The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1879-09-16 00:00:00

THE AGRAGULITTRAL DISTEKES IN ENGLAND.
From the Oahe Siam
Reourriug to the Woo Won example of economical
management found remunerative on • strong clay. I hare
a ompaiion to make In SIMMS. Oa the excellent
authority of Mr. G. Storer, MP, the saleable produce
from heavvlatid farms in Nottinghamshire may be vaned
at oats .1:3 per acre. when wheat Is at 40, per quarter
maiming average yields to b.—wheat 3 gm., benne 3 qrs.,
and oat. 5 ors. per acre; from which latter crops 3 qrx
per acre of ords mad I qr. of braze are reserved for con-
sumption by the farm home. The returns from each
acre, during a course of nine loan' rotation, he reckons
thus :
Dead fallow, with • few tares for horses al 0
Wheat 3 gra at 40s. ....... : ....... 0
Beans. 2 qr. (deducting I qr.), at 365.... 1 0
Oats, 3 qrs. (deducting I ora), at lb-- 0
1.1 fallow 0
Wheat or harley • 0
Clover and vends mem for homes ............ 0
Ditto. part for borer, part for sheep ...... 1 0
Wheat oe oats 0

Average of nine years, per acre ... a 00

me returns under Yr. Smith's rotation. assuming each
mop to yield the muse quantity to be sold at the same price
would stand thus (deductine 391. worth of tisane in six
years, or equivalent to the Me. worth of beans end oast
poasomed In the foregoing nine years, and eitnilarly mak-
ing a proportionate allowance Inr clover):—

Bean; 3 qrs., at 38.. has 39a ...... C 3 19
Wheat. 3 gra. at ..... ..... 0
Clayey ... 1 0
8 0

Average of six years, per acre ...... Cl 16 V
That is, the annual return front saleable produce is, on
the Woo Won system, £1 16..6L inst. ad of Z 3 • or on a
16.10-wre faros CM wore than Mr. Ston ri entingata by
husbandry ou the old system. With wheat at 50s. Instead
of 10f. per quarter, the &revue rvturns would be by the
exactas mode of management £3 10s. per sae, and by
the Woolston system £5 6. 6. per acre, or on •
260-acre faros the gain would still be the acme, namely,
.C 366 a year in favour of the gleam husbandry.

There is not only • large inCrOSOO of produce, but at the
same time • handsome saving in the number and cost of
tillage operation& In the nine years, according to present
practice, there may be heavy tillage proares equivalent
to thirteen or fourteen ploughings, taking each dead fallow
to be ploughed four times. This averages, say, one and •
half ploughlnp per annum. In the iii yearn of Wooliton
farming the heavy operations are equivalent in coot to
about five ploughings or an average, five-sixths of
Ploughing Per year. &chimed et 12.. per ploughing, the
saving is 13i. per acre. Then, as already stated, there is
found at Woolston to be considerable augmentation in
the yield of corn per acre, arising from the continually.
preserved cleanliness of the land, instead of • presnialve
condition of funkier at each year'. remove further from
the deed fallow, and also from the greater depth of soil
broken up by the steam cultivator and prepared.. feeding-
Mdfair the rest of the crop, and from the extra fria-
and facility for drying and aeration due to the
smaller amount of trampling by horse& It is for theas
reasons thet Mr.fienith ref us.. to recognise any impossibility
in making seable clay culture My, even in rides of bad
against the cheap imports at low (MAP, which
seasons..a . corn market low, and notwithstanding the
increased dearness of horse labour and the growing ineffi-
ciency and independenos of mental labour.

