August 12, 1880. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
151 
—viz.. 20 acres. The other half should be sown with Dutch 
and Alsike Clovers mixed with Timothy Grass seeds, thus com¬ 
pleting the fourth course. In the fifth and last course 20 acres 
may be retained as old lea, and 20 acres sown with Beans and 
Peas, the latter being sown on the land which was devoted to 
green crops and fed off by sheep in the first course. This will 
complete the cropping on a farm where sheep may be kept 
in summer time. It will be noticed by the home farmer that 
there will be various opportunities for short fallows under this 
system, so essential to the successful culture of heavy land. The 
crops grown under this rotation will be 20 acres of green crops 
and roots, 40 acres of Beans and Peas, 40 acres of Wheat, 40 acres 
of Clover and grass, 40 acres of Lent corn, and 20 acres of old lea. 
We will next consider a rotation of crops adapted for the 
strongest land where few if any sheep are kept, and the root and 
green crops are employed for feeding fatting cattle or sheep 
in covered yards, or for dairy or store cattle, all roots and green 
crops being removed from the land. We propose, as before, to 
take an arable farm of 200 acres, to be cropped under a four- 
course ; steam power, however, being a great necessity in the cul¬ 
tivation. The first course will be prepared by an autumn fallow, 
and as we have 50 acres to crop in this division 15 acres may be 
sown with Rye, Trifolium, and Vetches, 15 acres with Mangolds, 
15 with Swedes, and 5 acres with early common Turnips. All 
these crops should be prepared for by autumn cultivation, the 
green crop seeds being sown in the autumn. The land for root 
crops must be deeply ploughed to lie during the winter, but in the 
early spring no ploughing should be required for roots. Sow 
early, in order to secure the heaviest crops of roots and an early 
autumn clearance, as all will require to be removed and stored 
either by a heap in the field or at the homestead for feeding cattle 
in the winter and spring months. The green crops being removed 
early will ofEer no impediment to fallowing the land after, and 
laying out the manure for Wheat; the land for roots will have 
been spring-cultivated, and hand-picked to remove grass and 
weeds, being also horse and hand-hoed in due season, grass and 
weeds again being forked out, or the land scarified after the 
removal of the crops. The whole of the root land will then be 
manured and ploughed for Wheat, or in case of adverse weather 
the carting of manure may be dispensed with, and artificial 
manures used instead ; after the Wheat has been drilled, and for 
such land it should be drilled at 12 inches between the lines, 
giving an opportunity for effectual horse-hoeiDg in the spring, for 
in some seasons unless this is done the crop will be greatly de¬ 
preciated. Thus the first course for fallow crops will have been 
completed, and also the second course sown with Wheat, each 
being 50 acres. The third course of 50 acres may be appropriated 
as follows :—15 acres being sown with Wheat and broad Clover, 
15 acres with Dutch and Alsike Clover mixed with Timothy 
Grass ; and 20 acres with Beans and Peas, either together or 
separately, or the Beans may be mixed with winter Vetches. 
This completes the third course, which maybe in the fourth course 
followed by Lent corn, or Wheat in part; for 25 acres of this lain 
may, when the season is favourable, be sown with either out of 
lea, and the remaining 25 acres with Oats or drege in the spring, 
or in favourable seasons a part may be sown with winter Oats. 
In this four-course cropping we provide of green and root 
crops, 50 acres ; of Wheat, 50 acres ; of Clover and grass crops 
and pulse, 50 acres ; of Lent corn and Wheat, 50 acres. In prac¬ 
tically criticising this rotation of cropping it may be said that 
the cost of tillage will be too great for any advantageous results ; 
but it should be borne in mind that the heaviest labour is not only 
done more effectively by steam power than it could be done by 
animal power, but that the practice sets the horses free to do a 
large portion of the work which could not be done by steam. 
One great feature in the rotation will be found in the fallowing, 
which may be as effectively carried out for all useful and repro¬ 
ductive purposes as the old-fashioned long winter and summer 
fallow, whereon must be charged rent, tithes, and rates, the 
labour bill of horses and men for a year, without anything to 
compensate. The four-course rotation we advise will not only 
carry out successfully all the objects for which fallowing may be 
said to be necessary, but that it, under intelligent management, 
provides an enormous amount of vegetable and green food for 
cattle, horses, and sheep. This must be considered an important 
point in the management of the home farm, especially at any 
period when corn and pulse is selling at a low price. We 
have now to give the old-fashioned rotation to enable the home 
farmer to take notice of by comparison with those we have 
named. It is first year a long fallow, manured ; second year, 
Wheat; third year, Oats or drege ; fourth year, Clover and part 
Beans or Peas. The principal points to be observed in this rota¬ 
tion is an almost entire absence of food adapted for the feeding 
of stock, and consequently the loss of profits thereon, with but 
little manure made to renew the fertility of the land. 
