which he works his dog among sheep. When you observe an aged dog
making a great noise, bustling about in an impatient manner, running
fiercely at a sheep and turning him quickly, biting at his ears and
legs, you may conclude, without hesitation, that the shepherd who
owns him is a man of hasty temper."--(Vol. ii. p. 625.)
But a well-trained dog has the following qualifications:--
"Dogs, when thus gently and cautiously trained, become very
sagacious, and will visit every part of a field where sheep are most
apt to stray, and where danger is most to be apprehended to befall
them, such as a weak part of a fence, deep ditches, or deep furrows
into which sheep may possibly fall and lie _awalt_ or _awkward_, that
is, lie on the broad of their back and unable to get up, and they
will assist to raise them up by seizing the wool at one side and
pulling the sheep over upon its feet. Experienced dogs will not
meddle with ewes having lambs at foot, nor with tups, being quite
aware of their disposition to offer resistance. They also know full
well when foxes are on the move, and give evident symptoms of
uneasiness on their approach to the lambing ground. They also hear
footsteps of strange persons and animals at a considerable distance
at night, and announce their approach by unequivocal signs of
displeasure, short of grumbling and barking, as if aware that those
noisy signs would betray their own presence. _A shepherd's dog is so
incorruptible that he cannot be bribed, and will not permit even a
known friend to touch him when entrusted with any piece of duty._
* * * It is supposed that the bitch is more acute than the dog,
though the dog will bear the greater fatigue. Of the two, I believe,
that the quietly disposed shepherd prefers a bitch, and is careful in
working her as little as he can when in pup. I may mention, that the
shepherd's dog claims exemption from taxation; and I believe that a
well-trained one costs at least L.3."--(Vol. ii. pp. 626, 627.)
Nothing is said of the mutual attachment of the shepherd and his dog. Of
this attachment we can never help thinking--when the subject of dogs is
introduced--since we saw the look of mingled agony and consternation which
showed itself on the face of one of our shepherd boys, when a horse had
kicked and apparently killed it, and the joy with which he hugged it,
while it licked his hands and face as it recovered.
Nothing strikes an American so much on coming to England--kindred though
he be, not only in blood and language, but also in customs--nothing at
least strikes him more than the beautiful thorn hedges with which our
fields are at once divided, sheltered and adorned. And yet how much they
are mismanaged--their perfection, usefulness, and durability lessened--by
injudicious, in many cases by ignorant and barbarous, treatment! A most
useful chapter is devoted to this subject, from which we shall make one or
two extracts. First, of switching young hedges:--
"Hedgers have a strong predilection to use the switching-bill. They
will, without compunction, switch a young hedge at the end of the
first year of its existence. No hedge ought to be touched with a
knife until it has attained at least two years; because the great
object to be attained by a new hedge is the enlargement of its roots,
that they may search about freely for its support; and the only way
it has of acquiring large roots is through its branches and leaves,
which are the chief means of supporting the healthy functions of
plants, or of even preserving them in life. Even beyond the age
mentioned above, the pruning-knife should be very sparingly used,
until the young hedge has acquired the height sufficient for a fence;
and not freely then, but only to remove superfluities of growth, and
preserve equality in the size of the plants.
* * * * *
Let the plant have peace to _grow_ till it has acquired a
considerable degree of natural strength--to acquire which state it
will take a longer or shorter time according to the circumstances in
which it is placed--acquiring it in the shortest time in deep sandy
loam, the most _useful_ of all soils, and taking the longest in poor
thin clay on a tilly subsoil--let it, I say, have peace to _grow_,
and let it be afterwards judiciously pruned, and I will give you the
assurance of experience, that you will possess an excellent fence and
a beautiful hedge in a much shorter time than the usual practice of
hedgers will warrant."--(Vol. ii p. 564.)
