factories, and to inquire respecting their condition, employment, and education; and one of the secretaries of state shall have power, on the application of an inspector, to appoint superintendents to assist in carrying out the provisions of the act. 9. The inspectors are to make all rules necessary for the execution of the act, and to enforce the attendance at school, for at least two hours daily out of six days in the week, of children employed in factories; from whose weekly wages a deduction, not exceeding a penny in every shilling, is to be made for the expense of schooling. 10. No child shall be employed who shall not, on Monday of every week, give to the factory master a certificate of his or her attendance at school for the previous week. 11. The interior walls of every factory shall be whitewashed every year. 12. A copy or abstract of the act shall be hung up in a conspicuous part of every factory. 13. The inspectors shall regularly, once a year, report their proceedings to one of the secretaries of state. There are other clauses regulating the hours of working in mills where the use of water-power instead of steam-power disturbs the uniformity of the working; the steps to be taken in order to obtain regular certificates of age for the children requiring them; the erection of schools, where necessary; and the mode of enforcing the provisions

of the act.

In the following year a short explanatory act was passed, to render more clear the meaning of the legislature on certain points; but with this exception, no further change was made till 1844. Committees of the House of Commons sat in 1840 and in 1841, and bilis were from time to time introduced by individual members; but the Act of 1833 remained the groundwork of all the proceedings in respect to factories. The Act itself was, as we have already stated, in great part the result of a commission which had been appointed in the early part of 1833, and which had collected information by means of district commissioners in all the factory districts. This local machinery formed a groundwork for the inspectorship afterwards established by the government when the act was obtained. Four inspectors were appointed, and the British Islands were mapped out into four great divisions; the cotton and woollen district of Yorkshire, Lancashire, and the immediate neighbourhood, forming the 1st; the eastern and southern counties of England the 2nd; some parts of the West of England, nearly the whole of Wales, and the southern half of Ireland, constituting the 3rd; the northern half of Ireland, the whole of Scotland, and the four northern counties of England, the 4th. Each district was placed under one inspector, who made arrangements for becoming personally acquainted with every factory in his district employed for textile manufactures. Surgeons were appointed to grant the certificates required for the children; a system of occasional supervision was established; the inspectors communicated with the chief mill-owners on any points of difficulty which occurred; and the schooling of the children was gradually entered upon. One great difficulty however was this, that many manufacturers, as a means of escaping from the provisions of the Act, gradually discharged the children who were within the specified ages, and employed others of an age to which the education and the working-hours clauses did not apply; and many young children were thrown out of employ in consequence.

The Act rendered imperative some sort of schooling for the factory children; but it did not lay down rules for its government. The arrangements accordingly became of a very crude and heterogeneous character. The factory children received their education from five different sorts of schools, Sunday Schools, Dame and Private Schools, Factory Schools, Church of England Schools, and Dissenters' Schools. The disposal of the children on Sundays was a matter which did not come under the control of the inspectors; but the four classes of week-day schools were those which affected the daily regulations of the factories. The dame-schools or private schools, kept by mistresses or masters for their own profit, and not under the control or management of any other person, were of a very mean and inefficient kind, utterly wanting, in respect to instruction, books, and discipline, in the means of working out the required object. The factory-schools were such as were held in or near the factory where the children were employed, and were under the control and management of the owner of the factory. The Church Schools and the Dissenters' Schools, supported in many cases by powerful religious denominations, partook of the general character of such classes of schools, in respect to education and discipline. Many of the factory-schools, where the owner cared very little about the matter, were as bad as the dame-schools; whereas, in some cases the mill-owners took great interest and expended considerable sums in giving efficiency to the schools. At Messrs. Marshall's, at Leeds, for instance, a neat building was erected purposely as a schoolroom for the factory children, admirably fitted with every requisite for a large school.

