them; and consequently fallows, in a county containing but little real clay, are confined, as they ought to be, to the most difficult and impracticable soils. The observation must not, however, be taken as universal; for in every part of the county they accidentally take place, when land is got, by ill management, so foul as to make a complete fallow more advisable than turnips, as the means of cleaning it."

SEMINATION.-Drilling.-P. 126. "Hertfordshire, though a tillage county, has but little to offer towards forming a general mass of experience, so very earnestly to be desired on this head in particular, and which, when collected together, would be attended with such beneficial effects.

"At Westmill I had passed near 100 miles in the county, inquiring for drilled crops, but neither seeing nor hearing of any. Mr. Greg had tried, but gave it up as unprofitable on this soil.

"Mr. Bullock, of Bennington, tried the drill-husbandry for several crops: for two seasons he executed the work well, but gave it up from finding his soil improper for it.

"The following conversation took place relative to the drill-husbandry, between me and Mr. Marsh, of Simmonside, who made me the following answer to a question I asked, 'whether he drilled his corn?

"No: I have seen enough of it. I will shew you presently as much barley as can grow out of the earth, broadcast, and the land clean: what should I drill for ?

66

Lady Melbourne, at Brocket-Hall, is one of the principal drillers in the county, where, however, this husbandry is very little practised. Her method is that of Mr. Ducket."

Several other instances of practice are drawn together; some of them making for, others against, the "new husbandry." The cons would seem to have it in Hertfordshire. But no matter as to those flying reports; the Secretary's own cool, considerate, dispassionate remarks are worth a volume of crude, contradictory, conversational opinions of inexperienced occupiers.

P.131. "Such are the experiments I met with in this county; and upon the whole, they leave the subject pretty much as I found it a conclusion, however, is fairly to be drawn, that a method of putting in crops which has failed with several intelligent cultivators, and only partially succeeded with some others, cannot be generally necessary as a means of profit. The observations relative to barley and oats are against the practice. I allude here to nothing done or talked of in other counties, as my business is with Hertfordshire; and certainly in this county, the experiments made, by no means ascertain that any advantage whatever may really exist; nor will the point be cleared up in this

county

county, till some capital farmer, by means of drilling, shall exceed the crops and profit which a Young of Hurral, a Whittington of Broad-water, and a Doo of Bygrave, gain by the common method."

ARABLE CROPS, and their INDIVIDUAL MANAGEMENT.Ample room for instructive information is allowed by the Secretary, for this most important compartment of a County Report; especially that of Hertfordshire, which has been long famed for its arable management.

WHEAT.-The Reporter treats of this crop, in some considerable degree, analytically:-and, in speaking of the minor crops, a few traits of analysis are observable.

But

instead of meeting, even in the section, Wheat, with an intelligent detail of the established practice among professional men of the higher class, who, or whose ancestors, raised the Hertfordshire husbandry to its acknowledged state of superiority and celebrity, we perceive little more than prompt memoranda put down, as it were incidently, on the practices, or incidents in practice, or perhaps the conversational opinions, not of hereditary, legitimate occupiers; but of more recent practitioners.

Some of those incidents, in "modern husbandry," are interesting, and might have been instructive, if the ATTENDANT CIRCUMSTANCES (the nature of the given land, its state as to tillage and weediness, the quantity and quality of the manure which it had recently received, and the crop or crops which preceded the one spoken of) circumstances out of which they severally grew,-had been fully declared. But, insulated as they mostly are, they convey, to the experienced practitioner, little useful information; and may tend to lead the inexperienced into serious errors.

I will place before my readers, in the progressive order in which they stand in the Report, whatever may appear to be entitled to their attention.

Tillage and Treading of Wheat.-P. 31. "Mr. Young, of Hurral, in loose land subject in any degree to cause wheat to root-fall, takes care to plough the ley some time before the sowing, and he treads it well with stock.

"When Mr. Hale's wheat shewed signs, in November and December, of being loose at the root, he drove his flock over, to tread down the land; and it did a great deal of good."

Topdressing Wheat.-P. 82. "In no district of the kingdom is wheat more generally top-dressed in the spring, with soot, ashes, and various other dressings; and I may add, that the farmers have a high opinion of this husbandry, and entertain no doubt of its answering well. But it deserves attention at the same time, that the small comparative

quantity of natural grass which is found in the county, renders live-stock a very inferior object, and consequently the farm-yard dung much less than in counties abounding more in grass, and where hay and straw are in less demand for sale."

Topfolding Wheat.-P. 85. "Mr. Young, of Hurral, topfolds his wheat after it is up, with much success, even on land that does not particularly demand treading. Mr. Biggs, near St. Albans, top-folds after sowing, but desists just at the moment of its coming up; and thinks this practice on dry loam very advantageous.

"Mr. Sedgwick, on light lands, always folds after sowing, and til Christmas, and finds great benefit from it. After very wet nights, and the ground has been poached, he has scolded his shepherd, but the wheat has been the better." (!) "When he observes a piece of wheat failing, from red worm or grub, &c. he spreads turnips on it, and brings the flock to eat them, and tread the land; and it has always answered well."

Mildew of Wheat.-P. 86. "Mr. Whittington always cuts mildewed wheat as early as possible; for it improves nothing by standing."

Produce of Wheat.-P. 87. "Mr. Whittington estimates the produce of all farms, on an average, as 23 bushels per acre." Stubbles of Wheat.-P. 91. "I know no district in which they are so attentive to cutting stubble as in Herts, carting it carefully to the farm-yards to make manure."

