372 NORTHERN CORN-GROWING 



is poor, and, with the absence of any co-operative 

 action, no one has capital enough for the purchase of 

 a sire of better class. 



The farming of the Laigh of Moray may be taken 

 as typical of that prevailing on all the low-lying land 

 round the Firth. It is almost wholly arable, and 

 though the former strictness in holding the tenant to 

 a particular rotation no longer prevails, there is little 

 departure from the accepted course of cropping. The 

 standard rotation is the five shift, defined as white corn, 

 green crop, white corn, grass of which the first cut only 

 may be hayed, and grass ; but this system was found 

 to bring the turnip crop round too frequently. The 

 light soils of Morayshire are deficient in lime, and 

 liming has almost entirely fallen into disuse, so that 

 finger-and-toe has become a serious obstacle to the 

 successful growth of turnips. The attack may be 

 mitigated by lengthening the rotation, so that seven 

 and eight year shifts have become more general, in 

 which the seeds stay down for three instead of two 

 years, or a second corn crop, known as a yaval crop, 

 is taken after the ley. One farmer told us that he 

 began his farming on the five shift, and lengthened it 

 by the inclusion of the yaval crop in order to keep off 

 finger-and-toe with success for some time, but had now 

 also been compelled to add a third year of grass, by 

 which means he had become quite free from disease. 

 Even this remedy may only be temporary, though the 

 three years' grass, by excluding charlock and other 

 cruciferous weeds which carry on the fungus, does 

 much to suppress it ; but liming would undoubtedly 

 be more effective, and would also add to the fertility 

 of the soil. The three years' grass cheapens the labour 

 bill, but the land is apt to become over-rich for the 

 first corn crop after the ley. Typical rotations were 



