14 The Growth of Weeds Absolutely Abolished. 



humus.* But this process must only be continued for 

 four years, during which a turnip crop, taken after 

 ploughing up the grass, should be taken, followed by 

 a cereal crop. Then a root crop should be taken, and 

 the following year the land again laid down to grass 

 with a light cereal crop, and the process of forming 

 a good turf recommenced. Every time that this 

 course is repeated the land will become richer, and 

 the soil more thoroughly and deeply disintegrated by 

 the roots of plants, and therefore more able to yield 

 better and more certain crops, and crops less liable to 

 the attacks of disease ; this especially so as regards 

 the turnip crop, which is Httle liable to finger-and-toe 

 if repeated on the same land only after a long interval. 

 And the formation of this turf will also cheapen the 

 processes of cultivation in two ways, for it is hardly 

 necessary to say that land deeply and thoroughly 

 permeated with vegetable matter is much more easily 

 ploughed and worked ; and I have found that if the 

 land is well filled, when laid down, with a mixture of 

 plants which have a large and powerful root system, 

 the couch grasses are extinguished, or nearly so, and 

 the expense of cleaning the land, when again brought 

 under plough, absolutely abolished.! On the rapid 

 creation, then, of a turf composed of plants calculated 

 to leave the largest amount of vegetable matter in 

 the soil, and of plants well able to resist drought, and 

 contribute by their qualities to keep stock in good 

 health, the future of our farming, so far as the arable 



' Potatoes and turnips have now been successfully grown at 

 Clifton-on-Bowmont farm without the aid of any manure, except that 

 supplied b}' the turf (vide Appendix III.) 



+ For the last twelve years there have been no weeds worth 

 removing. Subsequent experience has shown me that, in order 

 to abolish the growth of weeds, taking a turnip crop after grass is 

 essential ; but, as shown elsewhere, when the farm has once been so 

 thoroughly cleaned that there are no weeds on it worth removing, then 

 the farmer, if his plans make it expedient, may begin his rotation 

 with oats out of lea instead of turnips. 



