88 .FEBRUABY. 



light their importance must appear sufficiently great. 

 As this tillage is the first that marks the land for 

 the crop (all stubbles being ploughed in autumn, 

 for whatever crops designed), it will be proper here 

 to speak more particularly of the preparation and 

 design of the culture. , 



Cabbages flourish to very great profit on all good 

 soils, and have the particular property of enabling 

 the farmers of clays and \vet loams to winter more 

 cattle than those of lighter lands can effect, by 

 means of that excellent root, the turnip. The 

 great evil of clay farms used to be, the want of 

 green winter food, which confined their stocks 

 to hay alone, and consequently prevented their 

 reaping those extended articles of profit, that arise 

 from numerous herds of cattle : and besides the 

 immediate benefit from the cattle, they lost also 

 the opportunity of raising large quantities of dung, 

 which never can be effected so well as by keeping 

 cattle. But all these evils are by the cabbage cul- 

 ture remedied, and the clay farmers put in pos- 

 session, in many respects, of an equality with the 

 .turnip ones. If the difference between a summer- 

 fallow year on clay, and a turnip- fallow on light 

 land, be considered, the importance of this dis- 

 covery will appear sufficiently clear. Thirty shil- 

 lings an acre ex pence, of the first, are not an ex- 

 aggerated calculation ; but all is saved on the tur- 

 nip hind, perhaps with profit ; and the barley, that 

 follows the turnips, is probably nearly as good as that 

 which succeeds the summer-fallow clay. Supposing 



the 



