330 
Management of a Suburban Farm. 
been kept constantly in view — to increase the quantity and quality 
of the dung ; and, as a consequence, to grow the utmost amount 
of saleable produce. I now keep a herd of above 30 cows, or 
about 25 in full milk all the year round. These are soiled in 
the house, except from Midsummer to Michaelmas, when they 
go out into the meadows. They are fed in winter on chopped 
hay, straw, and roots, with bought grains, malt-dust, and a little 
meal. The milk is sold to t milkmen, who fetch it from the cow- 
house door, and pay 2d. a quart, ready money. Each cow pro- 
duces 20/. per annum, which, I reckon, pays for her keep, leaving 
me the dung for the litter. This latter I economise as far as 
possible by running all the liquid into a tank, to be drawn over 
the grass-land ; a very small quantity of straw is then required 
to absorb the remainder. This is further improved by the 
manure of 100 pigs fatted every winter. With this, and the 
help of four cart-horses, I am enabled to thoroughly dress one- 
third of my arable land every year. I plough it in 14 inches 
deep, with a second plough following in the furrow of the first, 
and thereby secure very large crops of roots : these are nearly all 
drawn for the cows or for sale, the tops and refuse being left to 
be penned over by sheep ; the second year, wheat ; the third , 
barley, partly after stubble turnips fed off. After twenty years' 
repetition of this three-course rotation, I now get an average of 
40 bushels of wheat, and the same of barley, the latter of prime 
malting quality, unless where the sheep, remaining too long on 
the turnips, have made it rank. By thus keeping two-thirds of my 
land in corn,. I get a large quantity of wheat-straw for sale, of 
barley-straw for fodder for the cows, besides a few acres of potatoes 
and roots for sale. The horses and cows eat about three-fourths 
of the meadow-hay, and leave the rest for sale. The meadows 
mown every year are kept in condition by refuse ashes, road-dirt, 
and inferior dung bought in the town, of which large quantities 
can be procured for less than 2s. the one-horse load, or about 2/. 
per acre, every third or fourth year. 
In assessing the profits of my farm, I shall compare it with 
200 acres of similar land at a distance, the arable being supposed 
to be farmed highly on the four-course system, and cows kept 
for the sale of butter or calves, or beasts fatted in yards with the 
same amount of purchased food : — 
Net produce of 30 cows, at 20?. per cow .. .. £600 
Deduct usual produce of do. at 14/ 400 
Leaving a profit on selling milk £200 
Arable produce of 33 acres of wheat X 5 qrs. 165 qrs. ' 
Instead of 25 acres do. X 4 qrs. .. 100 
Increase 65 qrs. 
