>-'4 ^-<5ipr >'*- ' . r' 1^ ^^ ■>^ '--V> THE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND. VOLUME THE EIGHTEENTH. PRACTICE WITH SCIENCE. I.IBKARV KKW YOf?K ttOTANICA LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1857. v»l \9> These EXPERrsrESTS, it is true, are kot east; still thet are in the power of eyert THINKING HUSBANDMAN. HE WHO ACCOMPLISHES BUT ONE, OF HOWEVER LIMITED APPLICATION, AND TAKES CARE TO REPORT IT FAITHFULLY, ADVANCES THE SCIENCE, AND, CONSEQUENTLT, THE PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE, AND ACQUIRES THEREBf A RIGHT TO THE GRATITUDE OF HIS FELLOWS, AND OF THOSE WHO COME AFTER. TO MAKE MANY SUCH IS BETOND THE POWER OF MOST KDHIDUALS, AKD CANNOT BE EXPECTED. THE FIRST CARE OF ALL SOCIETIES FORMED FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SCIENCE SHOULD BE TO PREPARE THE FORMS OF SUCH EXPERIMENTS, AND TO DISTRIBUTE THE EXECUTION OF THESE AJIONG THEIR MEMBERS. Von Thaer, Principles of Agriculture. London : Printed by WnxiAM Clowes and Sons, Stamfoid Street, and Charing Cross. CONTENTS OF VOL. XYIII. • ^. ^/v ; Statistics : — page Meteorology, for the six months ending June 30 ii Public Health ditto ditto vi Price of Provisions ditto ditto vi Weekly Average of Wheat viii Meteorology, for the six months ending December 3 J x Public Health ditto ditto xiv Price of Provisions ditto ditto xv ARTICLE PAGE I. — The Farming of Bedfordshire. Bj- William Bennett, of Cam- bridge. Prize Essay 1 n. — Lois Weedon Husbandry. By the Picv. S. Smith 30 in. — On the comparative Advantages of sowing Beans in Spring and Autumn. By Robert Vallentine. Prize Essay . , . . 36 IV. — Observations on the Natural History and Economy of various Insects, Snails, Slugs, &c., affecting the Clover-crops and Pasture-lands. By John Curtis, F.L.S., &c. Paper XYl. . 41 V. — Farm Pioads on Strong Soils. By J. Bailey Denton. Prize Essay 82 VI.— Cultivation of Early Potatoes. By the Rev. E. F. Manby .. 93 VII. — On Farmyard Manure, the Drainings of Dxmg-heaps, and the Absorbing Properties of Soils. By Dr. Augustus Voelcker.. Ill VIII. — Dairy Management. By Thomas Horsfall 150 IX. — Report on Steppe Murrain or Rinderpest. By James Beart Simonds, Professor of Cattle Pathology in the Royal Veterinary College t ". 197 X. — On Horseshoeing, By William Miles 270 XI. — On the ]\Iannrial Properties of Clay from Gas Works. Bv the Rev. W. R. Bowditch ' ,. 299 XII. — Time of Entry on Farms. By the Rev. William Holt Beevor. Prize Essay 311 XIII. — On Paring and Burning. By Dr. Augustus Voelcker .. .. 342 XIV. — Communication on the relative Value of Cattle-box Manure and Farmyard Manure. By Charles Lawrence 368 XV. — Elementary Introduction to the subject of Vegetable Physiologv\ i By Arthur Henfrey, F.R.S., L.S., &c.. Professor of Botany, King's College, London. Part II 371 XVI. — Report on the Exhibition and Trial of Implements at the Salis- £2 bury Meeting. By Chandos Wren HoskjTis "415 "32 XVII.— On Road-mending. By the Hon. W. G. Cavendish, M.P. ..451 r ^XVIII. — Agricultural Chemistry. — On the Growth of Barley by different Manures, continuously on the same Land ; and on the position ~^ of the Crop in Rotation. By J. B. Lawcs, F.R.S., F.C.S., and '■XL Dr. J. H. Gilbert, F.C.S 454 < IV Al'PEXDIX. APPENDIX. PAGE List of Officers of the Eoyal Acrricultiiral Society of Encrknd, 1857 .. i Memoraiula of Meetings, Privileges, Payment of Subscription, &c. .. ii Eeport of the Council to the General Meeting, May 22, 1857 .. .. iii Half-yearly Balance-sheet, ending December 31, 1856 vi List of Stewards of the Yard, Honorary Director, Judges, &c., at the Salisbury Meeting vii Prize-Awards of the Judges of Live-Stock : Salisbury Meeting .. .. viii Special Prizes offered by the Salisbury Local Committee xvii Commendations of the Judges of Live-Stock : Salisbury Meeting .. xviii Prize-Awards of the Judges of Implements : Salisbury Meeting .. .. xxx Commendations of the Judges of Lnplements : Salisbury Meeting . . xxxiv Schedule of Prizes for Essays and Pieports xxxix Members' Privileges of Chemical Analysis xlii List of Officers of the P>oyal Agricultural Society of England, 1857-1858 xliii Memoranda of Meetings, Privileges, Payment of Subscription, &c. .. xliv Eeport of the Council to the General Meeting, Dec. 11, 1857 .. .. xlv Half-yearly Balance-sheet, ending June 30, 1857 xlix Country-Meeting Account : Salisbuiy, 1857 1 Schedules of Prizes, Chester Meeting, 1858 : — 1. Prizes for Live Stock li IL Implement and Machinery Prizes • • .. .. Ivii III. Special Prizes offered by the Chester Local Committee .. Ixi DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER. The Binder is desired to collect together all the Appendix matter, with Roman numeral folios, and place it at the end of each volume of the Journal, excepting Titles and Contents, and Statistics, &c., which are in all cases to be placed at the begiiinimg oi the Volume : the lettering at the back to include a statement of the year as well as the volume ; the first volume belonging to 1839-40, the second to 1S41, the third to 1842, the fourth to 1843, and so on. In Reprints of the Journal all Appendix matter (and in one instance an Article in the body of the Journal), whicli at the time had become obsolete, were omitted ; the Roman numeral folios, however (for convenience of reference), being reprinted without alteration in the Appendix matter retained, _ *;f* In binding the Volume, omit the duplicate of the Pri-es for Essays and Reports (e *, pp. xxxix to xlii) given in this Part. CONTENTS OF PART I., VOL. XVIII. Statistics : — page Meteorology ii Public Health vi Price of Provisions vi AVeekly Average of Wheat Tin ARTICLE PACE I. — The Farming of Bedfordshire. By William Bennett, of Cam- bridge. Prize Essay 1 IT. — Lois Weedon Husbandry. By the Pev. S. Smith 30 III. — On the comparative Advantages of sowing Beans in Spring and Autumn. By Robert Vallentine. Prize Essay .. .. SO TV. — Observations on the jSTatural History and Economy of various Insects, Snails, Slugs, &c., affecting the Clover-crops and Pasture-lands. By John Curtis, F.L.S., &c. Paper XYI. . 41 Y. — Farm Eoads on Strong Soils. By J. Bailey Denton. Prize Essay 82 YI._Cultivation of Early Potatoes. By the Pev. E, F. Manby .. 9S YII. — On Farmyard Manure, the Drainiugs of Dung-heaps, and the Absorbing Properties of Soils. By Dr. Augustus Yoelcker .. Ill YIII. — Dairy Management. By Thomas Horsfall 150 APPENDIX. PACE List of Officers of the Poyal Agricultural Society of England, 1857 .. _i Memoranda of ^Meetings, Privileges, Payment of Subscription, &c. .. ii Pieport of the Council to the General Meeting, May 22, 1857 .. .. iii Half-yearly Balance-sheet, ending December 31, 1856 vi List of Stewards of the Yard, Honorary Director, Judges, &c., at the Salisbury Meeting yii Prize-Awards of the Judges of Live-Stock : Salisbuiy Meeting .. .. viii Special Prizes offered by the Salisbury Local Committee xvii Commendations of the Judges of Live-Stock : Salisbury Meeting .. xviii Prize-Awards of the Judges of Implements : Salisbury Meeting .. .. xxs Commendations of the Judges of Implements : Salisbury Meeting ..xxxiv Schedule of Prizes for Essays and Reports xxxix Members' Privileges of Chemical Analysis xlii DIEECTIONS TO THE BINDER. The Binder is desired to collect together all the Appendix matter, with Roman numeral folios, and place it at the end of each volume of the Journal, excepting Titles and Contents, and Statistics, &c., which are in all cases' to be placed at the beginning of the Volume : the lettering at Ihe bacl£ to include a statement of the year as well as the volume ; the first volume belonging to 1839-40, the second to 1841, the third to 1842, the fourth to 1843, and so on. In Reprints of the Journal all Appendix matter' (and in one instance an Article in the body of the Journal), which at the time had become obsolete, were omitted ; the Roman numeral folios, however (for convenience of reference), being reprinted without alteration in the Appendix matter retained. STATISTICS THE WEATHER, PUBLIC HEALTH, PRICE OF PROVISIONS, &c., &c., FOR THE SIX MONTHS ENDING JUNE 30, 1857. Extracted from the Quarterly Returns of the Begistrar General, The Diagram siiowixg the Weekly Average Price of "Wheat is surrLiED BY Mr. Henry S, Bright of Hull. — Ed. VOL. XVIir. ( n ) ON THE METEOKOLOGY OF ENGLAND DUBING THE QUARTER ENDING MARCH 31st, 1857. By JAMES G L A I S H E E, Esq., F.E.S., SEC. OF THE BRITISH METEOROLOGICAL EOCIETT. The temperature of the air differed little from its average value during the quarter. The periods and average daily amounts of excess were January 1st to 4th, 71° ; January 9th to 20th, 3i° ; February 6th to 24th, 3^° ; February 27th to March 7th, 3°; March 14th to 20th, 5°; and March 28th to the end of the month, 4^°. The periods and average daily amounts of defect were January 5th to 8th, 3^° ; January 21st to Febraary 5th, 6i°; February 25th and 26th, 3i°; March 8th to the 13th, 4f°; and March 21st to the 27th, 4°. The pressure of the atmosphere was in excess in Februarj^ and in defect in the other two months of the quarter. It was from 0*2 inch to 0'3 inch greater in February than in the preceding month, and from 0*1 inch to 0*2 inch less in March than in February. The degree of humidity was a little in excess upon the quarter. The daily ranges of temperature were in excess in January and February, particularly in the latter month, and of their average values in March. Eain was slightly in excess in January, and in defect in February and March, particularly in the former month, so small a quantity not having fallen in any February since the year 1821, and was in defect to the amount of 1^ inches upon the quarter. The quarter was remarkable for the storms of snow and hail experienced in March, the hail-balls being large in size and pyra- midal in shape. Also for the very large barometer ranges ; each month exceeding 1 inch ; and for March in the South of England the range was about li inch; increasing up the country, till at the farther extremity it was nearly 2 inches. The mean temperature of the air at Greenwich for the quarter ending February, constituting the three winter months, was 38 '7°, being 1"0^ above the average of 86 years. ( III ) 5 1 o .1 ;-t ■s S o 3 o 3"= 2 5 rt-^ M H r^ to 1 + 1 t-t 1 cl 1 1 H ■s c '■a Highest Reading at Night. t-~ n ^ rA -^ ^ i ^ r.-\ Th wn Eb r< r< (s ^ fs *j so ^1 ^ r^ i^ ° 00 to M t-i ON CO is 5§- .000 0000 " 1 ++ 8 + 60 M a H 0< a (V, f^ is C30 00 _• M .5 M 00 " r» b b rA 'J^0O r^ r/> rry rA < |l t- '-" 3 c3 122 s^ m rA <^ to + 1 c ■J lis ° M b b 1 + + b 1 i 1 ^ f-AO t. U^ "> "^ =" tr\ vn >J^ >-A i t^ vO ro ro rA rA C tog CO 00 GO = ? r ? '" 1 + '1 + ^ S ^ a i: gig ° w b b 1 + + b 1 d '" ON o^ > a; '-a 11 '3 III 11^ rA M n + + + + a ri ^D ^^ 00 m "-^ -^ 3 ^ 000 00 00 00 to 00 CO w n g g • m fg-s a CS 0) ( IV ) THE METEOROLOGY OF ENGLAND DtTRIXG THE QUARTER ENDING JUNE SOxir, 1857. By JAMES G L A I S H E E, Esq., F.E.S., SEC. OF THE BRITISH METEOEOLOGICAL SOCIETX. April, till the 10th day, and from the 17th to the 21st, Avas hot, the day temperatures within these periods being 5^° in excess ; from the 11th to the 16th, and from the 24th it Avas cold, snow fall- ing on every day, and the daily defect of temperature was 0° ; the temperature for the month was about 1° below that of the average of the preceding 16 years. May was cold till the 10th, the average daily defect of temperature was 6°; from the 11th it was warm, rising in the middle of the month to summer temperature, the maximum in the shade in many places exceeding 80° ; there was a deficiency of rain ; the temperature for the month was somewhat in excess. June was warm till the 8th ; it was cold from the 9th to the 18th, and hot from the 19th ; on the 28th the temperature near the sea rose to 75° ; at j)laces between the latitudes of 61° and 52° it exceeding 91° and in some places 92° ; in London it was 88° ; and at all other places it was somewhat below 90°. This day was the hottest we have experienced since 1846, July 6th ; and it was also remarkable for the small amount of water in the air in the invisible shape of vapour, the temperature of the dew-point being fully 35° below that of the air, at times, during the day. The temperature for the month was 3° in excess above the average. In April the temperature by day was about 1J° below that of the average ; in May was about 3° above, and in June was about 5i*^ above their respective average temperatures; during the whole quarter the temperature by night has been that of the average. The excess of temperature upon the quarter has therefore been wholly attributable to higher day temperature than usual from May llth to June 8th, and from June 19th ; and so also the greater daily ranges of temperature are owing to the same cause. ( V ) ^ w to 3 • 2 >' uj b b b b •Sl^l' r^co ^.b i^ 00 > o e o Q^- 1 1 + 8 £m i^ •^ w^ u^ vrs -u bO a a 00 kr\ r*\ "^ c ffi.S s M ITN w ^ ca 2 (S ro t1- "^ i|^~ ■^ u^oo 00 s £ ^K ^ H M (N M a Sow •-^CO M ^ . m cj^o aco a ag • •-" ,Q 3 M 1 1 + to c „• Tf M M 3 t- J-3 t^30 00 ^ •0 i ? M M M 72 r^ w A ^ a:> )-i K ^ r^ t^ > a t-l M p « b to oUl^'^ »-i *-• ^ w a •" c2 "3 \ + + + CO d w -^ »A e'o^j Or~,r^ Th < f=i Qj (M C" j Sis eg 1 QJ I- v3 toS >-< fv^ >J^ vO ^ S- Oq b M . ^0 t^ a f^ c ■3 1 ++ + a ■" H r< A -^ tl s^^ *M ob vnM «! i; Sig M F^ ^■+ vr% ^ = IM- 2 !>> to 1 1 1 tM . C fe" s So » 2 tJ- ^% S '^kS 3 s f^. •< >^ >-5 <:^>-5 ( VI ) STATE OF THE PUBLIC HEALTH. 1st Quarter. — 108,527 deaths were registered in tlie winter quarter of this year, and tlie annual rate of mortality was nearly 23 in 1000, against the average of the season 25. The winters of 1846, 1850, and 1856 alone, within the registration range of observation commencing in 1838, show a lower rate of mortality; and the winter of 1846, exceedingly mild, was followed by a hot summer, which gave birth to a severe epidemic of diarrhcea and summer cholera. The tem- perature of the last winter quarter differed little from the average, and will not account for the low rate of mortality, which may be partly referred to improvements in the sanatory condition of the people. In the country, and still more in the towns, there is, how- ever, great room for further improvement ; for the mortality in the villages and small towns was at the rate of nearly twenty, in the large town districts, twenty-six in 1000. 2nd Quarter. — 100,205 deaths were registered in the quarter end- ing June 30, and this implied an annual mortality at the rate of 2*086 per cent. The mortality in the districts containing the prin- cij)al towns was at the annual rate of 2"323, that is '125 less than 2*448, the average of the preceding ten spring quarters. In the remaining district, comprising chiefly small towns and countiy parishes, the reduction in the annual rate of mortality was •210; it was 1*873, while the average rate of the season was 2*083. THE PRICE OF PROVISIONS. 1st Quarter. — Wheat, which was 72s. Ad. a quarter in the winter of last year, has fallen to 5Gs. 10c/. in the winter of the present year. But potatoes have risen from 86s. to 110s. a ton at the water-side market, Southwark ; beef from htd. to bid. ; and mutton, from bid. to 6if7. a pound, by the carcase, in the Leadenhall and Newgate markets. Thus the price of wheat fell 21 per cent. ; while the price of potatoes in London rose 28, of beef 10, and of mutton nearly 16 per cent. 2nd Quarter. — The average price of wheat, like that of consols, has been nearly the same as it was in the three first months of the year ; it was 56s. 9rf. in the thirteen weeks of April, IMay, and June, 1857 ; and consequently wheat is cheaper by 23 per cent, and 17 per cent, than it was in the corresponding seasons of 1855 and 1856. In the London markets beef has risen 7 per cent. , while mutton has slightly fallen since last year. The high price of potatoes is the most unfavourable circumstance in the Table. The price of this important esculent has been 60 per cent, higher in Ijondon than it ■«vas in the spring quarter of 1856. The abundant crop of fruit will, to a certain extent, supply its place as an anti-scorbutic ; and we may hope that this year's crop of potatoes will be more abundant. ( VII ) THE PEICE OF PEOVISIONS. Tlie AVERAGE Prices of Consols, of Wheat, Meat, aud Potatoes ; also the average Quantity of Wheat sold and imported weekly, in each of the Nine Quarters ending June 30th, 1857. Average Price of Consols (for Money). Average Price of Wheat per Quarter in England and Wales. \Vheat sold in the 290 Cities and Towns in England and Wales making Returns.* Wheat and AVheat Flour entered for Home Consumption at Chief Ports of Great Britain.* Average Prices of Quarters ending Meat per lb. at Leadenhall and Newgate Markets (by the Carcase). Potatoes (York Regents) per Ton at Wat"! fide Average number of Quarters weekly. Beef. Mutton. Southwark. 1855 June 30 Sept. 30 Dec. 31 1856 Mar. 31 June 30 Sept. 30 Dec. 31 1857 Mar. 31 June 30 £. 90t 90i 88i 9oi 95i 95 92i 93| 93i s. d. 73 4 76 I 79 4 72 4 68 8 72 3 63 4 56 10 56 9 94,791 94,545 126,893 92,152 104,952 78,208 112,909 102,433 107,850 57,068 51,511 42,358 48,018 63,093 117,807 103,328 51,310 42,178 Ahd.—(>^d. Mean s-^d. ^d.—hld. Mean 5^rf. 4|i.-6fc/. Mean 5f(/. Aid.—(,id. Mean 5jc?. 4i^.-6jrf. Mean 5^c/. Ahd.—(>ld. Mean ^^d. 3|c/.-6|ld. Mean ^%d. Ald.~bld. Mean 5|c?. 4|J.-6|J. Mean 5 ft/. Sd.— 7d. Mean 6rf, Aid.-^e^d. Mean 5|c/. Aid.-Hd. Mean 5 Id. Sd.~6id. Mean sld. ^d.~^d. Mean 6 c?. AH—Hd. Mean 5^c?. Sid.-7id. Mean 6 id. AH—(>y- Mean5|c?. IIOS. — 1 30s. Mean 120s. 69s. — 79s. Mean 74s. 90s. lOOS. Mean 95s. 78s.— 93s. Mean 86s.. 70s. — 90s. Mean 80s. 75s. — 80s. Mean 78s. 90s. IIOS, Mean loos. loos. — 1 20s. Mean iios. 105s. — 150S. Mean i2js.6d. Col. I 2 3 4 5 6 7 * Note. — The total number of quarters of wheat sold in England and Wales for the 13 weeks ending June 30th, 1855, 1,232,284 ; for the 13 weeks ending September 30th, 1855, 1,229,082 ; for the 13 weeks ending December 31st, 1855, 1,649,610 ; for the 13 weeks ending March 31st,. 1856, 1,197,970; for the 13 weeks ending June 30th, 1856, 1,364,370; for the 13 weeks ending September 30th, 1856, 1,016,704; for the 13 weeks ending December 31st, 1856, 1,467,816 ; for the 13 weeks ending March 31st, 1857, 1,331,623 ; and for the 13 weeks ending June 30th, 1857, 1,402,051. The total number of quarters entered for Home Consumption was respectively, 741,890; 669,639; 550,652; 624,233; 820,206; 1,531,489; 1,446,588 (14 weeks); 667,027; and 548,315. ( VIII ) s 1 T ■" i- fl 1 -2 g o - _. i i S 1 o C i »■. '( K : < > > S c ( k. : ., ■< 1 ■' • ■( i i t - - - - o o 3 ( I i (• ' >- 1 - ■" ■ '« > Eh 3 ■-5 i (. ( > •1 (. •n ■J 1 >. _ •( >■ < - .. - •" :< > ( > 1 • '■< > -< s -=5 .. ^ < >■ J > .« »•' T o in < ,: .. < (- ■ "' " - • "' ,« >' [i i 00 1— 1 3 3 •' < '- ,- .( > .( > i .• 1 5 1 ►^ < T < i' » 5 STATISTICS THE WEATHER, PUBLIC HEALTH, PRICE OF PROVISIONS, &c., &c., FOR THE SIX MONTHS ENDING DECEMBEE 31, 1857. Eoctracted from the Quarterly Ileturns of tlie Eegistrar General, VOL. XVIII. A 2 ( X ) ON THE METEOEOLOGY OF ENGLAND DURING THE QUARTER ENDING SEPTEMBER SOtii, 1857. By JAMES G L A I S 11 E E, Esq., F.R.S., SEC. OF THE BRITISH METEOROLOGICAL SOOIETr. Till the 9th of July the air was coH, and from the 10th to the end of the quarter, with but few exceptions, it was warm, and at times hot. The mean temperature of the month was 64°*5, being 3° nearly in excess ; chiefly due to high day temperature. August was warm throughout, excepting the 7th, 8th, 9th, 13th, and 14th, when the daily temperature was slightly in defect. The mean temperature of the month was 65°'8, being 5° nearly in excess, and due to both warm days and nights, but rather more to the former than the latter. Since the year 1771, a date as far back as trustworthy records extend, there has been one instance only in which the mean monthly temperature exceeded that of this month, viz. in July, 1778, when it was 67°*0, thei'cfore the month of August of the present year has been the hottest of any for eighty years. The temperature at a few places reached 90°, and was but little less at many places. September was warm throughout, with the exception of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 11th. The mean temperature of the month was 59£^°, and exceeded the average by 3°, and due to both warm days and nights, but to a greater extent to the latter than the former. The mean temperature of the dew point was above its average in each month of the quarter, but in July and August to less amounts than the excesses of temperature, and consequent!}' the air was less humid in those months than usiial. In September, however, it exceeded the excess of temperature, and consequently this month was more humid than usuah The fall of rain was deficient in July, of its average amount in August, and in excess in September. The mean temperature of the air at Greenwich for the quarter ending August, constituting the three summer mon.ths, was 64°-0, being 3°*7 above the average of eighty-six years. ( XI ) s ^ o ,• ■^ fcD ^ ^ 2 >^ si) O O O b 1 •a^ ^i* o CI O m oo C^ Tt- o > o [3) 1 o 3 1 ++ + i a 3 s« ^ 1J^ v/^ i/> w^ i ,^ oo rj 00 Eb t1- >J^ 'c^ oj fcD o O O H ^ oo \o o u r^ 2 -'s ^ ^r r^ <^ n^ y S o v5 O M vO OO s is 1 = >^ oo oo S r-. . -H -^ >J^ i-A j3 OO ,0 3 o 1 = O O O + + + o • + H C 3 <1 C o" O M r'N a vn '^ 1 rt o % « i o o o O . §3 Hi ■+0 wr, ° ^ M b + + 1 00 +■ s oo rJ M u^ O 'J^ a O F=i pp c ITN t^ M M a's^ O M 1^ r< ^ S M r» M ;j 1 lai c "-. b M S b j '5 1 1 + cc 1 O oo ^ ^ ^• ° HH r. ^ n - o •+ ;2 M a + -I- + + I o a " n rn A k CM • <^ tS 6C g . w r^ Tt- r> o 5 f^ u-\ »J-» *J^ *rN o o ■So t£ + 1 1 1 s^ <„• 2 J- ^ r-^ tJ- »j-^ O fc. o ;^ g M ;:^;:n M ''IS g ■n o »^ o I^ g o + + + + S *j-^ w^ •j^ *J^ — «— ' ^ ^ ^3 H oo r> ^>2 »J^ "^ »-o S 1=1 ON 1 60 -g C O O O + +*! O + V. ■a § * S)g ° rA >J^ rA O Ka . o ^ , rt ^ oo CO 1^ CO ^ + + + + o s C^ CN O^ M (s r< COM oo >A O + + + 1 in + >> lii >-r^ en »J-^ 1 1 + 1 H, S"^ 5§S irsoo r— f^ aa ° ^ ^O "^ 1 c»i cS M fV-lO r^ s^ \C ^J^ S, r^ >^oo t^ ^ t^ ; « 5; i-H H July .. August Septembe .SO) 3 ^ g" 3 >-i ( XIII ) CO ° H i^o 1 -- ^ — 1 •^ to 3 i^ ~ C Z3 _o -t ^ w% O.S -s M £ O < td b ■a-s^ia •.^ (s »A ■53 ^ 1 O It ll^- + + + + 2 £« !^ w^ »-n -^ >A -4J StM ■g to _^. _jj ■5b ■5 3 03 lA (-A |l^f n ro 4A r^ '^" > r> ^ 8 ici 1 a *2« ^ (v^ n (s 9 M r< tA ' ? ^ r~~oo w S vD .§ Kr? • f-^ ■^ ^ ^ ^ M t-( ro 8^ ^1* t^ DC U fc-2 '^ c + + + + 1 H to c "til ^^ O! So = 1 = "* ^ " 00 a rA ■S "S ^ '^ M M tx rn ^ "0 c 00 o^oo 00 s n § w C3 g vO OO \0 « ^- S •— o|,- ^ g " <-< .'A g ^ss Hi M m n P D i: i-H M n ob M b Daily Horizonta movcmen of the Air. _ 1 5|S 1 1 + + s — CO r^ 5 VA c vA fv\ r^ £•0.- J_ rt 1 c^ < S ^ « " a ' p b _c" b M w + 1 I a CO 1 S 0^ .Sag 00 00 >J^ ^• _j 0^ r^ ^s V c (-1 rv-i ir\ £ *o 1 + + + s .5 ^ M m ^^ < -r -+ u cu t- ~ °b ^ ^1 »j^ < .S Sig P r/^ w w S •^'d- ■* ^ c 53 a> _ a 1 + + e»-i ^1 eg" £ » _3 £0 rA Is IJ^ r^ g \D CO 1^ >n g c m r^ ^ VA -=t- P. 1 i + + + + s &£ lA »J^ VA »r\ So M Tj- f- n ^ Tt- t- c 000 00 aj fc M ^ 00 w ■- U ;^ vrv "^ -^ 1-1 '< ^ g OS-' C w f^ + + + + r-«^ . C W CS g lifcs f Km- ! --d- U^ w >-n c3 vD ►H CV + + + + r^ - C 000 r* (S rA IS t^ t! ^ g m tJ- M Or^ '-,0 + + + + 2 a He 5§2 ~ rj + + + + 1 ov ' * CN c 1 " ts uMn <^ -^ xr\ ■;)- Tj- -^ s CN C^ tc ■ r - v' ■ s; t : -1 2 5^S s S g 5 > i a) S 000 S p- "5 ie S ( XIV ) STATE OF THE PUBLIC HEALTH. 1st Quarter.— \00,500 deaths were registered in the quarter ending September 30th ; and the death rate was 2-064 per cent. The deaths in the simimer quarter of the previous year were 91,330 : and in the summer of 1855 the deaths were 87,646. The excess of deaths in the last summer quarter over this number was 12,944. The annual rate of mortality per 1000 during the summer was 25 in the town districts and sub-districts where 8,247,017 people dwelt in 1851 upon 2,149,800 acres ; and 17 in the other districts and sub- districts of England and Wales where 9,680,592 people dwelt on 35,175,115 acres. The Arts which have been invented in cities are now required to render their natural homes healthy. As a pre- liminary to all other steps the people must be supplied with pure Avater. The town manures must be restored to the disinfecting fields every day, and no longer be suffered either to remain rmdcr human dwellings, or to pollute the streets and streams around them. If the mortality in the towns had been at the same rate as the mortality in the other districts, the deaths, instead of amounting to 55,733, would have only amounted to 38,080. Thus in 92 days 17,653 persons perished untimely in England. 2)id Quarter. — 110,697 deaths were registered in the last quarter of the year 1857. This number exceeds by 14,176 the deaths in the corresponding quarter of 1856, and by 11,646 the average of the ten previous corresponding quarters. The mortality in the quarter was at the rate of 2-265 per cent, per annum, the average of the season being 2-167. The increase was equivalent to one on every 22 deaths. The increase of the mortality was greatest in the town districts or sub-districts, where 60,186 persons died, that is, 6923 above the average (53,263) ; while the deaths in the country dis- tricts amounted to 50,511 or 4724 above the average, 45,787. After correcting for increase of population, on the assumption that the population in ' town and country increased at the same rates as in the ten years 1841-51, the mortality in the towns appears to be at the rate of 2*704 per cent., in the country at the rate of 1-926 per cent, per annum. The excess over the average of the season was •182 in the towns, '050 in the country ; it was, therefore, more than three times as great in the town as it was in the country districts. The deaths in the year 1857 amounted to 420,019; and if the population of England and Wales is correctly estimated at 19,304,000 in the middle of that year, the rate of mortality was 2-176 per cent., or somewhat less than 22 to 1000 of the population. The average of the ten preceding years is 2-276 per cent. ; consequently the mortality on the year 1857 was below the average. C XV ) THE PEICE OF PROVISIONS. 1st Quarter. — The average price of wheat was 70?. Id. and 72s. 3(/. in the two periods of thirteen Aveelcs ending September 1855, and September 1850; it fell to bds. lid. in the thirteen weeks ending September 1857. "Wheat is consequently 17 per cent, cheaper than it was last jeaa: The price of beef by the carcase in the Leaden- hall and Newgate markets has fallen in the three summers from 5ld. to old. per ponnd ; that is, 8i per cent. The price of mutton by the carcase has follen from 6d. to 5^d. a pound, or 4 per cent., in the same seasons. The price of potatoes has unfortunately risen from 74s. to 78s. and to 105s. a ton, in the three seasons ; it was 42 per cent, higher in the thirteen weeks ending September 1857 than the prices of the same season in 1855. The scarcity of potatoes is likely to produce scurvy in the countiy, as people are not gene- rally aware that potatoes are an anti-scorbutic, which can only be replaced by fruit and vegetables. The abundant crop of apples will supply to a certain extent the vegetable acids which experience has shown that the human frame requires to maintain its elements in equilibrium. 2nd Quarter. — The price of wheat was 52s. a quarter, while in the corresponding three months of 1855 and 1850 it was 79s. 4d. and e3s. 4d. The reduction was 34 and 18 percent, respectively on the prices of the two previous years. The price of beef by the carcase at the Leadenhall and Newgate markets was o%d. per pound, while it was in the same seasons of 1855 and 1856 respectively 5|c?., and off?, a pound. Mutton was in the autumns of the three years (1855, 1856, and 1857) 5-|r/. a pound. The potato crop failed, and the average price of York Eegents at the waterside market, Southwark, was. 140s. a ton, or 16 lbs. for a shilling. In the preceding autumns of 1855 and 1856 the price of potatoes was 95s. and 100s. a ton. The price of potatoes was 40 per cent, higher than it was in the three autumn months of 1856. This high price necessarily limits the consumption of potatoes among the poorer classes of artizans in the towns ; and the family of the labourer, whose crop has failed in the country, must suffer still more severely, as he has not the means of purchasing other commodities. The want of potatoes often induces scurvy, but no direct evidence of that disease is yet mentioned by the registrars. It is, however, not seldom the marked cause ol other maladies. ( '^VI ) THE PEICE OF PEOVISIOXS. The AVERAGE Pkices of Consols, of Wheat, Meat, and Potatoes ; also the aveeage Quantity of Wheat sold and imported weekly, in each of the Kine Quarters endino; December olst, 1857. Wheat sold A\'heat and AVheat Flour entered for Hume Consumption at Chief Ports of Great Britain.* Average Prices of Quarters ending Average Price of Consols (for Money). Average Price of AVheat per Quarter ill England and Wales. in the 290 Cities and Towns in Ennland and Wales making Eeturns.* Meat per lb. at Lcadeuhall and i^ewgate Markets (by the Carcase). Potatoes (York Regents) per Ton at Waterside Market, Southwark. Average number of Quarters weekly. Hcef. Mutton. 1855 Dec. 31 1856 Mar. 31 June 30 Sept. 30 Dec. 31 1857 Mar. 31 June 30 Sept. 30 Dec. 31 £. 88i 95 i 95 r-l 93i 903 89i S. d. 79 4 72 4 63 8 72 3 63 4 56 10 56 9 59 II 52 126,893 92,152 104,952 78,208 112,909 102,433 107,850 92,r56 101,025 42,358 48,018 63,093 117,807 103,328 51,310 42,178 55,384 95,587 4|'/.-r.|d.-Hd. Mean ^^d. 45f?.— Gjd. Mean 5|r/. Mean 5^rf. 3id.-6^d. Meansjd. Aid.~e^d. Mean ^^d. 4id.—6id. Mean5g(/. 4id.—Gid. Mean ^'^d. 4id. — (,hd. Mean Sgd. 4id--H^- Mean 5^t/. 4id.—Hd. Mean ^^d. Sd.—b^d. Mean c,ld. Sd.-7d: Mean 6d. 4|J._G|,/. Mean 5|(i. 5id.--id. Mean 64c/. 4|c/.-6frf. Mean 5 Id. 4id.—jd. Mean 5!^. 4id.