1£44.] 



THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 



737 



17ARM 



JT 400/ 



I 



Upper Wellington- street, 



I. — Wanted to Purchase, A FARM of 20 )/. to | earths produces a deep rich friable loam, capable of I of the plant. The onlv reason why we are now 



mSm '*2^f2gZSEZti PWJ"« "—J 'l^fip'ion of crop. We are thus j harvesting our Carrot crop, before the roots have 



taught by .Nature now a fertile soil is produced by ; stopped growing, is their extreme sensitiveness to 

 the mixture of earths which, in their separate state, j frost. This is so great, that it is of ihe greatest im- 

 are sterile ; and we learn how all the unpro- j poriance to secure before night all the roots pulled 

 ductive portions of the sand, clay, and gravel during each day — if they get frozen, though it be 

 within the great triangular area before mentioned merely on the surface, it will be almost impossible to 

 are capable of improvement by the application of 



--Address 



E, t Gardeners' Chronicle Office, 5 



Ccvent-g:Hrden. London. 



7Tm5 COLONISTS" EMIGRANTS, &c. — Mrs. 



X MARY WEDLAKE, vidow of the late THOMAS WED- 

 LAKE, at 118, Fknciilrch stuket, City, informs Emigrants 

 and others that she continues to manufacture those Agricul- 

 tural Implements for which \ier la^e lnsband was so exten- 

 sively patronised by the SetJcrs of South Australia, Van 

 Diemen's Land, Swan River, N>w Zealand, and other British 

 Colonies- The following articles, made in a very superior 

 manner, are kept on sale at the London Warehouse, viz. : — 



Flour-Mills— Bean-Mills 

 Patent Essex Ploughs, 30 sorts 

 Subsoil Ploughs [Col nies 



Threshing Machines for the 

 Drills of all kinds— Scarifiers 

 Vacuum Pumps. 

 Please to be particular in the address, Mary Wsdlakk, 

 118, Fcnchurch-street, London. 



Patent Haymaking Machines 



pressing Machines 



Patent Chaff-cutting Machines 



Oil cake Crushers 



Doable action Turnip cutters 



Railway Wheels 



JSfit ^sncultucal a;ttte* 



SATURDA Y, NOVEMB ER 2, 1844. 



MEETINGS FOR THE TWO FOLLOWING WEEKS. 



Whdnesuay, Nov. 6 — Agricultural Society of England. 

 Thursday, Nov. 7 — Agricultural Imp. Soc- of Ireland. 



Wkdnbsday, Nov. 13 — Agricultural Society of England. 

 Thursday, Nov. 14 — Agricultural Imp. Soc ol Ireland. 



Much as England owes of her prosperity to her 

 mineral wealth, the" value of her subterranean 

 agricultural resources far exceeds it. The 

 means which these afford of increasing the fertility 

 of the surface, and of furnishing profitable employ- 

 ment for the agricultural labourer, have hitherto 

 been too much neglected. Widely as the geologist 

 knows these to be distributed, and highly as he 

 appreciates them, he sees agricultural practice 

 availing itself of them only here and there. Wherever 

 this is done, the result is such as to confirm his con- 

 viction of the advantages to be derived from their 

 more extensive development ; but in these opera- 

 tions the same want of system and of guidance by 

 general principles is observable, which pervades 

 everything connected with agricultural practice. 



Perhaps few parts of the geological series furnish 

 a better illustration of their value than the rocks of 

 the cretaceous system. Our geological maps afford a 

 very inadequate notion of the extent to which these 

 rocks are applicable to the improvement of the sur- 

 face. They exhibit only the stratified or unstratified 

 rock which in each locality is nearest to the surface, 

 disregarding, and supposing to be wholly removed, 

 that loose covering (the detrital deposits of the 

 northern drift) which is of the greatest importance 

 to the agriculturist, and often of great thickness. 

