"Land, however, though it does not contain such a superabundance of water as to obstruct arable culture, may nevertheless, by its inherent wetness, prevent or retard the luxuriant growth of useful plants, as much as decidedly wet land. The truth is, that deficiency of crops on apparently dry land is frequently attributed to unskilful husbandry, when it really arises from the baleful influence ofconcealedstagnant water; and the want of skill is shown, not so much in the management of the arable culture of the land, as in neglecting to remove the true cause of the deficiency of the crop, namely, the concealed stagnant water. Indeed, my opinion is—and its conviction has been forced upon me by dint of long and extensive observation of the state of the agricultural soil over a large portion of the country—that this is thetrue cause of most of the bad farming to be seen, and thatnot one farmis to be foundthroughout the kingdom that wouldnot be much the better for draining. Entertaining this opinion, you will not be surprised at my urging upon you to practise draining, or at my lingering at some length on the subject, that I may exhibit to you the various modes of doing it, according to the peculiar circumstances in which your farm may be placed."—(Vol. i. p. 483.)
"Land, however, though it does not contain such a superabundance of water as to obstruct arable culture, may nevertheless, by its inherent wetness, prevent or retard the luxuriant growth of useful plants, as much as decidedly wet land. The truth is, that deficiency of crops on apparently dry land is frequently attributed to unskilful husbandry, when it really arises from the baleful influence ofconcealedstagnant water; and the want of skill is shown, not so much in the management of the arable culture of the land, as in neglecting to remove the true cause of the deficiency of the crop, namely, the concealed stagnant water. Indeed, my opinion is—and its conviction has been forced upon me by dint of long and extensive observation of the state of the agricultural soil over a large portion of the country—that this is thetrue cause of most of the bad farming to be seen, and thatnot one farmis to be foundthroughout the kingdom that wouldnot be much the better for draining. Entertaining this opinion, you will not be surprised at my urging upon you to practise draining, or at my lingering at some length on the subject, that I may exhibit to you the various modes of doing it, according to the peculiar circumstances in which your farm may be placed."—(Vol. i. p. 483.)
With the substance of these remarks we entirely agree. We would only not put the point so broadly as to imply, that the want of draining was the only cause of the bad farming we see. We have, however, been over large tracts of Scotland, and we are quite sure that whole counties might be made to yield the double of their present produce by an efficient drainage, and proper subsequent management.
We pass over the very succinct and methodical description of the processes of threshing, winnowing, &c., and can note only one point out of the great mass of very interesting matter Mr Stephens has brought together, in regard to the composition, qualities, and uses of the different kinds of grain. The point to which we shall advert is the composition of oatmeal. Every country is naturally prejudiced in favour of its national food. We Britons look with real or affected disgust on the black rye-bread of the northern nations; and yet on this food the people thrive, are strong, healthy, and vigorous. The bread, too, is sweet to the taste. It is only disagreeable associations, therefore—connected in our minds with the darkness of the colour—that make us consider it disagreeable or unwholesome. In like manner, our Irish brethren are strong, vigorous, and merry, on their potato diet. Why should we condemn it as the lowest kind of diet, or pity those who are content to live almost wholly upon it? It is true that, from its being the main staff of Irish life, great distress ensues when a failure takes place in the potato crop. But such would be the consequence of a general failure in any kind of crop on which they might happen chiefly to rely. The cure for such seasons of suffering, therefore, is not to be sought so much in bringing about change of diet, as in introducing a better system of husbandry—an improved system of drainage especially—by which a general failure of any crop will be rendered a more rare occurrence. The spread of railroads will soon render it comparatively easy to transport even the bulky potato from one county to another, and thus to prevent the recurrence of famine prices.
But in South Britain the oatmeal of the Scottish peasantry—the national food—is looked upon with as much prejudice, and those who live upon it with as much pity, as the black bread-eaters of Germany and Sweden, or the potato-diggers of Ireland. But the health and strength of the Scottish peasantry, who live entirely upon oatmeal, is proverbial. On this subject, in speaking of the Scottish ploughmen, where the bothy system is practised—that is, where the single men all live together in a room or bothy provided for them, which serves them both for sleeping and cooking—-Mr Stephens has the following characteristic passage:—
"The oatmeal is usually cooked in one way, asbrose, as it is called, which is a different sort of pottage to porridge. A pot of water is put on the fire to boil, a task which the men take in turns; a handful or two of oatmeal is taken out of the small chest with which each man provides himself, and put into a wooden bowl, which also is the ploughman's property; and on a hollow being made in the meal, and sprinkled with salt, the boiling water is poured over the meal, and the mixture receiving a little stirring with a horn spoon, and the allowance of milk poured over it, the brose is ready to be eaten; and as every man makes his own brose, and knows his own appetite, he makes just as much brose as he can consume. The bowl is scraped clean with the spoon, and the spoon licked clean with the tongue, and the dish is then placed in the meal-chest for a similar purpose on the succeeding occasion. The fare is simple, and is as simply made; but it must be wholesome, and capable of supplying the loss of substance occasioned by hard labour; forI believe that no class of men can endure more bodily fatigue, for ten hours every day, than those ploughmen of Scotland who subsist on this brose thrice a-day."—(Vol. ii. p. 384.)
"The oatmeal is usually cooked in one way, asbrose, as it is called, which is a different sort of pottage to porridge. A pot of water is put on the fire to boil, a task which the men take in turns; a handful or two of oatmeal is taken out of the small chest with which each man provides himself, and put into a wooden bowl, which also is the ploughman's property; and on a hollow being made in the meal, and sprinkled with salt, the boiling water is poured over the meal, and the mixture receiving a little stirring with a horn spoon, and the allowance of milk poured over it, the brose is ready to be eaten; and as every man makes his own brose, and knows his own appetite, he makes just as much brose as he can consume. The bowl is scraped clean with the spoon, and the spoon licked clean with the tongue, and the dish is then placed in the meal-chest for a similar purpose on the succeeding occasion. The fare is simple, and is as simply made; but it must be wholesome, and capable of supplying the loss of substance occasioned by hard labour; forI believe that no class of men can endure more bodily fatigue, for ten hours every day, than those ploughmen of Scotland who subsist on this brose thrice a-day."—(Vol. ii. p. 384.)
The quantity of oatmeal allowed tothe ploughman—as his sole food—is two pecks, or 17½ lbs. in a week, exactly 2½ lbs. a-day—or ¾ lb. for each meal—and yet it often happens that a hard-worked ploughman cannot consume the whole of this allowance. Speaking again of oatmealporridge, Mr Stephens says, "there are few more wholesome meals than oatmeal porridge, or upon which a harder day's work can be wrought. Children of all ranks in Scotland are brought up on this diet, verifying the line of Burns,
"'The halesome parritch, chief of Scotia's food.'"
As southern prejudices have a tendency to make their way northward, and, in the face of old experience at home, are leading many to undervalue the oatmeal, on which we trust our peasantry will long rely as their staple food, it is interesting to find that, on this point, science has at length come to the aid of reason and experience. Chemistry has already told us many remarkable things in regard to the vegetable food we eat—that it contains, for example, a certain per centage of the actual fat and lean we consume in our beef, or mutton, or pork—and, therefore, that he who lives upon vegetable food may be as strong as the man who lives upon animal food, because both in reality feed upon the same things in a somewhat different form. Now it appears, from analysis, that wheaten flour contains on an average not more than ten per cent of actual dry beef—of that which forms the living muscle of the animal that feeds upon it—with three per cent of fat, and fifty of starch. And because of this chemical composition, our southern neighbours think wheaten flour the most nourishing, the most refined, and the most civilized of all food.