-7d. Mean 5^rf. 90s. lOOS. Mean 95s. 78s. — 93s. Mean 86s. 70s. — 90s. Mean 80s. 75s. — 80s. Mean 78s. 90s. 1 1 OS. Mean loos. 1 00s. — I2pS. Mean iios. 105s. — 150S. Mean i2]s.bd. 95s. — 115s. Mean 105 s. 1 50s. — 150S. Mean 140s. Col. I - 1 3 i 4 5 6 7 * Note. — The total number of quarters of wheat sold in England and Wales for the 13 weeks ending December 31st, 1855, 1,649,610 ; for the 13 weeks ending March 31st, 1856, 1,197,970 ; for the 13 weeks ending June 30th, 1856, 1,364,370 ; for the 13 weeks ending September 30th, 1856, 1,016,704; for the 13 weeks ending December 31st, 1856, 1,467,816 ; for the 13 weeks ending March 31st, 1857, 1,331,623; for the 13 weeks ending June 30th, 1857, 1,402,051 ; for the 13 weeks ending September 30th, 1857, 1,193,029 ; and for the 13 weeks ending December 31st, 1857, 1,313,321. The total number of quarters entered for Home Consumption was respectively, 550,652; 624,233; 820,206 ; 1,531,489 ; 1,446,588 (14 weeks) ; 667,027; 5^8,315; 719,992; and 1,242,628. JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND. \. — The Farming of Bedfordshire. By William Benistett, of Cambridge. Prize Essay. Having resided in Bedfordshire, my native county, upwards of half a century, and been engaged for many years in the practical operations of farming, even to the handling of the plough and the sickle, I trust that the fact of my being so intimately ac- quainted and identified with the agriculture of this county, will justify this attempt to write on the subject, and countervail any defects of style. Although Bedfordshire must be classed as a second or even third-rate county in territorial extent, population, and the natural fertility of much of its soil, yet in the progress of its agricul- ture, in the improvement of its stock, and, it may be added, in the social ordci", public spirit, and intelligence of its yeomen, it occupies an honourable and prominent position among the counties of England. That the farming of Bedfordshire was in a deplorable state at the latter end of the last century may be proved by a reference to the Report to the Board of Agriculture, made by Mr. Stone of Gray's Inn, in 1794. Much of the arable land of the county was then (60 years ago) in the open or common field state, and subjected, without reference to the different kinds of soil, to very much the same management, though perhaps mismanagement would be an apter word. Mr. Stone observes — " Land of a clayey nature, whether found in a state of arable or pasture, has been evidently ridged up for a series of years upon a false prin- ciple of drainage, "^ till the tops of the ridges, for six or eight feet across, are the only profitable parts of the soil ; the furrows and the land adjacent form so many pools, ditches, and reservoirs of water." Underdraining seems at that time to have been out of the question, for the writer goes on to say: — " It is the common * See Note, p. 5, VOL. xvin. E 2 Farming of Bedfordshire. practice to make open water or head-furrows on this description of land only where crops of corn are sown or in the first stages of their growth. Attempts of this kind are seldom made at other seasons, from which neglect the finest particles of manure, mucilage, or food of plants are damaged or washed away, and the cells of the plants are rotted and their tubes wasted or destroyed." " The inischievous effects of this wretched system of farming," the writer adds, " are not confined to the growth of corn, but the destruction of cattle and sheep depastured thereon is but too frequently produced — not merely by the rot of a single farmer's flock, but occasionally of nearly the entire sheep of a village and neighbourhood," We shall have occasion to make further reference to this Re- port, but these facts may suffice to show some of the difficulties with which our present farmers have had to contend. The county of Bedford is computed to be about 35 miles from north to south, and a little upwards of 22 miles from east to west, containing an area of about 480 square miles, or, according to Mr. Stone's estimate, about 307,200 acres : if we take Mr. Beak on income tax, 293,059 acres ; or the Parliamentary Gazetteer, 296,320 acres. We adopt this last computation, being the medium and most modern. It is divided into nine separate hundreds or polling-plaCes, 124 parishes, and 10 market- towns, viz. Bedford, Ampthill, Woburn, Leigh ton- Buzzard, Dunstable, Luton, Toddington, Shefford, Biggleswade, and Potton. Since the construction of the railroads, Bedford and Leighton- Buzzard have become the leading corn-markets. The soil of the county varies much ; but, for our present pur- pose, it is scarcely necessary to. divide it into more than the three following principal classes or descriptions, although there are two or three sub-varieties which will require cursory notice. L The Tenacious Claij Soils, lying on a bed of IjIuc marl, brick earth, or gault. II, The Gravelly and Sandy Loams, with a subsoil of gravel, greensandj or sandstone. III. The Thin, Loose, Mixed Soils, upon the oolite or chalk formation. First. The Clay-land forms nearly the whole northern divi- sion of the county below Bedford. From the southern base of Clapham Hill to Shelton, the extreme northern boundary; and in the opposite direction from Beggary to Cold Harbour — ominous terms ! — comprising nearly one-third of the county, you have clay-soil, excepting that small intersection composed of a strip of low land and the meadows adjoining the Ouse. Of this intersection the subsoil is chiefly gravel, but in several parishes Farming of Bedfordshire. S on the north-west will be found some narrow beds of limestone, dividing the gravel from the great body of clay ; in that part of the county the soil is generally good cropping-land. There are but three rivers in this county worthy of noiice-^-the Ouse, the Ivel, and tlte Lea. The former, by far the largest, enters the county on the north-west, at Turvey, bearing with it the tributary waters of Buckinghamshire, and describes a course so singularly winding that, before it reaches Bedford, a distance in a direct line of only 8 miles, it has performed a circuit of about 26 miles ; thence it pursues its deviating path to St. Neot's, on reaching which it has left the county. The lands in the district thus described present many differences in point of quality and culti- vation, but there is throughout an adhesive clay-soil. Again, starting from Stevington, and passing through Stagsden, Kempston, Wooten-bone-end, and Cranfield, you make the western boundary. Then, on the east, commence at the back settlements of Little Barford, Tempsford-Marsh, Everton Downs, until you approach the Hazels ; thence you may reach, per saltum, Cockayne-Hatley, Wrestingworth, and Dunton, and so complete the eastern bound- ary. In all these districts there are still the same unyielding, tenacious clays. Further, if you scale the hills to Brogborough-High-House ; glance across the lands which intervene to Battlesden, Es-ofins:- ton, Stanbridge, and Billington ; then more southerly, to the back of Silsoe, Gravenhurst, Meppershall, Shillington, Higham, and Barton ; and now commence a tour, in an opposite direction, over the Lidlington Plat to Morston, in which vicinity are some of the best grass-lands in the county ; thence to Wootton, Houghton Conquest, Wilshamstead, via Moxhill Farm and Cople- Hoo, you will have seen or traversed, not all, but by far the greater part, of the clay-lands of Bedfordshire. This last district can boast of the best class of strong land, and will yield, by good farming, and in favourable seasons, the most splendid crops. Nothing is more certain than that even these clay-lands, when in the hands of persevering and enterprising farmers, can be made exceedingly productive. Indeed, the ob- stacles overcome and the improvements effected by men of this stamp during the last 30 years are worthy of all praise. The land has been drained ; many of the old crooked ridges have become straight ; wide and irregular fences, as needless and waste- ful as they were ugly, have been removed ; straight white-thorn fences have been planted, and are kept about four feet high; while many of the roads, which were formerly impassable, are now good and well kept. The improved state of the clay-lands in this county must, to a great extent, be attributed to successful underdraining. This b2 4 Farming of Bedfordshire. is a subject far too important to be passed over slightly. It lias now become patent to all who are familiar with the principles and practice of agriculture, that to drain pi'operly is the secret of all good and profitable farming where the soil is wet and tenacious. At the commencement of the present century no county in Eng- land, probably, stood in need of underdraining more than Bed- fordshire, and within that period few counties have made greater progress in this department of good husbandry. The improve- ment effected by the process is permanent, and therefore, it is asserted, the expense ought to be borne by the landlord, and not by the tenant, especially where the farmer is a tenant at will. But it is not our province to discuss this question. His Grace the Duke of Bedford will and does drain, where draining is re- cjuired, and the tenant is charged 6 per cent, on the outlay and required to do the cartage. Thus the interest paid will in a course of years reimburse the landlord for the original outlay, while the improvement is by no means exhausted. The land is improved and both parties benefited. On the other hand, tenants who have the means, generally prefer doing the workman- ship and cartage at their own expense, the landlord supplying them with tiles, because, by this course, they avoid additional rent. But, there is- doubtless much to be said in opposition to this method. All tenants are not equally judicious in the use of the tiles nor equally faithful in properly executing the work, consequently it is a source of annoyance to landlords, where expense has Ijeen incurred, without the improvement expected being realised. The farmers, moreover, have not been agreed as to the best kind of materials, the depth at which they should be deposited, or the direction of the drains ; these have long been debatable points. Strong prejudice has existed against deep- draining and the use of tiles, especially on the more stiff and retentive clays of the county : even yet it is not entirely extinct. Meanwlillc, notwithstanding the power of prejudice, and the clash of discordant opinions, the land, in one form or another, has been drained ; and some of it, where the more fragile materials of bushes and straw have been used in shallow drains, has been twice, and in some cases three times drained within my own memory. Pipe-tiles have at length established their reputation, and the advantages of deeper draining are almost universally acknow- ledged. In successfully grappling, however, with this subject, and in reducing the theory to practice, there have been, and still are, considerable difficulties to overcome. Fully nine-tenths of the clay-soils of the county have been from time immemorial ploughed into crooked and high back " lands" of irregular width and height; Farming of Bedfordshire. 5- so that the subsoil, a little below where the ploug;!! penetrates, has become (through the absence of atmospheric influence for so long a time) intractable pretty much in the form oi these " lands." Any sudden attempt to produce an entirely even surface could scarcely fail to be succeeded by injury to the crops for some years subsequent. It is not surprising, therefore, that farmers have not agreed upon any general or uniform mode of undei'draining these lands. Some prefer taking the dizain down the old furrow, which is always (though irregularly) lower than any other part of the land. But others, because of the great inequality in the size of the lands, prefer to place their drains at regular intervals, irrespective altogether of the old lands and about 4 feet deep. Two or three of the principal estates of the county are drained, mainlv, I believe, in this method ; and wherever the subsoil is sufficiently porous the end is answered and a tolerably perfect drainage effected. On the other hand, where these drains pass, as they often do, through impervious beds of gault, they fail, as might be expected, to draw the water from the parts of these old lands that lay lower before drainage, and sometimes serious damage ensues. Therefore it is the more popular practice among many farmers to drain down the old fur- rows at a depth sufficient to save the pipes from all chance of damage, thereby adopting as their principle the consideration that the surface-water percolates through cultivated soil to the lowest point more freely than through that which is more im- pervious.* I contend, therefore, that on all such lands the drain, when it can be accomplished, should be found in those places where the surface is lowest. These observations are intended to apply particularly to the very tenacious soils of the county * In other words, their idea of drainage is, according to the author, confined to the production of a dry face upon ridges •weeping their surface-wet sidcuxiys thro'ijh the cultirated soil into the adjacent furrmcs (ilhistrated in the soaking of rain down the sides of an umbrella, whose top will be dry while the sides are still saturated;. It hardly needed any new discovery that water percolates more freely through a soil than through a clay subsoil, to get back to that long-exploded theory of drainage, which is costing rc-drainage on so many estates. It is quite true, as the author states, that old ridges must be reduced very gra- dually, with a care and judgment that every experienced farmer will know liow to apply. Bat this, which is one truth, does not invalidate another truth — that the object of agricultural drainage is to relieve the soil by draining the cold and indurated subsoil; effecting by degrees the direct imder-absorption o{ yf'dter to the drains, instead of its lateral soakaifc to the fiorows. Experience has shown that lateral soakage, inevitably implying as it does an unequal distribution of moisture on the surface, is an evil gradually superseded by the deep drain, a process involving time on land of this well-known descrip- tion in the midland counties. But it is precisely for this reason the more im- portant that the true end and aim of drainage should be steadily and patiently kept in view by those who have high-backed ridges to contend with ; indicating as they do the greatest local need of drainage, and its worst example to the eye. —Ed. 6 Farming of Bedfordsliire. where the system of thus ridging up the lands has prevailed for ages. On an even surface, draining, at regular intervals, is doubtless the correct principle ; but even w^ith such a surface, on very retentive soils, the drains ought to be at intervals of not more than 22 feet, that is, three drains in the chain. On thoroughly open porous soils, with deep drains, it is difficult to say to what distance water may be drawn ; there is now a striking illustration, just on the border of the county, where the Grand Junction Canal Company, to obtain Avater for their reservoir, have recently dug a drain that has laid dry the wells of entire parishes. But, to return to the ridged-up lands. When the draining is completed our more skilful farmers lower them, only so far as the soil will permit, and then strike out the new lands, often obliquely over the drains, taking care to secure the best fall. Many of the best farmers adopt at present the narrow twelve-furrow ridges : a plan Avhich enables them to drill and harrow with the horses in the furrow. Thus they avoid poach- ing the land when wet. Among others, Mr. Pain and his sons at Felmersham have long adopted this system, and the county cannot boast of better farmers. There are others, however, who, after reducing judiciously the old lands, plough straight, but not in narrow ridges. Here and there, perhaps, you may encounter a farmer whose reverence for the old serpentine system of ploughing is so pro- found, that, for the life of him, he will not go in any other direction. There are farms in the county where modern culti- vation is scarcely known. A drive from Bedford to Kimbolton still exhibits too many illustrations. Indeed there are everywhere some men who are so wedded to the usages of a dead past as to regard with suspicion any innovation on the old routine, even though the facts of science and the experience of practical men declare the change to be an absolute improvement. To the credit of Bedfordshire, however, be it said, that cases of this descrip- tion are exceedingly rare ; and the few remaining venerators of antiquity are gradually adopting those methods of farming which modern times have proved to be superior to those of a by-gone age. Tillage aijd Cropping. — Different modes of farming this strong land are still adopted. The most prevalent is the four-course system, viz. — First year. — Fallow ; about one moiety being sown with Avinter tares, fed off Avith sheep or moAvn green for the farm-horses, and then properly tilled. Another small part sown Avith mangold- Avurzel or tankard-turnips ; the latter being fed off early in the autumn ; the remaining portion left a naked falloAv, or soAvn late with rape or mustard. Farming of Bedfordshire. 7 Second year. — Barley ; drilled on the stale-furrow, without spring-ploughing, at most but scuffled where required, just previous to the drilling. Third year. — Beans succeed the barley where tares were grown upon the fallows ; the other moiety being sown with clover, and so making the clover, beans, and tares to come alternately, but once in eight years. Fourth year. — Wheat, sown after both beans and clover. Other farmers, where the land is too tenacious to be safe for barley, drill it only where the green tares were taken on the fallow ; the other part being sown either with wheat or oats ; but still sowing alternately the clover and beans, taking, as above, the wheat after both. On the best strong soils, where no conditions of lease interfere, some adopt the six-course system ; taking 1st, fallow ; 2nd, barley or oats; ord, clover; 4th, wheat; 5th, beans; and 6th, wheat. By adopting this systeija, with a lil:)eral application of artificial manures, the produce of the land is doubtless greater, while no damage need accrue to the farm. It can be successful, however, only where the land is good and well farmed. The greater part of these soils is so tenacious, that, when in whole-ground, three horses in the plough are often required to break it up. Occasionally, indeed, when extremely hard, even four horses may be seen yoked to the plough as in a double- shaft waggon. Such a statement may shock some, who contend that they can plough any land with two horses abreast. No one condemns more strongly than myself the practice of employing three or four horses at length in a plough, as may be seen in some parts of the kingdom, when two would suffice to do the work. At the same time I am ready to maintain that wisdom neither lives, nor will die, with the man who attempts to plough such land, in the state we have described, with two horses. Least of all can there be any economy in such a practice. The best strong-land farmers in the county apply horses pro- portionate in number to the work to be done ; but, the soil once moved, you will see them but too gladly adopt in summer the two horses abreast, although, when the land poaches, the horses are placed at length in the furrow ; a system which, I hold, is not to be condemned, at any rate until a better is presented. The Second Class of Soils, named the Gravelly and Sandy Loams. — The largest, and perhaps the best portion, of this description of land, might be thus delineated : — Suppose a gen- tleman of the Oakley Hunt to mount his steed, start from Oakley House, a little west-by-north-west of Bedford, and take the fol- lowing route : — Coming out of the park at the Water-mill, and crossing to Bromham; thence, over the Newport road, bearing 8 Farming of Bedfordshire. off at the Swan, straight away through Kempston, he proceeds down the fields to the edge of the Race Meadow ; crosses the Ampthill-road, and so makes his way to Medbury Farm, in the occupation of Mr. Manning. Our sportsman must now keep the rising ground south of Harrowden, and proceed straight on, at the back of Cardington, Cople, and Willington, up to- Muggerhanger : he will there reach the highway. Now, let him, trot down the road towards Girtford-bridge, till he arrives at Mr. Pawlett's fai'm, on the right, and on crossing it he might take a bird's-eye view of the beautiful and far-famed Leicester flock belonging to that gentleman. Leaving the farm at Brook- End he must encompass Caldecote, Broom, part of Southhill^ Stanford, and Biggleswade, till he reach Stratton Park. All Ijeyond him, on the east, is nothing but strong land, while on the west lie the fertile lands of Biggleswade, screened from the east and north-east winds by the sandy hills and plantations, and known by the appropi'iate appellation of " The Garden of Bedfordshire." A part of Sutton and Potton are convertible soils, as well as Sandy Warren, but more sandy in their texture tlian the lands he has been passing. Thence his path would lie straight away for Sandy Station, leaving the wild hills to the right and the village to the left, till he reach, by the Great North Road, Tempsford Great House, when on the rising ground, in front, he would see just below him one of the finest views in Bedfordshire, the beautiful water-fall at the point where the Ivel empties its waters into the Ouse. Leaving the park, on the north side, he would cross the home-fields, north of Lamb-cote End, to the small bridge on the Little Barford road, thence down to the river,, taking the track of the barge-horses till he nears Little Barford. He has now to bear off again to the Little Barford road, through the village, and, in order to avoid getting into Hunts,, makes his way to Eaton Water-mill. This is his farthest point to the north. There he fords the river, and reaching the Old North Road, turns back, taking in but a strip of land on either side of the Ouse, till he passes Roxton, skirting Great Barford Hill, where the area widens greatly, and with the Ouse again full in sight he bears off on his way to Renhold, fast by Howbury House, over Goldington Green, and makes for the Bedford House of Industry. Let him keep clear of the town on one hand, and of Clapham Hill on tlie other, and pursue his journey till he reach the village ; then trot round the flat lands of Oakley, back by the river to the point from which he started. The great connected sections of the better kind of gravelly soils of the county are thus, I believe, pretty accurately chalked out. Interspersed along the Farming of Bedfordshire. 9 ridge of hills, from east to west, there are parishes, and portions of parishes, of convertible land, but more partaking of sand or sandy loam, resting chiefly on the greensand, or sandstone for- mation : we would point for example to parts of Everton, Potton Sandy, Sutton, Clophill, Silsoe, Maulden, Ampthill, Steppingly, Millbrook, Lidlington, Ridgmount, Husband, Crawley, Aspley, Woburn, and Heath and Reach. The quality of this soil varies from good to very bad. Upon all this description of soil the four-course system is generally adopted, though not universally. 1st year. — Fallow for a green crop, say turnips or mangold. 2nd year. — Barley. 3rd year. — Clover, red and white alternately, or, where the land becomes clover-sick, winter beans, or peas, alternate with the clover. 4th year. — Wheat. Cultivation for Turnips, Sfc. — The most approved system among our more modern farmers is to commence the preparation for turnips in the autumn, as soon after the wheat stubble is cleared as possible ; sometimes by the use of " Bentall's broad share ^' skimming the land about two inches deep, then harrowing and. cleaning it as far as the other autumnal operations of the farm, will admit. Some, however, prefer the common plough without the breast, and with a broader share made on purpose. By this, with a pair of active horses, they will get over about two acres per day, while they could do only about double that quantity Avith four horses and Bentall's broad share, and, moreover, with this disadvantage, that when the land gets hard (and you can do no good when wet), the shares soon become blunted, refuse to enter, and missing much, another operation crosswise is re- quired. It will be proper to add here that when Mr. Bentall first brought out his implement, he had, I believe, cast-steel shares, which, although more costly in the first instance, did the work far more effectually. This practice is not adopted, however, by all our best farmers. Some contend that the broad-share system cuts the couch- grass roots into shorter lengths, making it more difficult to extract, and, after all, leaves a part in the land ; they therefore prefer to plough at the same time in the ordinary way, say 4 inches deep, and with the comm.on scarifier and harrows to work and clean the land. And if the whole stubbles cannot be got over, they can manage in a favourable autumn all such land as is intended for the early crops of mangold and swede turnips. This operation can hardly be carried on later usually than the end of September, The wheat-seeding, with the commencement 10 Farming of Bedfordshire. of October, has to be attended to, and when completed, our farmers again turn to these fallows. Some simply plough them, deeper than before, making in all about 6 or 7 inches deep, and so leave them. Others, with far more practical science, plough the first furrow about 6 inches, with two horses, and then, with a second plough, without the breast, and with three horses, will subsoil the land from 5 to 6 inches deeper still, by which means they get nearly a foot deep thoroughly pulverized, and in a fine state for a root-crop. The horses following the subsoil plough should walk on the unploughed land and not in the furrow. For mangold the best practice is thought to be, to lay on the manure after the early autumnal ploughing or broadsharing ; the first plough covers it in, and the other breaks the soil below ; thus the manure is very properly deposited about the middle of the staple. Where salt is used, about 5 cwt. per acre is ploughed in, a plan which has of late been found highly beneficial for mangold. The other artificial dressing, whether of guano or other manure, is deposited, just previous to dibbling or drilling the mangold seed. Some put in this crop on the flat surface, about 2 feet apart ; others push the soil into Northumberland ridges at a distance of 27 inches. The WTiter much prefers the latter method, because the hoeing is always done best and most expedi- tiously on the ridge. In either way, however, if the farmer be at all liberal with the dressings, and the land be of moderate fertility, and sown about the last week in April, or the first in May, he can hardly fail having a good crop. Of late, it is certain, that mangold in Bedfordshire is greatly taking the lead of turnips as regards certainty of the crop, and when its properties are fully known it cannot fail to be appre- ciated. As far as practicable some of our first-class men follow nearly the same system in preparation for their earliest planted Swedish turnips, more especially where they wish to draw a portion from the land. With the ordinary number of farm-horses, however, everything cannot be done in the autumn. Where nothing is done to the fallows till after the wheat seeding, the land is usually once ploughed in the ordinary way, from 6 to 8 inches deep, and so left for the winter ; subsoiling not being at present at all general. Real improvements are always a work of time. In the spring the regular cultivations ensue ; some, and I think the best farmers, put in their Swedish turnips on the ridge. Others still drill on the flat, generally manuring before the last ploughing, and simply roll the land for drilling. Rows are generally 18 inches apart, and are done in this county remarkaljly well, for, after seeing something of many counties, I may say without hesitation that the Bedfordshire Farming of Bedfordshire. 11 drilling is generally superior to that of any other part of England I know. All parties very properly adopt the flat system for their late turnips for spring feed. The hoeing of turnips is generally done, first by a judicious horse-hoeing, then set them out a foot apart, as near as may be ; if on the ridge, rather closer ; and as soon as the dead plants are properly withered another horse-hoeing. Then comes on the flat hoeing, taking out any double plants which may have escaped. The last horse-hoeing will generally be effected close upon the edge of harvest, and occasionally after the harvest has commenced. Our cleanest farmers also send a man over them once more after harvest, to extract any fibres of couchgrass that may still be alive — an excellent jjractice. Failure of Turnips. — It would be improper not to notice here a fact which is notorious : that within the last few years there has been a great failure of tmnips in the county, more especially 1855 ; and most of all on what has heretofore been regarded as the best turnip soil. For on the chalk-bottom lands the disease, where it prevailed at all, was by no means virulent. The failure has not arisen from the ravages of the common turnip- fly or beetle, but rather from a complication of disorders. The principal disorder is what, in the eastern part of the kingdom, is termed " Anberry," in others " Graping," because the turnips so affected throw out certain protuberances yesembling grapes, in which a small maggot is generated, ultimately becoming a flying insect. Other parties term it " the finger and toe disease," on account, it may be, that there are often a number of these grapes, or perhaps more properly warts, at the lower part of the turnip, growing out of each other, resembling toes or teats, to which is attached a small root ; but from the diseased state of the turnip it cannot take up nourishment from the soil, so that you may easily kick up the turnips. In fact, they are worthless, for should they attain any size before they are attacked, they decay before they can be eaten.* In addition to the above, the mildew of the last season upon all the early-sown turnips was singularly severe, superinducing, it is believed, other diseases. Thousands of acres were this year attacked, while the mildew was upon them, with swarms of lice or flies of a light-green hue. In the first instance they appeared only in small patches, but soon extended over a considerable * I trust it -will not be improper here to say, that, in the opinion of many prac- tical farmers, as well as in my own judgment, Professor Buckman, in his late treatise, appears to have mistaken the disease in question, for in all the specimens he has given I do not see one representing the disease of which we are treating, but simply roots which are the production of degenerate seed. 12 Farming of Bedfordshire. portion of the field. It is ti'ue they were short lived, but they lived long enough to poison the plants, for very few made further progress. Most jnobahlc cause of Disease. — In Norfolk, whenever turnips anberry, which is frequently the case upon very loose light land, the farmer concludes that the land must be clayed. But in Bedford- shire the thing occurs on many of the very best gravelly loams of the county, and has done so more or less for some few years past. That it is not the result of atmospheric influence is evident, for in a field, near Bedford, I recently saw, up to a given point in the same field, a part wretchedly diseased, while those adjoining had pretty well escaped. It turned out on inquiry that when the field was last in turnips the part which had now escaped was in mangold-wurzel. It appears, therefore, tolerably certain that land may not only become " clover-sick " (as it is termed), but turnip-sick too ! It would seem that the too fre- quent repetition of turnips, if not the chief cause, at least favours the disease. The case above cited is only one out of many illustrations that might be given ; and the exemption from disease on the chalky soils is a still further corroboration, for in that division of the county the turnips come less frequently, because the farmers generally adopt the five rather than the four course system of cropping. It becomes therefore a grave consideration, whether the restriction to the four-course system in many leases and agree- ments, should not, for the public benefit, undergo some modifica- tion, more especially as regards the better land of the county. For, what is the use of chemistry, or the discovery of valuable artiticial manures, in such cases ? The best farmers, by their common management on these lands, can and do keep up the condition of their farms to the growth almost of as heavy crops as the land can bear. Moreover, if the fourth part of all such farms are, ad iiifinitum, to bs left in fallow, or a green crop, and not an acre more corn to be grown, how are the wants of our increasing population to be met? Surely these leases and agree- ments are, some of them, an impediment to progress and a clog upon the wheels of agriculture. They tend to retard, when they ought to promote, improvement. As our instructions require us to suggest any changes that are needed, the better to cari-y out the objects of the Society, I shall not be travelling out of the record by saying that the reconstruction of the covenants of many farm leases is impe- ratively called for. Meanwhile, I would also suggest that a lair representation of the case should be made to the landlords ; and that, pending this, the system be changed on the turnip fallows, dividing them into three compartments — mangold-wurzel, turnips. Farming of Beclfordshire. 