68 
The Famiiny of Cheshire. 
of growing my wheat upon grass or clover ley, green crop next, and lay 
down the following spring. This course I cannot regularly pursue, because 
it gives me too much green crop for my straw, and I am compelled to lay 
down part with oats for the second crop ; but I invariably take a green 
crop on the land so served the next tillage." 
A fourth correspondent, from the Hundred of Broxton, says — 
" When a piece of grass-land is ploughed, it is almost invariably sown 
with oats ; and if the condition is such as to warrant a fair expectation ot 
a green crop, with a small quantity of manure, it is sown with turnips and 
potatoes, then cropped with wheat, afterwards with oats and clover. If 
the piece be very poor, a summer fallow follows the first oat crop, and it 
is kept in tillage with oats, beans, or peas in succession for several years. 
There are very few turnips grown, and seldom more potatoes than are 
requisite for the use of the family and the farm-labourers." 
From the Hundred of Bucklow — 
" For the ordinary course of cropping in the parish of Great Budworth 
and its borders, the land is skimmed about the month of November, as a 
preparation for potatoes, both early and late ; if for early ones, then after 
that crop the same ground is either planted with Swedish or sown with 
common turnips, or a second setting of potatoes of the early kind for seed. 
In October or November, the crops having been got up, the land is either 
butted for the next year or sown with wheat ; the latter is the most gene- 
ral practice. The next crop is potatoes again, of course with manure, 
which, if the land be poor, is applied in the first crop, and vice versa. The 
potatoes having been gathered, the land is sown with wheat in October or 
November, and followed with oats, clover, and gi-ass seeds, of which, in 
some instances, Italian rye-grass forms a part, and from its rapid growth 
and frequency of cropping, is growing into repute. Where the purse is a 
long one, bone-waste is often set upon the clover-root, either before or im- 
mediately after the first mowing, at the rate of one ton to the acre ; some 
will only apply 15 cwt. of bones, and these the boiled ones. Clover is 
occasionally mown twice, but this practice, in the opinion of all good 
agriculturists, is too exhausting. The same land is not tilled again for six 
or seven years, according to the nature of the soil, as being more or less 
suitable to the kind of crops required, and which the other parts of the 
farm would ill produce." 
From the Hundred of Nantwich — 
" There is no particular system in practice here ; but one method is 
pretty general, that of ploughing up a field, and never finding a proper 
time to lay it down again until the land is exhausted and left in a very 
dirty state. Such was the condition in which I found my farm, and, in 
fact, the whole township was little, if any better ; the fences were also 
shamefully neglected. I hope, however, that farmers are now roused from 
their lethargy, and that shortly a better system will be adopted. The only 
green crop has been potatoes, for which there has been a good market in 
the Potteries ; but now turnips are grown, though in most instances in 
small quantities ; yet I think they will soon he. cultivated to a considerable 
extent. A few leases have been granted from 14 to 17 years. It is desir- 
able that some of the clauses, especially those relating to tillage, should be 
altered, as one-fourth of the land is not sufficient for the growth of corn 
and green crops where the pastures have been manured with bone-dust ; 
for it will not ])roduce the requisite supply of fodder to feed tiie increased 
numbei- of cattle, which the pastures, when improved by bones, will keep 
during the summer." 
