Foulness  of  Land. 
421 
is  clovers  and  rye-grass,  called  “ seeds,' — and  he  is  forbidden  to 
sell  hay  or  straw  from  the  farm ; nothing,  by  the  bye,  being  said 
about  selling:  roots.  Now  here  is  a fault  one  cannot  but  find. 
Under  this  agreement  a farmer  must  not  grow  pease  in  the 
second  year  ; yet  a good  farmer  might  be  inclined  to  grow  pease, 
followed  by  turnips  in  the  same  year.  If  he  gave  those  pease  to 
his  sheep  while  eating  the  turnips,  he  could  not  do  a better  thing 
for  his  land  than  what  this  agreement  forbids  him  to  do.  A 
bad  farmer,  on  the  other  hand,  having  his  land — very  light  land, 
perhaps — in  rye-grass,  might  let  a large  portion  stand  for  seed, 
thresh  the  seed,  and  take  it  to  market.  On  such  land  he  could 
not  do  a worse  thing  for  the  succeeding  wheat  crop  ; but  the  pro- 
ceeding would  be  perfectly  regular  : so  imperfect  are  our  present 
agreements  in  both  directions,  for  the  good  farmer  and  bad  one. 
They  look  merely  to  what  is  grown  on  the  farm,  while  the  farm 
is  impoverished  only  by  what  is  sold  from  it.  It  is  hard,  too,  to 
prevent  a farmer  from  sowing  spring  wheat  instead  of  barley. 
The  justice  of  the  case  between  landlord  and  tenant  on  light  stock 
land,  I speak  of  that  only,  would  be  met  by  the  principle,  that 
no  vegetable  produce  should  be  sold  off  the  farm,  except  white 
corn,  and  that  no  two  white  crops  should  be  grown  in  succession. 
Whether  this  would  be  agreeable  to  tenants,  I cannot  tell,  but  for 
good  farmers  it  would  evidently  be  better  than  the  present  re- 
strictions, and  juster.  Not  that  these  terms  are  at  all  universally 
applicable.  Good  strong  land  is  able  to  send  beans  largely  to 
market,  besides  white  corn  ; and  in  fact  must  do  so,  as  it  cannot 
support  and  does  not  require  so  much  live  stock  as  lighter  land. 
Even  the  interval  of  a year  between  two  white  crops  must  suffer 
exception,  since  for  some  unknown  reason,  in  many  places,  as 
parts  of  Sussex  and  of  Lancashire,  barley  seems  to  answer  best 
after  wheat,  and  there  consequently  you  must  take  two  white 
crops  and  two  green  crops  together.  In  South  Wales,  I find, 
by  the  most  recent  and  comprehensive  authority  on  the  subject, 
Winsgrove  Cook  on  ‘Agricultural  Tenancies,’ the  farmers  do 
not  like  any  conditions  more  stringent  than  this,  “ that  they 
should  not  grow  more  tlian  four  white  crops  in  succession.”  One 
hardly  sees,  indeed,  how  they  could.  Vain,  however,  as  it  may 
be  to  lay  down  any  general  rules,  the  principle  of  sale,  rather 
than  growth,  though  not  to  be  rigidly  enforced,  clearly  lies  at  the 
root  of  the  matter,  and  therefore  should  not  be  lost  sight  of. 
Foulness  of  Land. 
We  are  now  arrived  at  actual  farming,  and  the  first  point  is 
cleanness  of  farming.  Much  as  we  hear  of  foulness  of  land,  I 
never  met  with  any  distinct  statement  of  its  evils  or  remedies. 
Common  therefore  as  the  subject  itself  may  seem,  it  will  be  worth 
