FAIRY RINGS. 



FALLOW. 



entering in the book, where there is no toll, is 

 one penny, for giving a certificate two-pence. 



A list of the fairs and markets of the United 

 Kingdom will be found in several almanacs, 

 particularly that entitled The Farmer's Jilmanac, 

 by Johnson and Shaw. (M'Culloch's Com. Diet. 

 &.c.) 



FAIRY RINGS. Whoever has passed over 

 our down lands in search of the vegetable 

 treasures of creation, or in pursuit of the ra- 

 tional employments of a country life, cannot 

 fail to have noticed, says the Rev. G. Smith, 

 the circles of verdant grass, and correspondent 

 circles of fungi, most abundant upon turfy 

 hills, and known under the name of fairy rings. 

 The various superstitions and poetical fancies 

 connected with these phenomena need not be 

 detailed. These circles have been accounted 

 for by various theories, of which no one, how- 

 ever, is alone sufficient to embrace all the facts. 

 The recent discovery of the habitual rejection 

 by the roots of any substance injurious to the 

 growth of vegetables, has made it evident in 

 what manner a race of plants may occupy one 

 spot, until they can no longer exist on it, in 

 consequence of the excretions their roots have 

 deposited, rendering the land altogether de- 

 structive to them ; while, on the other hand, 

 the change thus effected in the soil may render 

 it more nutritious and desirable for some other 

 race of plants, than before any such change 

 had taken place. This theory, based upon a 

 series of familiar facts, explains the necessity 

 for a rotation of crops. The fungi, it is ascer- 

 tained, soon render the land on which they 

 grow unfit to support themselves; but they 

 enrich the soil for other plants, especially for 

 the grasses, which grow up in rank luxuriance 

 in the space left bare by the extinction of the 

 fungi. The circumstance of the plants taking 

 a circular form, may perhaps arise from a 

 single fungus first throwing its seed all around 

 it, and as a single crop of fungi is sufficient to 

 exhaust the soil, the grass springs up in the 

 space it has occupied, and the second year's 

 crop of fungi appears in a small ring round the 

 original centre. The rings go on extending in 

 circumference year after year, until something 

 occurs in the soil or its products to check their 

 progress, or the species wears out or becomes 

 dormant for a season. A similar mode of 

 growth takes place in some of the crustaceous 

 lichens. The rings have been observed to be 

 frequent on hill-sides, and then almost always 

 with the lower part of the circle open. They 

 sometimes contain a small circle within the 

 larger one, but not always in the centre. With- 

 in such circle the herbage is very luxuriant 

 and rank, consisting of the JLnthoxanthum odo- 

 ratum, and the common daisy ; without the 

 circle there is not any very apparent change 

 in the vegetation ; but on the circumference, 

 Thynnis serpyllum, T. monotropa, Carex rccit.rva, 

 and Hicrncium pitosella, have all been observed. 

 (The Wild Garland, by S. Waring.) 



FALLOW. Such land as has been re- 

 peatedly ploughed over, and exposed to the 

 influence of the atmosphere, for the purpose 

 of rendering it friable, clearing it from weeds ; 

 leaving it to rest after the tillage before it is 

 again sown. 

 450 



Fallows have different names given to them, 

 I and are of different kinds, according to the 

 j purposes for which they are intended, and the 

 i manner in which they are made. Thus, a 

 naked fallow is that in which the ground is 

 ploughed and harrowed at suitable intervals 

 for several successive times, according to the 

 kind of crop that is ultimately to be grown, but 

 without being sown till it has remained in fal- 

 low for some length of time. A green fallow 

 is that where the land has been rendered mel- 

 low and clear from weeds by means of some 

 kind of green crop, such as turnips, peas, tares, 

 potatoes, &c. In this mode of fallowing, no 

 time is lost by the land being left idle, or in an 

 unproductive state. Fallows are also some- 

 times distinguished by the season of the year 

 in which the business is chiefly or wholly per- 

 formed, hence we have summer and winter fal- 

 lows; and likewise from their being in some 

 cases only done in a partial manner, we have 

 bastard fallows. Fallows are also named after 

 particular crops, as wheat, turnip, and potato 

 fallows. 



"The chemical theory of fallowing," ob- 

 serves Sir H. Davy (Elem. ofJlgr. Ghent, p. 23), 

 "is very simple; fallowing affords no new 

 source of riches to the soil, it merely tends 

 to produce an accumulation of decomposing 

 matter, which, in the common course of crops, 

 would be employed as it is formed ; and it is 

 scarcely possible to imagine a single instance 

 of a cultivated soil, which can be supposed to 

 remain fallow for a year with advantage to the 

 farmer; the only case where this practice is 

 beneficial seems to be in the destruction of 

 weeds, and for cleansing foul soils." It has 

 been indeed recently contended by Liebig in 

 his Organic Chemistry, that during a fallow, a 

 quantity of ammonia is collected from the at- 

 mosphere, potash disengaged from its combi- 

 nations, and other chemical effects produced, 

 which it is hardly necessary to examine at 

 much length. He says (Organic Chem. p. 156), 

 "The fallow time is that period of culture, 

 during which land is exposed to a progressive 

 disintegration by means of the influence of the 

 atmosphere, for the purpose of rendering a 

 certain quantity of alkalies capable of being 

 appropriated by plants. Now it is evident, 

 that the careful tilling of fallow land must in- 

 crease and accelerate this disintegration. For 

 the purpose of agriculture, it is quite indiffer- 

 ent whether the land is covered with weeds, 

 or with a plant which does not abstract the 

 potash enclosed in it. Now many plants of 

 the family of the Leguminosce are remarkable 

 on account of the small quantity of alkalies 

 or salts in general which they contain; the 

 Vicia faba, for example, contains no free alka- 

 lies, and not one per cent, of the phosphates 

 of lime and magnesia. The be-an of the Pha- 

 seolus vulgaris contains only traces of salts. 

 The stem of the Mcdicago saliva contains only 

 0-83 per cent., that of the Ervam lens only 0-57 

 per cent, of phosphate of lime, with albumen. 

 Buckwheat drie:l in the sun yields only 0-681 

 per cent, of ashes, of which 0-09 parts are 

 soluble salts. These plants belong to those 

 which are termed fallow crops, and the cause 

 why they do not exercise any injurious in- 