13 kohl-rabi, cabbages or rape, T place them in the order in which they ought to be put in. These must alternate season by season. There is, I am aware, a still prevailing prejudice against man- gold ; but, if I mistake not, it is utterly groundless, and must arise from ignorance of the proper mode of using it. Of turnips, perhaps, nothing need be said beyond the suggestion that where there is a decent subsoil farmers need not be alarmed at fetching it up. Let the experiment be tried on a piece of fallow, on a small scale, if you please, by ploughing two furrows deep, instead of subsoiling ; thus procuring from 9 inches to a foot of staple, according to its quality. The Avriter has done thus with success, both for turnips, mangold, carrots, and potatoes. The virgin earth, thus fetched up, after an exposure to the frosty atmosphere during the winter, will mix admirably with the old cultivated soil. The prejudice against kohl-rabi is perhaps still greater ; but let it be remembered that, in the first instance, the prejudice was scarcely less against Swedish turnips. The root I am recommend- ing, it will be remembered by some of our readers, was intro- duced into the county by the late John Foster, Esq., of Brick- hills. The writer grows them. He has, this year, seen as fat sheep turned out by such means as any butcher would want, and the bulbs are still sound, while the Swedish turnips, close at hand, are more than half rotten. For further evidence as to the fattening quality of kohl-rabi, reference can be had to the Messrs, Bowyer, of Hunts ; or to Mr. Pawlet of Beeston, the successful breeder and feeder of Leicester rams. Of rape I need say nothing ; one great benefit of substituting kohl-rabi and cabbages for turnips as a change is, that they (the kohl-rabi and cabbages) may be planted after a green crop. The seed-bed of both must be sown tolerably early in the spring, and may be planted out after the green crop is fed or mown off. By using the skim coulter, one ploughing will suffice. Of course this portion of the fallows must be cleaned in the previous autumn. Before I quit this division I should just say that there are dot- ting the county from east to west some small patches of extremely wild sand, commencing with Sandy Warren on the east, where cultivation may now be seen climbing the hill-top. This is nearly the last piece of barren land to be reclaimed in the county. At Maulden, Ampthill, and Milbrook there are spots of the same kind, finishing at Heath and Reach on the west, which are also yielding to the hand of cultivation. There are some important strips of land not exactly compre- hended under either of the heads we have enumerated, namely, the parishes, and portions of parishes, which lie between the clay and the gravelly loams, and that lying between the latter and the 14 Farming of Bedfordshire. chalky division, and which, by-the-by, is some of the best land of the county. The Third Division of Soils are those )nainly of a loose and chalky character, lying' upon the oolite or chalk formation. This land, situate on the southern extremity of the county, is Ijounded by Hertfordshire, and runs along to Chiltern Hills. At the foot of these hills the chalk formation continues for some dis- tance, although, along the valley, the hard rocky chalk is gene- rally covered to a greater or less depth with some drifted chalk, or gravel with an admixture of chalk. This gravel, though so used, makes very inferior road materials, being, from the chalky admixture, always adhesive after frost and rain. This also accounts for the highways in this district not being so good as in other parts of the county. In the middle of the county we have shown that the roads are excellent ; and in the northern division, having no gravel, or next to none, they purchase it from a distance, and of course purchase the best, whilst in this chalky district, having gravel, although of inferior quality, they are induced to use it, rather than pur- chase and fetch it from a distance. The roads in this chalky district are improved, however, by gathered flints from the stiffer soils. On nearly the whole of these lands, from the south-east to the south-west Ijoundaries, turnips are cultivated more or less, though on the higher parts of these hills there is often to be found a bed of flinty clay, between the surface soil and the chalk, which, of necessity, renders it ineligible for turnips. Still, there are only partial spots of this division of the county that require draining. In the absence of this clay, where the rocky rubble approaches within 3 or 4 inches of the surface, as it does in many places, the land is naturally extremely poor and unkind far all green crops. It is most productive, however, of charlock and other noxious weeds. One of these is the common pig-nut {Bunium Jiexuosum). It is rarely found excepting upon this description of land. The bulb is very peculiar, both in its formation and mode of propagation. The seed, which drops from the stalk, and gets covered in the soil, becomes a small bulb, which, as it produces its seed from year to year, increases in dimen- sions until it attains the size of a moderate potato. It assumes a brownish colour and an irregular shape, but is remarkably tenacious of life ; for, when harrowed out of the land, and exposed to a scorching sun for days, unless eaten up by pigs or sheep, when covered in the soil it again vegetates. A few j^ears back much of this land was not considered worth cultivation ; it lay in a sort of sheep-walk of the most ordinary kind. Indeed, a part of the Dunstable and Totternhoe Downs still remains. At Farming of Bedfordshire. 15 the time of Mr. Stone^s Report to the Board of Agriculture, there was scarcely any meat produced in this division of the county. The chalks being naturally unkind for turnips, (swedes scarcely ever being attempted,) the few patches of the common sorts that the farmers managed to grow were wanted to keep the ewe flock, whilst the produce bred were usually sold to be fatted in other districts. Artificial manures for turnips were not even thought of, and stall-feeding was out of the question ; for the best of all reasons, viz. that the farmers had nothing with which to fatten bullocks. The crop of clover, save that eaten by the farm-horses, was usually sent to London, as also the greater part of the wheat-straw. A black substance was brought back for the wheat crop, com- monly called soot, but it comprised all manner of gatherings which the manure-dealers could manage to scrape together, " pro- vided always " that a little of the real thing was retained to pre- serve the smell, and to give it the right colour. Thus for many years were the farmers of South Beds and North Herts cheated. It is, therefore, no wonder that the produce of the land was most meagre. In a village near Luton the writer has been credibly informed that, about the time above alluded to, only one wheat-stack was attempted throughout the entire village ; and that, it seems, was but an apology for one, the walls being made of wheat, and the roof made up with peas. In this place, however, there may now be seen beautiful waving crops, and the fields and stack-yards studded with stacks. It is but justice to say, however, that where the drifted chalk, or gravelly chalk, intervenes between the upper staple and the chalk rock, this land, with good management, is very far from being the worst of the county. Indeed it must be classed among our most certain cropping lands. In the southern district an excellent practice on this description of soil is to have growing about one-eighth part or thereabouts of the arable land in sanfoin, to be changed after one course of cropping. It is much more certain than clover to produce a good crop of hay on the chalks, while the eddish after the scythe is the most wholesome and forcing food on which the farmer can wean his lambs ; added to which (and that no trifling advantage), there seems to be no affinity between sanfoin and red clover, for after you have broken up the sanfoin, and brought the land into a good state of tillage, it will forthwith bear good red clover. It has already been shown, that the farmers generally through this district, after laying on a dressing after the wheat crop, add a crop of oats before the fallow, thus adopting the five- 16 Farming of Bedfordshire. course system, and, stranfje to say, either from the less frequent repetition of the crop, or from the chalky nature of the soil, the turnips mostly remain jjood, while in other parts of the county they have miserably failed. Improved turnip cultivation of late years has doubtless been at the foundation of these astounding advancements, and our South Beds farmers are much indebted to the indefatigable and scientific exertions of John Bennet Lawes, Esq., of Rothamsted, in the preparation of a description of turnip-manure, which has per- formed wonders throughout the whole of these chalky districts, Avhich heretofore were most ungenial for the growth of all root crops. It is true, that, by tlie partial use of broken rape-cake and other artificial manures, improvements had commenced a few years before that gentleman commenced his experiments, but the great desideratum was still absent, viz. a manure that would force the turnip plants in the early stages on those ungenial soils Avithout endangering the vegetative properties of the seed. This result Mr. Lawes has accomplished, and instead of witnessing now, as heretofore, large patches of land completely naked and others covered only with a few stinted worthless plants, you may witness on the farms of the more spirited agriculturists, field after field, a fine uniform crop, exceeding in many instances that of the more kindly soils of the kingdom where no such appliances are used. In the cultivation of turnips in this part of the county, the ridge system (except for their late turnips) is almost universally adopted Ijy our best farmers. They use their farmyard manure, so as to supply a portion for the whole of the turnip fallows, and then, after the manure is covered in, from 3 to 5 cwt. per acre of Lawes's superphosphate is drilled with the seed, and if, during the operation, sufficient moisture is retained to cause the seed to vegetate, the turnip crop is considered safe. Such indeed have been the effects of recent management in this part of the county, as to have in many cases doubled the production of human food within the last thirty years, and if you go back to the time of Mr. Stone's Report in 1794, it has doubtless been quadrupled, Meadoio and Pasture Land. — Hitherto there has been but a cursory allusion to the grass-land, nor need our remarks be at all voluminous, as the pastures of the county are not extensive, nor generally of first-rate quality. There are, however, a few ex- ceptions : — At Pulloxhill, near Silsoe, there are some fields of very good grass, such as will fatten a bullock well, and is not thought less eligible for dairy purposes. At Marston Moretain, the far-famed Church-close or closes is very fine bullock land, while the Horse-craft field, the Holms, and Farming of Bedfordshire. 17 fields adjoining, are among the very best pasture grounds of the county. The best portions of Lidlington are scarcely inferior to the former. This farm, a few years since, was regarded as the first grazing farm in the county, and was admirably situated, having springs arising at the foot of the sand-hills, whence the water could, be directed through nearly every pasture-ground of the farm. Within the last ten or twelve years the proprietor (the Duke of Bedford) has allowed much of the second-rate quality to be broken up ; a boon which could hardly fail to be appreciated by his tenant. There are also some very useful pastures at Rock- liffe, Battlesden, Toddington, and Potsgrove, with the enclosed portions of Woburn Park. Silsoe Park also, under the manage- ment of Mr. Mason (Earl de Grey's farm-bailiff), has within the last few years been greatly improved. At Bromham also, and the great bulk of the meadows beyond, up to Turvey, are pas- tures of a very useful, not to say first-rate quality. The other meadows adjoining the O use, quite through Bedford, and down to Eaton, are generally weak. A portion, however, being laid pretiy well to all the adjacent farms, they supply a quantity of useful meadow hay, without cost of manure to the farmers, and are, therefore, very properly regarded as a valuable adjunct to the farms. Through the whole of these parishes there are a few good dairies kept, the butter being sent to London. In the remaining parts of the county a few dairy cows are kept, principally to supply the family. The meadows of the " Ivel " are very inconsiderable, both as to quantity and quality, and those of the "Lea" are still more so. This river takes its rise at the foot of the chalk hills, between Dunstable and Luton is bounded by poor arable land, and makes its exit very shortly at New-Mill End. Of artificially made water-meadows there are but very iew, save those of the Duke of Bedford. At Woburn there are some very good ones, which his Grace principally holds in hand ; they appear to be nicely kept up, and of good quality. There are others at Flitwich and Maulden, which were made at con- siderable expense some years since, but, being on a peaty soil, the produce is exceedingly coarse, and the hay is of very middling quality ; they are held by his Grace's tenants, Messrs. Overman and Piatt. In this county there is but a narrow strip of peat land lying south of the Ampthill range of hills, and that of very moderate quality, running from Tingreth through Westoning, Flitwich, Flitton, Maulden, and Clophill. In its natural state it is full of water, and, when drained, the soil is so sulphureous, that it is not worth VOL. XVIII. C 18 Farming of Bedfordshire. much in grass, and still less under tillage. Here and there are spots that will grow mangold, but of corn there is no certainty. The whole area of the county, as observed in the introduction, comprises about 296,320 acres. The Editor of the ' Parlia- mentary Gazetteer' makes the pasture more than twice the quan- tity of the arable land. This is probably a typographical error, as there must be fully three acres arable to one of pasture. I do not pretend to the strictest accuracy in this matter, as there is mucli of the inferior grass-land every year being converted into tillage. But from the best information I can collect, the following, I believe, will be found tolerably correct : — Of arable, say 210,320 acres. Upland grass, meadow and commons 70,000 ,, Which leaves for woods, wastes, roads, and waters 16,000 ,, Total acres 296,320 Population about 130,000, the larger portion of which is employed, directly or indirectly, in farming and gardening pursuits. The climate is generally considered healthy, not less for stock than for the human family, and very favourable for the growth and maturity of corn. The mildew, which formerly much affected the low land crops by the rivers, is fortunately now, from what cause I know not, much less frequent. The Bedford vale (as it is often termed), running south-east by east, Is justly regarded as the finest portion of the county as a farming distiict, in which are also to be found some of the finest market-gardens of the kingdom. The Great Northern Railway, which runs through the heart of these market-gardens, has proved a most valuable acquisition. The direct Leicester to London, via Bedford and Hitchin, will complete the accommodation both in the carriage of their goods and supply of manure. During the spring and summer months, this is by far the most interesting part of the county. To see the hundreds upon hundreds of these enterprising and industrious men, working in their little well-cultivated plots, from dawn of day till night, is, to strangers in particular, a most interesting spectacle, while it is quite astounding to learn the amount which this busy hive will sometimes extract from an acre of land. The Stock of the county has scarcely less improved than its agriculture. The farm-horses have improved, but not perliaps in the same degree as the neat-cattle and the sheep. There are a few studs of good Suffolk horses, but generally our farmers are not particular as to the breed and colour of their farm-horses. The proportion of sward, or low grass-land, being small, there Farming of Bedfordshire. 39 are but ievf bred in the county. The majority of our farmers buy them in as colts ; when fit for the collar, work them a few years lightly, and make them up for the London brewers. Others purchase them at from three to four years old, and, if good and kind workers, keep them on till they have done their best. A third practice, and I think by no means the worst, is to keep some good mares among their working horses, and breed a few foals every year. The mares are indulged a little as they get forward with foal, and after foaling, two mares are required to do the work of one horse until the turnip-sowing is completed, when they are rested till after harvest. The foals are now soon weaned, and the mares are again put to general work during all the autumnal cultivation, when, if breeding again, their work is lightened during the winter months. By such a system, making choice of some powerful, clean-legged mares, the farmer manages to keep his team young, while he scarcely feels the keep of his colts, and avoids any outlay for the purchase of horses. The writer is inclined to think that a good judge in breeding horses, by selecting mares of good constitution, and kind workers, secures by the above plan a good team, and makes the best return. It is proper to say that the general character of the farm-horses, within the last half-century, has greatly changed. The hairy-legged black horses are nearly extinct, and a more active race have succeeded. The common practice in the county is to work their horses only one long journey in the day. But on the turnip-land farms, during the summer months, our best farmers have recently adopted .(and wisely so) double journeys, by which more work can be accomplished and with less fatigue to the horses. The Neat Cattle are principally of the short-horn breed ; His Grace the Duke of Bedford, however, still keeps a fine herd of Hereford cows, from which he breeds some very useful steers, makes them up at about three years old, and with others pur- chased in the West of England, makes an excellent annual fat stock sale, a popular resort of the butchers for their Christmas beef. On the farm of Mi'. Thomas of Lidlington, and a few others, more of these fine white-faced animals may be seen grazing on the better grass-lands ; but they are principally purchased, not bred there. On a rough estimate, we should take the short-horns bred in the county to be numerically as ten to one of any other breed. From its small extent of grass-land, Bedfordshire is by no means a breeding county. Where cows are kept, there has of late been great anxiety to obtain the use of a thoroughbred short-horn bull, by which the home-bred steers are greatly im- C 2 20 Farming of Bedfordshire. proved. It must be generally known, however, tliat we have here a few eminent short-horn breeders, whose herds are well known within the circulation of the Agricultural Journal. Take, for instance, those of Charles Barnett Esq., John Crawley Esq., of Stockwood, Earl de Grey, and Mr. Fowler of Henlow, &c. &c. Young bulls have been, of late, selected from these herds to the great benefit of the neat cattle of the county. Indeed^ animals so bred will occasionally, when fatted, put to the blush some of our first-class breeders ; whence the question legiti- mately arises, whether these gentlemen, in their great regard for symmetry, do not sometimes sacrifice qualities of still higher value. The Sheep of no county within the last sixty years have been more extensively improved than those of Bedfordshire. In Mr. Stone's Report of 1794, to which I have previously re- ferred, they are thus described : — " The sheep of this county are of no distinct breed ; the horned and polled species are often kept in the same flock ; are coarse in their head, large in their bones, high in the leg, with picked rumps ; narrow- in the bosom and chines, and with an indifferent quality of wool, weighing from three to four pounds only per fleece." Some exceptions are then alluded to. " Francis Duke of Bedford was trying some useful experiments as to the compa- rative value of the different kinds of sheep ; and Mr. Bennett, a farmer of Tempsford, on the Great North Road, had possessed himself of a breed called the ' New Leicesters,' which are doing infinite credit to his judicious choice and perseverance to obtain, requiring no mean judge to distinguish them from those of the first breeders in Leicestershire." From this flock it is well known the excellent sheep of the late Messrs. Sandon and Inskip, with many others in the sur- rounding counties, were descended. Rams selected from such a flock, with wide frames, of great symmetry, and with aptitude to fatten, would be likely to produce, as they did, when put to the ordinary bred ewes of the county, the most astonishing im- provements. From these facts it is not difficult to account for the eminence to which many sheep-breeders have here for many years attained. They are often second to none in the kingdom for Leicester sheep. It will be admitted, however, that it is now no easy task to maintain that superiority. Of late there has been a great rage for crossing the breed of sheep. This arises from a deep and prevailing impression, that the neat and delicately iormed Leicester rams, which half a century ago so completely revolu- tionised the barbarous flocks of this part of the kingdom, when bred in and in, are not now the most profitable to the farmer. Farming of Bedfordshire. 21 The consuming public also complain that there is too great a proportion of fat to the lean. To obviate this evil some have crossed with the South-Down ram, and with the first cross they obtain doubtless very useful sheep ; but ultimately, in progressing, they lose weight of wool, aptitude to fatten, and general evenness of character. Others have crossed with the Cots wold ram ; but however good the produce, when these sheep are put to Down ewes, they seem to mix worse with Leicesters than any other sheep. The wool becomes hairy, and the good properties of both breeds seem to be lost, while the flock never keeps up its condi- tion. Attempts have also been made in this county, as in Oxford- shire and Hampshire, to rear a distinct breed of sheep, dark in the face and legs, with a tolerably fine fleece, and in weight nearly equal to the Leicesters ; and certainly some good butchers' sheep of this character have been produced. But being origin- ally a cross from two distinct breeds of sheep, very diverse in character, there is much difficulty in preserving anything like uniformity in the flock, and the same aptitude to fatten as in the best class of long-woolled sheep ; so that hitherto in Bedfordshire they have not greatly extended. Another portion of our long-wool breeders, and they are not by any means the most shortsighted men, have of late been using sheep on their Leicester ewes, from the best breeders of Lincoln- shire, such as the Messrs. Kirkham and Caswell, by which they have increased the size and muscular properties of their sheep ; have more wool, and, I think, without losing an iota of their aptitude to fatten. These sheep, compared with Leicesters, are far less diverse in character than any other description of sheep, and consequently mix better than any other cross (if cross it can be called). It must be observed that the sheep we have referred to, though bred in Lincolnshire, are very different from the general breed of Lincoln sheep. By breeding carefully between the Leicesters and the above flocks, the most profitable rent-pay- ing sheep are produced. There are still some excellent flocks of pure Leicesters bred in the county. And among those to whom the public are in- debted for their efforts to preserve their distinctive breed of sheep, Mr. Pawlett must now be regarded as standing foremost ; as the recent awards at the Royal Agricultural Society and elsewhere amply attest. There are also a few flocks of pure South-Downs : among others, those of his Grace the Duke of Bedford and his tenant Mr. Thomas stand deservedly high. With so much variety produced in a county long proverbial for its superior sheep, it is to be sincerely hoped that the reputation gained will not be lost. Improvement in Ploughs and General Agricultural Machinery . 22 Farming of Bedfordshire. — At the period of Mr. Stone's Report, viz. 1794, there was scarcely any save the old Bedfordshire wooden plough, with one handle fixed and the other loose, the latter handle used at will as a spud or cleaner to the plough, the whole being of the rudest construction ; the breast or mould- board was made of wood, without the slightest reference to the form in which the furrow- slice should be turned over ; so that, after being cut through with the share, if the ploughman happened to be finishing his land or ridge, and the ground were at all elevated on his right, it was not uncommon for the furrow-slice (when in turf) to fall back into its original bed for chains together. The ploughman, under these circumstances, leaving hold of his plough, had to run back, to stop, if possible, its progress. This need excite no surprise, for the plough merely formed a wedge, raising the furrow to a given point, leaving it to the mere chapter of accidents which way it would fall. Indeed, the author of the ' Bedfordshire Survey ' was himself so wedded to the old wooden plough that, as late as the year 1821, he Avas confronted on his own farm with a Ransome's L. L. plough, which put Mr. Bachelor completely into the shade, both as regards the superiority of the work and the lightness of draught, as tried by a dynamometer, notwith- standing that the modern implement was double the weight of the old wooden one. It is but justice, however, to say that Mr. Bachelor's brother, about this time, constructed a very strong plough for the clay- land of the county, and which would plough it in its hardest and most sterile condition. Tliis implement was made with a strong wooden beam, iron neck and breast, with two wheels, and was certainly a great improvement on all previous Bedfordshire ploughs. The inventor won several prizes with this plough at the annual meetings of the County Society. It was, however, subsequently beaten, both by Ransoine's and Howard's iron ploughs ; and here it is just that we should make mention of the extraordinary success which the Messrs. Howard of Bedford have met with of late years with their patent iron two-wheel plough, which has made its way into every county in England, and numbers have been sent abroad. Their harrows and steel-tined liorse-drags are scarcely less appreciated. It would not be right, however, to pass over other very good ploughs that have been recently con- structed in this county, such as those by Mr, Taylor, Mr. Williams, and Mr. Hensman. The last-named gentleman was the inventor of the simplest and best coulter-fastener we have yet seen. Indeed it may be said that no county in England can now boast of better pleughs or of more skilful ploughlnen. To say nothing of the scores of local ploughing-matches where these ploughs have proved sue- Farming of Bedfordshire. ^3 cessful, the annual meetings of the Royal Agricultural Society for the last ten or twelve years afford the most ample corrobora- tion of the statement. The Bedfordshire harrows and drill are scarcely in less repute ; the latter more particularly where straight drilling is at all appreciated. Mr. Hensman, of Woburn, is now the manufacturer of the drill, as also of a good steam thrashing- machine. The late Mr. James Bachelor, brother to the author of 'Bachelor's Survey,' was, however, I believe, the first inventor of the Bedfordshire steerage lever drill, and for many years was a very ingenious tenant upon the Bedford estate. The corn in this county is nearly all drilled, excepting a few beans and a little wheat, which here and there are put in with the double dibble. The hoeing of all corn (except wheat) is considered good hus- bandry ; but farmers of most experience will not hoe that crop unless the quantity of weeds renders it imperative. Our farmers have not yet attained to great uniformity in the mode of harvesting their corn. Some still reap all their wheat, and others only their heavier crops, mowing and tying the rest, as also their general spring crops, but the latter are not generally put into sheaf; to do so is, at any rate, rather the exception than the rule. They generally use one-horse carts in carrying their corn, and insist that, unless the distance be considerable and roads bad, they can do it more expeditiously than by the use of waggons. The ancient practice was to bring all the corn home, however far from the homestead. Of late they stack more at large. In many parts of the kingdom the more modern system is to stack the corn where grown ; but this in our judgment is a system as far from the correct one as that of cramming every stack into the stackyard. The better practice is, we suggest, to bring the great body of the corn into three or four distinct groups of stacks, within a very easy distance of where the straw has to be consumed. This brings us to the question of The best mode of Thrashing. — The practice in Beds, previous to the use of steam, was to move every stack into barn before thrashing it, but of late some few of our farmers have adopted the Norfolk system of stacking anywhere, and thrashing the stack at the same place, which we hold to be a wasteful system. And for these reasons. First. If the straw is ultimately to go to the farm premises, to be made into manure, it cannot be moved so cleanly and easily as when in the sheaf. Besides, it is a difficult task to clear up and move all the offal when broken into frag- ments, and it is often left to be cleaned up at some less busy season, which frequently does not arrive till the offal becomes 24 Farming of Bedf or dsliire. an eyesore, while Ijy fetching home the straw, a load or two at a time, repeated litterins^s are made when one might have sufficed. In addition to this it is not at all uncommon to see the straw blowing over the fences and fields in all directions. Meanwhile we have said nothing of getting home the corn and chaff, the latter being generally wasted. I am happy to say that, although steam-thrashing is getting much into use, there are but few of our farmers disposed to follow a system which we have thought it right thus to reprobate. Our more judicious men either previously move the stack into the barn, where it is safe from bad weather, or, setting the machine pretty close to the barn, move the stack at the time of thrashing, and so put the thrashed corn into barn, the offal into the farmyard (the proper place for it), and stack the straw most conveniently for future use. That portable engines are very convenient there can be no question, particularly until farmers avail themselves of a fixed engine on their own occupation, but I am strongly of opinion that on all moderately sized farms it is far the most convenient plan to have a smaller fixed steam power to do the grinding, chafF-cuttIng, cake-breaking, &c,, in addition to the thrashing. I repeat, that in the present emergency it may be good policy to use these hired steamers, but the object of the owner must be always to earn money ; there is consequently far more lumbered out in a day than at all comports with the convenience of a moderate sized farm. St/stem of makinfi the Manure. — The practice varies so greatly even among good farmers, that it is no easy task to state the best. All real business men are, however, agreed, that herein lies the great secret of farming, that is, not how to make manure at the greatest profit, for profit is out of the question, but how to make the best manure at the least loss. This question embraces so many points that it is highly difficult to know where to begin. There are first the light sort of animals, and the right position in which to keep them during the tim.e of fattening ; whether in the farmyard, and if so, should the yard be covered? or whether in the stall, or in boxes? These are all, in themselves, important questions ; and then add to these, What is the least expensive food? at the same time keeping up the quality of the manure. The late Mr. Samuel Bennett, of Bickerings Park, was among the first to adopt rather largely the system of box-feeding in this county, and he made some very fine beasts, but how far it paid him to erect his boxes, which he did himself at con- siderable expense, we have no means of ascertaining. The manure, it was said, always produced great effect. Farming of Bedfordshire. 