272 
Farming of Oxfordshii'e. 
to restore poor worn-out clays, and if well cleaned and dressed 
Avith long:, unfermented dung, they will be impioved for some 
time. The plastic clay may be rendered permanently friable by 
dressings of the chalk which lies just below. In other clay 
districts, lime rubbish, road dirt, sand, ashes, &c., may be applied 
with great advantage, while a large quantity of light soils in the 
county might be greatly benefited by the application of clay. 
The four-course is the system of cropping recommended for 
the clays of Oxfordshire : thus — one-fourth fallow, one-fourth 
oats, one-fourth beans and clover, and one-fourth wheat. The 
wheat is best preceded by clover and beans, as an oat-stubble 
fallow is never kind for wheat. After land is once well drained 
and cleaned there can be no reason why the stiffest clay-soils 
should require a naked fallow ; such soils with care and judicious 
cropping will not be much troubled with couch. Of course it 
IS not recommended to grow all turnips, or indeed to try very 
many of them. There are numerous green crops suitable to 
heavy lands, and for the keep of sheep in the summer. The first 
among these is rye ; then vetches may be sown in September, 
October, and November. Some might be planted in the spring, 
and rape grown in May and June. Then a portion of the wheat 
ought to have been sown with trefoil in the preceding April, and 
a clean stubble drilled with trifolium in August. All these, 
the rye, winter vetches, trifolium, trefoil, spring vetches, and 
rape, as they come in rotation, may be fed with sheep in hurdles, 
and the land afterwards fallowed for oats. After the green crop 
some of the cleanest fields might be sown with mustard, to be 
folded off or ploughed in. No farming will be found profitable 
without sheep. They not only pay very well themselves, but 
they lay a foundation for future corn crops, and by growing 
green-crops, and feeding them on the land, the clay-soils will be 
supplied with that vegetable matter of which they stand so much 
in need. 
Having provided, with the assistance of clover, for the keeping 
a flock on the arable land in the summer, there must be also 
something found for them during the winter months. The best 
crop for heavy land is mangold wurtzel. The chief difficulty in 
cultivating this root is gaining a plant. But, as a matter of 
course, a fine tilth necessary for the vegetation of the seed is more 
difficult to obtain on heavy land. The following mode of growing 
mangolds and swedes on clay-soils has been tried with success. 
Immediately after harvest the land is deeply broken up with 
Biddell's scarifier, or Hart's cultivator, having the points on ; 
next the broadshares are added, and the scarifying repeated across. 
It is then in a perfectly hollow state, and in a very short time 
will harrow well, and the land is cleaned, and the root-weeds 
