730 
THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 
[Ocr. 31; 
October, and they (60 tons), along with say 3 tons of 
hay, which will furnish about 2 Ibs, of hay daily to each 
of the sheep, will keep them till Christmas, when they 
should be in excellent killing order. Another lot of 
sheep may be bought in about March to consume the 
Cabbages, and these will then be ready to go upon the 
Grass. 
There are 9 tons of hay left, and the calculation is 
not so strictly followed but that plenty of green food 
to be given along with the hay to the two cows may be 
furnished during winter off the Swede-land and the Cab- 
bages. The cows and horses will eat 3 of a ewt. of hay 
daily during 180 days in the year, which is equal to 64 
tons, and the horses will during the remainder eat } of 
2 hundred weight daily, equal during the whole period 
to 2}'tons. This about matches the quantity of food 
which the farm supplies to them. 
Tue AnnuaL RETURN ON THE Farm may be esti- 
mated as follows :— 
Grain crop and green crop 90 
0 
20 
m se £ 
40 sheep from March toChristma; 0 weeks at 6d. 4 
40 sheep from Aug. to Christmas—20 weeks at 6d. 
0 
0 0 
0 0 
2cowsat 8. ^ .. E m B 0 0 
Costofmaintaining 2 horses, excepting their Oats 20 0 0 
£186 0 0 
Tue ANNUAL Expenses may be— 
Rent of 25 acres m m .. £50 0 0 
Labour and seed and manure, say 
0 0 
stock, &e., at 10s. a-week ESO duret 
And 15s, p. aere on the pasture-land 12 0 0 
—— 178.0 0 
Interest at J/, per cent. on a capital 3 
of, say 121, per acre—2001. I 15 0 0 
£143 0 0 
Leaving some 431, as profit, 
—M. S. 
AGRICULTURE, A CHEMICAL MANU- 
FACTURE. 
Witt you oblige a constant reader by admitting toa 
place in your Paper the following reflections, which 
have been occasioned by perusing your Leading Article 
of the 17th inst. You there compare the labours of 
the farmer to the labours of the chemist, and you 
ascribe want of success on the part of the former to his 
want. of knowledge and skill. 
When the Romans commenced any undertaking of 
moment, they began by sacrificing to the gods. Their 
courage or caution was increased according to the 
favourable indications or otherwise which their victims 
presented. The Romans were successful in most of 
their undertakings, and every wise man will ascribe a 
large portion of their success to their religious feeling. 
Cicero did so ; for said he, addressing the Senate, ** We 
may be what we like, Conscript Fathers, although. we 
are inferior to the Gauls in strength, the Carthaginians 
in skill, the Spaniards in numbers, and the Greeks in 
arts ; because we excel all nations in religious feeling, 
and in the knowledge of the truth that all things are 
subject to a providence,and governed by the will of the 
immortal gods.” 
f every eminently ful farmer or stock t 
I have observed that he possessed a mind kindred in its 
nature to the Roman mind. He might be an immoral 
man or otherwise, but you recognised by his actions 
that his mind was ever ready to pay homage to the 
truth that all things are governed by an unseen agent. 
The character of his mind, indeed, is generally such 
that he would be accounted superstitious by the very in- 
telligent writers whose ideas feed your columns, Yet, 
when we compare the results of such a. man's life with 
the results produced by a Mechi, or some one of your 
other intelligent correspondents, who can deny that the 
Superstition of the first is connected with far more 
valuable effeets as to human happiness than the intelli- 
gence of the last. 
These facts seer to indicate that an element is neces- 
sary to the success of the farmer’s labours, of which no 
mention is made in your columns. 
Again, there is an obvious relation between the moral 
condition of a man’s mind (let its intelligence be what 
it may) and the fields which he cultivates. Of this 
fact any one may be convinced by considering thecha- 
racters of a few of the farmers of a district. But if it 
is not sufficiently apparent in individual cases, let us 
take the case of a nation. Let us compare England 
with Ireland—ancient Judæa- with modern Palestine— | 
Europe reformed with Europe unreformed, and we can- 
not doubt the fact that, altogether independent of skill 
and intelligence, the soil of every country under the 
sun, and everything that grows upon it, have a close 
and intimate relation to the moral condition of the 
human mind there. Elevate the human mind in any 
country, and you elevate everything else; let the 
“light of life "be there, and the humblest labours of 
the farmer feels its influence, whether he understands 
chemistry or not. Let its lands be cultivated in the 
Is this, sir, a time to compare the labours of the 
farmer with the labours of the chemist, when the God 
of Nature, robbed of his honour, lets the mutterings of 
his wrath be heard, and blasts the fruits of our labours 
by diseases which modern intelligence can neither ac- 
count for nor remove ?—John Russell, East Lothian. 
[Many thanks for your letter: there is: much that is 
true in it ; and at the same time, in our opinion, some 
error also. 