25 His Grace the Duke of Bedford, who is one of the largest winter graziers, has for many years adopted stall-feeding, but of late has used boxes ; and Mr. Baker, his Grace's farm-bailiff, generally exhibits well-fed beasts. This gentleman gives a decided preference to boxes, but more from the saving of labour, and from the superiority of the manure, than from any decided increase of the flesh of the animals over those fed in stalls. In the former, moreover, the animals have always been healthy. Mr. Thomas, of Bletsoe, after five years' experience of box- feeding, says his cattle always do better thus than when tied up by the neck. He consequently always keeps his boxes full while he has any beasts left. He makes it his practice to have them twice littered per diem, and has the litter from the sides regu- larly levelled under the animals, by which they are kept clean and healthy. He also considers the manure so made 25 per cent, better than that made in stalls and thrown out into the yard. This gentleman is a great advocate for covered farm liomestalls, and thinks that when the farm buildings are first arranged such need not be much more expensive. Mr. Thomas, of Lidlington, an equally experienced grazier, feeds in stalls, because he has no boxes, else he would gladly adopt tliem. He decidedly prefers either plan to that of fattening in the yard, with hovels attached. He asserts with confidence that in yards the animals consume more food, and make con- siderably less progress. Where straw, however, is very abundant he finds it necessary, in order to get it all made into manure, to keep his growing store beasts in yard, but takes care to give them good food. The practice of many other good farmers might be cited. The writer, however, regards the subject as sufficiently important to warrant a suggestion, that the Royal Agricultural Society should get some well-attested experiments made on this subject. Labourers loarjes in the county of Beds are, I think, about the average of the kingdom, or somewhat above that average, if the perquisites in kind be added to the payment in money. They are not so high, generally, as in Lincoln and Yorkshire, but far higher than in the west of England ; and the labourers are conse- quently, I believe, a more active and industrious class. The common day-labourers' wages vary from 95. to 12s. per week. During the late advance of provisions they have attained the higher point, while the horse-keepers and shepherds have about 25. per week in advance of this. The labourers have, for the most part, small beer during the greater part of the year ; but in the busy months, and when at very laborious work, they have ale furnished in addition. Harvest wages are, generally, about double those paid during the other parts of the year. 26 Farming of Bedfordshire. The more considerate of our farmers manage, as far as practi- cable, to give piece-work to men of large families ; so that men, so circumstanced, have the opportunity of earning more money, and their wages will often reach 155. per week ; while to this must be added frequently the earnings of other members of the family. In the southern division of the county the plaiting of straw furnishes additional employment to the wife and junior members of the family, and a most welcome addition to the income of the household. Many labourers have garden allotments, and when these and the cottages are at a moderate rent the labourers are not ill cared for. But, I regret to say, this is not invariably the case, and full justice can scarcely be done to the farm-labourers of the county, or to some of their best friends, without appending a few re- marks on cottages and cottage allotments, for the sake of a deserving but too often depressed portion of our rural popu- lation. It is scarcely needful to say that to a family-man, be his condition in other respects what it may, if there be the absence of convenience and comfort at home, there cannot be real enjoyment of life. In the course of a new assessment of a populous parish in the county, I have seen, on the one hand, labourers living in miserably small and crowded cottages, devoid of all convenience, and without a foot of garden ground, paying a rent of 2s. &d. per week, or 6/. lO.f. per annum ; while, on the other hand, in tlie same parish, were to be seen tastefully built cottages, often with three sleeping rooms and two rooms below, fitted up with a neat stone sink, a supply of spring and soft water, and a good spacious garden studded with fruit trees, and all for about 3/. 5^. a year, or at most 3Z. IO5. per annum. The former were, it appeared, the property of a speculator, who, taking advantage of the wants of this class of poor people, bought ground and erected a number of cottages on the most economical plan, with but little reference to comfort. They are, however, tenanted ; and upon the maxim of Hudibras — " Tlie value of a thing Is just as much as it will bring" — the rent-collector is sent round every Monday morning for his half-crown, or, in some instances, three shillings, which must be paid within the week. In the latter case the property belonged to a nobleman, whose estate in that particular parish is not large, but who, doubtless, feels a just pride in providing comfortable homes for the labourers working upon his estate. The want of comfortable cottages, and as near as possible to * Farming of Bedfordshire. 27 the scene of labour, is in many parishes a crying evih The wear and tear undergone by a labourer in traversing three or four miles a-day, to and fro, in addition to his toil on the farm (as is com- monly the case) is a most heavy drag upon the living machine. It might and should be obviated, by the erection of suitable cottages in the immediate vicinity of farms lying at a distance from the village, and where there is but little difficulty in attaching a suffi- cient plot for a garden. Allotmerds to Labom-ers for the growth of their vegetables, Sac, when judiciously and liberally carried out, are doubtless an essential benefit, and since the date of Bachelor's Survey have become more or less general. A large portion of the labourers, where the soil is at all suitable and let at a moderate rent, occupy them well. In other instances it is exactly the reverse. You may occasionally see a tract of poor clay land, set out at a considerable distance from the village, and at a rent double its worth for farming purposes. The consequence is, in such cases, that if the land was worth anything previously, yet, after the lapse of a few years, its annual value for a long subsequent period might be reduced to a cipher, and the farmer has to take it back in a state of wretched impoverishment. In some few instances I have seen the glebe lands so appropriated, and it would be charitable to hope with a benevolent object, but under circumstances that could hardly fail to render it an utter abortion ; for it is possible that good intentions may be spoiled by the manner in which they are performed. It is quite true that a gentleman cannot allot land more convertible than that which he possesses ; and the great proportion of clay land, which abounds in this county, is a barrier to the fullest and most salutary opera- tion of the allotment system. Small portions of moderately strong land, well drained and in convenient situations, may be so applied ; but any considerable quantity of this kind of land only harasses the labourer, without yielding any corresponding benefit ; indeed, about a rood of the more temperate soil is found to be about as much as a labourer can well attend to, consistently with his duties to his master, and quite as much as he can keep in good condition. In all cases situation is scarcely secondary to rent in point of importance. If judiciously carried out by men who sincerely desire to benefit their workmen, these allotments cannot fail to promote the comfort and well-being of a class of men whose interests are identified with the interests of all, and whose improvement should be the aim of all. In conclusion, a comparison of the past with the present cannot fail to show that the county of Bedford has made within the present century no small progress in Agriculture. But, in 28 Farming of Bedfordshire. order to assist the reader to form a still more definite judgment, I may be allowed a brief recapitulation. Begin, then, with the days of Lord Somerville and Sir John Sinclair, those well-known patrons of agriculture, and what do you see? About two-thirds of the county in a state of common or open field ; a third of the arable land, whether con- vertible or clay soil, under a dead fallow every year, while the part considered to be under crop was woefully damaged by water. The sheep, generally meagre-looking animals as they were, were often swept off in entire flocks by the rot. The neat cattle were of no distinct breed. The farm-horses were rough and hairy about the heels, and admirably adapted to carry along with them, on every leg, some stones of the wet tenacious soils they had to plough. The farm implements were of the rudest kind. A little mutton, it is true, was here and there produced in the summer on the best grass-lands ; but in winter there was scarcely any, and still less of beef. The manure (if manure it might be called) was little else than a quantity of decomposed straw, scarcely worth the cost of carting on the land, and pro- ducing the most wretched crops. Such is the summary, and a tolerably just one, of the farming of Bedfordshire at the close of the eighteenth century. To exhibit the contrast most vividly would be best accom- plished by ocular demonstration on the farms of some of the best agriculturists of the present day. Let it suffice, however, to say that there are scores of farms now producing 50 per cent, more corn than in 1794, and supplying the metropolitan markets with a stone of meat for every pound supplied at the former period. To what, then, are these vast improvements, which now everywhere present themselves, to be attributed ? To the solu- tion of that question the closing observations of this treatise shall be directed. It has been said of some men that their friends lived before them. With perfect propriety may the axiom be applied to the agriculturists of Bedfordshire. Master-minds have preceded them. No one that lived in the days of the first Francis Duke of Bedford can be ignorant of the efforts which that nobleman put forth to arouse the torpor-stricken agriculturists of his day. He was cotemporary with Mr. Coke of Norfolk in the earlier days of that eminent agriculturist, and in all matters of agricultural improvement was a man of kindred spirit. He vied with that gentleman in establishing his annual agricultural gathering at Woburn with a noble munificence, and he continued those meetings to the day of his death. The spirit of improve- ment, however, survived him. His brother and successor, John Duke of Bedford, continued to aid the cause of agriculture in Farming of Bedfordshire. 29 every form by his influence, example, and kindness, not less than by his princely rewards to improving tenants. The County Agricultural Society was now formed, and it is but justice to say has ever since been supported by the House of Russell with the most liberal donations. It is also gratifying to find that, within the last few years, the Society, since it com- menced its perambulatory meetings, has become more healthy and vigorous. There are, no doubt, in every hive some drones to be found, and in every county some men without energy, spirit, or enterprise, and whose principal usefulness consists in making a dogged indifference to improvements the more ridiculous. Such men are like accumulations on the coulter of the plough ; and as time, like the ploughshare, passes along, it will doubtless dash them aside. These Societies have been of incalculable benefit to the com- munity in general, but not to any county more than Bedford- shire. They have imparted a spirit of emulation to young men, which has not been lost upon the present generation of farmers, and which augurs well for the future. It will also be in the grateful recollection of not a few that the farmers of this county had for many years the counsel, the kind co-operation, and the living example of the late John Foster, Esq., of Brickhills. He was long the connecting link between the landed proprietors and the yeomen of the county, and a most welcome guest at all their agricultural gatherings. Those noblemen of the last generation, to whom reference has been made, have not merely created a spirit of enterprise among the present race of farmers : their example has been equally beneficial to the nobility and gentry of the county in the present day. For, while it may be questioned whether any county, with few exceptions, is now better tenanted, it is equally true tliat it contains a goodly array of first-class " live and let live " landlords. One proof may suffice among the many that might be adduced, and which must be patent to all : so changed are the views of many of the landlords of the county as to the propriety of preserving an enormous quantity of game, that committals under the Game Laws are now little more than as one to ten compared with those of thirty or forty years ago. This is a fact not to be lightly estimated, for, coupled with the improvement in the Poor Laws, nothing perhaps has tended more to inculcate provident habits and to raise the tone of morals among the labouring classes. ( 30 ) II. — Lois Weedon Husbandry. By the Rev. S, Smith. I AM deeply indebted to Mr. Lawes for his paper in this Journal '' On the Growth of Wheat by the Lois Weedon System on the Rothamsted Soil." The design of the paper is admirable. For, great things are promised to him who farms upon the system under review, — even a large profit, with wheat at 40^., or as low as 355. a quar- ter ; and it was right that care should be taken by some compe- tent person that in such a matter no one be misled. But, not only is the wheat crop to be thus profitable : it is to be grown year after year without manure on the same acre or acres of land, as the case may be. So that if a man, farming after this fashion, have 300 acres of ploughed land, and keep the self- same 100 acres continuously in wheat, he has only two- thirds of his farm to manure. For eleven years this plan of growing wheat has been in suc- cessful operation at Lois Weedon, — with an excellent promise for crop number twelve ; and before I notice the Rothamsted experiment it may be well to examine the cause of this success. 1. The land at Lois Weedon devoted to wheat, is wheat land; one piece being wheat land naturally, the other being made so by marling. The mineral food for the wheat plant is thus secured, existing as it does in land of this quality and condition. 2. But, as a sufficiency of this mineral food might not be in a prepared state for assimilation without exposure to the solvents of the atmosphere, a portion of the subsoil, as it is required, is brought to the surface to have a winter and summer fallow. 3. To secure this annual fallow, without the loss of the annual crop of wheat from the same acre of land, the crop is grown in strips of three rows of wheat (or of two, as the case may demand), a foot from row to row ; a fallow interval of 3 feet running between each triple or double row ; the strip of one year's wheat being the fallow for the next, and so on alternately from year to year. This fallow interval is limited to 3 feet ; because, with more, the bulk of the produce of wheat would be greatly di- minished ; with less, it could not be worked. 4. The bringing up of the subsoil of the intervals, however, is not enough : the conditions of the system are, — that this ex- posed subsoil be literally pulverized, — actually broken to atoms and brought down to dust, and then mixed with the pulverized staple. A few moments' consideration will show that this is at the root of the system, — is its very life, — without which it dies. It is, in fact, in the stead of manure. It may be said to create a certain portion of the nourishment of the wheat crop ; for, the undersoil Lois Weedon Husbandry. 31 being thus thrown open to the action of the atmosphere, fresh supplies of mineral food are constantly being liberated and be- coming available to the growing plant. The mineral food being thus provided, and the surface of the soil being always kept open, the organic elements of fertility — as many term them — come of themselves. The very process by which I gain the one, admits the other. Carbon and nitrogen are wanted ; and the atmosphere contains them both in the forms of carbonic and nitric acid and ammonia. I lay great stress on the contents of the rain-fall. Not for its amount of ammonia and nitric acid alone, for that has been proved, by late experiments, to be insufficient for our wants ; but, for the proof which is tlius gained, by easy analvsis, that these substances do exist in the air. Besides the rain there is the snow, which holds ammonia and nitric acid in quantities comparatively very large. And, as regards the dews and fogs, they are declared to bestow on the earth the richest treasures the atmosphere contains. With every shower of rain, then, with every descent of the dew, every fall of snow, — nay, with every breath of interpenetrating air, these organic substances are brought down into the porous soil, either for future use, or to be taken up at once by the unconfined root- lets of the growing plant. They are brought down, I say, into the porous soil ; for, if it be not made porous, and kept so, — if the surface become crusted over, the treasures of the dropping atmosphere still fall on it, indeed, but only to be quickly ex- haled again ; while the air, with its genial and untold influences for good, passes over its closed bosom altogether and is gone. I confine myself strictly to the fallow and crop system under discussion, when I say that this atmospheric supply of nitrogen abundantly meets the wants of my wheat crop ; so that, com- mencing with a year's fallow, I require beyond this no more natural or extraneous provision of this substance within the soil. Nav, I have found that over-feeding the plant with nitrogenous food is positively injurious. No report having yet been given of my wheat crop for 1856, which was the eleventh unmanured crop on the clay piece, I will, in order to illustrate my position, refer to it here. To increase the extent of my wheat four years ago, a strip, rich with the remains of former dressings for roots, Avas added to the original plot ; and every year that strip, in a marked manner, has yielded the worst wheat ; so much so that even this last year's crop, as a whole, was somewhat damaged by it in sample. The yield was upwards of 37 bushels to the (half) acre, of good, saleable Lammas wheat ; and had it not been for the thinner grains of the over-fed portion, the yield would have been greater altogether, and the sample perfect. The produce of 32 Lois Weedon Husbandry. tall bright straw amounted to the remarkable weight of two tons to the (half) acre. The sixth unmanured crop on the light gravel land, which has twice yielded 5 quarters to the (half) acre, gave last year (with its two rows instead of three, — a diminution of rows causing the comparative loss of one-sixth of the produce) 30 bushels of superior Avheat, with bright clean straw. And there, too, four years ago, a small strip, manured for roots and unexhausted, was added to the original piece ; the fresh strip always tending to over-luxuriance and mildew, which tendency, I conceive, it will never lose till the surplus nitrogen within the soil be reduced. Such are the leading points of this plan of growing wheat; and I now come to the trial of it at Rothamsted. At Lois Weedon the success of the plan has been signal, un- failing, and undisputed. " And yet," says Mr. Lawes, " it is somewhat singular that those who have endeavoured to follow the directions given, on other soils, have generally been unsuc- cessful." I am perfectly aware of these reported failures ; but no one hitherto has come forward by name and published the details of his unsuccessful efforts. So that there has been nothing tangible, — no case that could in reality be met. Therefore it is that I am so indebted to Mr. Lawes for his paper. Lie steps boldly forth and says, " I have tried the plan, and it has signally failed. I have tried it for four successive years, and each year the produce has been miserably poor and blighted. Here, in the paper I lay before the public, is Mr. Smith's plan as I have carried it out ; and here I think it right, in the Journal of the Royal Agricul- tural Society of England, to show to the agricultural world, that the plan has little chance of succeeding on any soil but that at Lois Weedon. For it so happens that the Rothamsted soil is peculiarly suited to test the fact : it has a staple of loam, a stiff clay subsoil, with chalk at a great depth below ; so that it may be well taken as a type of all other wheat land ; and as it did not answer here, it cannot be expected — with the single exception I have admitted — to answer anywhere else." Such, in effect, is the point aimed at by Mr. Lawes in this report of his experiment ; and my reply to it shall be brief and out-spoken. If Mr. Lawes had really carried out the plan, and found by unmistakeable signs that, notwithstanding a proved abundance of mineral food, his wheat-crops failed year after year ior Avant of available nitrogen, I could have understood and valued tlie well- intentioned experiment. Or, if he had erred in the execution of Lois Weedon HushandrT/. 33 some minor detail, it might have been overlooked. But, I am compelled to say, that in every essential point the conditions of the plan have been so utterly disregarded as to vitiate the experi- ment altogether. To come at once to the proof. In order to provide a suffi- ciency of available nitrogen to feed the wheat-crop, it is in the rules, it is the leading principle of the plan, it is indispensable, that the land be pulverized and its surface kept open. And yet, what does Mr. Lawes, in the paper before us, own? He owns that his trial -piece was not pulverized, or its surface kept open ; but, on the contrary, that it became foul and crusted over during summer. Notwithstanding this avowal, by a singular process in logic, he would by implication condemn the plan because the want of available nitrogen was one great cause of his failure. But, he has a reason for not pulverizing his land. He em- ployed, he says, the same means as those in use at Lois Weedon, but " they were insufficient for the soil at Rothamsted." He does not pretend to say, what no one could say, that his land was incapable of being pulverized, for judicious tillage is able to render " the harsh and most uncivil clay obsequious to the hus- bandman ;" but that, using the same mechanical means, he could not attain the same end. Did he use the same means ? I have by me the first edition of the ' Word in Season to the Farmer,' published in 1849 ; and also the ninth edition, published in 1852, containing the direc- tions before published in 1851. Mr. Lawes having entered on his experiment in 1851, we will for his first crop refer only to the edition of 1849 for the rules then laid down for pulverizing the soil. Describing the digging of the intervals for my fifth crop of wheat, I speak, in p. 5, of its being " two spits deep ; and after the pan is a little moved, the staple is turned upon it, and the second spit is gently laid uppermost, in such a form that the frost may be felt right througli tlie whole." " The winter fallow over,T give my spring stirring with the fork, which moves, without damaging, the spreading fibres; and I folloic uptliat with the horse-lioe as often as the surface incrustates, and as loncj as the (jrowimj corn will permit P These were the means in operation at Lois Weedon from the very beginning. Did Mr. Lawes, in this turning point of the system, scrupulously carry them out ? The winter fallow over, he gave the spring stirring with the fork ; and after that, as long as the growing corn would permit, what followed? Two scratchings with the hand-hoe, and no horse-hoeing whatever — a very costly method of evading the rule and defeating the plan ; for, for the expense of even one hand- VOL. XVIII. D 34 Lois Weedon Husbandry. hoeing to do the work ill, he could have horse-hoed six times and done it well. Or, if I have misunderstood Mr. Lawes, and the two hand- hoeings were only for the wheat rows and not for the intervals, the case against him is stronger still ; for then there was not even any hand-hoeing of the intervals at all ; and only an occa- sional spudding is to be set against my deep horse-hoeing, " as often as the surface incrustates and as long as the growing com will permit." There are two ways, however, of defeating a rule. By coming short of it, and by going beyond it. " It is certain," says Mr. Lawes, " that the same amount of labour expended upon the Rothamsted soil as upon the Lois Weedon one, was quite ineffi- cient to get the same amount of staple, and of exposure of surface to atmospheric influences." I have shown how Mr. Lawes broke the rule by coming short of it, — by not tilling his land as I have tilled mine, or expending upon it the same amount of labour. I have only one thing more to do, and that is to show how fatally he erred by going beyond the rule and defeating it thus. To explain in what way this error was committed I must go back for a moment to the first proceedings in this career of double-digging for the wheat-crop. In preparation for the plan, the land, after a winter fallow, is to be ploughed and harrowed and rolled ; and harrowed and rolled and stirred again, as for harley. This thoroughly pulverizes the 5-inch staple. In the second week in September the seed is in, and in a month is up. Then, when the lines of wheat are well marked, comes the dig- ging of the intervals. With regard to the depth, the principle from the beginning was, — to bring up just so much of the subsoil as could be pulverized and mellowed during the annual fallow ; and the published rule in 1851 was " 4 inches" if the soil be tenacious ; this warning being added in italics, that " To bi'ing up more at the outset would be a ivasteful and injurious expense:'^ By the 4 inches fixed on for tenacious soil, such as that at Rothamsted and Lois Weedon, the intelligent farmer, having caught the principle, would understand that there was nothing magical in this precise number 4 ; but that if a depth of 3 inches, or even 2, in his unusually stiff soil, would better come down to dust than 4, he would confine himself to that, and be satisfied ; for he would recollect that if he brought up only 2 inches, he would still, from the moiety of his acre, get 100 tons of fresh virgin soil. In digging the intervals of clay land, then, at the outset, I cast the 5 inches of well-pulverized staple to the bottom, and place on the top the 4 inches of tenacious clay, making altogether 9 inches to dig, either at two very shallow spits, or at one ordinary Lois Weedon Husbandry. 35 spit; only 4 inches being fresh ground for the fork. For this firet operation the expense is moderate ; but as the charge in- creases for the stubble land and for the gradually increasing, but partly pulverized, depth, I find the average payment, after a series of years, when enough fresh ground has been broken and I go back again for a few years to the depth of a single spit, to be 1/. 10s. or 1/. 