396 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



IXOY 



could not adcird to allow liis manure to be well washed in the yards by 

 drainage from the building?, and afterwards to be washed, dried, and 

 mangled by putting it out in heaps and turning over. It wag a waste of 

 time and of money. He found that his crops grew belter with unwashed 

 manure. A farm yard should be like a railway terminus — covered in, but 

 amply ventilated. There was comfort and profit in keeping everything 

 dry. It did iiway wiih the necessity for water-carts and tanks : the liquid 

 porliuns of the excrements being just suflicient lo moisten the straw and 

 burnt earth, or other absorbent material. He admired and practised, lo a 

 certain extent, Mr. Huxlable's system of placing animals on boards. It 

 would answer in a compact farm with good roads, and in cold climates, to 

 feed sheep in the yards on roots. In mild climates, and dry friable soils, 

 it was most advantageous to consume the roots and green crops on the 

 land by folding wilh sheep. There was no expense of caning oil' and 

 carting back niaitnre. Fai-mers had found out that the whole of the ex- 

 crements were thus applied to the land, whereas in open yards with nn- 

 troughed buildings, much ^vas washed out and wasted. He hoped to see 

 the time when tenants would consider it to be their interest (as in parts of 

 Scotland) to pay 10s. per acre more rent for properly farmed, permanent, 

 and convenient buildings and drainage, in lie* of the miserable and mis- 

 placed dilapidations of the present time. It was, no doubt, partly this 

 dilference that caused the .Scotch rents to appear higher than our own. He 

 was a decided subsoiler to the depth of at least two feet. It was a cheap 

 and elTective way of getting rid of strong rooted weeds, their crowns being 

 generally just below the ordinary depth of ploughing. He did this in dry 

 weather, anil with the assistance of a heavy Crosskill roller and scaritier, 

 made his fallows cheaply, quickly, and elliciently. He drilled his wheats 

 at intervals of about •) inches, so as to hoe them wilh Garrett's horse-hoe. 

 It cost about Is. per acre. It was far more expeditious and efficacious 

 than the hand-hoe, and only cost one-fourth the amount. He strongly ad- 

 vocated Ihe abundant use of oil-cake, and also of chalk ou heavy clays 

 deficient in calcireous matter. It had been iiroved that much more pro- 

 duce had resulted from oilcake folding than where an equivalent amount 

 ■was expendrd in corn. Good high farmitig was by far the most profitable ; 

 the starvation principle was a losing game. If we borrowed from the 

 earth we must repay, or we should soon find an empty exchequer. 



The Rev. .■\. Hdxtaelc then rose and spoke to Ihe following effect : — 

 I think this by far the most interesting agricultural meeting that I have 

 ever attended, on account of the variety of important views and practices 

 which have been brought under our notice, l-'or my own part, at so late a 

 period of the day I must content myself with adducing a few facts that 

 have come wilhin my own farming experience, and defending one or two 

 points of my farming practice which have been glanced at by the preceding 

 speakers. As I see so many landed proprietors around me, I must beg 

 permission to impress on them the duty of allowing their tenants to break 

 up. under proper restrictions, the poorer lands now lying in grass. I think 

 that I can t.how from my own experience that national wealth, the profits 

 of the tenant, and the interests of the labourer, are deeply concerned in 

 converting poor pasture into tillage. Thus, in my own parish, five years 

 ago. there being many labourers out of employ, I obtained the consent of 

 my landlord, Mr. Sturt, lo break up Ihe whole of the grass lauds of a small 

 dairy farm. It consisted of 9.3 acres, 10 of which only were then under 

 the plough. When I entered <m the occupation the farm supported 14 

 dairy cows, and grew 48 bushels of wheat and 40 bushels of beans. Now 

 it annually produces 1,001) bushels of wheat, 40 head of cattle, cows, 

 yearlin;;s, and calves ; and 100 sheep are failed, and SO pigs, and where 

 34 labourers were employed, 12 are now sustained all the year rouud. But 

 the farm, gentlemen, labours under one embarrassment, such a one as I 

 wish you all felt — such an accuninlation of manure that, with the fear of 

 laid wheat crops before my eves, I know not where lo place it. Allow me 

 to detail hnell) the steps by which Ibis surely happy result has been 

 brought about. 1 began at the beginning. I first drained the land ; but 

 of draining jou have heard to-day so much, that I will only say that though 

 il has been most successful, I yet heartily wish that I had earlier known 

 Mr. Parke's deep diainage. M\ fields would have been tar more econo- 

 mically and effectually rid of their bottom water. I tried when this was 

 done to improve the herbage of some of the b"tter pastures, but neither 

 liming, nor .-heeji-folding, nor guano, enabling me lo cut more than 15 cwt. 

 of hay per acre, I pared and burjit it all, aud cut down, by my kind land- 

 lord's leave, all the hedge-row limber, and grubbed up all save the boundary 

 hedge, and have now a glorious farm. The next object was to provide for 

 the pennaneitt fertility of the soil by keeping a large amount of stock ; fcr 

 I hold that a fttrm ought lo be made self-snpportitig as far as possible, and 

 the purchase of manures should be regarded as only a temporary expedient 

 — a necessary evil. iMy 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 ruinous amount of straw, 

 and Ihe sheep eating ofl' the Swedes 00 I'lay land in winter puddled the 

 fields, and were themselves amidst good food objects most pitiable. But 

 when our priniiples are good, we must not allow slight diflicullies to stop 

 their application. I therefore determined to place my milch and store 

 cattle on boards, as wood is an excellent non-conductor, and after a series 

 of devices I have succeeded in making thent tolerably comfortable, so that 

 I am no longer dependent on my straw for the quantity of cattle which I 

 keep. 1 am only limited in the number of aniumls which 1 keep by the 

 amount of green food grown. In like manner, but with a variation of ar- 

 rangement, the sheep were placed on small boards about SJ inches wide, 

 with an interval of about J inch between each, lo permit the manure lo fall 



freely into properly prepared tanks below. This is by far the most sue 

 cessful provision which I have made. Of 1,000 sheep lo 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 wilh a large expendi- 

 ture of straw, which my cereals (half the farm) could not sufliciently pro- 

 vide. But I hear some one exclaim, " What do you make of your straw ?" 

