1172 



STATISTICS OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part IV. 



quarrr butt for earth or stones (r); dung-pots or dung-pan- 

 niers (rf) for dung or stones ; and panniers witli hooks, tor faggot 

 wood and sheafed corn (<), are also in use. 



Box hand-barrows and grass barrows (.fig. lliiO.) are also 

 used on a tew farms. 



1120 



The Cornish plough is a small swing plough with a straight 

 piece of wood as a mould board. 



Barn boards for threshing on are four or five nianks laid 

 across beams, but about one third of an inch asunder ; so that 

 the com as it is threshed may fall through and not be l)ruied. 

 In some places wheat is separated from the straw by beating it 

 on a barrel or inclined plane, usually by women. Fences gene- 

 rally made of stone, or raised banks of stone, slate, and earth, 

 ometimes planked. 



6. Arable Land. 



The pilez, or naked oat, cultivated on worn-out gi'ound ; its 

 straw very line, and reckoned nearly as good as hay. A quantity 

 of potatoes exported yearly , but not enough of wheat grown for 

 home consumption. 



7. Grass. 



Chiefly near towns and villages, on sheltered slopes, and the 

 uncultivated lands known as moors, downs, crofts, and wastes; 

 ome meadows watered. 



8. Gardens. 



Common to cottages and farms, and better attended to than 

 in most counties ; orchards also attached to many farms. 



9. IVoods and Plantations not abundant. 



10. Improvements, 



Draining practised to a considerable extent, and one or two 

 examples of embanking. 



The maritime situation of Cornwall presents the farmer with 

 three valuable manures ; fish, sea sand, and sea-weed. In some 

 je.irs the farmers who live in the vicinity of fishing towns have 

 an opportunity of buying the bruised and small pilchards ; 

 which being deemed unfit for market, are rejected and called 

 " cotf ;" four cart-loads of twelve bushels are considered as the 

 proper quantity for an acre. The usual mode of management 

 IS to bury the cofT in a pile of earth, deep enough to secure it 

 from dogs and hogs, adding to the pile a sufficient quantity of 

 sand, well mixing and turning all together after having lain 

 some months. VVithout this practice the fish would not decay 

 sufficiently for perhaps a year or two. The fish are sometimes 

 used alone ; they are then spread thinly over the ground before 

 the plough, and turned under furrow. One pilchard cut up 

 smill will amply dress one square foot of ground. 



The old salt which has ben used to cure the pilchard, and 

 judged to be no longer fit for that purpose, is advantageously 

 applied for a barley or a turnip crop ; twenty to thirty busheli 



per acre. It is commonly hand-sown. In the manner of com ; 

 and it should remain on the land five or six davs before the seed 

 is sown. It is best adapted to light lands, particularly furze 

 crops. Twenty bushels per acre have been strewed over grass 

 lands, and over a wheat crop, in the month of March, with 

 evident advantage. 



Another ar icle of manure obtained from this useful fish is 

 the liquor which drains from it while under the process of 

 curing, consisting of blood, brine, and some oil which escapes, 

 and which is caught in pits; the diligent farmer carts thii 

 away in casks, for the purpose of pouring over and mixing with 

 his piles of earth and sand, which it greatly enriches. 

 11. Livestock. 



Devonshire cattle prevail ; but it is only among the more en- 

 lightened and spirited breeders that the genuine North Devon 

 are to be met with. Cows are kept in winter in sheds open to 

 the south f one of which for seven cows and a fatting calf (Ji^. 

 1 121.), described by the surveyor, contains cribs for hay or straw 

 in winter, and lucem, vetches, &c. in summer (a) ; troughs for 

 turnips, potatoes, cabbages, &c. (/;) ; beds or platforms for the 

 cows to stand and lie on (c) ; gutters sunk two or three inches 

 to receive the dung (d) ; head-way and feeding place (e) ; dark 

 place for fatting a calf (/) ; the d"ivision outside (g) for a cow 

 that has, or is near having, a calf. She is not tied up. 



1121 



The cows are tied to posts by means of a strong chain and 

 rope, which by means of a ring runs on a long staple. 



Oxen very generally worked both in plough and cart ; shod 

 in brakes, and yoked in the bow. 



SUtejt a mixed breed ; Cornish breed lost among crosses. 



Horset a small hardy active breed, well adapted to the liilly 

 nature of the county. 



Cornish hog always white ; a long-sided razor -backed animal ; 

 crossing by the Devon, Suffolk, and Leicester breed, has taken 

 off length and sharpness, and added breadth and depth ; a 

 mixture of Chinese and Suffolk is another variety. 

 12. Political Economy. 



Public roads tolerably good ; lanes had. Some travellers 

 who met I'argan, the reporter, hoped he would notice with 

 reprehension the straw -traps that the farmers lay in some of 

 the cross roads, and which, concealing the deep ruts, endanger 

 their horses, gigs, and their own necks. 



Manufactures few ; some of woollen carpets, and paper. The 

 three great staple commodities for export, are tin, fish, and 

 copper, the moor stone, China stone for porcelain, barley, oats, 

 potatoes, and some wheat. 



782a The islands of JERSEY, GUERNSEY, ALDERNEY, and S ARK, which lie in the Bay of St. 

