marked that the worst kind of grasses grow most freely upon those parts of rich grass lands that are the most open and spongy in their texture; and that they are in general much sweetened in the pile where they chance to be much trod upon. Hence the finest grasses on such fields always abound most upon paths which are moderately trod upon; white clover, and the sweetest grasses, being seen there in abundance, while they are less frequent in the spongy parts of the field. But frequent rolling tends to produce this effect more universally and equally than any kind of treading by beasts.

In confirmation of this, the observations of Mr. Davies, in his Account of the Agriculture of Wiltshire, may be quoted. He says that the sweetness of the feed depends much more on its being kept close, and eaten as fast as it shoots, than on any peculiar good quality of the grass itself; for there are many downs that, when close fed, appear to be a very sweet pasture, but which, if suffered to run a year or two without a full stock on them, will become so coarse that sheep will almost as soon starve as eat the grass: and even in those parts of the downs, where the finer and sweeter grasses abound, the soil is frequently so loose and porous, that nothing but constant treading will prevent them from dying out, or being choked by the larger and coarser grasses.' It is farther remarked, by Mr. Davies, that in consequence of too light stocking, heath, in some cases, comes in the place of the better grasses. But, says Dr. Anderson, it is very evident that all the purposes of hard stocking, that is, keeping the grass short, and in a continual state of vegetation, and consequently sweet, and preventing the coarser grasses from running up to stalk and overpowering the others, together with the consolidating of the ground by treading, would be obtained with much greater certainty by the practice of mowing; while the animals that consumed the produce could in no case be subjected to a stint of food, which they necessarily must sometimes be, where reliance is had upon hard stocking for preventing this evil.

Our able essayist observes that the terms sweetness of pasture, and sweet kinds of grass, frequently occur in agricultural writings; yet it is doubtful, if ever they have been properly defined. He therefore here attempts to supply this defect. Those pastures which animals choose to feed upon in preference to others, and which in general are eaten down close to the ground, are said to be sweet pastures, he observes, in contradistinction to those where the grass, being disrelished, is suffered to grow to a greater length, and often to wither in part, without being touched; which are called coarse, or, if tending to dampness, sour pasture. Without entering into a disquisition concerning the circumstances that tend to produce this sweetness, which are various, he considers that, from whatever cause it originates, it is a universal rule, that in every case the younger the grass is, the sweeter and more palatable it will be to beasts of every sort; and that the same weight of food will go much farther in nourishing or fattening an animal, if it be very pleasing to the palate of the animal to which it is given, than if it had been less tooth

some.

For, as a certain quantity of food is required for the mere sustenance of every animal, if that quantity be daily administered to it, and no more, the creature will barely subsist, but will never return any profit to the farmer. But, if the beast shall get a greater quantity of food than this portion which is barely necessary for subsistence, that surplus food then goes to augment the size, and to fatten the animal, and of course yields a profit to the farmer in proportion to its quantity.

As to weeding, the dock-weeder will be found a useful implement for taking out that mischievous perennial by the roots; nettles and other weeds may be cut with spades, or mown over; while some of the rushes and fern are best killed by hoisting the stem. Mosses greatly molest old pastures; and rich composts, harrowing, and drainage, are often necessary to be applied. The Code of Agriculture says that, to keep grass in good condition, a dressing of from thirty to forty cubic yards or cart-loads of compost is required every four years. The application of unmixed putrescent manure will thus be rendered unnecessary, which ought at least to be avoided, in meadows appropriated for the feeding of dairy cows, from its affecting the quality of the milk. p. 476.

An eminent agriculturist observes that there seems to be a season, some time during the year, when grass lands, particularly old turf, should be eaten very close, not merely for the sake of preventing waste, but also for the purpose of keeping down the coarser kinds of plants, and giving to the pastures as equal and fine a sward as possible. The most proper period must partly depend upon the convenience of the grazier; but it can hardly be either immediately before the drought of summer or the frost of winter. Some time in autumn, when the ardent heat of the season is over, and when there is still time for a new growth before winter, may be most suitable for the land itself, and generally also for the grazier, his fat stock being then mostly disposed of, or carried to the after grass of mown grounds. The sweeping of pastures with the scythe may be employed as a substitute for this close feeding; the waste and labor of which, however, though they be but trifling, it does not seem necessary to incur on rich grazing lands, under correct management. Under the system of fogging pasture lands, fields in pasture are shut up early in May, and continued in that state till November or December, when the farmer's stock is turned in, and continue to pasture till the May succeeding. Such management, however, can only be advisable on a soil of the driest nature.