The general idea which it is calculated to excite is 
your opinion that agriculture is something more than a 
chemical manufacture — something even more than any- 
thing merely physical—something more than a series of 
proeesses whose results are the consequence of mere 
matter acting atom upon atom in virtue of the various 
affinities with which each is endowed. 
differ from you. There is no doubt, much that is myste- 
rious in every branch of human knowledge (and there 
is no advantage in creating more, or imagining it unne- 
cessarily), and the practice of farming is not exempt 
from the general truth ; but mystery, wherever it has 
been examined and removed, has hitherto proved 
nothing more than the offspring of ignorance ; and this 
fairly suggests (and does it not justify ?) the opinion 
that ail mystery in reference to material truth is the 
consequence of limited knowledge, not of any mental in- 
capacity to understand. Is there anything wrong in 
endeavouring to lessen the amount of existing mystery ? 
We cannot think that you believe so. 
The Potato disease, so mysterious at’ present, will 
one day, no doubt, be clearly understood as the conse- 
quence of laws which have existed since creation, and 
of eireumstances (doubtless peculiar to the time), some 
of which it may be within human power to meet or to 
modify, and some of which, on the other hand, may, 
perhaps, be uncontrollable. Do you believe it irre- 
verent to examine and investigate these subjects? On 
the contrary, do you not think that all natural subjects 
are presented to us as fields for the exercise of the 
mental powers with which we are endowed ? 
And now, as regards the influence of mental consti- 
tution on the practice of agriculture. So far from it 
being a point hitherto untouched upon. in.our columns, 
it is one which has been insisted upon. Our able col- 
league “C. W. H.” has repeatedly urged that land 
should be cultivated by the mind, not by mere imple- 
ments of husbandry ; andj his meaning is precisely 
yours, that in all practice much depends not only upon 
intelligence and skill, but upon the energy and firm- 
ness of purpose which are the attributes of a well con- 
stituted mind. 
And we include in our understanding of education 
not merely the means of storing the mind with faets— 
conferring, upon it intelligence, but also of inuring and 
aceustoming it to good habits—conferring upon it qua- 
lily. so to speak. Education is doubtless moral as well 
as intellectual, and no one will question the iori 
In this we | 
ON THE DRILL HUSBANDRY OF TURNIPS. 
The Mode of Cultivation pursued by Practical 
Farmers on the upper oolite formation in Gloucester- 
shire. 
As nine-tenths of the farmers in this district adopt the 
old mode of ploughing in the farm-manure, and sowing 
on the flat, their general mode of proceeding will be 
very briefly described. With regard to their old Sain- 
foin-land, of which there is a very large quantity yearly 
coming in, the modes of paring, burning, and ploughing 
are so similar to that already deseribed, that it need not 
be again gone over; but in far too many instances with 
this great defect, that the cultivator has neither pride 
nor spirit enough to pick up and burn the weeds shaken 
up by the harrows after the plough operations; the 
invariable rule seems to be to leave them on the spot, 
to die or live as the season may prove dry or moist. 
The stubble-lands are ploughed over as soon as possible 
after finishing the corn harvest and Wheat sowing ; it 
is afterwards cross ploughed in spring, then dragged, 
rolled, and harrowed, and where Couch is very abun- 
dant, the rough part thereof isthrown into heaps and 
burnt. The manure, which has been put in heaps in 
the fields through the winter, or prepared in field, barn- 
yards, and in general turned once, is now carted out, 
and put on from. 10.to 15 loads per acre, Sometimes 
the carting goes on for two or three days, the heaps of 
dung all the while drying nicely ; then it is about half 
spread, and, in saying so, I do not underrate the style in 
which the operation is performed ; too much care cans. 
not be bestowed on this important part in the manage- 
ment of manures ; it ought, if practicable, to be broken 
or shaken into pieces not larger than an egg ; but when 
thrown carelessly about in lumps not less than a man’s 
hand in its extended shape, many of them much larger, 
and perhaps allowed to dry another day before being 
ploughed in; how then is it possible that such lumps 
can be covered by the ordinary process of ploughing, 
when the furrow is not above 33 or 4 ins. deep? Much 
of the manure will be sticking out of the ground, and 
when the harrows proceed to cover the seed, a great 
portion must be pulled to the surface, and as I have 
said before, utterly lost to the erop. 
Twelve or fourteen years ago the broadcast system 
of sowing was almost universal in this distriet ; but 
now drilling on the flat, with Suffolk or Berkshire drills 
has become general, and a few more years will drive the 
old fashioned mode out of this district, and out of the 
kingdom. `` The farmers begin to find the advantage of 
of religious motives over all others in the former, its 
more important branch ; but why place moral excel- 
lence in opposition to intelligence. They are distinct 
but happily not opposed. Each has tended to the supe- 
riority of present over past times, Moral superiority 
could not have produced all this effect unaided by 
greater intelligence, any more than a better workman 
could exhibit all his superiority unaided by good tools. 
