14 



Present State of the Science of 



and, being extremely hardy, are left in tlie ground during winter, 

 and drawn only as they are required for immediate use. They 

 are thought not so good for milch-cows as carrots, but supe- 

 rior for fatting cattle.' We have long had another root, the 

 mangel-wurzel, which may serve, if grown on a part of the turnip- 

 field, to prevent the evils arising from the too frequent recurrence 

 of that principal crop ; and it is well known, if stored up, to come 

 into useful service for ewes with their lambs in the spring. There 

 is a mode which our own farmers have taken towards the doubling 

 of crops, not indeed on one piece of ground at one time, but on 

 one piece in the same year. Between the wheat-harvest in 

 August, and the sowing of turnips in June, there occurs in the 

 four-course system a gap of nine months' idleness for the soil. 

 This interval is filled up, on a part at least of the wheat- stubbles, 

 with a crop of rye, to be fed off green in the early spring, at the 

 time when fresh food is most wanted for stock, and least easy to 

 be procured. So far as this extends we have thus two crops where 

 our forefathers left a naked fallow ; and it may be worth inquiry 

 again how far this system can be extended. But this imxportant 

 subject of the rotation of crops, though much may be done by indi- 

 vidual enterprise, requires such minute attention to so complicated 

 results spread over so long periods, that it is only on an experi- 

 mental farm we can hope to see it fully investigated. 



It might be supposed that when these different stages of hus- 

 bandry had been successfully passed, when the subsoil of a farm 

 had been mellowed, or rather when it had been gradually blended 

 with the soil, and the soil itself might thus be said to have been 

 brought to a double depth, when the surface of the field had been 

 dressed with the most suitable manure, either natural dung, or 

 artificial manure, whether of the mineral or refuse class, had been 

 worked with the right implements, in the right manner, at the 

 right time ; sown with the most productive seed, and, above all, 

 sown in the best course of rotation, when the crops thus prepared 

 had been cleansed either by the hand or the horse-hoe (a method, 

 this last, little known in the south of England, though long prac- 

 tised and approved for the turnip- crop in the north) ; but it might 

 be supposed when the crops had been thus made ready, that 

 nothing remained for the farmer but to await the fostering influ- 

 ence of the sky, the dropping rains and alternate sunshine, until 

 after a joyful harvest, he should reap the reward of his toil at the 

 neighbouring market. Little, however, does the sanguine calcu- 

 lator upon paper know of the farmer's real anxieties and frequent 

 disappointments — of the blights, and rusts, and mildews ; the 

 insects, and the fungi, which falling, as if in an unseen cloud, on 

 his fields, impair, if not destroy the vegetative power which he 

 has so carefully and expensively endeavoured to nurture. There 