In 1844 an Act was passed (7 & 8 Vict. c. 15) which came into operation in October of the same year, and effected certain changes in the law as to factories. An Office of Factory Inspectors was established in London. Persons beginning to occupy a factory were required to send notice of it to this office. The powers of inspectors to enter factories and schools are increased. The certifying surgeons are to be appointed by the inspectors; and the certificates are to have a definite form and expression. The whitewashing or painting of a factory is placed under strict regulations. Provision is made for the protection of children from the effects of the water in wet-flax spinning, and from

accidents by the machinery while in motion. Children may be admitted and employed at eight years of age (the former minimum having been nine years). The maximum amount of daily work for each child is seven hours, subject to diminution in certain cases. All females are regarded in the same light as "young persons" (that is, persons from thirteen to eighteen years of age), as to the limitation of the hours of work. The recovery of lost time by the stoppage of machinery, the regulation of the meal-times in the factories, the holidays given to the children, the control of their attendance at school, the inspection of dangerous machinery, and many other points, are modified or extended in this Act; which however preserves the general character of the Act of 1833. Before touching on the legislation of later years, we will present a few statistics of factories. The number of power-looms employed is to a certain degree, an index to the extent of factory operations; since the substitution of a power-loom for a hand-loom involves the substitution of a large and well-organised factory for, perhaps, the humble cottage of the hand-loom weaver. In a return made to government in 1836, the number of power-looms then employed is stated to have been about 92,000. There was another return concerning the number of factories, and of the persons working therein, in the same year; this gave about 304,000 persons in about 2860 mills, or 106 to each. By the commencement of 1839 the numbers had thus risen:-420,000 persons in about 4200 mills, or 100 to each. A return for 1843 gives a series of numbers under three different points of view; the first being according to the kind of textile material; the second, according to the location in different parts of the empire; and the third, according to the ages and sexes of the workpeople.

It may be well to remark that these numbers relate to the workpeople actually employed within the factories at one or other of the earn a living by these trades, including those engaged in hand loom weaving, stocking-making, calico-printing, dyeing, bleaching, &c., very greatly exceeds the above, and has been variously estimated by different with Lancashire, gave the following as the state of his district in that In 1845, Mr. Horner, whose district was very nearly co-extensive year :

above four kinds of textile manufacture. The whole number who

writers.

Workers Workers under 18. 18 & above. 128,305

Power Looms.

138,717

Cotton mills
Woollen mills
Flax mills
Silk mills

England and

Wales Scotland Ireland ·

3,689 22,850,010 272,588 109,824

550 2,256,403 532,303

91

34,155

23,811 19,861 2,517 4,532

495,707 929 75,688 38 24,687 Total 4,330 25,638,716 298,916 134,217 35,122 596,082 In this table, the horse-power includes both steam-engines and waterwheels employed in working the machinery in the factories; they are nearly in the ratio of four-fifths steam-power to one-fifth water-power. The term children is applied to those at and under 13 years of age; from 13 to 18 the term applied is young persons. Taking the whole of the United Kingdom in one entry, and regarding only the ages and sexes of the persons employed, we find the following numbers :

Males. 19,400 67,864

157,866

345,299 = 590,429

In respect to females, one entry includes young persons and adults, as the same laws now apply to both classes. Of 100 persons working in factories, 58 are females and 42 males. About 6 per cent. of the workers are under 13 years old. The next classification we shall notice is that which depends on the kind of operations carried on. four classes, as follows:-

Spinning factories

Weaving factories

Spinning and weaving factories Not specified

2636

454

1005

505

4600

There are

The five principal kinds of materials employed in the factories, and the persons employed in them, are distributed as follows:

Persons.

Factories.

Males

Employed.

Females

Employed.

Total

Employed.

The number of factories here given (4600) is in excess of that given in the first table (4330); this probably arose from some of the factories being entered twice, in cases where they worked mixed fabrics of cotton and woollen, or cotton and silk, or woollen and silk. It is proper also to bear in mind that there are a few other discrepancies in the figures for different years, not explained in the returns from which they are taken. The cotton factories were rather less than half the whole number, but employed more than half the entire number of operatives. The average number of operatives in cotton factories was 120; the average in all factories was 75. Out of the 1932 cotton factories, no less than 1235 were in Lancashire; out of the 1998 woollen and worsted factories, no less than 1298 were in Yorkshire. It will be 64 per seen that a remarkable parallelism exists in these numbers; cent. of all the cotton factories were in Lancashire, and 65 per all the woollen and worsted factories were in Yorkshire.