 Michel, and form the remnant of the ancient Duchy of Normandy, though naturally belonging to the con- 

 tinent of France, have yet for nine centuries been subject to the British Government. The agriculture 

 of all of them is nearly the same ; but we shall follow the Reporter to the Board of Agriculture in con- 

 sidering first that of Jersey, and next Guernsey. These islands are chiefly remarkable for their breed of 

 cattle, their parsneps, and the degree of perfection to which many plants arrive in the open air, which 

 are kept in England under glass. {Quayle's General View, S(C. of the Nor?nan Islands, 1812.) 



7827. Jersey, 39,580 acres of warm and rather moist climate, diversified soil, and features : the soil is 

 for the most part light, on granite or schistus, and there is some peat and marsh. No calcareous soil or 

 rocks ; granite and gneiss quarries worked ; and granite pillars of fifteen feet in length extracted. Water 

 abounds ; and belief is still entertained in the efficacy of the divining rod for discovering springs. 



1. Property. 



Minutely divided, and mostly in the hands of a resident 

 yeomanry. Some singular laws and customs as to tenures, as, 

 for example, the retrait lignager and retrait seigneurial oufoedal ; 

 also the legitimation of children not bom in wedlock, by the 

 marriage of their parents, as in Scotland, and most other 

 countries of Europe except England. 



2. Buildings. 



Those of all classes substantially built of stone, sometimes 

 rough-cast, neatly lined in imitation of squared stone-work. 

 Farm houses generally covered with thatch or pantiles. Cot- 

 tages generally of stone, with a vine in front. 



3. Occupation. 



Farms small, and fields diminutive ; farmers frugal, and 

 their wives good managers, and industrious. 



4. Implements. 



Plough with wheels, resembling that of Hampshire ; some- 

 times drawn by two bullocks, and six or eight horses ; a sort 

 (Of large plough used for p'oughing deep, for parsneps, and 

 held in partnership by several farmers ; instances of this plough 

 brang drawn by six ojen, and sixteen horses, (p. 64.) 



."). Enclosing. 



Fields very small and irregularly shaped, and the fences of 

 hii;h earthen mounds, often twelve feet wide at least, and six 

 feet high, crowned with a hedge, or timber trees and pollards. 



6. Arable Land. 



Soil deep, and deep ploughing generally practised, but no 

 improvement in it for ages ; no naked fallows. The spelt 

 wheat (Trfticum SpiHUi), here called bUtremais,frumentum tri- 

 mestre, here enters into rotation ; it is sown in Febmary, pro- 

 duces shprt stiff straw, is difficult to thresh, but never lodges. 



Parstups are grown by every farmer, and either by the spade 

 /culture alone, by the plough and spade, or by the small and 

 sreat plough ; any soil in good heart and tilth suits them, but 

 peculiarly a deep loam ; and in the same spot generally are 

 raised beans, peas, cabbage, and occasionally potatoes. 



When the ploughing or digging ;s completed, the field is 

 pnce liarrowed ; straight lines are thcp drawn across, by means 



of a gardener's rake, usually from north to south ; women 

 then proceed with dibbles, and set the beans in rows, at a 

 distance of four inches or five inches from bean to bean ; in 

 four, three, and sometimes in two ranks of beans, leaving 

 intervals of five or six feet between each of the sown rows. 

 In the use of the dibble, and in dropping the beans, the 

 women have acquired considerable dexterity. In many in- 

 stances, they are followed by children, who drop into each hole 

 made by the dibble, after the bean, three or four peas; the 

 parsnep seed is then sown, at the rate of one third to one sixth 

 of a bushel to the acre. 



The parsnep, not usually relished elsewhere as an article of 

 human food, is here consumed by all classes of people ; it is 

 eaten with meat, with nulk, and with butter ; but not, as is 

 the common mode of using it as human food in England, with 

 salt fish ; or, as in Ireland, together with potatoes. 



The next most valuable application of this root is hog-feed- 

 ing ; at first it is given to the animal in a raw state, afterwards 

 boiled or steamed, and finally, for a week or a fortnight with 

 bean and oat meal. A hog, treated in this wav, is sufficiently 

 fatted for killing in about six weeks. Its flesh is held superior 

 to that arising from any other food, and does not waste in 

 boiling. 



Bullocks are also fatted with parsneps, in about three months ; 

 their flesh is here considered of superior flavour to any other 

 beef, and commands, on that account, an additional half- 

 penny in the pound on the price. To milch-cows they are also 

 usually given ; on this diet the cream assumes a yellow colour ; 

 by the accounts here given, it appears, in proportion to the milk, 

 to be more abundant than when the animal is kept on any 

 other food whatever. When the cow receives at the rate of 

 thirty-five pounds per day with hay, seven quarts, ale-measure, 

 of the milk produce seventeen ounces of butter. It is generally 

 allowed, that the flavour of the butter is superior to any other 



produced in winter. 



Giese are sometimes shut up 

 which they will eat 



ith the hogs, to fatten on 

 parsneps, wbich they win eat raw. The root is ako given 

 boiled, and for a week before killing they are fed with oats or 

 barley onlv. Horses eat thii root greedily ; but in this island 

 it is ncvergiven them, as it is alleged, that when on this food. 



