104 
Light-Land Farming. 
of Scotland is the five or Northumberland course, which consists 
on the poorer soils of turnips, barley, two years' pasture, and 
oats. On some of the better portions wheat is substituted for a 
part of the barley. In some cases, however, where a portion of 
a farm is high-lying and inaccessible, the pasture is continued for 
four or even five years, after which two crops of oats are taken in 
succession, followed by turnips, barley, and seeds. 
On most light-land farms, especially on the trap hills, the 
quality of the soil is very various — the higher fields being thin 
and poor, while the lower ones are deep and fertile, and fit for 
wlieat and clover. When this occurs the better is farmed some- 
times in fives and sometimes in sixes. The former rotation is 
not that mentioned in the previous paragraph, but consists of 
potatoes, wheat, barley, clover, and oats, one of the most scourging 
courses of husbandry that ever was devised. Some farmers 
mitigate the evils of the rotation by substituting turnips for the 
potatoes, and eating half the crop off with slicep ; but it is only by 
heavy manuring and a very careful cultivation that the land is 
kept clean and in good condition. The six course is far better 
in every respect, for, although it requires liberal manuring, the 
land is easily kept clean. It consists of turnips, barley, clover, 
oats, potatoes, wheat. The best mode therefore of manuring a 
farm composed of both descriptions of soil is to have the inferior 
going in fives, and the good land in sixes, and if these are about 
equally divided the arrangement of the crops on a farm of, say 
480 acres, will be as follows : — 
Good Land. 
Acres. 
Inferior Land. 
Acres. 
48 
40 
Grass (pastured) 
. 48 
. 40 
Ditto (second harvest) . 
. 48 
Potatoes and beans . 
. 40 
Wheat .... 
240 
240 
By this arrangement there will be 
88 acres of turnips, 
216 corn. 
40 ,, clover. 
96 acres of pasture-grass. 
20 beans. 
20 ,, potatoes. 
The only drawback to this combination of two rotations of 
unequal periods is, that the same fields of the good and inferior 
land cannot be systematically kept going together, or cultivated 
with the same crops in the same year ; and it may therefore 
happen that the farthest-off fields from the steading may all be in 
green crops at the same time, and when this does occur the 
labour of carting manure and roots is nearly doubled, whereas, 
