18U.] 



THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 



563 



EoTtrsrT to the written theories of the day. 



I have also 



the fame result on my own farm in a field drained 

 - ™ u waY . On many of the strong clay lands in 

 SEnlk unless drains are made not further than six or 

 l""« tarda apart, the water will not draw into them ; 

 before Suffolk draining becomes more expensive than 



nr Mid-Lothian friend contemplates in his calculation. 

 1 believe the Suffolk system is not completely an absurd 

 t*~ g i one leases are not the custom with the small 

 ^owners there, and farms frequently change their 

 " u . tn d though I am sure in this case to be called 

 an oM-fa«hioned thick-headed Suffolk farmer, defending 

 his customs against modern improvements, I can only 

 SLd guilty to a fear of casting away the old broom 

 Cfore 1 have proved the new one, even though it be re- 

 commended by the march-of-intellect-men of the present 

 dav * for I have found by experience that their advice is 

 very apt to march the profits off a farm to a very quick 

 tune— A Fanner and Valuer, Stowmarket. 



Mr. Johnson's Register of Implements.— With refer- 

 ence to your notice of Mr. Johnson's book of advertise- 

 ments of agricultural implements, I fear that your 

 readers may be mistaken in expecting it to be a complete 

 Register of Implements shown at the Royal Agricultural 

 Society's Meetings at Southampton. The fact of the 

 mitter stands thus: — Mr. Johnson's book contains only 

 the names of IB makers of implements, while the cata- 

 logue of the Society contains 97 names of makers of 

 machines and implements, and is a larger book by 58 

 page*. I hope in justice to the makers whose imple- 

 ments are not noticed in Mr. Johnson's book, you will 

 give iniertion to this.— A Subscriber. 



Allotment System. — Where this system is carried out 

 with a view to give assistance to the hard-working 

 artisan and labourer, presenting to them an opportunity 

 of employing their spare time, with a prospect of obtain- 

 ing a profitable return for their industry, the scheme 

 offers great advantages to society at large. The visible 

 change in the habits of the population of a district where 

 the plan is liberally and fairly practised speaks suf- 

 ficiently in its favour. It is, however, to be feared that 

 it is too often considered a speculation by the landholder, 

 and a means of acquiring a higher rent than is given by 

 the farmer for the same description of land, thus rather 

 burthening the poor man than benefiting him. In 

 many instances another abuse also creeps in, which 

 savours of the Irish middle-man. An individual takes a 

 piece of land at 3/. per acre, and lets it out again at 6/., 

 which being far above its value, the poor man cannot pay 

 his rent, and his crops are seized ; thus, in many neigh- 

 bourhoods bringing into disrepute a plan which, in 

 itself, is calculated to do so much good and elevate the 

 character of the lower orders. Cultivation by spade 

 husbandry being superior to the use of the plough, if any 

 difference is made in the rent, justice demands it in 

 favour of the small tenant. Accommodation land close 

 to a town, occupied as a market garden, is, of course, 

 of increased value, in its relative position, compared with 

 that at a greater distance, apportioned to labourers, and 

 to which they have to walk one or two miles, either afcer 

 a hard day's work, or before they commence their accus- 

 tomed employment. The quantity of land allowed to 

 the head of a family should never exceed a quarter of an 

 acre, and " generally speaking the sixth or eighth is enough. 

