the Farming of the Duckies of Schlesioiy and Holstein. ool 
Without venturing to assume the position of arbitrator be- 
tween M. Tisserand and Professor Wilson, I may be allowed to 
express my opinion that the true test of excellence of different 
systems of agriculture is to be found in the amount of profit 
per acre which they relatively yield to the occupier of the land, 
under circumstances otherwise similar. Therelore it seems to 
me that the tests of capital employed, and expenditure on labour, 
which M. Tisserand makes use of, are open to quite as strong 
objections as that which I have already mentioned against Pro- 
fessor Wilson's test of the theoretical production of meat, not 
the least being the difficulty of comparing the farmer's capital in 
a country where the inventory belongs to the owner, with that 
in a country where it belongs to the occupier. 
The following description of one of the best-managed farms in 
Denmark furnishes a practical illustration of most of the points 
hitherto mentioned. More particularly it exemplifies the three 
chief rotations of cropping to which I have drawn attention ; 
namely, the ordinary shift on moderately light land ; the 
" double shift," as I have termed it, on heavy land ; and the 
cultivation of very light land, with one course devoted to green- 
crop to be ploughed in as manure. Mr. Heide, the owner and 
occupier of Kjaersgaard, the farm about to be described, has 
entirely abolished bare fallow, after a most persevering, and 
ultimately successful, effort to educate his labourers in ridging 
and cleaning his root-crops ; and he is much more advanced 
than his neighbours in the use of improved machinery and arti- 
ficial food and manures. His results must not, therefore, be 
taken as those of an average Danish farmer, for in all probability 
many of his neighbours do not obtain from their land much 
more than one-half the produce per acre that he does. Still, 
what Mr. Heide has already done, others may do hereafter ; and 
it may therefore be useful to urge that, though Kjaersgaard is a 
very awkward farm to work, bare fallow forms no part of either 
of the three rotations pursued upon it. 
Other points will also strike the reader of the following de- 
scription, which I have abbreviated from the article by Mr. 
Hertel, in a Danish agricultural journal (' Ugeskrift for Land- 
maend '). For instance, the artificial manure employed by Mr. 
Heide is in nearly every case of a phosphatic nature, although 
about one-half the land is annually in white-crop. This is 
another illustration of the disinclination of Continental farmers 
to use ammoniacal manures^ — a circumstance to which I have 
referred in former Reports. The excellent system of book- 
keeping adopted and thoroughly carried out by Mr. Heide, in 
common with most of the better class of Danish farmers, has 
enabled me to give his calculations as to the cost of a cow at 
three years old, when about to calve for the first time ; also the cost 
