East Riding of Yorkshire. 
105 
as bone manure, &c., at once portable and procurable at such 
a cost and in such quantities as to bring its use within the sphere 
of the usual husbandry operations. 
" The land," says John Take, one of Mr. Strickland's correspondents, 
" becomes completely exhausted ; the quantity of straw does not afford 
a sufficient return for the turnip-crop : that consequently fails ; of course 
the succeeding crop of corn and the seed-grass fail also. Little stock 
is therefore kept, and the land, instead of being improved, becomes of 
less value than when in open sheep-walk." 
Acknowledging, therefore, as farmers did, the truth of obser- 
vations such as these, they tried the practice of letting their 
clover- seeds stand for two years, thus to impart more fresbness to 
the land. Not only, however, was it found that the turnip-crop 
was liable to fail for lack of proper manure, but also another very 
unexpected difficulty arose, which threatened the total interrup- 
tion of this mode of husbandry, and this was the impossibility, as 
it began to appear, of growing clover once every four years, and 
that therefore the thus protracting the four-course shift into five- 
course was only an aggravation of their difficulties. It was not 
without propriety, then, that Mr. Strickland and others joined in 
recommending Wold farmers to rely chiefly on the breeding of 
sheep, and that corn should be grown only as subservient to that 
more important object. 
It appears (^Strickland, p. 211) that bones had been used by a 
few persons in the East Riding; they had been applied to the 
land at the rate of from 60 to 70 bushels per acre, at the expense 
of 2s. per bushel. The mode of using them seems to have been 
to break them, probably by the hammer, into small pieces, to 
cover the heap thus broken with earth six inches thick, and then 
spread them on the land made ready for turnips. From this 
dressing the first crop was said seldom to have derived much 
benefit, but its fertilizing properties were very conspicuous in the 
succeeding crops — hence it was recommended to give a slight 
dressing of manure with the bones, to insure a first crop. Such 
were the auspices under w hich this material was first introduced. 
Within the last four or five years guano has been tried on these 
soils, instead of bones, for the turnip-crop, and about 2 or 2^ cwt. 
per acre have been used. In the showery summer of 1845 this 
fertilizer seemed to answer well, and exceedingly good crops of 
turnips were obtained from it. A dry season, however, such as 
that of 1847, renders its use on these soils at least precarious, 
and it will therefore probably never supersede bones. 
Although the use of these comparatively cheap and portable 
manures has removed much of the danger of failure to which 
formerly the turnip-crop was liable, yet it was inadequate to 
