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it better digested, and less hay is consumed, with equal or more benefit to the bullocks." An accurate practice.

MANURES. This is by much the most intelligent and valuable article, in Mr. Walker's Report of Hertfordshire. It comprizes various passages that are entitled to ex

traction.

Species in Use.-P. 28. "The manures brought from London to the neighbourhood of Dunstable are scot, ashes, furrier's clippings, horn shavings, and sheep's trotters."

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P. 37. The foreign manures are principally brought from London. Spit or horse dung is not carried above 12 or 14 miles from thence; the market-towns in the county supply the rest. The following are perennial or lasting manures, and generally laid on light land; viz. boiled or calcined bones, sheep's trotters, furriers' clippings, horn shavings, leather cuttings, woollen rags, and soap boilers' ashes: the unburnt bones are broke into small pieces, and the woollen rags are also cut or chopped into small pieces, and all, except the last, throw off an annual coat of manure: the unburnt bones, which are generally boiled, and the fat therein collected before they are sold to the farmers, are said to last as a manure for 10 or 12 years."

Yard Dung.-P. 35. "The next species of manure to be mentioned is that which is made in the farm-yards, from the dung and stale of the cattle kept and foddered therein, and the straw, helm, &c. with which they are fed and littered. That this manure may have every advantage, the yard in which it is made should be formed like the palm of the haua when extended in a horizontal direction, lowest in the middle, the fluid part will thereby remain to assist in rotting the solid part of the manure, and when absorbed thereby, be carried together on the land intended to receive it. The general practice of the Hertfordshire farmers is to throw up the dung, which is, or ought to be, so made into heaps (or clumps as they call them) till it has heated sufficiently in their opinion to kill the seeds of weeds intermixed therewith, then to carry it on the land, and spread and plough it in directly afterwards."

P. 36. "The spit-dung, if clear of the seeds of weeds, is best calculated for strong heavy land, impervious strata the effects of the London spit-dung, or dung equally good, may be seen to an inch in such lands, for three or four succeeding crops."

Compost.-P. 36. "The mixens or mixtures of spit-dung and good mould, or strong earth, are laid on light gravelly land, or where chaik or sand is the predominant soil, on all pervious strata. The mould is saturated with the fluid, and mixed with the solid part of the dung, the seeds of weeds

therein

therein have vegetated and been destroyed by the turning the mixen, and the staple of the land is thereby thickened and mended for ever."

Sheepfold.-P. 37. "The last and not the least of domestic manures, is sheep's dung: this most important stock to the Hertfordshire farmer, let the breed be what it will, derive their subsistence in the spring, summer, and autumn, from the clover leys, hedge greens, meadows, and pastures (if any), fallows and crops on the ground, where they may be turned on without injury thereto; at night they are folded on the fallows and other lands to be manured by their dung, in the winter they are folded and fed on turnips, winter tares, and other food provided for them. The dung of sheep is considered to be among the best manures for light lands, and carried on at little expence. Without this aid the state of agriculture, even in the well cultivated county of Hertford, would be much inferior to what it now is."

Topdressing.-P. 39. "The spring or top dressings are the leading features of the Hertfordshire farming, and conconsist of soot ashes, malt dust, and oil-cake dust or pulverized oil-cakes.

"The soot and ashes are principally brought from London, the malt dust from Ware, Hertford, and other places where great quantities of malt are made, and the oil-cake dust from the different oil-mills in the county and neighbourhood."

P. 40. "These top dressings not only supply the want of previous manure, but also when crops are sickly and backward in the spring, occasioned either by bad seed times, frosts, or other causes, are attended with wonderful srccess, and enable the crops to vegetate quickly, and cover and protect the soil on which they grow from the ensuing droughts of summer. To their almost magical powers the Hertfordshire farmers are principally indebted for their never failing crops."

Chalk.-The following account of the Hertfordshire chalks, and the peculiar method of procuring and applying them, are highly creditable to Mr. Walker, as a rural Reporter.

P. 31. "This capital manure, for so it truly and incontestibly is, when applied to strong clay and binding land, differs widely in its qualities. The best chalk, when laid upon the land in large pieces and exposed to the frost, soon slackens or pulverizes, particularly if saturated with rain water, when the frost begins to act upon it, the dimensions of the pieces of chalk are much enlarged, and altered to the shape or appearance of the tops of fine large cauliflowers, and when handled fall into impalpable powder; when im

mersed

mersed in vinegar or the vitriolic acid, a strong and quick ebullition ensues; the calcareous and efficient parts of most marles will be found on analyzation to be chalk rubbish, or fossil shells.

"The different gradations in the quality of chalk for the purposes of agriculture, from the best sort above discribed to the hurlock or bastard chalk, may be distinguished by the above criterion. Where chalk can be found at any reasonable depth, say 20 feet under the strong red Herefordshire clay, this single circumstance enhances the value of the soil more than land owners are aware of, and the most experienced Hertfordshire farmers agree, that chalking lands so circumstanced is the best mode of culture they are capable of receiving.

