628 



There are many instances In which a farmer, who has 

 obtained permission to break up a field of Grass, has 

 taken crops of Wheat after Wheat off it, until the land 

 would not carry it any more, and then having laid it 

 down for a series of years, till it is refreshed sufficiently, 

 has broken it up again to give it the same treatment. The 

 general rotation on the lias is a three-year course- 

 Wheat, Beans, fallow. The kind of Wheat sown is the 

 Blue Cone or Red-straw Lammas ; generally the former, 

 which seems to be well suited for a stiff clay. Eighteen 

 or twenty bushels per acre is an average produce. This 

 is a very low one for a clayey soir, but it is owing to 

 the extreme state of wetness in which the land lies 

 during six months of the year. If the land should 

 get worn out with this treatment, it is laid down for 

 several years ; a very small crop of seeds is, however, 

 obtained. Occasionally a portion of the land in fallow 

 U sown to Vetches, which are cut for the stock. 

 In some districts a crop of Oats is taken between the 

 Beans, and the fallow, or Vetches. The crops then 

 come round once in four years; viz., 1st, Wheat; 2d, 

 Beans ; 3d, Oats ; 4th, Vetches, or fallow. This form- 

 ation, when compared with the others in an uncultivated 

 state, is certainly one of the lowest in the scale of fer- 

 tility. This is well seen in Wickwar and Yate Commons. 

 The land is covered with brambles and briers, the scanty 

 pasturage being nothing but Sedges and Rushes. The 

 Sloe and the Thorn, indeed, are not confined to the 

 commons ; it is hard to keep them out of the pasture 

 lands. This aptitude to grow Thorns may almost be 

 made a means of laying down the boundaries of the 

 formation. Thus, on going from Alveston to Itching- 

 ton, the Thorns disappear entirely as soon as we step 

 off the clay of the lias on to the rock of the mountain 

 limestone. The has joins on to the gravel and the marlstone, 

 by which it is covered, and to the new red sandstone, 

 the mountain limestone, and old red sandstone, which it 

 'TTV I " noneof these cases but that of the gravel, 

 which has been already mentioned, is that increased fer- 

 tility consequent on a mixture of the two rocks ob- 

 servable. At its junction with the mountain limestone, 

 the soil on the lias is benefited, or otherwise, according 

 as the clay thins off abruptly or gradually from the rock. 

 In the latter case the nearness of the rock to the surface 

 acts as a dram. The improvement, which in some in- 

 stances, I was told, existed in the nature of the soil just 

 at the junction of these two rocks, is due more, I think, 

 to this drainage than to any mixture of the clay and the 

 limestone The lias is the first formation we have 

 mentioned, on which, within this district, the use of 

 lime is sanctioned by experience. On most of the arable 



»h D nt 0n 7n Q n°i ma u°, n ' lime i8 used t0 the e ^nt of 

 !?nn I °x 8 ° J1 bus J hcl8 P er acr *. It is laid generally 

 along the headland of the field on which it is to be 



riv ft g . c °, vered with earth is au ° wed t° s ^k 



Emfr ; 1 h i? 1 " WhlCh ,l ^ CErted ° r Wheded 0Ver the 



ET«p. f u e . CXpenSe ° f limin * and a11 the chief ex- 



«on on wK i Vatl0n '- *? m * de t0 P recede the Wheat- 

 crop, on which principally the farmer depends for his 



VSEll I ^ °,V hiS SOiI > near F"»Pton, with a 

 conoDs instance of the extent to which long experience 



red,e of e th at,0n maJ tC . ach tbe 8ame le8Sons as a k "ow! 

 oW™h I T 6nCe ot&ologj would lead to. It was 



InTih.? J a !T e '? over whose farm J Lad been ™ lk - 



Mg, that a good soil never existed where those shells 



found ni Th n J IB |. ber ° f f ° S8iI 8heI18 in the 80il ) were 

 found in it. The shell was a graphite characteristic of the 



to ^nnTf .t lp 5 n u Ce ,° f the a S ric «lturist had led him 

 to connect the faults of the soil in some way with the 



oncflT ^ ° f th68e 8hel18 - The geologist 7 would a 

 i ? n 8 urh DO fl h h , C DatUre °i thC Sub80il from their P^ence 



rate tn soil °M ? d \ throu S hout this district at any 

 rate, the soil over that subsoil is bad 



THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 



I the Seahouses, Eastbourne, at Is. a rod, which is 87. an 



[Sept. 14 



aere, inching rates, tliheV, andUxe .7bl.» d ie u P ! sTn^haTf' ^^^T^^ 



Home Correspondence. 



