Mr Hunter s System of Farming. Ill 



roots are given, and a greater proportion of straw or hay is wanted. 

 If any considerable quantity of clover can be converted into hay, the 

 straw will be perfectly unnecessary, unless for litter. 



3. Soon after Mr Hunter began this system, he thought that the 

 turnip, and other crops, were rather falling off, but fortunately he 

 discovered a remedy, which was to plough very deep the first furrow 

 given to the turnip fallow. This he did, whatever was the depth of 

 the soil, sometimes using three or four horses in the plough. Since 

 he adopted that practice, all the crops are more certain, seldom if ever 

 failing, unless owing to the inclemency of the season, and never from 

 being often repeated. 



4. Mr Hunter makes it a rule, to soil both summer and winter, 

 preserving as much straw from the winter soiling- fold, as will be suf- 

 ficient for littering horses, young cattle, and swine during the sum- 

 mer; giving always plenty of green food, chiefly clover. Soiling in 

 an open fold, with cut clover, in summer, does not require so much 

 straw, as winter soiling with turnip. He has not ascertained the pro- 

 portions exactly, but thinks, that one half of what is required in win- 

 ter, will be sufficient in summer. 



The stock are fed in the following manner : They have always 

 abundance of green food or roots. One-half, or sometimes one third 

 of all the turnips produced upon the farm, are carted to the fold or 

 straw-yard, to sheep, young cattle, and swine. The swine have at 

 all times clover in summer, and turnips or ruta baga in winter, toge- 

 ther with potatoes, for those meant to be fattened. The working 

 horses have also half a bushel each of ruta baga during winter and 

 spring, so that all the stock are soiled, the milch cows excepted, which 

 get the whole chaff, and other refuse from the thrashing-mill, and the 

 sheep, when they are pastured on clover, to consolidate the ground. 

 Within these few last years, instead of feeding his pigs with raw or 

 boiled potatoes, Mr Hunter gives them one-half Swedish turnip. 

 He has a boiler filled with the turnips, sliced, to which a board is 

 fitted, to prevent the steam from going off; a tin pipe is let into it of 

 sufficient length to reach the steamer, into which the potatoes are 

 put ; by which means, both potatoes and turnips are done at once. 

 They are both then put into a tub, and mixed together with the wa- 

 ter in which the turnips were boiled, forming a mess, which far ex- 

 ceeds giving either by itself. The animals eat it greedily, and thrive 

 apace. The water in which the Swedish turnips are boiled is found 

 to be extremely nourishing. 



Mr Hunter is decidedly of opinion, that any soil adapted for tur- 

 nips, and which will produce seven bolls of wheat per Scotch acre, 

 (or say 24 bushels per English acre)) or nine bolls of oats per Scotch, 

 (or 44 bushels per English acre), cannot be put under a more pro- 

 fitable system, or rendered more productive, than in the way he has 

 adopted. By the frequent ploughings given to the turnip break or 

 shift, the land is made perfectly clean. Turnip is the only crop, for 

 which, according to Mr Hunter's experience, land cannot be over- 

 ploughed. So much ploughing for turnip, would, in his opinion, be 

 hurtful to the after crops, were it not, that one-half or more of his 

 turnips, are eaten on the ground with sheep, which bring* it to a pro- 



