Some o/the Ar/ricultural Lessons ri/'lSGS. 
49 
unusual experience upon record : and if only for the sake of the 
juniors among themselves, I have now to give the following 
extracts from m}- letters. Taking the first from Norfolk, as the 
home of English turnip husbandry, the following is a quotation 
from a report by Mr. C. S. Read, M.P. He says of his own farm 
and the district around Norwich : — 
" I have sown ryo, vctdies, wintcr-oats, ti'ifolium, rape, mustard, turnips, tre- 
foil, &c., for sprint; and autumn feed. Tlie early sown mustard is now (Novem- 
ber) very fair, licinf; I'olded olT with sheep, and makes nice feed ; but what was 
not sown till some time after harvest did not come up till the October rains set in. 
The stubble turnips are sown broadcast (with 1 cwt. of j^uano, 1 of superphos- 
phate, and 2 of salt), and will with the shelled corn that has sprung up, make 
some nice feed for the ewes and lambs, tliough the early frosts will prevent the 
turnips coming to any size. I fear all the clovers, trefoils, &c., that I have 
resown arc cut ofi". Some were scorched up by the heat of the September sun, 
and what few weakly plants survived that second drought are now being 
devoured by insects. 1 hope this failure is not general, as a great many 
thousands of acres in Norfolk have been resown with grass seeds this autumn 
at a vast outlay to the farmer. Eye, vetches, &c., look well, and the trifolium 
is also a good strong plant. But I am inclined to think stubble turnips will 
make the best and earliest spring feed, where sown in time ou warm lands. 
" I have not an acre of young clover on my farm, notwithstanding a second 
sowing the last week in August. Where there is any old sainfoin lea, it is 
generally saved for another year, and I have left some clover lea that I intended 
for wheat. I have sown one field wlieat after wheat, another will be barley 
after barley, and in another I shall plant barley after wiieat. I have sown 
some winter beans, and shall grow a few peas where some of the young clovers 
have failed ; but the larger breadth being now under green croji will be eaten 
off in the spring, and will be followed by roots. The result will be a short 
breadth of wheat, a large one of barley ; hardly any new clover next year for 
feed or hay, and a larger extent of green crop and roots. (The two years' lea 
will bear a crop of wheat followed by barley before turnips.) As I can fann 
as I like, I have ' chopped ' the crops about as I please ; but more generally 
I think the failure of the young seeds will result in a generally increased 
acreage of beans and peas next year, so the four course rotation vv ill not be 
much interfered with." 
In the same county, ^Ir. John Hudson, of Castle Acre, very 
early took the alarm, and in a letter written to the agricultural 
papers in August, said, that when his wheat and barley were cut, 
he found the young seeds in the latter all dead from the drought, 
and no feed in the wheat stubbles, so he at once bought up all 
the sainfoin-seed he could find, and also large quantities of Italian 
rye-grass seed, and as soon as the land was cleared of the corn 
crop he set the broadcast-machine to work, and two drills upon 
the barley stubble — the first sowing 1 bushel an acre of the rye- 
grass seed, the latter putting in the sainfoin-seed between the 
drills of barley stubble at the rate of nearly 3 bushels an acre — 
rolling both in with a 3-horse iron roller. The sainfoin came up 
well. This he did over about 120 acres, and thereafter the re- 
mainder of what should have been the new clover lea was dibbled 
VOL. V. — S.S. E 
