102 
Li(/]it-Land Farming. 
way. No. 3, which must be the best plant, was mowed off first 
for the beasts in the boxes, generally beginning about the 1st or 
10th of May, and when this field was finished. No. 1, which was 
first pastured, was then mown, and so on to No. 2. As soon as 
the aftermath of the first-mown field No. 3 was sufficiently far 
advanced, the sheep were put on and folded, getting it part and 
part every day. When the second crop of clover got too long 
for being pastured on, it was mown for tliem and thrown over the 
hurdles. By adopting this system, the clover crop was all mown 
once and pastured twice during the spring and summer, which 
was the only preparation needed to insure a good crop of wheat 
afterwards. On their chalky soils this system may not be entirely 
practicable, but wherever it can be adopted with any reasonable 
amount of success, it is by far the most economical management, 
as eight ewes with their lambs can be kept per acre on medium 
land in good order. 
Eighth Year. — IMieat. — In ploughing the clover land for wheat 
the best time is about the end of September, or the first week of 
October at latest. The ploughing is done with a skim plough, 
which cuts off the clover or grass roots from the upper edge of 
the furrow-slice, and throws it in the bottom of the previous 
furrow, so that tliere is no vegetation of grass in the seams, even 
although the land be not sown until the furrow is stale. It is 
a good plan also, indeed an indispensable one in light soils, to 
press-roll the land as it is being ploughed, in order to press the 
furrows together and give a good firm seed-bed for the young 
plants to get hold of. The seed may be sown broadcast, or what 
is far better, the land may be lightly harrowed down to give a 
proper surface, and the seed then drilled in 8 or 10 inch rows, at 
the rate of busliel per acre, and covered with a light harrow- 
ing. In spring, March generally, the land is hoed by the horse- 
hoe, if not too stony or flinty, and if so the hand-hoe is substituted 
and afterwards rolled with a heavy roller, and if annual weeds 
make their appearance a second hoeing may be necessary. 
The principles to be kept steadily in view in the cultivation of 
light soils on the upper chalk, and also on the upper oolite, are to 
keep them clean and rich by alternate crops of roots and grain, 
and to use all available means to consolidate the surface so as to 
prevent tlie drought from penetrating it. The straw-yard manure 
should all be laid on in autumn or winter, and intimately mixed 
with the soil ; for if laid on in spring, or in the early part of 
summer, it will keep the land open, let in the drought, and either 
greatly injure or perhaps utterly destroy the crop. 
The rotation on the upper oolite, as practised by most farmers, 
is to pare and burn two or three years' old sainfoin lea, after 
which they adopt the following course : — 1st, turnips ; 2nd, 
