48 
Some of the Aaricultiiral Lessons of ISGS. 
of the rnost useful of them, and it lias been illustrated by the 
general account already given of the ag-ricultural produce of 
the year. The advantages of early sowing, which enables spring 
sown crops to get deeply rooted before summer, were never more 
apparent than last year. And many a useful crop of mangold 
wurzcl was secured by having been well rooted before May. In 
spite, however, of the promptest and most active management, 
there was a very common failure of the young clover plant last 
year, and an almost universal failure of the turnip crop ; and to 
these two circumstances the "altered cropping" of 1868 and 
1869 is mainly due. The turnip crop is the chief winter main- 
tenance of the live-stock of the farm, and the clover crop is at 
once, to a large extent, the next summer's maintenance, and the 
surety for the wheat crop of the following year. The keep of 
the whole year, and the character of a whole succeeding rotation 
of crops, were thus imperilled by the drought ; and it Avas to elicit 
information on these two points that the following questions were 
distributed : — 
On Autumn Cultivation and Catch Crops. — What attempts have beeu made 
by late or stubble sowings to provide green food during tlic coming winter and 
early spring '? Which of the sowings are most likely to prove serviceable — 
white mustard, rape, stubble turnips, Italian ryegrass, trifolium, rye, or any 
other ? 
On Alterations of Cropping. — If the young clovers have fiiiled, are you 
keeping the old clovers on over 1869? and what alterations in the rotation of 
■crops during that and the next year or two shall yow have to make ? 
To these questions a number of answers have been received, 
and to some of them the attention of the reader has now to be 
directed. It is not supposed that much in the way of direct 
instruction will be derived from their perusal. Farmers are 
everywhere already wide awake in an emergency like that which 
last year befel them. From one leading seedsman I learn that, 
immediately after harvest, an extraordinary demand set in for 
mustard, rape, Trifolium incarnatum, stubble turnips, Italian rye- 
grass, and grass seeds, for early spring-keep. From another 
I hear that they sold of such seeds one-sixth more in June, 1868, 
than in June, 1867, two-thirds more in July, 1868, than in July, 
1867, eight times as much in August, 1868, as in August, 1867, 
three times as much in September, and twice as much in Octo- 
ber. And another correspondent, writing from Norfolk, having 
been twenty-four years in the seed-trade, says, " Never do I 
remember to have sold so much seed after harvest for sowing for 
'winter and spring-keep for cattle." It is plain, then, that English 
agriculturists need no Agricultural Society or Agricultural 
Journal to teach them what to do in a difficulty like that of 
1868. There is, however, always some service done by placing 
