Wells from a remote Kentish Tempe to the Baden Baden of England. First in Brinsup, then at Rydall, Wordsworth sought a Vallombrosa. Our greatest statesman, William Pitt, was wont to solace himself after a spell of the cares of office amid the supreme silence of Lord Stanhope's Kentish woods. Among the Chiltern Beeches Charles Reade learnt the art of fiction; in the solitudes of the grand demesne of Cobham, Dickens thought out his magic fantoccini. To the woods, Millais and Vicat Cole have paid an immortal tribute; to them also Shakespeare and Milton. Well may the prayer arise from every soul that loves England, not for her commerce, not for her empire, not for her shekels or her ships, but for her own sweet self, "Woodman, spare that tree," for at the existing rate of destruction there will soon be no tree left to spare.

COMPTON READE.

CEREALS.

BY JOHN WALKER,

"The

Author of The Cow and Calf," "The Sheep and the Lamb," "Farming to Profit in
Modern Times," "Cattle: Their Management in Dairy, Field, and Stall,"
Botfly of the Ox, Its Destruction," etc.

CEREALS of the farm comprise wheat, barley, oats, rye and maize, known in farming parlance as white straw crops. I have only space to treat briefly upon the three former, which can be grown profitably on all fertile land in England, notwithstanding the many statements to the contrary. It is owing to losses on other crops in rotations that farming proves unremunerative. If land is worked upon an improved method, so as to leave out unpaying crops as far as practicable, due regard being paid to give variety of crops so as not to impoverish the soil, there need not be any tolerably fertile farms going a begging. After farming extensively for three decades, I find that many agriculturists make two fatal errors. 1. They repeat white straw crops too frequently, thus impoverishing soil to such an extent that only middling harvests are reaped, resulting in loss instead of gain. 2. They discard cereal crops and put land down into permanent pasture which is unsuited to such a purpose. There are certain soils of clayey nature highly adapted for arable purposes, which may be seeded down occasionally for one or two years, but which give no profitable

herbage after the second year, as the higher classes of plants are not indigenous to the soil therefore, die out, leaving only innutritious herbage, and very little of that.

WHEAT draws hardly upon soil, hence it should only be grown once in a rotation.

Other crops can be cultivated to give fields a rest, notably clovers and mixed grasses, and on free working soil, roots, neither of which impoverish land for wheat. Good seed is essential to produce abundant yields, and this is a feature in corn growing which has been carelessly overlooked by many farmers. Taking the whole country over, a large percentage of the seed sown is devoured by birds or creature pests in the soil, while mildew alone in wet late seasons reduces crops to half their normal yield. It is folly to allow good seed to be devoured by insect pests and diseases. Why then are not these enemies dealt with by a strong hand? It is practicable to well-nigh exterminate living pests, and mildew might be in a large measure prevented. Acts of Parliament will be passed in this connection by-and-by, so that failure in crops will be seldom seen. Now, one scarcely passes half a dozen fields without noticing a failure. When the great depression occurred in land the soil was cultivated in a careless manner, so that weeds often crowded out cultivated crops, impoverished the land, and caused eventually more cost in labour than if fields. had been kept clean. There are lots of uncultivated farms in this country perfectly adapted to wheat growing that may at present be bought for a mere nominal sum, and which, if farmed on modern approved methods, would, in a few years, be worth well nigh double cost price. Corroborative of this I may point out the rise of wheat in 1891, which shows that there is some limit to foreign supplies and a good demand for English samples.

I have given probable costs and returns of a wheat crop in my chapter on "What an Acre of Land can Produce." BARLEY is grown quite as profitably as wheat, and should come once in a rotation. It flourishes best on medium and light soils. It is in its favour that land can be cleaned in spring before planting begins, hence summer fallows are dispensed with, which is a matter of great importance. Barley has held its price. through the long depression in farming better than any other grain, for although there are foreign barleys brought to our markets few of them are up to prime malting quality, as much of the corn is thin and invariably badly dressed. To ensure good crops of barley the soil must be worked to a fine tilth, first-class seed must be sown, and the ground be kept clean from weeds and creature pests. Barley should become quite ripe before harvested, so as to shorten the time of exposure in the field. Only a clean, uniform sample is up to prime malting quality, and anything short of such quality does not answer to grow.

OATS flourish best upon rich clays, loams and the most fertile gravels. They are usually cultivated on ground too rich for barley or wheat, and are well suited to newly-broken up turf. There is much ground in this country running as wild as the backwood lands of America, which might well be brought into cultivation. Here oats could be grown to perfection. Wherever fields are allowed to go out of cultivation riches accumulate in the soil especially adapted to feeding cereal crops. Purchasers of lands, and indeed many farmers, take it as a matter of course that neglected land is poor; this is not so. Rank weeds growing up and dying down year after year enrich soil to a great degree. There are three kinds of oats suited to our soils, viz., white potato

oats, black tartarian and grey winter oats. Immense yields of the two latter are grown on maiden soils, while potato oats do well on land of medium richness. The first thing to do on wild lands brought under cultivation is to look well to the extermination of creature pests. Gaslime is destructive to all insects in the soil, and as ninety-nine per cent. of them are harmful to cultivated crops, the sooner land is rid of them the better. Oats should be sown thickly, say four bushels per acre, be well harrowed in, and the soil thoroughly consolidated by repeated rollings.

JOHN WALKER.