Farming of Derhyshire. 



31 



pretensions to anything but utility, are comfortable as a feeding- 

 house for cows, and are good stables when required. 



The greater part of the land in this part of the county is in 

 small estates of freehold. Improvements, if not rapid, are going 

 on. Tileries are common, and pioneer the way to extensive 

 drainage. Farmsteads are defective, and require restoration 

 and enlargement. The farms are of small size, and from 50 to 

 150 acres in extent. 



Few places in the county are marked with greater improve- 

 ment than Morton, near Alfreton ; the soil is on the coal-mea- 

 sures, and varied ; occasionally dry, but most generally requires 

 drainage. The subsoil is open and porous near the village, but 

 the greater part of the parish is a cold, flat, and retentive clay ; 

 it owes its improvement to the enterprise of two medical gentle- 

 men having capital, and skill to use it in well-directed labour. 

 Ten years ago Morton was proverbially a cold and neglected 

 morass : its dykes and hedges wild, its drainage neglected, and 

 its harvests later than any place in the locality. It is now 

 changed, and one section of the parish an oasis, compared to the 

 watery waste around it. Sheep are kept sound where none could 

 live before, and early lambs, sporting in the snow, are browsing 

 on Italian rye-grass equal to any in the county. The principal 

 agent in this improvement is drainage. Dr. Cooper succeeded 

 to a poor and cold, exhausted farm, and immediately commenced 

 operations by calling in the aid of Mr. VVm. Tebbutt, a draining 

 surveyor of eminence, to devise plans for the complete and 

 thorough drainage of the farm. The work commenced at a 

 uniform depth of 2 feet ; and Dr. Oldham quickly followed the 

 example : the latter, however, had some misgivings, and, having 

 read a paper on under-draining in the Society's Journal, 

 changed his plans. The drainage, then, on one farm was cut 4 

 feet deep, 16 yards apart ; the other remained at 2 feet, 8 yards 

 apart. In both cases the 2J-inch pipe was used, and the ma- 

 terial returned into the drain. Presently it was discovered that 

 both drainages were imperfect — both wrong : the one erred in 

 width, the other in depth ; 2-feet drains were too shallow, and 

 the 4-feet drains were put in at too great a distance. After some 

 experience in draining, these two gentlemen came to the decision 

 ''that a drain Sfeet deep, and 8 or 9 yards apart, icas the best and 

 cheapest mode of draining cold clay lands ; and this is now their 

 practice and the general practice of the neighbour hood. The fallows 

 are subsoiled at the winter-ploughing as . deep as the strength of 

 the team will allow ; sometimes with 2 horses only, by an im- 

 plement of much easier draught than Reid's, at one-third the 

 cost. As these medical farms are pointed out as models of 

 agricultural excellence, it may be well to give the course of 

 cropping followed on each : — 



