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ble situations both practices are proper and advisable to be pursued. This truth can no where be more fully shewn than from what has taken place on the experimental farm in the parish of Clanfield, lately belonging to, and under the direction of the South Hants Agricultural Society.

"Mr. Jolliffe, the present very respectable occupier of that farm at Clanfield, relates, that after a trial of about five years upon two hundred acres of arable land, one moiety of which was exclusively employed in the drill, the other in the broad-cast husbandry, the Society thought proper to decline any farther trials in illustration of their respective excellence, and the stock, crop, and lease of the farm, were sold. This farm is now cultivated on the most improved system of broad-cast management, by the gentleman just mentioned: his green crops are good, and the white straw crops vastly superior to the generality in that neighbourhood. It is here to be observed, that the soil of this farm varies from a tough red loam abounding with flints, to a dry chalk rubble, a strong grey chisselly loam."

I do not mean, by bringing this fact forward, to impress on the minds of my readers that Mr. Vancouver is, or was at the time of writing, an antidrillist; as that would be unfair. He has, in the course of his work, repeatedly spoken favorably of the "drill system." And has, moreover, bestowed a sheet and a half of paper and printing, with of course much time and hard labor, on vague calculations of comparison, between the two operations.

ARABLE CROPS.

To this important subject, the Reporter has appropriated one fourth of his volume. With what profit, in the estimation of its Reviewer, will presently be seen.

WHEAT. This princely crop is treated of, districtwise; in a section entitled " Tillage," not only at the commencement of the section and along the heads of the pages throughout, but in the table of contents. No such section, head, or other division, as Wheat is to be found in the book, tho the subject of it fills more than two sheets; through which I have patiently pursued it-district after district-without, I can almost say, instruction, or even interest. The few extracts, subjoined, are all that I feel myself warranted to incorporate with this Work.

P. 134. (District, Chalk Hills.)" Whether the soil consists of a dry chalky rubble, or approaches a bright hazel mould, the open field, or tenantry lands, as well as those that are in severalty, are generally first opened about Midsummer, by half-ploughing or raftering, and which with one, or at

most

most two succeeding earths, with proportionate dragging, barrowings, and rolling, the toughest and most matted green sward is readily subdued. This being effected, dung, or sheep-fold, or when the late fallow did not take place, but that some prior green crop has been penned off upon the land, forms the usual manure for procuring crops of wheat on such land. The seed required is about three bushels and a half per acre, sown broast-cast, and let in with the nine or eleven-share plough; harrowed twice in a place lengthwise, and then across the ridges, until the seed is as completely covered as may be deemed necessary, or that such a mode of proceeding will admit of; but when the necessary dressing has not been completed before the wheat is sown, folding in dry weather upon the sown wheat, and even upon the green wheat between Christmas and the middle of April (the ewes and lambs feeding in the day-time upon turnips or in the water-meadows); is found to produce a very great advantage to the ensuing crop. By this practice one instance occurred upon the survey upon lands of this description, where the improvement made was such as to yield a produce of 46 bushels to the acre; it is always found most abundantly to answer, by giving that consistence to the surface of these soils, so favourable to the future growth of wheat, affording a more uniform plant, with much longer and better set ears at harvest."

P. 154. (Isle of Wight.) "Spring wheat has been sown in the island, but when put in so late as Candlemas, is always liable to mildew; an effect seldom experienced in the wheat crop under any other circumstances, and when the crop is sown in due season. A lamentable example of this practice occurred not many years since, of an ingenuous and speculative farmer sowing, under the recommendation of high authority, about 60 acres of spring wheat, the average produce of which was scarcely a sack of merchantable wheat per acre; and the man was consequently ruined."

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Throughout the whole of this county, the wheat is commonly rolled with a heavy roller in the spring of the year; it is also occasionally harrowed, particularly on the chalk rubbly and strong grey loams, both of which are extremely liable to bake and encrust upon the surface, in such a manner as to set the plant fast after heavy rains and a sudden drying wind in the spring of the year.

"There are but few parts of the county where the early wheats

* The true spring wheat (triticum æstivum) should not be sown until two months after Candlemas.

wheats are not fed by sheep, cows, or young cattle, in the month of March, and sometimes as late as new Ladyday."

BARLEY.-P. 158. "The common modes of cultivating barley in this county are two, one after turnips, the other upon a wheat stubble, which has been winter-fallowed."

OATS.-Tartarian or Reed Oats.-P. 163. "This grain, however justly it was condemned on our first knowledge of it, has from early and thick sowing been found most wonderfully to improve within a period of twenty-five or thirty years by these means it has 'in a few instances been brought to a superior quality of the average above stated,” (361b., the Winchester bushel,)" and with an excess in quantity to the amount of six or eight bushels per acre."

PEAS.-P. 167. "A considerable mystery still seems to hang over certain properties of pease, with regard to their boiling well for soup or porridge; good boilers being sometimes sown upon fields which have never been known to refuse yielding a produce possessing a similar quality, but that effect afterwards ceasing, and a hard indissoluble pea has been produced, that continued for several successive periods; whilst on the other hand, land that had never been known, or even suspected of being able to communicate a boiling quality to its pease, would unexpectedly give to the produce of an hard, and almost impenetrable pea, all the properties of being excellent boilers."

