wife and children, which ought not to be exceeded. The whole allotted expense should be considerably within the probable receipts; and, if possible, one eighth of the income annually received should be laid up for contingencies, or expended in extra improvements on the farm. BOOK VI. CULTURE OF FARM LANDS. 4923. THE business of farming consists of the culture of vegetables, and the treatment or culture of animals; in practice these are generally carried on together, but may be more conveniently treated of apart. In this Book, therefore, we confine ourselves to the culture of vegetable, and shall consider in succession the general processes of culture; the culture of corn and pulse; of roots and leaves; of herbage plants; of grasses; and of manufactorial plants. CHAP. I. General Processes common to Farm Lands. 4924. Among general processes, those which merit particular notice in this place are, the rotation of crops, the working of fallows, and the management of manures. The theory of these processes has been already given in treating of soils and manures (PART II. BOOK III.); and it therefore only remains to detail their application to practice under different circumstances. SECT. I. Rotation of Crops suitable to different Descriptions of Soils. 4925. The proper distribution of crops, and a plan for their succession, is one of the first subjects to which a farmer newly entered on a farm requires to direct his attention. The kind of crops to be raised are determined in a great measure by the climate, soil, and demand, and the quantity of each by the value, demand, and the adjustment of farm labour. 4926. In the adjustment of farm labour, the great art is to divide it as equally as possible throughout the year. Thus it would not answer in any situation to sow exclusively autumn crops, as wheat or rye; nor only spring corns, as oats or barley; for by so doing all the labour of seed-time would come on at once, and the same of harvest work, while the rest of the year there would be little to do on the farm. But by sowing a portion of each of these and other crops, the labour both of seed-time and harvest is divided and rendered easier, and is more likely to be done well and in season. But this point is so obvious as not to require elucidation. 4927. The succession or rotation of crops is a point on which the profits of the farmer depend more than on any other. It is remarked by Arthur Young, that agricultural writers, previously to the middle of the eighteenth century, paid little or no attention to it. They recite, he says, courses good, bad, and execrable in the same tone, as matters not open to praise or censure, and unconnected with any principles that could throw light on the arrangement of fields. The first writer who assigned due importance to the subject of rotations seems to have been the Rev. Adam Dickson, in his Treatise on Agriculture, published in Edinburgh in 1777; and soon afterwards Lord Kaimes, in his Gentleman Farmer, illustrates the importance of the subject: both writers were probably led to it by observing the effects of the Norfolk husbandry, then beginning to be introduced to Berwickshire. But whatever may have been the little attention paid to this subject by former writers, the importance of the subject of rotations, and the rule founded on the principles already laid down, that culmiferous crops ripening their seeds should not be repeated without the intervention of pulse, roots, herbage, or fallow, is now "recognised in the practice and writings of all judicious cultivators, more generally perhaps than any other." (Edit. of Farmer's Mag.) 4928. The system of rotations is adapted for every soil, though no particular rotation can be given for any one soil which will answer in all cases; as something depends on climate, and something also on the kind of produce for which there is the greatest market demand. But wherever the system of rotations is followed, and the several processes of labour which belong to it properly executed, land will rarely get into a foul and exhausted state, or at least, if foul and exhausted under a judicious rotation," matters would be much worse were any other system followed." 4929. The particular crops which enter into a system of rotation must obviously be such as are suited to the soil and climate, though, as the experienced author so often quoted observes, "they will be somewhat varied by local circumstances, such as the proximity of towns and villages, where there is a greater demand for turnips, potatos, hay, &c. than in thinly peopled districts. In general, beans and clover, with rye-grass, are interposed between corn crops on clayey soils; and turnips, potatoes, and clover with ryegrass on dry loams`and sands, or what are technically known by the name of turnip soils. A variety of other plants, such as peas, tares, cabbages, and carrots, occupy a part, though commonly but a small part, of that division of a farm which is allotted to green crops. This order of succession is called the system of alternate husbandry; and on rich soils, or such as have access to abundance of putrescent manure, it is certainly the most productive of all others, both for food for man and for the inferior animals. One half of a farm is in this course always under some of the different species of cereal grasses, and the other half under pulse, roots, cultivated herbage, or plain fallow. 4930. But the greater part of the arable land of Britain cannot be maintained in a fertile state under this management; and sandy soils, even though highly manured, soon become too incohesive under a course of constant tillage. It therefore becomes necessary to leave that division or break that carries cultivated herbage to be pastured for two years or more, according to the degree of its consistency and fertility; and all the fields of a farm are treated thus in their turn if they require it. This is called the system of convertible husbandry, a regular change being constantly going on from aration to pasturage, and vice verså. 