The Express.
London, England, 1850-12-25 00:00:00

AGRICULTURAL DISTRICTS.

TO TOO O9ITOII Or Tea zxrusir.

I, NOTTS.

Fn.—What at Meadsld I =speed to inquire of a
amide= la that two about the cattle and stock of
the aeighbaarlosel, who said he would take me to •
eased tamale= by, and show me • first rate herd of
short horse and some excellent farming. Some of
' you, seeders who take an in'erest in the Smithfield
Club fat cattle show, may remember a roan short-
horn heifer, to which, 1 think, the first prise of
her class and a silver medal were awarded in
December last. It was a very superior animal, in
class Z, which was bred and fed by Mr. Fletcher, of
Radmanthwaite, a lordship in Mansfield parish, and
situated about three miles to the north of that town,
whose stock and management were so highly spoken
oL Thither I beat my way. I (mind Mr. Fletcher
a plain, and really working farmer, who has thrown
his heart and energies into his business with a devo-
tedness that is quite pleasing to witness. His lava
consists of 290 sores, and I think be has just taken
some additional land thee by, but which has yet to be
brought into high cultivation. The soil is a sandy
loam, some portirna of it requiring =vial drainage, and
forming what in this neighbourhood is called s=
land. The rent I eaderstood to be shoat 80e. parser'
b:ing in MAPAPldtlegim

