Farming of Lincolnsldre. 



379 



4. oats, or sometimes beans, and then wheat again. Dend 

 fallowing is almost universally practised on the heavy land ; but 

 rape is sometimes grown, being fed off early, and the land sown 

 with wheat. It is never left for seed. Only a wiry plant, however, 

 is produced on this soil, and the surface is much too wet in rainy 

 seasons to afford a suitable layer for sheep. In many seasons 

 there is no occasion for a bare fallow, but much of the land that 

 would grow coleseed is not sown, because of the uncertainty 

 whether or not a dry time, and consequently a good layer, may 

 ensue. On the dry land the rotation is — 1. turnips; 2. barley ; 

 3. seeds ; 4. wheat. Swedes are partially grown, but more 

 generally the white varieties of turnip ; and the practice of sow- 

 ing on ridges forms the exception, and not the rule, of the hus- 

 bandry in this district. Artificial manures are rather extensively 

 used upon the limestone soil, but not on the clays. The average 

 produce per acre of wheat is about 3 quarters to 3^ quarters ; 

 barley, 5 quarters ; and oats, 6 quarters ; beans and peas do not 

 occupy any considerable portion of the surface. The common 

 rent is about 24^. or 25^. per acre, but, owing to the great di- 

 versity of soils, often rises to 30s. or upwards. 



Both beasts and sheep are here bred to a considerable extent; 

 the cattle generally of the Lincoln breed, and the sheep partly 

 Lincoln and partly Leicester. There are several most important 

 improvements to be recommended to the agriculturists in this dis- 

 trict. Arthur Young states that the clay land, especially in the 

 neighbourhood of Deeping, &c., was ploughed up into broad 

 arched lands, but the furrows for 3, 4, or 5 yards wide were laid 

 down to grass, and mown for hay, while the crowns of the ridges 

 were under corn. " This management," says he^ is excellent, and 

 much superior to having such miserable corn in these furrows 

 from wetness, as is frequently seen on similar clay soil ; the centres 

 of the lands being high, are dry and fit for corn, and the furrows 

 low and do well for grass.'' Since that time, however (1799), 

 agriculture has progressed too far to bestow a commendation on 

 such piece-meal cultivation, and has discovered a better mode of 

 escaping from the evils of water in the land than that of endea- 

 vouring to lift one half of the surface above its wetness by de- 

 pressing the other half, and subjecting it to a double degree of 

 saturation and stagnancy. Much of the arable land is still in 

 high-backed lands," 8 or 10 yards in breadth; but in spite of 

 this disposition of the surface, the clay continues difficult to 

 manage in wet seasons, and the ploughing is performed by 3 

 horses in length with a man to hold and a boy to drive. 



For excess of water and stubbornness of soil the remedy is 

 the same — sub-soil drainage, which removes the former, and is 

 found by that very process to change and ameliorate the latter. 