cent. of

The factory legislation since 1844 has comprised five statutes. In 1846 a new Act came into operation, which brought calico-printing works within the range of the inspectors. By the terms of another Act, passed in 1847, the children and young persons are to work not more than eleven hours a day from July 1, 1847, and not more than ten hours after the 1st of May, 1848. The same provisions were made in relation to women of whatever age; and it thus arose that all women, boys, and girls employed in factories were limited in their hours of working, adult males being alone excepted. Another Act, passed in 1850, introduced a few minor changes, chiefly with a view to prevent night-work in factories. In 1853 an Act was passed making further regulations touching the employment of young children in the evening or night. It was enacted that, after the 1st of September in that year, children should not begin work before six in the morning, or remain at work after six in the evening; in the winter months the hours might be from seven till seven, on due notice being given to the sub-inspectors; work to end on Saturdays at two o'clock. These regulations, subject to exceptions under special circumstances, were to be incorporated with such of the provisions of previous statutes as were not repealed or modified by them. In 1856 an Act was passed to remove doubts concerning the statute of 1844 in reference to mill-gearing; the mill-owners had interpreted this statute in one sense, the inspectors in another; and thereupon the new Act declared that the mill-fencing should only apply to such parts of the machinery as children, young

This seems to show that women have increased in number in factories more rapidly than men, boys, or girls.

In the article EMBROIDERY AND SEWING MACHINES, it is mentioned that shirts, collars, and other kinds of ready-made linen sold in London, are in a large degree sewn and stitched by machinery. We may here add a few words on this subject in relation to the north of The manufacturers of Manchester and Glasgow, and the Ireland, where the factory-system has been brought into connection with it. wholesale dealers of those towns and of the metropolis, have found out that the Irish peasant girls work very neatly with the needle, and are eager to obtain employment on linen, cotton, or muslin work, whether by the ordinary plying of the needle, or by tambouring and sewing machines. Some of the firms now own large establishments in Ireland, where the factory system is in part carried out. In and near Londonderry alone there are more than a dozen factories in which sewing-machines are employed; these machines are at present about 700 in number; and the working of them, with subsidiary operations, employ 1800 women and girls. Taking one with another, these persons

(mostly girls) earn about 6s. per week each on an average; some, who are quick and clever, occasionally earn as much as 20s. In one of the establishments the sewing-machines are driven by steam-power, and are fitted with patent self-acting regulators, still further to increase the automatic action. Besides these machine-sewers working in factories, there are 16,000 hand-sewers scattered over the counties of Londonderry, Donegal, Tyrone, Fermanagh, and Antrim.

We may remark, in conclusion, that in the United States, spinning and weaving factories are much more frequently owned by joint-stock companies than in England. The celebrated cotton factories at Lowell, and numerous others in the northern states of the Union, are held by companies; they are large, well provided with machinery, and worked by operatives who maintain a somewhat higher status than those of England. This may in part result from the more general diffusion of education in that country, a fact of which there seems to be no doubt. In these large American spinning and weaving mills, owned by companies, the proprietors often provide boarding-houses, in which many of the workpeople-especially girls and young women away from their parents' homes-are supplied with food and lodging under a well-organised system, and at prices calculated rather in relation to the well-being of the persons themselves than to the realisation of a profit.

FACULTIES. [UNIVERSITY.]

FAGINE. An alkaloid of unknown composition contained in the beech-nut, Fagus sylvatica.

FAGOT, SAP-, a small kind of FASCINE, about 3 feet in length.
FAINTING. [SYNCOPE.]