Woes of Far m ing.-\ am a little man, with a little 

 land, no experience, very little money, and a very great 

 demand for it. I wanted to make my capital o7l000/ 

 work a farm so as to keep myself and famUy in comfort 



SLt S ?? Pla, ' DS thdr piano ' m ? hm * e h ™°S h 

 groom, and I some good old port in the cellar for myself 



and fnends. Tins was, I think, a very natural desire; 



fa iR?o ! l i.° { m 7 father ' 8 wh0 had been a form " 



in 1H10, and had made a fortune, told me that I misrht 

 be sure to do well, if I was but attentive to my business. 

 Well sir, 1 took a farm of 100 acres two years ago, and 

 iff r g .l eat atten T tion t0 " for a twelvemonth ; but at tbe 

 3, i 1 year X found m y ca P ital al1 gone, although I 

 aff»i f Sl i ?" ? are l Coula ot W ™™7- Seeing that 

 lSw of '"I 60 I"*- " bad turn ' 1 b °™™«- aether 

 took to f»^ J - ° ther - ln - laW ' di « ch arged my bailiff, and 

 of soda pZ DS s J, len . tlncal 'y- I bought guano, nitrate 



turned ont^'ZT??' *"* H ™P°™y > but one 

 charcoal La « a bnckdust - another salt, while chalk, 



otherT TSeVse W eme S d I 3 ' f IC ° Uld ™** 0ut ° f the 

 they were scienHfiTlV ^ D0 8 ood ' but l was told 



I L w'rse off t h. b : U r v : d '. "I' h ried Aem - AQd n °" 

 money, I have spent my" other's and T f- "1 ™? 

 am deeply in debt, ^h.t am i' to "l", 1 "^ WOrse ' ' 

 me that the friend who recommend.,? . U S f eras t0 

 beggarly a trade as farming S^,"' t0 take to D s ° 

 he will not ; in fact, he says &™ '"^i B , at 

 nothing but a strait waistcoat. TnLlTTC^ »' £l 



enough without that, and I hope you win Jvi" 6 T 

 I should tarn to n^-Ed^pl^nZZSS 

 CIt seems to us that the friend is right, and that 2d ^ 

 ^wasted^upon one whose ignorance I eve'n JX""^ 



Allotments.— A stranger hearing that I let land near 



who receives the rent of upwards of 400 allotments for 

 me, was called in, he said not one farthing rent had been 

 deficient in ten years, and that he had more applications 

 for allotments at 8/. an acre near the fishermen's houses 

 than at 4/. near the church, though before the little' 

 tenants broke up the old turf it was called poor, sour 

 land; and B. King said this land at 16Us. an acre was 

 more coveted than land at 6s. an acre on Beechy Head 

 also including rates, tithes, and taxes, though this last 

 land had at that rent yielded the tenant at the rate of 

 forty-eight bushels per acre of Wheat— I think the 7th 

 year after breaking up the turf, which as a sheep-walk 

 does not keep one ewe per acre. The land on the Down 

 was not equally coveted, because it was two miles off, 

 and up an ascent of 500 feet, which could not be accom- 

 plished at the odd hours which the land near at hand 

 profitably employed. I presented, as dessert, to the 

 stranger who objected to 160s. per acre, rent, rates, 

 tithes, and taxes, a Cabbage— one the tenants had just 

 given me— which weighed 22 lbs., produced by means of 

 the manure his fish afforded. If gentlemen would oblige 

 their neighbours by accepting the high rents their neigh- 

 bours would gladly tender them, all parties would be 

 served. Near Penzance, in Cornwall, about 20 years 

 ago, 1000 acres of land were let for 10,000/. a-year ; and 

 Mr. Cuthbert Johnson's pamphlet on liquid manure, sold 

 by Ridgway, says, the Grass lands round Edinburgh, 

 watered by the town drainage, are yearly let in small 

 portions by auction, at from 20/. to 30/. per acre ; 130 

 acres belong toW. Miller, Esq., and the rest to the Earls 

 of Moray and Haddington.-— AT. A. G. 



