ON MANURES. 171 



although as a chemist, h*e may be right, yet every farmer must 

 know that, with such materials to work upon as cannot ma- 

 terially enrich the staple of the soil, his object should be to 

 obtain such immediate effect as will enable him to put the 

 land into a state for growing one good crop, which, by its 

 means of producing manure, will probably lead to others. If 

 the question whether it be most profitable to appropriate green 

 crops as the food of cattle, or as manure, be put aside, and 

 that the sole object is the improvement of the land by the 

 latter process, then there can be little doubt that the crop 

 should be ploughed down as soon as it is in bloom, for the land 

 will thus have its full benefit, besides the partial advantage of 

 a bastard fallow; to which, however, there is this difficulty 

 opposed: that the ground cannot be again ploughed until it 

 receives the seed furrow, and therefore cannot be cleared 

 except by the operation of horse-shoeing, or scarifying, which; 

 if the soil be foul, we need not say will prove ineffectual. 



The crops which are most generally applied to this purpose 

 are — buck-wheat, winter tares, the second year of clover, and 

 rape; which last, from its oily nature has been found very 

 effective. There is, however, a plant which, although but 

 seldom sown in this country, is very commonly grown through- 

 out Flanders, for the pasturage of cows, and is there sown, 

 like brush-turnips, immediately after a crop of wheat, yet in a 

 couple of months afterwards affords a large quantity of succu- 

 lent food. Several trials of it have also been made with the 

 happiest results in many parts of Germany, of its effects as a 

 green manure; for it not only possesses the advantage of 

 putrefying with great rapidity when ploughed in, but also 

 that of producing a crop by being merely harrowed across the 

 stubble, and the costs a mere trifle; it is called spurry. 



Upon arable land which, from any circumstance, is deprived 

 of the benefit of a due application of farm-yard dung, or other 

 putrescent manure, there can be little doubt that green crops 

 of quick growth, abundant foliage, and easy decomposition, 

 may be turned into the land with considerable advantage; but 

 we cannot accord in the opinion that they will be found an 

 effectual mode of improving exhausted soils, for on such land 

 they grow too feebly to produce much effect. The ground, to 

 be benefited by their application, should be capable of bringing 

 them forth, if not luxuriantly, at least with such abundance as 

 to furnish complete shade during their growth, and sufficient 

 vegetative matter to occasion a rapid fermentation when 



