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Agricultural Dinner at Sir Robert PeeVs. 



Vol. XIL 



head of cattle, cows, yearlings, and calves, 

 and 100 sheep are fatted, and 80 pigs, and 

 where three and a half labourers were em- 

 ployed, 12 are now sustained all the year 

 round. But the farm, gentlemen, labours 

 under one embarrassment, — such a one as 1 

 wish you all felt — such an accumulation of 

 manure that, with the fear of laid wheat 

 crops before my eyes, I know not where to 

 place it. Allow me to detail briefly the 

 Bteps by which this surely happy result has 

 been brought abfiut. I began at the begin- 

 ning. I first drained the land; but of drain- 

 ing you have heard to-day so much that I 

 will only say that, though it has been most 

 successful, I yet heartily wish that I had 

 earlier known Mr. Parke's drainage. My 

 fields would have been far more economi- 

 cally and effectually rid of their bottom wa- 

 ter. I tried when this was done to improve 

 the herbage of some of the better pastures, 

 but neither liming, nor sheep-folding, nor 

 guano, enabling me to cut more than 15 cwt. 

 of hay per acre; I pared and burnt it all, and 

 cut down, by my kind landlord's leave, all 

 the hedge-row timber, and grubbed up all, 

 eave the boundary hedge, and have now a 

 glorious farm. The next object was to pro- 

 vide for the permanent fertility of the soil 

 by keeping a large amount of stock; for I 

 hold that a farm ought to be made self-sup- 

 porting as far as possible, and the purchase 

 of manures should be regarded as only a 

 temporary expedient, a necessary evil. My 

 first effort to consume the green crops grown 

 on half my farm was very expensive, and 

 therefore unsuccessful; for with regard to 

 the beasts, I was forced to purchase a ruin- 

 ous amount of straw, and the sheep eating 

 off the swedes on clay land in winter pud- 

 dled the fields, and were themselves, amid 

 good food, objects most pitiable. But when 

 our principles are good, we must not allow 

 slight difficulties to stop their application. I 

 therefore determined to place my milch and 

 Btore cattle on boards, as wood is an excel- 

 lent non-conductor ; and after a series of de 

 vices, I have succeeded in making them tol- 

 erably comfortable, so that I am now no 

 longer dependent on my straw for the quan- 

 tity of cattle which I keep. I am only lim- 

 ited in the number of animals which I keep 

 by the amount of green food grown. In like 

 manner, but with a variation of arrangement, 

 the sheep were placed on small boards about 

 three and a half inches wide, with an inter- 

 val of about seven-eighths of an inch between 

 each, to permit the manure to fall freely into 

 properly prepared tanks below. This is by 

 ftir the most successftil provision which I 

 have made. Of 1,000 sheep so placed, I 

 have never had one lame. The pigs in like 



manner, when fattened, sleep on a boarded 

 stage above their feeding place, and except 

 in very cold weather require no straw for 

 litter. Thus I have dispensed with a large 

 expenditure of straw, which my cereals — 

 half the farm — could not sufficiently provide. 

 But I hear some one exclaim, " What do you 

 make of your straw?" First of all, a good 

 deal is required for bedding the horses, and 

 the young stock which are in loose. boxes; 

 and as they never tread the green fields, 

 they require a great quantity of white bed- 

 ding. Secondly, a great deal is wanted for 

 food, being mixed with the green leaves of 

 the root crop and the mashed turnips. Third- 

 ly, a ton per acre is used in making clover 

 and vetches into imperfectly dried bay, with 

 a due admixture of salt to arrest fermenta- 

 tion. These uses fully take up all the straw 

 which I grow. I think the methods env 

 ployed in preparing the manure from the 

 "boarded" cattle deserve mention. First 

 the liquid manure flows into large tanks; 

 below them is another, which I call the mix- 

 ing tank, for in it the manure is diluted with 

 water to any degree which the state of the 

 weather may require, the rule being that, in 

 proportion to the increase of temperature 

 must be the increase of dilution; i. e. the 

 hotter the weather the weaker should be the 

 manure applied. In order to avoid the ex- 

 pensive and oflen injurious water-cart, I have 

 laid down over the highest part of my farm 

 a main of green elm pipe, of two inches di- 

 ameter, bored in the solid wood; at every 

 100 yards distance is an upright post, bored 

 in the same manner, with a nozzle. A forc- 

 ing pump fixed at the mixing tank discharges 

 along these pipes, buried two feet in the 

 ground, the fluid with a pressure of 40 feet; 

 of course it rushes up these pierced columns, 

 and will discharge itself with great velocity 

 through the nozzle; to this I attach first of 

 all 40 yards of hose, and therewith water all 

 the grass which it can reach. To the end 

 of this hose another 40 yards of hose are at- 

 tached, and a still larger portion of the sur- 

 face is irrigated, and so on for as many 40 

 yards as are required. When enough baa 

 been irrigated at the first upright, the nozzle 

 is plugged, and the fluid is discharged at the 

 next too yards distanced column, and so on. 

 For this application of the hose I am entirely 

 indebted to that most able man, Mr. Edwin 

 Chadwick; the green elm pipe is my own 

 contrivance. The cost of the prepared can- 

 vas hose, which was obtained from Mr. Hol- 

 land, of Manchester, was Is. a yard — the 

 wooden pipes cost me only Is. and being 

 under ground they will be most enduring. 

 By an outlay of JE30 I can thus irrigate 40 

 acres of land; and see how inexpensive, 