 We see laid down on these maps a main ridge of 

 chalk hills, extending in a north-east direction from 

 the southern part of Dorsetshire to the coast of 

 Yorkshire, and sending off two branches, which, 



chalk and clay. Within this area the chalk is much 

 used, and we may add abused, as a manure in the 

 form of lime. In its unburned state it has long been 

 employed with great success in a few districts of 

 limited extent. To the sands, gravels, and light 

 loams of Norfolk, under the name of M marl " and 

 " clay," it imparts tenacity and calcareous matter. 

 The " marl "is the solid chalk, the "clay" is the 

 transported fragmentary chalk mixed with a variable 

 proportion of clay or loam. Both are generallv 

 found at moderate depths beneath the surface of the 

 land to which they are applied. To those parts of 

 the district where the covering is too deep to enable 

 the farmer to avail himself of them, they are con- 

 veyed by water from pits on the banks of the navi- 

 gable rivers. A cubic yard of rincallon, as the over- 

 lying sand and gravel is called, is frequently removed 

 in order to obtain a cubic yard of chalk or chalk 

 rubble. In the " marl " pit ot a farmer we have seen 

 the chalk covered by sand and gravel IS feet deep, 

 and worked to no greater depth, though it was stated 

 by him that the quality improved with the depth. 

 In the lime-works near Norwich, the covering is 

 40 to 60 feet deep, the depth to which the chalk is 

 worked not more than 60 feet. From the numerous 

 pipes which penetrate the chalk, a very large propor- 

 tion of it is too much weathered, and too much 

 mixed with the sand and clay which fill these pipes, 

 to be burned for lime, and is put into barges for 

 the use of farmers at a distance. The chalk of 

 Kent is applied to the London clay of the Isle of 

 Sheppy, which it improves mechanically, by render- 

 ing the soil more friable, and chemically, by impart- 

 ing calcareous matter with probably a small portion 

 of phosphoric acid, and by neutralising, with form- 

 ation of sulphate of lime, the injurious salts of iron 

 which that clay contains, and which results from the 

 decomposition of the iron pyrites so abundant in it. 

 On other portions of the London clay, constituting 

 the surface of parts of Essex and Suffolk, the farmers 

 have long and extensively used for the same purpose 

 the chalk of Kent, conveyed to them by water. All 

 this shows over how extensive a tract of country 

 chalk is usefully employed in improving clay soils. 



We shall next week inquire into the practical 

 details of the process. — E. \V. 



During the past week we have been busily engaged 



under the name of the North and South Downs, [in Harvesting our Carrot and Mangold- Win- 

 stretch eastward to the Isle of Thanet and Beachv zel Crops. The Dlan we have adopted is that which 



Beachy 



Head. But the agricultural influence of the chalk, 

 or the influence which it is capable of exercising, 

 extends far beyond these limits. Through all that 

 triangular space bounded on the west by the curved 

 line extending from Beaminster to Flamborough 

 Head, and on the east and south by the German 

 Ocean and the English Channel, the chalk, where it 

 does not rise to the surface, constitutes (with an ex- 

 ception which will be noticed presently) the sub- 

 stratum, and is covered by sands, gravels, and clays 

 of later formation. From the rise of the strata 

 towards the west, the beds of the gault and green- 

 sand, which constitute the lower members of the 

 cretaceous series, emerge from beneath the chalk on 

 the western side of the main line of chalk hills, and 

 form a narrow parallel band of argillaceous and 

 arenaceous strata at their base. The excepted area 

 within which the chalk does not form the substratum 

 is the district of the Weald of Kent, Sussex, and 

 Surrey. There, a movement of elevation, having an 

 cast and west direction, has broken up the cretaceous 

 rocks, and brought to the surface the beds of clay 

 and sand below them. The latter occupy the centre 

 °f the Weald of Kent denudation ; the former flanks 

 this central ridge in two parallel bands, between 

 which and the North and South Downs the gault 

 and the greensand occupy the same relative position 

 at the base of those hills which they occupy at the 

 base of the western line of chalk hills. These ranges 

 °/ chalk hills are anything but fertile. Large por- 

 tions of them are in the state of sheep-walk— the cal- 

 careous rock being covered by only a few inches of 

 ught vegetable mould, which supports a short though 

 sweet herbage; and the crops produced on the arable 

 portions are raised at the expense of these downs, by 

 means of the sheep fed on them in the day and folded 

 °n the fallows at night. The purer sand and clay 

 strata of the lower greensand, Hastings' sand, and 

 Weald clay, afford likewise unproductive soils, little 

 prized by the farmer. The gault consists of a mix- 



pi: 

 was shortly described in a late Number of this Paper. 

