Donaldson's Treatise on Manures, 221 



The sorts which I have enumerated above I have tried, and 

 found to be of first-rate excellence ; and I consider them most 

 suitable for a garden of limited dimensions. They may be 

 either dwarfs or standards, and on walls or espaliers ; and, with 

 judicious management, they may be made to produce an abun- 

 dance of fruit. 



Exeter, March 12. 1842. 



REVIEWS. 



Art. I. A Treatise on Manures, their Nature, Preparation, and 

 Application, "with a Description and Use of the most approved 

 British Grasses ; to which is added a Miscellaneous Article on 

 Farming, with an Estimate and Description of an Example Farm 

 of three hundred Acres, illustrated with Cuts of Farm-buildings. 

 By John Donaldson, Land-Steward ; Editor of the Fifth Edition 

 of " Bayldon on Rents and Tillages," and Author of a Number of 

 Agricultural Essays. 8vo, pp. 416. London, 1842. 



We expressed our high expectations of this work in January last (p. 34.), 

 and its appearance, so far from disappointing us, has exceeded our expecta- 

 tions. It is not, we think, too much to say, that to the practical man it will 

 be found by far the best treatise on manures that has yet appeared. The 

 chapter on grasses shows a thorough acquaintance with the subject, both bo- 

 tanically and agriculturally ; and it contains much that interests the gardener 

 as well as the farmer. 



" The general and very fatal mistake committed in sowing permanent 

 pastures arises from the land not being sufficiently prepared by fallowing 

 and manuring, from the usual dread of expense and labour. No success can 

 be expected from small and tender seeds sown on a rough uncultivated 

 surface, unreduced by culture, and abounding in weeds ; the land must be 

 enriched by manuring, reduced by working to a fine tilth, and thoroughly 

 cleaned from any weeds that may interrupt the growth of the tender plants. 

 This purpose may be effected by summer fallowing the land, or by fallowing 

 by green crops, by which methods the land will be ready in August, or in 

 April after the green crop has been removed. The soil must be completely 

 wrought and cleaned, and every stone and weed removed, and the land 

 enriched by manuring and also by a previous improving rotation. Experience, 

 or opinion at least, seems to prefer to sow the seeds without a corn crop. 



" Experience has long ago confirmed the important fact, that permanent 

 pastures are unprofitable, and that all lands where the plough can work are 

 more useful under a system of alternate cultivation. If any exceptions occur 

 in the case of the most valuable pastures, it must be remembered, that the 

 rich herbage on such lands has been formed by nature, and can hardby be 

 improved by art, or reformed by human skill. The inferior or smaller grasses 

 constitute the short sweet herbage on the dry and elevated downs of South 

 Britain, which have likewise been formed by nature, and which, if broken up, 

 it might be impossible to clothe with verdure during the lapse of many ages. 

 Inferior lands, both wet and dry, will not bear a good sound herbage, and any 

 attempts to produce it permanently by cultivation will prove abortive. The 

 grasses useful for culture are confined to those plants which will yield in one 

 year a produce that proves the most valuable in quantity and quality, these 

 latter properties being very considerably modified by other circumstances that 

 are inseparable from vegetable growth. Great bulk of produce can rarely be 



