The Bean-Turnip Falloiv. 



427 



and the latter may be done or repeated even to the time of 

 harvest, so as to leave the crop perfectly clean. The cost of the 

 hand- drilling and raldnn- is ^d. per acre, the bean-hoeing 3.9, Q)d., 

 and hand-weedings \s. (yd. to '2s. ^ it being borne in mind how 

 small a portion of the acre is thus dealt with. For the turnip- 

 hoeing and singling 3^. 6d. only per acre is paid, the drills being 

 at twice the usual distance. The beans are reaped and shocked 

 just before the wheat harvest commences, at As. 6d. per acre. The 

 crop is carried away without any difficulty in avoiding injury to 

 the turnips, which sometimes do not receive their second hoeing 

 till about that time. Precisely the same process as before, of 

 ploughing and scarifying, is then applied once to that part of the 

 land on which the beans stood between the turnips ; then com- 

 mences a m.ost rapid growth of the latter, and the field presents 

 the appearance of a perfectly clean turnip-fallow, with the rows 

 3 feet 7 inches apart. 



Now, as to the cost of tillage. — It has often, upon a superficial 

 view, been much over-estimated, and advanced as a serious 

 objection, but it may be trid?/ said, that no part of the fallow in 

 fact can icell cost less ; for it will be found, by reference to the 

 account above, that the total amount of ploughing per acre is, 

 after all, only 2 J full-acre pioughings, and li full -acre scarifyings, 

 Avith one horse, and 8 loads of fresh manure, at half the cost of 

 that which is twice turned and reduced fine by heating. Apart 

 from this, the extra items of expense belonging to the beans have 

 been enumerated above at 10s., to which is to be added the cost 

 of seed, drilling, carrying, stacking, and threshing — amounting 

 altogether to 145. ; so making the total extra expense 245. per 

 acre, while the cost of the half-crop of turnips (45. 2d.), it will 

 be observed, is exceedingly low. 



I confess that I originally, in accordance with the general 

 opinion, expected some diminution of the following barley crop, 

 and yet I considered I should be compensated by the leans ; but I 

 have, in fact, invariably found it equal to the best upon my farm, 

 and considerably surpassing that after mangold with 12 loads of 

 good rotten manure, the leaves being afterwards ploughed in ; or 

 that after tares, whether mown green or left for seed, and followed 

 by turnips with artificial manure, or by cole or mustard, or that 

 part of the general turnip croj) fed late by a breeding flock. And 

 this I believe is in a great degree to be accounted for by the 

 early autumnal cleaning and ploughing the whole land for the 

 bean seeding, and also the following autumnal ploughing of that 

 part on which the beans were grown, and taking the turnips in 

 the first part of the course for the breeding flock, with cut hay 

 and straw, though without any other adjunct ; also by the long- 

 manure remaining to some extent unexhausted, and moreover by 



