PREPARATION OF THE SOIL. 295 



will collect them and finish the work. 1 In all cases the 

 weeds, &c., should be carefully collected at once and burned 

 on the field : they are never worth the trouble of carting 

 away; and too frequently, when thrown down in the 

 yards or mixed up in a "compost/' they are again (under 

 the name of manure) carried uninjured on to the land. 



When we have satisfied ourselves that the field has been 

 thoroughly cleaned, and have decided upon the distribution 

 of the home-made manure of the farm, we may finish our 

 autumn preparations, either by at once sending the ploughs 

 into the field or by previously carting on the quantity of 

 dung allotted to the intended crop, spreading it, and then 

 covering it in with a good deep winter furrow. If this 

 work has been successfully performed, the land will require 

 but little or no preparation in the spring. In order to 

 secure as deep and as fine a tilth as possible, it is custo- 

 mary to cross-plough the land in the spring, immediately 

 before sowing-time, whether it be intended to grow the 

 turnips on the ridge or on the flat. For ridging it is no 

 doubt advisable, as it would be very rare indeed to meet 

 with any field, save perhaps on light humous soils, where 

 ridging could be satisfactorily effected upon the winter 

 furrow. On the stronger class of soils, especially in late 

 districts, it frequently happens that, if cross-ploughed 'in 

 spring, the finely- weathered surface of the winter is buried, 

 and wet, cloddy slices turned up. A good practice has 

 therefore been introduced of leaving the mass of the 

 soil untouched, and merely running a light-tined grubber 

 through the surface, and then taking advantage of the 

 fine tilth thus produced to secure a good seed-bed for the 

 crop, which is sown with or without artificial manure, as 

 the case may be. In this case care must have been taken 



1 The amount of work to be done in the day in these several operations, and 

 in those following, as ridging, sowing, and hand-hoeing, &c., may all be readily 

 calculated by the rule given at p. 27. 



