The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1859-03-15 00:00:00

agriculture.

The local committee at Nl:arsrick announce that the
SULU of EV.NJO has already been collected in furtherance
of the ensuing annual meeting of the Agricultural Society
of England. It has been resolved to have no pavilion
dinner on the occasion.
- - -• •

The Aoririetitrol fla:effe says that • deputation to
the Premier front the London Farmers' Club will pro-
bably be *elected for the purpose of urging upon the
tlovernment the appointment of a commission to visit
the principal river valleys, and inquire into the extent
and condition of the districts liable to floods and suffer-
ing from imperfect drainage, ascertaining front what
obstacles this arises, and what measures of relief are
possible—what claims have to be satiefiel, in order that
there may be • knowledge of all sorts of the eases to
be provided for in a general Act of Parliament on the
subject.
Fettow Ceoes.—The rapid improvement in the prac-
tice of agriculture tends not only to increase the produce
but at the same time to diminish the expellee of cultiva-
tion. The cultivation of the turnip and other routs as
fodder plants have effected this inure than that of any
other clans of plants which the farmer grows. The sys-
tem which we adopt has been iii practice for many years
in various parts of the kingdom, AO that it is no new
fancy, nor do we present it as a perfect system, for we
have found that as our observation and knowledge Id
Nature increases we Ilt.oollla more and noire convinced of
our own ignorance of the operations of Nature under all
the circumstances in which the vegetable world is placed.
In preparing the land for the root crop, if there bcally
couch an after the crop of wheat has been removed, we
either cultivate the whole fiehl, harrow and rake the
couch together and burn it, or if there be only small
patches of couch it is dug ent with the fork ; we then
cart out f l5 to le cart loads of manure per acre, and
spread it over the surface and pleugh it in to the depth
of 7or niches, and in this way we use up all the
manure we have. The land which line not beets manuresl
before ploughing it the first tone is menuml before
ploughing it the eecond time, or put into drills when the
land is being sown to turnip. 111 the spring, as early WA
the weather will permit, the surface is first harrowed to
smooth the surface, and the land which was not slunged
has now manure carted and spread over it, and the land
is !doughyl across, and in this state it remains till the
tend time, when it is cultivated, harrowed, atil well led-
verisesl, preparing it for planting • but the land which
was =mum! before being plough.ed in the autumn is
cultivated in the spring instead of ploughing it. This
is first done across the way it was ploughel, and it IS
then harrowed and cultivated a second time across the
first, and in this state it remains till the time of sowing.
When the land has been properly pulverised we proceed
in this way : two ploughs with a Pair of homes in each
meke from eight to ten drills, en e plough first goes a
" bout," making one open aurrow, and then the plough%
go up on the right-hand side of this open furrow, mak-
ing each a rib or drill :27 inches wide, and they return
down the other side of ths• first furrow, and as, proceed,
having the plonked land s,li the left hand instead
of it being Oil the right hand AA ill COUIUIOII ploughing,
end when there see fr eight to teo of these
drills Wade the carts follow with the manure, the
'ionic going down une of the furrows and the wheels in
the two on either side of it. The manure is dropped,
and when it is epread the ploughs make new furrows
going up the hill and as they come down the bill they
cover the manure in the first furrow on the outeitle of
the field ; in this way the ploughs make fresh furrows,
going up the hill ou one side, and iii returning
down the bill they cover the manure on the
other aide, forming a drill with manure ill the centre of
it. The carting and spreading of the manure is thus
performed ; the manure Ilse been carted till. heap in the
field during winter, or when the bsni was USD liard to
plough or cultivate, and the dung heao has been turned
over ten or fourteen days previous to its being carted.
Three carts are generally employed to take the manure
from the heap to the field, and three 11100 fill the carts.
One cart is at the slung heap being filled, one is on the
road with a load. the other is being emptied and return-
ing, SO that two boys or woolen are with the carts, end
as a loaded cart conies. into the field the horse is put into
the middle of the three drille which are to receive the
manure ; the man who emptiee the cart takes out the
back door, and with the muck drag in his hand orders
the boy to move the horse down the drill, and as he
moves along the loan is continually pulling out the
manure in • continuous etream till the cart is emptied,
and from practice lie can deliver at the rate of either
10, 15, 1.0, 25, or 30 latish' per acre. To do this he must
know the length of the drills in an acre, and then dividing
the length by the number of loads to be put on the acre
he can in a short time get at the thickness required by
the number of yards in length which the load has to
manure. As the manure is. being dropped in the drills
one man parts the dung from the middle row equally
amongst the three, and there follow at his heels a
woman or boy in each of the rows, each with • fork
spreading the manure equally in the bottom of the

