598 = 552 
Practical Agriculture. 
The Cotswokl 
Hills. 
Rotations. 
Raftering. 
Paring and 
burning. 
The Cotswold district of elevated plains with intersecting 
valleys, the summits rising to an altitude of 600 or 700 feet 
above the sea-level, has, for the most part, a soil overlying Great 
Oolite or Bath freestone rock, and known as " stone-brash." It 
is of a ruddy brown colour, and varies from deep loam to 
light thin, weak land. The soil on the inferior oolite is very 
similar, but possesses a greater proportion of sand and Lias 
clay. These calcareous soils are of a hollow, porous character, 
requiring consolidation in tillage management ; and a peculiarity 
is that, deep ploughing, so beneficial in many descriptions o! 
soil, is here injurious, by enabling the rains to wash and wastf 
the manure out of the thin stratum of light soil into the porous 
rubble which lies beneath. Another kind of land, of a lightei 
colour and containing but few stones, and sometimes of con- 
siderable depth, is not so fertile in quality as its appearanct 
indicates. 
In this district of large farms, varying from 200 to 1000 acre 
and upwards, the six-course rotation of crops, formerly the mos 
prevalent, has given way to a more general adoption of a four 
field or five-field course, with sainfoin layer on the lightest part 
of the farm for four or more years. Wheat stubbles and oh 
sainfoin lea are scarified immediately after harvest, worked 
and the rubbish burned ; farmyard-manure is carted into heaps 
to be in readiness for application in the spring, though on th 
stronger lands it is put on in the autumn ; the land is ploughei 
4 to 6 or 7 inches in depth, according to the staple of the soi 
and so remains until the spring. In March or April the culti 
vator, drag, and harrow work out what remains of root-weed; 
which are burned ; and mangolds and swedes are plantec 
sometimes on the ridge, sometimes on the flat, with farmyard 
dung and artificial manures. Part of the stubble land i 
frequently left unploughed till the spring ; being then " raftered 
" rist-baulk " ploughed, or half-ploughed (each thin furrow-sli( 
being turned upon an unmoved strip), cultivated across, and tl: 
rubbish burned and the ashes ploughed in. It is common to raft* 
or half-plough sainfoin layers in January and February, foUov 
ing in about a month either with the breast-plough, worked I 
hand, which reverses what was done before, or by a scarifi< 
drawn across the baulks, to cut the slices into sods for burning 
then a light ploughing turns in the ashes, and a second ligl 
ploughing is sometimes given as a preparation for turni] 
sowing. 
This Cotswold practice of paring and burning old sainfo; 
and other leas for turnips is not superseded by the use • 
artificial manures, though pursued to a less extent than it w; 
twenty years ago. Burning dissipates a quantity of vegetab 
i 
