Some of the A(/ricultural Lessons of 18G8. 
55 
be read in their exposure of the folly of binding tenants to a rigid 
rule of cropping in the cultivation of thoir land. Thus Mr. 
Savidge, of Sarsden, who, with others, relates what has been 
done in the way of replacing failing green crops, and v. bat 
has yet to be done, in the cropping of the coming year, in 
order to avert the difficulties which the drought has raised ex- 
claims: — " How much to be pitied are those who are tied down 
to a system of farming, under which they have no chance but, 
win or lose, to go round with the wheel. Surely 1868 will con- 
vince all who have tried to draw up fitting farm agreements, spe- 
cifying rotations of crops, that to farm well, so as to meet pressing 
wants, is a subject hard to deal with. How happy those must feel 
in such a season as the past, and indeed in every season, who 
are left to do the best they can." — And it is, 1 think, plain enough, 
from what has been already said by correspondents, that this 
liberty need involve no harm to the owner of the land. The 
live stock of the farm which is his great security for the main- 
tenance of its fertility, is now happih' even on the plough-lands 
of the country, so large a portion of the farmer's capital, that 
the provision to be made for it is as much a landlord's as a 
tenant's question. The steam-cultivator and the manure manu- 
facturer come to the rescue of both, when the main root-crop of 
one year, and the main clover-crop of the following year together 
fail. The deep and thorough tillage of our clay lands during the 
drought of 1868 will, no doubt, influence their fertility for years to 
come ; and the bare fallow in place of fallow crops, enforced last 
year upon our lighter soils, followed as it has largelj- been by 
abundant late green crops, owing their produce rather to the 
air than soil, will be equally beneficial. The large dressings, too, 
of guano, superphosphate, and other imported fertilisers which 
Dairies kept on farms contaiuing no watered-meadows produced rery little 
cheese and butter, and owing to tiie scarcity of green food the cattle were fed 
with hay at a great expense, whilst cows fed on the irrigated lands were 
unaffected by the dry weather. — Irrigation may be said to increase the value of 
pasture-land 100 to 200 per cent, in ordinary years. Last year I consider an acre 
of water-meadow was worth at least -t acres of pasture-land.'' 
To this I only add that last year was also remarkable for the superiority of 
sewaged lands over fields receiving dressings of ordinary dry manure. The dry 
season enabled the successful application of sewage to seed crops as well as crops 
of succulent growth. Five and a half quarters of wheat were grown per acre on 
Lodge Farm near Barking on a poor gravelly soil which had borne wheat in 186 7, 
and had had no other dressing than two dressings of sewage of about 400 tons per 
acre each, in April and May of 1SG8. Heavy crops of mangold wurzels, cabbages, 
and potatoes, also of turnips and grass, were produced on land not naturally rich, 
much of it very poir, which had received no other dressing than sewage, and 
which had been rt /bed of heavy crops the previous year. In all these cases 
two and three dressings (more in case of the grass) of from 300 to 500 tons per 
acre each had been applied. But these are quantities so great as to preclude 
the idea of any other mode of application than by ordinary gravitation over 
sloping surfaces from a higher level. — J. C. M. 
