Farming of Cambridgeshire. 
49 
dust* per acre drilled in with the seed. Some have lately tried 
nitrate of soda sown as a top-dressing, but do not continue the 
practice. 
This district being surrounded by tracts of heavy clay, back- 
ward land, the labourers from thence, at the time of year the 
wheat is ready for the sickle, flock into it in large numbers, so 
that it is no uncommon thing to see a man's whole crop of wheat 
cut down in four or five days. I have set about 300 men to 
reaping in one day. The barley and oat crops are put out to the 
men of the district, who are bound to cart and stack the wheat. 
The practice of mowing wheat has much increased of late years, 
and It will, in my opinion, extend, as the practice of early au- 
tumnal fallowing increases. The reaping of wheat generally 
costs from Is. to 1 Qs. per acre, with beer, the latter price being 
given to have it cut close to the ground. 
The wheats on many of these dry chalky soils are very apt to 
lose plant in the spring. On this description of land many 
farmers have their flocks of store ewes driven over the wheat after 
it is finished drilling, and tread the land down as close as pos- 
sible : but this should not be done in very wet weather ; for in the 
year 1842, which was a very wet season, during and for a long 
time after sowing, much of the wheat, from being trodden down 
in the wet, and great quantities of rain falling afterwards, did 
not vegetate : it was as it were hermetically sealed, and thus 
deprived of the action of air and light : large quantities of the 
seed lay and rotted without any appearance of vegetation. 
But few cows are kept in this district for dairy purposes, as it 
contains but a very small portion of grass-land, and this only on 
the banks of the Granta or its tributary streams. 
The descriptions of cattle fatted are of various kinds. The 
short-horns, Herefords, a few Devons, occasionally a few Welsh 
runts, and polled Galloway Scots : none do better than this last 
sort for feeding loose in yards ; but even when kej)t loose in 
yards they should always be tied up three times a day, so that 
each bullock has its own share of food, as you will generally find 
some masterful hungry bullock will get much more than his 
share, and if fed high will consequently get off his appetite for 
* Rape-dust drilled in with wheat appears to be most efficacious in 
preserving the plant on those light lands, where it is apt to die off to- 
wards the end of winter. A striking instance of this occurred on my own 
farm this year. On some poor land out of condition, where three bushels 
of wheat had been sown to the acre, with various manures and with 
dung, the ground was almost bare in March, excepting on one bout of 
the drill, where I found rape-dust had been used, and there no loss of 
plant had ensued. I mention this case, because the evil of losing the 
plant of wheat upon such light land is a severe one, and because the 
proposed remedy, rape-dust, is not an expensive manure. — Ph. Pusey. 
VOL. Vll. E 