The chief improvements of which mountainous pastures are susceptible, according to Mr. Loudon, are those of draining and sheltering by plantations. Some parts might probably be enclosed by strips of plantation between stone walls, or by stone walls alone; but, as the stock on mountain pastures are generally under the care of a herdsman, the advantages of change of pasture, and alternate eating down and saving or sparing the grass, by keeping out the cattle, are obtainable without the use of fields.' But, in the words of an able contemporary, except in regard to those

necessary operations that have been already noticed-such as the extirpation of weeds and noxious shrubs, clearing away ant and mole-hills, &c., there are few points respecting the management of this kind of land on which some difference of opinion does not prevail. The time of stocking the number of the animals, and whether all should be of one or of different species-the extent of the enclosures-and the propriety of eating the herbage close, or leaving it always in a rather abundant state-are all of them questions which it is scarcely possible to decide in a satisfactory manner by the application of general rules.' Mr. Marshal states that, in all cases where fatting cattle or dairy cows make a part of the stock, and where situation, soil, and water will permit, every suit of grazing grounds ought to consist of three compartments. One for head stock (as cows or fatting cattle); one for followers (as rearing and other lean stock); and the third to be shut up to freshen, for the leading stock. Marshal's Yorkshire, vol. ii. p. 158.

PART III.

would be at the rate of 4 lbs. per quarter, or 16 lbs. per sheep. But suppose in all only 100 lbs. at 8d. per pound, that would amount to £3 17s. 10d. The wool would be worth about two guineas more, besides the value of the winter keep; and the total may be stated at about £7 per acre, got at little expense. Such lands cannot be better employed. From other causes, very light land, where sheep are both bred and fed, must, in part at least, be left as permanent pasture: and those of the county of Norfolk are here adduced in proof. Great injury has been sustained, we are told, by breaking up permanent pastures on such soils, more especially when subject to rectorial tithes : lands of an inferior soil, which kept two sheep on an acre, paying only vicarial tithes, and rented at 10s. per acre, since they have been broken up cannot pay, even without rent, both the tithe of corn and the expense of cultivation. In general it may be allowed that a farm lets best with a fair proportion of grass land upon it, which admits of a mixed management.

Under the following particulars are given, in the Code of Agriculture, the result of the infor

SYSTEM.

The Board of Agriculture, under the direction of government, was long engaged in an enquiry 'into the best means of converting portions of grass lands into tillage, without exhausting the soil, and of returning the same to grass, after a certain period, in an improved state, or at least without injury: and, while the author of the supplemental article on Agriculture in the Encyclopædia Britannica thinks the industry of the Board was ill-directed, much information was certainly collected by this means. Sir John Sinclair is confident that a much larger proportion of the United Kingdom than is at present so cultivated, might be subject to the alternate system of husbandry, or transferred from grass to tillage, and then restored to grass. Much of the middling sorts of grass lands, from 200 to 400 feet above the level of the sea, is of this description; and all well-informed husbandmen, and friends to the general prosperity of the country, regret that such lands are left in a state of unproductive pasturage, and excluded from tillage.

There are lands, however, respecting which it seems the general testimony was, that they ought never to be thus broken up; as strong clays, unfit for barley or turnips; soft clayey loams, with a clayey or marly sub-soil; and the deeper valley or river meadows, most of which improve annually while kept under good grazing management. The grass lands of Lincolnshire are instanced as the richest altogether in the kingdom. They let from £1 15s. to £3 per acre, and the value of the produce is from £3 to £10 per acre, arising from the beef, mutton, and wool, obtained, subject to little variation from the nature of the seasons. The stock maintained per acre on the best grazing lands surpasses what could be fed by any arable produce; it being not uncommon to feed at the rate of from six to seven sheep in summer, and two sheep in winter. The sheep, when put on the grass, may weigh from 18 lbs. to 20 lbs. per quarter, and the increase of weight

ther any previous steps are necessary before lands in grass are broken up; the proper mode of effecting that object; the course of crops; the manure necessary: the system of management during the rotation; the mode of laying down the land again to grass; that of sowing the grass-seeds; and the subsequent management.

