

THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE 



*S 



« 



1844.] 



^T^o^e^Tlarly formed and full, growing out ot | plantrd^lhTfiSTtiSVara by rabbits, whiclThT 

 Jch side. The ear was piekedjip a^ Shippool, ™re- fested the ground in great numbers, and which I had not 



693 



E. F. L. 



< *Inre of Captain Herrick.— Cork Can. As a proof 

 i the correctness of Lord Bristol's experiment on 

 SLlev mentioned in one of your late Papers, I send you 

 1 1 above paragraph, taken from a Cork paper, which 

 most probably you may not have seen 



FARMERS' CLUBS. 



| j , crness .—The following are extracts from a com- 

 munication by R. Grant, Esq., of Kincorth, on the into- 

 tin" subject of Reclaiming Sand-hillocks and Beaches 

 h" plantations of Scotch Fir and Larch. We are in- 

 A bted for them to the Inverness Agriculturist, in the 

 columns of which the letter was placed by Mr. Anderson, 

 S cretary to the local Farmers' Club of that district, to 

 bom it was addressed: — "Were my accounts to be 

 W hibited, I do not believe they would entitle me to the 

 Praise of an economical planter ; but my object is rather 

 to describe what I consider I may now deem a successful 

 attempt to clothe pure sand hills with thriving plantations 

 of Scotch and Larch Firs. The ground planted is situated 

 in the outskirts of the well-known tract of the Sand 

 Hills of Coubin, which are so conspicuous along the sea- 

 coast to the northward of Forres. My residence being 

 in the immediate vicinity of that dreary waste, I long 

 felt an anxious but hopeless desire to adopt any probable 

 means by which the barren appearance of the neighbour- 

 hood might be improved ; but for years I could not bring 

 my mind to cherish a hope, notwithstanding the repeated 

 recommendations of friends to plant, that trees would 

 grow on so sterile a soil ; and it was not until 1836 that 

 I at length resolved to make the experiment. The whole 

 plantation covers an extent of about 70 acres, in the form 

 of a belt, extending about a mile in length, and varying 

 from 100 to 400 yards in breadth. Some portions of the 

 ground consist of a flat sandy moor, intermixed with 

 small quantities of Moss, which, when planted, was 

 covered with some coarse Grass and stinted Heather. In 

 other places the soil is of a black gravelly nature. And, 

 with respect to these two divisions of the plantation, 

 there is nothing of peculiar interest to detail, or remark- 

 able in the growth of the plants ; and I shall only allude 

 to them as exhibiting the comparative growth of plants 

 under ordinary circumstances, with that of the trees 

 planted in the sand hills, which extend over the remainder 

 of the plantation. Of these sand hills, or more properly 

 hillocks, I may stite that they are of that description the 

 appearance of which must be familiar to every one who 

 is acquainted with the sandy coasts of the country : they 

 vary in shape in every possible way, and in height from 

 10 to 30 o:- 40 feet. With respect to the herbage upon 

 them at the time when they were planted, they may be 

 divided into three classes: 1st, Those most recently 

 formed from sand-drift, on which Bent alone, and that 

 but partially, grew— quite clean and open about the roots, 

 as Com in a well-cleaned fallow field ; 2d, Those where 

 the Bent, having been protected for years, had rotted, 

 and the ground being afterwards pastured by sheep and 

 cattle, a thick sward of Grass had grown up in its stead ; 

 3d, Those which were in a still more advanced state from 

 their original formation— the grassy sward or crust upon 

 t hern being supplanted with Whins and Broom. The 

 planting was commenced in the spring of 1837, and was 

 continued annually, in portions of from 15 to 20 acres, 

 until the whole was finished. The plants were of the 

 common description of Larch and Scotch Fir— the latter 

 grown from seed procured from the forests of Strathspey, 

 "ey *ere raised by Mr. Grigor, nursery man at Forres, in 

 ni3 nursery there ; and before being planted they were not 

 removed from their native nursery ground to any inter- 

 calate description of soil, to prepare them for transplanta- 



JmUn Y • sand - hilIs - The plants first used were very 



tl * % s one -y ea r-old transplanted seedlings ; and 



L^tlirove remarkably well in the moorish ground, and 



arr^ 1 eDt hi!ls ' where the moisture easily got 



how t P roots of the P lants - In the & rass y P arts » 