But Professor Johnston, in the recent edition of his Elements,[28]tells us, that, from experiments made in the laboratory of the Agricultural Chemistry Association of Scotland, it turns out that oats are far richer in all the three things above named than the best wheat flour grown in any part of England—that they contain eighteen or twenty per cent of that which forms muscle, five to eight of fat, and sixty-five of starch. The account, therefore, between shelled oats (groats) and fine wheaten flour stands thus. One hundred pounds of each contain—
What do you say to these numbers, Mr Cockney?—You won't pity us, Scotch oatmeal-eaters, any more, we guess. Experience and science are both on our side. What makes your race-horses the best in the world, may be expected to make our peasantry the best too. We offer you, therefore, a fair bet. You shall take ten English ploughmen, and feed them upon two pounds and a-half of wheaten flour a-day, and we shall take as many Scotch ploughmen, and feed them upon the same weight of oatmeal a-day—if they can eat so much, for that is doubtful—and we shall back our men against yours for any sum you like. They shall walk, run, work—or fight you, if you like it—and they shall thrash you to your heart's content. We should like to convince you that Scotch parritch has some real solid metal in it.
We back the oatcake and the porridge against all the wheaten messes in the world. We defy your homemade bread, your baker's bread, your household bread, your leaven bread, and your brown Georges—your fancy bread and your raisin bread—your baps, rolls, scones, muffins, crumpets, and cookies—your bricks, biscuits, bakes, and rusks—your Bath buns and your sally luns—your tea-cakes, and saffron-cakes, and slim-cakes, and plank-cakes, and pan-cakes, and soda-cakes, and currant-cakes, and sponge-cakes, and seed-cakes, and girdle-cakes, and singing-hinnies—your short-bread and your currant-buns—and if there by any other names bywhich you designate your wheaten abominations, we defy and detest them all. We swear by the oatcake and the porridge, the substantial bannock and the brose—long may Scotland produce them, and Scotchmen live and fight upon them!!
"The first great event in spring on a farm of mixed husbandry," says Mr Stephens, "is the calving of the cows." He then describes the symptoms, the preparations, and the treatment of the cow and the calf, the diseases to which they are respectively liable, and the treatment to which they ought to be subjected, in his usual clear, methodical, and remarkably complete manner. We have been struck with the kind tone which pervades the whole of this chapter, the gentle treatment he prescribes in all cases—indicating at once a practical acquaintance with the details of these operations, and a love also for the quiet and patient animals of which he is treating.
We should have quoted, had the passages not been too long, his description of the different modes adopted, apparently with equal profit, by the veal manufacturers for the London and Glasgow markets respectively. We should like to know the comparative profit of the French mode of feeding calves for the Paris market,on cream and biscuits. In his next edition, we hope Mr Stephens will instruct us upon this point also.
It is one of the merits of this book, and in our estimation a very high one, that method, order, and economy of time and labour are invariably recommended and insisted upon, in every process and at every season. But these points are especially insisted upon in his chapteron the advantages of having field-work always in a forward state. The following extract is long, but it contains such admirable advice, that we insert it for the sake of those who may never see the book itself, or have an opportunity of buying it.
After describing how every favourable day should be taken in preparing the land for wheat, beans, oats, potatoes, turnips, tares, or naked fallow, in their respective order, he continues:—
"And when every one of all these objects has been promoted, and there is found little or nothing to do till the burst of spring-work comes, both horses and men may enjoy a day's rest now and then, without incurring the risk of throwing work back; but before such recreations are indulged in, it should be ascertained that all the implements, great and small, have been repaired for work—the plough-irons all new laid—the harrow-tines new laid and sharpened, and fastened firmly into the bulls of the harrows—the harness all tight and strong—the sacks new patched and mended, that no seed-corn be spilt upon the road—the seed-corn thrashed, measured up, and sacked, and what is last wanted put into the granary—the horses new shod, that no casting or breaking of a single shoe may throw a pair of horses out of work for even one single hour—in short, to have every thing prepared to start for work when the first notice of spring shall be heralded in the sky."But suppose the contrary of all this to happen; suppose that the plough-irons and harrow-tines have to be laid and sharpened, when perhaps to-morrow they may be wanted in the field—a stack to be thrashed for seed-corn or for horse's corn in the midst of the sowing of a field—suppose, too, that only a week's work has been lost, in winter, of a single pair of horses, and the consequence is, that six acres of land have to be ploughed when they should be sown, that is, a loss of a whole day of six pair of horses, or of two days of three pair—suppose all these inconveniences to happen in the busy season, and the provoking reflection occurs that the loss incurred now was occasioned by trifling offputs in winter. Compare the value of these trifles with the risk of finding you unprepared for sowing beans or spring-wheat. Suppose, once more, that instead of having turnips in store for the cattle, when the oat-seed is begun in the fields, and that, instead of being able to prosecute that indispensable piece of work without interruption, you are obliged to send away a portion of the draughts to bring in turnips, whichmust be brought in, and brought in, too, from hand to mouth, it being impossible, in the circumstances, to store them. In short, suppose that the season of incessant labour arrives and finds you unprepared to go along with it,—and what are the consequences? Every creature about you, man, woman, and beast, are then toiled beyondendurance every day, not tokeep upwork, which is a lightsome task, but tomake upwork, which is a toilsome task, but which you said you could easily do, when you were idling your time in a season you consider of little value; and, after all, this toil is bestowed in vain to obtain the end you wish, namely, to prepare your cropin due season. You who are inexperienced in the evils of procrastination may fancy this to be an overdrawn picture—even an impossible case; but unfortunately for that supposition, it is drawn from the life. I have seen every incident occur which I have mentioned, both as to work being in a forward and in a backward state."—(Vol. ii. pp. 489, 483.)
"And when every one of all these objects has been promoted, and there is found little or nothing to do till the burst of spring-work comes, both horses and men may enjoy a day's rest now and then, without incurring the risk of throwing work back; but before such recreations are indulged in, it should be ascertained that all the implements, great and small, have been repaired for work—the plough-irons all new laid—the harrow-tines new laid and sharpened, and fastened firmly into the bulls of the harrows—the harness all tight and strong—the sacks new patched and mended, that no seed-corn be spilt upon the road—the seed-corn thrashed, measured up, and sacked, and what is last wanted put into the granary—the horses new shod, that no casting or breaking of a single shoe may throw a pair of horses out of work for even one single hour—in short, to have every thing prepared to start for work when the first notice of spring shall be heralded in the sky.
"But suppose the contrary of all this to happen; suppose that the plough-irons and harrow-tines have to be laid and sharpened, when perhaps to-morrow they may be wanted in the field—a stack to be thrashed for seed-corn or for horse's corn in the midst of the sowing of a field—suppose, too, that only a week's work has been lost, in winter, of a single pair of horses, and the consequence is, that six acres of land have to be ploughed when they should be sown, that is, a loss of a whole day of six pair of horses, or of two days of three pair—suppose all these inconveniences to happen in the busy season, and the provoking reflection occurs that the loss incurred now was occasioned by trifling offputs in winter. Compare the value of these trifles with the risk of finding you unprepared for sowing beans or spring-wheat. Suppose, once more, that instead of having turnips in store for the cattle, when the oat-seed is begun in the fields, and that, instead of being able to prosecute that indispensable piece of work without interruption, you are obliged to send away a portion of the draughts to bring in turnips, whichmust be brought in, and brought in, too, from hand to mouth, it being impossible, in the circumstances, to store them. In short, suppose that the season of incessant labour arrives and finds you unprepared to go along with it,—and what are the consequences? Every creature about you, man, woman, and beast, are then toiled beyondendurance every day, not tokeep upwork, which is a lightsome task, but tomake upwork, which is a toilsome task, but which you said you could easily do, when you were idling your time in a season you consider of little value; and, after all, this toil is bestowed in vain to obtain the end you wish, namely, to prepare your cropin due season. You who are inexperienced in the evils of procrastination may fancy this to be an overdrawn picture—even an impossible case; but unfortunately for that supposition, it is drawn from the life. I have seen every incident occur which I have mentioned, both as to work being in a forward and in a backward state."—(Vol. ii. pp. 489, 483.)