Upon cutting down hedges the following remarks are excellent:--
"Hedges are wofully mismanaged in the cutting in many parts of the
country. Without further consideration than saving the expense of a
paling to guard a new-cut-down hedge, or in ignorance of the method
of making a dead-hedge from the refuse of the old, the stems of an
_old_ hedge are often cut over about three and a half feet high, to
continue as a fence. The consequence is just what might be
anticipated from a knowledge of the habits of the thorn, namely, a
thick growth of young twigs where the hedge was cut over, the
ultimate effect of which is, a young hedge standing at three and a
half feet above the ground upon bare stakes. The wise plan,
therefore, to preserve the value of the old hedge is to cut it near
the ground, and form a dead-hedge of the part cut off."--(Vol. ii.
pp. 569, 570.)
We have seen hedges occasionally dying out by degrees on the road-sides,
where the banks were cut close to the roots of the thorn plants. The
following acute observation will in some cases, no doubt, account for
it:--
"I observe that some farmers remove the hedge-bank behind a
thorn-hedge, to make compost of; but such a practice is highly
injurious to the hedge, even after it is grown up, by exposing its
roots, which chiefly lie under the bank, to cold and frost. If a
hedge is cut down whose bank has been treated in this manner, and no
means are used to protect the roots when exposed on the removal of
the branches, it is possible that a few nights of severe black frost
may kill every root that lies nearest the surface. I have no doubt
that particular plants of old hedges are killed in this manner,
without the cause being suspected by the farmer."--(Vol. ii. p. 576.)
The planting of potatoes, as we should expect in a practical work of this
kind, is treated of in considerable detail and with much judgment. Upon
seed-potatoes, which have these last two or three years attracted so much
attention, we have the following passage:--
"I have no doubt, in my own mind, that were seed-potatoes securely
pitted until they were about to be planted,--not over-ripened before
they were taken out of the ground,--the sets cut from the crispest
tubers and from the waxy end,--the dung fermented by a turning of the
dunghill in proper time,--led out to the field, quickly spread, the
sets as quickly dropped on it, and the drills quickly split in the
manner represented in fig. 411, and described in (2411,) there would
be little heard of the failure even in the driest season,--at the
same time, the precaution of obtaining seed frequently from an
elevated and late district compared to where the seed is to be
planted, should not be neglected."--(Vol. iii. pp. 672, 673.)
These recommendations are correct, we believe, and judicious as far as
they go; other things, however, are within the powers of the skilful
farmer; but, to all, we would especially recommend a more careful
construction of their potato-pits. This subject is again treated of in
Vol. iii. p. 1121. The raising of seed-potatoes should be made more an
object of special care than has hitherto been the case; for we doubt if
the cure recently propounded as infallible on the faith of one or two
successful experiments--that of leaving the potatoes covered up during
winter in the field where they grew--will be in all cases followed by the
wished-for results. We hope, however, that many will try it.
Of horses we could have wished to say something had our space permitted;
but we can only refer to what is said of the rearing and intelligence of
the horse towards the beginning of the second volume, and to the chapter
on _breaking in young draught horses_, in p. 691 of the same volume.
We come now to the third volume, which commences the operations of
summer--a season which brings with it new cares, especially to the dairy
farmer, and where the turnip husbandry prevails. It is true that, in
summer, when all his seeds are in the ground, the farmer has a little
leisure during which he may leave his farm, but even then any excursion he
makes ought not to be for mere pleasure. A true farmer will have his eyes
about him wherever he travels, and will carefully study the merits of the
rural customs of every district he goes to. There is much truth in the
following remarks:--
"Summer is the only season in which the farmer has liberty to leave
home without incurring the blame of neglecting his business, and even
then the time which he has to spare is very limited. There is only
about a fortnight between finishing the fallow, the turnip and potato
culture, and hay-making, and the commencement of harvest, in which
the farmer has leisure to travel. This limitation of time is to be
regretted, because it is proper that he should take a journey every
year, and see how farm operations are conducted in other parts of the
kingdom. An excursion of this nature is seldom undertaken by a
farmer, who is generally a man capable of observation, without
acquiring some hints which may induce the adoption of a practice that
seems good, or the rejection of one which is bad. Such a journey
exhibits mankind in various aspects, and elevates the mind above
local prejudices; and as husbandry is a progressive art, a ramble of
a week or two through different parts of the country, cannot fail to
enlighten the mind of the most experienced farmer much beyond any
thing he can observe by always remaining at home."--(Vol. iii. p.
