Farming of Dorsetshire. 447 
mended to plough the strong lands for barley in the fall, that 
the frost may pulverise it. Superphosphate is recommended for 
stimulating the turnip crop, and half-inch bones for permanently 
sustaining it. Spalding wheat is considered most remunerative ; 
white wheats are not considered sufficiently productive, and the 
extra price obtained over reds is not considered sufficient to make 
up for deficiency in yield. The saturation of bones with liquid 
manure, covering them up with ashes for two months, is declared 
to have been found equal to vitriol. Calves are recommended to 
be taken from their dams when eight or twelve days old, and not 
to be allowed with them later than January. 
A Labourers^ Friend Society for the district of Dorchester, 
Weymouth, and Cerne, was formed in 1846, and has worked 
steadily and well in promoting the objects for which it Avas in- 
stituted. The 87 premiums given are divided into 6 classes — 
1 for allotment cultivation, and garden produce, bread, bees, 
&c. ; 2, for industrious service and economy ; 3, for home duties, 
principally clean cottages ; 4, for school attendance ; 5, for 
needlework ; 6, for skill in spade husbandry. To each prize- 
man or woman a card is given, on which is stated the object for 
which the reward was bestowed, and the cottagers hang them in 
their dwellings instead of frightful pictures of Blue Beard 
and the Big Mail of the Woods. There is a marked improve- 
ment in tlie cultivation of the gardens and in the cleanliness of 
the cottages. More honey is produced, the school attendance is 
more regular, the specimens of needlework and knitting yearly 
improve, and no doubt the labourer's condition is enhanced by 
this society. In six years of its existence it has distributed 
388/. 13s. 6rf. net among the labourers, or 64/. 155. 7c?. per year. 
There is also an excellent County Friendly Society, in which 
labourers may secure sick pay, maintenance in old age, &c., and 
which has extended its ramifications throughout the county. 
Both these estimable societies have been mainly promoted by 
Cliarles Porcher, Esq., of ClyfFe, whose services in the cause of 
the labourer deserve to be especially recorded. 
Forty years ago in one of the leases then in force, it was made a 
condition that " an additional rent of 50/. per acre be paid for 
meadow or pasture broken without leave." The 15th of the 
" Tenant Security Rules '"' between Henry Charles Sturt, Esq., 
and his tenants, stands in striking: and amusino; contrast : " For 
conversion of all pasture land into arable the out-going tenant be 
allowed 15s. in the pound for paring and burning before the first 
corn or pulse crop is taken." Leases are not so general in the 
county as to prevent all complaint on that head, and some tenants 
point to them as among the " improvements still required." 
The "security rules " of Mr. Stmt's property provide a scale of 
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