RURAL ECONOMY.

ESTATES.

TENURES.-Mr. Billingsley is an advocate for life

leases. He has had recourse to figures to show their advantages, to prudent leasees.

TENANCY.-P. 205. "Great confidence exists in the Eastern part of this district, viz. about Wincanton, Horsington, &c. between the landlords and tenants. Estates are there principally held on mere verbal engagements, and scarce an instance can be produced of a breach of faith on part of the landlord, or suspicion on the part of the tenant."

P. 206. "The rack-rent leases are generally for seven years."

AGRICULTURE.

FARMS.-P. 205. "The farms are from forty to six

hundred pounds per annum, and are composed partly of rich grazing and dairy land, worth from thirty to forty shillings per acre; partly orchard, from two pounds to three pounds ten shillings per acre. Sheep-walks, from fifteen shillings to twenty-five per acre; and the arable, from twenty shillings to twenty-five shillings per acre."

WORKPEOPLE.-P. 259. "This county is very populous, and the wages low, notwithstanding there are very considerable manufactures.

"Men's daily labour in winter is 18. per day, with cider; in summer ls. 4d. Women's daily labour in winter is 6d. per day, with cider; in summer 8d. Mowing grass Is. 4d. per acre, and one gallon of cider; barley 1s. Reaping wheat 48. per acre, two gallons and half of cider. And all other labour proportionably cheap."

WORKING CATTLE.-N. p. 218. "When working oxen are fed with turnips they should not have water. J. B." TILLAGE.-P. 219." Fallowing is not practised; the prevailing opinion is, that corn crops, equally good, may obtained after turnips, clover, potatoes, pease, vetches,

* In contradistinction to life leases.

beans,

beans, hemp, flax, &c. (if well manured and kept clean) with those after a compleat summer fallow.

enlightened farmers!

• These are

Let any man visit this country, view their crops, and the condition of the land, and many arguments will not be necessary to make him an antifallowist, at least, on soils like these."

What well experienced farmer, nowadays, summerfallows "soils like these,"-after they have been once thoroly cleansed, by UNINTERRUPTED TILLAGE?

ARABLE CROPS.-P. 218. "Wheat, barley, oats, beans, and pease, are in general culture; but there is nothing in the mode of management worthy of notice."

In these three lines we see all that is said on the ordinary crops in English husbandry; excepting a few more on turneps.

To flax and hemp, materials of manufacture, some pages are appropriated. But they rather convey didactic remarks of the Reporter, concerning what "should" be done, than a Report of what is done, in the practice of South Somersetshire.

TURNEPS.-P. 218. "In this part of the county turnips are also grown on a large scale. They are universally sown broadcast, once hoed, and for the most part fed on the land as a preparation for barley."

ORCHARDS. There are in England, speaking emphatically, three fruit-liquor districts; namely, that of Hereford and Glocester shires, or the May-hill district; that of West Devonshire; and that of South Somersetshire, which is situated about the midway between the other two. The produce of the Kentish orchards tends to the kitchen and the dining room, rather than to the cellar.

The practices of Glocestershire and Devonshire I have studied, systematized, and published, with solicitous consideration. To that of Somersetshire I have not had a similar opportunity of attending. Of the Somersetshire fruit-liquor trees, whether in orchards or in hedgerows (there being in the district now under consideration more apple trees, in and by the sides of hedges, I believe, than in the rest of the kingdom) I have, however, had ample means,-in traversing the cider districts at different seasons, -of observing them. And I can say, with pleasure, they are creditable to the practice of Somersetshire.

Mr. Billingsley's strictures, on the orchards and fruit

By the " Tillage, above.

liquor

enlightened farmers" of Somersetshire !-See the head,

liquor of Somersetshire, resemble those which he has offered on flax and hemp. They are didactic rather than descrip tive. This line of proceeding was doubtlessly chosen; either because he did not examine the practice of the district, or deemed his own knowledge of the subject pre ferable.

I do not, however, perceive any thing new or excellent, in Mr. B's remarks, theoretic or practical, to induce me to assimilate them with the matter of this register. It will, nevertheless, be proper to point out an inadvertancy which they involve.

P. 221. " It is found, that a luxuriant gross-growing graft will never succeed on a slow-growing stock, and so vice versa."

It is a well established practice, among superior orchardmen, in the Maybill district,-when such of their favorite fruits as have been engrafted on free stocks, until they bave, thereby, lost part of their firmness and flavor,-to graft them upon crab stocks,-with the intent of bringing them back to their original state; and this with success.

GRASS LANDS.-P. 220. "The natural meadows and pastures of this division are kept in high condition; and their artificial grasses may vie with any in the kingdom."

Those few words fill" Chapter VIII. Grass,”-in a Report of the practice of a rich tract of country, which cannot, I conceive, contain much less than one hundred square miles of perennial grass lands.

