On the Management of Barley, 



455 



chalk subsoil. The land is, for the most part, ploughed only 

 once, and the seed sown in March or April. On the stronger 

 lands, on which some years ago a fine malting sample could 

 not be produced (when the old common barley was sown), 

 very good crops of superior quality are now obtained, since the 

 introduction of Chevalier, which has very much superseded the 

 other varieties. 



The Yorkshire and Lincolnshire wolds have of late years 

 become large barley growing districts, and although their northern 

 climate is somewhat unfavourable for producing in perfection 

 that grain, which delights in warmth ; still the system of high 

 farming so extensively carried on in those counties has enabled 

 them to rival, if not excel, some of their more favoured southern 

 neighbours. 



In those districts the white turnip is chiefly grown, and the 

 whole or greater part of the produce is fed off with sheep ; when 

 Swedes are grown, they are seldom or ever stored, but are left 

 standing where they grow, until they are wanted in spring. It is 

 a prevailing opinion amongst the Wold farmers that they obtain a 

 much better crop of barley after white turnips than after Swedes ; 

 whereas a completely contrary opinion exists in Norfolk, so cele- 

 brated as a barley growing county. It may not be amiss to com- 

 pare the different systems, and endeavour if possible to arrive at 

 a correct conclusion. As the feeding properties of the Swede are 

 decidedly more nutritive than those of the white or common tur- 

 nips, it is fair to presume that the manure from sheep fed upon the 

 former will prove a richer fertilizer than that from sheep fed upon 

 the latter. In Norfolk the Swede turnips are generally speaking 

 stored in November and December, and the land is thus relieved 

 from the exhausting effects of a root crop, drawing for so long a 

 period nutriment from it. May not this circumstance explain in 

 some degree why a difference of opinion exists in two districts 

 alike celebrated for good farming and for intelligent agriculturists? 

 After close observation of the difference in crops of barley after 

 Swedes, as compared with barley after white turnips, I must decide 

 in favour of the former ; and I cannot but think that if more atten- 

 tion were given to this subject bv those eminently practical men, 

 the farmers of the Wolds of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, and if 

 the Norfolk plan were fairly tried and tested, opinions, which I 

 am bound to think erroneous,, would gradually give way. Then 

 I believe we should see that most valuable of roots, the Swedish 

 turnip, growing on the best wold lands, producing infinitely more 

 sheep feed, and consequently more mutton, and, from the increased 

 fertility imparted to the soil, producing more barley also ; nor 

 would the advantages end here, although it may perhaps be 

 foreign to the subject to trace it further ; but if the soil be ferti- 



