Book I. 



AGRICULTURE OF DERBYSHIRE. 



1153 



placed under liii care." A most productive garden at Beliicr, 

 on a very poor soil, but irrigated in winter from a cesspool, in 

 which centres the liquid manure of (ifty cottages, belonging to 

 Messrs. Strutt's cotton mills. 



Orchards seldom planted, though the soil is well adapte<l for 

 them in many places. 



10. Woods and Plantations 



A good many coppices, the produce of which is nmch in 

 demand both for mining and agricultural purposes. Sir Joseph 

 Banks, at Ashover, has planted some exposed sites in a new 

 manner : first planting narrow slips of bcotch fir at the dis- 

 tance of 100 yards, then intersecting them by others, so as to 

 leave the surface checkered ; after the Scotch firs are grown a 

 few years, it is the intention to fill the intervening patches with 

 i.arches, at such a distance as that they will never require anv 

 thinning. This plan, as Farey Justly "hints, is more ingenious 

 or fanciful than likely to be useful ; the mixture of the larch 

 and Scotch firs, with a proper attention to thinning, would be 

 a more effectual, speedy, and economical mode of producing 

 timber. Some judicious observations on pruning trees, and the 

 propriety of I'ontey's mode, pointed out by various examples. 

 Hedge row trees, sparingly introduced and well trained, are 

 nearly all that fertile agricultural land ought to contribute to the 

 national stock of timber. Key-bearing ash trees, or any forest tree 

 much given to bearing seeds, no longer increases much in tim- 

 ber, and therefore ought to be cut down ; hence male ashes ])re- 

 forable to females, or such as have both male and female flowers 

 on the same tree. The use of the spray and buds of the oak 

 as bark recommended, as practisM in Cheshire and South 

 Wales ; when collected, they should be immediately sent to a 

 mill and crushed. A most complete seaso;i ing kiln for timber at 

 Helper. Timber often sold by tidket sale, thus described : the 

 vender meets the proposetl purchsisers, writes his price in an 

 envelope, and puts it in a g'ass ; the oilerers do the same ; the 

 vender opens the envelopes, and if any price comes up to his, 

 then he accepts it, if not, the procesS"is three times repeated, 

 and then the vender must show his price, if none has come up, 

 but not if any one has gone beyond it. In felling trees with an 

 axe, cut dishing, if young shoots are expected to succeed, as the 

 sooner the centre rots thehelter the wavers thrive. Larch trees 

 bear neglect better than any others, as they never produce 

 timber boughs. 



Birch n'ine has been made from an open grove of about 100 

 birch trees, near Overton Hall, for sixty or seventy years past. 

 Thirty trees or more are tajiped in a season, about six or tight 

 inches aliove the ground, in March. A piece ofbark, about three 

 quarters of an inch in diameter, is cut out with a gouge, and 

 ' {Ji/i.lOQ5.a). 



the wood penetrated an inch or 



an iron spout (j 



1005 



is then driven into the bark below the hole, which conducts the 

 sap a bottle (c). In warm weather the holes soon grow up, 

 and will cease to run in four or five days ; but in windy weather 

 they will run for a month. Some trees will run twenty-four 

 gallons in twenty-four hours, others not half a pint. The 

 water is sold at sixpence a gallon, to those who make small 

 wine as a substitute for small beer. If the water is scalded 

 (not boiled), it may be kept a month before it is made into 

 wine ; if not, it will not keep above a day or t\\ o. For making 

 the wine, two pounds of coarse sugar, and a quarter of a pound 

 of Malaga raisins, are added to every gallon of birch water, 

 when cold : it is then boiled about an hour, until it is observed 

 to grow clearer, when it is set to cool ; and when about at the 

 same heat that beer is set to work, a toast of bread, spread 

 with yeast, is put into it, and for four days suffered to work 

 freel,-, when it is barrelled, and the same quantity of raisins as 

 before, and about an ounce of isinglass to every twenty gallons 

 is added. It seldom works out of the barrel, and in two or 



aiter it is fit for drinking, but is the better for keeping longer. 



11. Improvement. 



Magtiesian or hot lime very thinly spread has its inimical 

 properties ; and it would seem such limes may be used where 

 a stimulant rather than an addition of calcareous earth is 

 required. Lime over-burned melts and runs together, will not 

 slack, and becomes nseless ; the consequence of too strong a fire 

 being applied to magnesian limes more especially. Might 

 not the dried mud of limestone roads be used instead of 

 lime :> Many bone mills in use : they are composed of 

 ratchet-like iron wheels and rollers, between which the back- 

 bon.-s of horses, with their adhering ribs, pass with facility, and 

 are crushed into small pieces ; the bones collected in London, 

 from the churchyards and other sources ; seven quarters dress 

 an acre. Coal ashes almost entirely neglected, though a valu- 

 able manure. Importance in draining of bearing in mind the 

 difference between surface and spring draining, and bog and 

 upland draining. 



12. Livestock. 



Cow stock for the dairy the prevalent stock in Derbyshire ; 

 no particular breed ; noticed nine breeds and nine crosses of 

 these. Many consider that ratlier poor land makes the best 

 cheese, and old sward more and better than artificial grasses. 

 In some cases some slacked and powdered lime strewed on the 

 willow trees within the reach of cows, to prevent their eating 

 them, and tasting the butter. Milk set to raise its cream in 

 yellow dishes, with lips ; in some places in slate troughs ; car- 

 ried home in susptndtd tubs. (.fe. 1006.) 



Sheep. Ten diflferent breeds, and seven crosses of these and 

 others ; wool chambers generally form a part of the accommo- 

 dations of the farmeries. 