of «nffi •' m . 08t of the sma11 P lants withered, from want 



and 11 ' .ft m ° ,sture > or from being choked by the Grass; 



better ; . f ds found that larger-sized plants succeeded 



having J g^und, which I conceive arose from their 

 n g more ■ — '■' • 



to r*3*t J S ? P w,thin themselves, which enabled 

 mencecl "SnS !** lon g er ' and ™til vegetation 



need. -With 



them 

 com- 



parts off 7 aspect, indeed, to these arid grassy 

 as vet '" e . p [ antati <>n, I cannot report that I have been 

 *ry succor h , st ? ndin g "peated planting of the ground, 

 healthy nl • ™ est ablishing a sufficient quantity of 

 of ni»i; . , ! n tne soil ; and I must confess the waste 



I found . V i D > withsm 



the grassy ^1° Y snccess( " ] ' In the second planting in 

 wh ° pared h ' * em P lo yed men to plant with spades, 

 ll "s plan it SU e before P uttin S in the plant ; and 

 although m -Y G found fl ttended with more success, 

 s *ated thatWh- aMy m ° re expensive. I have already 

 the ground • ti! nS a ° d Broom covered certain portions of 

 to remain o *l Se before planting were cut, and allowed 

 P 1 ™s, whirl? i ground > an d have sheltered the 



l'Uc 



*hich hav 



es. Befi 



young 

 generally thriven pretty well in such 

 Mention "h*?™ concludin g this short statement, I may 

 November ■nH 01 ?? P " t3 of the g ro «nd were planted in 



months. I k. V eC i ember ' and others in the s P rin S 

 P er ience that- • hesitation in saying, from my ex- 



in Preferenrl ■ er P Iantin g should always be adopted 



taken the precaution to have destroyed ; and 'an extra 

 expense was also incurred by the cleaning of those parts 

 of the ground which were covered with Whins. But this 

 is the first experiment, so far as I know, which has 

 hitherto been made in Scotland of planting sand-hills, 

 and ray success has been such as I think warrants me in 

 holding out encouragement to proprietors who may pos- 

 sess similar ground along the flat, bleak, wild, and 

 profitless coasts of our country, and who may be anxious 

 to change their barren aspect. Trie most advanced part 

 of my plantation is now seven years old, and I gladly 

 invite any who may feel an interest in the* subject to visit 

 the place, and witness the healthy and vigorous condi- 

 tion of the plants at their present age. It is impossible, 

 indeed, to predict what height or size trees may ulti- 

 mately attain in such soil. I am far from expecting that 

 timber of any great size will ever be procured, although I 

 am sanguine that trees which may be useful for many 

 country purposes will grow on it;* but I think I may 

 safely assert that, in the great object I had in view, I have 

 every prospect in due time of perfectly succeeding, viz., 

 in rendering what was an unsightly desert in some 

 measure ornamental." 



S tow -on-the- Wold — The meeting of this Society was 

 held on Friday week. Mr. Newberry's dibbling-machine 

 was the subject of not a little conversation during the 

 day. It was related that Mr. Harris, of Upper Swell, 

 had threshed out an acre of drilled Wheat, and an acre 

 dibbled by Newberry's machine ; on the drilled acre was 

 sown six pecks of seed, and on the dibbled five pecks ; 

 the drilled produced 26 bushels, and the dibbled 33 

 bushels and a half ; the dibbled Wheat was heavier by a 

 pound a bushel than the drilled — making altogether a 

 produceof upwardsof 30 percent, available for the market, 

 in favour of the dibbling-machine. 



arranged Table at the commencement of the volume ; 

 the number and character of the various instances "f 

 offence, within the period, being given "for each of the 

 several main districts, such as agricultural, manufact-r*'* 

 ing, and maritime, into which the author has divided the 

 country. Besides the technical and professional useful- 

 ness of such a publication, so well-arranged a statement 

 of the condition of a country in one of its most impor- 

 tant aspects, must be of great value in the eyes of all 

 those interested in the statistics of crime. 



Btbfefos. 



