NAKED FALLOWS. 175 



der a three-course system of summer fallow, white corn, 

 and pulse, or clover. Turnips were seldom sown, as the 

 difficulty of feeding or carting them off was found to be 

 injurious to the succeeding crop ; and, consequently, 

 only a small flock of 80 ewes or 140 wethers was kept, 

 which was constantly folded during the summer. Upon 

 this, and the observations regarding the disadvantages 

 attending the similar plans of his neighbors, it is unneces- 

 sary that we should here offer any remark, for we know 

 that they have been, in many instances, improved, and 

 our more immediate object is to state the system after- 

 wards adopted by Mr. Greg, and since followed by his 

 nephew, during upwards of twenty years. 



" Having, as he tells us, ' established in his mind, as a 

 general principle, that fertility was to be derived from 

 pulverizing the soil, clearing it from water, and keeping 

 it clean, he proceeded to inquire how those objects were 

 to be obtained at the least expense ; and he found that the 

 best method to promote them was to reverse the whole 

 system of the former cultivation.' Accordingly, instead 

 of ploughing four or five times only, in summer and 

 spring, and fallowing every third year, he formed the de- 

 termination ' to plough only once for a crop ; to plough 

 only in winter ; never to fallow the land in summer ; to 

 practise the row-culture, and to use the horse-hoe.' The 

 mode in which he carried his plan into execution was as 

 follows. 



"He divided the farm as nearly as possible into six 

 equal parts, which are cultivated in a six-course shift, 

 consisting of turnips ; barley or oats, clover, standing 

 two years ; peas or beans, upon the ley ; and lastly, 

 wheat. The ground is marked out by a drill into ridges 

 of five and a half feet in width, intersected by furrows of 

 ten inches wide ; thus leaving only fifty-six inches for 

 each land, which is worked by a Suffolk swing plough, 

 formed upon a construction to cut a perfect trench of 

 seven inches deep, and requiring four bouts to complete 

 the ridge, which is made sufficiently convex to describe 

 an inclined plane of three inches from the crown to each 

 iurrow. Thus water is prevented from remaining upon 



