Oil the Farmincj of Middlesex. 
17 
winter barley, and clover, are sold green to those who fetch 
them, and return manure in their place. Potatoes, mangold, 
and white turnips are the chief root crops, and are drawn from 
the farm bv the purchasers, in London and its suburbs, supplying 
food for man and beast ; this being the great guiding principle in 
the management of this suburban farm. The rent is necessarily 
high. The anxiety of tending stock (or may be, its pleasure) is 
dispensed with, a great part of the produce is sold on the ground 
and removed by others, yet the arrangement of the course of 
cropping requires intelligence and skill, to make the most of 
the facilities and advantages of the power of production, by an 
unlimited command of manure from London. 
Double the distance from Charing Cross, from 7 to 14 miles, 
and the distance from the market reverses the whole system. • The 
farm over 600 acres is with slight exception arable ; part, where 
the loam is deeper ; part, where it scarcely covers the surface of 
the gravel, corresponding in quality with the least fertile parts 
of Hounslow Heath. The occupier of this farm being a person of 
enterprise and energy, the latest improvements in machinery and 
other appliances are introduced. There are Avell-arranged farm 
buildings, feeding-sheds, piggeries (with a preference for pig stock 
as converters of part of the produce in straw, coi'n, and roots into 
manure), a stationary steam-engine, with mill and threshing gear, 
and other appliances attached, together with steaming apparatus 
for the preparation of roots for stock. As few neat cattle are kept, 
the bulk of the root and green crop produce is consumed by a dry 
flock of over 600 sheep. Thus with the exception of a part of 
tbe straw which is sold to jobbers, with return of manure, in 
this case the London markets have little influence on the cultiva- 
tion and management of the farm, the communication with 
London being by road and railway not far distant. The land is 
flat and well adapted for steam cultivation, which has here been 
introduced, and which succeeds well in dry weather, though when 
wet the land yields too readily to the pressure of the machine. The 
key to the rotation of crops is the growth of wheat every three 
years. Thus as a rule one-third of the farm is under wheat, 
one-third barley and oats, one-third beans and peas, clover, and 
roots. The favourite wheat here and on the best of land in 
Middlesex is Chidham, varied with golden drop and others. 
On the inferior, or land near the gravel, the rotation is varied to 
iallow, wheat, fallow, oats, and barley, fallow or a five course, 
with double fallow before the wheat crop ; showing by this 
variation in the cropping the great difference in the quality of 
the soil, due to the depth of the loam by which the gravel is 
covered, and on which the relative fertility of the whole district 
is ruled. 
VOL. V. — S.S. C 
