166 
Agriculture of Nottinghamshire. 
hz without such means for using his produce of fodder, straw, 
root-crops, horse- coin, and inferior corn to the greatest ad- 
> antage. 
Another improvement is the building of tanks for liquid 
manure, one of which should be considered indispensable for every 
larmyard. The drainage from feeding-houses, stables, and fold- 
yards is so invaluable tliat it ought not to be wasted. The most 
economical mode for preparing the liquid manure for beneficial 
effect is, to mix it repeatedly with ashes, which may be readily 
obtained by burning soil with the cuttings of hedges ; and 
whether ashes so fertilized are used for root-crops, on corn or 
pasture-land, or on meadow immediately after the hay is cleared 
off, the advantage to be derived from them will be found very 
considerable. 
Forty years ago the drilling, horse-hoeing, and the growing of 
turnips according to the most approved system, were chiefly prac- 
tised in the best-cultivated districts of Scotland and the border 
counties, particularly Northumberland, at Avhich time the rents 
in those districts were fully one-third higher and the payments for 
labour fully one-third lower than in the North-Midland counties 
and Lincolnshire, where labourers were better paid and maintained 
than they were in Scotland and Northumberland ; but the rents 
and expenses for labour respectively are now more nearly alike 
in all those districts — a result which has been brought about by 
farmers from the north removing southward, by the greatly im- 
proved general cultivation of the North-Midland counties and 
Lincolnshire, and by the scarcity of labourers in the north, which 
has led to increased wages being given there. 
Indeed one remarkable feature in the present aspect of agri- 
culture is the approximation both in prices and management 
which the diffusion of knowledge and increased power of transit 
is effecting between the most and least favoured spots, not only in 
England, but in Europe. We have not so much reason to pride 
ourselves on the achievements of anyone farmer of our day, when 
compared with the leading men of a former generation, as on 
the general spread of intelligence, and the general interest felt by 
those connected with the soil in the full development of its 
resources. 
Ley Fields, Newark. 