145. — which latter amount includes the throwing out of the stones and the weeds. Did Mr. Lawes adopt this method of digging ; or did he defeat the rule by going beyond it? Let him speak for himself. " The fallow intervals which were not sown [were] trenched 14 to 15 inches in Decemljer, 1851, forked in spring and again before sowing ; occasionally spudded, but became foul and crusted over during summer." At the very outset (that is, in preparation for the second year's crop), and all through the trial, during Avhich there were only three double diggings to receive the seed, the trenching was 14 to 15 inches deep, a spit of the raw clay sub- soil, for two out of the three diggings, being placed on the top, and the half-tilled staple below. In thus going beyond the rule and digging too deep, Mr. Lawes did indeed incur " a wasteful and injurious expense." For, instead of the average payment at Lois Weedon, the trench- ing at Rothamsted cost him, he says, " on the average about once and a half as much as is estimated by Mr. Smith." And so injurious was this wasteful expenditure in doing wrong, that, in comparison, all minor errors of execution sink into insignifi- cance. J'or, of all conditions of soil, there is none which the wheat-plant so loathes and sickens almost to death in, as this deep and hollow aggregation of unmellowed clods. I will not stop, then, to ask, Avhy, in opposition to the rule, 4 feet intervals were used by Mr. Lawes, instead of 3, to the evident diminution of one-sixth of the produce; or why, being used, my licence is quoted, since the licence given is wholly inapplicable. Nor will I dwell on the omission of the safe roller after sowing and in spring ; or, in defiance of the rule, of the sowing twice out of the four times so late as October, at which time, accord- ing to the provision made in the directions for exceptional cases, the seed should have been sown " for a thicker crop." Nor need I, I am sure, apologize to Dr. Gilbert for passing by, without notice, the laborious calculations and analyses of his laboratory ; for, he is too sensible not to see that, where the pre- mises of an argument are proved to be unsound, no conclusions, however ingenious, have the slightest interest or value. I am anxious to disencumber the question of everything in the way of a clear understanding of the real point at issue. The question volunteered by Mr. Lawes is — Can the Lois Weedon D 2 36 On the Comparative Advantages of plan of growing wheat be carried out with success at Rotham- sted ? And his answer, after a trial of four years, is, that with the same amount of labour and the same mechanical means as those employed at Lois Weedon, it cannot. It has been for me to show, from his own statement in this public Journal, that the same amount of labour and the same mechanical means have not been employed ; that the great principle has been violated ; and that the result, in consequence, has been, crops poor in amount, foul in growth, and in quality hlighted and had. Had the conditions been fulfilled, the thin sowing, at a peck to the acre, might have succeeded with a high average produce, as it did for years at Lois Weedon, where the very first crop on the light land, aftei' wheat, yielded 41 bushels of excellent grain, though large and somewhat coarse. It would have produced, as it did there, fine bold ears of an extraordinary size, with thick reed-like straw. It is nothing to the point, then, that, for better security against losing plant, I now sow two pecks instead of one, the smaller gi'ain making a more marketable sample, and the finer straw being more useful at home. It is enough that the one peck succeeded at L'ois Weedon, being sown in due time on land pro- perly tilled and pulverised, and yet well solidified with the roller at seed-time and in spring ; while it was certain to fail — as any amount of seed would have failed — on a spit of what was little better than raw, unmitigated, unpulverised clay. The trial-piece at Rothamsted being in this condition, I will only add, in conclu- sion, that I do not believe there is a farmer in England, acquainted with his business, who will not share my surprise, not that the crops were so bad, but that there were any crops at all. Lois Weedon Vicarage, May, 1857. III. — On the comparative Advantages of solving Beans in Spring and Autumn. By Robert Vallentine. Peize Essay. The comparative advantages of sowing spring or winter beans are not very numerous, but still not unimportant. It is, we imagine, generally known that winter beans cannot be sown in spring to ensure any chance of a good crop, nor can spring beans of the usual kind be sown in winter with the least chance of be- coming a crop at all. Winter beans, to me, certainly possess some obvious advan- tages over spring ones ; the chief of which are that they are less subject to blight and other diseases than spring beans: Sowing Beans in Spring and Autumn. 37 and also that they may be sown in autumn when the state of the land and the labour of the farm will permit, and thus cur- tail the labour of spring — which is always a busy period — so as to apply the strength of the farm in preparing for other kinds of corn, &c. As I am writing from practical experience and observation extending over a period of fifteen years, I do not care to enter into a philosophical discussion regarding the habits of plants, nor to dilate on insectology. All that I aim at is to state results and leave causes pretty much alone. I may, therefore, say that I never saw winter beans much damaged by blight or any other disease, but have frequently seen spring beans almost entirely destroyed by various kinds of insects about the time of blossoming ; so much so, that the land has been ploughed up and sown with some other green crop. I never knew a case of winter beans failing so signally in summer as to lead us to adopt such a sacrifice ; and, therefore, winter beans have a decided advantage over spring beans on the score of disease. Winter beans have frequently failed in spring, however, when sown too late in autumn, or when sown on wet undrained clay in severe winters. Late sowing should, therefore, be avoided, and so also should wet land. The severity of winter cannot, it is true, by any means be avoided, but its consequences may be rendered harmless, as far as regards beans, by attending to draining and early sowing. If beans are sown early, say at the end of September, or beginning of October, they will soon come up out of the reach of vermin, and be enabled to take a good, deep, and wide-spreadhold of the soil, which no winter we have ever seen was severe enough to destroy. Indeed, we have had winter beans so far above ground in October, as to be in an excellent state for hoeing ; and when this was done in dry wea- ther, the cultivation required in spring was very light. When beans are sown early the vegetation above ground is almost entirely destroyed by a severe winter, but in spring a second growth takes place, and continues till harvest, which is usually at the commencement of wheat harvest, whereas spring beansybZ/o?/? wheat, and are a month later than winter beans ; that is also a recommendation of winter beans which should not be overlooked. The disadvantages of winter beans aie alleged to be failure in severe winters, and a less yield than spring beans. On very retentive clay soils spring beans should have the preference, to obviate any chance of failure by severe frosts ; but I certainly never saw a single instance of failure occur from severe weather but what might be traced to the predisposing causes of late sowing, and sowing on very wet land. The yield of spring beans has been occasionally higher than any crop of winter beans we know of: but the yield of winter beans is more uniform, as 38 On the Comjiarative Advantages of might be inferred from their less liability to premature ripening and disease. We have known winter beans to produce 7 quarters per acre, and as little as 32 bushels per acre, all grown on good land in very high condition. Spring beans sometimes reach 8 quarters per acre, and some seasons do not exceed as many bushels. We have endeavoured to show that winter beans possess some advantages over spring beans on the head of disease, and also that when sowing in autumn takes place the labour of the farm is forwarded, which is of great importance of itself. It so happotis, however, that farms of suitable soil for beans are also suitable for wheat, and that the proper time for ploughing and sowing wheat is also best for beans. Thus, wheat-sowing is attended to first, and when that is finished it is generally too late to sow beans in season, so that, if sown, disappointment follows, and winter beans are condemned without just reason. When winter beans were introduced into this country about thirty years ago, and when partially grown subsequently, tliere was scarcely a failure, owing, we think, to more care being used in sowing at the proper time and under suitable circumstances ; but of late partial failures have been common enough, wliich in a great mea- sure may be attributed to want of proper management. Winter beans are certainly not so much sown now as they Avere a dozen years ago, in those districts with which I am acquainted, for the reasons assigned, and also that where beans hold a constant place in a rotation with wheat, it is seldom that horse-labour can be spared in autumn for ploughing for beans as early as necessary. For spring beans the land can be ploughed any time in winter so as not to interrupt other kinds of work ; and the mere drilling and harrowing bean-land in February or March does not inter- fere with ploughing for and sowing l)arley or oats, neither in the preparation for root-crops. It should always be the aim of every arable farmer to keep a sufficient number of horses to accomplish his work in due season, but not more. In order, therefore, to keep as few as necessary, the labour of the farm should be so dis- tributed over fhe whole year as to provide nearly constant em- ployment, without standing still at one time and at another having too much in hand to do it well. It is, we think, for these and similar reasons that spring beans are so generally sown instead of winter beans. Because, if there is a sufficient strength of horses on a farm to plough and sow both for wheat and beans in autumn in proper season, there would be an expensive surplus during winter, which in all ordinary cases could not be profitahly employed, It is very rarely the case that wheat-sowing can be finished by the middle of October with all the strength of the farm applied to it. It is then a chance only whether the plough- Sowing Beans in Spring and Autumn. 39 ing and sowing of winter beans can be accomplished in due season. There are, however, exceptional cases when land may be ploughed for beans during harvest, or immediately after it, when ploughing for wheat cannot be carried on properly. It is then that the sowing of winter beans instead of spring beans should take place with everything in its favour. Common winter beans are said to be of both Russian and French origin. Whatever the origin or original distinctions may have been, there is no particular difference known now amongst farmers. Winter beans are very small, of a darker brown colour than spring beans, with a very black eye. They usually weigh, when well harvested, from 63 lbs. to QQ lbs. per bushel, and about 6 grains each. Common horse-beans, sown in spring, usually weigh from 0)2 lbs. to 64 lbs. per bushel, and about 14 grains each. There are many varieties of tick-beans, or at least many tick-beans sown of different names, which are much alike in appearance and habits of growth and yield. The Harrow tick and French tick are both small seeds, and usually weigh from 63 lbs. to 67 lbs. per bushel. The horse-bean and mazagan are most commonly sown in England, as they yield more straw and corn than the ticks. Ticks are better adapted for comparatively light soils than the common horse-bean, and as they seldom run much to straw are very suitable for allowing a thorough cleaning by the horse and hand hoe throughout the summer. Some sea- sons we have seen tick-beans produce so little straw and leaf as to allow of horse-hoeing nearly up to harvest without injury to the crop. The land was thus kept free of all annuals, and spots of couch were easily destroyed by being repeatedly moved ; yet, although the crop in growing looked small, the yield at harvest has reached 40 bushels an acre, and in one instance, where the straw was only 30 inches high, the yield was 50 bushels an acre. Beans, however, v/hich produce little straw allow more annuals to grow, unless well hoed, than such as produce much straw, which covers all the ground and in a measure smothers the weak under-weeds. There are very few farmers who would acknowledge any sys- tem of growing com which would encourage the growth of weeds rather than destroy them ; but, whether acknowledged or not, it is true that in too many instances a bean crop is anything but a cleansing one, and more generally leaves the land fouler when the crop is reaped than when sown. To obviate this evil the cultivation of beans, whether sown in winter or spring, must be such as to allow of horse cultivation ; and to accomplish this the seed must be drilled or planted in straight lines, with a sufficient width between the rows to admit 40 On the Comjxirative Advantages of of horse-hoeIng and a free course of Iiand-boeing in all directions. When land is of a very adhesive nature, and contains a good deal of couch, the only chance of getting it cleaned in summer is to ridge it up in winter, in rows from 24 to 28 inches apart. The winter's frost will then so loosen it, that in the spring the ridges should be divided, new ones formed, and the beans be either drilled or dibbled on the top. By this system the horse-hoe can be set early to work between the rows without injuring the beans, and may be kept at work late also : and, in addition, hand-lioeing and picking off the couch will, if well followed up, entirely clear the land of weeds, and permit of a good crop growing also. The cultivation of beans by such method is the same as for roots grown on ridges ; and without ridges foul land cannot be cleaned at the time that a crop of corn is growing upon it. In ordinary cases, when land is free, or nearly so, from couch,^ the cultivation of beans upon the flat surface is most usual and ansvv'ers very well. The rows should never be less than from IS to 24 inches apart to allow the horse-hoe to work freely between them without smothering the plants. The common horse-hoe used for turnips does well in general, and if the ground get very hard a plough divested of the Turnfurrow and coulter should be used. Tlie left-hand side should go as near the plants as possible, so as not to interfere much with the roots or smother the plants ; and if a turn of the plough is thus given betweerj every two rows, the soil is so loosened and broken up that many weeds are killed in fine weather by this operation, which also allows of ready hand-hoeing afterwards on the surface, and the spreading of the roots when horse cultivation is suspended. Beans can be dibbled in straiglit lines by hand equally true as by the drill, however long the length may be. AVe have had them dibbled by hand in lines nearly 20 chains long without any apparent deviation from a straight line. Beans cannot be properly drilled on newly broken-up grass- land. The coulters become choked and cannot go deep enough to deposit the seed. Neither does the drill woi'k well on land when very stiff or Avhen pieces of dung and bundles of stubble lie aljout the surface. Dibbling is then preferable. The seed should be put in from 2 to 3 inches deep — the deeper the better in general. The quantity of seed used for both winter and spring beans ranges from 3 to 4 bushels per acre. 3 bushels should in general be sufficient, but on poor land in rough condi- tion 4 bushels are not too much. A two-horse drill should get over 8 acres a day. A horse-hoe should get over 3 acres a day if the rows are about 2 feet apart. A man can dibble from one- third to one-half an acre a day. I give 65. per acre for dibbling Sowing Beans in Spring and Autumn. 41 in straight rows from side to side of the field, the rows being 18 inches apart. Many persons still dibble beans at a certain sum per bushel. This I consider to be an evil practice, as both en- couraging laziness, theft, and irregular seeding. When a man gets a bushel of beans to plant in a day, if he have any tendency to bad habits about him, he will either sow the seed too thick, throw some of it into a ditch, or steal some to get rid of it. Planting by the acre, and allowing a stated quantity, appears to be as near a correct system as can be attained when sowing by hand is necessary. Beans have long been chiefly confined to the stifTest description of clay soils, and are now in some cases superseded by root-crops, but we think it will be a very long time before root-crops become general instead of pulse ; and as beans are a substitute for roots, and are regarded as a cleansing crop, it is desirable that it should be so, and that those who cling to drilling and dibbling in narrow crooked rows, and hand-hoeing only, should adopt a more enlightened and economical course. To sum up — we would sow beans in autumn rather than in spring, when the labour of the farm would admit of its being pro- perly done before the end of October. Spring beans should be sown in February, or not later than the middle of March. AH kinds of beans should be put into the ground from 2 to 3 inches deep, and always in straight rou's from 16 to 28 inches apart to admit of horse cultivation. Hoeing should take place early, and as frequently as is required to thoroughly clean the land and encourage the growth of the crop. We feel assured that the frequent stirring of the soil has a great tendency to prevent dis- ease, and is a source of ultinmte gain in every case, when done with ordinary discretion. Burcott Lod(je, February, 1857. IV. — Observations on the Natural Historg and Economg of vari- ous Insects, Snails, Slugs, ^c, affecting the Clover-crops and Pasture-lands. By John Curtis, F.L.S., &c. Paper XVI. Having in my former Reports detailed the history and economy of the various insects injurious to turnips, corn-crops, mangel- wurzel, peas, beans, carrots, potatoes, &c., as well as those destroying corn in granaries, it now only remains for me to make known to the agriculturist the legions of insects which ravage his clover and other similar crops, his artificial grasses, and pasture- lands. 42 Observations on various Insects These crops are the nursei-ies of those myriads of flies, gnats, beetles, &c., which disperse, and, settling in the fields, carry with them blight and destruction. , Thus the daddy-long-legs luxuriates in pastures, and visits the mangel-wurzel ; the Chlorops and Oscinis (little flies) have their head-quarters in the central shoot or flowei-stem of grasses, attacking our autumn-sown corn-crops in the end of winter ; a weevil {Curculio lineatus) is propagated in clover-fields, but renders pea and bean fields unproductive by its migrations ; and the wireworm finds a permanent asylum in damp pastures. These are facts well deserving the attention of the farmer ; and as some insects cannot exist without humidity, because their transformations are arrested, and the larva dies, or the pupa is unable to produce the fly ; so other species only multiply in dry seasons and sandy situations. Moreover, as we know that salt, soda, ammonia, gas-tar, soot, and lime, are destructive to insect life, the farmer could not do a greater service to agriculture than by trying experiments with these substances upon the various pests which may fall under his notice. But unless he records tlie facts, and sends them, however trifling they may appear to be, to some of our journals connected with agriculture, no bene- ficial results can be expected. It is only by the united labours and experience of the many that scientific men can draw conclu- sions on a subject which, like chemistry, has so much concealed from him. A farmer in his field, or a gardener in his garden, may chance to light on a fact in the economy of an insect which the naturalist may have been searching for in vain for years, and it may enable him to comprehend what had hitherto been to him a puzzle or a mystery, and to draw conclusions from it of great practical importance. Clover. The amount of injury which clover crops suffer from the inroads of insects cannot be estimated. The farmer finds his crop thin, the leaves riddled ; and this is the work of a weevil which will pay a visit eventually to his pea and bean fields.* His seeds fail, not yielding a tithe of the full amount. Let him spread a white napkin in the field, and shake and beat the clover-heads, and he will find the destroyer in myriads, probably in the shape of a little black weevil with a long pointed nose. There are also various caterpillars feeding on the foliage which are less destructive, because they are less numerous, from their being kept under, in all probability, by parasitic flies. It will now be * Vido Journal of Roy. Agr. Soc, vol. vii. p. 408, pi. Q. f. 1, 2. affecting the Clover-crops and Pasture-lands. 43 my purpose to describe these insects, detail their economy, and suggest remedies against their invasions. 1. CuRCULio (or Sitona) lineata {Linn.) having been described and figured in a previous report, I need only refer to it to identify this pest ; but as at that time I was not fully aware of its extensive presence in clover-leys, this portion of its history will be useful and instructive. It is a remarkable fact, that, abundant as this insect is, and a species well known to Linnaeus and men of science for more than a century, we are still ignorant of its entire economy. No one knows where the female lays her eggs ; no one knows where the maggots feed, or where they change to pupfB. I imagine the eggs are deposited in the earth, and that, when hatclied, the larv(B feed on the roots of the clover ; but this remains to be proved, and it would be a most valuable discovery, well worthy the attention of those who find it in abundance on their crops. These weevils, which sometimes swarm to an extraordinary amount in clover-fields, completely riddle the leaves, reducing them to skeletons. We need not recapitulate the facts which were communicated by Mr. Trenchard and Mr. C. Parsons, and recorded by us in our report on the pea-crops in the volume just referred to. It may, however, be stated that nothing regarding their transformations has been since discovered, and consequently no remedies can be suggested for their extirpation beyond those already recommended in that report. Whilst the Curculio lineatas confines itself to the destruction of the foliage of the clover, there is a family of minute beetles or weevils, called Apions, which not only devour the leaves, but destroy the seeds also. They are pear-shaped, black or bluish, having a long rostrum or beak, at the extremity of which is placed the mouth. They are very active, running about and falling down on the approach of any one, and they ai'e furnished with ample wings * for flight. The first of these little pests is named 2. Apion Africans, Herhst ; A. flavifemoratum, Kirhy (PI. W., fig. 7 ; 8 magnified) ; or the Pui-ple-clover Weevil. It is shining, bluish-black, pear-shaped, the body being oval and tapering from the thorax, so that the head is elongated into a slender proboscis, which forms, as it might be termed, the stalk of the pear. At the extremity of this beak is placed the minute mouth, which is composed of two horny mandibles or jaws * Mr. Markwick was mistaken in supposing Ajnon flmifemoy-atum had no wiugs ; for they are twice as long as the wing-cases in both sexes. 44 Observations on various Insects (fig. 9) ; they are convex externally, terminating in three teeth, and meeting in front when closed ; below these are placed two maxillcB (fig. 10), broad and flattened, each forming a ciliated lobe in the inside ; just behind this is inserted a very short three- jointed palpus or feeler ; between these maxillcB is placed the horny mentum or chin, from which arises a membranous pubes- cent lip, the palpi or feelers being very indistinct (fig. 11). The head and trunk are punctured ; the former is channelled between the eyes, and the latter has a channel down the hinder part : the body is covered by two wing-cases, on which are sixteen punc- tured furrows, and beneath these are folded and concealed the two ample membranous wings. It has two eyes near the base of the head, and the pair of eleven-jointed horns are placed on each side of the trunk, and near the middle ; they terminate in a little oval club; the first joint is the largest, and is bright ochreous, and sometimes the second and third also : the six legs are of the same bright ochreous colour, the tips of the thighs being black, as well as the shanks (excepting the first pair), and all the feet : the tarsi or feet are composed of four joints, the third being bilobed, the fourth club-shaped and terminated by two minute curved acute claws. The male is rather smaller than Xh.e female, with a shorter and stouter rostrum. These little beetles are probably in greatest abundance when the clover is in flower, at which period the female deposits her eggs. This may be easily ascertained by the numbers which are pairing about that time. My observations on their economy have been principally made In the months of August, September, October, and November. On examining the heads of the purple or lioneysuckle clover at the end of August and the beginning of the following month, when the clover was in flower and many of the heads appeared blighted, I found three or four little fat white maggots, with brown heads, curled up at the base of the calyces (fig. 1). The larva, or maggots, were eating the seed from the outside of the calyx, through a hole which they had first made (fig. 2). They change to p?/^(E in the same situation, and when the beetles hatch the females proceed, after impregna- tion, to a fresh head of flowers, to deposit their eggs. In the middle of the followins: November I aijaln examined the clover- o — ... heads, and found two larva^, like little Melolontliida^, with six dis- tinct pectoral legs (fig. 3 ; 4 magnified). The jmpa is of an ovate form, tender, whitish, with dark eyes, and through the thin skin may be traced the form of the proboscis, which Is bent down on the breast, below which the legs are folded (fig. 5 ; 6 mag- nified). In this state it generally remains about twelve days, or it may be till the following spring. When the beetles are first hatched they are very soft and tender, and I have observed that affecting the Clover-crops and Pasture-lav ds. 45 the wing-cases are then of a grey colour, but they soon assume their proper tint. I doubt not that these weevils are annually produced in great numbers, for they are common everywhere. I may mention, however, that they were particularly abundant in Surrey and Suffolk in 1840 and 1841, and they were in profusion in the clover-fields in Middlesex. Some idea may be formed of the ravages occasioned by this weevil from the following communica- tion made to me in September, 1844, by Mr. Wm. Trenchard of Sherborne : — " I have a field of clover which has been twice mown, and there is now a fine aftermath. The part of the field near the stack has been lately attacked by a small black weevil, which advances in a semicircle, totally destroying every leaf, leaving only the fibre. I should think there are on some of the leaves as many as 100 or 150. Since last night they have eaten nearly as much as wonld have kept a sheep. In September they seemed to have been somewhat weakened by the late heavy rains. They destroy every leaf in their progress." When one sees in a field of clover, which is in flower, patches of discoloured or brownish heads which appear to be withered, it is a certain indication of the presence of these weevils. This destructive weevil is no new pest, for its economy was known to Linnaeus, and was verified by Mr. Markwick as long back as the year 1800 ; and in 1801 the latter communicated his observations to the Linnaean Society.* In Mr. Markwick's case the larvae were in full force in the beginning of August, and changed to pupcB in the middle of the same month ; and at the same time the weevils were hatching. The damage done at this time is accurately shown by figures, for he states that in " 1798 T grew on 9 acres of ground (just double tlic quantity that was saved for seed this year) either 33 or 34^ bushels of clover-seed, of which 28^ bushels were sold for 50s. per bushel, and the rest, amounting to cither 5 or 6 bushels (I am not quite certain which) was kept for my own use ; so that, taking it at the lowest, the statement will stand thus : — Bushels. £. s. d. In 1798 four acres and a half, 1 , ^-.n^ i-i, ^^ f ,)ii-'c ■1 • 1 ir /-.i \ produced IG^, which sold lor .. 41 Ir b being half of the crop .. J -^ ^' This year (1800) the samei quantity of ground pro- J. ,, 73, worth at same price 18 15 duced only J — Deficient .. .. 9i .. .. worth £23 2 6 Thus it appears that the loss on this year's crop is very great, occasioned, most probably, by the depredations of this insect ; and besides, what seed I have is of an inferior quality." In 1843 a valuable pamphlet upon the insects injurious to agriculture was published by M. Guerin Meneville,t in which * Trans. Linn. Soc, vol. vi. p. 142. t Extrait des Memoires de la Socie'te Koyale et Centrale d'Agi-lculture, annee 1842. 46 Observations on various Insects were given some excellent observations upon the economy of this insect by M. Herpin, a translation of which I shall introduce here without further apology : — " The standing crops of the cultivated clover {Tnfolium fraUnse, Linn.) are attacked by a larva of the family of Curculionicte, which establishes itself in the flowers of that plant, and which, after having pierced the calyx and envelope of the young seed, gnaws and destroys the interior substance as fructification progressively advances. On entering a field of clover while it is in full flower, one perceives, without difficulty, a considerable number of heads, of which the brown and withered corollas and the _^blackened calyces show that they have long since done flowering. " On attentively examining some of the full-flowered clover-heads, it will be observed that, among the large quantity of florets composing these heads, many of the florets have already passed the time of flowering ; they are brown and withered. " This premature and partial maturity of the flowers is commonly a characteristic sign of the presence of the larva of the Apionwe are speaking of. " In truth, if we spread open, or carefully pull out, some of these withered flowers, we shall perceive, near the base of tlie calyx, that is, near the point of its junction to the stalk, a small black spot, or little hole, similar to that made by a fine pin ; on slightly compressing the calyx, we shall see come forth from this little hole a white, soft larva, rolled up, 1 or 2 millimetres in length. " When this larva has arrived at its full growth, it forms, outside the hole which it has perforated in the calyx, a globular white projection (at most 1 millimetre in diameter), which might be taken, at first sight, for a grain of powder or plaster. " This larva afterwards changes to a nymph or chiysalis ; it remains in this form for about 12 days. Towards the end of that period, one sees that the nymph, which was originally of an ivory-white, is sprinkled with blackish points ; the form of the rostrum, the eyes, and the legs of the insect are very distinctly indicated under the envelope which covers them ; the rostrum occasionally makes slight movements. " From this nynvph comes forth the little Apion apricans, which has long been knoAvn to naturalists, who find it upon walls and in fields. " My clover was mown in full flower, then dried, although with some trouble on account of the bad weather, and came again into leaf as usual. What could become of the numerous larva^ housed with the clover? They were probably suffocated by the heat, or stifled by the escape of carbonic gas produced by fermentation and the stacking of the plant. " Ten or twelve days had scarcely elapsed after the housing of the clover in the granary, when I perceived a great quantity of apions moving in all directions upon the walls of the building, and making their way towards the outside. The escape of these apions went on for eight or ten days. " Although the quantity of these little insects which escaped from the granaries was innumerable (for the walls were covered with them), I could not find a single one at some distance in the country, or even in the nearest plots of clover." However, as these insects, as well as their congeners, shun the daylight and conceal themselves, they might easily escape my investigations through their extreme minuteness and deep green colour. " But it was a matter of the greatest interest to know whether the second crop of clover which sprung up would be also infested by the apion. I searched with a great deal of attention, and I eventually perceived that the ripest heads were in their turn attacked by the same insect, and that finally the second crop was not less injured than the first had been. affecting the Clover-crofs and Pasture-lands. 