State of Agriculture in Northumberland. 



173 



which renders the pasture dry and barren during a greater part of 

 summer ; sheep eat it closer, and it is less exhausting to land. 

 Where turnips form so important and cheap an ingredient of 

 winter-food^ hay is not grown to a great extent, farm-horses being 

 fed, during a great part of winter, on straw and swedes with oats. 

 Old meadow-lands are scarcely known in this part of the country, 

 and the hay that is made is from the first year's seeds — from i- or 

 J of the clover- quarter, as it may be — the remainder is fed by 

 sheep, and in the next year the whole is used as pasture. From 

 this circumstance the hay-harvest is less considered here than in 

 most parts of the kingdom, and I regret that I cannot bestow the 

 same commendation in this respect as 1 have freely, but deservedly, 

 given to the cultivation of turnips, for neither the operations of 

 mowing nor of making hay are so well executed as elsewhere. It is 

 true that the modes of making old-land and clover-hay are, and 

 ought to be^ completely different. In one case it cannot be tossed 

 about too much, or made too quickly ; but in the other, to follow 

 that practice would have the effect of shaking out the rye-grass- 

 seed and breaking off and wasting the clover- leaves, which are 

 the most valuable and nutritious parts of it ; it is, therefore, de- 

 sirable to make new-land hay by turning it in the swathe entire 

 from time to time, so as to spread it out as little as possible, and 

 to get it quickly into large cocks and then into pikes or small 

 ricks containing i a ton or more^ so as to stand two or three weeks 

 before putting it into large stacks. The custom of putting hay 

 into pikes is, I am aware, condemned by amateur hay-makers ; 

 still I am convinced it is the safest in the long run, in a climate so 

 variable as ours, and where the hoeing of turnips at the same 

 season requires so much attention. The whole of the hay in- 

 tended to be put into a stack cannot be got ready in the same 

 day ; it is safe therefore to draw into pikes that which is made, that 

 it may stand free from danger till the remainder be made too, 

 so that all expedition may be used in finishing the stack when once 

 begun. There is small consolation in having saved the expense 

 of putting it in pikes, through the hope of stacking it in a day or 

 two without, when a heavy rain causes it to be all spread abroad 

 again and the process of drying to be repeated, with all the loss 

 of quality attending it. If pikes are firmly put up, and in right 

 form, it requires an excessive rain to penetrate more than an inch 

 or two, which is not discernible in the bulk when taken down, 

 and the hay thus managed is less apt to heat too much in the 

 stack. To say that pikes are sometimes seen standing when they 

 are black outside and the clover has grown up around and is 

 spoiling the bottoms, is only to say that some people are bad 

 managers of their property, but is no valid proof of the impro- 

 priety of the custom. 



