184 
Farm Capital. 
tliat 21. of tliis outlay may be struck off when the practice of 
forking out the couch-grass before ploughing the wheat-stubble 
is generally adopted, by which means, according to Mr. Bond, 
the greater portion of the fallow will need only to be ploughed 
once, as a preparation for the wheat crop. Mr. Pusey concludes 
by expressing a hope that such a bill as that cited from Bayldon 
may be read as a curiosity in after years. 
Mr. Morton also writes in the ' Journal of the Bath and West 
of England Society,' 1861, vol. ix. part 2, p. 218: — "The use 
of the cultivator with the occasional employment of the plough, 
instead of the use of the plough witli the occasional employment 
of the cultivator, is now, and as a lesson of recent agricultural 
experience, generally admitted to be the most economical way to 
the attainment of tilth. On clay land especially, as already said, 
a single ploughing before winter is almost all that such land 
should receive throughout the year. Spring work should, if 
possible, be confined to the use of implements which stir the 
furrow-slice, and the seed-bed should be prepared upon the winter- 
weathered surface. No other surface, turned up by a spring- 
ploughing, can be generally reduced so easily or perfectly by the 
roller and the harrow." 
When it is considered how nearly determinate most of the 
outgoings on a farm now are, we cannot doubt but that the atten- 
tion of thoughtful men is specially directed to those few items 
which admit of considerable variation, amongst which the cost 
of the fallow surely holds a foremost place, involving, as it does, 
an outlay which may seriously affect the question of profit 
or loss. 
In theory it can hardly be disputed that a single inversion of 
the soil, the retaining that same surface at seed-time which felt 
the winter's frost, is the best management ; practically we have 
to reconcile this aim with the requirements of different soils 
and climates for the destruction of weeds of different habits of 
growth. 
Under most circumstances, when the right moment can be 
freely chosen, skill and energy, if combined with some me- 
chanical ingenuity, will probably solve the problem ; but it is not 
easy thus to seize the exact moment for every spot on the farm, 
whilst some weeds there are which, while dormant, are tortured 
in vain, and when enlivened by the progress of spring do not 
much regard the mere combing of the cultivator or the scratching 
of the harrow. For such foes extermination is no doubt the 
proper remedy, but, like certain tribes of men whose extinction 
has been decreed by high authorities, the race is stubborn, and, 
if scotched, reappears whenever it gets an opening. Never- 
theless, as the two poles of profitable farming are now, increased 
