On Cropping and Cultivating Light Land. 



85 



and cattle to maturity so much earlier than under the old 

 regime. Rje and tares are also excellent food for ewes and 

 lambs ; rye is fit to feed sooner than tares, and lasts good about 

 a fortnight, after which the stalks become too hard and full of 

 woody fibre. Tares are very nutritious, more so than rye, and 

 can be cut for sheep, cattle, or horses, even when their seed- 

 vessels contain seed. It often happens that more rye is sown 

 than is wanted for food in the spring ; that which is not fed is 

 ploughed in for the root-crop, which is one of the best prepara- 

 tions for roots on light friable soils. The rye may be allowed 

 to grow three or four feet high, and can be perfectly buried by 

 attaching a stout chain to the head of the plough, which, with a 

 sufficient Aveight at the end, folds over the left side of the beam, 

 then passes under it immediately before the skim-coulter, and, 

 with the weight passing along l^etween the last-turned furrow 

 and that to be turned next, the chain pulls every straw into its 

 proper place, and effectually buries the whole without per- 

 ceptibly increasing the draught. 



Turnips or swedes are seldom sown without manure, even 

 after a green crop fed with corn ; certainly they never should be. 

 No crop is more grateful for a judicious supply of manure than 

 a root-crop — none can be more safely treated. If 25 tons per 

 acre are grown instead of 20, and 20 are considered sufficient to 

 feed on the land for the succeeding corn-crop, 5 tons can be 

 removed at a trifling expense, and enable more cattle to be kept 

 in the yard. The manures generally used are farm-yard manure, 

 bones and ashes, superphosphate, and guano. Rich yard-manure 

 is used successfully on any soil, though a little guano is a cheap 

 addition. Bones and ashes, or superphosphate, are used, more 

 or less, in every district, at the rate of about 2 quarters of bones 

 and as many ashes per acre : they are chiefly confined to the 

 sandy soils, the presence of their constituents not being so 

 much needed on the chalks, where yard-manure is of more 

 value : they are generally procured some weeks before the time 

 at which they are required, and are well mixed together. While 

 lying in this state fermentation takes place ; and it is believed 

 that, when well fermented, they are a cheaper manure than 

 superphosphate, which is not in such general use, though still 

 of great value and importance. Guano is very much in use, 

 especially in districts where it would be a serious expense to 

 send 10 or 15 loads of manure per acre to some distant and hilly 

 field ; while 2 or 3 cwt. of guano, costing (sowing and pounding 

 included) 20s. to 305. per acre, is a cheap, and at the same time 

 a very successful, manure. A small quantity is sometimes used 

 with the manures before spoken of, and scarcely ever without 

 success. The crops of turnips grown vary in weight from 10 to 



