66' Farming of Northamptonshire. 



second ploughing that the horses could not go on it for three or 

 four weeks, and should dry weather set in, the land becomes like 

 brickbats ; and before Crosskill's clod-crushers were invented men 

 were employed with wooden beetles to break the clods. Where 

 the land is clean, it is now more general to sow without again 

 ploughing : it affords an earlier opportunity of getting the seed 

 into the ground, and prevents an additional expense in labour. 

 Oats are not grown to any great extent in this county ; when 

 they are grown, they generally come in this rotation of the four- 

 course system, the land receiving the same cultivation as for 

 barley. The quantity of seed varies from 4 to 6 bushels per 

 acre. Oats are sometimes used by farmers who wish to crop 

 their land as long as it will produce a crop, and then oats come 

 to their relief ; for it is a universally admitted opinion in this 

 county that ichen a man has his land in that position that he knows 

 not what to sow next^ he may grow oats. 



This would be the last crop under the four-course system ; I 

 shall now refer to the five and six years' course of cropping. 



Fifth Year, Beans or Peas. — Under the five years' regular 

 course of fallow, barley, clover, wheat, the last crop is generally 

 beans ; the same mode of cultivation is followed as I have already 

 referred to. On some land of a shallow soil maple-peas are 

 substituted for beans ; they are drilled in rows 12 to 16 inches 

 apart, and well hoed during the summer; seed used about 4 

 bushels per acre. They are a very precarious crop, owing to 

 their liability to be injured by the green flies when in flower ; 

 the straw, when well gotten, makes good fodder for horses and 

 cattle. In some localities beans and peas are grown together ; 

 the peas are a large kind, called the " old maple," and grow very 

 long in the straw, entwining themselves around the beans. 



Sixth Year, Wheat. — Under a superior system of cultivation, 

 another crop of wheat is taken after the beans or pease. It is 

 very generally adopted on the deep gravelly soils below Peter- 

 borough, but it is not done to any considerable extent on cold 

 wet land, owing to the difficulty of keeping it clean and in con- 

 vertible tillage without having recourse to a summed fallow. 



Many farmers have been trying to dispense with a naked fallow 

 altogether, by following a succession of alternate grain and pulse 

 crops. I have been on land that has not, for the last twelve or 

 fourteen years, had a naked fallow, where that mode of cultivation 

 has been very successful. Mr. Underwood, of Brixworth, in- 

 formed me that he has some stiff land in his occupation that has 

 been in a continued course of cropping for ten years, and he con- 

 sidered the last crop of wheat the best. Mr. Samuel Taverner 

 showed me a field on his farm at Peterborough, that had grown 

 white and pulse crops alternately for eight successive years. 