 It fulfils the three conditions of success in the pre- 

 servation of root crops through the winter — it fur- 

 nishes security from the frost and the* wet, and at 

 the same time provides for a sufficient ventilation of 

 the heaps. 



The harvesting of root-crops is best done by piece- 

 work. The harvesting of a good crop of Carrots has 

 hitherto cost us from 17*. to 25s. per acre — that of 

 Swedes and Mangold- Wurzel, from 6s. to 10*. For 

 this sum the contractor pulls the roots, cuts off the 

 leaves, fills the roots into carts, and gathers and loads 

 the leaves also. 



In the operation of harvesting Carrots the spade is 

 required — it is pressed into the ground, and used as 

 a lever by the right hand, while, by the left, the root 

 is pulled up. Each man lifts two rows as he proceeds, 

 and four men forming a company, eight rows are 

 thus pulled and laid regularly on the ground in two 

 lines. Two women can top the roots — i. e. cut the 

 leaves off them — as fast as this number of men can 

 pull them ; and, leaving the roots in a central row, 

 they throw the leaves into two lateral ones as they 

 proceed. The carts, the number of which, varying 

 according to the distance from the heaps, must be 

 such as will convey the roots off the land as fast as 

 they are ready, follow close upon the cutters ; a man 

 and a boy will be able, under ordinary circumstances, 

 to fill both roots and leaves into them as fast as those 

 already mentioned can prepare them ; and another 

 man and boy will be able to pile the roots up in the 

 heaps, and thatch and finish them off as they proceed. 

 We mention all these details, because it is all-import- 

 ant to the speed and economy of the operation that 

 the forces employed in the different parts of it should 

 be rightly proportioned to each other. 



The leaves, if, as in ordinary seasons would now 

 be the case, they be already withered, may either be 

 left on the ground and ploughed under, or, as on 

 land already rich enough for grain crops, they may 



jure of clay and calcareous matter, highly productive, be carried away to the fold-yard and trod down by 

 b ut, from its tenacity, difficult to work ; while in the cattle. When, as in the present late season, they 

 Portions of the upper greensand the additi 

 Ia rge admixture of siliceous matter to the 



ition of a are still green, they may be used as fodder. As long 

 these two ' as leaves are green they remain useful in the growth 



preserve them through the winter. 



We have but one more remark to make, and that 

 is on the fact that rottenness, when it is owing to 

 any external cause, always commences at any cut or 

 bruised portion of the surface. It thus becomes of 

 importance that the surface of the roots should be 

 cut or abraded as little as possible. The root fibres 

 should not be cut off at all, and the leaves should be 

 cut off so far from the crown of the root, as that 

 they may fall separated from one another. So far 

 as our experience has hitherto gone, if these points be 

 carefully attended to, and if such a plan of harvest- 

 ing be adopted as fulfils the three requisites of suc- 

 cess before alluded to, there is but little risk of the 

 farmer losing much of his crop by heating or putre- 

 faction before the spring. 



THE ANOMALIES OF AGRICULTURE. 



CHAPTER II. 



