264 Advantages in Agricultural Production. 
hoeing it, is too expensive, and yet we see experienced agri-> 
culturists still recommending that out-of-date method when 
writing on the subject. In Guernsey and Alderney the visitor 
sees magnificent crops of lucerne and rye-grass, sometimes with 
clover added, sown broadcast to stand for five or six years. It 
would be well to try such mixtures in the Eastern Counties, 
when permanent pasture does not succeed. 
Differences in natural advantages may also be illustrated by 
the familiar case of barley. It is well known that malting 
barley cannot be grown in some parts of the United Kingdom, 
and that where it can be grown there are great differences in 
colour, body, and texture, which go to make up quality. 
Grinding barley hardly pays for growing nowadays, and it is 
strange that the crop should still be cultivated in so many parts 
of the kingdom as it is, where it never produces a good malting 
sample. Fortunately, the best of oats can be produced in many 
places where prime barley will not grow. 
A point which has not yet received sufficient attention is the 
difference in natural advantages for the growth of roots, and 
particularly swedes and other turnips. The great superiority 
of the turnip crops (including swedes) in Scotland and the 
North of England to those of the Eastern and Southern Counties, 
in bulk and quality alike, has often been noticed. It is a ques- 
tion whether it pays at all to grow swedes on heavy land which 
will not bear sheep in the late autumn, winter, or spring, even 
if it pays to grow early turnips which can be fed off' before the 
land becomes wet in some seasons. Further than this, it may 
be questioned whether it is good policy to grow a large acreage 
of roots of any kind on heavy land, which is liable to be seriously 
deteriorated for years by either feeding roots upon it or carting 
them off in a wet autumn. In addition to the damage done in 
the way indicated, it must be borne in mind that roots are 
nitrogen-exhausting crops, and that loss of fertility in any soil 
upon which they are grown is only prevented by feeding them 
on it, or manuring very heavily for them or after them. This 
being the case, the reasonable policy for heavy-land farmers to 
adopt seems to be that of growing the greatest quantity of roots 
(mangel for choice) on the smallest acreage, by means of heavy 
manuring, and devoting the rest of the area intended for feeding 
purposes to the growth of nitrogen-accumulating crops. There 
is the question of cleaning the land to be considered in this 
connexion, no doubt ; but to clean heavy land on a large scale 
by growing roots upon it is too costly a process. 
Other illustrations of my subject might be given ; but enough 
