On the Farming of Suffolk. 



287 



tlie plan of working the remainder. The manner of preparing 

 the land for tm'nips is not uniform in this district, and the practice 

 frequently varies on the same farm, one system being adopted 

 one year, and another the next. If a dry autumn succeeds an 

 early harvest, we shall in all probability see the whole of the 

 fallows cleaned of couch and other rubbish before the clover 

 layers are ploughed for wheat ; but if it happens to be a wet 

 autumn, or a late harvest, the cleaning is of necessity deferred till 

 the spring. The practice of some farmers is to skim-plough as 

 soon after harvest as possible, the skim being either a skeleton- 

 plough fitted with a share of from 14 to 16 inches in width, 

 with three short prongs of iron rising from the share 

 in the annexed form, for the purpose of breaking the ^ 

 land ; or it is a common plough divested of its mould- 

 board, and fitted with one of these broad shares. 

 Upwards of IJ acre of hard land may be thus ploughed with a 

 pair of horses in a day. 



The advantage of the skim-plough over the scarifier in breaking 

 up stubbles is that it will enter harder land, and it does not choke 

 as scarifiers and cultivators do in these soils, from the quantity of 

 hog-grass or wireweed with which the stubbles are sometimes 

 covered after harvest ; besides, the sandy and gravelly soils are 

 more subject to couch than perhaps any other description of land. 

 After the land is broken up with the skim-plough heavy harrows 

 are used to pull the land a little to pieces, and to bring the clods 

 to the surface ; the roller is then employed to break the clods, 

 which generally leaves the land in a sufiiciently pulverized state 

 for the lighter harrows that are now used for collecting the 

 rubbish into rows in regular lines across the field and on the 

 headlands. The man who drives the harrows is accompanied by 

 a strong lad, who assists in unloading them. The rubbish col- 

 lected in this manner is either burned or carted off. The scarifier 

 is now used across the ploughing, and the harrowing repeated, 

 when the chief portion of the rubbish is thus pulled out of the 

 land by the scarifier and collected by the harrows ; any straggling 

 pieces of couch-grass are picked up by women and children. 

 The plan of raking the couch-grass and other weeds from the land, 

 after they have been pulled to the surface by harrows, is some- 

 times adopted ; and, when the land has been finely pulverized, it 

 is a very effective way of collecting the rubbish. Large companies 

 of women and children, accompanied by an overlooker, are often 

 employed either in picking or raking ; and when the couch, or 

 spear grass, as it is here termed, only occurs in small patches, it 

 is very common to have these forked out piece by piece previously 

 to the stubble being broken up. After the land has been cleaned 

 in this manner, it is ploughed in wide stetches (usually 3 rods). 