BARLEY-Soil.-P. 95. "Barley is very uncertain on chalk; for if sown late in spring, it fails, if the season be not very favourable indeed." This, as a general position, is erroneous. The abundant supply of the far-famed Thanet barley is grown on chalky lands. Applied to shallow calcarious soils, there is some truth in it.

Tillage for Barley.-P. 93. "The general practice, to which exceptions are very few, is to plough turnip land but once for this grain."

Species of Barley.-P. 94. "Zealand winter barley has been sown at Albury, and produced nine or ten quarters an acre; but the grain so bad, as to be good for nothing but pigs and poultry. It is sown in autumn, and harvested much earlier than the common sort."

Produce of Barley.-P. 95. "The average crop, extracted from seventeen minutes made of crops, gives 32 bushels and a smali fraction."

OATS-Quantity

OATS Quantity of Seed.-P. 96. "The common quantity amounts to five bushels per acre."-" To multiply minutes would be useless; for the general practice through the county is to sow four bushels."

Produce

Produce of Oats.-P. 97, " We find four quarters to be the general average."

Nothing is said of the cultivation of oats in Hertfordshire. We are informed, however, in p. 96, that "they are commonly mown either with the naked scythe, or a cradle added, and carted loose."

PEAS. A new mode of Culture.-P. 97. "Mr. Leach has found pease a very hazardous crop; but, for these two years past, has ploughed in the seed in the beginning of February; and, when the plants have been four inches high, he has harrowed the ground in a dry season twice, across and across, and rolled it immediately. His crops are good, and of the Berkshire dun."

TURNEPS.-History.-P. 102. "This most useful plant was cultivated very early in Hertfordshire, as a general article of husbandry; and I believe, before they were commonly introduced in Norfolk: it is natural, therefore, to expect to find them in great perfection: this, however, is not the case in one very material point."

L

Semination.-P. 103. "A circumstance in the culture of this crop, which Mr. Byde has found of very great consequence, is that of ploughing in the seed, instead of harrowing it in on the surface: he has found in this management, that it is not nearly so liable to be destroyed by the fly. He ploughed it in on half a field, and harrowed it in on the other half; and the difference was so considerabie, as to convince his bailiff, whose opinion was adverse to the practice. When the season proves too dry, it makes the difference of crop or no crop."

"Mr. Biggs, of Bursten, near St. Albans, has ploughed in turnip-seed shallow, and found it sometimes advantageous."

Hoing Turnips.-P. 104. "From these notes it appears, that the general practice is to hoe but once."

BULBOUS RAPE.-History in Hertfordshire.-P. 105. "This is an article of culture which gives me much pleasure to register, for it manifests an uncommon degree of merit. In other parts of the kingdom, these turnips are met with in the farms of gentlemen, but rarely in those of tenants; but in Hertfordshire, they have so rapidly made their way, as to be found in the usual management of great numbers of the common farmers: no trivial proof of their observation, knowledge, and good sense.'

Expenditure of Bulbous Rape.-P. 106, " Mr. Keate has fed horses with them, entirely to his satisfaction; and cuts the roots with a very simple, effective turnip-slicer : each horse had a bushel every day, with chaff, but no oats; they did their work very well, but in spring-sowing had a few D 3

oats

oats added: they throve well, and became fat while they were eating this turnip. Cows also do well on it; nor does it give their milk or butter any taste, but increases their milk considerably."

Disadvantage of Bulbous Rape.-P. 107. "The Marchioness of Salisbury has many acres in great perfection, and finds them of incomparable use. But Mr. Stephenson remarks, that their most important use is so late in the spring, that it is difficult to introduce them in a regular course, and sow spring corn in time: he thinks them rather applicable to a few fields out of a regular rotation for sowing some other crop than barley or oats after them; such, for instance, as winter tares."

"Mr. Deerman, of Astwick, is a great friend to them; but observes, that they throw the land out of course; as they are most useful so late in the season, that spring corn cannot be sown after them, he thinks the best way is to sow common turnips for the next crop, by which means also the land would be brought into remarkably high order. Mr. Marsh, his neighbour, makes the same observation, but has, however, always sown spring-corn after them.”

Soil for Bulbous Rape.-P. 108. "Mr. Chapman, of Hitchin, is of opinion that this root demands a richer and stronger soil than the chalks and loams about Hitchin; for they have been cultivated some years, dunged for, and twice hoed, but the success has not been great."

General Remarks on Bulbous Rape.-P. 111. (by the Reporter)." From this detail, it is sufficiently evident that the cultivation of the Swedish turnip is thoroughly introduced into the husbandry of this county, and not likely to be neglected in future. The farmers have great merit, in so soon adopting a new plant. It already makes a considerable figure."

These are certainly two serious inconveniencies belonging to the cultivation of this crop. Namely, that arising from early sowing, which prevents, at a critical season, the spring tillage that a fallow crop requires. The other is that of retarding the succeeding corn crop; or that of depriving the crop itself of one of its most valuable properties;that of filling up the chasm which too frequently takes place between the decay of turneps; and the spring shoot of herbage.

The former of those disadvantages, however, may be alleviated, or removed, by transplanting; and the latter by mowing off the spring shoots, for immediate use, and storing the roots for a supply of late spring feedage,-for sheep and cattle, until their pastures be fit for them; or as summer

provinder