prove the constant source of improvement. With a view to turn his means of manure most advantageously to account, he should draw into his farm-yard, at the most leisurely season of the year, before the time of confining his cattle to fodder, as much marl, turf, dry mud, loam, and other applicable articles, as will cover its surface to the depth of twelve inches. If there be many hog-houses, stables, and cow-stalls, that are cleansed into the yard, on such spots these materials should be spread more thickly. Bog peats, if near at hand, should be never neglected. These peats may be regarded as vegetable dunghills, and their easy accessibility in this connexion will be regarded as of extreme utility and consequence. Before foddering is begun, the whole yard should be well littered, for which stubble, fern, and leaves, are well adapted. No money laid out by the farmer is more wisely and successfully expended than that which he employs in procuring, at a reasonable rate, great quantities of litter, by which his cattle are enabled to lie dry and warm, and the mass of manure which he raises is much larger and cheaper than he could procure in any other mode. Fern abounds in alkaline salts, and must therefore obviously produce very valuable dung: it requires, however, to be rotted well, and is more difficult to be so than straw. In woodlands leaves may be collected at slight expense, and will make admirable litter and dung. In the neighbourhood of marshes, rushes, flags, and coarse grass may all be easily procured, and will be exceedingly serviceable. After these exertions and preparations, the farmer must strictly confine his cattle during the winter, not by tying them, as some have done, but so as completely to prevent their roaming in the adjoining pastures. By thus confining all the cattle upon straw, and turnips, and hay, as may be requisite, the necessary quantity of animal manure will be obtained to make the compost of the several ingredients ferment, rot, and turn to rich manure, while without these animal materials the heap might be large, but would be of little value. The draining from the yard should never run towaste, and unless in extraordinary cases, such as extremely violent rains, this may be easily prevented. An excellent method for this purpose is the sinking a well in the lower part of the yard to fix a pump in; by which the water may be conveyed along a trough to a large heap of marl, turf, chalk, and other appropriate materials, which, by the daily application

of this liquor will be of little less value eventually than a heap of dung of the same size.

If the dung remains under water, putrofaction is stopped; this therefore should be carefully guarded against. Stirring the dung should also be avoided, as the oils and alkaline salts are thus carried off into the atmosphere, and it is not merely rottenness that is wanted, and particularly that dry rottenness thus produced, but such as exhibits a fat, oily, mucelaginous appearance. It will be advisable, if practicable, to let it remain in the yard unmoved till the ground it is destined for is completely ready for its reception. If, for want of room in the yard, it must be carted off into the field, let the litter and the marl be well mixed in filling the cart, and let the whole form, under the shade of trees, if an opportunity be afforded for it, a heap about four feet in thickness.

The dung raised even by a few sheep in a standing fold, under a shed constructed expressly for the purpose, (for the trouble and expence of one composed of hurdles will over balance its profits, unless upon a very large scale) is a considerable object, while the sheep under it are at the same time warm and comfortable, instead of being exposed to driving rains and snow.

Animal substances are very far preferable as manures to fossil or vegetable ones. Woollen rags, hog's hair, horn shavings, the offal of butcher's and fishmonger's stalls may be obtained in large cities, and whenever reasonably to be procured, should be eagerly caught at. With regard to the dung of animals, that of sheep is unquestionably the best. That of horses fed upon corn and hay is justly preferred to that of fatting cattle, which, however, is greatly superior to that of lean cattle, and particularly of cows, though they may feed upon turnips.

The practice of paring and burning is pronounced by men of great philosophical sagacity and research, and who have justly deferred more to practical results than to theoretical reasonings, to be of the most decided advantage in the preparation of land. It may be considered as a practice safe on any soil, as in some it is essentially neces sary. That which most of all requires it, and which it is impossible by any other means to pulverize, is what consists of moss, rushes, aud all kinds of coarse grass. It should be exercised on moor and heathfield, on account of the roots of the grass remaining in it, which are very stubborn and durable, and which check the growth of