This one extract will alone illustrate the opinion we have already expressed, in regard to the soundness and safety of the advice on practical subjects, which our author ventures to give.
We pass over a hundred pages devoted to ploughing and sowing, and the selection of seed. On the last of which points our inclination would lead us to dwell—especially in reference to the steeping of seeds, a subject which at present engages so much attention, and upon which so much nonsense and mercantile puffing has been recently expended. But our limits restrain us.
Whether it is that our own predilections incline us more to those parts of his book, or that Mr Stephens writes these better—with heart and kindliness he certainly does write[29]—we scarcely know, but we certainly like all his chapter upon animals.The lambing of ewesis the subject of chapter fifty-four.
In all lines of life there are the skilful and the unskilful, and the former are always the fewer in number. In reference to shepherds, Mr Stephens says:—
"No better proof need be adduced of the fewness of skilful shepherds, than the loss which every breeder of sheep sustains every year, especially in bad weather. I knew a shepherd who possessed unwearied attention, but was deficient in skill, and being over-anxious, always assisted the ewes in lambing before the proper time; and as he kept the ewes in too high condition, the consequence was, that every year he lost a number of both ewes and lambs; and in one season of bad weather the loss amounted to the large number of twenty-six ewes, and I forget of how many lambs, in a dock of only ten score of ewes. I knew another shepherd who was far from being solicitous about his charge, though certainly not careless of it, yet his skill was so undoubted, that he chiefly depended upon it, and his success was so eminent, that the loss of a ewe or lamb under his charge was matter of surprise. Of these two shepherds—the attentive and the skilful—it would appear that the skilful is the safer, and of course the more valuable, though it must be owned, that it is better topreventevils by skilful attention, than tocurethem by attentive skill; yet it is only by the union of both these qualities that a perfect shepherd can be formed."—(Vol. ii. p. 600.)
"No better proof need be adduced of the fewness of skilful shepherds, than the loss which every breeder of sheep sustains every year, especially in bad weather. I knew a shepherd who possessed unwearied attention, but was deficient in skill, and being over-anxious, always assisted the ewes in lambing before the proper time; and as he kept the ewes in too high condition, the consequence was, that every year he lost a number of both ewes and lambs; and in one season of bad weather the loss amounted to the large number of twenty-six ewes, and I forget of how many lambs, in a dock of only ten score of ewes. I knew another shepherd who was far from being solicitous about his charge, though certainly not careless of it, yet his skill was so undoubted, that he chiefly depended upon it, and his success was so eminent, that the loss of a ewe or lamb under his charge was matter of surprise. Of these two shepherds—the attentive and the skilful—it would appear that the skilful is the safer, and of course the more valuable, though it must be owned, that it is better topreventevils by skilful attention, than tocurethem by attentive skill; yet it is only by the union of both these qualities that a perfect shepherd can be formed."—(Vol. ii. p. 600.)
Perhaps some of our readers are acquainted withPrice on Sheep, a book in which the treatment of the Leicester sheep is especially described. After commenting upon what this author says of the losses experienced in lambing-time by the southern breeders, Mr Stephens pays the following deserved compliment to the intelligent shepherds of Scotland:—
"I would not have noticed these egregious blunders, said by Mr Price to be committed by shepherds in a low country like Romney Marsh, in Kent, so prominently, had not Mr Youatt adopted the sentiments of Mr Price in the very particulars quoted above, in his excellent treatise on the history and diseases of sheep. Were a shepherd of a Leicester flock in Scotland made aware that he was suspected of such ignorance of the nature of sheep, he would be quite ashamed; and so would shepherds even of the hill country, who cannot have so intimate a knowledge of every individual of their flock, usually occupying a wide range of mountain land, as their brethren of the profession tending flocks within much more limited bounds."—(Vol. ii. p. 602.)
"I would not have noticed these egregious blunders, said by Mr Price to be committed by shepherds in a low country like Romney Marsh, in Kent, so prominently, had not Mr Youatt adopted the sentiments of Mr Price in the very particulars quoted above, in his excellent treatise on the history and diseases of sheep. Were a shepherd of a Leicester flock in Scotland made aware that he was suspected of such ignorance of the nature of sheep, he would be quite ashamed; and so would shepherds even of the hill country, who cannot have so intimate a knowledge of every individual of their flock, usually occupying a wide range of mountain land, as their brethren of the profession tending flocks within much more limited bounds."—(Vol. ii. p. 602.)
Among the more immediate symptoms of lambing, there are two which have struck us as very interesting. We have put them in italics in the following quotation:—
"The more immediate symptoms of lambing are when the ewe stretches herself frequently; separating herself from her companions; exhibiting restlessness by not remaining in one place for any length of time; lying down and rising up again, as if dissatisfied with the place; pawing the ground with a forefoot;bleating as if in quest of a lamb; and appearing fond of the lambs of other ewes."—(Vol. ii. p. 603.)
"The more immediate symptoms of lambing are when the ewe stretches herself frequently; separating herself from her companions; exhibiting restlessness by not remaining in one place for any length of time; lying down and rising up again, as if dissatisfied with the place; pawing the ground with a forefoot;bleating as if in quest of a lamb; and appearing fond of the lambs of other ewes."—(Vol. ii. p. 603.)
In regard topetlambs—such as are brought up by hand because their mothers have died, and it has been impossible to mother then upon other ewes—the following observation shows their innocent simplicity:—
"When the same person feeds the lambs, and this should be the dairymaid, the lambs soon become attached to her, and would follow her every where: but to prevent their bleating, and to make them contented, an apron or a piece of cloth, hung on a stake or bush in the paddock, will keep them together."—(Vol. ii. p. 611.)
"When the same person feeds the lambs, and this should be the dairymaid, the lambs soon become attached to her, and would follow her every where: but to prevent their bleating, and to make them contented, an apron or a piece of cloth, hung on a stake or bush in the paddock, will keep them together."—(Vol. ii. p. 611.)
After treating of the various risks which ewes and lambs are subject to, the final result for which a skilful shepherd should look, is thus stated:—
"He should not be satisfied with his exertions unless he has preserved one-half the number of ewes with twin-lambs, nor should he congratulate himself if he has lost a single ewe in lambing. I am aware these results cannot always be commanded; but I believe an attentive and skilful shepherd will not be satisfied for all his toil, night and day, for three weeks, if he has not attained these results. The ewes may have lambed twins to greater number than the half, and yet many pairs may have been broken to supply the deficiencies occasioned by the deaths of single lambs. * * * In regard to Cheviots, it is considered a favourable result to rear a lamb for each ewe; and with blackfaced ewes, eighteen lambs out of the score of ewes is perhaps one as favourable. Cheviots yield a few pairs, blackfaced very few. The former sometimes require assistance in lambing, the latter seldom."—(Vol. ii. pp. 614, 615.)
"He should not be satisfied with his exertions unless he has preserved one-half the number of ewes with twin-lambs, nor should he congratulate himself if he has lost a single ewe in lambing. I am aware these results cannot always be commanded; but I believe an attentive and skilful shepherd will not be satisfied for all his toil, night and day, for three weeks, if he has not attained these results. The ewes may have lambed twins to greater number than the half, and yet many pairs may have been broken to supply the deficiencies occasioned by the deaths of single lambs. * * * In regard to Cheviots, it is considered a favourable result to rear a lamb for each ewe; and with blackfaced ewes, eighteen lambs out of the score of ewes is perhaps one as favourable. Cheviots yield a few pairs, blackfaced very few. The former sometimes require assistance in lambing, the latter seldom."—(Vol. ii. pp. 614, 615.)
