SO FEBRUARY. 4 



may be sown, like black oats, on turf ploughed op 

 before wintrr, and now dibbled or scarified in. 



I must in general remark, on the culture of 

 pease, that bad farmers are too apt to sow this 

 pulse, when the land will yield nothing else. They 

 liave a proverb among them, which signifies, that 

 the season does as much for pease as good hus- 

 bandry ; and they from thence take care that good 

 crops shall be owing to season alone. Hence arises 

 the general idea of pease being the most uncertain 

 crop of all others. This is owing to their being 

 too often sown on land that is not in good order. 

 Let the careful husbandman lay it down as a maxim, 

 that he should sow no crop on land that is not in 

 good order ; not merely in respect of fine tilth at 

 the time of sowing, but also of the soil's being in 

 good heart, and clear of weeds. I would not, 

 however, here be understood to rank all these crops 

 together ; because beans and pease will admit of 

 cleaning while they grow. On that account, if a 

 farmer comes to a field which his predecessor has 

 filled with weeds, a horse-hoed crop of beans will 

 be expedient, when a. bar ley crop vr quid bc-utterly 

 improper, niul, after land has yielded one crop of 

 barley, certainly another should not be sov/n, but 

 </ne of puNe substituted. If these ideas are well 

 executed, the pease and beans, in every course, vvii! 

 find the laud in heart enough for barley, the soil 

 will always be clean, and the crop good. Pease, 

 \\hen managed in a spirited manner, will not have 

 the reputation of being so very uncertain a crop, 



v. liu-h 



