xvi. Pr&face, to the Third Edition. 



poor short stock in consequence, can be successfully cropped by 

 a proper rotation ; and that, instead of driving more people off 

 the land to make room for a few sheep, it can be made to give 

 employment to more people, and produce much more and better 

 sheep. This is the first year I have adopted your system as 

 regards cropping, and I am highly pleased with the results so 

 far, as I never had turnips do so well, and the system saves 

 certainly 30 per cent, in labour* and manure. By another year I 

 hope to work much more of my land on your system." 



But the system, which is now widely knowa as 

 the Clifton Park system, will do much more than 

 produce the effects so forcibly pointed out by my 

 correspondent. It will arrest the steady decadence 

 of all British arable soils. For the last thirty 

 years I have had them through my hands on a 

 large scale, from alluvial flats up to thin soil 800 

 feet above the level of the sea, and find an only 

 too ample confirmation of the general complaint 

 of practical farmers. At the first great meeting of 

 400 Aberdeenshire farmers, held more than twenty 

 years ago, exhaustion of the soil was declared to be 

 one of the greatest causes of their difficulties. In 

 the course of discussion with ten leading farmers 

 at Olifton-on-Bowmont last year all seemed to 

 agree in thinking that the soil had declined owing 

 to the exhaustion of organic, or vegetable, matter. 

 With the aid of liming, and a freer and freer use 



* I bave noticed in Chapter VIII. that if labour can be saved on some 

 farms by the introduction of my system, this reduction will be amply 

 made up for by the quantity 'of labour that will be required when land 

 now occupied by worthless pasture is again brought under the plough. 



