On Green or Fodder Crops. 
151 
ously in the generality of seasons. Both the rye and winter- 
oats would spring up afresh after being fed down, and no diffi- 
culty would present itself, with mangolds ad libitum to fall back 
upon, in keeping the flock supplied with food until the vetches 
were quite ready for breaching off. 
The uncommon systems, no less than the uncommon crops, 
appear rather numerous ; some are practical, according to one 
set of circumstances, and others are not, but all may have their 
respective adaptations to different soils, situations, climates, and 
conditions of farms. Meantime it cannot be wrong to learn 
everything possible about them from those who have gained 
experience on their merits or demerits, and what advantage or 
the reverse is likely to accrue from their cultivation ; and I beg 
heartily to thank those gentlemen who have rendered me so 
much practical information, which has not only been of material 
assistance to me in the preparation of this paper, but will no 
doubt tend, if anything does, to render it acceptable to British 
stock-keepers. 
Entirely wrong would it be to designate any kind of produce 
" a fancy crop," simply because it seems to require costly culture, 
if it can be clearly proved that the return it is calculated to bring 
fully corresponds in magnitude with the outlay incurred. The 
fact that when land is sustained habitually in a high state of 
fertility the various members of the cabbage family may be 
grown with far less expenditure in artificial manures, and 
generally yield much greater weights of produce than in other 
cases, has been fully demonstrated. There can be little doubt 
that cabbage, broccoli, kale, maize, and comfrey are all gross 
feeders on manure, and most of them require large quantities of 
that kind which is most costly to buy- — nitrogen. This is why 
high farming and their culture naturally go hand in hand, and 
probably ought never to be severed. Still it does not follow 
that those Avho have not the necessary capital to adopt high farm- 
ing in the management of the whole of their lands should have 
nothing to do with these crops. They might in all cases appro- 
priate a single field or a few acres to the growth of these most 
serviceable crops — ^growing no corn whatever thereon, and 
sustaining permanently this small portion of their holdings 
in a state of high fertility almost corresponding to that of a 
market garden. In all probability mangold-wurzel would on 
the generality of farms also be grown with far more economy on 
a smaller acreage more highly farmed than the rest of the arable 
land from which corn would be totally excluded. 
Whatever the price which growers of cabbages, kale, and broc- 
coli may have to pay in manurial outlay, &c., their returns may 
olten be so very much enhanced by a portion of the produce being 