 I'irst of all, a good deal is still required for beilding 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 w hile bedding. Secondly, a great 

 deal is wanted for food, being mixed with the green leaves of the root crop 

 and the mashed turnips. Thirdly, a ton per acre is used in making clover 

 and vetches into imperfectly dried hay, with a due admixture of salt to 

 arrest fermentation. These uses fully take up all the straw which I grow. 

 I think Ihe methods employed in preparing the matiure from the " boarded" 

 cattle deserve mention. First the liquid manure flows into large tanks ; 

 below them is another, which I call the mixing tank, for in it the manure 

 is diluted with water to any degree which Ihe state of the weather may re- 

 quire, Ihe rule being thai, in proportion lothe 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 Ihe expensive and often in- 

 jurious water-cart, I have laid down over the highest part of my farm a 

 main of green elm pipe, of 2 inches diameter, bored in the solid 

 wood; at every 100 yards distance is an upright post, bored in the same 

 manner, with a nozzle. A forcing pump fixed at the mixing tank dis- 

 charges along these pipes, buried 2 feel in the ground, the fluid with a 

 pressure of 40 feet ; of course it rushes up these pierced columns, and will 

 discharge itself wilh 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 is attached, and 

 a still larger portion of the surface is irrigated, and so on for as many 40 

 yards as are required. When enough has been irrigated at the first up- 

 right, the nozzle is plugged, and the fluid is discharged at the next 100 

 yards distanced column, and so on. I'or this application of Ihe hose I am 

 entirely indebted to that most able man, Mr. Edwin C'hadvvick; the greeo 

 elm pipe is my own contrivance. The cost of the prepared canvas hose, 

 which was obtained from IMr. HoUaud, of Manchester, was Is. a yard; 

 the wooden pipes cost me only Is., and being underground they will be 

 most enduring. By an outlay of 30i. I can thus irrigate 40 acres of land ; 

 and see how inexpensive, compared with the use of the water-cart and 

 horse, is the application. A lad of 15 works the forcing pump; the at- 

 taching the hose and its management require a man and a boy. With 

 these, then, equivalent to two men, I can easily water two acres a day, 

 at the rate of 40 hogsheads per acre of the best manure in the world ; I 

 say best, because all chemists will assure you that the liquid contains 

 the principal nitrogenous and soluble salts, aud therefore is far more 

 valuable than the dung, and it is plain enough to every man, though 

 lie be no chemist, that plants can only take up Ihe manure in a liquid form. 

 The principal use which I make of the hose is to water the clover, and, 

 above all, the noble, but this day much-decried, Italian rye-grass. How 

 hard Mr. Woodward was upon ils soft sweet herbage! Vet his own ex- 

 cellent principle, that you must carry back to the land an equivalent for 

 what is taken away, may be successfully alleged in defence of this most 

 productive and nutritious of all grasses. It is certainly true that if you 

 cut aud carry away Italian rye-grass, and do not also carry back the 

 manure made in eating it, you will not be able to grow wheat after it. But 

 from my own observation I know that if, after each cutting, the hose imme- 

 diately follows, you may cut it without wrong to the land as often as you 

 like, and an amount of fodder will be obtained w liich no other plant can 

 approach. It conies the earliest, and it grows the longest of all the 

 grasses; and I feel confident that with such appliances as I have men- 

 tioned, you may secure fifty tons per annum of this milk-giving, fat- 

 producing, muscle-making, grass. I refer to Mr. Dickinson, of Curzon- 

 street, as an authority for growing at least this weight of green food, and I 

 believe far more, lliat you can cut it, by the help of liquid manure, six 

 times a-year, admits of no doubt. With regard to Ihe manure made by 

 sheep, as previously described, you will readily perceive its value if you 

 reflect that when you give a flock in their house twenty tons of Swedes 

 and their tops, you have minus only the increase of their bone and wool 

 made during the three months of their happy confinement, all the inorganic 

 and most of the organic ingredients of the crop being under the boards; in 

 fact you may say that on the boards you have a fatted flock, and below the 

 boards yet twenty tons of Swedes and their tops. I think that a good deal 

 of misapprehension prevails respecting this mode of shed-feeding sheep, 

 for you hear frequent comparison made on the superior system of feeding 

 off crops in the fields. I have no doubt that iu the summer months even 

 fatting sheep will "do well" out of doors, and at the same time fertilise 

 and con.solidate the land ; but I speak of feeding off winter crops by sheep 

 which you wish to fat; and here I cannot think that the two systems 

 admit of comparison, so superior are the results of the bouse and board 

 syslem. But the conditions under which an animal is to be reared are 

 quite dill'erent from those which you would observe in laying on fat. Iu 

 the one case exercise is absolutely necessary ; iu the other case, the quieter 

 and more still the creature is kept the belter. Briefly, then, my own 

 practice, which science surely justifies, is this — the greater proportion, 

 about two-thirds, of my best roots are carted to the sheds, and given to the 

 animals preparing for the butcher, whereas the tops and smaller turnips 

 are fed ofl' of by my breeding flock on the land, assisted by oilcake and 