4931. Not to repeat the same kind of crop at too short intervals, is another rule with regard to the suc. cession of crops. Whatever may be the cause, whether it is to be sought for in the nature of the soil or of the plants themselves, experience clearly proves the advantages of introducing a diversity of species into every course of cropping. When land is pastured several years before it is brought again under the plough, there may be less need for adhering steadily to this rule; but the degeneracy of wheat and other corn crops recurring upon the same land every second year for a long period, has been very generally ac. knowledged. It is the same with what are called green crops; beans and peas, potatos, turnips, and in an especial manner red clover, become all of them much less productive, and much more liable to disease, when they come into the course, upon the same land, every second, third, or fourth year. But what the interval ought to be has not yet been ascertained, and, from the great number of years that experiments must be continued to give any certain result, probably cannot be determined until the component parts of soils, and particularly the sort of vegetable nourishment which each species of plant extracts from the soil, have been more fully investigated. 4932. A change of variety as well as of the species, and even of the plants of the same variety, is found to be attended with advantage; and in the latter case, or a change of seed, the species and variety being the same, the practice is almost universal. It is well known, that of two parcels of wheat, for instance, as much alike in quality as possible, the one which had grown on a soil differing much from that on which it is to be sown, will yield a better produce than the other that grew in the same or a similar soil and climate. The farmers of Scotland accordingly find that wheat from the south, even though it be not, as it usually is, better than their own, is a very advantageous change; and oats and other gram brought from a clayey to a sandy soil, other things being equal, are more productive than such as have grown on sandy soil. (Supp. Encyc. Brit. art. Agr. 144.) 4933. The following are examples of rotations suited to different soils, as given in Brown's excellent Treatise on Rural Affairs. The basis of every rotation, he says, "we hold to be either a bare summer fallow, or a fallow on which drilled turnips are cultivated, and its conclusion to be with the crops taken in the year preceding a return of fallow or drilled turnips, when of course a new rotation commences. 4934. Rotation for strong deep lands. According to this rotation, wheat and drilled beans are the crops to be cultivated, though clover and rye grass may be taken for one year in place of beans, should such a variety be viewed as more eligible. The rotation begins with summer fallow, because it is only on strong deep lands that it can be profitably practised; and it may go on for any length of time, or so long as the land can be kept clean, though it ought to stop the moment that the land gets into a contrary condition. A considerable quantity of manure is required to go on successfully; perhaps dung should be given to each bean crop; and if this crop is drilled and attentively horse-hoed, the rotation may turn out to be one of the most profitable that can be exercised. 4935. Rotation for loams and clays. Where it may not be advisable to carry the first rotation into execution, a different one can be practised, according to which labour will be more divided, and the usual grains more generally cultivated; for instance, the following, which used to be common in East Lo thian: This rotation is excellently calculated to insure an abundant return through the whole of it, provided dung is bestowed upon the clover stubble. Without this supply the rotation would be crippled, and inferior crops of course produced in the concluding years. 4936. Rotation for clays and loams of an inferior description. inferior description to those already treated of. 1. Fallow, with dung. 2. Wheat. 3. Clover and rye-grass. This rotation is calculated for soils of an 5. Beans, drilled and horse-hoed. 6. Wheat. According to this rotation, also in use in East Lothian, the rules of good husbandry are studiously practised; while the sequence is obviously calculated to keep the land in good order, and in such a condition as to ensure crops of the greatest value. If manure is bestowed either upon the clover-stubble or before the beans are sown, the rotation is one of the best that can be devised for the soils mentioned. 4937. Rotation for thin clays. On thin clays gentle husbandry is indispensably necessary, otherwise the soil may be exhausted, and the produce unequal to the expense of cultivation. Soils of this description will not improve much while under grass; but unless an additional stock of manure can be procured, there is a necessity of refreshing them in that way, even though the produce should in the mean time be comparatively of small value. The following rotation is not an improper one: 3. Grass pastured, but not too early eaten. 4. Grass. 5. Grass. 6. Oats. 1. Fallow, with dung. 2. Wheat. This rotation may be shortened or lengthened, according to circumstances, but should never extend further in point of ploughing than when dung can be given to the fallow-break. This is the keystone of the whole; and if neglected the rotation is rendered useless. 