Experiences up to the end of October, 1904. 161 



have seen, it had been laid down six years previously — an ample time 

 for holous lanatus to show itself had it been there. These facts show 

 how completely our system of rotation springs and destroys weeds and 

 worthless grasses. 



Tht Financial Results which may he obtained from the system 

 of farming at Clifton-on-Bowmont. — I have been often asked to 

 publish the accounts of ray farm. As I have no desire to mislead 

 the farmer (an evU that might often ensue, as was pointed 

 out to me lately by a tenant farmer of great experience), 

 I prefer not to do so. The object of my work is not to exhibit 

 my skill as a stock farmer, or the want of it, as the case 

 might be, but my skill in most economically producing cereals, 

 potatoes, and food for stock — in other words, the introduction of an 

 improved farming system which is calculated to attain these ends. 

 To mix this up with the stock department of the farm would be 

 to introduce an element of the greatest uncertainty, as it is an 

 element which fluctuates all over these islands. Each farmer must 

 observe what can be produced from the soil by my system of farming, 

 and apply to the conditions of his own holding my principles and 

 system, with whatever modifications may be suitable to his climate 

 and present circumstances. All that the farmer requires to do is to 

 visit one of our young grass fields, in which he will always find a large 

 crop of clover and kidney vetch, which is the indispensable base of the 

 system. The steward carries a crop book of each field for the last 

 17 years, so that the visitor can see exactly what the field has been 

 doing, and how it has been treated. The steward also carries a 

 seed book, showing cost of seeds and the mixtures used, and the 

 visitor can learn from the shepherd what stock the field has kept. 

 This year, for instance, the Inner Kaimrig — 25 acres — has kept 

 as much sheep stock or rather more than the grass fields aggregating 

 87 acres of the adjacent farm, which is much bettor land by the 

 way, but which is farmed on the old five course system, and on which 

 the generally used ryegrass and clover mixtures have been sown, 

 and I have no doubt this is a difierenoe that would pretty generally 

 be found to prevail in Scotland. A reference to Rothamstead 

 experimental field, devoted to the rotation of crops, will show him 

 how all the subsequent crops are benefitted by the manurial matter 

 left behind from a large crop of the leguminosae, and for evidence 

 of this he can see the turnips, four years' old grass of fine quality, 

 cereals, and potatoes, all grown without manure other than of the 

 turf grown on the land, and only aided by the manure left by the 

 sheep and the dung of lean cattle, which last is generally applied 

 to the nearest fields to the steading, all the more distant fields 

 having to depend solely on the turf grown on them. The quantity 

 of cake used is so small that the farmer quoted in the Preface 

 considered it to be practically none. What the farmer could keep 

 in the way of stock with the aid of such crops grown as cheaply 

 as mine have been, and what he could make out of the cereals and 



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