The Express.
London, England, 1848-01-04 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 4, 1848.

Our chief support was a little dry bread ; sometimes we had
water, and at others we managed to get some tea from &bene-
volent individual who happened to take compassion on us. I
gave my children as much as my means would allow me
under my distressing condition.—Other witnesses were ex-
amined, whose testimony was merely confirmatory, when,
the learned coroner having summed up, the Jury, after a
few minutes' consultation, unanimously returned the follow-
ing verdict:—" That the deceased died a natural death, arising
front the want of nourishment and exposure to the eold."—
MORI DEATRS tN MILLIJANI Pl4ll3oN.—By Mr. Bedford,
at the Millbaak prison, on the body of Woodhouse Moore,
aged 28. Deceased was received into the prison on the 25th
of lest March, having been convicted of felony at the pre-
oboes January sessions at Norwich, and sentenced to *even
years' transportation. He wa, then in good health, but on
the lith of April, suffering from pleurisy in the chest, he
was removed into the infirmary, where he remained in a
sinking condition till the 27th ult., when he tell into a state
of stupor, and lost the use of hie limbs, remaining so till the
night of the 30th, when he died. Oa the body being opened
the cause of death war found to be scrofulous die, ase of the
lungs and bowels.—Same coroner and place, on the body of
Joseph Rorke, aged 54. The deceased, who was described
as a labourer, war convicted at the last Much Gloucester
sessions of larceny, and sentenced to seven year!' transporta-
tion. He was received into the prison on the 20th of April,
and on the 24th of July, being attacked with asthma, he was
placed in the infirmary, where pulinouary consumpti-tt de-
veloped itself, under which he lingered, and died on Friday
Wt.—Verdict, in each case. " Natural death."

ENGLISH HUSBANDRY.
THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY'S
JOURNAL. December, 1847.
There is no department of industry in this country
in which skill and enterprise are more surely rewarded than
husbandry. It has been said "formers do uot make for-
tunes;" and if by that term is an erstood only those enor-
mous fortunes which we flud often made by comm-
.roe or
manufactures that is quite true; hut that good farmers do
not often attain e impetence, and something more, is by no
means true. But the great and important characterise,: of
sweat industry, rightly pursued, is its certainty. In uo other
way can a moderate capital be so productively employed
with so little risk or so many opportunities of personal co n-
fort as in farming. But that employment must be directed
by judgment and pursued with en,rgy. The niggardly
farmer never succeeds, while spirited outlays in the cultiva-
tion of land are sure to be recovered with a profit. Of course
in thus speaking of farming as a business we assume that the
farmer adapts tee size of his farm to the extent of hie capital,
or that by rigid saving he is constantly increasing his pro-
ductive capital, and that he has a secure and permanent
tenure of hie farm. These conditions are indispensable to
profitable farming, as a matter of calculatl'n and certainty,
all instances to the contrary being merely accidental. How
then is it we had so many English farmers on the verge of
poverty, who contrive to pa) their rest, and exilic and little
more? This will be found to be attributable to one of
three causes, either the insufficient extent of the farm, the
deficiency of capital, or insecure or restricted tenures. To
one or the other of these causes, not %infrequently to the
three or two of them combined, must all that w..nt of ewe
ices' in husbandry of which we have open heard so much
be imputed. Now the first step to a remedy of these evils
will he that the Gwnersand occupiers of land should become
fully alive to their ineidence and operation; probably nothing
promotes that obji et more eff,ctuelly tnau accurate details of
the agriculture of differentdieft lets. The prizes off, red by the
Bald Agricultural Society for essays on the egrieulturcof
canons counties hove produced many papers which are of
considerable statistical value, and often indicate mere of the
actual state of farming than they actually tell. No one in•
timately acquainted with firming and farmers can avoid
seeing that them mays are all written with a consciousness
that they are to be adjudicated upon by a committee of land.
owners, and that an undue degree or tenderness towards
some of the worst ills of English husbandry is shown because
those ills are occasioned by the manner in which litudownera
manage their estates.
In the part of the Society's Journal just published there
are twoessays on the agriculture of two different counties—
Suffolk and Northumberland—which are lull of suggestive
matter, and from each of which we propose to present a few
passages to our readers. Suffolk contains 918,760 acres,
and it is estimated that about 46,000 acres are rich loam,
80,009 marsh arid fi n land, 450,000 acres heavy loam or
clay, and 250 sand of vari ills qualities. Here it is impossible
nut to be struck with the large proportion of the laud which
consists of " heavy loam or clay," and which is the kind of
land en which least improvement hss been made,
where the condition of the occupiers is the least
flourishing. This land takes in the great body of the
county, extendible from the south to the northern extre-
mity, and from the south-west nearly to the north-eastern
corner. It may thus be said to give the character to Suffolk
farming. The farms in the heave-land district seldom ex-
ceed 300 acres in extent ; they are generally na ch smeller,
and many are to he found from 30 to 50 acre+. On the light
lands of Suffolk the farms are larger, varying from 300 to
1,500 acres. Indeed, light land is everywhere occupied in
larger tracts and by men of more capital than the heavy
land of the same locality ,• and Suffolk torma no exception
in this respect. As it is the heavy land here, as elsewhere,
which most wants and alfoirds most room for improved ma-
nagement, we shall chiefly refer to that part of the essay
which treats of that portion of the soil of Suffolk That the
writers of these essay, who are usually intelligent farmers,
should dwell most upon the brighter side of their picture,
the management of the better farmers of the light
lands, is natural ; but, if we would estimate the actual
state and the chances of improvement in the hus-
bandry of any county, we must look at the condition
of the mass of the ferment. That in Suffolk will obviously
be the occupiers of the heavy lands. Arthur Young, nearly
half a century ago, complained of the bail management of
the pasture lands of Suffelk ; the neglect of irrigation, not.