If it be asked what prevents farmers from at once
applying • simile" remedy to their preenit position,
averting the opine= of clay lend tillage, and reaping a
fell return from their investment and labour? Then are
among the answers to be given :—The senate of croPP
without fallow violates their agreements or is d
mann what the custom of the country prescriber as
farming "in • good and hasbansilike menner." In a vast
numbs( of cane tenants would be thought off their heeds
to sek their agent or landlord for that waning of old
runs and covenants which might permit them to try run
a novel and apparently exhsusting course of hiunendry.
In a majority of interior the fermi are too thickly
with rough fences and injurious timber, the
pestered
too small and irrear in form to give free
play to steam sultan ; while hard roads and convenient
water supply would have to be provided for the resohani-
cal motive power. It is only awn of the propristore who
have the means, even if they had the will, to make the
indispensable preliminary improvements end to grant the
widow, free condition to tenant.; nnd. besides • great
proportion of the clay land hoot snit enough drained to
yield good results from deep cultivating sad sanoilies.
Agin, under a trystem of yearly tenure at sin months'
nod," ',we& ji won, prevalent tine any other, compara-
tively few occupier* are in that pnition of security from
disturbance happily .en on some large estates under
which alone they could prudently invest capital in deepen•
ins and improving their lendlord's soil: while few life.
owners care to middle their estate with a possible claim
for additions mode by tenants to the value of the fee
simple. In some localities the men damage done by
rabbits and the strictnesse applied to the naming and
preparring of game, are 'efficient discouragement& to the
adoption of a mechanical husbandry which brinks upend
sows an intractable clay at the very Instant allowed by the
weather, without consulting for one moment the con-
venience of either a n&ile or commercial sportsman. At
the present crisis, another Potent cause of the glow
, extension of steam culture upon the clays is the want of
means of the occupiers for purchasing Ones of 'machinery
costing from MOO to Zl,OOO or roach more, according to
the clan of apparatus adopted.

Farming his own freehold, Yr. Smith could do what he
mad at waaiston and now, without abating any cone
-
deuce in his system, and eoleily for the sake of -aang his
petit of life during his declining yearn, pe hae retired from
arable management altogether, his whole farm having
beim turned to gnus or seeded for permanent pastors. He
somplains that it is no longer possible to get • fair day's
work out of • labourer in his district, though wages are
Its. or Iss. a week; he also declines to submit to the
insolence and brutal language which muter@ are liable to
receive from hands whom they temporarily employ, and
he believes that his land will be more profitable for meet-
making thw for growing corn. The last grain crops are
now being cut, and the business of the farm henceforth
will be summer grating of young and other beasts and
she. p (there are now on the old pasture eon.' big short-
horn steers of an excellent stamp and a number of Oxford
Dawn fatting ewe.), haying • portion of the land, and
winter-feeding cattle in buildings. Mr.smith has bat
completed new ranges of brick and slate sheds for accom-
modating one hundred animal., and his barn to converted
into • aad-house, with • chaquachine and • pair of
peak-stove mills, driven by his portable stermenginu
Though the farm is not very large, • second set of form
buildings, surrounded by the 1 urthest-off arable Saida, was
wma years ago, Yr. Smith remarking that one of
the great wants in many parts of the kingdom on arable
farms he second or third lot of premises where corn can
be stacked end the straw consumed, saving long distances
of op-snd-down-hill cartage.

The traasformation from plough land into pasture is
being accornnlished in • singular bat clearly successful
maser. In some fields clover, Alsace, and trefoil are
sown on the corn mop, clover alone in others, and in souse
merely bay seeds from hay grown on the farm. The clover
lads two years, with beds of it loft in subsequent years;
end meanwhile there spread among it the gnome natural
to the foll. These multiply at a quicker rate where hiv
seeds have been sown. I waihed through fields which
bad been e dome two years, others eve years, and one
ten years. The lad la like an old Peskin and is excellent
sheep land; the other presented for the most part full
plants of gram with abundant cloven, the herbage includ-
ing rough and smooth stalked meadow gram, fescue*. and
various good cruses, with 'rare little appearance of deeder
foutail or small couch, few weeds, and scarcely any real
mach. A fair amount of herbage avows in the second
growth, and grazing with sheep, mauled. improves
the arms every year. The ground Is clean of couch and
weeds to 'tort with; that is the principal point And
then, as Mr.eff3coith ea found, it is not couch or other
curses of arable laud, but varieties of grass native to the
sou which spread and gradually take poreasica of the
entire surfaos ; and be oonsiden these kinds of gram thus
naturally selected more like to flourish than gram mods of
choice varieties purchmed from seedunen. Cleating tee
land and then almost letting it lay itself down to gram is a
=raisding„, promo, though it takm much time; pre-
lims. Sutton and Sons, of Beading, and °then of
00r seedsmen would say that from study of soils
and climates they are able to supply varieties beet adapted
for may situation, and calculated to yield a full herbage in
a much shorter period.
Betam culture and laying down strong lands to gnu are
two answers to the Americana aod to the labourers ; and
we may yet see lergly prectised the winter-feeding of
cattle on grass farm without roots on the old-f•akioned
fodder of meadow bay, now supplemented by imported
I °ode.
An occupier of a rather exteadve holding in Cambridge-
shire, well-known to in. for many years ea an excellent
farmer, baa gives me particulars which are applicable to
many farms on the beet alms of soils in the fem., tolerably
street alluvial loam, not the black peat which prevailn
over so large a part of the Bedford Level. His total gross
returns for CCM and produce. end Profit on live stock.
Including pigs, poultry, and hangs. during the last three
yews have avenged per acre on the whole farm, arable
and grass together as follows :—ln 1876 the amount
realised we. CO ;in 18771 t wacte go. ;and in 1878 tdfu
per acre TIND average of the three years being td fla per
earn Ts procure this gross return the yearly outlay per
smile the sante period has averaged thus
-