742.)
In his excellent chapter on the sowing of turnips, he quotes several
instances of the successful preparation of land in the autumn--breaking
up, harrowing, cross-ploughing, drilling, and dunging--for the turnip
crop, and he adds the following opinion:--
"Were such modes of culture adopted in the south of England, I have
no doubt certain and abundant crops of turnips would be raised, in
spite of droughts and insects; and the slovenly practice of
broad-cast culture would then give way to the more scientific mode of
the drill system."--(Vol. iii. p. 747.)
In the following passage he notices a curious but generally received fact
regarding the effect of different quantities of bones; but we quote
chiefly on account of another observation at its close, which may be
interesting to our southern readers:--
"I have tried to raise turnips with different quantities of
bone-dust, varying from twelve, sixteen, twenty, and twenty-four
bushels to the imperial acre, and have found the crop improved up to
sixteen bushels; but any quantity beyond that, even to twenty-four
bushels, produced no greater effect on the turnips in the same field,
and on the same sort of soil, than sixteen bushels. Nay, more than
this, my late agricultural preceptor, Mr George Brown, when he farmed
Hetton Steads in Northumberland, raised as good crops of turnips as
sixteen bushels of bone-dust, with only eight bushels of bone-dust,
combined with an indefinite quantity of sifted dry coal-ashes; and
yet eight bushels of bone-dust, or an indefinite quantity of
coal-ashes applied separately, produced a very poor crop of turnips.
It is therefore unnecessary, in so far as the crop of turnips is
concerned, to sow more than sixteen bushels of bone-dust alone, or
eight bushels with coal-ashes, or perhaps street-manure. Both
coal-ashes and street-manure, when proposed to be used with
bone-dust, should be kept dry under cover, and sifted free of large
lumps. * * *
"The very best mode of using bone-dust in small quantity, both for
increasing the fertility of the soil and rearing a good crop, is to
sow the seed along with it in drills already manured with farm-yard
dung. The bone-dust secures a good and quick braird of the plant, and
the dung supports it powerfully afterwards. This plan I would
recommend to be pursued, particularly in England, on the land
prepared for turnips in autumn; and were it practised, we need not
despair of raising heavy crops of turnips, especially Swedes, on the
strongest soils, and most certainly they would be obtained after
thorough-draining."--(Vol. iii. pp. 748, 751.)
To the _drop_-drill as a means of husbanding manure, too little attention
has hitherto been paid in Scotland. We strongly recommend, therefore, to
the attention of the Scottish farmer, the following brief quotation:--
"The saving of manure, in the first instance, by the use of the
drop-drill, appears to be considerable, since it has been frequently
asserted that ten or twelve bushels of bone-dust per acre, will
produce a braird equal, if not superior, to sixteen or eighteen
bushels put in by the continuous mode. The subject is, therefore, of
great importance, and calls for close observation; for if the drop
system is really so important, it cannot be too widely
adopted."--Vol. iii. p. 806.
We regret the necessity of passing over the remainder of this chapter on
turnips. We merely extract the following mode of preventing the
destructive attack of the turnip-fly, because, though the method has been
heard of by many, it has been tried by comparatively few. Mr Stephens
recommends
"To put the seeds for some time before they are sown amongst flour of
sulphur, and sow the sulphur amongst them. The late Mr Airth informed
me, that when he farmed the Mains of Dun, Forfarshire, his young
turnip crops were often very much affected, and even destroyed, by
these insects; but that, after he used the sulphur, he never suffered
loss, though his neighbours did who would not use the same
precaution, and that for as long as he possessed the farm afterwards,
namely, fifteen years."--(Vol. iii. p. 772.)