FAIR, an annual or fixed meeting of buyers and sellers; from the Latin feria, a holiday. Fairs in ancient times were chiefly held on holidays. Anciently, before many flourishing towns were established, and the necessaries or ornaments of life, from the convenience of communication and the increase of provincial civility, could be procured in various places, goods and commodities of every kind were chiefly sold at fairs, to which, as to one universal mart, the people resorted periodically, and supplied most of their wants for the ensuing year. The display of merchandise and the conflux of customers at these the most comprehensive markets for domestic commerce was prodigious, and they were therefore often held on open and extensive plains. Warton, in his History of English Poetry,' has given a curious account of that of St. Giles's Hill or Down, near Winchester. It was instituted and given as a kind of revenue to the Bishop of Winchester by William the Conqueror, who by his charter permitted it to continue for three days; but in consequence of new royal grants, Henry III. prolonged its continuance to sixteen days. Its jurisdiction extended seven miles round, and comprehended even Southampton, then a capital trading town; and all merchants who sold wares within that circuit, unless at the fair, forfeited them to the bishop. As late as 1512, as we learn from the Northumberland Household-book, fairs still continued to be the principal marts for purchasing necessaries in large quantities, which are now supplied by the numerous trading towns. Philip, king of France, complained in very strong terms to Edward II. in 1314 that the merchants of England had desisted from frequenting the fairs in his dominions with their wood and other goods, to the great loss of his subjects, and entreated him to persuade, and, if necessary, to compel them, to frequent the fairs of France as formerly, promising them all possible security and encouragement. (Rym., ‘Fœd.,' tom. iii., p. 482.) When a town or village had suffered from misfortune, by way of assisting to re-establish it, a fair, among other privileges, was sometimes granted. This was the case at Burley, in Rutlandshire, 49th Edw. III. (Abbrev. Rot. Orig.,' vol. ii., p. 338.)

The Chronicles of Stow and Grafton, published in Queen Elizabeth's time, contain lists of the fairs of England according to the months. No fair or market can be held but by a grant from the crown, or by prescription supposed to take its rise from some ancient grant, of which

no record can be found.

The fairs of Frankfort-on-the-Mayn and Leipzig are still pre-eminent in Europe; each is held three times a year. Leipzig at these times is the mart and exchange of Central Europe, and is visited by merchants and foreigners from the most distant parts of the globe, sometimes to the number of thirty or forty thousand. The whole booktrade of Germany is centred in the Easter fair at Leipzig. Nishnei Novgorod, in Russia, at the confluence of the Oka and the Wolga, has a great annual fair in June, at which an immense number of traders assemble, many of them from the most remote parts of Asia.

FAIRIES, a small sort of imaginary spirits of both sexes in human shape, who are fabled to haunt houses in companies, to reward cleanliness, to dance and revel in meadows in the night-time, and to play a thousand freakish pranks. Both sexes are represented generally as clothed in green, and the traces of their tiny feet are supposed to remain visible on the grass for a long time after their dances: these are still called fairy-rings or circles. They are also fabled to be in the practice of stealing unbaptised infants and leaving their own progeny in their stead. Besides these terrestrial fairies, there was a species who dwelt in the mines, where they were often heard to imitate the actions of the workmen, to whom they were thought to be inclined to do service. In Wales this kind of fairies was called "knockers," and

was said to point out the rich veins of silver and lead. Some fairies are fabled to have resided in wells. It was also believed that there was a sort of domestic fairies, called, from their sunburnt complexions, Brownies, who were extremely useful, and who performed all sorts of domestic drudgery. The words fairy and browny seem at once to point out their own etymologies.

Bourne, in his Antiquitates Vulgares,' supposes the superstition relating to fairies to have been conveyed down to us by tradition from the Lamiæ, or ancient sorceresses; others have deduced them from the lares of the Romans. Dr. Percy tells us, on the assurance of a learned friend in Wales, that the existence of fairies is alluded to by the most ancient British bards, among whom their commonest name was that of the Spirits of the Mountains. The most general conjecture, however, is, that these imaginary people are of Oriental origin, and that the notion of them was first entertained by the Persians and Arabs, whose traditions and stories abound with the adventures of these imaginary beings. The Persians called them Peris; the Arabs, Ginn; and the Arabs assigned them a peculiar country to inhabit, which they called Ginnistan, or Fairy-land.

