180 FALLOW CROPS AND 



" In order to effect this, he adopted several new im- 

 plements, chiefly of his own invention, for a description 

 of which we must refer to his ' New System of Cultiva- 

 tion,' as we have only seen the scarifier in use. This is 

 of a hght construction, and certainly performs well ; 

 though, upon land such as that described by the General, 

 it is worked by a pair of horses, and sometimes more, 

 instead of one. 



" He conceived that the grand source of all the heavy 

 expenses of the old method might be traced to the fallow 

 itself, and to the mode of preparing it — ' by bringing up 

 immense slags with the plough, by reversing the soil, and 

 thus burying the seeds of weeds that had fallen on the 

 surface, by which a foundation is laid for all the subse- 

 quent laborious and expensive operations.' To avoid 

 these, he therefore thought it necessary to proceed in a 

 different manner — 'to only break and crumble the sur- 

 face-soil, to any depth that may be required ; to burn 

 and destroy tlie weeds ; after which he would have the 

 land in a fine and clean state of pulverization, and in 

 readiness for receiving the seed, w^ithout losing a year's 

 rent and taxes ; and all this at a mere trifle of expense, 

 when compared with that which is incurred by a fallow\' 



" In pursuance of this, he reduced the ploughing to a 

 single operation at the depth of four inches. The chief 

 use, indeed, which he made of the plough was to open 

 furrows at twenty-seven inches apart, which was per- 

 formed by a couple of horses at the rate of three acres 

 per day, and was merely intended to prepare the land for 

 the scarifiers, ' which, by passing twice across these 

 furrows, loosen all the stubble and roots of weeds, which 

 are afterwards, with a small portion of the soil, placed in 

 heaps and burned.' By these means, together with the 

 more frequent repetition of the horse-hoeing, and the in- 

 troduction of the row-culture, the General assures us 

 ' that his lands were rendered much cleaner, and yielded 

 better crops than they did formerly, after all the heavy 

 expenses of lime and fallows.' He indeed states, that 

 these operations produced the eflect of pulverization to 

 the depth of six or seven inches, and their expense was — 



