172 State of Agriculture in Northumberland. 



the vigour with which the plants generally come up in consequence 

 of the mode of cultivation : pains are taken to have the manure 

 in a proper stage of fermentation, so that it may be spread 

 smoking in the drills and covered up immediately — a process 

 (that of fermentation) which it is better should go on under the 

 surface than above it, although in a crop like turnips, where the 

 object is to produce an immediate effect, nothing being of so 

 much importance to its success as a rapid and unchecked growth 

 in the first stage, a more advanced stage of decomposition is 

 necessary than in the case of wheat and crops which continue for 

 many months to draw their nourishment from the soil and the 

 manure incorporated with it. The Northumberland farmer 

 places his manure, of whatever kind, in the situation where the 

 plants must at once strike into it, and is the more delighted the 

 greater difficulty he experiences in keeping up with hoeing them; 

 while the mode of sowing, much used in the midland counties, 

 upon a flat surface with a large portion of the dung drawn to the 

 top and left to the influence of the sun and wind, fills him with 

 astonishment. 



Grass-seeds are universally sown by a drill which lays them 

 with great regularity, and avoids all the inconvenience and un- 

 equal distribution occasioned by unfavourable winds in sowing by 

 hand. It is drawn by one horse, and attended by a man who 

 drives the horse with reins while he walks behind the machine 

 and sees that all is going right. The horse walks in the furrow 

 between the ridges, which keeps him in a straight course, and the 

 machine sows to the middle of the ridges on each side, being 

 constructed to sow 12 or 15 feet, as may be required, and to 

 deliver various quantities of seed, according to the amount per 

 acre wished to be sown. All descriptions of seeds intended for 

 sowing are mixed thoroughly together by frequent turning on the 

 granary- floor before being carried to the field and put into the 

 machine. A man and horse will easily sow 30 acres in a day on 

 ridges of 1 5 feet wide. Seeds sown upon wheat are commonly 

 rolled and lightly harrowed ; those with barley are sown at the 

 same time, i. e., previous to the last turn with the harrow by 

 which the seeds are covered, a roller following to leave a smooth 

 surface. The seeds sown consist of a mixture of red and white 

 clover, a little trefoil, perennial rye-grass, and occasionally timothy 

 or Italian rye-grass and cocksfoot ; in the portion intended for 

 hay a larger quantity of red clover is introduced and less of some 

 of the others ; clover-hay is thought to be improved for horse- 

 feed by a mixture of rye -grass, and it is more easily made. 

 There is a description of perennial rye-grass grown in Scotland 

 and Northumberland which is considered preferable to Pacey's, 

 on account of its producing more blade and less of the seed-stalk. 



