1857. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



459 



premiums, and his reputation as a breeder stands 

 so high, that I have no hesitation in assuring my 

 friends at home, that they are safe to rely on his 

 judgment and honor, in any orders they may de- 

 sire to give for any stock from that part of Eng- 

 land. In Mr. Crisp's farm-yard, I saw an original 

 of the farm-yards in which Landseer and Herring, 

 and other painters of animals, so much delight. — 

 Around, in some order, though with no great reg- 

 larity, are huge stacks of wheat and barley and hay 

 and straw, as large as goodly-sized barns, all neat 

 ly thatched and trimmed. There are no large 

 barns for grain and hay in the South of England, 

 as with us, but those products which we so care- 

 fully protect with buildings, are never housed, 

 have discussed the topic a good deal with the far- 

 mers here, and they have reasons for their course, 

 some of which I cannot venture to answer. They 

 say that they cannot afford the expense of barns, 

 and that if they could, hay would heat and burn 

 up by spontaneous combustion, if put into them. 

 The climate here is much more moist than ours, 

 and the weather much more mild, and, I think, 

 the storms are not so violent. Hay does not dry 

 BO readily, nor injure so much in the stack, as with 

 us, and on the whole, if English farmers like their 

 own mode best, we will find no fault with their 

 judgment ; but I am sure it would be poor econ- 

 omy for New Englanders to follow their example 

 in this particular. The low price of labor and the 

 high price of building materials in England, make 

 in favor of stacks and against barns. 



But I make no progress in my sketch of an Eng- 

 lish farmyard. There is a donkey, quietly medi- 

 tating upon the better condition of half a dozen 

 fat cart horses, that are standing up to their knees 

 in straw, eating rye-grass and clover from the 

 rack, and there are a dozen black pigs of two 

 months, with their maternal relative rooting about 

 ^ under the very feet of the horses. Flocks of ducks 

 are waddling round in the same yard, and hens and 

 chickens mix into the scene in crowds. A big dog 

 is chained near the gate, and a smaller one is bark- 

 ing at any stranger who approaches. Under the 

 long, tile-roofed shed, a dozen carts keep company 

 with as many long handled, long nosed, long beamed 

 plows. 



A steam engine is puffing away quietly, but busi- 

 ly, with a threshing machine. Two or three men 

 are passing up the sheaves from the rick, and two 

 women on top of the thresher receive it, and untie 

 the bands, while two more men are pitching the 

 straw on to a new stack about as large and high 

 as a forty foot barn, while on top of this same 

 stack, a boy is mounted on a cart horse of nearly 

 a ton's weight, riding constantly about to tread 

 down the straw. The horse and rider remind you 

 of an equestrian statue on a very large pedestal, 

 and as the horse is gradually rising higher and 



higher, you wonder how he is ever to get down 

 again, seeing that the stack is perpendicular on ev- 

 ery side, and fifteen feet high already. Everywhere 

 is straw a foot thick,-about the yards, in the stables, 

 in the cow stalls, the great object seeming to be, 

 to tread it down for manure. 



I saw at Butley Abbey a flock of South Down 

 rams, about one hundred and twenty in number, 

 raised for sale. They are sold, when of good qual- 

 ity, at from one to two hundred dollars each, and 

 the breeding of them for sale among the farmers 

 is regarded as a matter of great importance, and 

 there is great competition in the business. We 

 have much to learn of England about sheep man- 

 agement, but the subject requires a more careful 

 treatment than can be given it, in a hasty article. 

 On the same estate, I saw some of the finest Short- 

 horns that I have ever seen, and these Mr. Crisp 

 also breeds for sale. We went down to the tide- 

 water, which bounds one side of the farm, and ex- 

 amined the embankment against the sea. The 

 embankment extends about twenty-two miles, and 

 the "marshes," as the drained lands are called, are 

 some of the most valuable wheat fields I have ever 

 seen. I have since examined the "Lincolnshire 

 fens," and the mode of drainage by immense steam 

 engines, as well as large tracts reclaimed from the 

 sea elsewhere, and I feel safe in saying that the 

 heaviest crops of wheat I have seen in England 

 are upon these fens and marshes. They require a 

 peculiar treatment and a different rotation from 

 the uplands, but the whole subject is well under- 

 stood, and may be studied with advantage by all 

 of us who live on the banks of rivers or on the 

 coast of the Atlantic. 



Upon one part of the estate, we came upon deep 

 pits, in which men were working in water, with 

 sieves, very industriously washing out, and careful- 

 ly preserving what looked at first like small, water- 

 washed stones. The pits were about ten or twelve 

 feet deep, and the treasure lies in irregular strata 

 and in pockets, mixed with fine sand. These stones 

 are called Corprol'tes, and are thought to be petri- 

 factions of the excrement of birds, at least so say 

 the men who are getting them out. They are 

 worth about ten dollars per ton, at the side of the 

 pit, and are taken away and ground and sold as 

 manure for the farms. I have taken a small bag 

 of them to show to the curious, who like myself 

 have not chanced to see them. 



At another part, we found brick and tile works, 

 where all the operations of making, setting and 

 burning drain tiles were going on. This is a sub- 

 ject which has specially occupied my attention, 

 and I have seen the various machines in operation 

 in several places, and have narrowly watched the 

 methods of laying out the drains, and laying the 

 tiles. I am more and more impressed with the 

 importance of the subject to us, at hdme. Much, 



