SALISBURY PLAIN.—STRANGE DESERT CHARACTER OF THE
SCENERY.—THE AGRICULTURE.—SAINFOIN AND LUCERNE.—LARGE
FARMS.—EFFECT ON LABOURERS.—PARING AND BURNING.—WHEN
EXPEDIENT.—EXPENSE.—SHEEP-FOLDING.—MOVEABLE RAILWAYS AND SHEDS.
_June 17th._
[Sidenote: _SCENERY OF SALISBURY PLAIN._]
“Standing across the downs: course E. by N., _muggy_ weather and light
airs,”—regularly _at sea_, without chart or compass. A strange, weary
waste of elevated land, undulating like a prairie, sparsely greened
over its gray surfaces with short grass, uninhabited and treeless;
only, at some miles asunder, broken by charming vales of rich meadows
and clusters of farm-houses and shepherds’ cottages, darkly bowered
about with the concentrated foliage of the whole country.
For long intervals we were entirely out of sight of tree or house or
man, or even sign of man, more than an indistinct cart-track or trail.
Had you any idea there was such a desert in England?
The trails run crookedly, divide and cross frequently, and only rarely
is there a rude guide-post. Twice or thrice we were as completely lost
as Oregon emigrants might be in the wilderness, and walked for miles
with only the dim, yellowish spot that stood for the sun in the misty
firmament, to be guided by. Large flocks, with shepherds and dogs, we
sometimes saw, and here and there a square clump of beech or fir trees,
intended probably as an occasional retreat for the sheep. More rarely
a great farm-house, with stacks and stables and great sheep-yards,
always so sheltered about by steep slopes and trees, close planted
upon some artificially-elevated soil, that we came by chance and
unexpectedly in near proximity before we saw them. Occasionally, too,
even on the downs, and entirely unenclosed, there is cultivated land
_and very large_ breadths of some single crop, much of good promise,
too, but the wheat universally infested with charlock.
But the valleys are finely cultivated, and the crops, especially of
sainfoin and lucerne, which is extensively grown here, very heavy.
_Sainfoin_ and _lucerne_ are both forage crops, somewhat of the
character of clover. Sainfoin only succeeds well, I believe, on chalky
soils or where there is much lime, and has not been found of value in
the United States. Lucerne has been extensively cultivated in some
parts, but not generally with us. I have heard of its doing well in a
cold, bleak exposure upon our north-eastern coast, but it should have a
warm, rich soil, deeply cultivated, and be started well clean of weeds,
when it may be depended upon to yield three to five heavy cuttings of
green fodder, equal in value to clover, or three to seven tons of hay,
of the value of which I am not well informed.
The valley lands are sometimes miles wide, and cultivation is extended
often far up the hills. The farms are all very large, often including
a thousand acres of tillage land, and two, three, or four thousand of
down. A farm of less than a thousand acres is spoken of as small, and
it often appears that one farmer, renting all the land in the vicinity,
gives employment to all the people of a village. Whether it is owing to
this (to me) most repugnant state of things, or not, it is certainly
just what I had expected to hear in connection with it, that labourers’
wages are lower than any where else in England—seven, and sometimes
six, shillings ($1.68 and $1.44) being all that a man usually receives
for a week’s work.
[Sidenote: _CULTIVATION OF THE DOWNS._]
We saw seven ploughs at work together, and thirteen swarths of lucerne
falling together before thirteen mowers, thirteen women following and
shaking it out. It is not uncommon to have four or five hundred acres
of wheat or two or three hundred of turnips growing on one farm. One
down farmer has eight hundred in wheat annually. The prairie farmer
would not despise such crops.
As there is no chalk soil in America, I will not dwell long upon its
peculiarities or the system of agriculture adopted upon it. The manner
in which the downs are brought into cultivation may, however, afford
some hints of value for the improvement of other poor, thin soils.
“The sheepfold and artificial manures are looked upon as the mainstay
of the Wiltshire down farmer. When the downs are first broken up, the
land is invariably pared and burnt, and then sown with wheat. Barley
is usually taken after wheat, and this is followed by turnips eaten
upon the ground, and succeeded by wheat. It then falls into the usual
four or five-field course, a piece being laid out annually in sainfoin,
to rest for several years before being broken up again. The sheepfold
is shifted daily until the whole space required to be covered (_i.
e._, manured) is gone over. Turnips and other green crops are consumed
where they grow, which saves the labour of taking home the crop and
fetching back the manure. The sheep are made the manure carriers for
any portion of the land on which it is thought desirable to apply it.
Much of the corn crop is stacked in the distant fields, as it would be
almost impossible to carry it home so far, with the despatch necessary
in harvest operations. In many cases it is thrashed where stacked, a
travelling steam-thrashing machine being hired for the purpose. The
straw is carried out and spread on the grass-lands from which clover
hay had been cut the previous year. Only a small proportion of the root
crop is carried home for consumption by cattle, the number of which, in
these large farms, is quite inconsiderable.”[15]
[15] CAIRD.
Sheep-folding, and paring and burning, are both processes nearly
unknown in America, and which will probably be advantageously employed
in some situations among us.