- -- •
Rent. . ..........
Tithe I=ll "42
Rates and Im 4
/arm Rills..
rai..... ..... .Arci51....... 6 8
3
Depreciation ea horses and
le

Total yearly outlay per .06 3 9
Thlare at drat leases like mating both ends alma
And perhaps it would be fair to rot • I the rental valet of
the f s Imam swam, and twehotd, and arnall ma-
tributions of the Wm to the household Imola ....1—
awn which he hoe to pay on • portion of his ospirvitlat
I. borrowed. But noverthelees, hare la the fact that for
three mars, 1106 to 1826. this farmer has obtainsd Data
;may interest mom 42.190 annual investment la the
buMness ; and forth. same three yeses all hia living and
foray expenses, meat, drink, dross, education, at • have
ma* out of capital. Wlimber the preemat harvest will
sank the question of his solvency, or at loast dismiss him
from his farm, time will soon tell. Much of hie corn is
cut, hut not, load has been carried tempt the proa in
which he has been mere tacky than many of hisneigh-
bours. There is plenty of straw, but the wheat beads are
light. Tan acree of rotator's lying in tho out under the
driving robs of Monday looked badly enough, and are
believed to be little more than aapthird of an avenge
crop. Bullocks ham dose pretty well, MOM of the
suatmor's erasing having
_gone to marks* : and the
wethers on aftermath and old pastures are weighty, and
I. good condition. The wool, however, fetched oaly a
mry small sum this year.
This tomakof a good farm under a good end remonable
landlord, moderake4 rented, miming nearly every Wait,
that. 1:01131 ma want mto order of cropping. and only for.
Marisa to plough up old pasture. to mow num than two
&Ms of some mead In the sgreoment, to grow mustard
sax, and peraip seed, sod to sell oe hay, straw, seri
manure, is not getting • living. And yet bra is
neither an idler nor on inexperbiamd man ; he c=
mon to work in the morning, sad looks alter then won
' doting the day. I think be has the reedit of baba • sorted
judge of stock, and he manages his holding in a fairly neat
and clesaly style, without any fancy or extraysgance. It
cruel thing to see an admirable man of business. with
a family who assist him practically and are not above %k-
-ing part in the adios of the farm and Um dairy, semaged
In fruitless toll and anxiety year after year, only humid
up by the hope of bettor times which, lodged, were
eagerly looked for bat one the present harvest, worse than
all the three preceding ones, hod dashed all hope of
retrieving the farmer's position. Men regarded as among
the most substantial in • miglabourbood are borrowore of
raw, and bankers are dleplariug caution in &dramas to fan.., and wen/ the payment of overdrawn amorists
to an anent never rerienord before.

mot Ikon Thum A party cl
mailmen comicial with some large ironworks in
Staffordshire ham visited the different collieries in the
Rhondda Valley dining Um pest week, making inquirim
for Webb ironstone, large quantities of which ere=
to tonh In moegnAt ihs different strata Trials
coal Ilkli consUnnff by reining antheritise to be cm
of the mg best testi of the early revival alb. iron bade.
inenirild for izmotom not having %ken dace tor awe
then ttee Mee,