292 



A DISCOURSE 



BOOK III. timber-trees may be excellent, those afterwards coppiced, and the choicest 

 '"-"""-y^ stocks kept shredded. If an inclosure be sowed, the seeds may be, as was 

 directed, of all the species, not forgetting the best Pines, Fir, &c. While 

 the yearly removal of very incumbrances, only, will repay the workmen, 

 who sell the quick, or reserve it to store other inclosures, and soften the 

 circumjacent grounds to the very great improvement of what remains. 



" half a winter crop ; and by observing the next year to change the parts, by sowing the 

 " clover where the cabbage was before, the clover and cabbage do not come round upon 

 " the same ground but once in eight years. 



" Cabbage has been tried several years, but his majesty's husbandmen never got into the 

 " right management till this year ^ but now the crop is remarkably fine. 



It will not be improper to mention, that the drum-headed cabbage is the best sort ; 

 " that the seed should be sown in August, the plants first set out in November, and trans- 

 " planted for good in July. The next thing to be noted is their application : they are cer- 

 " tainly inferior to turnips for fatting, but superior in the increase of milk, either of cows 

 " or ewes, and, therefore, they are particularly good where there is a dairy or a breeding 

 " flock of sheep : and I trust his majesty will, the next yeaning season, try an experiment, 

 " of which I have high expectation, which is to slice or quarter the cabbage, and feed the 



ewes with them upon such of the meadows as want manuring, which I flatter myself 

 " will be of inestimable service to the ewes and lambs, and be the means of increasing the 

 " next year's crop of hay considerably. 



" The true light of viewing these improvements is to consider them as a sort of new crea- 

 " tion to the public: for, as it is a fact not to be controverted, that the reduced number of 



acres in the park, from their improved state, support as many deer and other cattle as the 

 " whole did before, the produce obtained from the farms is all clear gain ; and as the crop 

 " of wheat and rye from the 1 40 acres sown, upon the most moderate calculation, may be 



set at 3360 bushels, and allowing six bushels to a human mouth, this gives a yearly pro- 

 " vision in bread for 560 people ; to say nothing of the fatting off of forty oxen, the breed 

 " of 800 sheep, and the growth of at least 5000 bushels of oats and beans; all of which, 

 " it must be observed, goes in aid of the public market, as the work is done by oxen 

 " entirely. 



"As more experiments are in future made, I may, perhaps, trouble the Society with an 

 " account of them, as I am persuaded they cannot be registered any where else, to give 

 " them the credit, and to excite the imitation I flatter myself they may deserve : but for the 

 " present, I shall close my observations upon his majesty's farms, with a description of his 

 " mill, which I consider as the most benevolent thing that can be done for the poor, and 

 " which I most earnestly recommend to all gentlemen of landed property, who have like 

 " means of doing it. A small over-shot mill is erected, and worked by the waste water 

 " from the lake below the lodge, where a sufficiency of corn, two-thirds wheat, and one-third 

 " rye, is ground, dressed, and given to all the labourers, at sixteen-pence per stone of four- 

 " teen pounds, in quantities suitable to the size of their families, which is the first of all 

 " comforts to them, and a saving of at least twenty per cent, from what it would cost them 

 " to buy it from the mealmen or shopkeepers." 