Shakspere has been singularly happy in his dramatic exhibition of fairies. The belief in these fabled beings has still a fast hold upon the minds of many of our rustics, which may perhaps be considered as a remnant of that credulity which was once almost universal. Poole, in his English Parnassus,' has given the names of the fairy court, their clothing, and their diet. Dr. Grey, in his 'Notes on Shakspere,' gives us a description, from other writers, of fairy-land, a fairy entertainment, and fairy hunting; and Dr. King has given a description of Orpheus' fairy entertainment in his 'Orpheus and Eurydice' (edit. 1776, vol. iii., p. 212). Wieland in his Oberon' gives an account of the quarrel of Oberon and Titania, with consequences varying considerably from those detailed by Shakspere in his 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' A charm against fairies was turning the cloak. The reader who would look further into fairy mythology may consult Percy's 'Reliques of Antient English Poetry;' Sir Walter Scott's Essay on the Fairy Superstition,' in the 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border;' Keightley's Fairy Mythology,' published in 1828, in which the legends of different countries are collected; and Jacob Grimm's 'Deutsche Mythologie,' 1835.

FAITH (fides, in Latin), means belief or trust in a fact or doctrine, and is more especially used to express the belief of Christians in the tenets of their religion, and also by figure to mean that religion itself. The great divisions of Christianity, the Roman, the Greek, the Reformed or Calvinist, the Episcopal English, the Independents, and the Protestant or Lutheran churches, have each separate confessions of faith, but they all acknowledge the great fundamental points of the Christian faith or religion, namely, the inspiration of the Scriptures, and the divinity of Jesus Christ. [CONFESSIONS.] In the earlier ages of the Church the chief controversies of theologians, especially in the East, ran upon metaphysical questions concerning the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the divine nature of the Saviour. In modern times controversy has run more frequently upon moral questions concerning the conduct of men, the requisites of salvation, and the discipline of the Church. Faith, the necessity of which is acknowledged by all Christians, has been viewed in various lights with respect to its efficacy. From the earliest ages the Church has taught that faith, or belief in the Redeemer, joined with good works, was necessary for the justification of man; that good works, that is, works acceptable to God, could only be produced by the Spirit of God influencing the heart, but that the human will must co-operate with grace in producing them, though the human will alone is powerless to good unless assisted by divine grace. Still, man being a free agent, the will can call on God, through the merits of the Saviour, for a measure of his grace to assist its own efforts. Thus the co-operation of God and man was held as the means of the justification and salvation of the latter. Luther, however, and Calvin, denied the power of the will to call on God for his grace; they substituted faith, and faith alone, in the merits of the Redeemer, as the means of salvation, by which faith man firmly believes that his sins are at once remitted. But this faith must be sincere, absolute, without a shadow of doubt or distrust; and as man cannot of himself obtain this, it can only be given to him by inspiration of the Spirit of God. Here the question of faith becomes involved with those of grace and predestination. As for our works, both Luther and Calvin look upon them as absolutely worthless for our salvation. Some fanatics, and the Anabaptists among the rest, drew from these premises of the leading reformers some very dangerous consequences, which Luther and Calvin had not anticipated, such as that men might live as profligately as they pleased, and yet, by the inspiration of divine grace, might obtain the faith requisite for their salvation.

The opinions of Luther and Calvin on the subject of faith and predestination have been since considerably modified by many Protestant divines, who have admitted that the will of man must co-operate in order to obtain the grace necessary for justification. The Roman Catholic church admits the merit of good works and repentance, united with faith, for the purpose of salvation. But then, it requires an absolute faith in all the decisions of its general councils in matters of dogma, without the least liberty of investigation on the part of the laity, and without any doubt, for doubt itself is held to be sinful. The Reformed and Protestant churches, generally speaking, hold faith in

has at least the advantage in a scientific point of view that it excludes from the domain of logic much that is extraneous to it; for the fallacies of form may be reduced to the syllogism with four terms which the analytical process of demonstration can alone discover, whereas those of the matter must be corrected by the formation of valid principles and a correct generalisation of terms, which belong to the synthesis of induction, which is totally alien from logic as the science of demonstrative reasoning.

For an enumeration and exposition of the several sophisms, see the sections on fallacy in Whately's Logic;' and for the exposure of that class of fallacies which he has called political fallacies, the work of Bentham, already cited.

FALLING STARS. [AEROLITES.]

