520 
Farming in Devon and Cornwall. 
although one instance at least of its existence carnc under notice. 
A second corn crop, without the intervention of a root crop, or 
fallow, is also rare nowadays, except where, under high farming, 
a better sample of barley is thereby obtainable, or where dredge 
corn (oats and barley mixed) is grown for home consumption. 
Against the first of these exceptions (barley in immediate 
succession to wheat) very little is to be said, because of the 
general admission that the practice results in many districts in 
the production of a finer and more profitable sample of malting 
barley. But the same plea hardly holds good in the case of 
dredge corn, because quantity rather than quality is the chief 
criterion of utility in the feeding-stuff grown for home con- 
sumption. The advantage of this latter practice is therefore a 
very questionable one, especially when the fact is taken into 
account that the previous cleaning of the land for the root crop 
was an expensive operation, and that its benefit may thus in a 
measure be thrown away. As a proof of this, it may be men- 
tioned that it was found on the farms on which the practice of 
taking two successive corn crops was followed that the land so 
cropped was invariably less clean than where the practice did 
not obtain. Thus, whilst the causes which led to root crops 
taking precedence in the rotations have disappeared, the prac- 
tice itself has continued, and is now mainly advocated because 
of its allowing more root crops during the rotation. 
The preparation of lea land for a root crop may be thought a 
somewhat expensive process, but the extra cost is locally con- 
sidered to be repaid by the intervention it allows of an extra 
root crop, and the consequent additional opportunity it affords 
for cleaning the land. The mode of preparation is as follows: 
In the autumn, or early winter, the land is " skirted," i.e. partly skim- 
ploughed. Alternate strips of the sod. ahout l.J inch in depth and 6 inches 
wide, are ploughed over on to the adjoining strips which are not severed from 
the soil. This inversion of one half of the sod on to the other leads to the 
decay of hoth, and renders the work of its subsequent disintegration an easy 
matter. It lies thus for some weeks until the cultivator, or " tormentor,"' as it is 
locally called, is worked across the lines of the previous skirting once or twice, 
or oftener, as may he found necessary. This is followed by heavy or chain 
harrows to break up the old sod and make its strongest portions ready for 
picking and burning. In some districts, and especially in Cornwall (where 
there are few stones large enough to interfere), the next process is " shaving 
or hoeing by an extraordinary implement, 4 to 5 foet wide, strongly resem- 
bling a large Dutch hoe on wheels, which upsets all surface weeds that may 
have sprung up from seed since the previous harrowing. Then follow the 
harrows, and, when all the rubbish has been picked off, the farmyard -dung 
is applied, and ploughed in with a deep furrow, and not unfroquently by a 
digging plough. The land is then rolled and harrowed until reduced to a 
sufficiently lino tilth for drilling, which latter is done on the flat by a drill 
which sows both artificial manure and seed at one and tho samo time. 