47 " This second crop was mowed, made, dried, and housed in the granary, as was the custom, and after twelve days the little weevils hegan to hatch and to issue from the granary ; soon after I perceived a very great number descend along the walls and make for the outside, as in the case of the first crop. " Thus then we must conclude, from the facts I have just reported, 1st, That in the space of about 5 to 7 weeks, which is necessary for the growth of the second crop of clover, the pupa of the apion has had time to form itself ; 2nd, That the perfect insect has been able to copulate, to transport itself into the fields and deposit its eggs upon the plant ; 3rd, That these have been able to develop themselves, and that the larvaj which have proceeded from them have had the requisite time for reaching their full growth, and finally to destroy and devour the seed produced by the second flowering of the clover. " I obtained only two crops, but it is probable that the third, if there had been one, would not have fared better than the first two. I ought to observe, that my clover had been chalked (^platre) in the spring, and that it was in its second year — that is, it had been sown the preceding year ; and that it had not yet been cut. " I reckon my loss in the seed-crop in 1841, by the clover-weevil, at I'gth. The agriculturists also complained, later, that the yield of seed was far from abundant." There is a species so closely allied to A. api'icans, that it is believed to be merely a variety. Its habits are the same, and it infests the purple clover ; but it seems to be strongly attached to Trifolium ockroleucum (the sulphur-trefoil). This little weevil is named 3. Apion Assbiile {Kirhy). It is rather smaller than A. apricans, and is further dis- tinguished by the base of the horns and the fore-shanks being of a duller colour. This weevil is very abundant from the early spring to late in autumn. In April and succeeding months I have found it in abundance in clover-fields, pastures, meadows, and hedge-rows, and in June on the sulphur-trefoil. The Dutch or white clover (^Trifolium repens) suffers from the depredations of another allied species of weevil, whose economy has been well ascertained by M, Guerin. This apion is named 4. A. FlaVIPES, Fah. : the Yellow-legged or Dutch-clover Weevil. It also is similar to the preceding species, but it is still more slender in form, with entirely bright ochreous legs, ex- cepting the tips of the shanks and all the feet, Avhich are intensely black ; the two basal joints of the horns are also bright ochreous, and the trunk is not so coarsely punctured as in A. apricans. The maggots of this beetle also feed upon the seeds of the Dutch clover. This species is no doubt abundant all the summer, and I have found it in profusion in May on the Dutch clover. Providentially these weevils are kept in check by various 48 Observations on various Insects liymcnopterous insects. It appears that M. Gueiln bred, either from the larvae or pupae of A. apricans, the minute fly called by Haliday Calyptus, the Euhazus macrocephalus of Nees. It is full one line long, of a black shining colour, with transparent wings, a little iridescent, and the base of the shanks is yellow : the female is armed with an oviduct longer than the body, which it can plunge to the bottom of the calyx of the clover, and by means of which it deposits an e^^ in the body of the larvae of theapions. This parasite does not seem to be exempt from persecution, for M. Guerin found with the eubazus a beautifully-coloured fly, called by Walker Pteromalus pioiie, which is suspected to be parasitic on the eiihaziis. It would be productive of incalculable benefit if some means could be adopted for the destruction of the apions, as these crops are of such vast importance to the grazier, both cows and sheep feeding on all the trefoils, and clover being such a substantial and excellent food for horses. We will conclude this important subject with some sensible remarks from M. Herpin's Memoir relative to the destruction of these weevils : — " Altbougli it be not always in our power to arrest the multiplication of hiu-tful insects, to destroy them, or to comhat them with success, the know- ledge of the alterations which they produce upon vegetation is nevertheless very important, since it teaches us to learn the true cause of an evil which may be attributed, but very incorrectly, to vague and inappreciable circum- stances, to deleterious conditions of the atmosphere, to divers inexplicable occurrences in vegetation ; it shows us the enemy that we must attack, and of which we must carefully study the habits, economy, and metamorphoses, in order to arrive with more certainty at the means of attaining such knowledge. Kature, as I have before said, undertakes the check of the excessive multipli- cation of hurtful insects — in the case of the clover-weevil, by exposing it to the attacks of the brood of the Ichneumon hraconide, which destroys it. To these natural means, which do not always ensure us against serious losses, I will add the following, wdiich, it appears to me, might be very usefully employed : — 1st. Cut early, and feed off while green, the clover crojis which are known, or su])posed to be, much infested by the apion. 2nd. Carefully avoid allowing the clover crops to remain more than two years in succession on the same ground. 3rd. Avoid also allowing the clover which is much infested by the weevil to ripen and run to seed. 4th. Alternate and vary the culture, as previously pointed out. 5th, and lastly. AVe can produce the drying of the clover by the German method, viz. fermentation, by making brown hay {foin hrun'). The alcoholic vapours, the deleterious gases which arc formed during the fermentation of clover stacked when green, the high temperature produced in the stack (+60 deg. Cent.,* according to my experiments), suffice to destroy the thousands of larva? of the apion, which cannot endure so great a heat," f * 149° Fahrenheit. f Herpin's Memoir, p. 27. affecting the Clover-crops and Pasture-lands. 49 I must not omit to state that it has been recorded that Altica nemorum (the turnip beetle or fly) not only inhabits clover-fields, but feeds upon the leaves. We will now take a view of the moths which resort to clover- fields in order to deposit their eggs, so that the caterpillars may be nourished on the leaves when the eggs hatch. These insects belong to the order LepidopteeA, and there is also a beautiful butterfly, which is not abundant every year, but is occasionally not very rare about clover-fields, over which it flies, and deposits its eargs on a trefoil named Antliyllis vulnera- ria (the Kidney-vetch). As this plant does not form an important crop with the English agriculturist, I shall merely observe that the insect alluded to is named 5. PapiliO ( Colias) Hyale, Linn. : the pale-clouded Yellow Butterfly. As figures and descriptions of this handsome butterfly are given in the 'British Entomology'* and other works, it is un- necessary to describe it here. It flies in August and September. There is a large hairy caterpillar which lives on the clover, and produces a fine moth belonging to the FAMILY BOMBYCID/E, and to the GENUS LasioCAMPA ; it is named 6. BoMBYX {Lasiocampa) Tpjfolii, Liiin. : the Grass or Clover Eggar Moth. Head short ; eyes small ; horns inserted towards the hind part of the heat], forming nearly a straight bristle : in the males they are like two beautiful feathers, with a double row of rays ; in the females the bristles are merely serrated. It has no tongue or pro- boscis, as moths generally have, but in front of the head are two small, short, hairy lobes, being the palpi, or feelers, which, when denuded of the hair, appear to be triarticulate. The males are always smaller than the females ; the trunk is large, not crested. The body of the male is attenuated and cleft at the apex ; in the female it is stout and somewhat oval, being generally filled with eggs. The wings are rounded and entire, and when closed are deflected, forming a ridge down the back. This moth varies greatly in colour, from a rusty grey to a brown tint, and the females are always paler ; the superior wings are darkest at the base, with a waved flesh-coloured line towards the hinder margin, and near the centre is a white or cream-coloured spot : the under wings are of a uniform colour ; legs hairy, stout ; the feet composed of five joints, terminated by distinct claws and * Fol. and plate 242. VOL. XVIII. E 50 Observations on various Insects little cushions : expanse of tlie wings in the male nearly two inches and a half; the female is larger.* These moths must be sometimes very abundant. They are found distributed over a great portion of the south and west of England. They make their appearance in July and August, and even as late as September. The males are very active, flying rapidly about during the day, being incessantly in search of the sluggish females, which rest concealed amongst the herbage until they are imj)regnated by the males, Avhen they relieve their dilated bodies of the large mass of eggs with which they are com- pletely filled ; and having thus provided for a future generation, the female parent dies. The eggs are laid singly ; they are somewhat globose, smooth, yellowisli-grey, mottled with grey. The caterpillars which hatch from them are little black hairy creatures, which change their colour as they cast their skins, and eventually become large, hairy, handsome caterpillars, full three inches long, and as thick as a stout swan's-quill. They have six pectoral, eight abdominal, and two anal feet : they are of a pale smoky or ochre colour ; the incisures of the segments spotted with blue. The large eyes appear to cover the head, and the collar is yellowish-red : the spiracles are reddish. When they are full fed they either spin a loose silken web among the dead leaves or bits of grass and herbage on the surface, or they descend into the earth from one to six inches deep, and there change to pupa?, enclosed in hard, oval cocoons, of a brown- ish-ochre colour, remaining secure all tlie winter and spring. The following summer the moth is perfected ; it bursts through its shroud, and comes forth to dry and expand its wings — the males making their appearance some days before the other sex, so that they are strong and vigorous before they find their partners. Mr. J. J. Reading, however, informs me that the eggs hatch in March, that the caterpillars feed till the beginning of July, in which month they change to pupae, and that the moths are produced the latter end of August. These discrepancies in the periods of appearance may be reconciled by the lact that the insects remain sometimes in the pupa state for two years. If the caterpillars of L. trifolii were confined to clover-fields, their ravages would be a very considerable evil, as they are some- times found in great quantities on limited spots ; but few larvae subsist on such a large variety of food. It has been ascertained that they will feed and thrive upon various grasses, as well as upon the white and red clover, bird's- foot trefoil, the plantaii?, bramble, the broom, young furze-shoots, and the heath ( Calluna vulgaris). * Sepp's Nedcrl. Insect, vol. ii. p. 51, pi. 13 and 14. affecting the Clover-crops and Pasture-lands. 51 It is recorded by Mr. Readins^ that they will also feed on oak, beech, ash, poplar, willow, whitethorn, and blackthorn. A closely-allied moth, named by Borkhausen 7. BOMBYX {Lasiocampa) Medicagixis (the Medick Eggar Moth), is in all probability a variety of the foregoing species, the differ- ence of the food affecting the tint and markings of the wings. The male is dull chesnut-colour ; abdomen brighter; antennae dull ochreous ; eyes ash-coloured ; superior wings sparingly speckled with ochreous hairs ; an abbreviated and sinuated fascia near the base, and another beyond the middle, slightly toothed on the inside, dull ochreous ; a cream-coloured spot near the disk approaching the costal margin ; inferior wings rather paler, darkest towards the body, with a curved, pale, rather obscure line across the middle. The characters that distinguish L. medicarjinis from L. tri- folii are the abbreviated fascia next the base of the superior, and the obscure one across the inf^nuor, wings ; the breadth of that which is parallel to the posterior margin of the upper wings is also greater.* The caterpillars of this variety were found in the New Forest in June ; they continued to feed on heath, grass, and medick until the beginning of July, when they were full grown and changed to pupa?, from whence they emerged the beginning of the following August. The eggar moths, like most other Lepidoptera, are attended by parasites, one being a minute fly belonging to the ORDER Hymen- OPTERA and the GENUS TelexomUS ; but 1 am unable to give the specific name. It is known to puncture the eggs of the oak eggar moth (L. querciis), in each of which the female lays an egg; when this hatches the little maggot there finds sufficient nourishment to bring it to maturity. A large and handsome species of the FAMILY ICHiSrEUMONID^ and the GENUS Peltastes — 8. P. Dentatus (Fab.) — is specially attached to L. trifolii.\ It is black, deeply and thickly punctured ; the horns are long, stout, straight, tapering to both extremities, and are ochreous beneath ; nose yellow ; thorax with 8 yellow spots before the insertion of the wings, and 2 at the base of the scutellum, which is margined with yellow behind ; abdomen elongated, somewhat depressed, and scarcely narrowed at the base, with 4 * Vide Cart. British Entomology, fol. and plate 181,where figures of this moth and caterpillar are given. t See Curt. Brit. Ent., fol. and pi. 4, for figures and description. E 2 52 Observations on various Insects yellow spots on the first and second segments, the remainder margined with yellow. Wings obscure-ferruginous ; stigma and nervures brighter. Legs yellow — 1st pair the palest ; the hinder thighs striped, black inside ; length 8 lines ; expanse of wings 11 lines. This ichneumon is seen flying in the sunshine in June, in fir groves ; it has been taken on the mountains of West- moreland, and has been bred from the pixpa o{ L. trifolii. There are two very pretty moths which may be seen flying over clover-fields during the day and sporting in the sunshine, like some of the smaller butterflies called " skippers." It may be supposed that they lay their eggs upon some part of the plant, as the cater- pillars which are produced from them feed upon the leaves. These moths belong to the FAMILY NoCTUID.E and the GENUS EUCLIDIA ; one is named 9. E. GlyphICA (Linn.) : the Burnet Moth. Head small, eyes somewhat globose ; the horns, which are in- serted on the crown of the head, are moderately long, and like bristles, but densely ciliated beneath in the males. In front of the face are two recurved scaly palpi or feelers ; between these is concealed a spiral tongue, which, when unrolled, is as long as the horns. The thorax and body hairy ; the latter is short, obtuse, and tufted at the apex in the male, but stout and cone-shaped in the female. Wings slightly deflected, and forming a triangle in repose : fore shanks very short, with an internal spine, inter- mediate furnished with several acute spines on the inside, and terminated by a very long and a shorter spur ; hinder shanks not much longer, but stouter and hairy outside, with a very long and a short spur at the apex and a similar ])alr a little above them ; the feet are longer than the shanks, especially the front pair ; they are spiny, and composed of 5 joints, and are terminated by minute claws and cushions. The colour of the head and thorax in this species is orange-brown, the body black, with scattered ochreous hairs ; the tail more ochreous ; upper wings rosy-brown, with a dark brown patch at the base, a broad rich brown fascia across the middle, the ground-colour forming a band down the middle ; sometimes there is an oval spot on the disc of the same colour, and towards the tip a triangular brown spot : underwings of an orange colour, the base and fringe black, as well as a border more or less rayed internally, and 2 waved lines from the anal angle across the disc : underside bright orange, with a black spot on the centre of each wing, and several of the lines and spots on the upper side slightly apparent. Expanse of wings 1 inch to 1 inch and 2 lines. The caterpillars are termed Semi-loopers, from their peculiar action in walking. They are cylindrical, destitute of hairs, with affecting the Clover-crops and Pasture-lands. 53 6 pectoral, 4 abdominal, and 2 anal feet. They are of a buff colour, and striped, with the head and belly brown. They feed on the purple clover, and also on a Verbascum (mullein), and conceal themselves generally between the lower leaves of the clover. They undergo their transformations in that situation in an elongated white cocoon. The chrysalis is brown, powdered with blue ; the apex is spined. They remain in this state until the beginning of June, when the moths hatch : they are particularly attached to chalky districts. The otlier species alluded to is 10. EUCLIDIA Ml {Linn.) : the Shipton Moth. It is griseous ; upper wings with a broad blackish band, mar- gined with ochre, bi-lobed towards the interior margin, with a round black dot towards the costa, and a large lunate one, edged externally with ochre, beyond it : an ochreous stripe and a I'ow of conical black spots towards the posterior margin ; under wings black, with a large bright ochreous spot near the base, and two waved bands divided by black veins, often forming spots : fringe ochreous, spotted with black ; margins of abdominal segments pale ; under-side orange, with black spots and angulated lines : expanse of wings rather more than 1 inch. The caterpillars feed on clover, lucern, yellow medick {3Iedica(/o fa/oa^a), and grasses, and arrive at maturity the end of August. They are similar to those of I^. glyphica, but are of a whitish lilac-colour, sometimes inclining to ochre, and striped. They have 12 legs, and form a loop in walking. Tliey must be tolerably abundant, as the moths are very common and widely spread over England, Wales, and Scotland : they are found in May and June. It appears that clover crops are not exempt from the inroads of the curious little worms called Vibrio ; for it is stated in the 'Gardener's Chronicle' of the 20th of March, 1852, by Mr. Murcott, of Leamington, that he had discovered in the interior of red clover-seed some worms which he believed to be a Vibrio. Takes. Tares are Infested by multitudes of insects, the larva^ of beetles, moths, and flies : amongst the latter is one which reduces the seed crop to a great extent. In July the flower-heads are often dis- tinctly distorted ; and on opening them numbers of maggots are found concealed in and amongst the calyces or cups of the flowers, where they eat into the base and entirely consume the incipient pod. These little larvce are one line long, of an orange colour, tapering to the head, and blunt at the tail. In all probability they are the offspring of some species of Cecidomyia allied to the wheat-midere. 54 Observations on various Insects Vetches are also seriously injured by the maggots of a little weevil — 11. Apion Pomona, Fah. ; A. coerulescens, Kirhy. (Fig. 16 ; 17 the same, flying and magnified.) This weevil is larger than the clover Apions which have just been described ; the female is of a black colour, entirely clothed with very short hoary hairs ; head punctured ; rough between the eyes ; proboscis short, thick, hairy, punctured, apex attenuated and curved downward, dilated at the middle beneath (fig. 19); horns moderately long (fig. 20), inserted in cavities at each side of the proboscis towards the base ; eyes prominent ; the trunk black with a bluish tint, broadest behind, with a channel before the scutel, punctured, and with hairs ; wing-cases covering the body, oval, narrowest at the base, bluish, with longitudinal punc- tured furrows, the spaces between them flat. A pair of ample, nearly transparent wings, are fokled beneath the wing-cases in repose. The 6 legs are moderately long, the feet 4-jointed, the third bilobed, the fourth with 2 small claws (fig. 21). The male is similar to the female, but the proboscis is smooth, shining, and more attenuated ; forehead between the eyes with two impres- sions (fig. 18) ; the horns Avith the first joint reddish at the base. It varies in length from If to 2^ lines. They fly well, even when the sun does not shine, especially the males. As early as May these weevils are found on the whitethorn, and are abundant until the autumn on heaths, fir- trees, and oaks ; they also inhabit hedges, and must frequently abound in cultivated fields, as I have ascertained that the female deposits her eggs in the pods of the bush-vetch ( Vicia sepiuni), and the following are my observations on the economy of this weevil. The end of July, 1847, I found in a field of tares or vetches ( Vicia safiva), left for seed and partly ripe, a great number of the pods which were more or less distorted (fig. 12). On opening them I found the seeds partially eaten, some with only a hole in them (fig. 13), surrounded by abundance of brown and white excrement ; other seeds were hollowed out, and a cell formed in each of them, of an oval form, but irregular ; in these cells was either a fat maggot (fig. 14?* 15 the same magnified) or a pale ochreous pupa, which I at once saw was that of some weevil. On the 16th of August three specimens of Apion pomoncB hatched — one male and two females. When first dis- closed they were of a dirty ochreous tint ; the head and disc of the thorax soon became blackish, as well as the legs ; the thighs * Although I bred this weevil, I cannot be certain that these larva; are not the maggots of some parasite. affecting tlie Clover-crops and I'astu re-lands. 55 having a large, and the shanks a small ochreous spot on each ; and eventually the beetle became black and hard. Experience shows that the bush-vetch ( Vicia sepuirri) is difficult to cultivate on a large scale, the seeds being generally devoured by the larvae of a species of Apion (probably A. punctiger, the A. punctifrons of Kirby), said to resort to this vetch only, which larva? are again the prey of a species of minute ichneumon. Apion subsulcatum also inhabits the same plant. Vicia sepium likewise affords nourishment to a minute cater- pillar, which mines and feeds on the pulp of the leaves. It is the offspring of a beautiful little moth included in the FAMILY TlNElD^E, and forms one of the members of a rather numerous group or GENUS which is recognised by modern authors as LiTHO COLLETIS, and has been described by Zeller as 12. L. Bremiella. "The head is fuscous, face and palpi silvery; antennas fuscous, the tip whitish in certain lights ; anterior wings rather dark saffron, with a short, straight basal streak about a third of the length of the wing, dark, margined on botli sides ; in the middle is an angulated silvery-Avhite fascia, margined with black internally, and with a few black scales on its outer margin ; be- yond are three small silvery-white streaks on the costa (the third sometimes wanting) ; they are internally margined with black. Intermediate between these are two larger triangular silvery-white spots on the inner margin, dark- margined on both sides ; on the apex of the wing lies a rather small oval black spot ; hinder marginal line dark fuscous ; cilia beyond pale grey. Pos- terior wings grey, with paler cilia." Expanse of the wings 3^-4? lines. ''^ The larva mines the leaves of various species of Vicia. Mr, Stainton found them, the end of September, by the side of a wood. The leaves at that time contained full-grown larvae and pupae in some abundance. The moth appeared a few days after. There are evidently two broods in a 3'ear : the caterpillars of one feeding in July, those of the other in September. Some of the latter become moths in October, whilst others remain in the cluysalis state until the following spring. 1 am indebted to Mr. J. VY. Douglas for the following additional observations relative to the singular economy of this little insect : — " I have enclosed a few leaves of Vicia sepium, in which the pupas were, to show the bladder-like effect produced by the feeding of the larva?. The two skins are quite separated. We do not find these larva; on every plant, but, where the}^ do occur, every leaflet on a stem is frequently tenanted. It has been remarked, in Germany, that this species is found on the Vicia only when it grows at the margin of woods, and our experience in this country hitherto agrees with this." Mr. Douglas has also kindly communicated to me notices of the following species of some allied minute moths whose economy * Stainton, Entomologists' Annual, 1856. 5G Observations on various Insects is connected with the trefoils ; but as they are not known to affect the crops, we need only refer to them here. 13. Gelechia Anthyllidella. Hubners TinecE, fig-. 330. The caterpillars feed in April and June on the united leaves of the red and white clovers, Antliyllis vulneraria and Onobryclds sativa : the moths hatch in May and August. Another species is 14. COLEOPHOEA DiscOEDELLA, Zeller. Lhincca Entom., vol. iv. p. 301. In spring and autumn the caterpillars are found in little cases attached to the leaves of Lotus corniculatus, and the moths from them make their appearance in June and July. A third species of these little moths is 15. CoLEOPHORA Deaueatella, Lienirf. Isis von Olten for 184G, p. 295. The moths being always found in clover-fields, it is presumed that the caterpillars feed upon the leaves, but at present tliey are unknown. On the 12th of February, 1841, Professor Henslow sent me some tares ; at the base of the calyx were 2, 3, or 4 little maggots, which had eaten out the germen, but sometimes without touching the base of the pod or the corolla (fig. 22). They were of a pale vellowish-white, with orange, forming an interrupted line down each side of the back, and spreading towards the apex, which was slit; they were granulated or punctured, with a pair of short rigid bristles on each side of the head (fig. 23 ; 24 the same magnified). They were probably the larvae of some Apion, but they all died, owing to the tares being kept too dry. On the 12th of July, 1848, 1 examined about an acre of vetches in a field, three-quarters of which had the flower-heads dis- torted, and could produce very little or no seed. The leaflets in many instances were blotched with brown, and on opening the heads I found numbers of maggots concealed in and between the calyces ; they ate into the base, and were visible only on forcing open the calyces : some of the heads were advancing to flower, and in the withered flowers were one or two of these maggots, which had entirely consumed the incipient pod, VVliether these were the maggots or not of Apion jwmoncc I am unable to say. At the same time there were also many ochreous apterous larvae of some Thrips, and likewise little lead- coloured transparent ones running amongst the heads of flowers, which were the larvae of a Nitidula, or some other little beetle. These were accompanied affecting the Clover-crops and Pasture-lands. 5 7 bj a minute species of Acarus, or mite, which fed upon the Thrijis. Sainfoin. It is the practice in chalky districts to sow sainfoin, which is kept down for some years ; and when the land is again broken up it is sure to yield a plentiful crop of wireworms. It is cus- tomary to burn the surface after paring- it ; but this does not always pi'eserve the succeeding crop of turnips, &c,, from the ravages of the wireworm. Mr. VV. Leyland Woods, of Chilgrove, near Chichester, informs me that part of a field so treated pro- duced a good piece of Swedish turnips, whilst the rest of the field failed. He observed that Avhen the land was pared in March there was no injury to the crop, but the longer the work was delayed in the spring the less was the hope of retaining the plant. Mr. Woods suggested watering the land with gas-tar- water, but whether this proved an effectual remedy I have not learned. Sainfoin is, like most of the other trefoils, the favourite resort of the little weevils to which we have so often alluded in this report. One is named by Mr. Walton 16. Apion Hedysari. The male has been named bv Schbnherr A. livescerum, and the female A. translatitium. It inhabits the sainfoin (^Hedijsarum onobri/chis), and is found in chalky districts in Kent, in abundance, from May to October. Mr. Walton describes this Apion as of a " plumbeous black colour, glossy, sparingly clothed with fine cinereous hairs ; bead subquadrate ; the vertex adjoining the thorax, smooth ; the frons pos- teriorly slightly convex, closely punctured between the eyes, commonly flat, sometimes depressed, longitudinalh^ rugose-punctate, with one or two ini- puuctate strite, more or less distinct; eyes, prominent ; rostrum, moderately stout, nearly as long as the head and thorax together, curved, a little attenuated in front, rather thickly punctulated through.out, black and sliglitly glossy ; antenna3 medial, rather longer than the rostrum, totally black. Thorax very little longer than broad, snib-cylindrical, broader behind than before, the anterior margin elevated, laterally scarcely dilated, convex above, coarsely and thickly punctured posteriorly with a deep dorsal channel more or less abbre- viated in front, plumbeous, black, and shining. Scutellum, triangular, black; elytra, long-obovate ; the shoulders neai-ly rectangular ; the humeral caUus elevated ; convex above, deeplv punctato-sulcate, the interstices flat, transversely rugTilose, sometimes coriaceous, greenish blue, rarely blue or blue-black ; legs, moderately long, black. ]\Iah', i^-ll Iffffz long. " The fe7nale differs in having the head narrower; the rostrum longer, slender, filiform, and shining ; the antenna; inserted behind the middle of the rostrum." * Vide Ann, and Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. xiii. p. 49. 