536 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



ing it to accumulate in the beast-house 

 under the cattle, mixed with layers of 

 grass and short heather, till the beasts 

 cannot enter. When the house is full the 

 dung is spread over the fields.' Doubtless 

 the islanders of Unst found, in their damp 

 climate, that dung collected out of doors 

 lost all its fertilizing value. At Ockley 

 farm, with the assistance of the grass-land, 

 from one hundred to one hundred and 

 twenty of the best class of Sussex, or De- 

 vons, or Scots, are fattened every year in 

 boxes, built cheaply enough of the timber 

 from the condemned hedgerows, interlaced 

 with furze and plastered with Sussex mud. 

 Though not very sumptuous externally, 

 they are warm and well ventilated. Twen- 

 ty Alderney cows eat up what the fat cattle 

 leave on the pastures (each cow being 

 tethered), and supply first-class butter for 

 Brighton — a market which requires the 

 best description of farm produce. In 

 manufacturing districts quantity pays the 

 grazier or dairyman the best, in fashiona- 

 ble quarters quality. Eight hundred fat 

 Down sheep and lambs, and about eighty 

 pigs, which are sold oflT cheaply in the 

 shape of what is popularly called • dairy- 

 fed pork,' complete the animal results on 

 this Weald of Sussex farm. 



On four hundred and fifty acres devoted 

 to arable cultivation wheat is grown every 

 alternate year, at the rate of from forty 

 to forty-eight bushels per acre. The sheep 

 and lambs, which get fat on the clover or 

 other seeds, assisted by cake, prepare the 

 soil for the alternate corn crops, and have 

 doubled the original produce. The root? 

 fatten the cattle in boxes, and, while they 

 are growing ripe for the butcher, they 

 manufacture the long straw manure, which 

 both enriches the tenacious soil, and by its 

 fermentation assists to break it up. Space, 

 light, and air have been gained by clearing 

 away huge fences, which, besides their 

 other evils, harboured hundreds of corn- 

 consuming vermin. By these and such-like 

 methods, all novelties in Sussex, the pro- 

 duce of the farm has in ten years been 

 trebled, and the condition of the soil in- 

 calculably improved ; and all would have 

 been vain, and much of it impossible, 

 without the adoption of deep, thorough 

 gridiron drainage. This has done in the 

 Weald of Sussex clay what sheep-feeding 

 and drill-husbandry did for the warrens of 

 Norfolk, the sands of Bedford, and the 



Downs of Wiltshire and Dorsetshire. The 

 result, however, is not so satisfactory in a 

 profitable point of view as in light land 

 counties, because, as Talpa has shown in 

 his 'Annals of a Clay Farm,' it is almost 

 impossible on a retentive soil, with any 

 paying number of horses, to gel through 

 more than one-third of the ploughing be- 

 fore winter sets in, with its rain and snow. 

 'I'he cultivators of the farms which from 

 their natural fertility in dry seasons were 

 in favour for centuries, while what are now 

 our finest corn-gjowin^ districts were 

 Moorland deserts, are often beaten by 

 time, prevented as they are by the wet 

 from getting on the land, and obliged to 

 work slowly with three or four horses. 

 Yet on autumnal cultivation depends the 

 security of the root-crops — and the root- 

 crops are like the agricultural ' Tortoise* 

 of Indian mythology, the basis on which 

 rests the rent-paying corn crop. Much, 

 therefore, as deep drainage has done for 

 advanced farmers, on retentive clays, it 

 has not done enough, and they look 

 anxiously forward for the time when a 

 perfect steam cultivator will make them 

 independent of animal power, and enable 

 them, if needful, to work night as well as 

 day during every hour of dry weather. 



Sugar— Theory of High Prices. 



The high prices which have ruled for 

 sugar in the last few years have develop- 

 ed some singular circumstances in rela- 

 tion to production. It seems to have been 

 the case, judging from the results in the 

 countries of largest consumption — United 

 States, Great Britain, and France — that 

 the usual influence of high prices in dir 

 minishing production, has not been felt in 

 sugar, since the consumption has been 

 rather increased than otherwise. Thus 

 18.52 was the low year for sugar. New 

 Oileans (in New York) averaging then 

 $4.84, and Havana brown $5.75. Prices 

 continued to rise, with some fluctuations, 

 all over the world, until 1857 New Orleans 

 sugar in New York was $9.04, and Ha- 

 vana $9.69. These prices indicate the 

 rise all over the world, nevertheless, the 

 consumption of cane sugar in the three 

 countries named was in 1852, 707,000, 

 and in 1857 it was 802,000. Thus, at 

 prices nearly doubled the consumption was 

 greater, apparently, though an immense 



