312 
Tlie Agriculturs of Staffordshire. 
barren. Four plants mark the exact spot where the soil chang^es 
— the furze, the heath, the whortleberry, and the sorrel. Two 
systems are pursued in this extensive district, one adapted to the 
farms which have little or no arable land except the garden and 
potato-field, and the other which prevails on the farms which 
are partly under the ploug-h. A good example of these is a 
large farm of 400 acres at VVever Hill. The soil is mixed with 
chert or limestone flint, and often covers the rocks to a depth of 
only 6 inches. It produces excellent grass when well treated, 
otherwise the best herbage soon fails. The natural herbage of 
these shallow soils resembles that of the Downs ; under good 
management 100 acres will maintain, summer and winter, a 
dairy of 15 cows for cheese ; besides 40 ewes, whose lambs will 
be sold in autumn ; 6 or 7 cow calves will be reared annually. 
About one-third of the 100 acres is under the plough, and is 
under the following crops: — 
Years. Crops. Yeais. Crops. 
1 Turnips. 9 Oats. 
2 Rape. 10 Ditto. 
3 to 8 .. .. Seeds. 
The oat stubble is ploughed up at harvest and again in 
spring, then cultivated and the turnips drilled on the flat. The 
turnips as well as the rape are used to fatten the draft ewes, and 
a portion is removed. After the turnips the land is ploughed 
once in spring and then cultivated previous to sowing broad-cast 
2 lbs. per acre of rape ; at the end of May the seeds are sown 
with the rape, and consist of a mixture of the usual permanent 
grass seeds. The sheep eat off the rape without being folded, so 
as to avoid too much treading on the young grass. The old 
turf is ploughed once only for oats, which are sown the first 
fortnight in April ; the first year's oats are ploughed once 
for the second crop at the time of sowing. This simple and 
inexpensive mode of cultivation is practicable because the crops 
are not liable here to the attacks of wire worms, &c. The usual 
artificial manures are applied to the crops. Bones are indis- 
pensable ; they are applied to turnips and to rape, and in the 
case of oats they increase the crop as well as produce a much 
heavier sample. Good pasture can be retained for years by the 
use of bones. On one farm 1 saw four-year-old pasturage full of 
the best grasses, divided by a stone wall from a field where the 
familiar turf of the Downs has supplanted the more produc- 
tive herbage, because the dressing had been withheld, and I 
was assured by an experienced farmer that 7 cwts. of bones 
applied to this field in January would bring up a plentiful crop 
of clovers the same season. But ihe best practice is to plougli 
up worn-out turf, or rather never to allow it to become so. 