corn, turnips, and other vegetables, by depriving them of a certain portion of nourishment. They serve likewise as a harbour for worms, the only effectual way to clear the ground from which is to burn it; the old and the young, together with their eggs, being thus destroyed or smothered. The ashes procured by paring and burning will furnish manure for several crops. The lessening of the soil by this husbandry was long apprehended; such a consequence, however, may be safely and positively denied, unless perhaps in cases in which the practice is carried to great excess. In poor soils, peat, and sedgy bottoms, the process is universally admitted to be a proper one. With respect even to clay lands; it produces not only the common manure found in vegetable ashes, but a substance which acts mechanically to the utmost advantage, loosening and opening the stubborn adhesion of the soil. In loam itself, the ploughing of rough pastures to the depth of eight or nine inches, and burning the whole furrow in heaps of about thirty bushels each, has been attended with most decided and durable improvement; and even though this depth be nearly twenty times the depth of common paring, the soil has not been supposed to be wasted eventually by the practice. Its texture has been rendered less stiff: the redundance of water has been expelled; and the immediate fertility attending this method of treatment fills it speedily with far more vegetable particles than it previously possessed. Sandy grounds are as improve. able by this method as those of a different description, and chalk lands in every part of England have been so treated, and most profitably been brought into culture. In Gloucestershire, Yorkshire, and Lincolnshire; in Hampshire, Wiltshire, and Kent, the consequent crops of wheat, barley, oats, and sainfoin, have been of sufficient value to buy the land at more than forty years' purchase, at a fairly estimated rent before these improvements were applied. whatever difference may exist with respect to the practice on such lands as have been just mentioned, and which is rapidly vanishing before obvious and impressive facts, no one, as already observed, doubts the propriety of it on peat. From the fens of Cambridgeshire to the bogs of Ireland, the moors of the north, or the sedgy bottoms abounding in almost every part of the united kingdom, paring and burning are universally employed, on their being broken up, by men of real experience and observation.

But

The method of doing it by fallow is completely abandoned by all persons of this description, after the most regular and decided experiments of its results. In Cambridgeshire the work is performed by a plough, purposely constructed, and admirably adapted for it, which reduces the expense considerably. With respect to meadow and pasture land, it is performed by what is denominated a breast plough, which requiring great strength and labour in its application, much increases the cost. With regard to the general practice, it may be observed, that the heaps should not consist of more than twenty bushels, as, if they are much larger, the Iturfs will be too much burnt. Their size must be regulated in a great degree by the nature of the weather, and the thickness of the paring. When the ashes are spread, which should be completed as soon as possible, the land, as is usually the case, should be thinly ploughed. In almost all circumstances, the ashes should be left ploughed in for sowing turnips upon lands burnt in the months of March and April. If potatoes are desired, this preparation is excellently adapted to them, and they should be planted in April on lands burut in March.

THE CULTURE OF GRASSES.

A close and sound turf may be considered as the best manure yet discovered, on which account it is justly remarked, that those who have grass can at any time have corn, the reverse of which is by no means true. Excellent grass lands therefore are valuable, not only directly, for the food of cattle, but indirectly, as containing ample means of raising grain, never failing, upon being broken up, to produce for a time a succession of valuable crops, whether of grain or roots.

The small degree of labour and hazard attending the pasture of land, recommends it to many; and also the opportunity it supplies of laying out considerable property to great advantage in stock. Lands are preserved by it in good condition, and large estates may be managed under it with peculiar ease.

Grass lands, designed to be cut for hay, are to be distinguished from those on which the herbage is intended to be consumed by cattle upon the spot. In fields of the latter kind, properly called pastures, manure is supplied by the cattle; in the others it must be applied artificially, as large crops of hay exhaust the land, and always in proportion to the maturity which the herbage is suffered to attain before cropping, while nothing is

returned to the soil for all that is thus detached from it. In consequence, moreover, of depasturing lands, the plants, being unable to propagate themselves by seed, do it by root, forming a compact and matted turf, incapable of sending forth strong and powerful stems to form a good crop of hay, but abounding in slender and delicate shoots, such as the closeness of the turf will alone permit to pass, and which constitute a most nourishing and pleasing food for cattle. These two modes of employing land therefore should not be intermixed. What has for some time been applied to either purpose, should by all means be permitted to remain so; and to attempt to alternate the application of grass lands between pasture and cropping, is an effectual method of completely defeating both objects.

The difficulty of restoring old, rich, and clean pastures to their original state, after their being broken up, should ever prevent their being so, unless in very extraordinary cases. In common times they can be applied to no better purpose than their actual one: whenever it is expedient to direct them to the raising of grain, they will be certain to produce it in immense abundance. With respect to the improvement of which grass lands are generally susceptible, those, of course, should in the first instance be applied to them which are connected with draining and inclosure, which happily coincide with each other, as the ditch serves at once for dividing and defending the land, and for clearing off the redundant moisture. Irrigation also, which, as well indeed as the last-mentioned topics, has been already adverted to, from its obvious and admirable utility to pasture, will derive every attention in this connection. spring a heavy wooden roiler should be applied, when the weather is moist, as it will then make the greater impression. The roots of the plants will thus be fixed in the soil. The mould will be crushed, and the worm-casts levelled, by this practice; and the ground is prepared by it for the application of the scythe, which will in consequence of this operation cut deeper, and with more facility.

