388 
On Climate and the Supply of Labour 
stantly squabbling amongst themselves for the use of any rill of 
water near their farms. When they have got it, they often let it 
run the whole winter over one spot, which is thus made into 
a morass, especially as the cattle are seldom kept out of the field. 
The opportunities of making regular water meadows are very 
frequent, and will be made use of more and more. I have found 
a dressing of five or ten cwt. of bones on water meadows greatly 
to thicken the grass and improve the quality of the hay. They are 
applied as soon as the hay is off, so as to be well trodden in by 
the stock eating the after-grass, and avoid risk of the water 
washing them away when the meadow is flooded in autumn. I 
believe they pay well every few years, as often as the hay shows 
any signs of becoming inferior. My theory, I know not how cor- 
rect, is that the water must contain the other food of grass in 
larger proportion than phosphates. The bones thus make up all 
that is wanted. 
The course on my own farm, which has been arrived at simply 
from experience and the pressure of facts, will, I think, show 
what we are coming to. For nearly twenty years the course, in- 
stead of a regular rotation, has been to choose fifty or sixty acres 
of the worst grass on the farm each year for ploughing. Most of 
this is sown with lea oats ; but if the land is very poor, no oats 
are taken, and then it is ploughed with two ploughs following 
each other, one skimming the grass as lightly as possible, the 
other turning a good furrow of earth over it. It is then broken 
for turnips the next spring. But there is more trouble in getting 
such land prepared for turnips than after lea oats, and the plan 
can only be followed to a limited extent. 
The ewes are folded on the grass meant for lea oats, before it 
is ploughed. But still the oats are usually very bad. The older 
the grass, the worse are the oats. It is plain the sod does not 
rot in time to help the oats. In some districts they grow two 
crops of oats in succession, on breaking up the land ; the first is 
bad, the second good enough, because the sod by that time is 
rotten. But this plan is exhausting, and leaves the land very foul. 
With fifty or sixty acres of turnips we have been in the habit of 
fattening 200 sheep and over 30 beasts, besides keeping 200 
ewes and 200 hoggets of the previous spring, 60 cows, and young 
stock, rising yearlings and two-year olds, about 35 to 40 head 
of each age — enough to stock the farm in the following summer 
with little buying. 
We have the last two years reduced the number of acres broken 
each year to forty instead of fifty, and still fatten and keep the 
same stock as before, with the help of more cake. This of course 
lessens the work of men and horses ; and if, as is said, a ton of 
cake may be reckoned as roughly equal to an acre of turnips 
