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IV. — Ploughing-in Green Crops. By Peter Love. 
Thirty ye.irs <a<?o tho plougliing-in of green crops was more 
studied jind practised than at present, the introduction of guano, 
nitrate of soda, .Scc, and the extraction of fertilisers from refuse 
of every description by the aid of chemical science having since 
then done much to meet the wants of the farm. The high price 
of meat has also induced the farmer to consume all his green 
crops by stock. The question, of course, turns upon whether the 
crop grown by ploughing-in the whole plant more than com- 
pensates for the beef or mutton that might have been produced 
from its consumption by stock. With present prices such 
a result is exceptional. 
I remember that it was pretty generally recognised among 
intelligent farmers, that the ploughing-in of 18 tons of turnips 
per acre, after being crushed by a clod-crusher, gave 12 bushels 
of barley more than if the said turnips had been first passed 
through the animal, and the elements to form mutton and wool 
extracted ; it is also pretty certain that a ton of turnips will 
produce 14 lbs. of mutton, and about 1 lb. of wool, but the outlay on 
sheep, risk of losses, and cost of attendance, must be taken into 
account. 
I have only once tested the difference of carting all off, feeding 
on, and ploughing-in turnips ; this was early in 1 842, when beef 
and mutton sold by the carcase at from 4rf. to Qd. a pound, and 
roots were superabundant. 
A 12 acre field of light loam subsoil, the Northampton iron- 
stone, had been manured with about 16 tons of good fresh farm- 
yard manure per acre, ploughed-in 10 inches deep during the 
winter, with about 5 inches of wheat stubble, afterwards thrice 
cultivated in the spring, harrowed and rolled, then ridged up, 
and two quarters of bone-dust (well fermented after wetting with 
urine) drilled in per acre under the seed ; the produce was a 
little over 18 tons of turnips per acre. The crop on 3 acres was 
all carted off the land, that on Ih acres eaten by sheep, and that 
on li acres crushed with a Crosskill's clodcrusher, then har- 
rowed across the rows, re-crushed and ploughed-in 6 inches 
deep. The part eaten off was ploughed only about .3 inches deep ; 
that where the turnips were drawn 6 inches ; the whole was sown 
with oats, and produced as follows : where turnips were drawn, 
■within a peck, under or over, of 7 quarters ; where eaten, 
9 quarters; where ploughed-in, over 11 quarters per acre. Each 
piece was carefully kept by itself, and all threshed the same week, 
and sold to the same man, on the same day, at 1/. per quarter. 
They were harvested without wet, and weighed 41 lbs. a bushel. 
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