This, as well as the above, is an item of information which is new to me. No authority is named.

POTATOES.-P. 184. "This important root is judiciously attended to in a greater or less degree throughout the county, and for human food almost exclusively. The general practice is to cultivate them in rows from eighteen to twenty-seven inches a-part. Grass potatoes, or those cultivated upon old lay ground in beds, and in the manner practised in Ireland, are by no means uncommon."

TURNEPS.-P. 175. This valuable plant seems to be daily gaining ground among the most respectable farmers and best agricultural characters in the county."

This crop appearing, in the above notice, to be still in its nonage, in Hampshire, it would be unreasonable to expect much practical information of value, concerning its culture, there. The following information, however, is worth registering. It would have been a satisfaction to have been informed in which of the Reporter's districts the practice prevails.

P. 177." In preparing for the tankard, and other common turnips, the usual practice is, to give the first earth about Candlemas; upon this earth muckle and sheep fold,

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that is, littering the sheep-fold with long dung from the straw-yard, and penning upon it about half the usual quantity of sheep per acre until Midsummer, or dung, or mixing, previous to the last earth, and sow the manured land thus fresh ploughed in every day, between the 10th and 25th of June. The same management is pursued in the culture of turnips designed for late or winter use, with this difference only in point of season, that the later turnips may be kept sowing through all July."

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In his section, "Turneps," this Reporter speaks not only of BULBOUS RAPE, but of KOHL RABI-or Hungarian turneps;" and, on the latter, in such terms as SIR THOMAS TYRWHITT must be well pleased with.-P. 180. “So extremely sanguine (and perhaps with good reason) are some gentlemen, on the superior excellence of this plant, that there is scarcely a circumstance unfavourable in the culture of turnips in general, that this plant is not stated to be provided with the means of controuling."

CULTIVATED HERBAGE.-Rape and Raygrass.-P. 214. "Mr. Richards, of North-house, sows rape about the 1st of July, about 6 lb. per acre, with three bushels of ray-grass for spring food. The rape will generally be ready for the first feeding by the beginning of October, when a small bite also of the ray-grass will appear. The feeding it thus early, and occasionally with the coleseed to Christmas, has not been found in the slightest manner to injure it. The ray-grass with the coleseed in the spring of the year, affords an admirable pasturage for the ewes and lambs, and about Midsummer (by which time the prime and best virtues of the ray-grass is expended), the field receives a short summer fallow for wheat, and frequently with no other dressing than what is thus procured. The autumnal and spring food thus produced, is considerable, and equally acceptable at both seasons."

SAINFOIN.-P. 191. "This very excellent grass is cultivated with universal success on all soils having an understratum of chalk; it is sometimes sown upon land of a thin gravelly texture, and lying upon a deep bed of dry pebbly gravel; but here it does not seem to flourish as well as upon the thin dry chalky downs, for which it seems more particularly adapted, and where it is generally found to continue a fair mowing plant for 12 or 15 years."

Sainfoin Hay.-The subjoined remarks, on making it, are worthy of the consideration of its growers.-P. 192. "This bay should never be so far dried as to become exhausted of its sap before it is put together: its undergoing a good full heat in the stack, seems particularly necessary for the purpose of maturing its juices into that saccharine

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principle which gives to it its best and most nutritious quality. This point attained, sainfoin will preserve nearly as good a keeping quality as that of any other hay, but otherwise it will become harsh and sticky, when such parts will be refused, even by hungry store cattle, for the softer and more inviting qualities possessed by well got barley straw."-This being as it may, horses will not be found to be quite so fastidious.

Breaking up Sainfoin Leys.-P. 193. "The most common mode of breaking up the old sainfoin-lays is to half plough or rafter them as shallow as possible about Candlemas in this state the ground lies for about a month, when taking the advantage of a dry spell, the rafters are dragged and cross-harrowed, when the balks of whole ground left by raftering are taken up by the breast-plough. These, after laying for some time, are tortured with the drags and harrows, and afterwards collected into heaps, and burnt. The breast-ploughing, collecting, and burning the green sward, will cost from 15s. to 258. per acre. The for mer surface thus destroyed, and the ashes spread, the field is readily reduced to any state of subsequent tillage for turnips or for wheat; and when sufficiently in time, the early tankard-turnip is first cultivated, fed off, and the ground sown with wheat as early as possible."

GRASS LANDS.

WATERED MEADOWS.-We have no estimate of the ex tent of this variety of grass lands, within the limits of Hampshire. A pretty accurate account, I believe, of their localities may be seen in p. 293, aforegoing.

On the Management of "Water Meads," the following passages, which appear in the Reporter's chapter "Grass Land," are entitled to transcription.

P. 269. "These meadows, when lying on a sound dry bottom, are regularly hurdled off, leaving open hurdles for the lambs to pass through and feed on a-head. The couples are seldom suffered to remain on the water-meadows all night; but as the weather, or other circumstances may point out, are folded upon the winter fallows, lay, or stubble grounds. The usual hours of keeping them on the meadows, are from eight o'clock in the morning till six in the evening, and this generally continues from the last week in March till the first week in May, both inclusive.

"As soon as the first shoot of the water-meadows is thus taken off by the ewes and lambs, the carriages and lateral conductors of the water are examined and righted, and the watering is renewed each section of the meadow in the

manner

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