It is also with regret that we pass over the making of butter and cheese,
the chapter upon which we commend to the attention of our dairy farmers.
The subjects of hay-making, liming and forming water meadows, we also
pass; but we stop a moment at his chapter upon flax and hemp.
The culture of flax is now very much advocated both in Great Britain and
Ireland; and we fear very erroneous notions are entertained and propagated
regarding both the profit it is likely to yield to the farmer, and the
effect it is fitted to produce upon the land. The following passage is
not entirely free from objection, but it contains a great deal of truth
and much common sense:--
"It has been proposed of late, with a considerable degree of
earnestness, to encourage the growth of flax in Britain. The attempt
was made some years ago and failed; but in the present instance it is
recommended with the view of raising flax-seed for feeding cattle in
sufficient quantity to render us independent of foreign oil-cake, of
which, no doubt, large quantities are annually imported, but to what
extent I have not been able to ascertain. The _object_ of the
suggestion is laudable, but the _end_, I fear, unattainable; for if
good _seed_ is raised to make good oil-cake, or compounds with oil,
the _flax_ will be coarse, and flax of inferior quality will never
pay so well as corn: and it should never be lost sight of, in
considering this question, that to raise flax must bring it into
competition with white crops, and not green crops, because to raise
it as a green crop would be to deteriorate its quality by bringing it
into immediate contact with manure; and, on the other hand, if it is
raised without manure as a fallow-crop, it must deteriorate the soil
materially--no species of crop being _more_ scourging to the soil
than flax, not even a crop of turnip-seed. There is, therefore, this
dilemma in the matter--the quality of the flax or of the seed must be
sacrificed. The seed separately will not pay the expense of culture.
Seed is produced from six to twelve bushels per acre. Taking the
highest at twelve bushels, that is, one and a half quarter, and
taking it also for granted that it all will be fit for _sowing_, and
worth the highest current price of 60s. per quarter, the gross return
would only be L.4, 10s. per acre. The flax-crop varies in weight of
rough dried fibre, according to season and soil, from three to ten
cwt. per acre; and taking the high produce, five cwt. per acre of
dressed flax, at the highest price of L.6 per ton, the yield will be
L.31, from which have to be deducted the expenses of beetling,
scutching, and heckling, and waste and loss of straw for manure, and
the profit will not exceed L.8 per acre; but though _such_ a profit
would certainly repay the expenses of cultivation, yet it presents
the _most_ favourable view that can be taken, even with the sacrifice
of the entire loss of seed--the loss, in fact, of the greatest
inducement for renewing the culture of the plant. In Ireland the
case, I believe, will be the same, though much of the soil of that
country, being mossy, is more favourable to the growth of flax than
that of England or Scotland; yet even there it will be found
impracticable to raise good flax and good seed from the same piece of
ground at the same time; and if the seed is not good, the oil-cake
will be bad."--(Vol. iii. p. 1046.)
Among the arguments in favour of the extensive culture of flax, now urged
by so many, we are sorry to see a scientific one lately put forth by our
friend Dr Kane of Dublin, and which has been much vaunted and relied upon
by himself, and by those for whose benefit the opinion was propounded. The
proposal is, it will be recollected, to carry off the stalk of the flax
crop, and to convert the seed into manure. This is the same thing as
carrying off the straw of a corn crop, and eating or otherwise converting
the grain into manure upon the farm. Every one knows that carrying off the
straw will exhaust the land, as will also carrying off the stalk of the
lint. But, says Dr Kane, I have analysed the _steeped_ and _dressed_ flax,
and find that it contains very little of what the plant peculiarly draws
from the soil. This is left for the most part in the pond in which the
flax is steeped, or at the mill where the flax is dressed. Therefore, to
carry off the flax is not _necessarily_ to exhaust the soil. You have only
to collect the _shows_ of the flax mill, and pump out the water from the
steeping hole, and apply both to the land, and you restore to it all that
the crop has taken off.