[Sidenote: _PARING AND BURNING._]
_Paring and burning._—“All soils,” says Sir Humphrey Davy, “that
contain too much dead vegetable fibre,” (such as the sour black soils
of our reclaimed swamps,) “and all such as contain their earthy
constituents in an impalpable state of division, such as stiff clays
and marls, are improved by _burning_.” It is therefore a common
practice in the stiff-clay districts as well as upon the downs of
England. In Suffolk, for instance, it has been adapted with most
successful results, the effect being to render the heavy clay soil
light, friable, porous, and highly absorbent of gaseous matters. It
increases the efficiency of drains, (by letting water more rapidly
into them,) and, being more friable, the land works better and at less
expense. It further promotes vegetation by converting into soluble
matters available to plants, vegetable remains; which, in consequence
of the usually wet, impervious nature of the soil, have become, as
it were, indigestible, and therefore inert and useless. It is also
advocated as being destructive of the roots and seeds of weeds; of
insects, their larvæ and eggs; and, as is pretty clearly demonstrated,
it enables land to bear the same crop in quicker succession, by its
supposed effect upon the exudations left by former crops.[16] In
executing the process, the surface, generally to the depth of three
inches, is ploughed or pared up (there are instruments made on purpose
for it) and allowed to dry. It is then thoroughly harrowed and made
fine; and in the downs the vegetable matter is raked out so far as
practicable, and thrown into small heaps; a little earth is thrown over
these and they are fired, the grass forming the fuel. The remainder of
the earth which has been ploughed up is shovelled on as soon, and to as
great a depth, as it can be without danger of extinguishing the fire.
[16] Report by practical farmers in Suffolk, 1846.
In the clay districts and where there is much timber growing, brushwood
is laid in rows, and the pared soil heaped over it, the sod being
thrown as far as possible nearest the fuel, and the fine earth thrown
over all to prevent too quick a fire.
The burnt soil is spread again over the field and ploughed in. The
first crop following is usually turnips. The cost of the operation is
reckoned, in Suffolk, (where it is called _denturing_,) to be only
about four dollars an acre, of which one-third is for fuel. Supposing
the expense of labour to be doubled and that of fuel halved for the
United States, it may be expected to cost us six dollars an acre. The
effect, probably, is never lost to the land; but in those parts of
England where it is most practised, I believe it is usual to repeat the
operation once in seven years, or at the beginning of every rotation.
By feeding turnips upon the ground the autumn following the burning, it
is sufficiently stocked with manure to require no further application
during the course. Caird mentions crossing a field in which this had
been repeated, burning every seven years, and no other application of
manure than what arose from the consumption of its own produce on the
ground being made, without any diminution of crops for fifty years.
On the downs, however, paring and burning is not usually resorted to,
except at the first breaking up of the original soil, fertility being
afterwards sustained by bones and guano, or by feeding off the crops
of herbage at the end of every rotation by sheep; of which operation,
common in all parts of Great Britain, I shall presently speak.
In land greatly infested with weeds, or grubs or wire-worm, in black,
peaty soils, and in many stiff-clay soils, particularly where they are
to be prepared for gardens or orchards, I have no doubt paring and
burning often might be profitably performed in the United States. In
thin, sandy soils it is likely to be injurious. If the soil has not a
pretty thick old sward, it will be best to sow some grain crop upon it
the year before burning, that the roots and stubble may afford fuel.
Old pasture will be most readily burnt. In England, clay is sometimes
charred in pits, and, after being mashed fine, applied broadcast or
drilled with seeds, as a manure. It is sometimes found surprisingly
effective, probably owing to its absorbent quality; but it is an
expensive operation, and has not generally recommended itself.
[Sidenote: _MOVEABLE SHEEP-SHEDS._]
_Sheep-folding_ is the practice of enriching a portion of ground by
confining sheep upon it. Thus, in Wiltshire, the flocks are pastured
during the day upon the _beak-land_ and kept at night upon the
comparatively small portion of ground which it is desired to manure,
and which thus receives the benefit of the fertilizing droppings
which have been obtained from the pastured ground; or a portion of a
field of sainfoin, or clover, or turnips, is enclosed by a moveable
fence, (either iron or wooden hurdles or strong hempen nets fastened
to stakes,) and the sheep confined to it until they have eaten the
crop clean, (they will eat the turnip in the ground,) and left upon
it a large amount of excrement; the fence is then moved on to a fresh
spot, where the process is repeated, and so on day after day until the
required space has been travelled over.
Sometimes naked ground or stubble-land is thus served; turnips or
sainfoin being brought from where they grow and fed within the
hurdles, which are daily moved on a bit. Latterly, moveable sheds with
slatted floors, running upon plank railroads, which are easily taken up
and relaid across the turnip fields, have been tried. The object is to
avoid driving carts to take the crop off, or the treading of the sheep
to feed it, on the ground, upon heavy clay soils, in which the pressure
of these operations must be very objectionable. Twelve sheep are kept
in each shed-car, and the turnips pulled and thrown in to them. The
expense of drawing off the crop and returning the manure is avoided,
and the sheep have shelter and a dry bed, while the ordinary custom
subjects them to danger of foot-rot and other diseases, and also must
be attended with some waste of the crop.