Farming of Lincolnshire. 



359 



and sowing the land with wheat, followed bj seeds or red clover, 

 and wheat a2:ain. It is practised upon some of the best red land, 

 being defended by the assertion, that as much wheat as barley is 

 grown after the turnips, and the wheat after seeds is not per- 

 ceptibly the worse. On the other hand it is said, the seeds and 

 wheat may not suffer in a similar way to those in the same rota- 

 tion on the clay, but this quick repetition of the wheat crop will 

 only be successful for a time, as even on the best warp soils it is 

 not found profitable to sow wheat oftener than once in three 

 years. Whether or not the cultivation of half wheat " upon this 

 land shall be found to fail, it ought not to be prohibited by the 

 landlord; in any case where the general management of a farm is 

 good, and the tenant has a strong interest in and attachment to his 

 holding, a new rotation of crops is a matter of profit, and will be 

 abandoned whenever the bushel measure gives its evidence in 

 favour of a return to the former routine. The proportion of 

 swedes to the whole area of turnips grown is not large. On the 

 limestone soil (at Winterton, &c.) good crops of turnips, wheat, 

 beans, and almost everything else, are produced. A four-course 

 shift was compulsorily the custom of the neighbourhood until the 

 last few years. The tenants are now allowed to grow potatoes, 

 and these are of first-rate quality. The line of sand between this 

 and the carrs was inclosed about the year 1777, previously yielding 

 nothing but gorse; good tillage has made it productive, and there 

 has been an extensive use of lime upon it, which fertilizes the soil 

 and destroys the disease of fingers and toes," to which the tur- 

 nips were liable. The limestone soil is ail underdrained, a last- 

 ing improvement being thus insured ; and the recurring improve- 

 ments, such as the use of artificial manures, are also largely prac- 

 tised. Bones are sown with the turnips, generally dissolved, and 

 thus a newly-invented method has become quickly diffused 

 through the district. Guano is likewise much sown with the 

 wheat, costing 1/. per acre. Generally speaking, the farm- 

 management on the red and limestone soils is of a superior order, 

 and would bear a comparison with perhaps any part of the county 

 or kingdom, having also progressed more within the last ten years 

 than during the previous twenty. 



On the cold and inferior lands the agriculture is more back- 

 ward, notwithstanding the advances that have been made within 

 the last ten or fifteen years, chiefly from the following causes : — 

 The occupiers have continually to undergo losses from the effects 

 of the season, as well as other drawbacks, being seldom able in a 

 favourable year to do more than recover the loss occasioned by a 

 previous bad one; they are consequently unable generally to 

 farm with that spirit which the wants of the land require, and, if 