58 Observations on various Insects Nothing is at present known of the transformations of this weevil ; but as it is so abundant in the flower-heads of the sainfoin, and the above accurate description will enable the naturalist to identify the species, I hope that ere long its economy will be ascertained. We may notice that Lotus corniculatus (the common bird's-foot clover) supports Apion loti, which is abundant on that plant in June ; and the flowers of the same plant are sometimes strangely metamorphosed in appearance by a little midge called Ceci- domyia Loti. Apion Ervi and A. Lathyri are found on Lathyrus pratensis (everlasting tare). Apiox ViCliE is plentifully found upon the wood-vetch ( Vicia sylvatica). Latlnjrus Nissolia (crimson grass-vetch) is particularly subject to the depredations of an apion. Another beetle has recently been observed to injure the tares ; and were it to appear annually in such great abundance as it did on one occasion, its ravaofes would prove a great loss to the culti- vator. In July, 1850, Mr. F. Bond exhibited before the Ento- mological Society of London the larvae and beetles of a species, named Chrysomela polyyoni, which had destroyed many acres of tares in Cambridgeshire, It also inhabits the dock, sorrel {Ru- mex acefosa), and knot-grass {Polyyoymm aviciilare), from whence the beetle receives its name of Poljgoni. On these plants it is generally abundant fiYjm the early spring to midsummer. 17. Chrysomela {Phcedon) Polygoni, Linn. It is oblong-ovate and very convex (fig. 25 ; 26 the same mag- nified) ; the mouth comprises an upper lip (fig. 27), two man- dibles or jaws for biting (fig. 28), two maxilla? with two palpi or feelers (fig. 29), and an underlip with two small feelers (fig. 30); the horns are moderately long, black, eleven-jointed, slender at the base, and thickened at the apex into a club (fig. 31) : it is finely punctured ; head small, greenish, or deep blue ; thorax convex, broader than long; the lateral margins not thickened, shining, entirely reddish ; wing-cases rather inore deeply punc- tured than the thorax, violet-blue or green; beneath them is con- cealed an ample pair of wings : breast, middle of the underside of the thorax, and the abdomen, blue ; tip of the latter and the shortish legs reddish. The few; are slender and four-jointed (fig. 32): length l|-2Hines. The lucern in France {Medicayo saliva) suffers severely from a beetle which does not inhabit England. I shall, therefore, only briefly notice its economy. It is the affecting the CIover-croj)s and Pasture-lands. 59 18, COLASPIS ATEA of authors, which eats off the leaves in the perfect as well as in the larva state, leaving only the foot-stalks ; so that, instead of getting four crops, as the farmer ought to do, he rarely gets two. Thus this insect is a worse enemy to the lucern than the Apion apricans is to the clover.* Clover and artificial grasses are said to suffer from the inroads of the ladybirds, which is a very curious fact, the favourite food of the British species being the aphides, as we have shown in an early Report.j 19. CoCCrXELLA IMPUXCTATA is reported by Dr. Hammerschmidt and Mr. Heeger to do mis- chief in its larva state to various sorts of clover, the tare, sainfoin, and lucern (^Medicarjo sativa, Linn), by consuming the cellular tissue of the leaves. The larva is yellowish-white, with small green spots, the upper side clothed with prickles. It changes to a pupa of similar colour, and slightly hairy. The beetle is nearly semi-globose, yellowish-red above, pitchy beneath, a spot on the thorax, and the legs are reddish-brown. It is in dry seasons and poor soils that the clover suffers most from these insects, as the produce is then so small that they are not disturbed by repeated mowing; whereas in moist seasons a more rapid growth is acquired, and, the crop being often cut and carried from the field, the insects cannot pass through their meta- morphoses. This ladybird is common everywhere in Germany annually ; but I do not remember its occurrence in England : at all events it does no mischief here. Plant Lice. The clover crops do not seem to suffer from the attacks of aphides ; but vetches, like peas and beans, are frequently infested by them. 20. Aphis Vici^, ■Fah. ; A. Pisi, Curt. I have found this species in abundance, in May and June, on vetches. At that time the apterous females, as I presume them to have been, were very large and of a bright green colour. In the middle of June I observed families of all sizes of the same species infesting the heads of grey peas : these were also all apterous ; but in the beginning of July the winged specimens made their appearance, and Avere no less plentiful on the broom, Mr. F. Walker, who is so well conversant with the economy of the aphides, has favoured me with the following observations on * Vide Ann. Eut. Soc. de France, 1844, p. 271. t Journ. Koy. Agr, Soc, vol. iii. p. 49. 60 Observations on various Insects the species just alluded to. The variety of names it bears, and the ninltitude of plants which this plant-louse inhabits, will give some faint idea of the time and labour required in the investiga- tion of such subjects. Mr. Walker says — " I believe that the synonyms of Aphis pisi (the green dolphin) stand thus: — ApJiis Ulmarioe, Schrank, 'Fauna Boica ;' Aphis onobrychis, Fons- colombe, 'Ann. Soo. Ent. France,' x. 169-9 ; Aphis 2>isi, Kaltenbach, 'Mon. Pflan.,' i. 23-11, Curt. ; Aphis lathyri, Sir Oswald Mosley, ' Gard. Chron.,' i. 684. It feeds on Spircea Ulmaria, Genista Anglica, Spurtiwrn soojjarium and Cytisus, Colutea ariorescens, Lathyrus odoratus and piratensis, Pisum sativum and arvense, Fhaseolus vulgaris and multiflorus, Vicia sepnum and sativa, and Faha, Ervum, Hedysarum, Onobrychis, Lotus cornicidatus and vliginosus, Trifolium p)ratense and repens and filifornie, Ononis repens and hircina, Geum tirhaiium, Epilohium moida.niim, Capsella bursa -pastor is, Chcerophyllum temulentum and sylvestre, Artemisia absinthium, and Tanacctum vulgare." The viviparous icingless female. — Large, yellowish-green, or green, sometimes rose-colour or purple ; antennae brown or black, nearly as long as the body. Abdomen attenuated at the tip ; tubes about one quarter the length of the body ; legs long ; knees, tarsi, and tips of tibiae, black or brown. The viviparous winged female. — Like the wingless female. Thorax buff colour ; wings vitreous ; tips of the veins very slightly clouded. The winged male. — Black or brown ; antennae longer than the body ; femora and tibiae more or less yellow towards the base. Snake Millipedes. On the 21st May, 1845, I received an interesting communica- tion from Mr. Frederick Kelly, of Northfleet, Kent, relative to his crop of lucern, wliicli was suffering much fiom the presence of large numbers of a snake millipede, which, on examination, 1 found was a species named Jnlus Londinensis.* The plants for- warded to me had the stems deprived of the bark close to and under the surface of the soil, and no doubt had been thus injured by the Julus. The leaves were dead on the branches. As the snake millipedes have been described and figured in this Journal,!' and their liabits and economy thoroughly investigated, I shall only add Mr. Kelly's own account of tlie damage done to his crops of lucern by J. Londinensis. It was at tlie above date " in great numbers round my lucern-plants. All I send were taken this morning from two plants ; these worms [millipedes] get amongst the lower shoots on the surface of the ground, some few burying themselves a little below." Mr. Kelly concluded, from the yellow and faded appearance of the plants, that these animals * Vide Roy. Agr. Soc. Journ., vol. v. p. 228, f Ibid. affecting the Clover-crops and Pasture-lands. 61 were the cause, for at the roots of the green and healthy plants he could find none of the millipedes. There were also a few wire- worms on the ground, which might, he thought, assist in the mischief. In order to destroy the wireworms, Mr. Kelly gave his land the year before a dressing of soda-ash. He further stated that this portion of the land, which was in beans when he wrote, was healthy and free from millipedes". Mr. Kelly then adds : — " I'liinking to destroy these dtirk-brown worms, I dressed a row of iuceru, a week since, with soda-ash, putting a small quantity near each root ; another row with a solution in water of soda-ash ; and I tried a row with flour of sul- phur. The dry soda-ash appears to have driven the greater part of the worms from the surface to a few inches below it ; the solution appears to have nearly sent them away from the plants to which it was applied, but the plants them- selves appear injured by the application, and I therefore fear to go on with it ; • the sulphur has produced no effects on either plants or worms, except that the latter have taken themselves out of immediate contact with it." As the best modes of destroying the snake millipedes have been fully discussed in the Report already alluded to, we need not further comment on that part of their history. SxAiLS and Slugs. As these animals frequently' swarm in our fields and gardens, and unquestionably consume a large amount of the clover crops, we cannot introduce their history on a better occasion than the present. There are several species of snails which are denizens of our fields and hedges. Snails and slugs being hermaphrodites, every individual is capable of producing eggs. 21. Helix Hortensis (called also H. aspersa) — the Garden Snail. The eggs of this species are laid in heaps in the earth, amounting to a considerable number ; I have found at least eighty in one cluster. They are globular, whitish, shining, and not bigger than large shot. In damp situations they soon hatch, when they become at once little, thin, transparent, and nearly colourless shells. They shortly increase to double the size, even when they have had nothing to feed upon ; they then assume a dark ochreous colour, with three imperfect rings, composed of brownish dots and streaks, and a transverse line of tlie same colour next the pale lip or margin, and these spots seem to vary as the animal witlidraws or extends itself, owing to the dark tints shining through the semi- transparent shell. As the snail grows, it has the faculty of en- larging the shell from its own secretions, and when full grown it is as large as a moderately-sized plum ; it is convoluted, obliquely striated, of an ochreous colour, and variegated with pitchy spots, giving it a m.arbled appearance, and forming two or three transverse 62 Observations on various Insects bands : the lip is ochreous, the margin reflexed ; the underside is smooth and white, with a pinkish tint. The inhabitant of the shell at this period, is two or three inches long, when at full stretch : it is scored or wrinkled, like the lengthened meshes of a net, whitish, with the back and head of a pale inky or slate colour; the four horns are retractile, the superior pair being the longest, slightly tapering, Avith a globular knob at the extremity containing a black dot, which is probably the eye, and, if one of these sensitive horns be touched, it is instantly withdrawn and shortened : the two inferior horns are much smaller, and below these is placed the mouth. Drought and cold are inimical to snails ; they, therefore, are only in full activity in damp situations, and after showers in mild weather, when they come out to feed, giving the preference to the night. On the approach of winter they hide themselves and adhere closely to stones, palings, &c., and even to one another, by means of a slimy secretion with which they close the orifice of the shell : thus hermetically sealed, the air is entirely excluded. They there remain secure and dormant, and can thus retain their vitality for incredibly long periods, even for fourteen or fifteen years. i'wo smaller snails, named H. virqata and H. rufcscens^ are in the utmost profusion on the borders of fields of every description, as well as pasture lands in chalky districts. In Kent they may absolutely be collected by bushels. A large and handsome species, H. nemoralis, is exceedingly abundant in hedges, uj)land pastures, and clover-fields. Snails are a favourite food of the thrush and blackbird, as is evident by the number of broken shells one sees along hedgerows and banks where those birds resort, especially in the spring. It is also a singular fact that glowworms {^Lamj)yris jwctihica),'^ and an allied genus named JDrilus Jiavescens, feed upon snails. Slugs. ^ The depredations committed by snails on the crops are insig- nificant compared with the ravages of slugs. There are few seasons of the year when slugs are inactive, for even in mild winters they are concealed in the earth and come out to feed ; but it is in spring and autumn that they do the most mischief. This is so well known by every farmer and gardener, that we need only allude to that part of their history. Slugs lay their eggs in humid spots, and they hatch in three or four weeks. I may mention that in pulling up some grass at the end of September I found numbers of eggs at the roots, with * Curt. Brit. Ent., fol. and pi. C98. affecting the Clover-crops and Pasture-lands, G3 multitudes of slugs and many snails. The slugs were of the milky sort, and I doubt not that some of the eggs, which were of the size of turnip-seeds, were laid by them. With them was also a pair of the large, ochreous rough slug, laying eggs, and on crushing them a string of full-sized eggs were protruded from each slug. The eggs were contained in a tubular vessel, and appeared then opaque-white, owing to the membrane covering them. These large eggs varied in form : they were principally oval, but a few were nearly globular, and souie of them were conical at one end. They were ochreous yellow, and like bags of jelly. A few weeks previously I had found at the roots of another plant a large mass of these eo;ars. The scientific name of slugs is LiMAX. They have four tentacula or feelers, which are very sensitive, and are concealed in repose. At the tips of the longer pair are placed the eyes. They have a fleshy shield covering a horny plate, and are, like snails, hermaphrodite, the aperture on the right side opening into the organs of generation and of respiration. The species vary greatly in colour, and measure from half an inch to five inches in length. The first of the three commonest species is 22. LiiviAx Agrestis (the Milky Slug). It is whitish or ash-coloured, with black tentacula, either im- maculate or with scattered black specks and a yellowish shield. 23. L. Ater (the Black Slug) is furnished with deep wrinkles, and has a rough shield; it is sometimes deep black, pale or white beneath, with a yellowish mouth and a pale greenish ridge down the back. Sometimes it is of a dusky or chesnut colour, with a yellowish streak on each side. L. empiricoriim is merely an adult variety of the former species. 24. L. Maximus (the Black-striped Slug) grows to the length of five inches : it is ash-coloured, sometimes spotted, or with a black shield and the body striped with black ; or with fine whitish streaks, the lower one interrupted ; or with the body edged with white, Limax ater is recorded to have eaten sea-sand, paper, and meat.* L. rufiis and agrestis are very partial to firm and crisp fungi and damp boleti ; but of all the vegetables which slugs feed * Ann. Nat. Hist, for 1839, vol. ii. p. 310. 64 Observations on various Insects upon there are few, probably, more acceptable to them than clover and vetches. Abundance of remedies for destroying slugs will be found in the ' Gardeners' Chronicle ' and various works on horticulture; and it is not so difficult to decoy and destroy them in gai'dens ; but in turnip and pea fields, young corn-crops, clover-layers, Sec, their destruction is almost impracticable. I expect that ducks turned into our fields are by far the most effectual remedy ; but no doubt, if cabbage-leaves or slices of turnips be scattered along the furrows, enormous quantities might thus be collected and given to the pigs. Wood-ashes, or charcoal-dust, are perhaps more effi- cacious than soot or lime. Salt sprinkled over the land is certain destruction to the slugs when they come forth at night, or after a shower, to feed : it should be scattered at the rate of four or five bushels per acre before the crop is sown. Lime-water is well known to kill slugs. The watering should be repeated as soon as possible, for slugs have the power of throwing off their slimy coating and crawling away ; but a second sprinkling soon causes their death, as they are unable so speedily to secrete a fresh covering of slime. Nitrate of soda dissolved in water is another excellent remedy. In alluding to these remedies I would observe that, as far as clover crops are concerned, their application seems to be imprac- ticable ; and I think it doubtful whether the presence of slugs in clover-fields be of any real consequence, except as regards the crop which is to follow. Grass and Pasture Lands. Although there is no portion of the globe which may not sustain insect life, whether hot or cold, wet or dry, high or low, barren or cultivated, yet, no doubt, woods, forests, and grass- land, have been from the earliest ages the homes and habitations of the insect race. Grass especially is the natural covering of the soil, which has been increasing in depth and bulk from the creation, not only from the natural and annual decay of vegetable matter, but from the manure produced by herbaceous animals and the labours of the insect race. These again attract certain birds which feed upon them, as well as upon seeds, and supply, no doubt, an enormous amount of guano. Insects have therefore revelled unmolested in their native haunts from the creation, through the pastoral ages to the present period, and such localities will ever be the head-quarters of this pigmy but formidable race, which, were it not for the natural checks provided by Providence, v^ould overrun the earth and eventually annihilate all vegetation. It is accordingly to be expected that grass-lands would swarm with insect life, both above and below the surface ; and being affecting the Clover-cro-ps and Pasture-lands. 65 thus the nurseries for the deposition of the eggs and the nourish- ment of the larvae, it is naturally to be expected that a crop im- mediately succeeding fresh broken-up pasture-land would fall a sacrifice to the inroads of insects, unless special care be taken to eradicate the enemy by paring and burning before the corn or other crops be sown. It also becomes more difficult to obtain good yielding crops in a mixed tenure of corn and grass-land, or in the neighbourhood of marshes, pastures, and grass-lands, as the insects bred there migrate to the adjoining arable lands, and often find food more agreeable to them than that which they have deserted, so that the click-beetles, moths, and crane-flies depositing their eggs, the farmer soon finds his land infested by wireworms, surface- grubs, and leather-jackets, to which his turnips, beet, and corn fall a sacrifice. To make the farmer acquainted with the hosts of insects which find a home in pasture-land would occupy volumes ; it will, however, answer every purpose connected with the object of these reports, if we lay before him the most important species which feed on the seeds, flowers, and foliage, those which live upon or in the stems, and others which consume the roots. The tribe of insects which we shall first notice is the family of Ajj/iides, or plant-lice. It is a confirmation of my views on this subject to find that the plant-lice which infest the wheat are generated on the panicles of grasses, as I learn from Mr. F. Walker, who has kindly communicated the following observa- tions, and descriptions of two species. 25. Aphis Avex^, Fair. A, Granaria, Kirhij. A. Hordei, Kyher. A. Cerealis, Kaltenhach. Feeds on Secale cereale, Triticum astivum, Avena sativa, Dan- thonia strigosa, Hordeum vulgare, II. murinum, Bromus mollis, B. secalinus, Dactylis (jlomerata, Holcns lanafus, Glyceriajluitans, Poa annua, and other grasses, and Pohjgonuni j)ersicaria. Wingless female. — Colour red, green, brown, or yellow. Front convex in the middle, and with a distinct lobe on each side. Antenna? black, nearly as long or longer than the body. Ab- dominal tubes black, nearly one-fourth of the length of the body. Knees, tarsi, and tips of the tibia^, black. Winged female. — Brown, rarely green. Abdomen with a rov/ of black dots on each side ; tip yellow ; stigma brown ; wings vitreous ; veins pale yellow. 2G. Aphis dirhoda, Walk. Annals Nat. Hist. Feeds on Rosa centifolia, R. canina, and R. eglantina, and migrates in the summer to different species of corn and grasses, VOL. XV III. F 66 Observations on various Insects Secalc, TiHticiim, Avena, Ilordeunt, Bronnis, Dachjlis, Holcus, and Poa. It feeds on the leaves of these plants, whereas Aphis avencE prefers the flowers. Wingless female. — Oval, pale greenish-yellow. Front pro- minent between the eyes ; antennae with l)rown tips, about one- fourth of the length of the body ; abdomen brown at the tips ; tubes with brown tips, about one-sixth of the length of the body ; tarsi pale brown. Winged female. — Pale green, or yellowish-green ; antennae brown or black, much shorter than the body, as long as the body, or longer than the body; thorax buff; lobes pale brown; abdominal tubes sometimes with black tips, one-sixth, or nearly one-fourth, of the length of ti)e body ; tarsi and tips of the femora and of the tibial brown or black ; wings vitreous ; stigma and veins brown ; costa pale green, or pale yellow. Oviparous loingless female. — Straw-colour, buff, orange, or rose-colour. Winged male. — Buff or pale orange ; head and disk of the thorax brown or black ; antennas black, much longer than the body ; alxlomen Avith a black line along the back, and a row of black dots on each side. In 184] Mr. J. G. Lowder made some remarks upon the failure of the seed of Festuca loliacea, which he attributed to the presence of plant-lice. In a letter addressed to this Society he says : — "This failure, I am much inclined to think, will be found to be occasioned by the ravages of an insect of the Aphis tribe ; for on 10 out of the 11 seed- .stallvs \vliicli I first collected I observed the heads of many such insects closely imbedded between the valves of the flowers, obviously in the act of feeding, and most probably extracting the saccharine matter. The germ, thus injured, must necessarily be barren and unproductive." Having had no opportunity of examining the species alluded to by Mr. Lowder, I am unable to give their name, but I con- clude they are some of the aphides described by Mr. Walker. It is recorded that the slender fox-tail grass, spear-grass, or black-bent (^Alopecurus agrestis), which is so troublesome a weed amongst wheat, has a large portion of the seeds annually destroyed by a minute orange-coloured maggot, no doubt the offspring of a Cecidomgia, and probably the " wheat-midge." Indeed one can scarcely examine a flower-spike of any grass Avithout finding an abundance of these minute orange maggots ; but as the species of midge has not been yet ascertained, I shall simply refer to their history and economy in a former report,* where the wheat- midge, Cecidomgia tritici, is described and figured. Meadow fox-tail grass {Alopccurus pratensis^ is subject to the * Roy. Agr, Jour., vol. vi. p. 139, pi. M. affecting the Clover-crops and Padure-land&. 67 depreciations of the larvae of a species of Musca, which devours the seed so much that in many spikes scarcely one will be found perfect, I wish I could give the name of this fly, but at pre- sent its transformations seem to be unknown. Mr. H. Gibbs informed this Society that all the species of Af/rostis likewise were subject to the depredations of a little orange-coloured larva to such an extent that in most cases not more than one seed in a dozen ever vegetated on sowing. These larvae are the prey of Cimex campestris (a little plant-bug), whose rostrum seems pecu- liarly formed for searching the husks of the grasses.* The GENERA Chlorops and Oscinis are next deserving our notice. There can be no doubt that these flies are generated to a wonderful amount in the stems of grasses, yet the economy of the various species so generated has, 1 believe, as yet escaped the notice both of agriculturists and naturalists. In all probability the grasses most affected by these flies are species of Avena and Lolium, which bear the greatest afhnity to the oat and wheat ; but this is merely my own conjecture. As the history and economy of certain species of these flies were fully investigated and discussed in a former report, f we need only refer to it for further information : the figures and descrip- tions there given Avill satisfy the inquirer who wishes to become acquainted with the various species. EAliWIGS. Earwigs are so abundant everywhere, and occasionally swarm in such countless myriads, that they not only become trouble- some even in our houses, but are one of the greatest pests wher- ever flowers, fruit, or vegetables are to be found. The grasses, when in flower, are a favourite haunt of these insects ; and although the farmer does not suffer such severe losses from their inroads as the florist and horticulturist, yet, no doubt, they often assist in the destruction of young crops, eating the plants off as soon as they shoot from the earth. Earwigs may not only injure the crops in their early stages of growth, but amongst wheat, grasses, &c., the fructification may be affected by their feeding on the pollen. They compensate, however, in some measure for the mischief which they produce by the destruction of the Aphides and the Thrips. They are most voracious insects, coming out at night from their haunts to feed, and at that time they will attack even bees, especially several wild ones, called Osmia hicornis, Colletes, and Anthophora, which are sometimes almost exterminated by them. They devour the pollen, pupa, * Kirby and Spence, sixth ed. vol. i. p. 146. t Boy. Agr. Jour., vol. v. p. 489, pi. L., figs. 23-26. Ibid., p. 494, pi. I., figs. 31, 34. F 2 (iS Observations on various Insects or the imago indifferently ;* and when confined and hard pressed by hunger, they will attack and destroy each other. They live all the year round, retiring in winter into crevices in the soil, under clods, stones, the loose bark of trees, &c., where they seem to remain in a semi-torpid state. Their economy is in some respects rather remarkable, for the female, after she has laid her cluster of little oval, opaque, yellowish eggs, under a fallen leaf, or in any other sheltered spot, sits and nestles upon them as a hen does on her eggs, and pro- bably also protects and feeds her young. Moreover, the earwig is an active creature as soon as it is hatched, and bears a con- siderable resemblance to its parent, but it is much smaller of course, and different in colour, destitute of wings, and the forceps are straighter and not horny. When they have arrived at what may be termed the pupa state, they present a still greater resem- blance to the mature insects, having rudimentary elytra. They cast their skins from time to time, and immediately after this operation they are of a yellowish-white colour, excepting the black eyes. Having arrived at their perfect and final state, both sexes are then provided with wings, which are most curiously folded upon the back, and nearly concealed beneath the little wing-cases. That these organs are sufficiently ample to sustain them in flight is not to be doubted, and the fact of one of the species, named Forficxda horealis, having been taken in July on the wing, in the heat of the day, is a confirmation of the general opinion. It is, nevertheless, not the less remarkable that, having this power, they should so seldom avail themselves of it. It appears, however, that they take wing on moonlight nights. Earwigs now form a distinct ORDER, termed DermAPTERA, and are included in the FAMILY FORFICULID.E. There are two species abundant in this country ; the first is named 27. FORFICULA AURICULARIA (Linu.). Head ovate ; eyes small, lateral, and oval ; the two horns inserted before the eyes, moderately long, thread-shaped, pu- bescent, and 14-jointed. The mouth is composed of an upper lip, of a transverse oval form ; on either side is a horny mandible or jaw, trigonate, one cleft at the apex, the other concave and forming an angle at the middle. Opposed to the upper lip is the under lip, whicli is elongated, pilose, and dilated. The two palpi or feelers are 3-jointed and rough, Avith short hairs. On each side are placed the maxillze, which are rather elongated, furnished with two slender lobes, the internal one rigid, pointed, and cleft at the apex, the interior margin fringed with spines * Zool. 7, 2372. affectinrj the Clover-crops and Pasture-lands. 69 above and hairs below, external lobe curved, linear, rounded at the apex ; palpi or feelers rather long^, hairy, and 5-jointed ; the thorax or trunk not larger than the head, margined, orbicular- quadrate ; scutellum concealed ; the elytra or wing-cases attached beneath the thorax, and lying parallel on the back, oblong, coriaceous, without nervures ; the two wings are delicate, ample, with numerous radiating nervures, folded several times, one lying under each elytron, with a small portion projecting beyond it ; abdomen broader than the elytra, 9-jointed in the male, with a small elevated knot on each side of the second and third joints, and also at the apex — 7-jointed in the female ; the apex furnished with a pair of moveable forceps, curved and toothed in the male, curved only at the apex in the female. It has 6 legs, hinder pair a little the lonc^est ; thighs thickened ; the feet 3-jointed, the second joint is heart-shaped, and the third terminated by two slender acute claws. The male is 7 lines long ; ochreous, head rufous, disk of thorax pitchy ; abdomen castaneous ; forceps much shorter than the abdomen, and very much curved. Female a little smaller ; forceps nearly straight, attenuated, and finely serrated internally, excejit at the apex, which is curved. The other species has been named 28. F. BoREALis, by Leach, from its having been observed by him in the north of England and Scotland ; but it is abundant everywhere. The male is 8 or 9 lines long, ochreous; horns lurid, excepting the basal joint; head rufous, eyes black ; disk of thorax pitchy ; elytra lurid, the apex of the folded wings internally brown ; abdomen chesnut- coloured, pitchy at the base and apex ; forceps nearly as long as the abdomen, moderately curved, stout, chesnut-coloured, ochre- ous at the base, with a strong tooth on the inside of each towards the base, where there are smaller teeth. The specimens I take to be females have the forceps less curved than in F. auricular i a. ^' It may be well to observe that there is a little earwig called LaMa minor which might be taken by those who are ignorant of the transformations of these insects for a young earwig, but it is totally distinct from those just described ; it seems to be attached to muck-heaps and dunghills, from whence it sometimes emerges in swarms, covering everything around, having two beautiful wings, and delighting to ily in the sunshine. No doubt earwigs have many enemies in the smaller birds and reptiles, but I am not aware of any parasites having been discovered to keep them in check. There are some beetles, Vide Curt. Brit. Ent., fol. and pi. 560. 