Wide Drillinf/.— In the Gazette of 6th July, " Home 

 Correspondence," this subject is treated of by "Lusor " 

 referring to your article on the subject in p. 413. Hav- 

 ing referred to it, I now send you an experiment of my 

 own, made last year on Wheat. In farming my own 

 land for the last eight years, I had always used a Suffolk 

 drill for gram crops at 10 inches apart. Last year I had 

 convinced myself that 12 inches would be better, and 

 from 5 to 6 pecks of seed per acre instead of 3 bushels, 

 usually applied; being of the same opinion on this head 

 with Mr. Hewit Davies, who has written on this point. 

 I was, however, induced to make a practical experiment 

 oq a wider drill, through my becoming acquainted with 

 toe results of a crop of Wheat— Golden Drop— which a 

 neighbour had harvested the year before, put in at 2 feet 

 rpart in loc m y brush land ; he reaped a most abundant crop, 

 ^ot having had all the results of his experiment, which I 

 found had been carelessly carried out, until January last 

 year, I had not time to try a similar one at my autumn sow- 

 ing, so I determined to make a spring experiment of it on 

 a close of land that had been part of a coppice wood which 

 I had grubbed up four years previously, but had not 

 had Wheat in it before, and was then preparing for 

 Beans, being heavy rich land, shallow, brush sub-soil. 

 I, however marked out two plots of 10 perches each, ad- 

 joining each other, and had the seed hoed in drills, north 

 and south, one at 1 foot, and the other at 2 feet as 

 follows. It came up well, and progressed admirably. 

 There were no weeds ;-it was hoed at the commence- 

 ment twice. 



.^°- }— ^ e ? d ' R^-straw Lammas— the Wheat which 

 suits this neighbourhood best. Hoed in on the 18th Feb., 

 1843, at the rate of 5 pecks per acre, in drills 1 foot 

 apart, m a direction north and south, on 10 perches of 

 rich heavy land; harvested September following.threshed, 

 cleaned, winnowed, and weighed immediately •_ 



Produce of grain .... , bu ' sh ;, s 



c,'' ght 124 lbs. 



tow r ;. • , • • • . 2?01bs. 



X' tt o j sam P'e and very little tailing. 



*Uh «w„ i 8am u e ,« 3 . N °- t Hoed in same da y. but 



with little more than half the quantity of seed, viz. , It the 



rate of 3 pecks per acre, at 2 feet apart, on 10 perches 



of same land, and adjoining No. I. /harvested tbe^me 



Produce of grain .... 1 bushelJJpecks 



i! r '5, mibs - 



Ti, n . i Sa mple better than No. I. 



ine Ked-straw Lammas is essentially a winter Wheat- 

 the crop, therefore would have been greater had it been 

 put in in November instead of February; or, if I had 

 ^,'W.^, i^ead I and it being' clo'se to he 



»" wor hwhTw attaC , ked U g J eat1 ^ J haTe not ""ugh 

 it worth while to make another experiment as to 2 feet- 



dnlhng, because lam convinced that such a distance 

 could never answer as a universal method, it beingtoo 

 far apart to support itself in exposed situations The 

 above results of No. II. would have been greater had it 

 not been partly laid : the sheltered situation saved 

 from bemg more so. This experiment has? howeve 

 been a useful one. It clearly demonstrates hat \XhZl 

 requtres space to expand its roots in; therefore broad 

 cast or narrow drilling cannot be a correct » hod Mv 



and" abu^ a ■ffi^- ^ ^g^y £ 

 seed only, there wi„ be £ ^tau^ VZ^ 

 expenment may be worthy of your notice when making 



CaZlTnT ■ the "'IT' ! un °erstand <rZ , „f 



Gazette to be in progress, I have thought it well to send 



it yon.- ffenr S T. Davis, WaterhousTnearBath 



Wide Drilling and ^.W^.-Hav?ng recenf' "ob- 

 served in your Paper, and in others, several paraera'ohs 

 on the advantages of dibbling seed-corn, anu o'f „ n P g a 

 much smaller quantity of seed than is usually done it 

 occurs to me that the result of a small experiment I 



not L°L- ? C V f e 'Ti adj ° iDin S m y g«den might 

 not be uninterestmg, and, by confirming previous state- 



3dlv Tt,. . S rains of t 



odly. The quantities per acre 



TABLE No. I. 



