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luinninq of Hampshire. 
north. This variety of slope carries the surface water off rapidly, 
but the subsoil would render the land hopelessly wet in a bad 
season, but for a network of drains underneath. The climate, 
the aspect, and the nearness to the sea, are nature's favours, of 
which Mr. Blundell makes the most. He commenced operations 
by carrying away 23 gates, and throwing down all his hedges, 
which originally divided, into 10 fields, lands, now separated by 
the road only. The saving in trimming hedges, scouring ditches, 
turning in and out of gateways, to say nothing of other advan- 
tages, must be very great. 
He has no regular system of rotations, but his crops of wheat 
follow in very close succession, and are taken anyhow and any- 
where, if he thinks the land capable of producing them. The 
result for twenty-nine years is, that he has never failed in securing 
a good crop in anything like a favourable season ; which shows 
that more depends on season than on cultivation or rotation. He 
has, however, this general scheme : two-fifths of the whole farm 
wheat, one-fifth potatoes, one-fifth oats, one-fifth grass and roots. 
The wheat and potatoes, 60 acres out of 100, are dressed with 
30 loads per acre of unfermented box dung (of which more 
presently) ploughed in green. The lands are very wide (3 rods), 
furrows very deep, and ploughing to the depth of 8 inches, with 
two horses abreast ; the plastic clay would be turned up, if the 
plough went deeper. The wheat is sown broadcast. There has been 
some reason to fear that the use of the drill would destroy the race 
of " seedsmen." The last good man, at all events, survives on Mr. 
Blundell's farm, for nothing can be more even than his young 
plant. Thin seeding is not here adopted, because it necessitates 
early sowing, which interferes with autumn cultivation, a point of 
more importance than saving a few bushels of seed. His plan of 
autumn cultivation is to fork out any chance lumps of couch and 
then use the scarifier (Coleman's) if necessary ; this keeps the land 
so clean that no hoeing whatever is necessary for the wheat crop. 
For the root crop one hoeing, with after picking out and heaping 
the weeds, is sufficient. The expense of this is not equal to two 
hoeings, and is a more eradicating process than any number of 
flat hoeings. A portion of the mangold ground was four times 
hoed last year, and still was very foul in comparison with the 
remainder, which had been hoed once and picked. The latter 
was a most successful piece of cleaning in a wet season ; the 
former was like other people's ground elsewhere. The whole 
farm is very clean, and yet it is just the sort of soil in which 
couch would spread if not well kept down. Tlie potato-ground 
is ploughed deep soon after harvest, and allowed to lie during 
winter ; in the spring it is scarified, then dunged, ploughed, and 
planted. No other land is ploughed twice. At the time of 
