35 



By not attending to this, I have seen some parts of a field 

 with a very light crop, and other parts so heavy as to be 

 rotting on the ground. The richness of a farm may be 

 estimated by the quantity of good vegetable crops growing 

 on it. The land which produces these has that within it 

 which must afterwards produce good crops of corn. Ma- 

 nure ought to be ploughed in as soon as possible after 

 having been carted on the land. 1 have seen it laid so long, 

 and thus so exposed to the sun and air, as to convince 

 me that (he greater part of the nutritious qualities had 

 evaporated, and that the next crop grown would prove it. 

 Manure dropped by animals (sheep excepted), on pasture 

 land, does very little good at any other time than winter ; 

 the effluvia arising from it attracts innumerable quantities 

 of small beetles, that consume all the nutritive qualities in 

 it. If sheep were confined in a littered fold every night, 

 much valuable manure migbt be produced ; but folding in 

 that way is objectionable, since it is likely to produce a 

 complaint the most troublesome and difficult to cure foot- 

 rot. It is a common practice, in Norfolk, to make what 

 tbey call a mixen. The manure is placed between two 

 layers of mould, and is not turned over and exposed to the 

 air more than a fortnight before it is required for use, so 

 that when applied to the land it has undergone only a slight 

 fermentaiion. Much greater quantities of good mould 

 might be collected from the road-sides than is commonly 

 taken. Some book farmers recommend, in seme cases, 

 putting on fifly loads of compost manure per acre. Jt is 

 much more easy to recommend than it is to achieve that 

 which is recommended. Six hundred load for twelve acres, 

 which is not -a large field, is not easily got together. 



STRAW YARDS, so called in this and the adjoining 

 counties, but in most others Fold Yards, ought to yield 

 good rich manure, and not that poor weak stuff which is 

 made from beasts which eat nothing but straw. If beasts 

 in the straw -yard have turnips given to them, they will eat 

 straw with greater avidity, the quantity of dung will be much 

 increased, and the quality greatly improved, and the beasts 

 in Spring be half beef, instead, as with straw only, as poor 

 as crows in a hard winter. Swedish turnips can be grown on 



