TILLAGE. 



Tlie turf or other land being well ploughed or tilled, and 

 laid dry before Chriftmas, in the following month of April 

 fow the land with four and a half ilatute bufhels of oats, 

 plough and lay it dry in the autumn, and in the month of May 

 and the two following ones, give it-three good tillage plough- 

 ings and harrowings, with lonie rollings, &c. fo as to reduce 

 it well ; being thus drawn up and laid dry, it may continue 

 in that Hate to tiie middle of September ; though made both 

 fine and clean, it fometimes gets an adhefivc and binding 

 quality, and confequently works lumpy, and therefore has 

 the texture and quality which the farmer, by millake, is 

 afraid of lofmg by making his land clean. It is, however, it 

 is faid, in the three above months, when the fun is powerful, 

 that land is to be cleaned by tillage : a ploughing in Auguft 

 is feldom of much worth. 



If manured with lime, lay eighty bulhels upon the acre ; 

 if with dung, ten cubical yards to each acre, either ploughed 

 under at the July tillage ploughing, or before. From the 

 20th of September to the loth of the fucceeding month, 

 fow wheat nine ftatute pecks to the acre, after having 

 foaked the fame not more than eight hours in mild brine, 

 and dried it with lime, to prevent the fmut. The next au- 

 tumn plough the corn ftubble, and at the end of March plant 

 beans or peafe in rows one foot afunder, hand-hoe and weed 

 them. Plough in the autumn, and fow oats in the fpring, 

 and lay down with ten pounds of red clover-feed, four pounds 

 of white Dutch clover-feed, and one peck of rye-grafs-feed 

 to each acre. Manure the land in feeds in the autumn, and 

 let it lie in fward two or three years, as it may be required. 

 At the next breaking up, plant the land with beans, hand- 

 hoe and weed them ; the enfuing autumn fow it with wheat, 

 then with beans in rows, hand-hoe and weed that crop ; then 

 put in oats and lay down with feeds, as before. In lieu of 

 one of the hoeing crops, if the land be not too wet, pota- 

 toes may be planted, which would be found very profitable 

 to the wheat-land farmer ; being very ufeful food for feed- 

 ing or milking cows in the winter feafon. The farmer 

 fhould fallow for the tirfl crop in one tillage, and hoe the 

 next, and fo proceed alternately ; the fummer fun to wheat- 

 lands being certainly ufeful, and alfo the manuring with dung 

 or lime in an alternate manner. Where marie is to be pro- 

 cured at convenient diftances, nothing turns to more profit ; 

 upon ODen foils, with either clay or dry bottoms, marie laid 

 upon the fward in the autumn, and to lie one year, is com- 

 monly the beft praftice, efpecially if the marie be not per- 

 feftly good. Lime is fure to pay well the next tillage 

 courfe. 



On this mode of tillage it is, however, remarked, that good 

 farmers, on light foils, will entertain the plan here prefcribcd 

 with fome caution, and that their apprehenfions of a crop of 

 couch will often outweigh their hopes of a crop of clover. 

 That peafe are precarious ; one week's hot weather v^hilft 

 in blow is often fatal to the crop. 



It is added too, on the authority of Mr. Harries, after 

 noticing the infufficiency of fome fallow tillage lands, that 

 there are many aftive farmers who begin the tillage on their 

 fallows in January, and by repeated ploughings, harrowings, 

 and roUings, bnng them into very good order for wheat. 

