Farm-Prize Competition, 1880. 
581 
Furthermore, under this head, the quality of the oat crop, — 
straw and grain, — must not be omitted from consideration. The 
excellence of both is remarkable, and as both are consumed by 
the farm stock, much advantage accrues from this superiority. 
Any Southern farmer who has seen the eager way in which 
Cumberland cows devour the oat-straw which is their principal 
provender, must be surprised at the difference of its quality 
from that of his own country. 
And lastly, in this question of soil and climate must be con- 
sidered an almost entire immunity from the most troublesome 
of all weeds, viz., common twitch or couch, which is to me one of 
the most remarkable features of Northern agriculture. A light 
upstanding crop of oats is harvested after perhaps from 4 to 10 
years' lea. The result of such a course of cropping in the 
Eastern counties would be fatal. A perfect mat-bed of twitch 
would usurp the land, and offer such an obstacle to its subse- 
quent cultivation as would not easily be surmounted. But in 
these counties no such inconvenience is sustained. When the 
oat-stubble is ploughed for roots, two or three cultivations are 
sufficient to bring it into condition, and none of the tedious and 
costly processes which are necessary on a Southern farm are here 
required. Those endless harrowings and rollings, hand-pickings 
and burnings, can be entirely dispensed with. 
Finding no twitch on a Cumberland farm, I asked the occu- 
pier what were the weeds to which he was most subject. As 
he hesitated in answering, I observed, " I see no twitch." " No," 
said he, " I have none of that stuff." " Neither have I seen any 
thistles," said I. " No," he remarked, " I have none." " What 
about field kale (charlock)?" I inquired. " No," he answered ; 
though there is a great deal in the county, I have none on this 
farm?" "Then, in the name of goodness, what are your weed 
pests ? " I inquired. To which his reply was, " I have no 
weeds of any consequence on this farm ! " 
To take another instance. In the last week in April, when 
the turnip-land was being got ready for sowing, on two farms of 
considerable size I found an old man and a woman respectively 
engaged in " sprittling " out with a fork the few pieces of grassy 
twitch sod which alone it was thought necessary to disengage 
from the soil before the final ploughing ; but even in these 
instances it was not considered requisite to pick up and destroy 
these morsels, which on an Eastern farm would be looked upon 
with as much suspicion as a firebrand in the rick-yard. All 
this must be due to some peculiarity of soil and climate which 
I do not pretend to understand. 
Talking, over a pipe, one evening to an intelligent gentleman 
whom I accidentally met, and who I believe farmed in the 
