28 
Agriculture of Nottinghamshire. 
vented from doing the serious injury during the winter which they 
so often effect. Mr. Parkinson, in the Essay to which we have 
alluded, recommends shallow drilling or sowing by the hand on 
the common furrow, so as to keep the seed near the surface, as 
the best preservative against the ravages of the slug or snail. 
The wheat, after being hoed in the month of April, is gone 
over by women, at wages from 9rf. to 10c?. a-day, who take out 
any weeds which may remain after the hoeing. 
The harvesting of the crop is performed similarly to that of the 
sand-district, as already described, the scythe having almost 
entirely superseded the sickle. 
Fifth year, Beans. — No crop cultivated in this country offers so 
great a difference as regards value at the time of harvest as this 
does. Those who still persist in sowing, every third year, beans 
and peas without the aid of manure, and then leave them to their 
fate, without either hoeing or cleaning, till they are reaped, re- 
ceive back in many instances little more than seed again. But 
such have been the frequent failures in this crop on the clays, that 
other crops, such as peas or winter tares, have been of late sub- 
stituted ; and, by affording a change to the land, have also been 
more remunerative to the grower. The most common practice is 
to dibble about 3 bushels of beans an acre on a common furrow, 
which has been exposed to the frosts previously. With this 
method the hand-hoe only can be made use of; but we think a 
superior mode is that recommended by Mr. Parkinson, which we 
cannot do better than give in his own words : — " The land is 
ploughed into ridges 20 inches apart, in November or December, 
in the same manner as for turnips, being previously manured 
with seven or eight two-horse cart-loads per acre. The beans are 
sown as early in the spring as the land is dry enough, in the fol- 
lowing manner. A single-horse plough opens a level furrow in 
the frosted mould of the hollows between each ridge ; this is fol- 
lowed by a man with a drill-barrow, which deposits about 3 bushels 
of seed per acre. The harrows are then taken two or three times 
over the land, and once across. It may be necessary in some 
seasons to go over the land once with a powerful harrow after the 
beans are sown, to break up the middle of the ridges. The land 
by this mode is left remarkably light, and in fine order for hoe- 
ing in the spring and summer. It retains its lightness in a con- 
siderable degree until the autumn, which much facilitates the 
putting in the ensuing crop of wheat, especially in dry weather. 
The beans are hoed by hand when about 2 inches high, and the 
land afterwards receives one deep order with the horsehoe ; 
another hoeing by hand, at least, is always necessary during th& 
summer to cut up the charlock and thistles." 
Mr. Watson, of Walkeringham, has grown beans with great 