FALLOW operations are those acts of cultivation which depend for their fertilising influence rather on the mere tillage of the soil, its disintegration, disturbance, and exposure to external agencies, than on the direct addition of fertilising matter. Originally the term fallow applied to that portion of land in which no seed is sown for a whole year, in order that the soil may be left exposed to the influence of the atmosphere, the weeds destroyed by repeated ploughings and harrowings, and the fertility improved at a less expense of manure than it would be if a crop had been raised upon it. Even then a large portion of the benefit derived from fallow was attributed to the mere tillage operations included in the term; but, in addition to this, manuring was (and indeed still is) an almost invariable part of a summer fallow. A bare summer fallow is, however, now comparatively rare, and fallow crops, those which allow of fallow operations during their growth, are the fertilising agents substituted in its place. The practice of fallowing land is as old as the Roman Empire. It appears that wherever the Romans extended their conquests and planted colonies, they introduced this mode of restoring land to a certain degree of fertility when exhausted by bearing grain. The principle on which it was recommended was, however, erroneous. It was thought that the land grew tired of raising vegetable produce and required rest, and hence this rest was often all that constituted the fallow; the tillage, which alone is the improving part of the process, being almost entirely neglected. Where land was abundant and the population thin, it was no great loss to allow a considerable portion of the soil to remain unproductive; and it was cheaper to let land lie fallow during the course of a whole year, which gave ample leisure for every operation, than to accelerate the tillage and increase the manure put upon it. But when land becomes of greater value with the increase of population, it is a serious loss if a great portion of the soil be thus left in an unproductive state. Accordingly the attention of agriculturists has been turned to lessen the necessity of fallows, and to substitute some other means of restoring fertility. It is acknowledged by all experienced farmers that manure alone is not sufficient for this purpose. The ground must be tilled and noxious weeds destroyed; and the only efficacious mode of doing so is to stir the ground at the time when their seeds have vegetated, their roots have made shoots, and before any new seed can ripen. But this is exactly the time when corn is usually growing, and when the land cannot be stirred to expose it to the heat of the sun and to dry the roots which are turned up. The only apparent remedy is therefore not to sow it during one summer, and on this principle lands are usually fallowed. The manner in which this is done has been noticed before [ARABLE LAND]; and the common process is so simple, that, provided the purpose of fallowing be kept in view, the operations require only a little attention to time and weather to be performed aright.

There is no difference of opinion respecting the manner of extirpating weeds by repeated ploughing and harrowing, but there is with respect to the influence of the heat of the sun upon the land. Some men are of opinion that light is the great purifier of the soil; that it decomposes certain noxious particles, which are the result of the formation of the seed, and which have been termed the excrements of plants. Physiologists agree that the roots draw the nutritive juices out of the soil, that they undergo a chemical change in the plant, and that there is an exudation also from the roots, which may be looked upon as the residuum of the natural process. De Candolle, Raspail, and other eminent physiologists have placed this point beyond controversy; but no one has yet been able to collect these matters so as to analyse and compare them; and the reasonings on the subject have been merely conjectural. In particular soils and situations a scorching sun has a pernicious effect on the soil which is exposed to his rays; and where it is shaded by a crop which covers it completely, it seems to have acquired fertility, which the exposed surface has not. But this is not sufficient to establish a general rule. Some soils which are of a wet nature are greatly improved by being as it were baked in a hot sun. Not only are the weeds destroyed by the abstraction of moisture, but the soil thus becomes lighter and more friable. On sandy soils the reverse is the case, and on intermediate loams the effect will be more or less advantageous as they approach nearer to the clay or to the sand. In light sandy soils, then, it is probable that the only advantage of a naked fallow is to kill weeds, especially the couchgrass (Triticum repens), which is apt to infest light soils: and that the exposure to the sun in hot weather is not only no advantage, but probably detrimental. If, then, any means can be devised of clearing light lands from weeds without leaving them fallow for a whole

ARTS AND SCI. DIV. VOL. IV.

