526 Abstract Report of Agricultural Discussions. 
folding is to persevere, but not to persist ; recollecting that all the 
labour and attention expended on sheep is well bestowed, not only on' 
them but in saving the hauling of roots home, and of dung to the held. 
I will now take the crops year by year. 
I commence with ivheat ; but my mode of preparation for it will 
be best stated in connection with the preceding crop. 
Supposing the wheat-stubble to be there, 1 find that, on a strictly 
clay farm, I can grow on an average of seasons a much better quality, 
and a much larger quantity of barley upon a wheat-stubble than after 
turnips or any root-crop ; for whereas the difficulty of managing the 
root-crop, is such as to stand in the way of getting such land into 
proper condition for barley, after wheat amide time is afforded for the 
purpose. The way we proceed in preparing for the barley-crop is 
this : — In harvesting the wheat we leave a 6-inch stubble on the land ; 
that is, we cut as high as we can with the scythe consistently with 
cutting the corn oft' clean. I find it advantageous not to turn in the 
wheat-stubble much before Christmas ; the land being a sounder and 
healthier seed-bed for barley when not longer exposed to the wet.* 
We select a fair time for ploughing with three horses. We then 
break down the top by harrowing once, with two horses, in the first 
dry time in February. We twice cultivate with a barley-cultivator, a 
light implement that I have had constructed specially for this purpose, 
and this, which we use instead of the harrow, lifts the soil completely 
up, as deep as it has been ploughed. This requires four horses, as my 
land being in 8-feet ridges, the cultivators, drills, harrows, and other 
implements, are made to take a whole ridge. Having gone once over 
the ridge, we repeat the operation ; but in the second instance we drive 
the cultivator in the opposite direction. This is the finest prepara- 
tion I have yet known for barley upon clay land. The land being 
in 8-feet ridges the horses may be kept off it.f Taking the entire 
expense of horse and hand labour from beginning to end of the 
process, I find the total cost of preparing twenty acres of land for 
barley to be 18Z. 8s. GcZ., or 18s. 5d. the acre ; but I set a low price on 
my horse-labour, having some salt marshes close at hand, and a good 
run for the horses, which cheapens their keep considerably. 
After barley come beans and peas. For this crop we cart a good 
dressing of farmyard-dung, sow early, and hoe and weed frequently. 
I divide this course into three different classes — (1) winter beans, 
(2) spring beans, and (3) an early description of peas.f 
The next course, that is the fourth year, is oats folloiving upon 
beans and peas : and with the oats we lay down the land to clov.er. 
Some gentlemen may have thought that this work was overlooked, and 
wondered how I should bring it in ; but I find that I have grown much 
* I account for the difference in this way: — On tenacious soils, like mine, the 
land cracks prodigiously in the summer, and these cracks, if undisturbed, form 
watercourses and means of escape for the heavy autumnal rainfall : whereas by 
autumn tillage all these channels are stopped. At all events, I find that in practice 
the land broken up in autumn, comes up more soddeu under spring cultivation 
than that which was broken up after Christmas. 
t For details and cost of cultivation, see diagram. 