1. If the land be wet, it is said to be advisable to drain it completely, previous to its being broken up; as it is not improbable that its being kept in pasture was partly on that account. Land that long has been in pasture does not require dung during the first course of crops that is taken after being broken up; but the application of calcareous manure is always, in suck cases, expedient. Sometimes lime is spread on the ground before it is ploughed; at other times when it is either under summer fallow, or a drilled crop of turnips. Marl and chalk also have been used for the same purpose with great advantage. The land thence derives additional strength and vigor; the succeeding crops are much improved; the soil is commonly so softened in its texture that it may be ploughed with half the strength that would otherwise be necessary; and, whenever it is restored to grass, the herbage is abundant.

2. Wherever the soil is not too shallow, or friable, or when the turf cannot soon be rotted, if land is to be broken up from old pasture, paring and burning is the proper system. In this way good tilth is speedily procured; the damage that might otherwise be sustained by the grub, the wire-worm, and other insects, is avoided, while the soil receives a stimulus which ensures an abundant crop. Where paring and burning, from any circumstance, cannot take place, the land may be trenched or doubleploughed. This is effected by means of two ploughs following each other, the first plough taking off a thin surface of about three inches, and the second going deeper in the same place, covering the surface-sod with fine mould; both

furrows not exceeding the thickness of the vegetable mould or other good soil. If the land is ploughed with one furrow, the operation ought to be performed before winter, that it may receive the benefit of the succeeding frosts, by which the success of the future operations will not only be promoted, but most of the insects lodged in the soil will be destroyed. When one furrow alone is taken, the best size is four inches and a half deep by eight or nine broad. The strain on horses in ploughing ley land is mostly from the depth.

3. The rotation of crops to be adopted, when grass lands are broken up, must partly depend upon the soil, and partly on the manner in which it is prepared for cultivation. As a general principle, however, it may be laid down, that unless by the course of cropping to be pursued the bad grasses and other plants indigenous in the soil are extirpated, they will, when the land is again laid down to grass, increase and prevail with more rapidity and effect than seeds chosen by the farmer; and the consequence must be, a heavy disappointment to the future crops of grass, perhaps solely, or at least principally, attributable to a previous defective management. It is necessary, therefore, to enter into details upon this subject. The process of conversion in clayey soils should be commenced with paring and burning, especially where the grub is suspected. The following course may then be adopted :-1. Rape fed with sheep; 2. Beans; 3. Wheat; 4. Beans; 5. Wheat; 6. Fallow; 7. Wheat, sown with grass-seeds. This may seem severe cropping, but is justified by experience when old grass clay land is broken up. If the land has not been pared and burnt, the first crop ought to be either oats or dibbled beans. To do justice to the plan of restoring the land to grass, there ought to be, in all cases, according to the soil, either a naked or turnip fallow, before the sowing of grass-seeds be attempted. But on mellow loamy clay land, consisting of fine old grass pasture, where it is thought necessary or advisable to break up such land, it should be done in detached pieces, so as to suit the convenience of the occupier, and the following course should be adopted :-1. Autumnal ploughing for oats in spring; 2. Fallow for rape, to be eaten with sheep; 3. Beans; 4. Wheat, sown with clover; 5. Clover; 6. Clover; 7. Wheat; 8. Rape, to be partially eaten, and hoed in spring, and to stand for seed; and, 9. Wheat with grass-seeds. This is a very profitable rotation, and applicable to the best grazing land in Lincolnshire. As to chalk: Paring and burning is considered in this case to be indispensable as a preparation for turnips, which ought, where manure can be got, to be raised two years in succession; then barley, clover, wheat; and, after one or two additional crops of turnips, the land may be laid down with sainfoin to great advantage. Peat: On this soil paring and burning are essentially necessary. Under a judicious system, the greatest and quickest profit is thus secured to the farmer, with advantage to the public, and without injury to the landlord. Draining also must not te neglected. The crops to be grown on peat

