July 6, 1893. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
S OME time ago, when our “ Home Farm ” contributor had been 
referring to rich pastures and full crops as the result of the 
soil being well stored with plant food, a correspondent desired to 
know where such verdancy could be found. Residing in a high, 
dry, and not over-well tilled locality, the incredulity of the querist 
was not unnatural. Not in his district alone, but over a vast 
tract of country, notably in the southern and parts of the midland 
counties, fields, banks, and roadside margins were so parched that 
scarcely a tinge of green was visible. Not a “ bite ” could be 
found in the grazing pastures, and meads afforded little or nothing 
to the mower. Garden crops were languishing, and the anxiety of 
gardeners becoming extreme in view of the actual collapse of some 
crops, and the prospective exhaustion of others weeks before their 
time. Just when a breakdown of supplies for man and beast was 
imminent the rain came and cheered the falling spirits of the 
husbandman, and in some, perhaps many, districts gave a distinct 
flush to vegetation. The parched earth was moistened, enabling 
sowing and planting to be done that had long perforce remained 
in abeyance. 
But this was not so everywhere. Some localities were visited 
by drenching thunder showers during the last week in June, a 
few doing damage by their violence ; in other districts the showers 
extending more or less fitfully over two or three days, were just 
sufficient for the resumption of cultivation and “ saving ” established 
crops, but in some tracts of country the rain was so light that only 
the leafage of plants and herbage in gardens and fields was 
freshened and the surface of the ground temporarily cooled. It 
was a respite from exhaustion, nothing moroj and we are now 
informed on reliable authority that there are stretches of country 
along the south coast, in Sussex, Kent, and parts of Hants and 
Surrey, in which, to quote a graphically descriptive phrase, 
‘‘roads and pastures are all one colour, a cheerless, whitey 
brown.” 
We know from a passing glance through the country by rail 
and road between the English Channel and the Humber that the 
above statement is true as regards the localities to which it refers ; 
and we also know that, much as northern farmers and gardeners 
have felt, and perhaps still feel, the exhausting effect of the 
drought, they ought really to be happy in escaping the immeasur¬ 
ably greater stress and strain that land workers in the dry uplands 
in the midland counties and the parched tropical slopes in the 
south have had to endure. But while being convinced of the 
general accuracy of the above comparison, we have to record our 
conviction of a fact which we believe to be indisputable. Whether 
in the north or the south, or anywhere and everywhere, land that 
is naturally rich and deep by alluvial deposits, and not exhausted 
by greed or misjudgment, also land that has been subjected to 
deep culture and generous enrichment by workers with means and 
knowledge, “holds out” the best, and supports crops of all kinds 
for use or ornament long after the poor and thinner mediums 
“ give out,” and vegetation withers and dies. There is not a square 
mile in the kingdom where the land is amenable to profitable 
cultivation that the accuracy of the above dictum is not demon¬ 
strated. We find, comparatively speaking, gardens full and fields 
bare almost everywhere. What is the reason ? It is a case of land 
fertility on the one hand, and land sterility on the other. We 
No. 680.—VoL, XXVII., Third Series. 
1 • 
find striking examples of this over much smaller areas than a mile. 
Even in the same field they are evident, and to test the matter 
still more closely over an acre of land in almost any field devoted 
to small allotments the truth of the proposition stares us in the 
face, and cannot be obscured. 
Take a glance say at four roods of Barley side by side belonging 
to as many cultivators, the previous crop in each case Potatoes. 
We find on one piece full healthy clean growth capable of yielding 
at the rate of at least five quarters of grain per acre, and probably 
six. The next piece is weak, thin, stunted, weedy, and cannot 
approach half of such yield. The plot adjoining this is very little, 
if any, better ; but the next “ jumps up ” more than afoot higher, 
a fleecy mass of waving plume-like heads. All the plots have had 
the same amount of sunshine and rain, yet the crops in some 
flourish and in others fail. Lot not the owners of the failures 
eondemn the land and the sun, but rather take a lesson from their 
successful neighbours on the remarkable potency of high cultiva¬ 
tion during periods of drought. As it is to be feared the average 
man who works on the land is a stubborn animal—too stubborn to 
believe in and learn the lesson so eloquently taught by the Barley, 
he must have another course. He can enter a field of twenty rod 
plots of Potatoes, take any eight of these plots side by side, which 
cover one acre. One or perhaps two of these plots are supporting 
plants with stout stems and broad thick leaves that meet across the 
space of 27 inches between the rows, and would be better with 
more room. Of the remaining plots half may not be half so good 
as the best, and the others stunted and miserable, not capable of 
paying the rent of the land. Again we ask what is the cause of the 
difference ? and again the answer is enriched soil and good manage¬ 
ment in the one case, impoverished ground or errors in culture in 
the other. If there is any other valid reason we shall be glad 
to know what it is. As in small cultures so in large. One field is 
full of grain or roots—a cheerful prospect ; the next thin in crop, 
weedy, or bare—a depressing spectacle. All have had the same 
quantity of rain and the soil is of the same original staple. Deep 
clean generous culture and timely cropping always “ tell,” but 
never so clearly as in a long period of drought. Shallow, late 
slipshod working and exhausted soil tell also, but disastrously. 
Our farm contributor is right all through the piece in his 
insistence on a more generous and intelligent treatment of the 
soil. In no other way can either farming or gardening be rendered 
profitable in dry seasons, or any seasons. The striking differences 
in crops are as apparent on land in Surrey and Kent as in Hunting¬ 
donshire, Notts, and Lincolnshire, where inspection has been made. 
Starved farm land is dried out; deep fertile garden ground supports 
altogether superior crops. Highly farmed and well fed land is 
productive, and the grass remains green for weeks longer than in 
thin poor soil, and all other crops differ in the same way. “ No 
grass in the midlands” is a familiar line. It is too true over a 
great extent of country ; but go to Southwell, where Mr. Merry- 
weather grows Roses, and a green district will be seen. The grass 
is knee deep in some of the least used nursery paths, or was ten 
days ago. Perhaps it is cut now. The roadsides are the same, 
and the fields the reverse of brown. Because the land is rich the 
grass is rich, if it were poor so would be the herbage. 
Go to Gateford and see the splendid crops of all kinds on the 
excellent squire’s estate near Worksop—Mr. Machin’s—the Rose 
squire of the Midlands. The Roses and the crops are what they 
are because both are well managed by owner and tenants. Would 
that all were like them—that all had such land and equally, as the 
late Lord Tennyson said, “did their duty by it.” Farmers are not 
going to ruin there, nor in the best farmed lands of Lincoln ; but 
even among the best, indifferent crops occur here and there to mar 
the fair face of the country. It is just a question of individual 
means, ability, energy, and management. It is the same all round 
and everywhere. Starve the laud and it will starve both woiker 
and owner ; deepen it where needed, feed it, clean it, stir it to keep 
No. 2336.—VoL. LXXXIX., Old Series. 