 Others graze the lecond year's clover until about the middle 

 of the fummer, and fometimes mow it at that time : if the 

 foil be dry and the fummer favourable, they bring it into 

 very good tillage order by feed-time. It would, however, 

 it is thought, be better tillage hulbandry to raife a crop of 

 turnips on fuch lands, after wheat or barley. If this was 

 done, at leaft in every courfe of tillage, a good crop of wheat 

 would be grown upon clover lays, upon one tillage plough- 

 ing, at a light expence. It is- frequently his cuftora to break 



up his clover lays of the firft or fccond year, if they are 

 tolerably clean, upon one ploughuig, putting upon the 

 plough a cutting tool or inftrument, which is there termed 

 a^ajr orjliiy, that cuts or pares off the furface turf, and lays 

 it in the bottom of the furrow. Lately, a clover lay was 

 worked with this inftrument upon the plough, and after the 

 feed was harrowed in, fcarcely any of the furface turfy 

 matter came upon the ploughed furface, the field looking as 

 well, and appearing as clean, as though it had been fown 

 upon fallow tillage. 



Some, however, on hollow lands, do not approve of this 

 Ikimming or paring tillage ; as dicing the furface of fuch 

 foils they confider much worfe than turning it over in the 

 ordinary manner, and letting the furface vegetable matters 

 be laid into the furrows in a fort of diagonal pofition, 

 though fome of them (liould even appear out in the feams. 

 The notion is notwithilanding probably erroneous, as fuch 

 furface produce is always, in tome way or other, to be rotted 

 and got rid ctf, as in every mode of tillage it is ploughed in 

 or under, and the main point is how to get the moft fpeedily 

 and completely quit of it, and to render it the moft ufeful 

 to the crop which is to be put in. Thefe are certainly the 

 beft and moft fully accompliftied by taking it wholly off by 

 fuch a cutting apparatus, and placing it at the bottoms-of the 

 furrows, which mull alfo Iclfen the hollownefs of tlie land 

 at the fame time. 



In the breaking-up tillage of old grafs-lands, it muft be 

 executed in a manner fuitable to the nature, ftate, and quality 

 of the foil, whatever that may be, reducing and breaking the 

 turfy fward well and carefully down, and clearing it effec- 

 tually from infedls and vermin of all forts by proper crops, 

 fuch as thofe of the pea, bean, teafel, and other fimilar kinds, 

 before the introduftion of thofe of the grain fort. In this 

 way, the lands will not only be the beft wrought into a pro- 

 per ftate of tillage, but the corn-crops the moft efFeftually 

 fecured from the danger of worms, grubs, and other noxious 

 vermin. 



It has been remarked by the writer of theCorrefted Agri- 

 cultural Surveyof the County of Norfolk, that for the laft four 

 or five-and-thirty years that he has examined Weft Norfolk 

 with the eye of a farmer, the change in the tillage fyftem, 

 which has taken place in that vaft arable diftrift, has notheen 

 great. At the early part of that period, the tillage courfe 

 was, it is faid, firft, turnips ; fecond, barley ; third, graffes 

 for two, or, in a few cafes, three years ; fourth, white corn : 

 on the better foils, wheat ; on others rye, &c. The only 

 material change that has occurred, has been, it is thought, in 

 the graftes : the variation, which, it is believed, firft took 

 place from forty to fifty years ago, was (hortening the 

 duration from three years to two ; in both cafes giving what 

 may be called a fort of baftard fallow the laft year, by means 

 of a half-ploughing, foon after the middle of the fummer. 

 Above thirty years ago, the writer, it is faid, contended, 

 both in print and in converfation, againft it, but was held 

 cheap for entertaining any doubts of the propriety of the 

 practice. He has lived, however, it is obferved, to fee this 

 change alfo in a great meafure take place amongft the beft 

 farmers, who now give only one ploughing for the winter 

 corn, whether wheat or tares ; or in the fpring for peafe. 

 That it is an improvement cannot be queftioned, it is thought. 

 The argument for it, founded on the invention ol the drill- 

 roller, and on the introduftion of the drill-plough, is good, 

 it is faid, but not fingular, as the practice of dibbling is like- 

 wife far more adapted to a whole than to a broken furrow ; 

 and for broad-caft common fowing, if we arc able to cover 

 the feed by harrowing on ftiff foils, once ploughed, alTurcdly 

 the fame pradlicc might be better followed on fand. The 

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