soils are, 1. Rape or potatoes; 2. Oats; 3. Turnips; 4. Oats or wheat; and, 5, Clover, or grassseeds. A liberal application of lime, where it can be obtained, is of the greatest service in enabling such soils to bring corn to its full perfection. In the fens of Thorney, the following course was recommended:-1. Paring and burning for rape; 2. Oats; and, 3. Wheat with grassseeds; if the land was safe from water, the Lammas sort, if not spring wheat. This short course, it is contended, preserves the land in heart; and it afterwards produces abundant crops of grass. But long courses, in such a soil, run the lands to weeds and straw, without quality in the grain. Loam: The courses of crops applicable to this soil are too numerous to be here inserted. If the sward be friable, the following rotation may be adopted :—1. Oats; 2. Turnips; 3. Wheat or barley; 4. Beans; 5. Wheat; 6. Fallow or turnips; 7. Wheat or barley, and grass-seeds. If the sward be very tough and coarse, instead of taking oats, it may be pared and burnt for turnips. Sand: On rich and deep sandy soils, the most valuable crop that can be raised is carrots. For inferior sands, turnips, to be eaten on the ground, then to be laid down with barley and grass-seeds.

4. According to the improved system of laying down lands to grass, they ought to be previously made as clean and fertile as possible. With that view, all the green crops raised ought to be consumed upon the ground; fallow or fallow crops ought not to be neglected; and the whole straw of the corn crops should be converted into manure, and applied to the soil that produced it. Above all, the mixing of calcareous matter with the soil, either previous to, or during the course of cropping, is essential; and nothing generally improves meadows or pastures more than lime or marl.

5. It is disputed whether grass-seeds should be sown with or without corn. In favor of the first practice, that of uniting the two crops, it is maintained that, where equal pains are taken, the future crop of grass will succeed equally well as if they had been sown separately, while the same tilth answers for both. On the other hand it is observed, that as the land must, in that case, be put into the best possible order, there is a risk that the corn crop will grow so luxuriantly, as to overpower the grass-seeds, and, at any rate, will exclude them from the benefit of the air and the dews. If the season also be wet, a corn-crop is apt to lodge, and the grass will, in a great measure, be destroyed. On soils moderately fertile, the grasses have a better chance of succeeding; but then, it is said, that the land is so much exhausted by producing the corn-crops, that it seldom proves good grass land afterwards. In answer to these objections, it has been urged that where, from the richness of the soil, there is any risk of sowing a full crop of corn, less seed is used, even as low as one-third of the usual quantity; and that a moderate crop of grain nurses the young plants of grass, and protects them from the rays of a hot sun, without producing any material injury. Where the two crops are united, barley is the preferable grain, except on peat. Barley has a tendency to loosen

the texture of the ground in which it grows, which is favorable to the vegetation of grassseeds. In the choice of barley, that sort should be preferred which runs least to straw, and which is the soonest ripe. On peat, a crop of oats is to be preferred. The manner of sowing the grass-seeds requires to be particularly attended to. Machines have been invented for that purpose, which answer well, but they are unfortunately too expensive for the generality of farmers. It is said to be a bad system to mix seeds of different plants before sowing them, in order to have the fewer casts. It is better to sow each sort separately, for the expence of going several times over the ground is nothing, compared to the benefit of having each sort equally distributed. The seeds of grasses, being so light, ought never to be sown in a windy day, except by machinery, an equal delivery being a point of great consequence. Wet weather ought likewise to be avoided, as the least degree of poaching is injurious. Grass-seeds ought to be well harrowed, according to the nature of the soil.

6. When the corn is carried off, the young crop of grass should be but little fed during autumn, and that only in dry weather; but heavily rolled in the following spring, in order to press the soil home to the roots. It is then to be treated as permanent pasture. By attention to these particulars, the far greater proportion of the meadows and pastures in the kingdom, of an inferior, or even medium quality, may be broken up, not only with safety, but, as we are told, with great profit.

PART IV.