And to add one more word, we cannot help thinking 
that you are not happy in your selection of cases 
to illustrate the superiority, which you insist upon, of 
moral character over mere intelligence as an element 
of agricultural success. It was unnecessary for your 
purpose to use Mr. Mechi’s name in so uncomplimentary 
a manner ; and as itis, he by no means answers the end 
you aimed at, for he, if any, may be selected as the 
one among many, distinguished for- his agricultural 
vietory over untoward ci andi b! 
materials, 
The superiority which in many distriets of Scotland 
prevail over others in England as regards its cultivation, 
is, in our opinion, originally attributable to the national 
character, arising doubtless in part out of the strict moral 
and religious education there prevalent ; but also, and in 
great measure, from the intellectual education by which 
such intelligence and ability are conferred on so large 
a proportion of their inhabitants; We end as we began, 
by contending that the full theory of agriculture as of 
all other material arts, is to be found in the laws of 
matter as they are expounded in chemistry and natural 
philosophy.— Ed. Ag. Gaz.] 
The following is another letter on this subject, 
received during the past week :— 
I have read your Leading Article of the 17th inst. with 
interest and pleasure ; the more so, as I conceive it to 
be of the greatest importance, not ouly to individuals, 
but to the nation, that the farmer should be aided in his 
practice by science. It has been aptly remarked that 
practice without knowledge is blind.” This is espe- 
cially true as regards agriculture, every operation in 
which, to be successful, requires to be conducted on 
scientifie principles, as will be obvious to every one who 
reflects upon the nature of those operations. 
It is worthy, then, of inquiry whether that knowledge 
is possessed by the agricultural body ; and if it be not, 
what means are to be used to afford it? That it is not 
possessed is unhappily but too certain. What, then, is 
to be done? Are we to acknowledge the deficiency 
without endeavouring to remedy it? Are the higher 
and the lower classes exclusively to be regarded as 
meriting the attention in this respect. of. the Govern- 
ment and the country? No—surely! "The prosperity 
and happiness of the nation depends upon the welfare 
of every class being duly promoted. Let then the 
education of the farmer be looked to as a national object, 
and let every one who depends upon or takes an interest 
in agriculture, lend a helping hand in establishing 
schools for the rising generation of farmers, upon a 
footing which shall make them available to the needy as 
well as the wealthy amongst us.—.5. S. 
ure, and also ashes with the drills, a 
decided anxiety and stir being evinced in collecting 
ashes of one kind or other for the Turnip season, and 
I have no doubt that in a few more years pulverised 
manures of various sorts will be very generally and ex- 
tensively used. It is i ible for any individual to 
present a succinct account of hoeing broadeast Turnips, 
the mode is. indescribable, and frightful enough to un- 
String the ne£ves of the most robust north-countryman 
when he first witnesses the operation, What an alarm- 
ing thing it is to witness a strong athletic navigator- 
looking fellow with his shirt-sleeves tucked up to his 
arm-pits, slashing away with an 18-inch stroke, making 
| the dirt and slain plants fly at least a yard behind him ; 
while for every two strokes of the hoe, he plaits or 
doubles one leg over the other, and by this mode gets 
sideling along across the ridge towards one furrow, and 
leg motion, and so returns to the other furrow, By the 
time our novice from the north witnesses this process 
for half an hour he will be horror stricken and tremble 
for the fate of the crop. At the termination of every 
draw-of this powerful operator, a heap is formed of the 
mould, and removed plants, and perhaps a tuft or two 
of Couch inclosed, the plants left for stock appear also 
to be pletely hered, and altogether the ground 
presents a rough, uncouth, and woeful aspect. In wet 
weather all these little heaps spring into life, and when 
the time for the second hoeing arrives, it is impossible 
to know where the plants are which were intended for 
stock. The second hoeing is performed in a more 
moderate manner, cutting up as many of the weeds as 
possible, and levelling the lumps formerly made ; but 
to clean the land this way is utterly impossible; there- 
fore lambs must be put in the field in September, to 
bite the tops off the weeds for decency’s sake, and in 
order to make the Squire believe when he rides along 
the road that Mr, Farmer Broadcast is a tolerably 
successful grower of Turnips, and also to persuade the 
honest farmer himself into the belief that his land is 
perfectly clean, 
owever, it is pleasing to have to admit that it is 
only a portion of the farms in the district alluded to 
which are so managed. Many agriculturists could be 
named who have their land in very different condition, 
being clean, and in as fine tilth before sowing as the 
most fastidious could wish ; these lands being clean, are 
kept so throughout the season. All these superior 
managers have disearded the broadeast system for 
some years, and now regularly employ drills. An ex- 
cellent and economie mode of putting out manure-or 
the land is adopted by several farmers, by means of 
wheel-barrows instead of carts, Heaps of manure of 
certain sizes are laid down at equal distances in order 
to have about lj or 2 acres surrounding them ; this ie 
contracted for to be wheeled out and spread at 3s. to 4s. 
per aere. I have no objeetion to the mode than this 
—that the dung generally lies too long before it is 
ploughed in, and is never well spread; thus in severe’ 
droughts losing more by evaporation than is saved by 
wheeling. The smallness of the heaps also exposes too 
when arrived there he changes hand and reverses the - 
| 
