^^£RICAN HERD-BOOTi 



DEVOTED TO 

 AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, AND RURAL AND DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 



Perfect Agriculture is the true foundation of alt trade and industry. — Limsio. 



Vol. XII — No. 9.] 



4th mo. (April) 15th, 1848. 



[Whole No. 159. 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY, 



BY JOSIAH TATUM, 



EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR, 



No. 50 North Fourth Street, 



PHILADELPHIA. 



Price one dollar per year. — For conditions see last page. 



Agricultural Dinuer at Sir Robert Peel's. 



The following are part of the extracts made by the 

 Farmers' Library from a London Agricultural Journal, 

 giving an account of a. farming party which assembled 

 at Sir Robert Peel's, Drayton Manor, on the 24th of 

 Ninth month last. The readers of the Cabinet may 

 wish they could have been present at the gathering. 

 Among the persons assembled were Earl Talbot, Lord 

 Forester, Lord Hatherton, Sir Francis Lawley, Dr. 

 Buckland, the Dean of Winchester, Dr. Lyon Playfair, 

 tc. — Ed. 



Mr. Woodward said, that although un- 

 accustomed to public speaking, and leeling 

 diffidence in addressing an audience consist- 

 ing of some of the most intelligent and sci- 

 entific men that England can boast of, he 

 would endeavour to give the meeting the 

 result of his practical experience of twenty 

 years as an agriculturist. In his opinion, 

 thorough draining was the foundation of all 

 good husbandry, wilhont which manures and 

 skill are thrown away. Some undrained 

 land had come into his occupation — heavy 

 ]and, which only produced 10^ bushels of 



Cab.— Vol. XlL—JSo. 9. 



wheat per acre; he immediately drained it 

 three feet deep, subsoiled it, dressed it with 

 burnt clay, and the first year obtained from 

 it 51 bushels. He regarded the e-xtensive 

 burning of clay land as a most important 

 practice. It rendered the soil so much more 

 friable and convertible, and enabled the farm- 

 er to work it with much less horse labour. 

 The effects of burnt clay upon all green 

 crops were wonderful — a most important 

 fact, which could not be too strongly im- 

 pressed upon the mind, as being very essen- 

 tial to the growth of corn, especially when 

 consumed upon the land by sheep, eating at 

 the same time a little oil-cake or refuse corn. 

 He had not, however, found advantage in the 

 use of Italian rye-grass, which he thought 

 undeserving the praise it had received. The 

 treading of sheep was highly advantageous 

 to the wheat crop, provided the land was 

 thoroughly drained and subsoiled. In order 

 to secure the requisite amount of pressure, 

 he had not only employed sheep but horses, 

 or even men, who he found could tread down 

 land for Is. 6d. an acre. He had also found 

 advantage, under some circumstances, in the 

 use of an instrument which he called a peg- 

 roller. This was formed of an elm-wood 

 cylinder, studded with oak pegs about four 

 inches apart ; it proved to be a most effectu- 

 al implement when drawn over the land — 

 imitating, as it did, the consolidating power 

 exercised by the feet of a flock of sheep. 

 He regarded pressing down the land as op- 

 posing an invincible obstacle to the opera- 



(265) 