A deep, fat, sandy loam is perhaps the only soil on which it can be cultivated with advantage. If sown upon old corn land, it ought to be well cleaned from weeds, and rendered perfectly friable by a summer fallow. Manure is seldom or ever set on for a line crop; and the soil process consists generally of a single ploughing. The seed time is May, but much depends on the state of the soil at the time of sowing. It should neither be wet nor dry; and the surface ought to be made as fine as that of a gardenbed. Not a clod of the size of an egg should remain unbroken.' Two bushels of seed are usually sown upon an acre; the surface, after being harrowed, is sometimes raked with garden or hay-rakes; and the operation would be still more complete if the clods and other obstructions, which cannot be easily removed, were drawn into the interfurrows. A light hand-roller used between the final raking and harrowing would much assist this operation. The chief requisite during the time of vegetation is weeding, which ought to be performed with the utmost care; and for this reason it is particularly requisite that the ground should be previously cleansed as well as possible, otherwise the expense of weeding becomes too great to be borne, or the crop must be considerably injured. It is an irreparable injury, if, through a dry season, the plants come up in two crops; or if by accident or mismanagement they be too thin. The goodness of the crop depends on its running up with a single stalk without branches; for wherever it ramifies there the length of the line terminates; and this ramification is the consequence of its having too much room at the root, or getting above the

ARE ARTICLES OF COMMERCE.

These in general are such as cannot be used for food; and are principally flax, hemp, rape, hops, and timber of various kinds.

Of flax and hemp.-Flax is cultivated not only with a view to the common purposes of making linen, but for the sake of its seed also; and thus forms a most extensive article of commerce, all the oil used by painters, at least for common purposes, being extracted from this seed. See FLAX, FLAX-DRESSING, and LINUM. The cake which remains after the extraction of the oil is in some places used as a manure, and in others sold for fattening of cattle. In the vale of Gloucester, Mr. Marshal informs us that it is, next to hay, a main article of stall fatting; though the price is often great. Hence some individuals have been induced to try the effect of lintseed itself boiled to a jelly, and mixed with flour, bran, or chaff, with good success; and even the oil itself has been tried for the same purpose in Herefordshire. Though this plant is in universal culture over the whole kingdom, yet it appears, by the vast quantity imported, that by far too little ground is employed in that way; as Mr. Marshal takes notice of its culture only in Yorksnire, and here, he tells us, its cultivation is confined to a few districts. The kind cultivated is that called blea-line,' or the blue or lead colored flax, and this requires a rich dry soil for its cultivation.

ver of any use, being unavoidably worked off in dressing; and the stem itself, unless it bear a due proportion to the length of the crop, is likewise worked off among the refuse. The ramification of the flax will readily be occasioned by clods on the ground when sown. A second crop is very seldom attended with any profit; for, being overgrown with the spreading plants of the first crop, it remains weak and short, and at pulling time is left to rot upon the land.

Flax is injured not only by drought, but by frost, and is sometimes attacked, even when got five or six inches high, by a small white slug, which strips off the leaves to the top, and the stalks bending with their weight are thus sometimes drawn into the ground. Hence, if the crop does not promise fair at weeding time, our author advises not to bestow further labor and expense upon it. A crop of turnips or rape will generally pay much better than such a crop of flax. The time of flax harvest in Yorkshire is generally in the latter end of July, or beginning of August. On the whole, our author remarks, that the goodness of the crop depends in some measure upon its length; and this upon its evenness and closeness upon the ground. Three feet high is a good length, and the thickness of a crow's quill a good thickness. A fine stalk affords more fine and fewer shivers than a thick one. A tall thick set crop is therefore desirable. But, unless the land be good, a thick crop cannot attain a sufficient length of stem. Hence the

folly of sowing flax on land which is unfit for it. Nevertheless, with a suitable soil, a sufficiency of seed evenly distributed, and a favorable season, flax may turn out a very profitable crop. The flax crop, however, has its disadvantages; it interferes with harvest, and is generally believed to be a great exhauster of the soil, especially when its seed is suffered to ripen. Its cultivation ought therefore to be confined to rich grass-land districts, where harvest is a secondary object, and where its exhaustion may be rather favorable than hurtful to succeeding arable crops, by checking the too great rankness of rich fresh broken ground.

