134 
Report on the Farming of the 
and again in spring. The thin sowing of ^vheat has been partially tried 
on this farm ; but hitherto not witli the success anticipated. In the 
autumn of 1845 some fields were sown with 6 pecks per acre; one field 
thus treated, of good loam on gravel, produced 40 bushels per acre, 
weigliing 65 lbs. per bushel ; another field of sandy loam yielded 39 
bushels per acre, weighing 64^ lbs. per bushel ; another field, loamy 
gravel and loam on sand, produced only 24 bushels per acre, of inferior 
quality. In 1846, on good sandy loam, 4 pecks per acre of Australian 
white wheat were drilled at 11 inches apart. On the same day, in the 
same field, 6 pecks per acre of Spalding's prolific red, at 9 inches. 
All through the winter, spring, and summer the thinnest sown looked 
the best; this continued up to harvest; but, to my astonishment, on 
threshing, the thinnest sown, viz. 4 pecks, yielded only 25 bushels per 
acre ; the thicker sown, viz. 6 pecks, yielded 34 bushels per acre. I 
am quite at a loss to account for this optical delusion, neither being 
laid nor shaken out by the wind. 
" None of my thin-sown wheat has suffered from mildew to any ex- 
tent, whereas wheat sown after turnips on the 8th and 9th of ISIarch, 
1847, with 10 pecks of Hopetoun per acre, was spoiled by mildew. 
" Beans. — Until lately beans have been sown in spring on wheat or 
oat stubble, maimred with 10 tons of yard manure, ploughed in Fe- 
bruary ; the beans drilled on the flat, 26 inches apart, 8 pecks per acre, 
and repeatedly hoed with horse and hand hoes. 
Having, however, in the summer of 1846 seen some splendid crops of 
the Russian or winter beans on the farms of Mr. Hewit Davies, in 
Surrey, at a time when all the spring-sown beans in the country were 
looking wretchedly, I was induced to give them a trial : and on the 3rd 
of October, 1846, after cleaning and manuring with 8 tons of yard 
manure per acre, in a field of sandy loam (one of the weakest and worst 
on my farm), I drilled the beans (8 pecks per acre) on the flat, at 
the same distance apart as usual. They did not suffer in the least from 
the very severe winter of 1846-7 ; the only fault was being too thick, 
which caused the crop to be less ])roductive. We began to reap them 
on the 5th of August, being the same day that my wheat harvest com- 
menced. I have continued the practice, but sown less seed, viz. 6 
and 7 pecks per acre. 
" Grass ZffWf/.— About 70 acres are annually mow^n for hay ; the 
same fields being meadowed every year, and manured every other year 
with 10 tons per acre. The remaining 230 acres are depastured with 
cattle and sheep. All the cattle-droppings are gathered by old men and 
boys with wheelbarrows and shovels, put into heaps, and covered with 
soil every evening (old banks, road-scrapings, &c., are used for this 
purpose), and in frost laid on the poorest parts of the fields at the rate of 
5 tons per acre. It is found that a larger quantity than this is apt to 
render the herbage so rank that the cattle avoid it during the whole of 
the succeeding summer. This system has been found most beneficial. 
The fields present a much more even pasturage than they used to do, 
and even under hedges and trees are as palatable to the cattle as on 
any other jiart. 
" Live Stock. — The live stock kept on the farm consists of 20 active 