nor Very good, Mr. Fletcher hid
himself WIZ a number of =mil houses and sheds
for his stock, but he still required more aceommoda-
tioo, which might be futnisbed at no great expense,
Set for such a tenant u he will be seen to be, the
landlord has done nothing. Mr. Fletcher has occupied
the farm about fifteen years, and he succeeded his
father, who held it before him. Everything about the
land was in good order, all the quickhedgee were
trimmed and kept ate so that they presented
close, thick fencer, and the ditches were covered
over. The swedes and maugold weevil bear
testimony to the goodness of the sys'em pursued. Last
year the swede turnip erop, which was shown in
competition for a prize at a local agricultural arisocia-
lion, was found to weigh 30 ton 16 cwt. to the acre ;
and there is every reason to believe this year's swedes
will be quite as bulky. The Rollover Association
Committee, however, refuse to permit Mr. Fletcher
any longer to compete for crop prizes, as he is, they
say, certain to carry off everything.
The stock kept on this farm consists of about 40
6.ode/cattle, of which ten are breeding cows of pure
Durham blood. All the male calves of good form
and colour are reared as bulls, the few made steers
being fed off. Titers is now a steer feeding which is
less than three years old, and has attained a great
weight, anal= a heifer, which has oue or two calves
that will go far to sustain the character of Mr.
Fletcher's herd at the forthcoming Smithfield show.
From eight to twelve two-year old heifers are also
bought, every spring, from the beet droves which
come out of Yorkshire, and, after running in the pa-
tures during the summer, are kept in the yards
through the succeeding winter on straw and turnips,
with 61b. of oil cake per head daily. Three heifers
being in calf by one of Mr. Fletcher's well bred bulls,
and teing in high condition, are sold in the spring for
good prices, many of his neighbours being anxious to
purchase them. The heifer' thus managed and sold
last spring fetched on the average 171. each, having
cost the year before 71. each. This is probably as
good a return u it would be possible to real= from
any bent; and the manure so made is littleiaimise
to that produced by feeding bullocks. The great
weight of turnips and manguld wurzel grown on the
farm enables the occupier to afford all his floe stack a
large supply of roots, and all the young animals get a
portion of oil cake. ludeed, when I state that on
this small farm the ordinary yearly consumption of
oil cake amounts to forty tons, it will be obvious that
all the stock is generously treated.
The flock maintained is a breeding one, consisting
of 200 ewes, originally Leicester', but for the last
two or three years Mr. Fletcher has used Cotswold
ram., and cone Trendy his younger sheep are some-
what Urger than pure Leicester'. All the wether
lambs are fed off; and, when little above a year old,
reach from 23 to 28Iba. per quarter. Of course these
lambs get eileake from the time they are weaned.
The ewe lambs take the place of the older
ewes which are annually drafted. The number
of sheep thus kept, throughout the great part of
the year on this email farm, is no less than 580-4
very large stock, especially when the number of
cattle le also taken into the account. Mr. Fletcher is
also a breeder of cart horses, and has now some ca-
pital young stock of this sort of his own rearing.
Indeed, taking the live stock of the farm as a whole,
I do not recollect to have seen anywhere a nerd
complete and profit giving breeding stock. The
stockyard also told that the °linke feeding had not
been thrown away.
And it is worthy of remark, that here I heard ad
&syllable of complaint about low prices; nor. though
I led to this subject, the least dissatisfaction =-
pressed at the repeal of the corn laws. A good breed-
ing stock, well managed and generously treated, I
believe to be the best " protection" against all even-
tualities a farmer can poems.
Nearly adjoining to this farm I met with the some-
what unusual occurrence of a well cultivated farm of
30 awns. 'fine occupier an industrious man who is
a farmer only manages his land extremely well, keeps
a fair quantity of stock, and grows good crops.
Generally the little farmer is a sad sloven, and I know
but few of this class whose condition is superior to
that of a day labourer. An exception is worthy of
recording.
One of the objects I had in visiting this neighbour-
hood was to see the Duke of Portland's irrigated
meadows at Clipstone Park ; and they are well worthy
of inspection. About three miles from Mansfield, in the
pariah of Mansfield Woodhouse, the works, by which
the irrigation is effected, commenced ; and
the meadows lie between that place and the
village or town of 011ertoo. Originally the land
out of which these now fertile meadows have bees
formed was a barren waste, in the wildest part of
Sherwood Forest. A drive of seven miles ammeete
the Welbeck domain with Clipstone Park, and that
part of it which approaches the water meadows peas=
through Birkland, the woodland tract I mentioned be
my former letter. The rich green slopes of the
water meadows extend fir several mike, and the
artificial terraces kept in constant verdure content
pleasingly with the heath, fern, and ancient trees of
the forest. The original state of the lend occupied by
the meadows was a line of hill sides, a rabbit warns
covered with heath and gorse, with a valley consisting
of a rushey swamp, the haunt of snipes and wild
ducks. The River Mann, descending from Mansfield, I
wound through the valley. Some parts of this valley
were from 9 to 10 feet deep in bog, and quite useless.
The quantity of land first irrigated, consisted of about
300 acres, and the full yearly value is said to have
been about 801. Clipetone Park farm, of which it
forms a part, contained in 1816, when the duke first
took it in hand, about 1.600 acres, which had been
let for leas than 3601. The work was commessed Ica
1819, and the meadows finally eompleted in their per
sent state in 1837. The expel= to that date was
very nearly 40,0001. Subsequently more land had
been irrigated, the coot of whish I did not learn, bat
probably it was less in proportion than the first per-
, AT EklttluL—Oo Monday evening Bristol doe by reason of the experience obtained in the
inn,fl by • dense fog, which had prowled. is the earlier works.
11,
m tbeiseraincr. Several modest' occurred, be
^ womb a Iwo car, and driver got into the water at A flood dyke takes the water from the Mann, sad
Wseftead Has. he Ilene was drowned sad the Maas follows Recourse, bending with the irregularities of
rat eat with aims dillealty. One of the Irish stamen the ground, for 6# miles, when it returns to the river.
rt .0 4,4 Is
mesh= ■sp the river, but was get off mulls The work' are then continued on the opposite side el
lv
,F.totit CAPTITRILD.—A few days ago a large the river, where another flood dyke is formed, and
ee Is • extends about two miles. A road has been made
''ul"4•s rues
a.r. •a."OfisJ.!/I,6,keek4altbilli47",ertiTiniele along the whole length of the works, under which
▪ :-- en. er the anderbeepera The ass bad ma* the water for flooding is ocieveryed by sluices, and
ie takes, the bird from :the trap, se It bed_ eddy treat whence a view of all the works nay be =M-
✓ rat% "0 i • views. ,Wick eke of • "di" sanded. The Mann, a small river, brings with
e„.td :en th - heti lof the bird wader hie loot. sad we* it Tay imn. Mandela, end it, appearance
..p,,e,dite the bird nut o the trap alive.
id, meat ski from up to tip. Tibet. biriwiagto litread .tt everted' ta lilac" that of a strati° of
• 4 "91 the golds& manna so that its waist sag bs highly hell-

ADVERTISEMENTS.
r mat value of tae •• EXEIBITION EXPRESS "
ratan. matt be *entreat to advertena
oeiri“ees ate slat he at that 011os is Waited in at
we E.ortt is the Evostar tif soot ?May, to mare Is-
a is the &amber of the fellowirg der.