Could the life of an individual, retaining his fall 

 powers of perception and reflection, be extended very 

 considerably beyond its ordinary span, so that he might 

 have an opportunity of beholding the phases and revolu- 

 tions of human advancement, apart from those personal 

 interests and connections with the world around us, which 

 make its moral growth and progress too co-ordinate with 

 our own, to strike the optic nerve of the miud with their 

 full vividness, it may well be conceived, judging only 

 from the history of the last century, that one of his most 

 striking observations would be this strange paradox — 

 that most of the fundamental and wholesale improvements 

 in the various arts of life, are suggested, produced, per- 

 fected, from without i resisted, deprecated, obstructed, 

 from within. It is a tact not very complimentary to the 

 human mind ; but it is not the less true for that. Whether 

 it be that in eacli p rotes* n there is a sense of self- 

 interest (and that will resist even mathematical demon- 

 stration) mistakenly imagined to be indiggolubly bound 

 up with the perpetuation of existing practice- — or whether 

 from the mere vis inertia of earlv habit, the mind shrinks 

 from the contemplation of a change, and detests the 

 propounder of it — or whether it be partly from both of 

 these, and perhaps other motives combined; yet certain 

 it is that the inventors and improvers in each art have 

 in almost every instance met with the most virulent op- 

 position to their theories, at the hands of its existing pro- 

 fessors. An almost ludicrous instance of this occurred 

 only a f^w years ago, in the remembrance of ail, when 

 first it was proposed, in defiance of the thunder of an 

 army of coach-proprietors, and a navy of canal share- 

 holders, to carry on the traffic of the " human form 

 divine/' and other peri&hable goods, by means of rail- 

 roads instead of sta^e-coaches ; and scientific writers, 

 with singular simplicity, undertook to comfort the 

 alnrmed professors of the art of conveyance, by the 

 assurance that it would prove a national benefit, and 

 that the same outcry had been heard and adjudicated 

 upon before, in their favour, when their speed eclipsed 

 the previous rate of locomotion. Upon the same prin- 

 ciple the ingenious Lord Stanhope moved the smiles and 

 jeers of his cotemporaries in general — but the then naval 

 officers and Lords of the Admiralty in particular — by 

 the insane proposition that a steam-boiler and apparatus 

 might be stowed on board ship, to propel it by means of 

 paddles, even against wind and tide 1 And the remark- 

 able feature in the case of that item in the modern " army 

 of martyrs M was, thai in the general derision, the most 

 solemn and deliberate verdict which assailed him was 

 that of these u experienced naval officers "- — men of ad- 

 vanced practice and professional education — men who, 

 in delivering their opinion, would prelirainarise with a 

 deprecation that mere attachment to habit and usage 

 should be thought to warp or influence their decision — 

 but that really his Lordship's idea and proposition was 

 one of that class that they were bound, after the most 

 patient professional investigation, to pronounce imprac- 

 ticable and preposterous ! But Science, like all Truth, 

 is Eternal ; and eventually, in that slow but certain 

 defeat whi< h Prejudice, with 4i sentence of death written 

 upon its brow/' * suffers at the hand of Time, is forced— 

 by a sort of popular clamour siding at last with reforma- 

 tions obvious to all but the self-interested ; yes, forced 

 upon the profession whose real interest it is, and whose 

 subject-matter it mainly concerns. Yet, not in one gene- 

 ration is the Victory often accomplished ; for Prejudice 

 will sooner die than yield ; and it does die : and thus 

 the laconic writer, who blurted out the queer exclama- 

 tion, M Thank God, old men must die," was not far off 

 the enunciation of a great truth ; namely, that it is by the 

 mortality, rather than the candour or conviction of 

 generations, that improvements and revulutions in prac- 

 tice are accomplished. 



It is difficult to resist this train of reflection, when one 

 reads, and oftener hears, the contemptuous language of 

 some of those who call themselves Farmers of the 

 u good old fashioned school/' in reference to those whom 

 they are pleased to class as M march-of-intellect gentle- 

 men," advocates of Guano and Gypsum, fixers of Am- 

 monia, constructors of Liquid-Manure Tanks, who want 

 to turn a jolly Farmer into a 4i Chemist and Druggist ! M 

 This latter expression, in particular, which wound up a 

 ♦"TTCarlyle's Hist, ot the French Revolution. 



