if they are harvested favourably, their straw is valuable, and, at all events, may be converted into admirable dung. By a bad crop of peas, the land is often filled with weeds; but thongh a crop of beans should be extremely bad, the land may nevertheless be in the highest state of cleanness. The quantity of seed differs according to the variety of the grain. About two bushels of the horse-beans per acre, in rows equidistant, at eighteen inches, is a proper allowance, and February is the month in which they should be put in.

Buck-wheat is known to a vast majority of the farmers of this kingdom only by name. It has, however, numerous excellencies, is of an enriching nature, and prepares well for wheat, or any other crop. One bushel of seed is sufficient to sow an acre, which is only about the fourth part of the expense of seed barley. It is sold at the same price as barley, and is equal to it far the fatting of hogs and poultry. The end of May is the proper season for its being sown, and grass seeds may be sown with it, if the practice should be thought in any instance eligible, with more advantage than with any other grain, unless barley may be excepted. Buck-wheat may be sown even so late as the first week in July, a circumstance by which the period of tillage is considerably protracted, and an ameliorating crop may thus be produced, after the usual period has, from any unavoidable or casual occurrence, been neglected.

Potatoes form a most important article of food, both for the human species and for cattle, and are an inestimable substitute for bread formed of grain, the best resource in periods of scarcity of wheat; and, happily, when the crops of grain fail, through redundant moisture, the potatoe is far from being equally injured, and sometimes is even benefited by the wet season. The choice of soil for the culture of this root is of prime importance. Potatoes never make palatable nourishment for man if grown in a clay soil, or in rank, black loam, although in these circumstances they are well fitted for cattle, and relished by them, and also produced in great abundance. They grow to perfection for human food in gravelly and sandy soils. The drill should be universally preferred for their cultivation. In September, or October, the field intended for them should have successively a rousing furrow, a cross braking, and the operation of the cleaning harrow; and being formed into three-feet ridges, should remain in that state till April, which

is the proper season for planting this root. After cross-braking them, to raise in a small degree the furrows, well-rotted horsedung should be laid along them, on which the roots should be laid at eight inches distance. The plough should then pass once round every row, to cover them. As soon as they appear above ground, the plough should be passed round them a second time, laying on the plants about an inch, or somewhat more, of mould, in addition. When they have attained the height of six inches, the plough should go twice along the middle of each interval, in opposite directions, laying earth first to one row, and then to another; and, to apply it more closely to the roots, a spade should afterwards be used to cover four inches of the plants, and bury all the weeds. The weeds which arise afterwards must be extirpated by the hand, as the hoes would go too deep, and damage the roots of the plants. From ten to fifteen bushels will be sufficient to plant an acre, the produce of which may probably be three hundred bushels. Sets should be cut for some few before they are planted, with at least one eye to each, and not in very small pieces, and the depredations of the grub upon them may be effectually prevented by scattering on the surface of the land about two bushels per acre of lime fresh slaked. The most certain method of taking them up, is to plough once round every row, at the distance of four inches, after which they may easily be raised, by a three-clawed fork, rather than by a spade, and scarcely a single one will by this practice be left in the ground. They may with care be preserved till the ensuing crop, particularly by the allowance necessary till April being closely covered in the barn with dry and pressed down straw, while the remainder for the ensuing part of the year is buried in a dry cave, mixed with the husks of dried oats, sand, or leaves, especially if a hay or corn-stack is erected over it.

Potatoes are subject to a disease called the curl, which has drawn the attention of sagacious and experienced men, and suggested, in consequence, a great variety of opinions on its cause and remedy. Some kinds of this root, however, it is almost unanimously agreed, are less susceptible of the disease than others, and the old red, the golden dun, and the long dun, are the least of all so. One or more of the following circumstances may be most probably considered as causing it; frost, insects, the planting from sets of unripe and large pota

toes, the planting in old and exhausted grounds, and too near the surface, or the small shoots of the sets being broken off before planting. Where certainty on any interesting subject cannot be obtained, the hints of the judicious are always desirable. The methods most successfully exercised for the prevention of the curl, are, to cut the sets from smooth, ripe potatoes, of the middle size, which have been kept particularly dry, to guard against the rubbing off the first shoots, and to plant them rather deeply in fresh earth, with a mixture of quick lime.