An entire chapter is given to thetraining and working of the shepherd's dog. Like master like man, says the old adage—like shepherd like dog, says Mr Stephens:—
"The natural temper of the shepherd may be learned from the way in which he works his dog among sheep. When you observe an aged dog making a great noise, bustling about in an impatient manner, running fiercely at a sheep and turning him quickly, biting at his ears and legs, you may conclude, without hesitation, that the shepherd who owns him is a man of hasty temper."—(Vol. ii. p. 625.)
"The natural temper of the shepherd may be learned from the way in which he works his dog among sheep. When you observe an aged dog making a great noise, bustling about in an impatient manner, running fiercely at a sheep and turning him quickly, biting at his ears and legs, you may conclude, without hesitation, that the shepherd who owns him is a man of hasty temper."—(Vol. ii. p. 625.)
But a well-trained dog has the following qualifications:—
"Dogs, when thus gently and cautiously trained, become very sagacious, and will visit every part of a field where sheep are most apt to stray, and where danger is most to be apprehended to befall them, such as a weak part of a fence, deep ditches, or deep furrows into which sheep may possibly fall and lieawaltorawkward, that is, lie on the broad of their back and unable to get up, and they will assist to raise them up by seizing the wool at one side and pulling the sheep over upon its feet. Experienced dogs will not meddle with ewes having lambs at foot, nor with tups, being quite aware of their disposition to offer resistance. They also know full well when foxes are on the move, and give evident symptoms of uneasiness on their approach to the lambing ground. They also hear footsteps of strange persons and animals at a considerable distance at night, and announce their approach by unequivocalsigns of displeasure, short of grumbling and barking, as if aware that those noisy signs would betray their own presence.A shepherd's dog is so incorruptible that he cannot be bribed, and will not permit even a known friend to touch him when entrusted with any piece of duty.* * * It is supposed that the bitch is more acute than the dog, though the dog will bear the greater fatigue. Of the two, I believe, that the quietly disposed shepherd prefers a bitch, and is careful in working her as little as he can when in pup. I may mention, that the shepherd's dog claims exemption from taxation; and I believe that a well-trained one costs at least L.3."—(Vol. ii. pp. 626, 627.)
"Dogs, when thus gently and cautiously trained, become very sagacious, and will visit every part of a field where sheep are most apt to stray, and where danger is most to be apprehended to befall them, such as a weak part of a fence, deep ditches, or deep furrows into which sheep may possibly fall and lieawaltorawkward, that is, lie on the broad of their back and unable to get up, and they will assist to raise them up by seizing the wool at one side and pulling the sheep over upon its feet. Experienced dogs will not meddle with ewes having lambs at foot, nor with tups, being quite aware of their disposition to offer resistance. They also know full well when foxes are on the move, and give evident symptoms of uneasiness on their approach to the lambing ground. They also hear footsteps of strange persons and animals at a considerable distance at night, and announce their approach by unequivocalsigns of displeasure, short of grumbling and barking, as if aware that those noisy signs would betray their own presence.A shepherd's dog is so incorruptible that he cannot be bribed, and will not permit even a known friend to touch him when entrusted with any piece of duty.* * * It is supposed that the bitch is more acute than the dog, though the dog will bear the greater fatigue. Of the two, I believe, that the quietly disposed shepherd prefers a bitch, and is careful in working her as little as he can when in pup. I may mention, that the shepherd's dog claims exemption from taxation; and I believe that a well-trained one costs at least L.3."—(Vol. ii. pp. 626, 627.)
Nothing is said of the mutual attachment of the shepherd and his dog. Of this attachment we can never help thinking—when the subject of dogs is introduced—since we saw the look of mingled agony and consternation which showed itself on the face of one of our shepherd boys, when a horse had kicked and apparently killed it, and the joy with which he hugged it, while it licked his hands and face as it recovered.
Nothing strikes an American so much on coming to England—kindred though he be, not only in blood and language, but also in customs—nothing at least strikes him more than the beautiful thorn hedges with which our fields are at once divided, sheltered and adorned. And yet how much they are mismanaged—their perfection, usefulness, and durability lessened—by injudicious, in many cases by ignorant and barbarous, treatment! A most useful chapter is devoted to this subject, from which we shall make one or two extracts. First, of switching young hedges:—
"Hedgers have a strong predilection to use the switching-bill. They will, without compunction, switch a young hedge at the end of the first year of its existence. No hedge ought to be touched with a knife until it has attained at least two years; because the great object to be attained by a new hedge is the enlargement of its roots, that they may search about freely for its support; and the only way it has of acquiring large roots is through its branches and leaves, which are the chief means of supporting the healthy functions of plants, or of even preserving them in life. Even beyond the age mentioned above, the pruning-knife should be very sparingly used, until the young hedge has acquired the height sufficient for a fence; and not freely then, but only to remove superfluities of growth, and preserve equality in the size of the plants.****Let the plant have peace togrowtill it has acquired a considerable degree of natural strength—to acquire which state it will take a longer or shorter time according to the circumstances in which it is placed—acquiring it in the shortest time in deep sandy loam, the mostusefulof all soils, and taking the longest in poor thin clay on a tilly subsoil—let it, I say, have peace togrow, and let it be afterwards judiciously pruned, and I will give you the assurance of experience, that you will possess an excellent fence and a beautiful hedge in a much shorter time than the usual practice of hedgers will warrant."—(Vol. ii p. 564.)
"Hedgers have a strong predilection to use the switching-bill. They will, without compunction, switch a young hedge at the end of the first year of its existence. No hedge ought to be touched with a knife until it has attained at least two years; because the great object to be attained by a new hedge is the enlargement of its roots, that they may search about freely for its support; and the only way it has of acquiring large roots is through its branches and leaves, which are the chief means of supporting the healthy functions of plants, or of even preserving them in life. Even beyond the age mentioned above, the pruning-knife should be very sparingly used, until the young hedge has acquired the height sufficient for a fence; and not freely then, but only to remove superfluities of growth, and preserve equality in the size of the plants.
****
Let the plant have peace togrowtill it has acquired a considerable degree of natural strength—to acquire which state it will take a longer or shorter time according to the circumstances in which it is placed—acquiring it in the shortest time in deep sandy loam, the mostusefulof all soils, and taking the longest in poor thin clay on a tilly subsoil—let it, I say, have peace togrow, and let it be afterwards judiciously pruned, and I will give you the assurance of experience, that you will possess an excellent fence and a beautiful hedge in a much shorter time than the usual practice of hedgers will warrant."—(Vol. ii p. 564.)
Upon cutting down hedges the following remarks are excellent:—
"Hedges are wofully mismanaged in the cutting in many parts of the country. Without further consideration than saving the expense of a paling to guard a new-cut-down hedge, or in ignorance of the method of making a dead-hedge from the refuse of the old, the stems of anoldhedge are often cut over about three and a half feet high, to continue as a fence. The consequence is just what might be anticipated from a knowledge of the habits of the thorn, namely, a thick growth of young twigs where the hedge was cut over, the ultimate effect of which is, a young hedge standing at three and a half feet above the ground upon bare stakes. The wise plan, therefore, to preserve the value of the old hedge is to cut it near the ground, and form a dead-hedge of the part cut off."—(Vol. ii. pp. 569, 570.)