summer, a great advantage will be obtained. This ha been effected completely by the cultivation of turnips and clover, which was first practised in the light soils of Flanders, and afterwards introduced into the similar soils of Norfolk, from whence it has spread all over Great Britain, and is beginning to be adopted more generally in Ireland. The advantage of the turnip culture is so great in light lands, that it has gradually been extended through the different gradations of loams, till it has reached even the colder and stiffer clays, on which it would at one time have been thought absurd to attempt to raise this root. But this has been attended with an important benefit. It has made the cultivators of heavy soils turn their attention to the drying of their lands, by draining, and to improving their texture by burning and by deep tillage, in order to make them capable of bearing turnips; and although the extended culture of this useful root is not what we should recommend for cold wet clays, we highly approve of all improvements which will make such lands capable of bearing good crops of turnips. Unless the turnips can be consumed by sheep on the spot, or by cattle near at hand, without injuring the land in taking off the turnips and carting on the manure, there will be no great advantage in a crop of turnips; and some other substitute must be found for the occasional fallow before it can be altogether abandoned. The great hope of the clay-land farmer, as to the possibility of the suc cessful cultivation of a fallow crop on such land, rests on the mangoldwurzel and the cabbage crop [CABBAGE; MANGOLD, Cultivation of], which are especially fitted for soils of the stiffer class. On light lands the preparation for the turnips, the abundant manuring, and subsequent hoeing, are as effectual in cleaning the land and bringing it into a fertile state as any complete fallow could ever be; and the clover smothers and destroys the seed weeds which may have come up amongst the barley or oats sown after the turnips. There are several ways in which the cultivation of light soils may be varied without adhering strictly to the Norfolk rotation, so as to introduce a greater variety of produce. Tares may be sown on the better sorts of light lands after a good tillage given immediately after harvest. If they are fed off or cut green in May and June, early turnips may be sown after them, which will be fit to feed off or draw for the cows in September, in good time for ploughing up the land for wheat-sowing. In this case the land gets all the ploughing necessary to clean it completely, and exactly at the best time. Three ploughings may be given after the tares if the land is not clean, and the turnips being well hand-hoed and horse-hoed, the land will be perfectly clean to receive the wheat-seed. Manure may be put on for the tares or the turnips; and if these are fed off with sheep, they will so enrich the soil, that the next crop cannot fail to be abundant. As a general rule, however, tares are better adapted for the clay soils; and rye is a better crop to take before turnips on sandy loam. By varying the management of light land according to circumstances, and with some judgment, many more profitable crops can be raised than by the common simple rotation, in which a fourth of the land is sown with turnips. If this crop fails, which is often the case where it recurs so often, the whole system is deranged, and the loss is very great. The introduction of a greater variety of produce in the cultivation of light lands, in imitation of the Flemish practice, and the increase of stock kept in consequence, would be an important step in the improvement of British husbandry.

On heavy soils it is often impossible to keep the land clear of weeds, in wet climates and unfavourable seasons, without a complete fallow, and when this is the case it is best to do the thing effectually. Upon cold wet soils, which should always first of all be well under-drained, no pains should be spared to get the land perfectly clean: if both climate and circumstances interfere with the thorough cultivation of a fallow crop, then let the soil be exposed to the frost of two winters and the heat of one summer and part of another, as already mentioned [ARABLE LAND.] Only one crop is lost by this method, and if the land is properly worked, cleaned, and manured in autumn, it may be sown with barley or oats in the spring of the second year. The crop will be ample, and the subsequent produce of clover equally so, and the land so clean, that, with proper manuring, several crops may succeed, such as wheat, beans, oats, tares, wheat, without the necessity of another intervening fallow. The advice we would impress on the minds of the cultivators is-Avoid fallows if you can keep your land clean; but when you fallow, do it effectually, and improve the soil at the same time by chalk, lime, or marl, according to circumstances. Do not spare either ploughs or harrows in dry weather. If you dare not trust to the drainage which the land has received, then lay the stitches high and dry before winter, and deepen the water furrows well with the spade. By following these rules the stiffest land may be brought into a good state of cultivation; and the farmer will not find, by the growth of weeds, docks, and thistles, that his labour and manure are thrown away, as is too often the case. Experience has fully proved that the air and the dews impart fertility to the soil, and that land which has been well fallowed and stirred requires less manure than it would otherwise do. Fallowing alone will not make up for want of manure, nor will manuring be sufficient without ploughing and cleaning the land properly, and exposing it to the influence of the atmosphere, especially in autumn and in spring; but a great saving of the one and the other may be effected, by judiciously varying the crops so as to admit of ploughing the land at different seasons of the year.