"DREDGE" CORN 23 



near Porlock which have so often produced the 

 champion barley at the Brewers' Exhibition. 



Like most modern farmers, our host by no means 

 tied himself down to follow the rotation above set out ; 

 just as the root-breadth included mangolds and some 

 very excellent potatoes as well as the swedes, so a 

 certain amount of wheat was grown when the land 

 could be conveniently cleared in time. It was also 

 usual to sow a few acres of trifolium as a catch-crop 

 after barley and before the roots ; this clover grows 

 well on the sandy soil and greatly enriches the land 

 when folded off by sheep. Another crop to which 

 most of us were unaccustomed was " dredge " corn, a 

 mixture of barley and oats in roughly equal proportions, 

 which was formerly a regular feature in English agri- 

 culture, but nowadays is only seen in the south-western 

 counties. Of course the product is only used for home 

 consumption, but the mixture of the two grains roughly 

 ground or crushed constitutes admirable dry food for 

 either fattening cattle, horses, or pigs. The real gain 

 in growing dredge comes in the enormous yields that 

 seem to be possible ; not only here, but in other places 

 we convinced ourselves that a much greater gross 

 weight of the mixture could be grown than of either 

 separately, so that any farmer in the habit of growing 

 oats and barley for home consumption would prob- 

 ably do better to sow the two together. There 

 are, of course, reasons why the mixed corn should 

 succeed better; the two cereals permeate slightly 

 different layers of the soil with their roots, and by 

 their different habit of growth they seem to assist one 

 another to stand up. At any rate, we saw heavy crops, 

 estimated at ten quarters per acre, still standing stiff 

 and erect, when most of the other cereals in the country 

 were more or less lodged. On this sandy land wild oats 