4938. Rotation for peat earth soils. These are not friendly to wheat, unless aided by a quantity of cal careous matter. Taking them in a general point of view, it is not advisable to cultivate wheat, but a crop of oats may almost be depended upon, provided the previous management has been judiciously exe. cuted. If the subsoil of peat earth lands is retentive of moisture, the process ought to commence with a bare summer fallow; but if such are incumbent on free and open bottoms, a crop of turnips may be substituted for fallow; according to which method, the surface will get a body which naturally it did not possess. Grass on such soils must always occupy a great space of every rotation, because physical circumstances render regular cropping utterly impracticable. 1. Fallow, or turnips with dung. 2 Oats of an early variety. quantity of perennial rye. circumstances permit the land to be broken up, when oats are to be 4939. Rotation for light soils. These are easily managed, though to procure a full return of the profit which they are capable of yielding, requires generally as much attention as is necessary in the manage ment of those of a stronger description. Upon light soils, a bare summer fallow is seldom called for, as cleanliness may be preserved by growing turnips, and other leguminous articles. Grass also is of eminent advantage upon such soils, often yielding a greater profit than what is afforded by culmiferous crops. This is a fashionable rotation; but it may be doubted whether a continuance of it for any considerable period is advisable, because both turnips and clover are found to fall off when repeated so often as once in four years. Common red clover will not grow every four years, unless gypsum be restored to the land. Perhaps the rotation would be greatly improved were it extended to eight years, whilst the ground, by such an extension, would be kept fresh and constantly in good condition. As, for instance, were seeds for pas ture sown in the second year, the ground kept three years under grass, broke up for oats in the sixth year, drilled with beans and peas in the seventh, and sown with wheat in the eighth; the rotation would then be complete, because it included every branch of husbandry, and admitted a variety in management generally agreeable to the soil, and always favourable to the interest of cultivators. The rotation may also con. sist of six crops, were the land kept only one year in grass, though few situations admit of so much cropping, unless additional manure is within reach. 4940. Rotation for sandy soils. These, when properly manured, are well adapted to turnips, though it rarely happens that wheat can be cultivated on them with advantage, unless they are dressed with alluvial compost, marl, clay, or some such substances as will give a body or strength to them, which they do not naturally possess. Barley, oats, and rye, the latter especially, are, however, sure crops on sands, and in favourable seasons will return greater profit than can be obtained from wheat. 1. Turnips well manured consumed on the ground. 3. Clover and rye-grass. By keeping the land three years in grass, the rotation would be extended to six years, a measure highly advisable." 4941. These examples are sufficient to illustrate the subject of improved rotations; but as the best general schemes may be sometimes momentarily deviated from with advantage, the same able author adds, that "cross cropping, in some cases, may perhaps be justifiable in practice; as, for instance, we have seen wheat taken after oats with great success, when these oats had followed a clover crop on rich soil; but, after all, as a general measure, that mode of cropping cannot be recommended. We have heard of another rotation, which comes almost under the like predicament; though, as the test of experience has not yet been applied, a decisive opinion cannot be pronounced upon its merits. This rotation begins with a bare fallow, and is carried on with wheat, grass for one year or more, oats, and wheat, where it ends. Its supporters maintain that beans are an uncertain crop, and cultivated at great expense; and that in no other way will corn, in equal quantity and of equal value, be cultivated at so little expense as according to the plan mentioned. That the expense of cultivation is much lessened, we acknowledge, because no more than seven ploughings are given through the whole rotation; but whether the crops will be of equal value, and whether the ground will be preserved in equally good condition, are points which remain to be ascertained by experience." (Brown on Rural Affairs.) 4942. As a general guide to devising rotations on clay soils, it may be observed, that winter or autumn sown crops are to be preferred to such as are put in in spring. Spring ploughing on such soils is a hazardous business, and not to be practised where it can possibly be avoided. Except in the case of drilled beans, there is not the slightest necessity for ploughing clays in the spring months; but as land intended to carry beans ought to be early ploughed, so that the benefit of frost may be obtained, and as the seed furrow is an ebb one, rarely exceeding four inches in deepness, the hazard of spring ploughing for this article is not of much consequence. Ploughing with a view to clean soils of the description under consideration has little effect, unless given in the summer months. This renders summer fallow indispensably necessary; and without this radical process, none of the heavy and wet soils can be suitably managed, or preserved in a good condition. 