"Hedges are wofully mismanaged in the cutting in many parts of the country. Without further consideration than saving the expense of a paling to guard a new-cut-down hedge, or in ignorance of the method of making a dead-hedge from the refuse of the old, the stems of anoldhedge are often cut over about three and a half feet high, to continue as a fence. The consequence is just what might be anticipated from a knowledge of the habits of the thorn, namely, a thick growth of young twigs where the hedge was cut over, the ultimate effect of which is, a young hedge standing at three and a half feet above the ground upon bare stakes. The wise plan, therefore, to preserve the value of the old hedge is to cut it near the ground, and form a dead-hedge of the part cut off."—(Vol. ii. pp. 569, 570.)
We have seen hedges occasionally dying out by degrees on the road-sides, where the banks were cut close to the roots of the thorn plants. The following acute observation will in some cases, no doubt, account for it:—
"I observe that some farmers remove the hedge-bank behind a thorn-hedge, to make compost of; but such a practice is highly injurious to the hedge,even after it is grown up, by exposing its roots, which chiefly lie under the bank, to cold and frost. If a hedge is cut down whose bank has been treated in this manner, and no means are used to protect the roots when exposed on the removal of the branches, it is possible that a few nights of severe black frost may kill every root that lies nearest the surface. I have no doubt that particular plants of old hedges are killed in this manner, without the cause being suspected by the farmer."—(Vol. ii. p. 576.)
"I observe that some farmers remove the hedge-bank behind a thorn-hedge, to make compost of; but such a practice is highly injurious to the hedge,even after it is grown up, by exposing its roots, which chiefly lie under the bank, to cold and frost. If a hedge is cut down whose bank has been treated in this manner, and no means are used to protect the roots when exposed on the removal of the branches, it is possible that a few nights of severe black frost may kill every root that lies nearest the surface. I have no doubt that particular plants of old hedges are killed in this manner, without the cause being suspected by the farmer."—(Vol. ii. p. 576.)
The planting of potatoes, as we should expect in a practical work of this kind, is treated of in considerable detail and with much judgment. Upon seed-potatoes, which have these last two or three years attracted so much attention, we have the following passage:—
"I have no doubt, in my own mind, that were seed-potatoes securely pitted until they were about to be planted,—not over-ripened before they were taken out of the ground,—the sets cut from the crispest tubers and from the waxy end,—the dung fermented by a turning of the dunghill in proper time,—led out to the field, quickly spread, the sets as quickly dropped on it, and the drills quickly split in the manner represented in fig. 411, and described in (2411,) there would be little heard of the failure even in the driest season,—at the same time, the precaution of obtaining seed frequently from an elevated and late district compared to where the seed is to be planted, should not be neglected."—(Vol. iii. pp. 672, 673.)
"I have no doubt, in my own mind, that were seed-potatoes securely pitted until they were about to be planted,—not over-ripened before they were taken out of the ground,—the sets cut from the crispest tubers and from the waxy end,—the dung fermented by a turning of the dunghill in proper time,—led out to the field, quickly spread, the sets as quickly dropped on it, and the drills quickly split in the manner represented in fig. 411, and described in (2411,) there would be little heard of the failure even in the driest season,—at the same time, the precaution of obtaining seed frequently from an elevated and late district compared to where the seed is to be planted, should not be neglected."—(Vol. iii. pp. 672, 673.)
These recommendations are correct, we believe, and judicious as far as they go; other things, however, are within the powers of the skilful farmer; but, to all, we would especially recommend a more careful construction of their potato-pits. This subject is again treated of in Vol. iii. p. 1121. The raising of seed-potatoes should be made more an object of special care than has hitherto been the case; for we doubt if the cure recently propounded as infallible on the faith of one or two successful experiments—that of leaving the potatoes covered up during winter in the field where they grew—will be in all cases followed by the wished-for results. We hope, however, that many will try it.
Of horses we could have wished to say something had our space permitted; but we can only refer to what is said of the rearing and intelligence of the horse towards the beginning of the second volume, and to the chapter onbreaking in young draught horses, in p. 691 of the same volume.
We come now to the third volume, which commences the operations of summer—a season which brings with it new cares, especially to the dairy farmer, and where the turnip husbandry prevails. It is true that, in summer, when all his seeds are in the ground, the farmer has a little leisure during which he may leave his farm, but even then any excursion he makes ought not to be for mere pleasure. A true farmer will have his eyes about him wherever he travels, and will carefully study the merits of the rural customs of every district he goes to. There is much truth in the following remarks:—
"Summer is the only season in which the farmer has liberty to leave home without incurring the blame of neglecting his business, and even then the time which he has to spare is very limited. There is only about a fortnight between finishing the fallow, the turnip and potato culture, and hay-making, and the commencement of harvest, in which the farmer has leisure to travel. This limitation of time is to be regretted, because it is proper that he should take a journey every year, and see how farm operations are conducted in other parts of the kingdom. An excursion of this nature is seldom undertaken by a farmer, who is generally a man capable of observation, without acquiring some hints which may induce the adoption of a practice that seems good, or the rejection of one which is bad. Such a journey exhibits mankind in various aspects, and elevates the mind above local prejudices; and as husbandry is a progressive art, a ramble of a week or two through different parts of the country, cannot fail to enlighten the mind of the most experienced farmer much beyond any thing he can observe by always remaining at home."—(Vol. iii. p. 742.)
"Summer is the only season in which the farmer has liberty to leave home without incurring the blame of neglecting his business, and even then the time which he has to spare is very limited. There is only about a fortnight between finishing the fallow, the turnip and potato culture, and hay-making, and the commencement of harvest, in which the farmer has leisure to travel. This limitation of time is to be regretted, because it is proper that he should take a journey every year, and see how farm operations are conducted in other parts of the kingdom. An excursion of this nature is seldom undertaken by a farmer, who is generally a man capable of observation, without acquiring some hints which may induce the adoption of a practice that seems good, or the rejection of one which is bad. Such a journey exhibits mankind in various aspects, and elevates the mind above local prejudices; and as husbandry is a progressive art, a ramble of a week or two through different parts of the country, cannot fail to enlighten the mind of the most experienced farmer much beyond any thing he can observe by always remaining at home."—(Vol. iii. p. 742.)
In his excellent chapter on the sowing of turnips, he quotes several instances of the successful preparation of land in the autumn—breaking up, harrowing, cross-ploughing, drilling, and dunging—for the turnip crop, and he adds the following opinion:—
"Were such modes of culture adopted in the south of England, I have no doubt certain and abundant crops of turnips would be raised, in spite of droughts and insects; and the slovenly practice of broad-cast culture would then give way to the more scientific mode of the drill system."—(Vol. iii. p. 747.)
"Were such modes of culture adopted in the south of England, I have no doubt certain and abundant crops of turnips would be raised, in spite of droughts and insects; and the slovenly practice of broad-cast culture would then give way to the more scientific mode of the drill system."—(Vol. iii. p. 747.)
In the following passage he notices a curious but generally received fact regarding the effect of different quantities of bones; but we quote chiefly on account of another observation at its close, which may be interesting to our southern readers:—
"I have tried to raise turnips with different quantities of bone-dust, varying from twelve, sixteen, twenty, and twenty-four bushels to the imperial acre, and have found the crop improved up to sixteen bushels; but any quantity beyond that, even to twenty-four bushels, produced no greater effect on the turnips in the same field, and on the same sort of soil, than sixteen bushels. Nay, more than this, my late agricultural preceptor, Mr George Brown, when he farmed Hetton Steads in Northumberland, raised as good crops of turnips as sixteen bushels of bone-dust, with only eight bushels of bone-dust, combined with an indefinite quantity of sifted dry coal-ashes; and yet eight bushels of bone-dust, or an indefinite quantity of coal-ashes applied separately, produced a very poor crop of turnips. It is therefore unnecessary, in so far as the crop of turnips is concerned, to sow more than sixteen bushels of bone-dust alone, or eight bushels with coal-ashes, or perhaps street-manure. Both coal-ashes and street-manure, when proposed to be used with bone-dust, should be kept dry under cover, and sifted free of large lumps. * * *"The very best mode of using bone-dust in small quantity, both for increasing the fertility of the soil and rearing a good crop, is to sow the seed along with it in drills already manured with farm-yard dung. The bone-dust secures a good and quick braird of the plant, and the dung supports it powerfully afterwards. This plan I would recommend to be pursued, particularly in England, on the land prepared for turnips in autumn; and were it practised, we need not despair of raising heavy crops of turnips, especially Swedes, on the strongest soils, and most certainly they would be obtained after thorough-draining."—(Vol. iii. pp. 748, 751.)
