurs but once in four years. " Clo- 

 ver and turnips," it has been observed, " are 

 the two main pillars of the best courses of 

 British husbandry; they have contributed 

 more to preserve and augment the fertility of 

 the soil for producing grain, to enlarge and 

 improve breeds of cattle and sheep, and to 

 afford a regular supply of butcher's meat all 

 the year, than any other crops." It was pre- 

 viously a difficult task to support live stock 

 through the winter and spring months ; and as 

 for feeding and preparing cattle and sheep for 

 market during these inclement seasons, the 

 practice was hardly thought of, and still more 

 rarely attempted. 



Mangel wurzel has only been cultivated by 

 the farmer for a few years past. Its chief ad- 

 vantage is, that as it will succeed upon tena- 

 cious soils which will not produce turnips, it 

 enables farms in which such soils predomi- 

 nate to support a larger quantity of live stock. 

 Its cultivation seems on the increase, its fat- 

 tening qualities being good, the produce heavy, 

 and liability to failure small. 



Hops, although indigenous to England, were 

 little attended to, and never employed in brew- 

 ing till the sixteenth century ; and then, when 

 they began to be more used, the citizens of 

 London petitioned parliament to prevent them 

 as a nuisance. " It is not many years since," 

 says Walter Blith, writing in the year 1653, 

 " the famous city of London petitioned against 

 two nuisances, and these were Newcastle 

 coals, in regard of their stench, &c., and hops, 

 in regard they would spoil the taste of drink 

 and endanger the people." (English Improver 

 Improved, 3d ed. 240.) 



There are many other crops occasionally 

 cultivated by the farmer which may be enu- 

 merated here, and most of them first exten- 

 sively cultivated within the last 150 years, but 

 winch in this place will require no further 

 nftice such as the artificial grasses, rape, 

 mustard, caraway, coriander, flax, hemp, buck- 

 wheat or brank, teasel, madder, saintfoin, 

 lucerne, cabbage, carrots, and others. 



General cultivation. We have no informa- 

 44 



tion as to whether the early inhabitants of 

 Britain varied their modes of ploughing with 

 the nature of their soil; They sometimes 

 ploughed with two oxen, sometimes with more ; 

 some ploughmen, represented in very old pic- 

 tures, evidently drove the team as well as 

 guided the plough ; but it was usual for them 

 to have a driver. There is a very old Saxon 

 dialogue extant, in which a ploughman, in 

 stating his duties, says, " I go out at day-break, 

 urging the oxen to the field, and I yoke them 

 to the plough the oxen being yoked, and the 

 share and coulter fastened on, I ought to 

 plough one entire field or more. I have a boy 

 to threaten the oxen with a goad, who is now 

 hoarse through cold and bawling. I ought, 

 also, to fill the bins of the oxen with hay, and 

 water them, and carry out their soil." (Tur- 

 ner's Anglo-Saxons, ii. 546, ed. 5.) Repeated 

 ploughings and fallowings, to prepare the soil 

 for wheat, was the common practice ; for Giral- 

 dus Cambrensis, speaking of the Welsh, says, 

 with astonishment, "they ploughed their lands 

 only once a year, in March or April, in order to 

 sow them with oats ; but did not, like other 

 farmers, plough them twice in summer and 

 once in winter, to prepare them for wheat." 

 (Descript. Cambria:, c. viii.) 



In a law tract, called Fleta, and written early 

 in the fourteenth century, are given several 

 agricultural directions, especially upon dress- 

 ing and ploughing fallows. In summer, the 

 ploughing is advised to be only so deep as. to 

 bury and kill the weeds ; and the manure not 

 to be applied till just before the last ploughing, 

 which is to be deep. (Fleta, lib. ii. c. 73.) 



Sowing was anciently performed in all cases 

 by hand. In the famous antique tapestry of 

 Bayeux, a man is represented sowing. The 

 seed is contained in a cloth fastened round his 

 neck, is supported at the other extremity by 

 his left arm, and he scatters the seed with his 

 right hand. 



All agricultural writers, from the earliest 

 era to the present, have recommended the seed 

 to be soaked in some medicament or other 

 previously to sowing. Virgil recommends oil 

 and nitre for beans ; others direct the employ- 

 ment of urine ; and Heresbachius, who wrote 

 in 1570, mentions the juice of the houseleek. 

 " Sow your ridges," says the same author, 

 "with an equal hand, and all alike in every 

 place, letting your Bright foot, especially, and 

 your hand go tosMJtr. Wheat, rye, barley, 

 oats, and other lafffe seeds must be sown with 

 a full hand, but rape seeds only with three 

 fingers." (Goage's Heresbachius, 246.) 



The tapestry of Bayeux, already mentioned, 

 represents a man harrowing ; one harrow only 

 being employed, and one horse. In the time 

 of Heresbachius, though harrowing was the 

 usual mode of covering the seed, yet he says, 

 " in some places it is done with a board tied 

 to the plough." Rakes seem to have been 

 employed by the Anglo-Saxons ; for the accu- 

 rate researches of Mr. Turner do not appear 

 to have discovered any mention of other im- 

 plements that were employed by them for the 

 purpose. (Hist. Anglo-Sax, ii. 544.) 



We find no very early mention made of 

 hoeing by any English agricultural writer. 