In

The stocking of poor pastures with sheep, rather than black cattle, is of particular consequence to their improvement, and the perseverance in this practice for years, the sheep being folded upon the spot, has been more recruiting to poor soils than any other practice. A habit of matting its roots is given to the grass by the close bite of these animals, and a growth of delicate herbage is

promoted. Weeds are likewise cleared by sheep, as every thing young and tender (even heath and broom) is readily eaten by them. By means also of the dung necessarily arising, an amelioration of the soil as well as produce takes place, of extreme and surprizing importance. The sweetness of the feed on the downs of Wiltshire arises, not so much from any natural and characteristic excellence of the grass grown on them, as from its being kept close, and eaten as rapidly as it vegetates. It has been remarked, that on certain poor soils it requires much more time to produce the second inch of vegetation than the first, making allowance for the fuller develope. ment and size accompanying the second; a circumstance indicating that the preference should in such cases be given to the feeding by sheep rather than by cattle. The former remarks, however, on this subject, concerning the inapplicability of land thus depastured for rearing crops of hay, must never be forgotten.

Quicklime, spread in powder over the surface of pasture lands, will scarcely fail to improve, not only the poor, but the more valuable ones. The moss plants, which are so particularly pernicious, are thus destroyed, and converted into valuable manure. Upon impoverished and worn-out lands, about 270 bushels per acre on the sward, in summer, will be found of great and durable efficacy in cleaning and improving them. Mixing lime with earth taken from ditches or ponds is superior to using it alone, and, as a general rule, double the quantity of earth should be mixed with that of lime. The requisite proportions vary, however, with the nature of the soils; but are easily ascertained by attentive workmen.

Paring and burning may be applied to pasture with great success in a partial manner, by grubbing up rushes and bushes with which it may be encumbered, burning them after they are dried, and before the autumnal rains come on spreading their ashes on the surface. In some instances this husbandry may be successfully exercised on pasture over the whole surface, as particularly on a poor worn-out ley, which, by such a process, attended with the harrowing in of white clover and several other grass seeds, at the time of spreading the ashes, has been improved into very fine meadow. Where suitable, such a practice may be regarded as one of the cheapest of all improvements.

From whatever cause land may be overrun with moss plants, or covered with fern, rushes, and ant hills, it should be subjected

for some time to the plough, as no other method is equally useful to prepare for permanently améliorating its pasture.

To prepare arable land for grass, it must be cleaned from weeds, and well manured, just in the same manner as that which is required for a crop of grain. Excepting upon stiff clays, the most eligible preparation for grass is a crop of turnips, consumed by cattle in the field the ground being thus at once manured and cleaned. Where lands are broken up expressly for the purpose of improving the pasture, the turnips scarcely fail to succeed, through the manure afforded so abundantly by the fresh turf; and the cattle deriving from the abundant crop consequent on this circumstance a plentiful food, are thus enabled the more extensively to improve the soil by dung. On clay land the soil should be very liberally manured in spring or autumn, it ought to be ploughed once in autumn, and three or four times more in summer, previously to the period of sowing the seeds, which should take place in August. As to the much agitated question of sowing grass seeds with or without a crop of corn, it may be observed, that it is impossible for lands intended for grass crops, or meadow, to possess too high a state of richness, and that, after the soil is improved with a view to its permanent fertility in grass, to weaken it by a crop of corn appears little better than blind or infatuated counteraction. If, however, the practice be persevered in which has so generally been followed in this respect, barley should be the grain preferred, as springing up with a slight stalk, and not overshadowing and smothering the grass plants, and also as being the incumbrance to those plants more speedily removed than any other.

Whether grass seeds be sown in August after a fallow, or with corn in spring, all trampling by horses or cattle should be effectually prevented. Every thing therefore should be kept out from it both during autumn and winter. Not only is the tender soil, which is extremely susceptible of injury thus secured from it, but the pasturage in the spring is of proportionally more value for not having been eaten off in autumn, and affords a most valuable early bite for the ewes and lambs.

The proper treatment of leys during the first year is to feed them with sheep, unless, after a crop of hay be taken from them, vast quantities of manure be spread over their surface.