fnrrow es to be ready for the returni.:gthhe "ag— to
Laughs
cover it. Three men will fill 100 -Th
and three one-horse carts and tuners end'
in ten boors
finish
ten acres in • day, drilling up the land, ca
loads of manure, spreading it and covet-ieelitt?.—",,,e
strength of seven home, seven men, two boyi, three
women. The number of heroes required to deliver the
manure depends on the quantity of loads per acre and
the distance of the field from the dung-hill ;th
hones will do this work when the distance i. not above
two hundred yards, but when the distance is greater
more carts and boys to drive them are requisite. As the
ploughs cover the manure • boy with • one horse tur-
nip drill follows sowing the seed in two rows at • time,
and an he can do double the work which is prepared for
him, he takes the hone from the turnip drill and puts
him to • ainsinon roller and rolls the drills he .has men,
so that the field of it) acres is finished in three days.—
J. M. Agricultural Ga:cltr.
SHEEP-WALIHEM.—A case of considerable agricultural
interest has been tried at Newcastle during the week,
in which Mr. Black, a large farmer at Hew Heaton,
Northumberland, sued Mr. Elliott, of whom he had
purchased a sheep.wa.sh, for damages, on the ground
that it had poisoned his sheep. On the 7th of August
last the plaintiff being at Berwick ordered sufficient of
this sheep-wash to wash 700 sheep. The wash woo eehi
in powders, and the .lef en 11 : shomuan told him he
would require 14 of these io.wdera—one powder being
sufficient for GO sheep. The plaintiff ordered 15 powders,
and they went to his Burton farm. The directions on
the powder was that each powder was to be mixed with
:tor 4 gallons of boiling water, and that then this mix-
ture, with 4 lbs. of soft soap. was to be diluted with 45
gallons of cold water, sad this would make a wash kr
sheep in which they were to be dipped. The direc-
tions were implicitly followed, and Oil a Saturday iu
July last MP sheep were dipped in this wash-60 of them
being dinned in it nsuch diluted, as they had been
washed before. ((ii the Sunday one of these ',beep died.
On the Monday several more died, and many were seen
to be ill —foaming at the mouth and shaking their
beads, and lying down. On the Tuesday • great num-
ber died ; more still,on the Wednesday, until, in the
course of a few days, n5O of the sheep had died, 19 only
surviving, and these 19 were part of the GO which had
been dipped in the very diluted mixture. It was also
found that the hands and arms of the shepherds which
had been in the liquor became sore, and mortified and
sloughed, and they were ill for some time. It was cog-
gested that the sheep had been allowed to eat the her-
hag° on which they stood after they were washed,
and that a shower of rain had washed off them lunch
of the waste,and saturated the herbage of the field where
they were placed, and thus poisoned them. la answer
to this it was proved that seven sheep in one of the
fields, which had not been dipped, had nothing Milt
with them. On the sheep all dying in this manner,
Mr. Black hail one of the powders analysed, and it was
admitted that it contained 141 b. arsenic, 111 b. soda ash,
and 2 oz. of sulphur, each powder weighing 2lbs. 10 oz.
The sheep were disoected and found to have been
poisoned. They were all much swollen and black. Tbe
plaintiff then saw the defendant, who went over to his
, farm. The defendant then said it was a bad job, that
his powders had never poisoned any sheep before, and
lie knew he was responsible. The defendant then wild
the skins of the sheep to a skinner for 2s. each, mad
the carcasses were buried. The plaintiff chimed
£3,737 as the value of his sheep. It was ;proved thab
the sheep, on dissection, exhibited traces of arsenic in
their intestines, and as niuch VI six grains was found in
• sheep, which WAS quite sufficient to account for the
death. The quantity of arsenic in each powder sold by
the defendant for the washing of each sheep amounted
to 195 grains. The poison of arsenic was dangerous
and capricious. It would sometimes poison, and some-
times not. It might be used with impunity, but never
I without risk. For the defendant it was proved that the
powder had been used by farmers for ten years with
impunity. He had sold in the Wit three years as much
as too powders • year, which was sufficient for 25.000
sheep each year, and had sold powders on an average
for '30,0(f) sheep a year during the last ten y•ears, and.
had never heard of • case of death from its
adininiotration. Several tanners were called to prove
that they had used the powders with impunity for
swindling their sheep, and on the same day as the plain-
tiff, so that atmospheric influences could not affect
the case. It woe suggested that the real reason of the
wash poisoning the sheep was the hasty manner in
which they bad been dipped, preventing the liquor
being properly squeezed and pressed out of their fleeces.
Upwards of 7,800 sheep had been dipped in 12 hours,
which was at the rate of 75 an hour, or five in every
four minutes. This might have caused the poison to
be more absorbed than it ought to have been, by being
left in their fleece. In addition to that, on dissecting
, some of the sheep, poison was actually found in the
food in their stomachs, and must have been taken in
at the mouth. It was suggested that this had arisen
Irons the sheep, when in a wet state, being placed in
the matures, and the droppings from their fleeces had
poisoned the herbage which they had eaten. To sub-
otantiate this theory two sods bad been cut in • field in
found to
twheousteuiepinhadsolupasbletuariv.den,
itch! ITiewrbago
seo6ol cut which
i 1 1 wthue
adjoining field, in which none of the sheep bed been
placed, contained mine. It was suggested that sheep
would not eat this poisoned herbage ; but since Satur-
day, when this was suggested, the experiment bad been
tried, and souse sheep had nil ,bled and eaten some gran
as. poisoned. .1 number of witnesses were called,
ocientific and others, who proved these various fasts,
The jury found • verdict for the plaintiff—Damages,
£l,4oo.—Auricidterat Gazette.