4943. To adopt a judicious rotation of cropping for every soil, requires a degree of judgment in the farmer, which can only be gathered from observation and experience. The old rotations were calculated to wear out the soil, and to render it unproductive. To take wheat, barley, and oats in succession, a practice very common thirty years ago, was sufficient to impoverish the best of land, while it put little into the pockets of the farmer; but the modern rotations, such as those which we have described, are founded on principles which ensure a full return from the soil, without lessening its value, or impoverishing its condition. Much depends, however, upon the manner in which the different processes are executed; for the best arranged rotation may be of no avail, if the processes belonging to it are imperfectly and unseasonably executed. (See 2221.) The best farmers in the northern counties now avoid over-cropping or treating land in any way so as to exhaust its powers, as the greatest of all evils. SECT. II. The working of Fallows. 4944. The practice of fallowing, as we have seen in our historical view of Greek and Roman agriculture, has existed from the earliest ages; and the theory of its beneficial effects we have endeavoured to explain. (2175.) The Romans with their agriculture introduced fallows in every part of Europe; and two crops, succeeded either by a year's fallow, or by leaving the land to rest for two or more years, became the rotation on all soils and under all circumstances. This mode of cultivating arable land is still the most universal in Europe, and was prevalent in Britain till the middle of the last century; but as a crop was lost every year they occurred, a powerful aversion from naked fallows arose about that time, and called forth numerous attempts to show that they were unnecessary, and consequently an immense public loss. This anti- fallowing mania, as it has been called, was chiefly supported by Arthur Young, Nathaniel Kent, and others, members or correspondents of the Board of Agriculture: it was at its greatest height about the beginning of the present century, but has now spent its force; and after exhausting all the arguments on both sides, as an able author has observed, "the practice does not appear to give way, but rather to extend.” 4945. The expediency or inexpediency of pulverising and cleaning the soil by a bare fallow, is a question that can be determined only by experience, and not by argument. No reasons, however ingenious, for the omission of this practice, can bring conviction to the mind of a farmer, who, in spite of all his exertions, finds, at the end of six or eight years, that his land is full of weeds, sour, and comparatively unproductive. Drilled and horsehoed green crops, though cultivated with advantage on almost every soil are probably n general unprofitable as a substitute for fallow, and after a time altogether inefficient. It is not because turnips, cabbages, &c. will not grow in such soils, that a fallow is resorted to, but because, taking a course of years, the value of the successive crops is found to be so much greater, even though an unproductive year is interposed, as to induce a preference to fallowing. Horse-hoed crops, of beans in particular, postpone the recurrence of fallow, but in few situations can ever exclude it altogether. On the other hand, the instances that have been adduced, of a profitable succession of crops on soils of this description, without the intervention of a fallow, are so well authenticated, that it would be extremely rash to assert that it can in no case be dispensed with on clay soils. Instances of this kind are to be found in several parts of Young's Annals of Agriculture; and a very notable one, on Greg's farm of Coles, in Hertfordshire, is accurately detailed in the sixth volume of The Communications to the Board of Agriculture. 4946. The principal causes of this extraordinary difference among men of great experience, may probably be found in the quality of the soil, or in the nature of the climate, or in both. Nothing is more vague than the names by which soils are known in different districts. Greg's farm, in particular, though the soil is denominated "heavy arable land," and "very heavy land," is found so suitable to turnips, that a sixth part of it is always under that crop, and these are consumed on the ground by sheep; a system of management which every farmer must know to be altogether impracticable on the wet tenacious clays of other districts. It may indeed be laid down as a criterion for determining the question, that wherever this management can be profitably adopted, fallow, as a regular branch of the course, must be not less absurd than it is injurious, both to the cultivator and to the public. It is probable, therefore, that, in debating this point, the opposite parties are not agreed about the quality of the soil; and, in particular, about its property of absorbing and retaining moisture, so different in soils that in common language have the same denomination. 