"I have tried to raise turnips with different quantities of bone-dust, varying from twelve, sixteen, twenty, and twenty-four bushels to the imperial acre, and have found the crop improved up to sixteen bushels; but any quantity beyond that, even to twenty-four bushels, produced no greater effect on the turnips in the same field, and on the same sort of soil, than sixteen bushels. Nay, more than this, my late agricultural preceptor, Mr George Brown, when he farmed Hetton Steads in Northumberland, raised as good crops of turnips as sixteen bushels of bone-dust, with only eight bushels of bone-dust, combined with an indefinite quantity of sifted dry coal-ashes; and yet eight bushels of bone-dust, or an indefinite quantity of coal-ashes applied separately, produced a very poor crop of turnips. It is therefore unnecessary, in so far as the crop of turnips is concerned, to sow more than sixteen bushels of bone-dust alone, or eight bushels with coal-ashes, or perhaps street-manure. Both coal-ashes and street-manure, when proposed to be used with bone-dust, should be kept dry under cover, and sifted free of large lumps. * * *
"The very best mode of using bone-dust in small quantity, both for increasing the fertility of the soil and rearing a good crop, is to sow the seed along with it in drills already manured with farm-yard dung. The bone-dust secures a good and quick braird of the plant, and the dung supports it powerfully afterwards. This plan I would recommend to be pursued, particularly in England, on the land prepared for turnips in autumn; and were it practised, we need not despair of raising heavy crops of turnips, especially Swedes, on the strongest soils, and most certainly they would be obtained after thorough-draining."—(Vol. iii. pp. 748, 751.)
To thedrop-drill as a means of husbanding manure, too little attention has hitherto been paid in Scotland. We strongly recommend, therefore, to the attention of the Scottish farmer, the following brief quotation:—
"The saving of manure, in the first instance, by the use of the drop-drill, appears to be considerable, since it has been frequently asserted that ten or twelve bushels of bone-dust per acre, will produce a braird equal, if not superior, to sixteen or eighteen bushels put in by the continuous mode. The subject is, therefore, of great importance, and calls for close observation; for if the drop system is really so important, it cannot be too widely adopted."—Vol. iii. p. 806.
"The saving of manure, in the first instance, by the use of the drop-drill, appears to be considerable, since it has been frequently asserted that ten or twelve bushels of bone-dust per acre, will produce a braird equal, if not superior, to sixteen or eighteen bushels put in by the continuous mode. The subject is, therefore, of great importance, and calls for close observation; for if the drop system is really so important, it cannot be too widely adopted."—Vol. iii. p. 806.
We regret the necessity of passing over the remainder of this chapter on turnips. We merely extract the following mode of preventing the destructive attack of the turnip-fly, because, though the method has been heard of by many, it has been tried by comparatively few. Mr Stephens recommends
"To put the seeds for some time before they are sown amongst flour of sulphur, and sow the sulphur amongst them. The late Mr Airth informed me, that when he farmed the Mains of Dun, Forfarshire, his young turnip crops were often very much affected, and even destroyed, by these insects; but that, after he used the sulphur, he never suffered loss, though his neighbours did who would not use the same precaution, and that for as long as he possessed the farm afterwards, namely, fifteen years."—(Vol. iii. p. 772.)
"To put the seeds for some time before they are sown amongst flour of sulphur, and sow the sulphur amongst them. The late Mr Airth informed me, that when he farmed the Mains of Dun, Forfarshire, his young turnip crops were often very much affected, and even destroyed, by these insects; but that, after he used the sulphur, he never suffered loss, though his neighbours did who would not use the same precaution, and that for as long as he possessed the farm afterwards, namely, fifteen years."—(Vol. iii. p. 772.)
It is also with regret that we pass over the making of butter and cheese, the chapter upon which we commend to the attention of our dairy farmers. The subjects of hay-making, liming and forming water meadows, we also pass; but we stop a moment at his chapter upon flax and hemp.
The culture of flax is now very much advocated both in Great Britain and Ireland; and we fear very erroneous notions are entertained and propagated regarding both the profit it is likely to yield to the farmer, and the effect it is fitted to produce upon the land. The following passage isnot entirely free from objection, but it contains a great deal of truth and much common sense:—
"It has been proposed of late, with a considerable degree of earnestness, to encourage the growth of flax in Britain. The attempt was made some years ago and failed; but in the present instance it is recommended with the view of raising flax-seed for feeding cattle in sufficient quantity to render us independent of foreign oil-cake, of which, no doubt, large quantities are annually imported, but to what extent I have not been able to ascertain. Theobjectof the suggestion is laudable, but theend, I fear, unattainable; for if goodseedis raised to make good oil-cake, or compounds with oil, theflaxwill be coarse, and flax of inferior quality will never pay so well as corn: and it should never be lost sight of, in considering this question, that to raise flax must bring it into competition with white crops, and not green crops, because to raise it as a green crop would be to deteriorate its quality by bringing it into immediate contact with manure; and, on the other hand, if it is raised without manure as a fallow-crop, it must deteriorate the soil materially—no species of crop beingmorescourging to the soil than flax, not even a crop of turnip-seed. There is, therefore, this dilemma in the matter—the quality of the flax or of the seed must be sacrificed. The seed separately will not pay the expense of culture. Seed is produced from six to twelve bushels per acre. Taking the highest at twelve bushels, that is, one and a half quarter, and taking it also for granted that it all will be fit forsowing, and worth the highest current price of 60s. per quarter, the gross return would only be L.4, 10s. per acre. The flax-crop varies in weight of rough dried fibre, according to season and soil, from three to ten cwt. per acre; and taking the high produce, five cwt. per acre of dressed flax, at the highest price of L.6 per ton, the yield will be L.31, from which have to be deducted the expenses of beetling, scutching, and heckling, and waste and loss of straw for manure, and the profit will not exceed L.8 per acre; but thoughsucha profit would certainly repay the expenses of cultivation, yet it presents themostfavourable view that can be taken, even with the sacrifice of the entire loss of seed—the loss, in fact, of the greatest inducement for renewing the culture of the plant. In Ireland the case, I believe, will be the same, though much of the soil of that country, being mossy, is more favourable to the growth of flax than that of England or Scotland; yet even there it will be found impracticable to raise good flax and good seed from the same piece of ground at the same time; and if the seed is not good, the oil-cake will be bad."—(Vol. iii. p. 1046.)
