On the Modifications of the Four-Course Rotation, Sfc. 265 
kept properly cloan ; whilst the breadth in wheat is increased to 
one-tlaird of the arable land. 
On light turnip-soils any diminution of the proportion of 
fallow-crops will probably prove unprofitable ; but it cannot be 
denied that clay-soils, if kept clean, are capable of producing 
more than one crop of wheat in four years, with turnips, barley, 
and clover between. 
In illustration of this, I may refer to an experiment made in 
Lincolnshire by a thoroughly good farmer, who usually adheres 
to the four-course shift. In the year 1850 he broke up 10 acres 
of inferior grass-land on the lias clay, and took 7 crops in suc- 
cession, VIZ. 
In 1850 .. .. Oats. 
„ 1851 .. .. Oats. 
„ 1852 .. .. Wheat. 
„ 1853' .. .. Wheat. 
In 1854 .. .. Beans. 
„ 1855 .. .. Wheat. 
„ 1856 .. .. Barley. 
The only manure applied was a moderate dressing of dung for 
the beans in 1854. All the crops, with the exception of the 
first, were good. I was present when the seventh — the barley of 
185G — was dressed up, and found the produce of the 10 acres 
to be 55^^ quarters of tolerably fair quality. The field was by no 
means foul, though it was then fallowed. 
This also shows how much may be produced by poor, cold, clay, 
grass-land, if broken up — land that, whilst it remains in grass, is 
scarcely worth any rent at all, I should, however, be the last to 
recommend such an excess of cropping as the above, which must, 
of course, end in leaving the newly broken-up land no better 
than that which has been under the plough for many years. 
The capability of clay-soils to grow a crop of wheat oftener 
than once in four years is also strikingly proved by the Rev. S. 
Smith's Lois Weedon Husbandry, where a crop of wheat is 
grown every year, the air and soil being the only sources of 
manure ; for, however sceptical we may be as to the profit 
derivable from this system, there is no doubt of the fact that 
moderately-good crops of wheat have been grown for a number 
of years successively.* 
In the north of Lincolnshire, on the heavy clays in the neigh- 
bourhood of the town of Brigg, and on the Carrs of the Ancholme 
Level, I have met with two or three peculiar rotations, which 
come under the head of six-course rotations. These deserve 
a passing notice, although they are hardly likely to be adopted in 
other districts. 
* But in this case, as in the last-named instance of successive corn crops, the 
■wheat was grown on land lately broken up from pasture, and that not of iuferior 
quality.— P. H. F. 
VOL. XXI. T 