The chief food of cattle consisting of grasses, their importance is as obvious as it

is great, and the distinguishing and selecting them cannot be too fully attended to. By this care the best grasses, and in the greatest abundance that the land admits of, are secured; while, for want of this attention, pastures are either filled with weeds, or bad and inappropriate grasses. The number of grasses fit, or at least necessary for the purposes of culture, is but small, scarcely exceeding half a score, and by the careful separation and sowing of the seeds of these, the husbandman would soon be enabled to accommodate the varieties of his soil, each with the herbage best adapted to it, the advantage of which would infinitely exceed the trouble necessary for its accomplishment. Were a great variety of grain to be sown in the same inclosure, the absurdity would be universally ridiculed; and scarcely less absurd and ridiculous is the common practice of indiscriminately sowing grass seeds from tife foul hay rack, including a mixture of almost every species of grass seeds and rubbish.

The species of grass appropriated to any particular soil or application being determined upon, its seeds cannot be sown too plentifully, and no economy less deserving the name can possibly exist than the being sparing of grass seeds. The seeds of grain may easily be sown too thickly; but with respect to those of grass, it is scarcely capable of occurring. The smaller the stem, the more acceptable it is to cattle; and when the seeds, particularly of some grasses, are thinly scattered, their stems tend, as it is called, to wood,

The most valuable grass to be cut green for summer's food is red clover, which also is an admirable preparation for wheat. To have it in perfection, the weeds must be cleared, and the land harrowed as finely as possible. The surface should also be smoothed with a slight roller. The seeds should likewise be well covered with earth, as should all small seeds, notwithstanding the common opinion to the contrary. From the middle of April to that of May is the proper season for sowing it. Although it will last three years if cut down green, the safest course is to let it stand but one. It is luxuriant upon a rich soil, whether of clay, loam, or gravel, and will grow even upon a moor, For a wet soil it is totally unfit. It may be sown with grain with less impropriety than perhaps any other grass, and particularly with flax. When a land, left unploughed, spontaneously produces this plant, the soil may decidedly be pronounced good.

Those who lay down land permanently to grass, may best depend on white, or Dutch clover, for all rich and dry loams and sands, and for rich clays that have been properly drained.

Rye grass will flourish on any land but stiff clays. It is well adapted for permanent pasture, and if properly managed, is one of the best spring grasses. There are few so early, or more palatable and nutritive to cattle. It is less subject to injury in critical hay seasons than any other, and the seeds of none are collected with greater facility. It should be cut for hay some time previously to its being ripe, as the stalks will otherwise be converted into a species of straw, and its nutritive qualities be proportionably weakened,

Sainfoin is preferred by many agriculturists to clover, as less likely to injure cattle when they eat it green, producing larger crops, making better hay, and continuing four times longer in the ground. It is several years in arriving at its full strength. The quantity of milk yielded by means of it from cows is nearly double of what is produced by any other green food, and the quality also of the milk is proportionally better. It is much cultivated on chalky soils, and succeeds best where its roots run deep. Cold and wet clay is extremely ill adapted for it, and the dryness of land is of more consequence to its growth than even the richness of it. It is best cultivated by the drill husbandry, after repeated ploughing, harrowing, and rolling; and while care is taken not to leave the seeds uncovered, they must also not be buried deeper than about an inch. They should be sowed in the latter end of March. An acre of very ordinary land will maintain four cows for eight months, and afford the greatest part of their food in hay for the rest of the year.

Lucerne remains at least above twelve years producing very large crops, and yielding the most excellent hay, to the amount of about seven tons per acre. It has obtained the highest praises from all agricultural writers. With a view to its successful cultivation, the soil must be kept open and free from weeds, which is most effectually done by horse-hoing. It is transplanted with extreme advantage, if the tap root be cut off, by which it is fitted for a shallow soil, and its roots shoot out laterally and near the surface. The culture of this plant is a principal distinction of French husbandry, and is in that country a source of almost uniform profit, The best prepara.

tion for it is a turnip or cabbage crop. No manure should be allowed after the sowing till the crop is two years old. Its improving effect upon the soil is particularly great.

Burnet is a grass peculiarly adapted to poor land, and is so hardy, as to flourish when all other vegetation fails. Its cultivation is not hazardous or expensive. It is best sown in the beginning of July. It af fords rich pleasant milk, and in great plenty. For moist loams and clays there cannot be a better grass than the meadow fox-tail, which is not only early, but remains for nine or ten years, and is little injured by frost.

To these remarks on a few of the grasses it may be added, that, in connection with soils, the principal grass plants have been thus arranged by one of the most distinguished agriculturists of the day: