172 
Some Minor. Farm Crops. 
average price is forty shillings per pack, and sometimes 
the produce is fifteen or sixteen packs an acre, at other 
times a total blank. There is an amazing inequality in the 
produce of different plants : some stocks will send forth 
one hundred heads, others not more than three or four. 
Should not great attention therefore be paid to the 
selection of seed, namely, by taking it from those plants 
which appear to be most prolific ? This, however, is not 
done, but the seed is taken indiscriminately from the 
whole crop. 
“ As the goodness of the crop chiefly depends on the 
care taken to keep the land free from weeds, leaving the 
plants at proper distances, and earthing them up well, and 
as most of the common workmen will pay more attention 
to their own than to anothers 1 interest, it frequently 
happens that a partnership is formed between master and 
man. The former finds ground and ploughing, the latter 
seed and labour, at harvest the crop is divided and each 
party takes a moiety. The expense and produce of teasels 
be thus estimated per acre : — 
A 
s. 
d. 
Two year’s rent . 
. 
3 
0 
0 
0 
To ploughing . 
• 
15 
0 
To workmen’s labour 
. 
3 
15 
0 
To making out bundles, tying together teasel 
bands, 2s. per pack 
0 
14 
0 
Total cost 
, , 
8 
4 
0 
By average produce, 7 packs at 40$., 
Profit 
A s. d. 
14 0 0 
5 
16 
0 
14 
0 
0 
“ The working with the spade can only be done to 
advantage by the men accustomed to it, who are become, 
by habit, so dexterous in the use of the implement, that 
they will even thin out a crop of carrots. The common 
hoe has been tried, and though in the hand of a competent 
turnip-hoer, it was not found to answer. 
“After the crop, wheat is sown on one ploughing, and 
seldom fails of a good produce, so it may not be quite fair 
to charge the teasels with two years 1 rent. Few soils will 
bear frequent repetitions of this crop, and the farmer 
finds it his interest to devote newly broken up land to 
this culture.” 
Thus it may be seen that the system of growing teazles 
has remained almost exactly the same for over a century, while 
immense strides have been made in the development of some 
types of farming. 
Arthur W. Ashby. 
13 Plantation Road, 
Oxford. 