"It has been proposed of late, with a considerable degree of earnestness, to encourage the growth of flax in Britain. The attempt was made some years ago and failed; but in the present instance it is recommended with the view of raising flax-seed for feeding cattle in sufficient quantity to render us independent of foreign oil-cake, of which, no doubt, large quantities are annually imported, but to what extent I have not been able to ascertain. Theobjectof the suggestion is laudable, but theend, I fear, unattainable; for if goodseedis raised to make good oil-cake, or compounds with oil, theflaxwill be coarse, and flax of inferior quality will never pay so well as corn: and it should never be lost sight of, in considering this question, that to raise flax must bring it into competition with white crops, and not green crops, because to raise it as a green crop would be to deteriorate its quality by bringing it into immediate contact with manure; and, on the other hand, if it is raised without manure as a fallow-crop, it must deteriorate the soil materially—no species of crop beingmorescourging to the soil than flax, not even a crop of turnip-seed. There is, therefore, this dilemma in the matter—the quality of the flax or of the seed must be sacrificed. The seed separately will not pay the expense of culture. Seed is produced from six to twelve bushels per acre. Taking the highest at twelve bushels, that is, one and a half quarter, and taking it also for granted that it all will be fit forsowing, and worth the highest current price of 60s. per quarter, the gross return would only be L.4, 10s. per acre. The flax-crop varies in weight of rough dried fibre, according to season and soil, from three to ten cwt. per acre; and taking the high produce, five cwt. per acre of dressed flax, at the highest price of L.6 per ton, the yield will be L.31, from which have to be deducted the expenses of beetling, scutching, and heckling, and waste and loss of straw for manure, and the profit will not exceed L.8 per acre; but thoughsucha profit would certainly repay the expenses of cultivation, yet it presents themostfavourable view that can be taken, even with the sacrifice of the entire loss of seed—the loss, in fact, of the greatest inducement for renewing the culture of the plant. In Ireland the case, I believe, will be the same, though much of the soil of that country, being mossy, is more favourable to the growth of flax than that of England or Scotland; yet even there it will be found impracticable to raise good flax and good seed from the same piece of ground at the same time; and if the seed is not good, the oil-cake will be bad."—(Vol. iii. p. 1046.)
Among the arguments in favour of the extensive culture of flax, now urged by so many, we are sorry to see a scientific one lately put forth by our friend Dr Kane of Dublin, and which has been much vaunted and relied upon by himself, and by those for whose benefit the opinion was propounded. The proposal is, it will be recollected, to carry off the stalk of the flax crop, and to convert the seed into manure. This is the same thing as carrying off the straw of a corn crop, and eating or otherwise converting the grain into manure upon the farm. Every one knows that carrying off the straw will exhaust the land, as will also carrying off the stalk of the lint. But, says Dr Kane, I have analysed thesteepedanddressedflax, and find that it contains very little of what the plant peculiarly draws from the soil. This is left for the most part in the pond in which the flax is steeped, or at the mill where the flax is dressed. Therefore, to carry off the flax is notnecessarilyto exhaust the soil. You have only to collect theshowsof the flax mill, and pump out the water from the steeping hole, and apply both to the land, and you restore to it all that the crop has taken off.
Now there is a fallacy in supposing that all that is taken from the land would in this way be restored—one which the advocates of this non-exhausting view are of course not anxious to discover; but, supposing the result and conclusions correct, what are they worth in practice? It is only a little bit of fireside farming. What practical good has come out of it? Put all the steeping water upon the land! Have any of the members of the flax societies tried this? Then let them tell us how it is to be done—what it cost—what was the result and the profit of the application. They use this prescription as an argument to induce men to introduce an exhaustingculture, and they take no means to introducefirsta general employment of those means by which it is said that the naturally exhausting effect of the culture may be prevented. What our friend Dr Kane has said and done is in perfect good faith; the form which his opinions have assumed upon paper, has arisen solely from the want of a sufficient knowledge of the usages and capabilities of sound and profitable practical husbandry. If we cannot persuade our farmers to collect and apply to the land the liquid manure of their farm-yards, when can we hope to persuade them to empty their flax-ponds for the purpose of watering their fields? Can we ever hope soon to persuade them to preserve and use up the thousands of tons ofshowsthat are now yearly sent down the streams by which our flax mills are set in motion?
We are far from saying that flax or any other crop may not be grown without necessarily exhausting the soil—chemistry, we know, will by-and-by put all this within our power; but we are very much of Mr Stephens' opinion, that our English and Irish flax societies do not as yet clearly see their way to that end, and that unintentionally they will lead many to inflict a permanent injury upon their land, without any adequate compensation to themselves, their landlords, or the country.
We had marked the early cutting of corn in harvest as a subject of general importance to practical men, and that of the smearing of sheep, so interesting especially to our northern agriculturists; and we wished to confirm Mr Stephens' recommendations upon those points by some observations of our own; but we are compelled to leave the chapter which treats upon them to the private consideration of our readers.
We quote the following passage from the chapter onfertilizing the soil by means of manure, as containing much good common sense:—
"Dung is applied at the commencement of every rotation of crops with the fallow green-crops, and with bare fallow; and when applied at any other time, it is near the termination of a long rotation. A rule for the quantity of farm-yard dung to be applied according to the length of the rotation, as given by Dr Coventry, is, that five tons per acre are required every year to sustain the fertility of soil; and, therefore, land which is dunged every four years in a rotation of four courses, should receive with the fallow-crop twenty tons per acre; in a five-course shift, twenty-five tons; in a six-course shift, thirty tons, and so on. These quantities constitute, no doubt, a sufficient manuring to ordinary crops; but it appears to me to be reversing the order of propriety, to give land under the severest shift—a four-course one—the smallest modicum of manure, when it should receive the largest; for there is surely truth in the observation, that land grazed with stock becomes ameliorated in condition—actually increased in fertility. A six-course shift, therefore, having three years of grazing, should require less instead of more manure even at a time than a four-course one on land of similar quality."—(Vol. iii. pp. 1230, 1231.)
"Dung is applied at the commencement of every rotation of crops with the fallow green-crops, and with bare fallow; and when applied at any other time, it is near the termination of a long rotation. A rule for the quantity of farm-yard dung to be applied according to the length of the rotation, as given by Dr Coventry, is, that five tons per acre are required every year to sustain the fertility of soil; and, therefore, land which is dunged every four years in a rotation of four courses, should receive with the fallow-crop twenty tons per acre; in a five-course shift, twenty-five tons; in a six-course shift, thirty tons, and so on. These quantities constitute, no doubt, a sufficient manuring to ordinary crops; but it appears to me to be reversing the order of propriety, to give land under the severest shift—a four-course one—the smallest modicum of manure, when it should receive the largest; for there is surely truth in the observation, that land grazed with stock becomes ameliorated in condition—actually increased in fertility. A six-course shift, therefore, having three years of grazing, should require less instead of more manure even at a time than a four-course one on land of similar quality."—(Vol. iii. pp. 1230, 1231.)
The chapter on the points of stock—cattle, sheep, pigs, and horses—would of itself have afforded us materials for an interesting article. Breeding and crossing of stock, both so necessary to be well understood by those who would breed forprofit, are also ably discussed by our author; and it is only want of space which prevents us from quoting from this chapter.
