BONES 223 



But grass-land farming is much the same anywhere, 

 and we had recently seen one cheese farm managed on 

 Cheshire lines. For a century or more bones have 

 been the great standby of the Cheshire grass farmer 

 in old days in a rough state, quarter and half inch 

 bones, but nowadays more generally as bone meal or 

 in various mixtures containing a little added nitrogen. 

 Slow in their action as all experimenters declare bones 

 to be, they yet do keep the land supplied with the 

 phosphates and nitrogen that are taken away in the 

 milk, and that without forcing the grass to any 

 abnormal growth. Despite the introduction of super- 

 phosphate and basic slag, the Cheshire farmer still 

 believes he gets the best returns from bones, both in 

 the proportion of clover and the milk-yielding power 

 of the herbage. 



As we entered the county from the south, the most 

 noticeable feature of the arable land was the absence 

 of barley, which constitutes little more than i per 

 cent, of all the cereals grown in Cheshire. Oats are 

 the staple crop, more than 60,000 acres out of a total 

 of 80,000 of corn being occupied by oats, a proportion 

 which is to be explained by the great demand for oats 

 from horsekeepers in the Lancashire towns, in addition 

 to their value for milch cows. Oat straw is also sale- 

 able, as barley straw is not, and a great deal of straw 

 is sold, for complete freedom of cropping and sale 

 prevails in the county. Another unexpected feature 

 was the prevalence of rye on the southern and eastern 

 side of the county. This is grown for the straw, for 

 only rye straw is long and tough enough to be suitable 

 for packing certain kinds of vessels made in the 

 Potteries. The rye grown for this purpose is autumn 

 sown on good land, cut when nearly ripe, and gathered 

 into bundles, the corn being knocked out of the heads 