In vol. ii. of Bath Papers, a Dorsetshire gentleman, who writes on the culture of hemp and flax, gives an account somewhat different from that of Mr. Marshal. Instead of exhausting crops, he maintains that they are both ameliorating crops if cut without seeding; and, as the best crops of both are raised from foreign seed, he is of opinion that there is little occasion for raising it in this country. A crop of hemp, he insists, prepares the land for flax, and is therefore clear gain to the farmer. That these plants impoverish the soil,' he repeats, 'is a mere vulgar notion, devoid of all truth. The best historical relations, and the verbal accounts of honest ingenious planters, concur in declaring it to be a vain prejudice, unsupported by any authority; and that these crops really meliorate and improve the soil.' He is likewise of opinion that the growth of hemp and flax is not necessarily confined to rich soils, but that they may be cultivated with profit also upon poor sandy ground, if a little expense be laid out in manuring it. Spalding Moor in Lincolnshire is a barren sand; and yet with proper care and culture it produces the best hemp in England, and in large quantities. In the Isle of Axholme, in the same county, equal quantities are produced; for the culture and management of it is the principal employ of the inhabitants; and, according to Leland, it was so in the reign of Henry VIII. In Marshland the soil is a clay or strong warp, thrown up by the river Ouze, and of such a quality that it cracks with the heat of the sun, till a hand may be put into chinks; yet, if it be once covered with the hemp or flax before the heats come on, the ground will not crack that summer. When the land is sandy, they first sow it with barley, and the following spring they manure the stubble with horse or cow dung, and plough it under. Then they sow their hemp or flax, and harrow it in with a light harrow, having short teeth. A good crop destroys all the weeds, and makes it a fine fallow for flax in the spring. As soon as the flax is pulled, they prepare the ground for wheat. Lime, marl, and the mud of ponds, is an excellent compost for hemp lands.' Our author takes notice of the vast quantity of flax and hemp, not less than 11,000 tons, imported formerly into Britain; and complains that it is not all raised in the island. He observes that the greater part of those marshy lands lying to the west of Mendip hills are very proper for the cultivation of hemp and flax; and if laid out in this manner could not fail of turning out highly advantageous both to the land

holders and the public at large. The vast quan. tities of hemp and flax,' says he, 'which have been raised on lands of the same kind in Lincolnshire marshes, and the fens of the Isle of Ely and Huntingdonshire, are a full proof of the truth of my assertion. Many hundreds of acres in the above mentioned places, which for pasturage or grazing were not worth more than 20s. or 25s. per acre, have been readily let at from £2 to £4.

Choice of the soil, and preparing the ground. —A skilful flax-raiser always prefers in Scotland, we are told, a free open deep loam, and all grounds that produced the preceding year a good crop of turnips, cabbages, potatoes, barley, or broad clover, or have been formerly laid down rich, and kept for some years in pasture. A clay soil, the second or third crop after being limed, will answer well for dax; provided, if the ground be still stiff, that it be brought to a proper mould, by tilling after harvest to expose it to winter frosts. All new grounds produce a strong crop of flax, and pretty free of weeds. When many mole-hills appear upon new ground, it_answers the better for flax after one tilling. The seed ought never to be sown on grounds that are either too wet or dry, but on such as retain a natural moisture; and such grounds as are inclined to weeds ought to be avoided, unless prepared by a careful summer fallow. If the linseed be sown early, and the flax not allowed to stand for seed, a crop of turnip may be got after the flax that very year; the second year a crop of rye or barley may be taken; and the third year grass seeds are sometimes sown along with the lintseed. This is the method mostly practised in and about the counties of Lincoln and Somerset, where great quantities of flax and hemp are every year raised, and where these crops have long been capital articles. There old ploughed grounds are never sown with linseed, unless the soil be very rich and clean. A certain worm, called in Scotland the coup worm, abounds in new ploughed grounds, which greatly hurts every crop but flax. In small enclosures, surrounded with trees or high hedges, the flax, for want of free air, is subject to fall before it is ripe, and the droppings of rain and dew from the trees prevent the flax within the reach of the trees from growing to any perfection. Of preceding crops, potatoes and hemp are the best preparation for flax. In the fens of Lincoln, upon proper ground of old tillage they sow hemp, dunging well the first year; the second year hemp without dung; the third year flax without dung; and that same year a crop of turnip eat on the ground by sheep; the fourth year hemp with a large coat of dung; and so on successively. If the ground be free and open, it should be but once ploughed, and that as shallow as possible, not deeper than two inches and a half. It should be laid flat, reduced to a fine garden mould by good harrowing, and all stones and sods should be carried off. Except a little pigeon's dung for cold or sour grouud, no other dung should be used preparatory for flax; because it produces too many weeds, and throws up the flax thin and poor upon the stalk. Before sowing, the bulky clods should be broken,