The method pursued in chalking such land is as under, and the persons employed therein follow it as a trade: a spot is fixed upon nearly centrical to about six acres of the land to be chalked, here a pit, about four feet diameter, is sunk to the chalk, if found within about 20 feet from the surface; if not, the chalkers consider they are on an earth pillar, fill up the pit, and sink in fresh places till their labour is attended with better success. The pit from the surface to the chalk, is kept from falling in by a sort of basket work made with hazle or willow rods and brushwood, cut green and manufactured with the small boughs and leaves remaining thereon, to make the basket work the closer. The earth and chalk is raised from the pit by a jack rowl on a frame, generally of very simple and rude construction: to one end of the rowl is fixed a cart wheel, which answers the double purpose of a fly and a stop; an inch, rope of sufficient length is wound round the rowl, to one end of which is affixed a weight which nearly counterbalances the empty bucket fastened to the other end. This apology for an axis in peritrochio, two wheel-barrows, a spade, a shovel, and a pickaxe, are all the necessary implements in trade of a company of chalkers, generally three in number. The pitman digs the chalk and fills the basket, and his companions alternately wind it up, and wheel its contents upon the land; when the basket is wound up to the top of the pit, to stop its descent till emptied, the point of a wooden, peg, of sufficient length and strength, is thrust by the perpendi cular spoke in the wheel into a hole made in the adjoining upright or standard of the frame, to receive it. The pit is sunk from 20 to 30 feet deep, and then chambered at the bottom, that is, the pitman digs or cuts out the chalk horizontally, in three separate directions; the horizontal apertures being of a sufficient height and width to admit of the pitman's working in them with ease and safety. One pit

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will chalk six acres, laying on sixty loads on an acre.—If more is laid on, and to the full extent of chalking, viz. 100 loads, then a proportionable less extent of land than six acres is chalked from one pit. Eighteen barrowfulls make a load, and the usual price for chalking is 7d. per load, all expences included; therefore the expence of chalking, at 60 loads per acre, is 1. 12s. 6d. ; and at 100 ditto 2l. 18s. 4d.; as the chalk is considered to be better the deeper it lies, and the top chalk particularly, if it lies within three or four feet of the surface very indifferent, and only fit for lime, or to be laid on roads, gateways, &c. the chalkers must be directed to lay by the chalk for the first three or four feet in depth, to be applied to the above purposes, or if not wanted therefore, again thrown into the pit when filled up, and also to pick out the flints from the chalk before it is carried on the land, for if they are not narrowly watched they will chalk with both."

Clay

P. 34. "Experience points out the strong red clay a as an excellent manure and mixture for burning gravel, fight sand, loam, or soils where the chalk predominates, when found contiguous thereto. In sinking for chalk, and particularly for water through this clay soil to depths of 40 and 50 feet and upwards, the heaps raised from the pits, and of course covered with the lowest soil dug therefrom, when exposed to and mellowed by the air for a short time produce most luxuriant sow-thistles, rising like a thick wood, and for some time checking the vegetation of other plants, till the maiden strength of the soil is exhausted; this proves that every inch of the soil is good and fit for vegetation, from the top to the bottom, let it be ever so deep." ARABLE OPERATIONS.-On this important department of practical Agriculture, the Report under view is defective. The ensuing passages comprize all the information, of vatue, concerning the established practice of "the first and Best Corn County in the kingdom;" (p. 30.) and whose arable processes ought, of course, to have been sedulously explained.omtoning on y

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P. 28. "On the strong lauds, about two bushels and a quarter of wheat, and four bushels of barley or oats, are On light lands, from two and a half to three bashels of wheat, and five ditto of barley or oats per ditto. Rotation of crops.-Fallow, and dress or fold for turnips, which are fed off by the sheep in winter. Barley on one tilth sown about the 12th of March following. Barley and clover about the same time next year. Depasture the clover from harvest to Hollandtide. Sow ashes, and sometimes soot, on the clover at or before Lady-day next; cut the clover twice, and sow wheat in the autumn following on one tilth,

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and harrow it in; and oats or pease after the wheat. They never sow the same land with pease but once in nine years, and consider an interval of eleven years better. They fallow for turnips after oats, and sow wheat after pease.-If the crop of turnips or pease fails, the rotation is of course broke into. The following rotation is also practised, viz. winter tares, turnips, wheat, barley, and clover; then .wheat.

"Light lands, or such as in the language of farmers are apt to run foul, are cleaned by fallowing, to get rid of couch or black grass, which is the worst of the two if possible."

P. 30. "While weeds continue to grow and increase in 'the best cultivated lands, fallowing will be practised in Hertfordshire and elsewhere, where farming is understood, till a substitute less expensive and equally successful in destroying weeds is discovered."

ARABLE CROPS.-P. 24. "The grains principally cultivated are wheat, barley, and oats; and I must here remark, that there is scarce a farm of any extent in the county which does not contain land peculiarly suited to each species."

GRASS LAND.-P. 13. "The pastures and meadows of Hertfordshire are principally the hedge greens surrounding the arable fields; these are of different widths, from 15 to 20 feet, and upwards: the grass thereon is in general mowed and made into hay; and when the fields to which they belong are fallow, or after harvest, are depastured by the cattle and sheep, and manured by their dung, when they resort to the hedge greens for pasture, or the adjoining hedges for shade or shelter."

In a district where permanent grass lands are few, and where lands adapted to permanent herbage are equally unprovided, by nature, the Hertfordshire practice of appropriating the margins of arable inclosures to the growth of natural herbage, was, before the practice of cultivating herbage, in the areas of arable fields became established, entitled to imitation, in similar districts;-more especially in districts abounding, like Hertfordshire, with hedge-row timber.

LIVESTOCK.-P. 13. "The stock of this county are horses for the plough, milch cows, and sheep, principally ewes. Working bullocks are kept by some gentlemen; very few of these are bred in the county; nor are their breeds further attended to than as they are found to answer the purposes of those who purchase and keep them. A few cart horses are bred in the more distant parts of the county, from mares of the same description, and where a stallion of the draught kind is in more repute than Eclipse. The black cattle are

the

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