But there are some kinds of livecattlewhich of themselves breed too fast even for Mr Stephens; and these he as anxiously instructs his readers how to exterminate. Among these are rats, in regard to the destruction of which the following passage will interest our readers:—
"Of all the modes I ever witnessed rats being killed, none equalled that of a Yorkshireman, of the name of John Featherston, by means of steel-traps. He had twenty-one small steel-traps, which he kept clean and bright. He soon traced the tracks of rats along the floor to a corner, or on the tops of walls, leading commonly by the corners of apartments to the partition wall, which they surmounted between it and the slates; the very place which I have recommended the filling up, to break off such communications. After he had discovered the different runs of the animals, he made a number of small firm bundles ofstraw, which he placed against the bottom of a wall where the run was on a floor, and upon its top where the run was to the roof. He used seven traps at one place at a time, and a sufficient number of bundles of straw was used to conceal that number of traps at each place, employing the entire number of traps in three places, at a little distance from each other, and in different apartments. The traps were set, but not allowed to spring at first, and baited with oatmeal, scented with oil of rhodium, and placed in a row, with a little chaff over them, in the run behind the bundles of straw. The traps were baited for two days, the baits being replenished as soon as it was discovered, by inspection, that a bait disappeared. On the third day the traps were baited as before, but the restriction was removed from the spring, and then began the capture. In all the three days, people were prevented as much as possible from frequenting the apartments in which the traps were placed, and dogs were entirely excluded. Removing the check from the spring, from one set of traps after another, armed with short stout stick, and furnished with a bag slung from his shoulder, Featherston put himself on the alert, and the moment he heard the click of a trap he ran to it, removed the bundle of straw, knocked the rat on the head if alive, threw it out of the trap, set it again, replaced the bundle again, put the rat into the bag, and was again on the watch from one place to another. In the course of the third day, from morning to the afternoon, he had collected 385 rats in the bag, and allowing all the traps to have done equal execution, each had caught more than eighteen rats in the course of a single day. He bargained for 1d. a rat and his food, and in three days he earned his food and L.1, 12s. 1d.—such was his expertness. It was not supposed that all the rats were cleared off by this capture; but they received such a thinning, as to be comparatively harmless for years after. Featherston's first business, on the day following the capture, was to clean each trap bright before setting out on his journey; for he seemed to place greater reliance on the clean state of his traps than on any other circumstance—that the suspicion of the rats, I suppose, of the danger of the traps might thereby be allayed. The brown rat burrows in fields, and commits ravages on growing crops, whether of corn or turnips. I have seen many burrows of them in Ireland, and assisted at routing them with spade and terrier, but have never heard of their having taken to the fields in Scotland."
"Of all the modes I ever witnessed rats being killed, none equalled that of a Yorkshireman, of the name of John Featherston, by means of steel-traps. He had twenty-one small steel-traps, which he kept clean and bright. He soon traced the tracks of rats along the floor to a corner, or on the tops of walls, leading commonly by the corners of apartments to the partition wall, which they surmounted between it and the slates; the very place which I have recommended the filling up, to break off such communications. After he had discovered the different runs of the animals, he made a number of small firm bundles ofstraw, which he placed against the bottom of a wall where the run was on a floor, and upon its top where the run was to the roof. He used seven traps at one place at a time, and a sufficient number of bundles of straw was used to conceal that number of traps at each place, employing the entire number of traps in three places, at a little distance from each other, and in different apartments. The traps were set, but not allowed to spring at first, and baited with oatmeal, scented with oil of rhodium, and placed in a row, with a little chaff over them, in the run behind the bundles of straw. The traps were baited for two days, the baits being replenished as soon as it was discovered, by inspection, that a bait disappeared. On the third day the traps were baited as before, but the restriction was removed from the spring, and then began the capture. In all the three days, people were prevented as much as possible from frequenting the apartments in which the traps were placed, and dogs were entirely excluded. Removing the check from the spring, from one set of traps after another, armed with short stout stick, and furnished with a bag slung from his shoulder, Featherston put himself on the alert, and the moment he heard the click of a trap he ran to it, removed the bundle of straw, knocked the rat on the head if alive, threw it out of the trap, set it again, replaced the bundle again, put the rat into the bag, and was again on the watch from one place to another. In the course of the third day, from morning to the afternoon, he had collected 385 rats in the bag, and allowing all the traps to have done equal execution, each had caught more than eighteen rats in the course of a single day. He bargained for 1d. a rat and his food, and in three days he earned his food and L.1, 12s. 1d.—such was his expertness. It was not supposed that all the rats were cleared off by this capture; but they received such a thinning, as to be comparatively harmless for years after. Featherston's first business, on the day following the capture, was to clean each trap bright before setting out on his journey; for he seemed to place greater reliance on the clean state of his traps than on any other circumstance—that the suspicion of the rats, I suppose, of the danger of the traps might thereby be allayed. The brown rat burrows in fields, and commits ravages on growing crops, whether of corn or turnips. I have seen many burrows of them in Ireland, and assisted at routing them with spade and terrier, but have never heard of their having taken to the fields in Scotland."
Farm book-keepingis a subject too little attended to by our practical men. In our own neighbourhood we know that keeping books is the exception—keeping none is the rule. The smaller farmers know the state of their affairs only by the money they have in their hands at certain seasons of the year. But, as better systems of husbandry spread, this lax method of carrying on business must be discarded. Husbandry is becoming more and more an experimental art. New trials must now be made, year after year, by those who would hope to live and thrive; and it is only those who keep regular accounts of the outlay upon each trial, and the income from it, who can know what methods and manures they ought to adopt, and what to reject from a system of profitable husbandry.
Upon this subject Mr Stephens is entirely of our opinion, and he gives very copious examples of the way in which books ought to be kept.
Such is a hasty sketch of the contents of the book, in so far as the farming part of it is concerned. The way in which the work is illustrated by 608 woodcuts and 33 plates, by eminent artists, is as creditable to the publishers as the matter of the book is to the author.
To the full and accurate descriptions of agricultural implements—to the illustration of which many of these woodcuts and plates are devoted—we feel ourselves wholly unable to do justice. That they are all from the pen and pencil of Mr Slight, will, to those who know him, be a better recommendation than any words of ours.
There is only one other test to which, in criticising the work before us, we are entitled to put it. It contains much useful matter, but is it likely, is it fitted, to answer the end which the author had in view? His object, he says, was to put into the hands of young men desirous of learning practical farming, a manual from which,being upon a farm, they would be able to learn all that was necessary to fitthem for the several successive stations to which the industrious son even of a farm-labourer may fairly hope to rise. This we think he has accomplished, and in that graphic and living way which has all along led us into the persuasion that Mr Stephens must himself have "played many parts," and entered into the feeling and spirit of them all.
When he speaks of the shepherd and his dog, and of driving stock to market, he seems to look back with much satisfaction, almost with regret, to the time when he himself served as a drover, and took his cattle to the South over the cold Northumbrian moors. He delights to linger by the way, and tells you where you will still get the bestgillon your road, and how it will be safest for you to make the last glass you take into toddy, before you go to bed. We think he must often have taken up his night's quarters at Tommy Robson's on the Reed Water, on his travels by Watling Street to the Stagshaw Bank Fair.
Then he changes the scene for us. He is a ploughman for the time. He tells how he managed his horses, guided his plough, turned over his furrows, mended his harness, and how three times a-day he fed heartily and well upon his oatmeal brose, and was healthy and strong in limb, happy in mind, and free from care. We question if he is heartier or happier now.
Next we find him writing like one who has been promoted to the rank of grieve or farm-steward. He has assumed the tone and look of a man who has responsibility upon his shoulders—who has graver duties to perform, and from whom more is expected. He tells us how he manages his men, apportions their hours of labour, and distributes to each his appropriate quantity and time of work. The scene shifts, and we see him in the market selling his corn. He wants threepence a bushel more, and he will hold out till he gets it. His sample is good, for his land has been well managed, and his grain well cleaned; he knows what his article is worth, as things are going in the market, and he will be an old corn-merchant who takes him in.
Or he has stock to sell, and there he goes into the whisky shop to finish his bargain. You heard him ask ten shillings more than he meant to take? That was because he knew the buyer was a higgler, and would have left him at once had he refused to come down in his price. Now they are gravely discussing the point over the gill-stoup. They are within half-a-crown now. Another gill will close the bargain. It is finished; the buyer is pleased; and our grieve is five shillings richer than if the bargain had been closed briefly and in the open air.
He is not a bad writer for a practical man who enables you, in a book upon farming, to call up successive transactions in a manner so vivid as this.
Next, he wishes to become a farmer on his own account, and he looks about for a farm that will suit him. On this subject he has an excellent chapter in his third volume. He has been faithful to his master, and now he acts honourably towards his equals:—