The Agriculture of Staffordshire. 
293 
3. Barley ; 
4. Seeds ; 
5. Ditto; 
6. Wheat. 
By dunging the turnips, and folding half of them on the land, 
a good start is obtained for the cropping. 
Talavera wheat is usually sown in February. The barley 
which follows is sown at the usual time, after once ploughing 
the stubble, which is manured Avith 10 or 12 tons of dung in 
January or February. The seeds are the usual mixture of 
clovers with Italian rye-grass, which is so useful on sheep farms 
for its early feed. The first year the seeds are mown, the 
second they are fed. Wheat follows without manure, after 
ploughing and pressing, or consolidating with the Cambridge 
roller. In the case of the four-course rotation, the turnips are sown 
with dung only; little artificial manure is used, the farm being 
within reach of dung from the town. The seeds are nearly all fed. 
Mr. Masfen has a flock of 200 Shropshire ewes ; and at his 
annual sale he disposed of 50 rams, 50 cast ewes, and 50 draft 
theaves. The wether hoggets are fattened. This may be called 
the parent flock of Shropshires in this county, Mr, Masfen's 
father having originated the practice of an annual sale of rams. 
The neat stock consists of six or seven cows, which form the 
nucleus of a herd of about a hundred, young and old. The cows 
calve in October and November. A succession of calves is then 
bought of the cow-keepers and dairy farmers, who supply the 
neighbouring populous towns with milk. The calves are weaned 
at ten or eleven weeks in the winter, when they take readily to 
trough food. In summer the foster mother suckles them a week 
or two longer. From six weeks old their principal support 
during the Avinter months is on cut turnips, hay-chaff, and oil- 
cake. A good cow will rear five or six calves a year. This home- 
reared herd is summered on the pasture and seeds for two years, 
and fattened in yards between December and May. The 
summer maintenance of the large head of stock has been shown. 
Little aid can be got from " snatch " crops, even on light land, 
in this climate. Stubble turnips are occasionally obtained ; and 
common turnips or rape are sown on seeds ploughed up in June, 
when they are deficient. The work of the farm is economically 
done by thirteen horses. The cultivation for turnips is only one 
ploughing, during autumn and winter, to a moderate depth ; and 
spring cultivation, followed by ridging up. 
The economical use of roots by substituting straw and pur- 
chased food is well managed by means of " blend-fodder," which 
consists of the coarsest hay, carted in a partially made condition, 
and mixed in the stack with an equal quantity of good wheat straw 