 > v nere the object is merely to assist in housekeeping, and 

 not as a main source of income, mischief arises from 

 granting a man more land than he and his family can 

 till during their leisure hours, and yet not sufficient to 

 maintain them without other assistance. This depend- 

 ence upon the land interferes with their common voca- 

 tions, and reduces them to greater distress than they 

 would have experienced without the aUotment. Half 

 measures are always bad. By a judicious distribution 

 w lots according to the strength of a family, better 

 andfk^ a ° d manurin S wil1 °e insured, rents better paid, 

 ♦VrtK- 8t man wiU not be brewed out of his last 



lanning to meet the exorbitant demands of his landlord 



hi* h^ r °' eC/0r * An argument has been used in favour of 

 h g S, ren ^» t1z m " A man need not take the land unless 

 man -n' Snd the best answer to this is, " A drowning 

 is ov C *i Ch St a straw -" Where the labour market 

 mil *j r 7 toc k ea \ any nominal rent may be asked andpro- 

 P .>n! the da y of reckoning is a proof of how far 



io r J ar Jfr h * Te acted * iscl y— **«'«>«• 



catin *" e ^ ave 'eeei^ed the following communi- 



uons on this subject since the date of No. 28, and we 



weath • J D &n abrid ged form.] —In winter, while the 



almnT 1S h ' rook sfoliow the ploughs, which are then 



worm t Constantl y ^ motion, to obtain the larvae and 



«w turned up by them. In frost and snow they 



sUcS.,1 r ° ads and dunghills, and frequently attack 



•tacks a tearing the thatch from the heads of the 

 ■ometim„ dev ? urin g the exposed grain. They are 



some mi (.•f ' known to eat Swedish Turnips, and do 

 fall virM in tilat wav » as tne broken bulbs generally 



ever «? u- ? the frost - The principal damage, how- 

 noon tL the y are g uilt 7 in winter is their attacks 

 Jtrain ftf J °^ Wheat - In spring they certainly do eat 

 Jower \ Tanous kinds > scattered by the hand of the 

 eiBoWm \ D - 0t t0 an y S reat extent. Their principal 

 and I h. 18 fol,owi ng the ploughs for insects, &c, 



*»Y at tK C n ° d ° Ubt much good is done b y them in this 

 Jn a diif ■ * 8ea80IK Ncv ertheless, the first-sown fields 

 In the b • generall y squire watching by the farmer. 

 •PTOut ^nnmg of summer, when the Potatoes begin to 



tne icta Jn?^° E great deal of damage b y di «S in S U P 

 ' ana thus completeljwlestroyingtbe plants. The 



fields must be well looked after at this period by the 

 farmer, and the birds scared away until the plants have 

 attained some size. It is often necessary to watch 

 Potato fields for three weeks and sometimes even for a 

 longer time. In summer, too, especially if the weather 

 be hot and dry, rooks often do some damage to the re- 

 maining stacks in the stack-yard, tearing off the thatch, 

 and carrying off whole heads of grain into some neigh- 

 bouring field to be devoured at more leisure. Pasture- 

 fields, however, are the great resort of these birds in 

 summer, and there they do much good, destroving 

 numbers of grubs and other insects. They often 'also 

 render a service to the farmer, by spreading abroad, 

 in their search for insects, the droppings of pastured 

 animals, particularly horses, as these, when left alone, 

 produce rank tufts of coarse herbage. Towards the end 

 of summer rooks may sometimes be observed in Turnip- 

 fields, pulling up the young plants ; but this, I am of 

 opinion, is merely to get at some lurking insect. In 

 autumn the farmer is again a sufferer from the depreda- 

 tions of the rook. Whenever the corn begins to ripen, 

 it is attacked by flocks of rooks, and much damage is 

 often done, especially in spots where the crops are at all 

 laid. When the grain is cut and stacked, too, they do a 

 good deal of mischief. When the Potato crop is nearly 

 ready for taking up, rooks often attack it, digging into 

 the sides of the drills and extracting whole tubers, and 

 sometimes the farmer is again, as in spring, compelled 

 to have his fields watched. When not engaged in these 

 spoliations, rooks are generally to be found in pastures ; 

 or if any ploughs are at work, searching the upturned 

 furrow-slices. In early autumn, too, they very frequently 

 resort to moors and uncultivated ground, most probably 

 in quest of insect food. As far as my experience goes, 

 I am disposed to think that rooks should be encouraged 

 to a certain extent, but that they should not be allowed 

 to become too numerous in any district. Their numbers 

 ought, I think, to be kept under, lest the supply exceed 

 the demand for them, and the rook turn thief at all times, 



andnotnowand then merely. — A.J.,li tburghihire. 



On turning to Bewick, which I have interleave d, I find 

 the following note :— " In the winter of 1829-30 I saw 

 a Barley-stack unroofed, and heard of a cottage in the 

 neighbourhood which had shared a like fate in the course 

 of a few hour?. The rooks, driven to this food by the 

 severity of the weather, performed their work of de- 

 struction as effectually, though not so deliberately, as 

 the bunting is said to do, by the author of the Jour- 

 nal of a Naturalist.— Herts." This summer I have 

 seen them taking to a new food. A farmer adjoining me 

 had put down several loads of ground bones, but on 

 account of the drought did not spread them. The 

 rooks have been very busy round these loads, and have 

 carried off and dropped in a field belonging to another 

 farmer really a considerable portion of this valuable 

 manure. [They probably attacked the grubs merely, 

 which will breed in a heap of half-rotten bones.] 

