The Past Agricultural Year 
231 
*is liberally experienced about tlie same results. Otbers who did not do so 
sustained much heavier losses both of ewes and lambs, and financially a very 
much greater loss. Our gieatest loss was from the shearling ewes and their 
produce, they being very poor, and their lambs so small and weak that many 
succumbed to the rigours of tlie season. This shows they were not sufficiently 
maintained, and it would doubtless have been better management to have 
separated them from the ewes and kept them by tlieraselves. 
2. 'Tillage operations. — The wheat-crops stood the winter remarkably well, 
the only failures being on wet undrained land. Spring corn was very late 
sown, but in this district, on the whole, it went in well, and though quite 
three weeks late at harvest time, yet on all good sound and well-conditioned 
lands there was ample bulk for a good crop. The failure has been on wet, 
■cold clays, and also on poor land even when not wet. Several fields on land 
of this description in this neighbourhood have been hardly worth reaping. 
This is attributed to the wet and cold summer more than the winter. 
lloot-crops ex^wsed during winter were very much damaged ; not so much 
from the frost, for they were well covered with snow during the time it was 
most intense, but from the wood-pigeons and ro()ks, which picked and damaged 
the crown of the bulb, after which it invariably rotted. The loss varied, accord- 
ing to circumstances, from 30 to 50 per cent, of the fields unsecured. 
W. J. MOSCEOP. 
LiscoLKSHiRE. — Claxhi/, A^/m-d. 
I have now been farming for fifty-five years, and do not remember such 
-a remarkable year as we have had since the latter end of October 1878. Part 
of my occupation is dry land, part lying lower is stiff, but it, too, is good 
land. On the former, the wheat-seeding got finished pretty satisfactorily. 
As to the lower land, it was impossible to complete the wheat-seeding ; and 
for the first time during my experience I have been beaten. On the dry land 
the crops were fair ; but, as to the lower land, the crops were the worst I ever 
knew. We had continual floods of rain from the latter end of October to the 
beginning of December, when frost and snow set in, and continued for a long 
time. TUe frost very much benefited the land (much damaged by autumn 
floods), so that we got a very fair sj^ring seed-time, and not too late. A great 
deal of wheat was sown in spring, on such land as could not be sown in 
autumn, and, with a good seed-bed, came up well. But the floods of rain, 
which fell almost continually up to the end of July, afterwards damaged 
the wheat and bavley-crops at least one-half; the whole of the time since seed- 
time, except for very short periods, having been we";, cold, and sunless. 
Turnips got fairly put in on dry land, by watching for a fine day, and 
<;ame up well ; but it was too wet and cold for them to grow fast. And as 
regards the heavy land, a very short breadth could be sown, for the land 
could not be got into condition. 
Fallows on heavy land have been in a foul state, where too much freedom 
in crojjping has been practised. 1 do not think there is so much advantage 
in autumn cultivation as some people saj\ The expense in cultivating, 
cleaning, picking, &c., is repaid when it happens to be an early harvest and 
dry autumn; but we do not get this as the rule. I think it better not 
'to let the land get in a foul state by cross-cropping, or taking what some call 
more freedom in cultivation, but to farm generally on the four-course system, 
having one-fourth part turnips where land is suitable, one-tburth part seeds, 
and keeping a good flock ot sheep on the farm, well fed. Autumn cultivation 
•is not required under such a system ; and running the steam-cultivator across 
'the fallows, so soon as it is dry in the spring, will bring the work up. 
J. B. Dring. 