Now there is a fallacy in supposing that all that is taken from the land
would in this way be restored--one which the advocates of this
non-exhausting view are of course not anxious to discover; but, supposing
the result and conclusions correct, what are they worth in practice? It is
only a little bit of fireside farming. What practical good has come out of
it? Put all the steeping water upon the land! Have any of the members of
the flax societies tried this? Then let them tell us how it is to be
done--what it cost--what was the result and the profit of the application.
They use this prescription as an argument to induce men to introduce an
exhausting culture, and they take no means to introduce _first_ a general
employment of those means by which it is said that the naturally
exhausting effect of the culture may be prevented. What our friend Dr Kane
has said and done is in perfect good faith; the form which his opinions
have assumed upon paper, has arisen solely from the want of a sufficient
knowledge of the usages and capabilities of sound and profitable practical
husbandry. If we cannot persuade our farmers to collect and apply to the
land the liquid manure of their farm-yards, when can we hope to persuade
them to empty their flax-ponds for the purpose of watering their fields?
Can we ever hope soon to persuade them to preserve and use up the
thousands of tons of _shows_ that are now yearly sent down the streams by
which our flax mills are set in motion?
We are far from saying that flax or any other crop may not be grown
without necessarily exhausting the soil--chemistry, we know, will
by-and-by put all this within our power; but we are very much of Mr
Stephens' opinion, that our English and Irish flax societies do not as yet
clearly see their way to that end, and that unintentionally they will lead
many to inflict a permanent injury upon their land, without any adequate
compensation to themselves, their landlords, or the country.
We had marked the early cutting of corn in harvest as a subject of general
importance to practical men, and that of the smearing of sheep, so
interesting especially to our northern agriculturists; and we wished to
confirm Mr Stephens' recommendations upon those points by some
observations of our own; but we are compelled to leave the chapter which
treats upon them to the private consideration of our readers.
We quote the following passage from the chapter on _fertilizing the soil
by means of manure_, as containing much good common sense:--
"Dung is applied at the commencement of every rotation of crops with
the fallow green-crops, and with bare fallow; and when applied at any
other time, it is near the termination of a long rotation. A rule for
the quantity of farm-yard dung to be applied according to the length
of the rotation, as given by Dr Coventry, is, that five tons per acre
are required every year to sustain the fertility of soil; and,
therefore, land which is dunged every four years in a rotation of
four courses, should receive with the fallow-crop twenty tons per
acre; in a five-course shift, twenty-five tons; in a six-course
shift, thirty tons, and so on. These quantities constitute, no doubt,
a sufficient manuring to ordinary crops; but it appears to me to be
reversing the order of propriety, to give land under the severest
shift--a four-course one--the smallest modicum of manure, when it
should receive the largest; for there is surely truth in the
observation, that land grazed with stock becomes ameliorated in
condition--actually increased in fertility. A six-course shift,
therefore, having three years of grazing, should require less instead
of more manure even at a time than a four-course one on land of
similar quality."--(Vol. iii. pp. 1230, 1231.)
The chapter on the points of stock--cattle, sheep, pigs, and horses--would
of itself have afforded us materials for an interesting article. Breeding
and crossing of stock, both so necessary to be well understood by those
who would breed for _profit_, are also ably discussed by our author; and
it is only want of space which prevents us from quoting from this chapter.
But there are some kinds of live _cattle_ which of themselves breed too
fast even for Mr Stephens; and these he as anxiously instructs his readers
how to exterminate. Among these are rats, in regard to the destruction of
which the following passage will interest our readers:--