 Having thus said what I can against this bird, let 

 me now become his advocate. He only does this 

 mischief when in distress. I do not believe, except 

 under necessity, that he is graminivorous, though I have 

 known him pick up acorns. In confinement he will 

 leave corn for grubs of any kind. Neither, setting aside 

 his destruction of insects, &C.,ii he altogether an unprofit- 

 able bird. As food, two years ago, I saw no less cer- 

 tainly than 200 young rooks given to the poor, and other 

 persons had their share. I would certainly say to 

 the farmer, the rook is your friend, despite some 



faults;— and who is perfect l—Cestriensis Jr. In 



the Gazette of June 15th there is an article headed 

 Books, by "Acer." Its author is evidently a great 

 crow-fancier, or he, surely, would never have taken the 

 radicle of the Oats, preparing to root, for r 

 gorged with the milky substance of the 

 person may satisfy himself of the fact, that all grain, 

 after being cast into the ground a certain time, shows "a 

 white streak, extended lengthwise." I cannot see any 

 cruelty in killing these black robbers, so convinced am 1 

 of the injury they do to the crops. I have no reason for 

 doubting that the evil they do to the farmer so far over- 

 balances any good they may do, that it would stand in 

 the ratio of 99 to 1, from one year's end to the other. I 

 am not so fortunate as to be " owner of a considerable 

 rookery ;" yet, being in possession of a patch of ground 

 in the shape of a small farm, I have had frequent 

 opportunities of quarrelling with these birds — being 

 placed about midway between two considerable camps 

 of the enemy, which harass me on every side. In 

 spring, when sowing commences, the damage they do 

 is great ; next come the Potatoes, which suffer in their 

 turn after the grain crops have got beyond them ; next 

 the Turnips in their season suffer .'(this being the scarcest 

 time of food for them in the whole year, winter excepted), 

 so that they are forced to turn up manure in the drills in 

 search, doubtless, of wire-worms, &c, and thus they root 

 out the Turnip plants, and ruin the crop ; next comes 

 the early-ripened grain, the first thing in the shape of 

 plenty that they have had for some time — they luxuriate 

 in the midst of this all harvest time ; but when the fields 

 are well nigh cleared of grain, then commences th« 

 second period of famine, and they are ready to pour down 

 in myriads on the patches of Wheat that are here and 

 there sown through the country, (this is not properly a 

 Wheat-growing country). Lately the birds have begun 

 to make havoc on Turnip fields during winter, principally 

 among the yellow and Swedish kinds, by picking holes 

 in the bulbs, and thereby admitting water, air, and frost 

 to them. Last winter I d d not know a single Turnip 

 field but what suffered less or more, and it was no 

 uncommon thing to see whole fields wh:re not a single , 



Turnip of any considers sixe had escaped them. I 

 am convinced that there is no farmer in the neighbour- 

 hood but what suffers from 10 to 20 per cent, of loss 

 upon his crops by the depredations of these birds : in 

 my own case, for the last 1 1 months I am quite sure that 

 I would not have suffered half so much, though I had 

 had all the wire-worms in the county of Forfar to contend 

 against, instead of the harmless rooks, as " Acer " would 

 have them to be. — Peel, Loch Lintathan, Angus. 



a wireworm, 

 Oat." Any 



S&ocfcifes. 



ROYAL AGRICl ill RAL SOCIETY or ENGL AND. 

 A Monthly Council was held at the Society's House 

 in Hanover-square, on Wednesday, the 7th of August; 

 present, T. Raymond Barker, Esq., in the chair; 

 Col. Austen; D. Barclay, Esq., M.P. ; F. Burke, q. ; 

 J. Kinder, Esq. ; J. Parkes, Esq. ; J. A. Ransome, Esq. ; 

 and Prof. Sewell. 



The Earl of Egmont, of Enmore Castle, near Aihmore, 

 Somersetshire; and John Quantock, Esq., of Norton 

 House, near Yeovil, Somersetshire, were elected Gover- 

 nors, and the following gentlemen Members of the 



)ciety : — 



Henderson, Colonel, Mayor of Southampton 



, William, N< ravon House, Amesbury, Wilts. 

 Davis, K rt, EastWoodha wbunr, Berks. 



Gu rney; Charles, Launcest on wall 



Hoblr, 1). Peter, ColqulU, Bodmin, <. 1 rnwall 

 Drew, John Watkins, I ahampton 

 Young, (Jcorgc Edgar, Broad Chalk, Wilton, Wilt*. 

 • Slli ge, Bishopstone, Wilton, Wilts. 



wton, Thomas F., Dogdcan, Salisbury 

 Cousins, Robert, Norton Farm, Sutton.. Scotney, Hants. 

 Gilbert, Major, Bartlej 1/ dge, southam; \ 

 Fanshaw, Rev. thai imon, Ti ioity t.inirch, Southampton 

 Taylor, John Oddin, Hardtngham. Norwich 

 Powell, i l w , Nantcos, Abery*twlth, S.W. 



Harvey, Tin >*, Kegilliack, Falmouth, Cornwall 

 Johnston, Chai . Claramont, Chcshui Herts. 



ilcai ir J. P., Bart., Ki >gham, Wymondh am, Norfolk. 



Toomer, James, Rl I Lodge, 1 dhurat, Hants. 



Long, John. Mar well Hall, Twyford, Winchester 

 B «r, William James, Mi n, Surrey 

 i:d wards, Thomas, C n House, Stoekbridge, Hants. 