No plant thrives better even in the coldest part of this island than the turnip, and none are more advantageous to the soil. Its introduction was an improvement of the most valuable nature. There is no soil which will not produce it, when previously prepared for it by art; but the gravelly one is best of all adapted to it. No root requires a finer mould than the turnip, and with a view to this object the land intended for it should be exposed to frost by ribbing it after the harvest. The season for sowing must be regulated by the time intended for feeding, the later from the first of June to the end of July, in proportion to the designed protraction of this feeding. The field should be first ploughed by a shallow furrow. Lime, if necessary, should be then harrowed into it. Single furrows, at the interval of three feet, should be drawn, and dung laid in them, which should be then covered by going round it with the plough, and forming the three-feet spaces into ridges. Wider rows answer no profitable object, and with straiter ones a horse has not room to walk. Thick sowing is far better than thin, bearing better the depredations of the fly, and forming also a protection against drought. The weeds may, in many cases, be most effectually extirpated by women, without injuring the crop; and the standing turnips should be left at twelve inches distance from each other. On average seasons, with good preparation, the produce from this number per acre may be considered as amounting to forty-six tons of valuable nourishment. For preservation, they may be stacked with straw; and forty-two tons may be thus secured by one load of straw, or of stubble and old haulm. A method preferred by many is that of sowing late crops, even in August, by which a succession of them remains on the field to be consumed on the spot, even so late as the ensuing May, and

the advantage of having turnips good till the spring grasses are ready for food has greatly encouraged this practice. To prevent the devastations of the fly, the most destructive enemy to a crop of turnips, the most effectual method, as little dependance can be placed on steepings, or on fumigations, is to sow the seed at such a season that they may be well grown before the appearance of the insect; and by well dunging and manuring the ground, to hasten their attainment of the rough leaf in which the fly does not at all affect them. New seed, it may also be observed, vegetates more rapidly and vigorously than old; and the more healthy and vigorous the plants are, the more likely they are to escape depredation. The sowing of turnips with grain is by many recommended in this connection, and stated to be highly efficacious.

The culture of cabbages for cattle is a subject well meriting the attention of the agriculturist. The cabbage is subject to few diseases, and resists frost more easily than the turnip. It is palatable to cattle, and sooner fills them than carrots or potatoes; and, in every respect but one, cabbages are superior to turnips. On all soils they require manure; whereas, on good land, turnips may be raised without it. Fifty-four tons have been raised upon an acre of ground, not worth more than twelve shillings per annum. Some lands have produced sixty-eight. The time of setting them depends on their intended use. If for feeding in November, plants, procured from seed sown in the end of July in the former year, must be set in March or April; if for feeding in March, April, and May, they must be set in the beginning of the preceding July, from seed sown in the previous February. Repeated transplantation may be applied to them with singular advantage. When they are of the large species, four feet by two and a half are a full distance for them. The best protection for them from the caterpillar, by which these and greens in general are apt particularly to be injured, is to pull off the large under-leaves, (which may be given to cows with great benefit) on which the eggs of those insects are usually deposited. Sowing beans among the cabbages is also considered a most effectual preventive of the nuisance.

Carrots require a deeper soil than any other root, and when the soil does not naturally extend to the depth of twelve inches, equally good throughout, it must

be artificially made so for their culture, which may be easily effected by trench ploughing. Loams and sandy soils are the only ones in which they will flourish, and no dung can be used for them in the year they are sown, as it will inevitably rot them. The ground must be prepared for them by the deepest possible furrows, and, when they are sown, about the beginning of April, it must be smoothed by a brake. In large plots of ground, where horsehoeing is requisite, three feet should be the distance between the drills. Where an acre or a little more only is employed, the interval should not be greater than a foot, and hand-hoeing will be found more convenient, and scarcely attended with greater expense. From six to nine hundred bushels have been produced per acre of this root, where the land has been carefully prepared and attended to. As food for horses, its culture is rapidly spreading. For oxen, milch cows, and pigs, carrots are admirably applicable and nourishing, and, when boiled, turkeys and other poultry are fed on them with great success.

The ease with which parsnips are culti vated, and the great quantity of saccharine and nutritious matter which they contain, in which they are scarcely exceeded by any vegetable whatever, render them well worthy of the attention of the husbandman. Though little used-in Britain, they are highly esteemed in many districts of France, in some parts being thought little inferior to wheat as food for man. Cows which are fed with them are stated to give as much milk as they do in the months of summer. All animals eat them with avidity, and in preference to potatoes, and fatten more quickly upon them. In the cultivation of them the seed should be sown in the autumn, inmediately after it is reaped. When the seed is put in at this season, the plants will anticipate the growth of weeds in the following spring. Frost never does them any material injury, The best soil for them is a deep, rich loam. Sand is next suitable to them; and in a black, gritty soil they will flourish, but not in gravel or clay. In the deepest earth they are always largest. In an appropriate soil no manure is necessary for them, and a very good crop has been obtained for three years in succession, without using any. The seed should be sown in drills, at the distance of eighteen inches, for the greater convenience of hoeing; and by a second hoe ing and a cautious earthing, by which the leaves may not be covered, the crop will VOL. 1.

be luxuriant. In Jersey, the root has been known and cultivated for several centuries, and is highly valued. It is considered as an excellent preparation for wheat, which, after parsnips, yields an abundant crop, without any manure