Time of Sowing. 



Nov. 18, 1643 .. { 

 { 



Ditto 

 Ditto 



Sort of 

 Wheat. 



Red 

 Lammas. 

 Creeping 



Red. 

 Prolific. 



Quantity 

 Sown. 



One Grain 



Ditto 

 Ditto 



Wo. o 



Ears 



Produced. 



39 



34 

 31 



Grains, 



TABLE No. II. 



918 

 IMI 



TABLE No. III.— Produck pbr Acrh. 



Description 

 of Wheat. 



Quantity 

 of Seed. 



Red 

 Lammas. 



Smith's 



Creeping 



Red. 



121,000 

 grains or 

 six 4-5th 



quarts. 



Quantity 

 Produced. 



I 



Weight Quality 

 per Bush, of Straw. 



66 Bshls. 





60 lbs. 



65 cwt. 



Ditto. 



Smith's 



Prolific 

 Red. 



70| Bshls. 



62 lbs. J 49 cwt. 



Ditto. 66 Bshls. 60 $ lbs. 63 cwt 



In order to form a correct judgment of the abore 

 Tables, it is necessary that I should add some particu- 

 lars. There is no doubt the produce would have been 

 very much greater, had the season and other circum- 

 stances been more favourable. The luss sustained in 

 various ways is far more than any deduction that may 

 properly be made from the above figures, as being the 

 result of a garden experiment. In the first place, the 

 soil, though recently broken up, was unfavourable for 

 the season — a stiff, dark, heavy loam (lying in a clay 

 subsoil), full of vegetable matter and very wet ; the 

 consequence was that about one-third of the whole plant 

 was destroyed by the slug, and the rest was much weakened; 

 again, the long-continued dry weather, although generally 

 favourable for the Wheat crop, in this instance was 

 otherwise, as nearly all the outside plants were injured 

 by the roots being so much exposed, through the very 

 large fisiures in the soil. Although the average nnmber 

 of ears to each grain is about 19, in many caaes only 6 

 or 8 ripened ; the remainder died away, having become 

 loosened from the ground. Very considerable additional 

 loss was sustained by the birds ; for although I had a 

 girl five weeks tending it, yet of so little effect *as it, 

 that in order to secure it at all, I was obliged to cut it 

 quite green, which very much lessened the bulk— of 

 course, not only the measure, but also the weight. 

 have, however, given you the exact result. The sample* 

 and quantities answering to the above Tables I have by 

 me, and may add that I have seen to the matter entirely 

 myself. I intend this autumn planting an acre on tbe 

 same principle. I hope others (practical men), will c 

 induced to do so, as it is by experiment alone that the 

 comparative merits of thin and thick sowing can be 

 ascertained. — E. W. M. , . 



Potato Failures.— 1 quite agree with Mr. Alexanders 

 remarks in page 596, and think the following is a further 

 proof of the correctness of the observations as to the Ian 

 being moist, so as to bring out the latent powers of vege- 

 tation. A farmer near this for some years, and with grea 

 success, has adopted the following plan : — If the seas 

 be very dry he has the manure well watered before any 

 it is put into the drills ; this causes a great moisture it 

 the earth in the drills ; no time is lost in getting u» 

 Potatoes in and closing them up. This year he has 

 most abundant crop, and his neighbours a C0D JP.JL 

 failure whose manure was dry when put into the dn • 

 Where guano and manure have been used together 

 Potatoes, they have answered well this season, and t 

 this reason guano, when deposited in the earth, P rodu ^. 

 a moisture similar to salt when it dissolves in the eartn, 

 or by dampness. — M. A'. * 



What is the action of common Salt on Carbonate vj 

 Lime?— I should be extremely obliged if any of y°« 

 chemical readers would inform me whether salt and c 

 bonate of lime (under the form of sea-shells) wouiu, 



