The Farming of Cheshire. 
103 
Nantwich, where turnips were not grown at all twenty years ago, 
from 80 to 100 acres are now raised annually, and these princi- 
pally with bone manure : these are dairy and grazing farms com- 
bined, and a great part of the turnip crop is consumed by sheep, 
on the Norfolk system, or by stall-fed cattle. Many of the new 
implements for cleaning the land having been introduced, the 
crops generally are kept much cleaner, and the management of 
them is on the whole better understood than formerly. Swedes 
are given to the dairy cows while eating straw, and to the team- 
horses, and are found to be very wholesome : they are sometimes 
steamed for the latter, and mixed with chaff or cut hay or straw ; 
this appears to be an excellent plan when hay has been damaged 
by the weather, &c. Swedes are given raw to the sows and store- 
pigs, with good effect; on many farms they live upon them 
entirely throughout the winter, and keep in good condition. Too 
much cannot be said in praise of this invaluable root; but some 
farmers have yet to learn that, to have swedes in perfection, and 
to grow them so that the land may derive that benefit which ren- 
ders their culture doubly desirable, the ground must be well 
worked, well manured, good seed sown, and the crop kept per- 
fectly clean by scarifying and hand-hoeing. The turnips on the 
dairy farms are generally taken up during the months of Novem- 
ber and December, and piled into narrow heaps near the home- 
stead, and thatched over to keep out ttie wet. 
Lucerne. 
The land in Cheshire is not at all suited (generally speaking) 
to the culture of this plant — it requires a deep dry soil : it grows 
well on some of the driest parts of the enclosures from the river 
Dee, called " Sealand," particularly on the raised cops, where it 
is most productive, affording three good cuttings in the year. 
There is a small field of it in the Hundred of Eddisbury, where 
it is sown in rows 10 inches apart; the lucerne occupying 4 inches, 
with 6 inches between for the purpose of cleaning. It was sown 
in May, 1843, was cut twice, and is now most promising. 
In concluding my Report I may remark, that any attempt to 
have given an accurate description of every course or "no 
course " system of management, pursued throughout this part of 
England, would have been an almost endless task, and could 
not possibly lead to any beneficial results. There is in Cheshire, 
as in every other county, a mixture of good and bad farming; 
and while the agriculturists of this district make no pretensions to 
the palm of peculiar merit, they cannot admit the imputation pf 
being the " very worst farmers" in the kingdom ; and they justly 
think the epithets unenergetic and unskilful are not generally 
