Farming of Northamptonsldre. 



67 



Many persons contend that on the stiff clay soils the succeeding 

 crops repay for the loss of the year's fallow ; but very much 

 depends upon the mode of cultivation and the nature of the soil. 

 In going over the farm of Mr, Josh. Elkins, a tenant of Earl 

 Spencer's, at Elkington, upon noticing that he cropped his land 

 rather hard and yet kept it clean^ he informed me that he adopted 

 the plan of going over his stubbles in the autumn, and forking the 

 twitch out before ploughing the land; and by regularly pursuing 

 that plan, and with a liberal supply of manure and lime, he had 

 taken six crops in succession. 



I have seen, during the last year or two, the plan adopted in 

 many parts of the county of paring or scarifying the stubble in 

 the autumn, and I have no doubt that it is very advantageous 

 for keeping the land clean ; it operates very beneficially in 

 checking the growth of couch-grass, which, if permitted to re- 

 main in the land until the ensuing spring, will spread its roots 

 rapidly along the surface, and every month it will increase in 

 strength and vigour, and become much more expensive and diffi- 

 cult to separate from the soil. If a little attention were paid 

 yearly to pick out the small patches of couch-grass and roots of 

 docks, &c., a considerable reduction of labour would be saved 

 when the land comes to be fallowed. More good may some- 

 times be done in a dry autumn than can be done during the entire 

 summer, if it be a showery one. For the reduction of annual 

 weeds we must look to the hoe and hand-weeding, combined with 

 good crops of corn ; for, if the corn is strong and vigorous, the 

 weeds will give way. If more attention was given to the weeding 

 of the bean and other pulse crops, that wide-spreading flower 

 " the yellow charlock" would not present so luxuriant an appear- 

 ance in our different crops of spring corn. 



White mustard has of late years been sown on fallow land and 

 ploughed in, as a preparation for the wheat crop. Mr. Peter 

 Love, of Naseby Manor Farm, speaks very highly of it, and has 

 grown two or three crops of it in succession on the summer's 

 fallow, which have been eaten off by sheep ; the land after this 

 treatment producing an abundant crop of wheat. There seems 

 some risk in allowing cattle and sheep to eat too much of it, but 

 Mr. Watts, of Scaldwell, one of the first farmers to introduce 

 the practice in this county, having mown some part of it, and 

 taken it home for his horses, for Avhich purpose he used to 

 employ a bull to draw the cart ; and perceiving one day that the 

 bull ate it very heartily, assumed that the coios would do the same, 

 and while it lasted he gave a portion every day to the cow 

 stock. It is also sown after a crop of pease is off, and then 

 ploughed in as manure for the succeeding crop ; when it grows 

 very luxuriantly and the crop is very high, it is rolled down with 



