On Cropping and Cultivating Light Land. 83 



which they live, and who will not wield that capital and enerjyy 

 so necessary to unfold the resources and bring forth the real 

 value of the land intrusted to their keeping, Still there is every 

 reason to hope that this first step towards improvement will be 

 universal : it must be a work of time ; but it is already so general 

 and so happy in its results as to justify this conclusion. The 

 greatest change in the management of the four-course s} stem 

 which strikes those who have for some years criticised our agri- 

 culture is the diminution of clear fallow. How is this ? Clean- 

 ness is one of the first requisites in good farming. Are we to 

 break the back of any new system, or of a wise deviation from 

 old customs, by being overgrown with weeds and rubbish ? We 

 shall, unless we are very careful, and most fully persuaded that 

 if a weed is allowed an inch it will soon take an ell, and that 

 those little weeds which creep at our feet demand the full exer- 

 cise of our sagacity to prevent their rising into a fatal import- 

 ance. In the first place, if land is foul, it must be made clean, 

 and that by clear fallowing : there is no escaping the matter — 

 no pains must be spared, and it is of little avail to half-fallovv in 

 such a case. First get the land thoroughly clean, and then keep a 

 vigilant eye upon it to insure its being hept so. The Avriter is v/ell 

 acquainted with a few perfectly-clean farms ; and a practice is 

 observed on such farms, simple in itself, but of inestimable 

 value. Immediately after harvest, every stubble not planted 

 with grass-seeds is looked over carefully by men, women, and 

 boys, to spud up every piece of couch, crowsfoot, or any other 

 weed, which could not be destroyed by being buried by the 

 plough. This is generally done as daywork, but it can easily 

 be let at so much per acre. Upon land subjected, at every 

 opportunity, to this treatment, the cost of spudding the stubbles 

 varies from 6c?. to 85. or 10s. per acre. It is, I believe, uni- 

 versally admitted that couch-grass can be more completely 

 eradicated by the spud than by either the harrow or the scara- 

 fier ; and after this process all the trifling annuals are destroyed 

 by the first single ploughing. To do that by manual which 

 might be done by horse -labour may be thought uneconomical, 

 but its strict economy cannot be doubted by one who has 

 watched the process and seen weeds eradicated ybr Qd. per acre, 

 which would else have been left to multiply in the succeeding 

 turnip and corn crops, or have required a far more costly process 

 of horse-labour, and an omission of the green crop on the 

 fallow. This plan, therefore, is strongly recommended, not as a 

 mere theory, but from its known practical results, and as a 

 necessary step to the establishment of any system which lessens 

 the time usually devoted to fallowing. 



There is a farm in the immediate neia^hbourhood of Guild- 



G 2 