withstanding the number of streams suited for the pur-
pane, heavy carts and waggons, inconvenient farm buildings
end large barns, and the number of hedges and hedge-row
trees. The pasture land has been in a great measure broken
up, but the inconvenient homesteads and the hedges and
hedge-row trees, to the reproach of the owners of the land, I
still remain unaltered. Ot u e management of this hind the
writer, Mr. 11. 11.yubird, says :
" Draining, and the peculiar in stem of drill husbandry, have
rendered it one of the finest corn districts in England; the
increased cultivation of green and root crops, especially man-
goldewurzel, is rapidly contributing to place the farmers
amongst the larger greaten of fat sheep and cattle. A great
portion (the middle and northern part) was in the time of
Arthur Young the seat of the celebrated Suffolk dairies
these have nearly disappeared; it is said that there is net a
tenth part of the number of cow+ now kept. At that time
the dairy farms consisted of grass land; they are new chit fly
arable, and what pasture remains is r.pidly being broken
up wherever permission is given to do so. The low price of
butter and cheese, caused by the competition with Ireland
and Rolland, and a reason which I have heard advanced by
mere than one farmer, yin, the difficulty of procuring dairy
servants, have mainly contributed to the disuse of the dairy
system. But when we consider it is now asserted by many
who were theme. lees dairy farmers that one-third more is
paid for rent, two-thirds more for tithes, and double the
amount for labour, than was paid under the dairy manage-
ment of the latter part of the eighteenth century, it shows at
once that the improvement in the (arming has been very
great, particularly as this is a thickly inhabited agricultural
district, where nearly the entire lacewing population has to
depend on the farmer for its subsetence."
After some rural details, he thus describes the rotations
most in use :
" In the course of cropping there is much variation, par-
ticularly among the smaller farmers; but on the largest
estates, and throughout all the best cultivated farms, the
course of cropping is : 1. Fallow, either clean tallow, tares,
beet, or turnips. 2. Barley. 3. Half clover, half beans or
pea., alternately. 4. Wheat. This may be taken as the
general course. The modifications which are occasionally
made by good farmers are : In the first year having all long
fallow on strong land, or all roots, or growing rye grass, or
trefoil for spring feed, and then breaking up for fallow. In the
second year, the growing wheat alter beet, and sometimes
after turnips, tr.stead of barley. In the third year, the
growing tarea instead of beans, and, what has lately been in-
troduced, the cultivation of Italian rye gram instead of clover,
by which the repetition of the latter is removed from
eight to twelve years. And the growing of oats on freshly
broken up land, and to a small extent, in lieu of other white
straw crops fur the purpose of home consumption. Varia-
tions, the usefulness of which is much to be questioned, are
the taking a third crop, as it is called, which is oats after
wheat, and then fallow ; the growing white straw crops in
succession on freshly broken-up pasture. Many instance'
are known of farmers ploughing up a piece of toward, taking
firot coleseed and then wheat for three years running. Such
scourging as this is much to be reprobated, and is productive
of considerable injury to the land, the farmer, and the natine
at large. Sum deviations as growing two white straw crops
in succession, ought never to be saectioned ; though devia-
tions from any rotation, however good, may frequently be
made with propriety by the judicious cultivator to suit cir-
cumstances. The constant recurrence of onc monotonous
round of cropping must, after a time, end in the failure, to a
certain extent, of one or more of the plants grown ; and the
farmer being bound to this, is unable to exercise his judg-
ment in growing those crops which will command the
highest price in the market."
For the fallow or roots it is usual to give five or six plough-
ings, and six ploughings is commonly prescribed by the
agreements under which the tenants hold, but it is now
ascertained that one or two ploughings in the autumn,
leaving the land to be acted upon by the atmosphere during
the winter, is a far more effective preparation for the root
crop, the basis of all good forming. That plan is as follows :
There is yet another way of managing heavy land for
roots which is coming into notice, and appears to have great
advantages, particularly as it does away with spring
ploughing, and with another injury so often complained
of, that of carting the manure on wet land in the spring.
The stubble is ploughed up early in autumn, and the I
land ridged in about 30-inch ridges (these are sometimes
turned back) and then a dressing of farm-yard manure ap-
plied, spread and covered in by splitting the ridges; in these
operations the common plough is used. The laud now lies
I exposed through the winter to the action of the front, and no
more ploughing is given till the seed is drilled in the spring.
The ridges are made across, the direction of the land Is
, stretched up, so that when ploughing for the following year
barley, the furrows are laid in a contrary direction to the
ridges of the root crop; by this means the manure applied
to the roots becomes equally distributed in the soil, and the
i barley is a level crop, and ripens altogether, which would
not be the case if the land was ploughed in the direction of
the ridges. This is undoubtedly the simplest and most
effective way of securing a fine filth for the seed. If weeds
vegetate during the winter, they are destroyed by using the
stuffier or horse-hoe over the land before sowing, and if con-
sidered necessary, the ridges are then moulded up with a
small double-breasted plough."