182 



State of Agriculture in Northumberland. 



in autumn, and after fattina^ their lambs are again disposed of. 

 Most farms even in this district have portions of hmd v/hich 

 grow turnips, and are cultivated in the five- course rotation previ- 

 ously described, although their produce in turnips is not so 

 certain as that of Glendale and the borders of the Tweed. By 

 the progress of tile-draining much land is now being brought 

 under turnip cultivation and the five-course rotation, where it 

 could not be attempted before ; and a great inducement exists to 

 favour such attempts, as will be seen l3y the comparative rise in 

 the value of loamy and of clay-lands in the early part of this paper. 

 Many fine grazing pastures in the eastern part of the county were 

 converted into tillage, when the exorbitant price of corn during 

 the continental war, and their capability to produce several crops 

 in succession, formed a temptation to farmers to offer, and to 

 landlords to accept, high rents for them. This step has been 

 generally repented of, as it is a short process to break up an old 

 grass-pasture, but the work of many years to restore it. They 

 are still found, however, in many parts with large ridges, high in 

 the centre, and shaped like the letter S, and generally occupied 

 in connexion with the adjoining tillage-land, as at Howick, 

 Embleton, Tuggal, &c., but they are not unfrequently let by 

 auction in the spring to be depastured from May-day to Christ- 

 mas, as at Haggerstone, Lowlin, and various other places, 

 bringing a rent for those months of from 3/. to 5/., and even 6/., 

 per acre. 



The rotations pursued on the best wheat-lands are either the 

 four or the six-course ; both requiring good land and abundant 

 manure to maintain them in any degree of vigour, and now in 

 many parts given up, for the introduction of a more gentle course, 

 with more of grazing and stock ; the four-course is, oats, fallow well 

 dunged, wheat, clover with a light mixture of rye-grass on half 

 the land, and beans, or beans and peas mixed, on the other half. 

 By so alternating them, the clover and beans come each only once 

 in 8 years, and are of surer produce, especially the clover, which 

 does not bear frequent repetition. The six-course is, oats, beans 

 drilled and hoed, wheat, fallow, wheat, clover. There is another 

 course, which, though it may not be very common, I consider 

 applicable to a kind of land which, without being a stiff clay, is 

 much too strong and retentive for growing turnips, and if grown, 

 for taking them off without injury : and as 1 have pursued it for 

 21 years with success, I feel myself more at liberty to recommend 

 it to public notice. I was induced to take into my own manage- 

 ment, though at an inconvenient distance from my residence, an 

 estate of my own on the banks of the Tweed, which had been long 

 subject to a severe course of wheat-growing, and was in conse- 

 quence in an exhausted condition. One part of the farm consists 