Hiniet. Those of Derbyshire ranked next to those of 

 Lcicestersliire, for being stout, bony, and clean-legged. 



006 



Asses in considerable number used by the smaller manufac- 

 turers, and in the coal-works, potteries, &c. ; also on the iron 

 railways. 



Srvine. The Earl of Chesterfield supplies his table with 

 delicious sucking pigs, of a fortnight old, from his Otaheite 

 sow ; plan of shaving off the gristly or homy projection of the 

 snout, to prevent digging, recommended. Tethering by the 

 neck also suggested for eating down sturdy herbage crops. A 

 pin and screw to be used like those for fixing down Salmon's 

 harmless man-trap. {Trans. Soc. Arts, vol. xxvii. p. 183.) 



Poultry. The Earl of Chesterfield's poultry yards at Bretby, 

 perhaps as complete as any in the kingdom. The roosting- 

 house is well contrived, with covered places for the ducks and 

 geese under the fowls, and the whole is constantly kept strewed 

 with fresh saw -dust. The sitting-house, emd which serves also 

 for laying, is furnished with flues, to preserve an equal temper- 

 ature in frosts. In the feeding -houses, the fronts, partitions, 

 and floors of the pens, are all of lattice-work, which readily 

 take out in order to wash them thoroughly ; shallow drawers 

 with fresh sawdust pass under each pen to catch the dung. 

 The fatting poultry are fed twice a day, and after each the 

 food is taken away, and the daylight excluded, for thetti to 

 rest and sleep. 



A breed otbrorvn American turkeys at Brailsford ; they roost 

 upon trees or the high parts of buildings ; cocks weigh twenty 

 pounds when fat, but the hens much smaller. 



Geese when let out have a stick about two feet long slung Ix;- 

 fore the breasts of the old ones, which is found to prevent 

 them creeping through hedges, &c. ; feed on Festiica fluftans, 

 &c. When waters are much impregnated with lime, the 

 ef^s of geese and ducks that frequent them are so much thick- 

 ened that hatching becomes difficult. 



Hens. At Plesby a fine breed of black fowls ; round Winger- 

 worth many game fowls kept for cocking. In Tansley the 

 cockpit converted into a methodist meeting-house. Eggs pre- 

 served hung in nets, and turned into a fresh position each day ; 

 this being the main essential in preserving eggs, whose yolks 

 subside slowly when left unmoved, and come at length to touch 

 the shells on the lower side, when rottenness almost immedi- 

 ately commences. 

 Bees kept in various places. 



Fish. Certain ponds in Sir Thomas Windsor Hunlocke's 

 Park, in Wingerworth, are appropriated to the feeding of cas- 

 trated male carp and tench, which are found very superior 

 in size and flavour to other fish ; the late Sir Windsor Hunlocke 

 saw this practised in Italy, many years ago, and had one of his 

 servants, who was with him, instructed in performing the Ope- 

 ration ; which is less difficult or dangerous than nrigfit b6 sup- 

 posed, and in consequence of which, not more than one in four- 

 teen or fifteen of the fish die. 



Angling permitted at Combs-brook reservoir of forty-five 

 acres, the angler paving sixpence per pound for the fish taken. 

 Salmon pass and tr;ip on the Derivent, at Helper bridge. 

 31. Rural Economy. 



Rewards are offered by the Agricultural Society at Derby, as 

 by most others in the kingdom, for long and meritorious hired 

 or day service, but seldom for having performed the greatest 

 guantities of job work, or earned the most money by such at 

 fait prices. At the beginning of the present century, it was cal- 

 culated, taking the labourer's wages at two shillings and six- 

 pence per day, that he must work four and a half times as many 

 days to earn the same ijiiantity of food, as from three to five 

 centuries back hecouM, when his daily wages was from four- 

 pence to twopence per day ! Part of this was doubtless occa- 

 sioned by the many idle saints' days which the church of 

 Home itnposed on the people at the earlier periods. 

 14. Political Econotnif, , ; 



Various concave roads formerly, made through the influ- 

 ence of Joseph Wilks, Esq. of Measham ; these in a very in- 

 different state^and illustra'e the absiwdito? of the principles on 

 which they ai-e'coristrucfed. To level across a /oad a string 

 level used. It consisted of a piece of boxwood eleven inches 

 long, one and a hajf broad, and one andi a fjtjatjfit 4lf'ep, 



the tp of which a f pirit-ieyei, tuba was deeply sunk, ^d to the 

 top, at each end of this le*el, several yards c^ strong whipcord 

 was fastened. In using th^ inttrument, ^ labourer was placed 



on eaJch side oF the road, havibg the co| iA his hand, which 

 they pulled very tightly, and steadily against each other, and 

 thereby made the bubble assume the middle of the tube or 

 either end, according as^the twt)' ends of.the^ string were held 

 level or one higher than the other. '^ 



Some remains of wavy roads (3551.), but iiothing to justify 

 any deviation from the general form of slightly convex roads, 

 with straight or even surfaces as to len^'th. Tlie road between 

 Ripley and Little Eaton, where washing or iiTigation has been 

 adopted as a mode of cleBrtng (Oom.B. Ag. vol. i.) was " miser- 

 ably deep, loose, and bad." 



In Manufactures Derbyshire ranks next to Lancashire, Staf- 

 fordshire, and Warwickshire. 

 1. Trades, (jfc. depending on the Animal Product* (if the cojw/i/,- 



Blanket-weaving, and scouring. 



Bone-crushing mills. 



4 E 



