900 CROP. 
have reclaimed them, and enjoyed the fruit of 
their labour during periods agreed on by lease. 
In 1836, the Highland Society, in order to en- 
courage the reclamation of waste lands by the 
settlement of crofters, offered a premium for the 
most satisfactory report of any previous improve- 
ment by means of crofting; and they published 
in their Transactions the reports of two compe- 
titors for the premium. These reports occur in 
the portion of the Transactions attached to the 
34th No. of the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture; 
and are abundantly worthy of the attention of 
all proprietors of moorlands, heathy commons, 
dry upland bogs, and all similar wastes. 
CRONES. Old ewes. 
CROP. The quantity of any cultivated plant 
growing or matured on one piece of ground from 
one sowing or one planting. ‘The smallest quan- 
tities of culinary vegetables grown in the beds 
or plots of the kitchen garden are crops; and 
the largest quantities of green vegetables or of 
esculent roots or of the cereal grasses grown on 
the most extensive fields of the farm are also 
| crops. ‘Two topics of prime interest connected 
with crops are the rotation of them and the 
causes of their occasional destruction. See the 
articles Rorarion or Crops and Dxrstrruction or 
Crops. 
CROPPING. A cruel and mischievous cur- 
tailment of the ears of horses. It is effected by 
means of a kind of curved clams called cropping- 
| irons, the ear being introduced to the clams, and 
the upper part of it cut off at one stroke with a 
sharp and sufficiently long knife. This barbar- 
ous operation was invented in Britain, and was 
at one time so common as to induce constitu- 
tional mutilation, working into some mares the 
habit of producing crop-eared foals; but it has of 
late been allowed to pass into general disuse and 
contempt. Not only is cropping useless and 
cruel, but it mars the beauty of the animal, ren- 
ders him sensitive about the head, and seriously 
impairs his naturally fine sense of hearing. 
CROPSICK. ‘The repletion and obstruction of 
the stomach or ‘ crop’ of a fowl. It frequently 
occurs where poultry are fed upon new corn or 
upon an excess of beans; and it may be relieved 
by gently working some of the contents of the 
stomach, piece by piece, upwards to the mouth, 
or, in an extreme case, by making a small cut 
into the lower part of the stomach, extracting 
thence a sufficient portion of the contents, and 
closing the wound by one or two stitches. 
CROSSCUTTING. The reduction of tough 
_sward, whether peaty or heathy, into a state of 
sufficient tilth for the reception of seed. When 
rough, mossy, or heathy land is broken up for 
‘cultivation, the plough, in any attempt at cross- 
ploughing, can with difficulty make its way, and 
carries portions of the furrows before it, and is 
|| continually liable to be thrown out. The pro- 
cess of crosscutting reduces this impracticable 
condition of the sward; and is effected by means 
| 
\ 
to cross from widely different breeds in order to 
CROSSING. 
of a simple machine, invented about twenty 
years ago in the island of Islay. The character- 
istic parts of this machine are a series of parallel 
iron plates or blades, 4; feet long, 35 inches deep, 
and five-eighths of an inch thick at the back, made 
of good foreign metal, curved into segments of a 
circle of 40 inches in diameter, and fixed into a 
frame-work of oak; the main beams of this frame- 
work are 4 feet long, 6 inches deep, and 5 inches 
broad, the cross-bars are of proportional strength, 
and the attached shafts for commanding the ma- 
chine are 63 feet long; and the conjoined weight 
of the frame-work and pressure of the driver upon 
the shafts force the blades into the ground, and 
maintain them at the proper depth in the soil. 
The common. plough is used to break up the bog 
or heath land in autumn, but is caused to cut 
not deeper than three inches; the crosscutting- 
machine is worked across the furrows in the early 
part of winter; and the plough and the harrows 
afterwards complete the tilth in the ordinary 
methods of operation. Rough mossy land, over- 
grown with heath, sweet gale, and willow, and lying 
immediately upon clay or till, has, by this method, 
and with the aid of calcareous sand manure, been 
speedily converted into good soil for either oats 
or potatoes. 
CROSSING. The modifying or hybridizing of 
the blood and form of domestic animals in breed- 
ing. Crossing sometimes signifies the use of re- 
mote males of strictly the same breed as females, 
in order to prevent the degenerating effects of 
continued in-and-in breeding ; and, in this sense, 
it has been sufficiently discussed in our article 
on Bregepine. Crossing means also the use of 
males of widely different breed from that of the 
female, in order to produce and establish an en- 
tirely new breed; and in this sense also, it has been 
sufficiently discussed in our article on BREEDING. 
But crossing has likewise a meaning intermediate 
between these extremes, and signifies such a use 
of males of a different breed from that of the 
female as either shall improve the latter without 
superseding it, or shall entail upon it all the 
characteristic properties or excellencies of the 
breed of the males; and in this sense, it has very 
distinct and important bearings upon agricultural 
prosperity, and falls to be discussed in the pre- 
sent article. To cross from remote males of 
strictly one breed, with the simple effect of pre- 
venting degeneracy, can do little or no good in 
any of the multitudinous farms whose existing 
breed of sheep or cattle is essentially bad; and 
ee E 
produce and establish a new and good breed, is 
‘not only in the present state of stock-farming a 
very unnecessary process, but requires far more 
knowledge, wisdom, time, and capital than any 
one of the vast majority of stock-farmers can pos- 
sibly command. Hither, therefore, improvement 
must be pronounced unnecessary; or it can be 
effected only by the medium kind of crossing, 
which conveys to the offspring of the females of 
ree 
