A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



consolidation to enable the roots of plants to keep a firm hold in the ground. 

 At the same time it is tenacious when wet, and great care must be exercised 

 to avoid all treading and working unless the land is sufficiently dry. 

 Strangers are often surprised to see three horses at length in a plough in 

 this district, but the plough does not clean itself, and the work is not so 

 easy as is imagined. As a general rule, however, a pair of horses is sufficient. 



Owing to the prevalence of stone wall fences this district presents a 

 bare appearance, though it is pleasantly broken up by the narrow valleys in 

 which the villages are situated, where the soil is deeper, and which are 

 generally well watered, being also beautified by ash and elm timber trees. 



In order to prevent the fertilizing constituents from being washed into 

 the rubbly underlying rock, and on account of its hollow character, it is 

 important that this light, thin, brashy land should not be too deeply nor too 

 often ploughed. On this soil more crops are probably in danger of being 

 damaged by over-cultivation than by too little stirring, and the roll is an 

 implement of greater importance than in many other districts. 



The size of farms on the Cotswolds varies from about 200 to 

 1,000 acres, and upwards. A smaller holding than the former does not 

 afford a living for the occupier and his family, unless the soil is more fertile 

 and nearer to good markets than is, generally speaking, the case in this 

 district. The usual course of husbandry is the five-course rotation, with 

 certain variations necessitated by the seasons and the prices of the various 

 descriptions of corn and live stock. About fifteen per cent, of the arable land 

 is usually devoted to the growth of sainfoin, a most useful crop on the lime- 

 stone, and an excellent sheep food. This crop usually stands from three to five 

 years, when it is broken up and replaced by a similar acreage recently laid 

 down. In this soil the deep-rooted lucerne should be cultivated more 

 frequently. In the few instances where it has been tried the results have been 

 most satisfactory, the crop yielding three good cuts a year. The remainder of 

 the land is cropped as follows : First year, wheat ; second year, turnips or 

 swedes ; third year, barley or oats, with grass and clover seeds ; fourth year, 

 seeds mown for hay ; fifth year, seeds fed, to be followed by wheat. A 

 portion of the turnip break is often sown with mangold, rape, or thousand- 

 head kale, and part of the wheat stubble with vetches, to be fed by sheep, 

 and followed by late turnips. Peas are also occasionally taken after wheat, 

 and the land may, in an early season, be afterwards sown with turnips, thus 

 bringing it back again into course. On the better soils the ordinary 

 Norfolk four-course rotation is occasionally adopted, when the crops are the 

 same, the grass seeds being, however, only kept down for one year before 

 being broken up for wheat ; but, where a large head of live stock is main- 

 tained, second year's seeds are found very useful for summer grazing, both 

 for sheep and cattle. Some farmers again, adopt a six-course rotation, taking 

 barley after wheat, followed by roots fed off as a preparation for oats, thus 

 getting three corn crops in six years, as against two in the five-course 

 system, but this, generally speaking, is not so suitable for the district, 

 tending to the impoverishment of the soil, which is also more difficult to 

 keep clean, owing to two corn crops following each other on the same land. 



At the commencement of the nineteenth century we find that wheat 

 was generally sown in July. Cobbett, in his Rural Rides, writing from 



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