88 



On CroppiJig and Cultivating Light Land* 



kind, we may soon be able to overrule this objection, but, at pre- 

 sent, a wheat-crop cannot be built upon so secure a basis as that 

 of a good clover ley. The pecuniary advantage of a pulse-crop, 

 beyond that of a crop of hay, with the quantity of sheep-feed 

 which generally follows when the land is highly cultivated and 

 manured, ) is less than might be imagined ; it cannot be reckoned 

 at more than 1/. per acre, upon a fair average. The hay-crop, 

 with its after-feed, is worth at least 4/., and 4 quarters of beans 

 or peas, at 30^. per quarter, making 6/. per acre, is certainly a 

 good average. Then the expense of growing the pulse is from 

 10^. to 1/. greater than that of growing hay, and the land is left 

 in worse condition for wheat. It must also be remembered, on 

 the other hand that clover cannot be grown every four years, 

 though rye-grass, Dutch clover, and trefoil can ; but a ley should 

 be made without rye-grass if possible, as it takes up nearly the 

 same mineral constituents as are so much required to give stiff- 

 ness to the wheat-straw. Therefore, in making this deviation, 

 great attention should be paid to the prospective advantage or 

 disadvantage to the succeeding wheat-crop. By dividing the 

 quarter assigned to clover, &c., into one moiety planted with 

 grass and the other with peas or beans, better leys can be se- 

 cured, as clover need then be sown but once in eight years on 

 the same moiety, which will remain an advantage so long as 

 clover continues to baffle every effort to make it a more constant 

 and a more secure crop. When beans are to be followed by 

 wheat it is a great advantage to the wheat to manure them rather 

 heavily with woollen rags, tanyard hair, or any other powerful 

 manure which does not decompose quickly enough to be more 

 than partially appropriated by the bean-crop, and which con- 

 tinues to decompose and to afford valuable constituents for the 

 wheat-plant. As has been said before, and as all farmers know, 

 the great evil to be apprehended in wheat after beans is its being 

 rootfallen, and the most searching attention should be given to 

 find some panacea for so fatal a disease. On different soils, 

 and on the same soils under different treatment, the remedies 

 must vary, but it is often found that the evil is greatly avoided 

 by planting unusually late in the autumn, and by compressing 

 the soil to an unusual degree. It is of no use to manure with a 

 more sparing hand ; on the contrary, an eminent farmer, living 

 near Guildford, late of Send, Mr. John Drewitt, brother to the 

 gentleman already mentioned, having a field of wheat after beans, 

 which had grown with great luxuriance through the spring, at 

 the time when he supposed it would change its lively green for 

 pale yellow, sicken, and fall, anticipated its wants by sowing 

 broadcast a little guano by way of experiment upon a portion of 

 this field. The yield of corn from the part sown with guano 