P. 258. "Passing from Crewkerne to the Southward, you enter one of those excavations, or large vales, for which this county is remarkable; comprising the villages and hamlets of Clapton, Seaborough, Wayford, Woolmingston, Partington, Cricket-Thomas, Winsham, &c.

"Within this vale commences a district of twenty miles square," (?)" one half in Somerset and the other in Dorset." CATTLE.-Breed.-P. 243. "The red breeds of Devon and Somerset have been progressively increasing, and they are now partially dispersed over great part of the kingdom; and in respect to their qualities as a labouring animal, I never heard but one opinion, and that opinion I can myself confirm from large and long experience, namely, that they are the best in the kingdom. In respect to their qualities as a fatting animal, I will not speak so decidedly, for I verily believe they have many rivals."

Rearing Calves.-N. p. 248. "In the South-Eastern part of this district, where the dairy land is chiefly applied to the making of butter, and skimmed milk cheese, the calves are taken from their dams at a fortnight or three weeks old, and suckled with skimmed-milk until the middle of May,

when

when they are turned out to grass at home, or sold at some distant market for the same purpose. A few dairy-farmers, in this part of the district, have adopted the practice of making flax-seed and bay-tea, and mix it in the milk, with which the calves are suckled. This practice appears to answer very well, for the last month or six weeks of suckling. A. C."

The subjoined notice relates to the practice of North Somersetshire, or the Cheese Dairy district. It stands at the foot of the same page with the above extract; which is the reason of its appearing, here.

Fatting Calves.-N. p. 248. "The number of calves fatted in this district is immense-four hundred fat calves have been sold in Shepton Mallet market in one day. To this market, butchers from the neighbourhood of Bath and Bristol resort, and convey the carcases (whole) to those cities in one-horse carts. The veal is delicately whitesmall in size, viz. from sixteen to twenty-four pounds per quarter. The best is brought from a small village called Batcomb; and its excellency may, perhaps, be ascribed to their giving the calves small doses of metheglin in the milk, and keeping them in a dark place."

Fatting Cattle.-P. 238." There are two methods of fatting oxen, the one called summer, the other winter fatting; the first is thought the most profitable, and accompanied with the least risque.

"In the first method, they are purchased in February, and are for the most part of the Devon sort, bred either in the Northern part of that county, or in the lower part of Somersetshire. They are bought in good condition, and cost from eight pounds to fifteen pounds each; during the interval between February and grass time, they consume each about ten hundred or twelve hundred of inferior hay, viz. the skimming of their summer leaze. When at grass, they are allowed from one acre to one acre and a half each ox, and some add one sheep to each ox. Horses, if any, are kept very sparingly, not at any rate to exceed one to twenty acres of grazing ground. These oxen will be fat, some before and some soon after Michaelmas, paying for their keep from three shillings and six-pence to four shillings per week.

"Frequent bleeding, in small quantities, is found to aceelerate their fatting.*

"The

In Devonshire, fat cattle are repeatedly bled (as calves are in most parts of England), to give "brightness of color" to the beef on the shambles; as well as to make it keep better, in the summer season.

"The next stock are bought in June, July, and August, and are not of so good a sort, being either home-bred or Welsh, and cost from six to eight pounds. These follow the stock purchased in February, and are sometimes stall fed in the winter, and sometimes fatted in the field; in either case they have the best hay, and good attendance. "They are fat in April and May, and sell from twelve pounds to fourteen pounds each."

P. 241."The oxen, when fat, are driven to the London, the Salisbury, and the Bristol markets, at the following expences, (salesman's commission included:) London, 12s. per head; Sarum, 58.; Bristol, 38.

"They are nine days travelling to London, a distance of one hundred and thirty miles. It is difficult to say which may be considered as the best market; but the general opinion seems to be, that the London market is calculated for those only who attend it regularly every week, the price of beef per stone greatly varying according to the plenty of scarcity in the market.

"Some farmers graze heifers in preference to oxen, buying them in about the months of March and April, and selling them in October and November. The profit amounts to forty shillings or fifty shillings each for their summer food; and the land is stocked after the rate of one heifer to each acre, together with a considerable number of sheep both in summer and winter; and it is thought by many, that this method of occupation is more profitable than the former."

P. 242. "It is no unusual thing for some of the graziers to give their prime oxen a second summer's grass. In this case they are brought to a high state of perfection, and in all probability they pay more the second year than the first; for it is well known, that an animal nearly fat will consume much less food than a poor one."

"All the graziers of this county are partial to the red oxen of Somerset and Devon; and you seldom see a North country ox in their possession."

DAIRY.-P. 205. Few farmers milk their own cows, but let them out to a class of people, scarcely known in other counties, called dairy-men. A herd, of a good breed, will now let for seven or eight pounds per cow; a certain portion of land is devoted to their summer keeping, and a sufficient quantity of hay is provided by the farmer for their winter sustenance.

"This practice of letting dairies must have originated either from pride or indolence on the part of the farmer's household, and ought, in my opinion, to be checked by the landlord.

"When