The profit of cultivating hemp-seed is by no means small. It requires, however, the best land that can be found on a farm, or which is made such by manuring. A rich, deep, putrid, and friable loam, is what it particularly delights in; and in addition to natural richness, forty cubical yards of dung per acre should be applied. Besides this original cost of land in natural richness and preparation, it is to be considered that hemp returns nothing to the farm yard, while corn will give straw, and the dunghill is improved by green crops. The question concerning the propriety of its cultivation by any individual is not to be determined, therefore, only from the circumstance of any price in the market, but is to be inferred from a view of all its bearings and connections. For many crops, tillage should be given with caution. With hemp such caution is unnecessary, as its rank and luxuriant growth proves fatal to all those weeds by which corn would not only be injured, but destroyed. From the autumn preceding to the time of sowing hemp, the land should be three or four times ploughed, and be well harrowed to a fine surface. The quantity of dung should be proportioned to the deficiency of the soil; and when the culture is continued from year to year, a plentiful dressing must be every time applied. About twelve pecks should be sown per acre: and as the destruction of weeds in the tillage is here no object, the broadcast method is universally preferable to the drill. It will be ready for pulling in August, or about thirteen weeks after it is

20wn.

Flax, with due attention, will repay its cultivation; but, generally speaking, in this country the same land and manure may be more conveniently and profitably applied. Two bushels an acre is the requisite quantity of seed, and the land, if it be not particularly rich by nature, must be rendered so by art, must be worked to a fine surface, and be kept perfectly free from weeds.

The preparation for rape-seed is the same which is necessary for that of turnips. It is a crop subject to great injury, and extremely uncertain. In the conquered countries in the north of France, the practice is

F

to sow it in a seed bed for transplantation, which is begun in October, and if there be no frost in November, is continued through that month, when the plants are about two feet long. Were this operation to take place earlier, they would be more secure from the frost. Dibbling is employed for the purpose, and the plants are set at about the distance of eighteen inches by ten. In a favourable year the profit is considerable, as indeed it ought to be, to compensate for the frequent and inevitable failure attending this cultivation. An indispensable point in regard to this article, is to catch at opportunities of fine weather, for the purpose of reap ing and threshing, which must be done in immediate succession. In reaping, extreme care is requisite, to prevent the shedding of the seed. Both in lifting it from the ground and conveying it to the barn floor, the utmost attention-must be applied. As rain, at this critical period, may be considered nearly fatal to this produce, celerity of operation is of the first consequence, and as many assistants as possible should be procured, and not a moment of fine weather should be suffered to pass unimproved.

The cultivation of hops demands a greater capital than that of any other plant. The cost of the first year's preparation and planting will amount to about eighty pounds per acre, and the subsequent annual expense will be little less than half that sum; and after all the expense, preparation, and attention, which may be employed, no crop is more precarious. The serious consideration of a farmer is demanded, before he resolves to introduce this plant where it has not been usually cultivated. And not only the circumstances already mentioned, but that of the accessi bility or distance of manure, (for which the largest quantities are called for by hops,) and the fact, that a small solitary hop ground seldom thrives like those which cover a large extent of country, from whatever cause this may proceed, should be fully weighed. Ruin may easily follow the want of adverting to these and other considerations, and they cannot therefore be too strongly impressed on the sanguine adventurer. A flat deep bog, in a sheltered situation, makes an excellent hop soil, constituting, indeed, a natural dunghill. For the application of such land to hops, the chances are favourable. The best preparation for this plant, when such a spot as this does not occur, is made by two successive crops of turnips or cabbages, fed off by sheep, early enough for the ploughing and planting in March. The

plants should be inserted in rows, at eight feet distance from each other, and about six feet from hill to hill. Four fresh cuttings should be planted in each spot which is to form a hill. In April they should be poled, an operation requiring that critical accuracy, which, depending on changeable and casual circumstances, can be derived only from experience. The binds must next be tied to the poles. The superfluous vines must be pruned about Midsummer, and are a useful food for cows. September is the month for pulling them. But the manage ment of hops a subject most operose and delicate, requiring extreme experience, attention, and dexterity; and the details of which would, if extended only equally to its importance, occupy bulky volumes.

COURSE OF CROPS.

No subject of greater importance has been treated by modern writers in husbandry, than the succession of crops. Before the present reign, although a considerable number of writers on agriculture existed, this topic was little treated, and by many scarcely adverted to. It has at length obtained something approaching to that attention which it merits. The main principles upon which all practices on this subject proceed are, that some crops are more exhausting than others: that some, although of a very impoverishing character, yet by being consumed on the farm, return to it as much as they deducted originally from it, and, perhaps, even more: that some admit profitable tillage and accurate cleaning, during their growth; while by others the land is almost unavoidably rendered foul by weeds, is exhausted without return, and, when they are applied in succession, will be extremely and fatally impoverished. By experience much is found to depend on a certain arrangement of crops of these different and opposite characters; and in no one circumstance is the theory or practice of husbandry, in the present day, so materially advanced as in relation to this subject. Unless this department be well understood, the efforts of the farmer in others are either abortive or injurious. An important difference is observable between culmiferous and leguminous plants, or those which are cultivated for their seed, and such as are raised for their roots. The former bind the soil, while the latter uniformly give it openness and freedom. The former also are decidedly more exhausting, though unquestionably, in themselves, the most profitable. No soil