4947. Another cause of difference must be found in the climate. It is well known that a great deal more rain falls on the west than on the east coast of Britain; and that between the northern and southern counties there is at least a month or six weeks' difference in the maturation of the crops. Though the soil, therefore, be as nearly as possible similar in quality and surface, the period in which it is accessible to agricultural operations must vary accordingly. Thus, in the south-eastern counties of the island, where the crops may be all cut down, and almost all carried home by the end of August, much may be done in cleansing and pulverising the soil, during the months of September and October, while the farmers of the north are exclusively employed in harvest work, which is frequently not finished by the beginning of November. In some districts in the south of England, wheat is rarely sown before December; whereas in the north, and still more in Scotland, if it cannot be got completed by the end of October, it must commonly be delayed till spring, or oats or barley be taken in place of wheat. It does not then seem of any utility to enter farther into this controversy, which every skilful cultivator must determine for himself. All the crops, and all the modes of management which have been proposed as substitutes for fallow, are well known to such men, and would unquestionably have been generally adopted long ago, if, upon a careful consideration of the advantages and disadvantages on both sides, a bare fallow was found to be unprofitable in a course of years. The reader who wishes to examine the question fully may consult, among many others, the following:-Young's Annals of Agriculture, and his writings generally; Hunter's Georgical Essays; Dickson's Practical Agriculture; Sir H. Davy's Agricultural Chemistry; The Agricultural Chemistry of Chaptal; Brown's Treatise on Kural Affairs; The County Reports; The General Report of Scotland, and the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, vol. ii. p. 90. 4948. The importance of naked fallows has been ably pointed out by a writer in the work last referred to. "In order," he says, " to show more forcibly the difficulty of cleaning heavy lands for green crops, let us take a review of the time of the year in which these crops should be sown. In clay lands, beans must be sown in March at latest, and before that period of the year no one can pretend to clean land at all. Finding it impossible to use them as a fallow crop, they are sown without dung on that part of the rotation which is penultimate to bare fallow. On light lands, beans will not carry much straw without manure, and their utility as a crop in the rotation is, of course, thereby much decreased on such soils; and if they are to be sown as a fallow crop with dung on the land that is to be appropriated to fallow, they give much less time for the preparatory cleaning of the land than turnips, as they must be sown at latest in April. On all kinds of soil potatoes must be planted by April; and the same observations will, therefore, apply to them as to beans as a cleaner of the land. It is only from their great value as human food, and from their inability to grow without dung, that they are planted as a fallow crop; because it is impracticable to keep land clean, and much more so to make it clean, under a potato fallow. Thus there is difficulty in cleaning land, without summer fallow, with beans and potatoes on every kind of soil in any spring, however favourable; and it is quite impossible to do so in a wet one. There is also difficulty in cleaning strong clay land even by turnip-time in May; and the greatest facility which a farmer possesses of cleaning his land or keeping it clean, under a green crop, is by a turnip one, on a light soil resting on an open bottom, in a dry season. This last instance amounts, in fact, to all the boasted possibility of keeping land clean by green crops, without the assistance of bare fallow. But even this substitution is only an approximation to cleanliness; for every one knows, who has farmed light soils for a series of rotations, whatever his practice may be, that even the turnip crop cannot be raised on them for an indefinite period without the land getting foul with root-weeds, such as quicks and knot grass; and no better mode of extirpating these formidable robbers of the artificial nourishment of the cultivated crops, than by bare fallowing, has yet been discovered. They are the rooks of the soil. Indeed, the practice of the best farmers of light land, however great their desire to curtail the extent of bare fallow may be, is to have a portion of the land under fallow, though the extent of it may no doubt be limited by the want of manure, from a desire to keep their land clean; and this is accomplished by summer fallowing that portion of it which had carried potatoes in the preceding rotation, and raising the potatoes and turnips on that part which had been previously thoroughly cleaned by summer fallowing. This is a good practice, not only as a means of keeping land clean, but as following out that system of alternate husbandry of white and green crops, which has, by abolishing a succession of white crops with their scourging effects, tended more than any other to render the soil of these islands all alike fertile. But will summer fallow keep land clean? Undoubtedly it will, if properly performed. It gives the opportunity of working land in June and July, when every crop should be in the ground, and when the sun is so powerful, and the atmosphere so warm and dry, as to kill every plant that has not a hold of the ground. The process already described, of ploughing, harrowing, and rolling, according to the state of the ground, is admirably adapted for cutting the matted land in pieces, for shaking the detached lumps of earth asunder, and for bruising to powder every hardened ball of earth into which the fibres or roots of weeds might penetrate; and the hand-picking carries off every bit of weed which might possess any latent vegetative power. Land that cannot be cleaned under such favourable circumstances as to season, must be excessively foul, the season very wet and cold, or the fallowing process conducted with great slovenliness. It must be confessed, that fallowing is too often worked very negligently. It is thought by some, that the land can be cleaned at any time before seed-time in autumn; and other things of less importance too often attract the attention from the more important fallow; that weeds, though they do grow, can be easily ploughed