54 
Farming of Cambridgeshire. 
space ; these pieces of plank are jointed with iron hinges or 
joints ; the lower spit is rammed on them. The bridges are then 
drawn forward by a lever attached to a chain fastened to the 
bridge or plug ; earthen pipes or tiles are put in the mouth of 
each eye or neck running into the open ditches. 
Third Year — Clover, Beans, Peas, or Tares. 
The red clovers are fed with sheep on those portions intended 
for seed up to the 1st of June. It is not considered safe to feed 
them later, as it injures the crop. The part intended to be mown 
for hay is mostly covered with a mixture of dung, and borders 
and scourings of ditches mixed up together ; this is carted on the 
clover layers in the frost, and well harrowed in with a bush-harrow. 
The lands intended for peas and beans are ploughed in the 
winter, so as to be well pulverized by the frosts : early in the 
spring the peas are drilled. Many plough later, and with a hand- 
barrow deposit the peas on the bottom of each alternate furrow. 
The beans are either drilled or dibbled. Peas, about 3 bushels 
per acre sown ; beans, from 2 to 2^ bushels per acre. The beans 
are hoed three times, and I have seen field after field kept as 
clean as a garden. 
Fourth Year — Wheat. 
Wheat succeeds both clover and beans and peas, but the wheat 
after peas is much more hazardous. Both the bean and pea land 
should be sown later with wheat, and not quite so much seed per 
acre sown as when succeeding clover. 
Mangold-wurzel and swede turnips are occasionally grown in 
this district, the land selected for that purpose being generally 
land lately converted from grass to arable, or a piece of mixed 
soil land. No good can be done by growing turnips generally on 
the heavy clays of this district. I will here mention a plan pur- 
sued by a proprietor occupying his own estate ; and it is a plan 
worthy the consideration of those farming this descripti(m of land. 
The plan alluded to is to plough the land after wheat on the 
eight-furrowed ridge, twice if necessary, during dry weather in 
autumn or winter. These ridges are in April split with the 
plough ; the manure then spread and ploughed in, as on the 
Northumberland system. These ridges are then not disturbed 
until the time of sowing the turnips, when a skim is used about 
3 feet wide, with a sharj) edge attached to a pair of gallows, like a 
Kentish plough, thus cutting under the manure of every ridge. 
This operation destroys all annual weeds ; the earth is in a beau- 
tiful pulverized state ; the seed drilled upon it grows well and 
with rapidity. Good turnips are thus produced, for feeding on 
