122 
Light-Land Farming. 
sixes in consequence of the arrangement of the fields, except 
by a great deal of cross-cropping, which is always injurious to 
the land. A four-course farmer, therefore, who wishes to take 
a longer course, can more easily adopt that of eight years than 
six. Thus turnips, barley, clover, wheat, may be enlarged to 
barley, clover, wheat, turnips, wheat or barley, vetches, oats. 
By this rotation no disturbance of the relative crops will be 
occasioned — all that is necessary being to divide each field into 
two, so as to have eight divisions instead of four. The breadth 
of clover is greatly curtailed, but instead of it there is one divi- 
sion in vetches which will supply a large amount of green food, 
while at the same time the clover, from being eight years apart, 
will yield nearly a half more bulk than by the four-course 
rotation. 
Farming on Light Peaty Soils. — These soils are mostly found 
in Ireland and Scotland, and although the fens of England may 
be said to be of a kindred nature, still the practice of claying 
has so much altered their texture, that they do not properly come 
under that description of land which forms the subject of this 
essay. A fortunate combination of circumstances, aided by 
engineering and agricultural skill, have made our fens the 
wonder and admiration of all who have seen the immense crops 
every year produced upon them. Engineering skill has com- 
pletely drained the lowest levels, and agricultural enterprise 
and industry have altered the texture of the land by turning it 
upside down and claying the surface. The good effects of these 
operations have been greatly increased by the nature of the 
climate, which is so dry as to render the cultivation of wheat 
not only practicable but, in some seasons, highly profitable. It 
is not therefore the wheat-growing fens of England but the light 
peaty soils of Ireland and Scotland to which the following re- 
marks must be held to refer. 
These soils are of very different qualities and texture, and 
vary from a poor light brown vegetable mould to a deep, rich, 
black earth. The former is the product of the decomposition 
of heather bogs which have been drained, and the latter, which 
is of comparatively small extent, of water-fed grasses, rushes, &c., 
and generally situated in the bottoms of valleys, at the bottoms 
of hills on the primitive formations. Heather bogs, on the 
contrary, are frequently found forming large tracts of rather 
elevated land, such as the bog of Allen in Ireland and Moss- 
Mearn or Maren in Scotland. Much of these bogs are utterly 
worthless for arable cultivation, but when drained and limed 
they will produce a considerable quantity of coarse grass, which 
will rear young cattle and horses. Those portions which are 
near the outskirts of these bogs pass into a more earthy soil, 
