302 
Variations of the Four-course System. 
A few words now as to Mr. Morris’s paper, read before the 
Surveyors’ Institution. The replies to the queries which Mr. 
IMorris circulated, are, on the whole, only moderately satis- 
factory, owing to their rather fragmentary character. There 
seemed, however, to be a general unanimity of opinion as to the 
waning popularity of the four-course system. It is a well-known 
fact that there has been considerable falling off in the area 
under wheat. This is generally attributed to the circumstance 
that when a higher range of prices prevailed, and in rigidly 
carrying out the four-course system, much land was devoted 
to the growth of wheat that, under any system of manage- 
ment, was utterly unsuited to produce profitable crops of that 
cereal. The prevalence of clover sickness, and of finger-and-toe in 
the root crops, was chiefly due to a too close repetition of these 
crops on the same land, and also to a lack of knowledge of the 
manurial ingredients removed from the soil by the clovers and 
root crops respectively. Where basic slag and superphosphate 
are freely used, the use of lime or chalk is injurious rather than 
useful. 
Except it be on alluvial soils, where a small breadth of early 
peas can be grown for picking green, neither the bean nor the 
pea crop can be recommended, save when forming part of a forage 
crop. In the case of vetches or tares a mixture of beans is 
particularly useful as affording the crop mechanical support. 
On the chalky formations of the southern counties, notably in 
Berks, Hants, Wilts, and Dorset, the system of catch-cropping 
has long been practised. In fact, this has been the chief means 
of manuring the land and furnishing food for stock. The same 
remarks apply to the Stonebrash formations of Oxon and Glou- 
cester. Even, however, in Norfolk, the cradle of the four-course 
83^stem, it now begins to dawn on the minds of occupiers that 
an extended course is more profitable. 
Taken on the average, rents have receded some twenty-five 
to thirty per cent., whilst the cost of labour has risen in some- 
thing like an equal ratio. Owing to the now general use of 
labour-saving machinery on purely tillage farms, the cost of 
labour has only nominally increased. It is on the dairy and 
stock-breeding farms that the labour question is the more severely 
felt. So much is this the case, that I know good dairy farms, 
w^ell equipped with buildings, -which are now being turned into 
grazing farms. But with good beef at 6 |f^. per lb., the outlook 
is by no means cheering, and even with the low prices now 
ruling for milk, dairying on suitable soils paj’S, I think, better 
than grazing. 
!My opinion is that Mr. Morris is in error when he says that 