Lysoght, Admiral Arthur. Sjulhsca Portsmouth 

 (.lover. Rev. Fn derick, R. A , Rector* I Charlton, Doner 

 Bury, Edward, Hanslope Park, Newp trt-Pagnel, Bucks. 

 Dorcliestcr, Lord, Grcywiil, Odiham, Hants. 

 Talbot, C. R. Manscl, M.P., Margam Park, Neath, S.W. 

 K< mp, James, < !., Liverpool 

 Smahpiecc, Job, Comptun, Guildford, Surrey 

 Small iliam llaydon, Guildford, Surrey 



Haydon, Joseph, Guildford, Surrey 

 Cimpbell, Major T. E. t;th, or Queen's Own Hussars), Ken 11*. 



worth, Warwickshire 

 Martin, F. P. Hrouncker, Compton Home, Salisbury 

 St. Germans, Earl of, Port Bitot, Dcvonport 

 Campbell, John H., Exton, Bishop*! Waltham, Hants. 

 Downing, John, Wick, Worcester 

 Drummond, Henry, Albury Park, Guildford, Surrey 

 Gosling, Thomas, 10, Chandos-strcct, CavendUh-squarc 

 Dc Grey, Hon. Brownlow N. Osborn, Fawlcy, Southampton 

 Dc (Jr. y, Hon. and Rev. Frederick, Copdock Rectory, Ipswich 

 Dc Grey, Hon. George, Fawley, Southampton 

 Damen, John Angel, New Farm, Wmfrith, Dorchester, Dorset 

 Owen, William, Blcsington, Ireland 

 Barwell, E. R., Southampton 

 Speke, William, Jordaus, llminster, Somer 

 Tinker, William, Conock House, Devizes, Wilts. 

 Hockcn, Rev. William, Great Endelion, Camelford, Cornwall 

 Jolliffe, Sir William G. H., Bart., M.P., Heath House, Petersfieid 

 Clarke, Charles, Aisthorpe House, Lincoln 

 Sanders, S., Fern hill, Newport, Isle of Wight 

 Coles, Colonel, Wells, Somerset 

 Burrcll, Walter, 5, Richmond-terrace, Whitehall 

 Hooper, George, jun., Co'tington, Deal, Kent 

 Lushlngton, Sir Henry, Hart., 82, Montague- square, London 

 P , Simon Frazer, Fitzhall, Midhurst, Sussex 



lioyer, John, Hints, Tamworth, Staffordshire. 



Finances. — The Chairman of the Finance Committee 

 laid before the Council the Monthly Report of the state 

 of the funds of the Society to the end of the past month; 

 from which it appeared that the current cash balance in 

 the hands of Messrs. Drummond at that time (including 

 a residue of 300/. on account of the subscription of 1000/. 

 received from the town of Southampton) amounted to 

 2358/. j and the capital invested in the public funds to> 

 7700/.: the Council, before leaving Southampton, having 

 defrayed the expenses of the London police, amounting 

 to 125/., and placed at the disposal of the stewards and 

 director of the yard, out of the deposit of 3308/., in the 

 hands of Messrs. Maddison and Pearce, the Society'* 

 Locil Bankers, the sum of 1000/., to meet the immediate 

 claims of a miscellaneous character connected with that 

 department. The Council then proceeded to vote the 

 discharge of .the following claims, as recommended by 

 the Finance Committee : — 

 Contract for the Yards and Pavilion at Southampton (balance 



of account) • • • • • 



Do. Council Dinner . • • • • • 



Do. Pavilion . • • • • • 



Prizes awarded at Southamptii , , . 



Milcace,&c., to the Judges of the Show 



Miscellaneous Bills connected with the Southampton 



Meeting • • • • • • . 60 



Books for the Library . . . . . ,134 



Binding and Carriage of Journal , , . . 160- 



Miscellaneous Bills on general account . . , 296- 



Total j£5051 



Trial of Imtiemknts. — Communications in refer- 

 ence to the trial of implements at Southampton, were 

 received from Mr. Burke, Mr. Smart, Mr. Clayton, and 

 Mr. Comins, and were referred to the Stewards of that 

 department. The Secretary was directed to communicate 

 with the Judges of Implements, and request them ta 

 furnish the Council with a statement of the implement* 

 submitted to trial ; of the results of such experiments as 

 were made ; and, generally, with an expression of their 

 motives for their respective awards; together wiin ft 

 notice of such implements as may, in their opinion, 

 deserve special commendation or encouragement. 



Veterinary Science.-!. New *%*«*"/-*">*- 

 SeweU reported to the Council upon a letter referred to 



1751 

 405 

 5G& 



1 1 1 r> 



354 



