28 



Scotch Husbandry — Manuring. 



VOL-V. 



From the Farmers' Visitor. 

 Scotch Husbandry. 



The secret of the success of British ac^ri- 

 culture, is the prober division and ajjpHca- 

 tion of expense and labour. Until the High- 

 laiid Agricultural Society was formed in Scot- 

 land in 1784, that country was as poor in its 

 agriculture as may well be conceived. The 

 face of Scotland, in the middle of the last 

 century, was " as black as a howling wilder- 

 ness;" up to that time, all the manure used 

 upon the farm was put upon a little patch ; 

 no wheat of consequence was raised ; the oat 

 crops were full of thistles and weeds; and 

 there was no rotation of crops. But by the 

 concentrated efforts of the members of the 

 Highland Society, means have been sought 

 for obtaining and applying all the valuable 

 manures, and bone-dust has been brought 

 from foreign countries ; tlie turnip husbandry 

 has been gradually introduced, with other 

 green crops — which, in that country, are sub- 

 stitutes for our Indian-corn crops — rotation of 

 five or six years is practised, and the price 

 of rent per acre, of lands before the improved 

 cultivation of little value, has been raised to 

 eight, ten, and twelve dollars, in the most 

 distant parts of that country, where the busi- 

 ness of raising cattle is almost exclusively 

 pursued. The improvements of steam car- 

 riage, by land and water, have brought the 

 most distant counties of Scotland near to the 

 Smithfield cattle-market of London, and that 

 country is now said to be richer in her arable 

 lands than any other part of Great Britain. 



The perfect system of British farming is 

 worthy of our attention, an immense saving 

 is realized in every large establishment from 

 this system — the arrangement and system 

 of the Lowell manufacturng establishments 

 were copied from those of Manchester, so far 

 as the condition of the two countries would ad- 

 mit ; and the great farming establishments of 

 Great Britain are conducted with as much 

 order and system -as are the manufacturing 

 establishments: every man, every beast, 

 every tool, has its place, and no time is lost 

 in the day's work of any man. Horses are 

 generally used, and perform with the plough 

 or harrow, or other implements, much of the 

 work that is done in this country by hand : a 

 team of horses and a man are calculated to 

 do the work of fifty acres of land, while the 

 crops requiring the hoe in Scotland, are at- 

 tended to by females and children. The po- 

 tatoes are planted and dug by the plough, 

 and in almost every crop, which here requires 

 the hoe, there the work is done by the 

 plough. 



The expense of human labour is less in 

 that country than in this. The annual cost 

 of a pair of working horses is set down at 



seventy pounds sterling — that of a man to 

 drive them, thirty pounds, the whole cost of 

 the team being two pounds ten shillings ster- 

 ling an acre. This team labours every work- 

 ing day in the year, is well kept, so that the 

 horses are worn out only by age. It works 

 its regular hours every day, never varying; 

 these are, ten hours in the summer and eight 

 hours in the winter, and this regularity se- 

 cures to the farmer a full equivalent for the 

 cost of his labour. — Hon, Isaac HiWs Ad- 

 dress. 



Manuring. 



The balk of the manure on a farm should 

 ever be bestowed upon those crops designed 

 for the support of the live stock, by which 

 measure, and the use of the hoe or cultivator, 

 these fallows, as they are very properly 

 termed, will be in a most rich, clean and ele- 

 gant order for the production of corn or grain 

 of any kind ; and this measure is absolutely 

 essential upon soils apt to run riot from super- 

 abundant fertility, when fresh dunged and 

 sown with grain broadcast, when the conse- 

 quence too often is one continued bed of weeds 

 and a forest of straw, borne down by its owa 

 weight, and destroyed by the rust. The true 

 management of dung in the farm-yard, is to 

 get it ready for use, that is, to expedite a due 

 fermentation as early as possible, by throwing 

 it into convenient situations in heaps of ad- 

 vantageous size. Dung-hills of moderate size 

 are most favourable to fermentation, and are, 

 besides, ready at hand for choice on any emer- 

 gency ; and it is very much better to conti- 

 nue, at every opportunity, to make dung-hills 

 in proper situations, either at home or in the 

 fields, than to sufl^er the dung to lie all the 

 season in the yard, trodden down hard by the 

 cattle and exposed to a winter-food of rain. 

 Every dung-heap should rest on a foundation 

 of mould, so placed as to catch the draining 

 of the manure, which would else soak into 

 the earth and be lost, but which, fully im- 

 pregnating the bottom layer of mould, ren- 

 ders it nearly equal in richness with the rest: 

 and the dung ought to lie loose, that there 

 may be space for the act of fermentation. It 

 would doubtless be advantageous to have the 

 dung under cover, but such convenience is 

 rather out of the question on account of the 

 expense, nevertheless a covering of earth is 

 no despicable substitute. Various receipts 

 are given for the making of compost — some 

 of them laughable enough, on account of the 

 expensiveness, scarcity, or hard names of the 

 ingredients; but the best way is for the 

 farmer to get all the various articles of ma- 

 nure he can possibly lay his hands on, the 

 fatter the better, and with them form his 

 compost heap ; the different ingredients should 