(To be continued.) 
WORK OK THE HOME FARM. 
Horse Labour .—We will suppose that in accordance with our 
recommendations both the horses and all implements required for 
harvest work are waiting only the word of command to commence 
operations. It then becomes a question of how far the home farmer 
is provided with the machinery necessary for cutting and tying the 
crops of corn, Ac. There is a difference of opinion amongst farmers 
in some districts as to the carting of Lent corn, such as Barley and 
Oats, in a loose state or tied into sheaves. Our opinion is that it is 
best to tie and set up every kind of ceieal in shocks, particularly 
where the reaping and binding machine is employed ; because if the 
corn is quite dry when tied into sheaf, and the shocks are kept 
properly set up, all the straw and grain cannot be injured even in 
the most adverse weather. The only disadvantage we have experi¬ 
enced in the practice has been where the Clover and grass seeds were 
sown in the corn, as if the shocks stand for any lengthened period 
the young plants will be destroyed. It may be thought that these 
might be removed on a fine clay, but on the return of heavy rains the 
sheaves removed will suffer seriously, because the portions of the 
sheaf hitherto sheltered will become exposed. In very high winds, 
which usually accompany a wet and stormy season, when the stooks 
are blown down they may be set up again upon fresh ground, but in 
round shocks to avoid the effects of the wind. The advantage of 
tying Lent corn is found chiefly in the diminished labour and time 
required both of horses and men at carting time. We have also 
found that when sheaved either Barley or Oats may be made into 
round instead of oblong ricks. We much prefer the former plan, 
because the butts of the sheaves face the outside, receiving less 
damage from winter weather, and a round rick needs less thatching 
and is not so likely to be stripped by high winds. 
Hand Labour .—Although in the early districts harvesting has 
commenced, yet the home farmer should remember that labour will 
be required in hoeing the young Turnips and in the second hoeing of 
earlier root crops. This matter cannot be neglected with safety, 
therefore some men must be employed in the hoeing of roots and 
similar work during the harvest month. Where labourers are scarce 
it is a practice to turn most of the horses out to grass during the 
early part of the harvest before the carting of corn commences, in 
order that the teamsmen and boys may be available for harvest work. 
We object to this plan, because the few days or a week’s work for 
the horses is lost at a time when we have found the labour of the 
horses of far more consequence than that of the men. The home 
farmer must now consider that the harvest work is most important, 
but the sheep and cattle should on no account be neglected. The 
lambs recently purchased on the grazing farms and stock lambs on 
the hill farms should be shorn about the middle of this month. The 
ewes, too, can be leared or dipped to prevent the fly striking. In a 
season like the present dairy cows require little food besides their 
pasturage ; if, however, the grass should run short the second cutting 
of Clover becomes valuable for them, instead of risking making it 
into hay. In harvest time the work of cutting Clover for horses or 
cattle should be done by a man appointed for the purpose, and 
employ the odd horse for carting it to farmstead, instead of the 
teamsmen being taken for the purpose. The women, where they are 
encouraged to work, are capable of doing much light work besides 
that of the harvest field, except where a man and his family under¬ 
take the work of cutting corn and pulse by the acre. The method of 
running pigs over the stubbles after harvest is nearly abolished or 
fallen into disuse, because under ordinary management the horse- 
rake leaves little food for pigs, and we often find the difficulty of 
keeping pigs in the fields intended for them. 
METHOD OF TESTING MILK. 
The lactometer, a short tube of large dimensions, weighted at 
its lower end. and carrying above a slender graduated stem, is 
the simplest instrument for testing milk, and is far more generally 
used than any other instrument in Europe as well as in this 
country. When the milk to be tested is known to be unskimmed, 
and the temperature of the liquid at the time the test is made is 
C0° Fahr., the indications obtained by this method are sufficiently 
reliable for ordinary purposes. The lactometer used by the New 
York Board of Health is graduated from 20° up to 120° ; the 100° 
corresponds to a specific gravity or density of 1.029, which is taken 
as the lowest allowable limit for pure unwatered and unskimmed 
milk ; the 114° corresponding to the specific gravity of 1.033, is 
taken as the highest allowable limit for pure whole milk ; the 
test is made in all cases at 00° Fahr. These limits correspond 
with those generally adopted elsewhere. There are undoubted 
cases, however, in which the density of the milk of a single cow 
has been found to be less than 1.029 at G0°, and it is safe to use 
this standard of purity only in the case of the mixed milk of 
several cows, at least three or four, as usually received at a factory ; 
and even then it would be prudent not to take action against a 