down, and that the ploughing of them down assists to manure the land. Such thoughts too often prevail over better knowledge; and they furnish a strong argument in favour of increasing, rather than of diminishing, the means of cleanliness. But such thoughts display, in their effects, great negligence and ignorance: negligence, in permitting any weeds to cover the land, particularly the rootgrowing ones, by which the strength of the soil is exhausted, and in losing the most favourable part of the season to accomplish their destruction; and ignorance, in thinking that weeds ploughed down afford nourishment to the soil, when that soil has been exhausting itself in bearing the crop of weeds. These are facts which are known to every practical farmer, and the nature of which presses upon him a conviction of the necessity of summer fallowing more strongly than all the arguments that can be most speciously drawn, by analogy, from the practice of other arts. Reasoning from analogy is feeble when opposed to experience. Gardeners, no doubt, raise crops every year from the same piece of ground; but their practice is not quite analogous to that of the husbandman. They apply a great quantity of manure to the soil, and they permit few or no plants to run to seed, the bringing of which to perfection, in the cereal crops, constitutes the great exhaustion to the soil. Gardeners, however, do something like fallowing their ground at stated periods, as every three or four years they dig the ground a double spit of the spade in depth, and lay it up in winter to the frost; and they reserve alternate pieces of ground for the support of late crops; all which practices approach nearly to our ideas of summer fallowing." (Quar. Jour. Ag. vol ii. p.105.) 4949. Fallows unnecessary on friable soils. However necessary the periodical recurrence of fallow may De on retentive clays, its warmest advocates do not recommend it on turnip soils, or on any friable loams incumbent on a porous subsoil; nor is it in any case necessary every third year, according to the practice of some districts. On the best cultivated lands it seldom returns oftener than once in six or eight years; and in favourable situations for obtaining an extra supply of manure, it may be advantageously dispensed with for a still longer period. (Suppl. to Encyc. Brit. art. Agr.) 4950. The operation of fallowing, as commonly practised in England, is, in usefulness and effect, very different from what it ought to be. In most places the first furrow is not given till the spring, or even till the month of May or June; or, if it is given earlier, the second is not given till after midsummer, and on the third the wheat is sown. Land may rest under this system of management; but to clean it from weeds, to pulverise it, or to give it the benefits of aëration and heat, is impossible. The farmer in some cases purposely delays ploughing his fallows, for the sake of the scanty bite the couch and weeds afford to his sheep; and for the same reason, having ploughed once, he delays the second ploughing. It is not to be wondered at, that under such a system, the theoretical agriculturist should have taken a rooted aversion from what are thus erroneously termed fallows. The practice of the best farmers of the northern counties is very different, and that practice we shall here detail. 4951. A proper fallow invariably commences after harvest; the land intended to be fallowed getting one ploughing, which ought to be as deep as the soil will admit, even though a little of the till or subsoil is brought up. This both tends to deepen the cultivated, or manured, soil, as the fresh accession of hitherto uncultivated earth becomes afterwards incorporated with the former manured soil, and greatly facilitates the separation of the roots of weeds during the ensuing fallow process, by detaching them completely from any connection with the fast subsoil. This autumnal ploughing, usually called the winter furrow, promotes the rotting of stubble and weeds; and, if not accomplished towards the end of harvest, must be given in the winter months, or as early in the spring as possible. In giving this first ploughing, the old ridges should be gathered up, if practicable, as in that state they are kept dry during the winter months; but it is not uncommon to split them out or divide them, especially if the land had been previously highly gathered, so that each original ridge of land is divided into two half ridges. Sometimes, when the land is easily laid dry, the furrows of the old ridges are made the crowns of the new ones, or the land is ploughed in the way technically called crown-and-furrow. In other instances, two ridges are ploughed together, by what is called casting, which has been already described. After the field is ploughed, all the interfurrows, and those of the headlands, are carefully opened up by the plough, and are afterwards gone over effectually by a labourer with a spade, to remove all obstructions, and to open up the water furrows into the fence ditches, wherever that seems necessary, that all moisture may have a ready exit. In every place where water is expected to lodge, such as dishes, or hollow places in the field, cross or oblique furrows are drawn by the plough, and their intersections carefully opened into each other by the spade. Whereever it appears necessary, cross cuts are also made through the head ridges into the ditches with a spade, and every possible attention is exerted, that no water may stagnate in any part of the field. 4952. As soon as the spring seed-time is over, the fallow land is again ploughed end-long. If formerly split, it is now ridged up; if formerly laid up in gathered ridges, it is split or cloven down. It is then |