Eirs.l3 PATRNI' BRANDY, is Ingle bottler,
ietinwa by Sib priet Mans ebtaisalla Met all
•.,%, "Irk nuerli la lowa ; or. st pse
,1 tit 9
olemain. at per plisket sad ON a
:1111FIlt

ising. The water is poured over say part of the'
meadows which may be required to be flooded by
means of flood gates, and is received from eas
carrier to another in its descent to the river. Tte
carriers down the slopes are pinned with lionestene
grouted with lime and water. The work of laying eat
the slope* in their punt shape wee one of infinite
labour, and the expense's thus gained has been fell
of instruction to undertaken of similar worts.
though the details would be too minute
your columns. The water is turned on for
or four days at a time, at the intern! of t
five or six weeks, aooording to the supply
water ; sad this is continued through the hot weathpr
of summer and the cold of winter. Atter booty
rains, when the streets and sewer' of Mansfield hate
been well washed, the water at Clipetoee is mods
more efficacious, and. will sometimes deposit a sedi-
ment in one watering of the thickness of a sheet of
paper.
When the meadows were first formed, the supply
of water was not sufficiently under control, in dry
summers, the river being low, the want of water we.
mach felt ; while in wet weather the gram outgrew
the consumption of the stock, and from its great
succulency was diffieult to be made into hay.
The se inconveniences have been since remedied by the
construction of a large reservoir of 70 acres, made by
the duke just above the town of Mansfield. This pet
only secures the means of working the IsliirefOft,

ISialowt iiiaiiios.interiilows, now cwsiet. I
jog of nearly SOO acres, are farmed as part of the
date's Clipstone Park farm, of more than 2,000 acres,
and are managed as follows :
la January ewes with forward lambs, bred early
for the purpose, are turned into the meadows. Cab-
bages are given to them at this time in aid of
the young grass, and the lambs are raid to be
equally very healthy and thriving. From January to
May ewes, as they lamb, &returned into the meadows,
and the lambs are fattened, selling before the middle
of May at from 225. to 30s. tech. A. the lambs go off
the meadows are shut up, some es early as the begin-
ning of April : other parts as late es the end of May.
The meadows first shut up are ready for cutting green
by the middle of May, or in about six weeks, a-d are
said to yield from sixteen to twenty carthada of green
food per acre. This is carted off for the cattle kept
in the yard& A second crop will be ready for
cutting in the middle of July, six weeks again being
-uffiotent for the flooding and growth of the crop.
Torn there will be a good eddish to be fed by cattle
in the autumn and early winter. Sometimes the
earlier-watered meadows are cut three times. At
all events they afford sheep feed in the spring two cut-
tings, and a crop of aftermath, with no help whatever
except that suppliel by irrigation. S me of the
grass is cut for hay, generally that which has been
stacked rather late, and yields in July two tons of
hay to the acre. At this time there are some very
large stacks of fine hay at the Park-farm, the pro-
duce of the watered meadows, and thus late in
October 1 observed one large meadow in course of
cutting fir green food. The value of so constant and
considerable a supply of green fond, and such a bulk
of hay as these meadows afford to the light and
' naturally poor soil of the Park farm, it would be
difficult to estimate. When the water wax paned
over 300 acres only of these meadows, the following
' statement of the produce of each acre and its money
value wan prepared by the duke's managers:

PRODUCE OP AS ACES.
Reaping from January 1 to end of
Maven 2 ewes and lambs, the lambs
sold tot at 245. smelt
Deduct shepherd's wages....
2 2 0

From April 1 to end of July, tiriss
cut 'ream 18 loads of fodder such
eatting—total, 38 loads at 7s. per
load
Deduct expenses mow*: sal carting,
24 bd. per load
8 2 0
1 10 0

E idish