The Report on the Agriculture of Norfolk, to which the 

 Prize teas awarded by the Royal Agricultural Society 

 of England. By Richard Noverre Bacon. London : 

 Ridgway, Piccadilly. 

 The diffusion among farmers generally of what is already 

 known and practised by the few of them in our best cul- 

 tivated districts, is in all probability the most efficient 

 method of improving British Agriculture. More good 

 will probably be done thus, and with greater economy 

 too, than by increasing the number or encouraging the 

 industry of the numerous labourers now working on the 

 junction lines of agriculture with the sciences by which 

 it is surrounded. Do not let us be thought to under- 

 value the labours of the chemist or geologist ; the farmer 

 has of late become deeply indebted to scientific men for 

 important suggestions and explanations of practice. 

 There is still, no doubt, room for great improvements 

 in our best systems of farming — improvements which 

 have been, and probably will continue to be indicated by 

 scientific men ; but there is such a great difference 

 between the practice of those who farm well, and that 

 of the many below them on the scale of excellence, 

 that great national good would undoubtedly arise from 

 an improvement in the management of the latter class, 

 though that of the former should for a long time remain 

 stationary. 



If we could find as superintendents, men uniting a 

 perfect knowledge of the system to be promulgated, with 

 a capability of duly estimating the influence of the 

 peculiarities, as regards soil, climate, &c, of the districts 

 in which they would be stationed, then the establish- 

 ment of example farms would undoubtedly be the best 

 method of effecting this improvement. But few, if any, 

 such farms are now in existence, and in their absence we 

 must therefore look to the assistance of the press, and 

 hope for success in the efforts now making to set before 

 the agricultural world the modes and results of the prac- 

 tice of good farming. 



The late Board of Agriculture appear to have been 

 fully impressed with the importance of this kind of pub- 

 lication, and they accordingly addressed themselves to 

 the task of collecting agricultural reports of all the 

 counties in Great Britain ; and a series of volumes was 

 the result, which contain a vast mass of useful informa 

 tion. The English Agricultural Society, after the lapse 

 of o0 or 40 years, are adopting a similar plan, and several 

 county reports have lately been published in their 

 journal. The volume before us is the report of Norfolk, 

 to which their prize was awarded. It was too volumi- 

 nous a production to appear in their Journal ; but, com- 

 paring it with those which have already appeared in that 

 periodical, as it enters into greater detail than any of 

 them, and as it describes a district which has been long 

 celebrated for its agriculture, we hope it will not on that 

 account be the less extensively read and known. 



We shall take another opportunity of directing the 

 attention of our readers to it, more closely and at greater 

 length, simply stating at present that its contents are very 

 interesting and instructive ; and that the authorities given 

 for its accuracy are both numerous and uneiceptionable. 



toents 



The Police and Constabulary List. Parker, Furnival, 



and Parker, Military Library, Whitehall, London. 

 This is one of a quarterly periodical (for the quarter 

 ending September, 1844), intended to present in tabular 

 forms the arrangement and nature of the police force 

 employed in the metropolis, the counties, and provincial 

 towns of Great Britain, together with details of the nature 

 and amount of crime in the several districts in which they 



_ r are stationed. The aggregate of all these subordinate 



7 occasioned by the 'great destruction of I statements for the quarter is represented in a well- 



Miscellaneous. 



Cure for the Distemper in Cattle. — I cannot resist 

 giving a receipt for the treatment of beasts that may 

 take the prevalent distemper. It showed itself last 

 winter in one of my yard stock, by its discharging 

 abundant saliva from the mouth, with sore and inflamed 

 tongue and gums, very dull, no appetite, confined bowels, 

 and very hot horns. I desired the bailiff to give him one 

 half-pint of the spirit of turpentine, with one pint linseed 

 oil, repeating the oil in twenty-four hours, and again 

 repeating it according to the state of the evacuations. 

