Farmivy of the North Riding of Yorkshire. 513 
The matter of open fallovs is as to whether they are to be near 
each other, and only erey or corn crops to intervene, or they arc 
to be far removed. Hitherto the best cultivators have not been 
able to dispense with them enyrely; and as we observed, the 
mass of farmers adapt their management to the cognomen of the 
soil " Two-crop and fallow." 
The fallows are usually ploughed in the month of February or 
March, with three horses, some four or five inches deep, cross 
ploughed so as to lie in large clods. The sun and air permeate 
through these, and the weeds die for want of moisture, and so the 
holler and drier the summer the better the fallow. The au- 
tumnal rains expand the contracted clay, and thus it crumbles 
into small pieces. The " lands," or spaces between the furrows, 
vary from six to seven yards wide, and slope gradually into the 
furrows, so that the water may descend — flow on to the ditches, 
and thus be carried off the land. The wheat sowing is a very cri- 
tical time; if too wet, the sowing will be impeded, or possibly 
altogether prevented, so that after harvest there is a most com- 
plete season-watching. Two bushels or six pecks per acre is the 
maximum quantity of seed sown, and it is usually sown broadcast, 
in the seam made by the plough, in the crumbled mass imme- 
diately before the sowing. The crop is generally small, and is 
invariably shorn, high stubbles being left on the land. The 
sheaves are occasionally hooded. The mass of farmers apply no 
manure whatever to the wheat crop — the whole is reserved for 
the subsequent crop of oats or beans. It is too often little better 
than straw, and is carted out during the frost of winter to the 
wheat stubbles, and the whole ploughed in the month of Fe- 
bruary. The oats are sown in March, at the rate of 3J bushels 
per acre. When not sown with oats, the manure is applied to 
the beans; but these are considered a risking crop, and being sel- 
dom ridged or horse-hoed, there is but little wonder. The young 
stock are too often fed on straw in the fold-yards, and on hay 
upon the grass in the spring ; and some farmers go so far as to 
remove the whole of the manure from the tillage land and carry 
it to the grass. A more impoverishing system can hardly be 
conceived, when no extraneous matter is returned to the land. 
The samples of wheat are however extremely good, and weigh 
well; they are considered in London next in value after those of 
Essex, Kent, and Suffolk, and generally command a price little 
inferior; and even this may arise from the distance (it having to 
be conveyed by ship), rather than from any great deficiency in 
quality. The grain is full and plump — " bold," as it is provin- 
cially, and not inappropriately, called. The weight is very su- 
perior, being often as much as 64 lbs. per bushel, and Stockton- 
on-Tees is the port at which it is usually shipped. 
