Experiences of a Scotsman on the Essex Chnjs. 317 
kind. No Scotsman can evei* be brought to see the necessity 
for three, four, or five ploughings ; if the land has to be fallowed, 
it will be done with a three-horse grubber, getting over from 
three to five acres i^er day. In fact, we cannot help thinking 
that our English neighbours literally waste the labour of men 
and horses, from the laborious way of doing their work, and the 
clumsy machines with which they do it. I remember seeing on 
this farm six horses in a set of harrows on the fallow land, with 
two men sitting on the top driving ; also, four horses in a 
Crosskill roller, while three or four were always put in a drill ; 
now there is not a tool on it needs more than two horses to 
pull, except a three-horse drag-harrow ; an American two-horse 
drill sows seed and manure at one operation. The Suffolk 
drill we found so cumbrous that we threw ours aside, and I 
sowed the seed broadcast by hand for a year or two. Wheat 
grown on land treated to so much expensive labour does not 
of course pay : it would not pay even if it were tithe and rent 
free, and it is part of the object of this paper to show how the 
Scottish colonj' in Essex work on a much cheaper scale, and, so 
far as I have yet seen, with gratifying results. 
The first thing was to reduce the number of men and 
horses ; for however sorry one may be about depriving work- 
ing-men of their opportunity of earning a wfige, self-pre- 
servation is the first law of Nature, and a farmer obviously 
could not find work for men to his own detriment. This has 
been done in a variety of ways : partly by using more modern 
implements, partly by doing without a fallow, and partly by 
putting away some of the arable land into temporary pas- 
ture. The first of these requires no explanation, as the Ameri- 
canising of our machinery is a thing that is gradually going 
on, and we are getting lighter and handier tools every day. 
If fallowing is abolished, however, one wants to know what 
is going to take its place. Roots, of course, have generally 
done so ; but the writer is opposed to root-growing — at least, 
in the South countiy ; and on this holding (a square mile 
in extent) the root area has been gradually diminishing, until 
it has at last arrived at zero. If the land has been properly culti- 
vated and treated, however, I do not hesitate to say that a fallow 
is quite unnecessary. But to attain this end the soil must be 
properly ploughed to begin with (a thing very seldom done), so 
that all gi'ass, weeds, and surface-rubbish be properly covered 
in, and to as great a depth as possible. This gives the crop a 
start, so that the weeds never get up to any extent, and are 
thus partly choked or weakened. I have seen one ridge with a 
perfectly clean stubble after the lea crop of oats was removed, 
and the next ridge excessively foul — the difference being due 