 At the end of twenty-four hours more, the bowels not 

 having been well moved, I repeated both turpentine and 

 oil. In two days the beast showed symptoms of amend- 

 ment, and in three or four took to "his food again, and 

 did perfectly well. All the yard beasts and two of the 

 fattening beasts have had it (five others I had sent to 

 London before the disease appeared), and all have been 

 treated in the same manner with perfect success. Half-a- 

 pint of turpentine is the smallest, and one pint the 

 largest dose during three or four days. Little food 

 beside Oatmeal gruel was given.— Quarterly Journal of 

 Agriculture. [The remedy above prescribed has been 

 found effectual in this neighbourhood in several cases, 

 even where the disease had attained a considerable 

 height. It was tried with success by a farmer near 

 Donnemana, and many of his neighbours whose cattle 

 had taken the distemper. — Londonderry Sentinel.'] 



Report of the Thorough-Draining executed oh the 

 Estate of Edward Lucas, Esq., Castle Shane, Mo- 

 naghan, by Fitzherbert Filgate, Esq.— The small drains 

 are dug 32 inches deep, 5 inches wide at bottom, 7 at 

 top of stones, and 16 at top of drain ; 14 inches in 

 | depth of stones, which are covered with a Grass sod, 

 about an inch in thickness, the Grassy side downwards ; 

 the remaining 17 inches filled with the earth cast out in 

 cutting the drains. The width at bottom, 5 inches, is 

 greater than is generally to be recommended ; but I was 

 prevented cutting them as narrow as I could wish, from 

 the slaty nature of the stones of the neighbourhood, 

 which does not admit of their being broken small ; as, if 

 reduced below a certain size, they fly into a hundred 

 pieces. The stones being large, the drains were made 

 wider on that account ; and, although I would never 

 recommend the practice where stones which would break 

 cubically could be procured, one advantage is derived, 

 namely, the possibility of catting your drains with the 

 spade in common use in the North of Ireland. In that 

 case the only implement required exclusively for draining 

 purposes, is the scoop or shovel for cleaning out the 

 bottom ofthedrain. After the scoop is used, I have the bot- 

 tom of the drain swept down with a broom ; and the stones 

 having been first carefully riddled, are immediately put 

 ,into the drain : thus, as far as possible, guarding against 

 mud and dirt, either lying in the bottom of the drain, or 

 being introduced into it along with the stones. I con- 

 sider that the sooner the drain is filled after being opened 

 the better, particularly in frosty weather succeeded by 

 rain, such as we frequently have in the early part of 

 winter. If this be not attended to, much waste of labour 

 and stones arises, and each cleaning out the drain, of 

 cjurse, enlarges it. Should delay in filling be unavoid- 

 able, it is prudent to stop up the mouth of the drain with 

 straw, when communicating with other drains, and so pre- 

 vent a run of sand or sediment into them. I never run 

 the parallel drains into an open main drain ; because, 

 the mouths of these drains are sure to be stopped by 

 grass growing at them, by frogs or rats running up them, 

 by cattle tramping, and by the stones slipping, if the 

 drains are on a steep inclination. The expense of main 

 drains is, no doubt, considerable ; but Mr. Smith, of 

 Djansten, having mentioned that main drains, filled 

 with broken stones, were equally effectual with those 

 flagged or arched, I was induced to try the experiment, 

 and have every reason to be perfectly satisfied with the 

 result. The difference in ezpense is very considerable, 

 amounting in my case to 2d. per perch for cutting and 

 breaking stones ; and the difference in the quantity of 

 stones used is immense ; G\ cwt. of broken stones suffice, 

 when 14| cwt. is required for flagging. The small 

 drains are all made 18 feet apart. The main drains 

 were, for the most part, flagged— made 38 inches deep, 

 that is, 6 inches deeper than the small drains ; the open 

 or swallow being G inches wide and 8 deep. Some of 

 the later main drains were filled with broken stones, 

 about 4 inches in diameter ; these drains were also 

 38 inches deep, 9 inches wide at bottom, with 21 inches 

 deep of stones. None of the main drains are of less 

 dimensions than those given above, and some are con- 

 siderably greater. It is, of course, understood that the 

 depth to which it may be necessary to sink a main drain, 

 for the purpose of procuring a proper fall, will depend 

 upon the nature of the ground ; the dimensions given 

 are those supposed to be necessary in the most favourable 

 cases. Iron gratings, like gridirons, are placed at the 

 mouths of the main drains, to prevent the ingress of 

 rats or frogs ; and such a precaution is most necessary, 

 as myriads of the latter especially will ascend and choke 

 the drains, as may be easily ascertained by opening one 