70 Observations on various Insects however, which prey upon them, and one of the most formidable enemies of the earwig is a long, black Rove-beetle, named 29. Staphylinus {Ocj/pus) OLENS, Fab. The Fetid Rove-beetle, well known in this country as the Devil's Coach-horse. It is of a dead-black colour, thickly punctured all over with the minutest points, and thickly clothed with very short but stiff and fine black hairs, which in the. sun appear iridescent. The head is very broad and depressed, as well as the rest of the body ; the eyes are small and lateral ; the two horns are rather short, a little tapering, pubescent, and 11-jointed, the basal joint being long, and the terminal one somewhat claw-shaped : it has two uncommonly strong and powerful jaws, which can be opened very wide ; they are curved, witli an edge for cutting, and there are two teeth on the inside of each, with a fringed, leathery appendage near the middle ; the upper and under lips and the maxillse form the rest of the mouth, together with the four feelers, which are hairy and jointed, the external having four joints, the others, which are much smaller, being only 3-jointed : the trunk is somewhat orbicular ; the scutel is small ; the elytra when closed arc nearly quadrate, and cover the two wings, which are much shorter than the body, and are folded up in repose ; they are stiff and yellowish, with a few nervures, and are not suffi- ciently ample to enable the animal to fly ; the body is more than half the entire length of the beetle, and tapers towards the apex, being composed of six and seven segments, with a little hairy process on each side of the apex ; the six legs are strong, the anterior coxa? are very stout and powerful ; the thighs and shanks are short ; the latter have spines at the apex, and are bristly all over ; the feet are 5-jointed ; the anterior are short, ovate, dilated, and very velvety or cushioned on the under-side ; the first four joints are heart-shaped, the fifth is slender and clavate, terminated by two claws ; the other feet are linear, the basal joint is the longest: length sometimes li inch. Tiie Fetid Rove-beetles are abundant during the whole of Sep- tember in meadows and wherever grass grows, and they continue so in some seasons to the middle of October, or until frosts set in; at that time we see them in roads and the footpaths in fields and pastures, where they are often trodden upon during the night, at which period they come out from under stones and other hiding-places to ramble about for prey. There can be no doubt that many of these beetles live through the winter, as we find them occasionally in the month of March. It is one of the largest Rove-beetles (as the SfaphylinicUe are called) in Europe, but it seems to be j)rincipally an inhabitant of the more tem- perate parts, and it is very remarkable that it was never found affecting the Clover-crops and Pasture-lands. 7 1 in Sweden by Linnaeus, to whom it seems to have been unknown ; it is said at the present day to be rare in that country, and is only met with in the southern provinces. The larvae of this insect are as ferocious as the parent beetle, feeding entirely upon animal substances, and even devouring each other. They live principally underground, and in turning over the soil they are frequently met with in the spring. As they are then full grown, the eggs are, it may be presumed, laid the previous autumn, and the larvae continue feeding throughout the winter.* When they change to pupse, it is said that they retire under stones, and form an oblique hole in which to undergo their transformation, which takes place in a few days after, and at the end of fifteen or sixteen more the beetle is produced. It is at first yellowish, but attains its black colour in about twenty- four hours. The larvae have a head somewhat like the beetle, but the jaws are not toothed internally ; they are black and shining, as well as the three first or thoracic segments : the remainder of the body is ash-coloured, spotted with darker spots, a line down the back, and the sides ochreous and hairy ; the mouth, horns, and six legs, rust-coloured ; the tail is furnished with a prehensile foot and two slender hairy appendages ; the pupa is entirely ochre-coloured. (We have taken this description of the larva and pupa from M. Blanchard's notice of them in Guerin's ' Mag. de Zool.,' where figures are given in plate 165.) The Fetid Rove-beetle must destroy a great number of earwigs, for, on confining one under a tumbler with some of those insects, the beetle despatched and ate four of them in the space of an hour and a half. It is curious to see the beetles seize the ear- wigs, dividing their bodies, clipping off their heads, eating the contents of the body, and rejecting the horny covering. Of all the insects to which pasture-lands are a permanent resort, there are none more abundant and more injurious to the neighbourhood than those which live underground and feed upon the roots of most of the other plants, as well as of the grasses, which grow in meadows, marshes, and pasture-lands. Amongst these are the caterpillars called " surface-grubs," of which we have spoken at large in a former Report. f Probably a very large number of species of this family are of similar habits. Of Noctiia {Af/rotis) exclamationis, A. segetis, and Triphmna jwonuha, we need here only record the ravages ; but we must notice moi'e particularly the economy of another moth, which sometimes destroys in its larva state a very large portion of pasture-land. Although it is in the mountainous districts of * It is, however, far from improbable that they remain in the larva state for a much longer period, t Vol. iv. p. 108. 72 Observations on various Insects Europe that these caterpillars have so greatly abounded, yet in this country they are far from uncommon. They are also abundant in Scotland and Ireland. The moths appear in July and August ; they belong to the FAMILY NOCTUID^, and have received the name of 30. NOCTUA Graminis : Linn. The Antler Moth. This species has also the generic names of CharcBas, Episema, and Ceraj)teryx* The horns ai'e bipectinate in the male, slightly pubescent in the female. The palpi or feelers in front of the face conceal a slender spiral proboscis, which is as long as the horns. The males are smaller than the females. It is reddish or fuscous brown : wings slightly deflected when at rest : superior wings with pale nervures, the central one ochreous, an oblong spot at the base of the same colour, an oblong conic spot towards the middle, and an oval or ovate one above it duller ; beyond tlie middle is an ear-shaped spot, resting on a trifid character, both ochreous ; these are relieved by a dark-brown or black tint, with a line of spots of the same colour between the nervures near the posterior margin : under wings and body blackish or smoky, sometimes palest at the base, the former with a dark spot in the centre : the tip of the body in the males is ochreous, with a smoky line along the middle in the upper wings : expanse oi wings 1 inch 6-8 lines. The caterpillars are an inch long, with 6 pectoral, 8 abdo- minal, and 2 anal feet, smooth, and of a dull grey-brov^n or blackish colour, with 3 yellow lines down the back and sides, Avhich meet at the apex ; the first and last segments are protected by a horny, smooth scale. They are full-grown about mid- summer, when they often leave their subterranean abodes in search of some eligible spot wherein to change to chrysalides, which they do in slight webs, in moss, under stones, &c. The food of the caterpillars consists of all kinds of tender grass, but, according to Linna?us, they will not touch the Alo]>ecurus pra- tensis nor the TrifoUum pratense. They live on the roots and eat away all shoots. This insect has been particularly observed in Sweden, in Norway, in Northern Germany, and even in Green- land, and does great mischief to grass-plots and meadows. It is also recorded to have done very great injury in the eastern moun- tains of Georgenthal, as well as at Toplitz in Bohemia, where caterpillars were in such large numbers that in four days and a half 200 men found 23 bushels of caterpillars, or 4,500,000, in the (30 bushels of mould which they examined. In Germany it seems to be confined to high and dry districts, and it never * Curt. Brit. Ent., fol. and pi. 451. affecting the Clover- croj'is and Pasture-lands. 73 appears there in wet meadows or marshes, but its devastations are sometimes most extensive, as happened in the territory of the Hartz in 1816 and 1817, when whole hills that in the evening were clad with the finest green, were brown and bare the fol- lowing morning ; and such vast numbers of the caterpillars were there that the ruts of the roads leading to the hills were full of them, and the roads, being covered with them, were even ren- dered slippery and dirty by their being crushed in some places.*' It is suggested by Kollar to dig or plough a deep and broad trench round the affected spot, and then turn in pigs to eat up the caterpillars. Rooks and crows are also very serviceable in rendering their assistance. The continued rains which often fall about midsummer generally keep this enemy in check, as they bring destruction to the caterpillars when they are changing their last skin, as was the case in Germany. I well remember, when Mr. Dale and myself visited Keswick in July, 1827, that the grass on a large portion of one side of Skiddaw appeared dead, and we found multitudes of the caterpillar of the antler moth crawling about. In other parts of England I have observed the moths on heaths, in meadows, on the flowers of the ragwort, and even in marshes, which induced me to believe that they were bred there. To arrest the ravages of these caterpillars the following remedies have been proposed, — the application of " a strong dressing of lime to the land in the spring, or watering the fields and meadows with lime-water in damp weather, or strewing the ground with ashes of coal, peat, or turf, or lye-ashes." Occasionally on the Continent the ravages of the caterpillar of the A(jrotis serjetis (above referred to) are fearful, as will be seen by the following account from the ' Ann, Soc. Ent, de France,' iii. 19 :— " M. Louis Coulou, of Neufchatel in Switzerland, stated that the pasturage of the Jura had been devoured in June (1833) to sucli an extent by the cater- pillars of N. (^Agrotis) ser/etis and the larva of (kderuca tanaceti that they were not able to put the cattle there. The first devours the roots, the second the extremities of the ,iT;rass which had not yet withered in consequence of the ravages of the caterpillars. Peo)jle some way off even heard the noise which these larvai made in eating, and the yellow tints -which spread over the pastures indicated their presence." As this beetle is frequently exceedingly abundant in England, I will add a description of it. It belongs to the FAMILY Chry- SOMELID^, and is named 31. GrALERUCA TAISfACETI, Linn. It is oval, and dull black, deeply and roughly punctui'ed : the horns are not so long as the body, filiform, pubescent, and 11- * Ktillar's Treatise on Insects, London Trans. 105-136. 74 Observations on various Insects jointed : the thorax is broader than long, the sides rounded : the wing-cases are much bioader, oval ; they have about 5 iaintly elevated lines : wings ample : body of the female some- times very large and extending beyond the elytra : the thighs are stout : the shanks thickened towards the apex, which is bristly : the feet are broad and 5-jointed ; the third joint is bilobed, the fourth very minute, the terminal joint clavate, with 2 claws : length from 4 to 6 lines. The larva of this beetle is somewhat lanceolate, composed of about 12 segments, spined and brown, with 6 pectoral feet : pupa ochreous (Rcesel, v. 2, class 3, t. 5). This common species inhabits the north and south of England. It is found in May, June, September, and October, in chalk-pits, and sometimes in profusion on sand-hills near the sea. It occa- sionally frequents the ears of barley, and sometimes the beetles are of a brown colour.* The genus of Gnats comprised under the name of Tipula are in the larva state amongst the most formidable enemies which the farmer and gardener have to contend with. There is not a crop of corn, of turnips, mangel-wurzel, or potatoes, which may not fall a sacrifice to what have been significantly termed, from their toughness, " leather-jackets," and there are but few crops in the kitchen-garden which escape their attacks. AVherever grass will grow, however scanty, these larvae are generated, and of course pasture-lands, meadows, and marshes give birth to myriads of crane-flies, which issue forth from their subterranean abodes as they emerge from their pupa cases, during summer, until late in the autumn when frost sets in, to pair and scatter their eggs over the length and breadth of the land. There are upwards of thirty British species of the genus Tipulo, all of which find a home on grass-lands ; but there are only three whose economv has been sufficiently investigated to enable us to speak positively as to the damage they occasion in fields and gardens: they are — T. oleracea, Linn.; T. jmludosa, Meig; and T. maculosa, Hoff. As these species have been carefully de- scribed and figured in a former Report, we shall not here enter further upon tlieir history. (Roy. Agr. Jour., vol. x. pp. 90 and 91, pi. V. fig. 35-39 ; also p. 92 and pi. V. fig. 40-44.) Another most destructive larva in pasture-lands is that of a pretty beetle called 32. AXISOPLIA HOKTICOLA. This beetle is exceedingly abundant in May and June in corn-fields, hedge-rows (especially when the whitethorn is in flower), and grass-lands. We will now fulfil our promise, made ♦ Curt. Brit. Ent., fol. and p. 371. affecting the Clover-crops and Pasture-lands. 75 in a former Report, of calling attention to the economy of these beetles and the means which have been suggested for the destruc- tion of the larvae (for descriptions and figures vide Roy. Agr. Journ., vol. v. p. 476, pi. K. fig. 13, 14). They are so abundant every year, and so well known in every part of the kingdom, that these beetles have been called by various names, as field-chafers, May-bugs, bracken-clocks, fern-shaw beetles, chovies, &c. The female, having deposited about a hundred eggs in the earth, dies, and the larvae hatch and commence their attacks upon the roots of the grass. Although they are mischievous in gardens, it is in pasture-lands and lawns that they commit the greatest ravages ; by their consuming the roots, the grass dies ; the dead turf becomes rotten, and will sink in patches under the feet, owing to the burrows which the maggots have made in the eartli ; and the rooks and starlings add to the disorder by pulling up the turf to feed upon them. The May-bug maggots were exceed- ingly abundant in the autumns of 1839 and J 840 in Hampshire and Gloucestershire, and again in 1844 in various localities. It is stated that they continue feeding for three years, and they generally reside about an inch beneath the turf; but as winter approaches they retii'e deeper into the earth ; and even in No- vember, when frost has set in, they have been found buried a spade deep. From the large size of most of them at this period, I expect they are generally full-grown and prepared to enter the pupa state, for which purpose they form cells in the earth, and in all probability remain in that quiescent state until the fol- lowing spring, when the beetles emerge about the time the roses flower. They then feed on the anthers and pollen, consuming also the petals and riddling the leaves. The May-flowers are likewise an acceptable repast. When these no longer afford them a supply of food, they resort to corn-fields to feed on Avheat and oats ; still later they have been known to congregate on acacias, and occasionally in such numbers that when the trees have been shaken the beetles have fallen down like a shower of hail. To kill these larvae, water the grass in the autumn with one- tenth of gas-liquor to nine-tenths of water : it will do no mischief to the grass, but will extirpate these miners. When the gas- liquor cannot be obtained, employ strong salt-water. Mild weather should be taken advantage of in the spring for breaking up land thus affected, as at that time the larva? are near the sur- face, and become an acceptable treat to the rooks, starlings, thrushes, blackbirds, robins, &c., and even sparrows have been known to gorge themselves with these larva; so that they were unable to fly. In the absence of such useful birds, pigs will be of service in reducing the brood of maggots. Where the grass 76 Observations on various Insects is only partially spotted, it is very beneficial to strew potash, unslaked lime, or other alkalies, over the infested land before or after the Avinter season, which will restore the grass to vigour, and it is presumed will destroy the grubs. Heavy rolling has also been successfully resorted to with the view of settling the undermined turf. If it be necessary to destroy the beetles, a cloth should be spread under the clustered branches previous to shaking them, and, as the May-bug flies in the day, this opera- tion must be performed early in the morning or in the evening. 33. The Mole-cricket — Gryllotalpa Vulgaris — is sometimes abundant in marshes and damp pasture-lands, in- habiting also the banks of streams, ponds, &c. The liistory of this remarkable insect has been so fully given in a former report,* together with accurate descriptions and various suggested means for destroying it, that it will be unnecessary here to enter further on the subject. Grasshoppers and Locusts. These insects are distributed over every portion of the globe, and feed almost entirely on vegetable substances. Although their depredations in this country are not sensibly felt, it is evident to every one, by the incessant chirping of the grass- hoppers in the autumn, that our fields, heaths, pasture-lands, and meadows must be swarming with them. The female having deposited her clusters of eggs in the earth in August or September, they hatch early in the following spring, and produce minute creatures resembling the parents, except that they are destitute of wings. They at once commence feeding on the herbage, and as they grow tliey cast their skins six times, and gradually become exceedingly like the parents, but instead of wings they are only provided with two little flaps or rudiments of those organs. When they cast the last skin they become per- fect grasshoppers, and then the wings are well developed in those species which ai'e destined for flight. In this country there are about twenty species, Avhich vary greatly in their colour and markings ; they belong to an ORDER called OrthoPTERA, the FAMILY GRYLLIDyl] or LOCUSTID/E, and the GENUS LOCUSTA. Amongst the largest British species is one found in our marshes, named by Gmelin 34. LocusTA, or Gryllus Flavipes; and occasionally the migratory locust {Locusta mirjratoria) visits this country in the autumn in small quantities, which are evidently * Vol. vii. p. 432. affecting the Clover-crops and Pasture-lands. 77 stragglers from some continental swarm. I dare not here venture on so extensive a subject as the history of this extraordinary plague. '^ 1 shall merely add that birds feed upon the eggs of grass- hoppers ; swine will feed upon them ; lizards destroy vast quantities ; and Dr. Harris, of Massachusetts, states that " young turkeys, if allowed to go at large during the summer, derive nearly the whole of their subsistence from these insects," f There is another group of locusts, named Acrida^X which is distinguished from the true locust by its very long, slender horns, and the long exserted ovipositor of the females. There are ten species found in Great Britain, but only three or four of them inhabit our fields and meadows ; and as they are nearly all uncommon, I shall here only allude to 35. ACRIDA VIRIDISSIMA {Linn.), a fine green species frequently met with in our fields and marshes in the month of June. Ants. It is not within our province here to dilate upon the mischief which various species of ants commit in gardens, hot-houses, and even the dwelling-houses in the metropolis ; we must not, how- ever, pass them over unnoticed, as various species inhabit ineadows and pasture-lands, not only disfiguring the surface, but absolutely affecting the value of grass-lands. Alexander says§ — " London claj'' is much better adapted for tillap;e tlian for pasturage, though there are some rich soils in pasture ; but when they have been long without cultivation, there appears to be a favourable abode established for ants. AVe have seen many acres of this soil rendered scarcely worth 5s. per acre, by being covered with tumours and ant-hills ; if these acres were cultivated as arable for five years and then laid to grass again, their value would be increased five- fold at the least." Ants and their history are so well known that we need here only take a cursory view of them. They belong to the ORDER HymenoPTERA and the FAMILY FormiciDtE. Like bees and wasps, each colony is composed of three different kinds of in- dividuals, which are readily distinguished from each other, viz. males, females, and neuters. Both of the first two are winged, but after impregnation the female pulls off her wings and retires into the earth to deposit her eggs, amounting to four or five thousand. The neuters, which never have any wings, form by * Most interesting acconnts of the migratory locust will be found in Kirby and Spence's Introduction to Entomology ; and a figure, descriptions, and an enumera- tion of the species are given in Curtis's Brit. Ent., fol. and pi. 608. t Treatise ou Insects injurious to Vegetation, p. 155. J Curt. Brit. Ent, fol. and pi. 82. § Treatise on Soils, p. 44. 78 Observations on various Insects far the most numerous portion of each colony, being those ants which we see so busily employed in transporting seeds and all sorts of materials into their nests or ant-hills, and which seem to be never at rest. When the eggs hatch the larvae or maggots are fed by these neuters, and, when they are full-grown, each spins an oval, tough, light-coloured case or cocoon, in which it changes to a pupa. These are erroneously termed " ants'-eggs," and in this particular they differ from another genus of ants which we shall notice hereafter.* Eight or nine species of true ants comprised in the GENUS Formica have been found in this country, but the following only are connected with our present subject, viz. — 36. Formica Sanguinea {Latr.). Nests of this species are found on heaths in various parts of the south of England in July and August. 37. F. Flava {Latr.)— the Turf Ant— is abundant on heaths and in meadows, where it forms its conical nest, and is found in the middle of April, the end of June, in July, and the beginning of September. The other GENUS of ants alluded to is named Myrmica, of which there are seven or eight different kinds inhabiting Great Britain, but it is prin- cipally the following species which affect pasture-lands. Like the true ants, there are three different sexes, which undergo similar transformations, but it is singular that the larvae or maggots spin no cocoons, and are consequently naked pupae. 38. M. PtUBRA (Linn.) — the Red Ant — inhabits meadows, heaths, and banks, and is the principal agent in forming hillocks on pasture-lands. 39. M. Perelegans {Ctirt.):\ This species is rarely found on heaths, forming colonies under stones in July. The following appear to me to be the simplest modes of ridding pasture-lands of ant-hills. Mr. Marshall, in his ' Rural Economy of Norfolk,' vol. ii. p. 10, says — " In Norfolk they burn the ant-hills on commons, by which means they get good manure from the ashes, improve the pasturage, and rid themselves of a great nuisance. The plan is to cut up the ant-hills, and diy first the under and then the upper sides ; they are then burned in a heap." * For figures and descriptions of the Horse Ant, Formica riifa, vide Curt. Brit. Ent., fol. and pi. 752. t Ficfc Trans. Linn. Soc, vol. xxi. p. 211, for descriptions and figures of the species by the author. affecting the Clover-crops and Pasture-lands. 79 It has been also recommended, in order " to destroy ant-hills in meadows," to " divide them with a sharp spade into four quarters, pare off the turves, and fold them hack ; then dig out the contents of the ant-hill, throwing and spreading them ahout until a hollow he left, in which the rains will collect and, with the frost, destroy the broods ; afterwards return the turves, which will he nearly flat, and make the surface green and even. This " gelding " is most beneficially done between Michaelmas and Christmas for the above reasons, and the grass will be established before the scorching heat of summer can affect it." — Oard. Chron. The dew or earth worm, LUMBRICUS TERRESTRIS, is well de- serving the farmer's notice, as it is not only universally distri- buted over his land, but is an active agent in pastures and meadows, in irrigating and manuring the soil, principally by its innumerable burrows and the fine earth which it casts out of them. Worms, like snails and slugs, are hermaphrodite, yet they pair and unite at the rings, embracing each other, the heads pro- truding. They so much resemble living muscle that a large fly named Sarcop/iaga carnaria* {Linn.) has been known to lay its eggs on worms, which hatched and turned to maggots, feeding upon the worms as they would have done on the dead flesh of any animal, and changing, when full-grown, to pupa>, from which flies again emerged. Worms lay eggs principally in the spring ; they may be seen coiled up within the pellucid egg ; and when the worms hatch they are about an inch long, but when full-grown they sometimes attain to an extraordinary size, being nearly a foot long, and as thick as a large swan's quill. It is almost needless to observe that worms are usually cylindrical, fleshy, composed of numerous rings, and of a rosy colour, but this varies to whitish or bluish tints in certain soils and localities. The anterior portion is of a livid colour, with a bluish or iridescent gloss, the head being very pointed, and the tail flattened. A solution of salt and water will destroy worms, as will also corrosive sublimate, but one of the easiest and most efficacious modes of extirpating worms is to water the land with lime-water. It is, however, said that, while unslaked stone-lime is efficacious, lime oj" chalk has no effect upon them. These Reports, which I have now brought to a close, will con- vince every one that the cultivator of the soil has multitudes of enemies to contend with — many of them difficult to detect, from * Gard. Chron., vol, vi. p. 275. 80 Ohsei'vations on various Insects their minuteness and obscure economy. To make the farmer acquainted with the habits of these enemies, and enable him to recognise them under their different aspects of egg, caterpillar, pupa, and perfect insect, has been the olijeet of these papers. Tlie utility of this knowledge cannot be denied, and without ample descriptions and good figures it is impossible to identify such minute animals, which often resemble each other in an extiaordinary manner, even where their food is of a totally different nature. The first step towards vanquishing an enemy is to ascertain correctly his habits ; the next, to be so certain ol his appearance as not to mistake one party for another ; and a third and no less important object is to ])e well acquainted with our allies and friends: for want of this it has often happened within my own knowledge, and indeed it is a notorious fact, that the very insects ordained by the Creator to keep noxious species in check have been mistaken for the offenders ; and thus the most serviceable auxiliaries have been persecuted, and even sacrificed to our ignorance of their deserts. I cannot but hope that I have been permitted to lay a founda- tion towards a knowledge of the insects injurious to man, on which a more sound and perfect superstructure may be gradually raised, as materials are collected to increase and correct the mass of information which I have gathered together. As such obser- vations are very tedious and difficult, the materials can be col- lected but slowly : if, however, every new discovery be faithfully and accurately recorded, it is impossible to calculate the happy results Avhich may accrue towards averting the losses sustained from the attacks of insects. But I wish to impress in the strongest manner the absolute necessity of the agricultural observer, however talented he may be, calling in the aid of the scientific entomologist in his investigations, with the view of ascertaining the scientific name of the insect, and thus acquiring the means of referring to all that is known in relation to it ; without this his discoveries Avill be but the " baseless fabric of a vision," and remain without " a local habitation and a name." I will now bid farev/ell to my agricultural friends in the good old English phrase, " May God speed the plough !" I sincerely trust that my labours may tend not only to the instruction and to the benefit, but even to the amusement, of those engaged in the cultivation of the soil ; and that the first step towards a correct knowledge of economic entomology may induce others to take up this important subject. After forty years' service in this labour of love, it is time for me to relinquish my pen and pencil, and release myself from my toil, which 1 cannot do better than in T I) L affecting the Clover-crops and Pasture-lands. 81 the words of the Mantuan bard, who delighted to sing of rural pursuits : — " For, overlaboured with so long a course, 'Tis time to set at ease the smoking horse." * Explanation of Plate W. Fig. 1. Ahead oi Trifolium pratense {])ViX])\Q clover), divided to show five of the calyces eaten out by the maggots of Apion apricavs. The orifices are indicated by bro'mi spots. 2. A calyx detached, showing the hole eaten by the maggot. 3. The larva, or maggot, of Apion apricans, 4. The same magnified. 5. The^»<^)a, or nymph, of ditto. 6. The same magnified. 7. Apiion apricans or flavifemoratum. 8. The same magnified. 9. The mandible or jaw oi Apion frumentarium, Linn. 10. The maxilla and palpus, or feeler, of ditto. 11. The chin, or mentum, and lip, &c., of ditto. 12. Vicia sutiva (the vetch, or tare), infested by Apion Pomona;. I. The larvce, or maggots, in situ. 13. A pod of the vetch opened, exhibiting the perforated seeds. 14. The larva of Apion pomonce (?) 15. The same magnified. 16. Apion pomonoj. y 17. The same flying and magnified. 18. Head of the male. 19. Head of the female. 20. The horn, or antenna. 21. A leg. 22. A calyx of Vicia sepium (?) which contained several larva: of some species of Apion. 23. One of the larvce, removed from the calyx. 24. The same magnified. 25. C]irysom.ela (^FJuedon) polygoni. 26. The same magnified. 27. The labrum, or upper lip. 28. One of the mandibles, or jaws. 29. One of the maxilla;, with the palpus, or feeler. 30. The labium, or under lip, with the two palpi, or feelers. 31. The antenna, or horn. 32. One of the legs. Ohs. — All the figures are drawn from nature. [The copyright of this paper is reserved to the author.] Belitha Villas, Barnsbury Pari:, May, 1857. " Sed DOS iramensum spatiis confecimus sequor : Et jam tempus eqd. per cubic yard. But the best description of road, and in the end the cheapest that can be made in such places, will be found to be by the use of the native rock as a paving or pitching on the Telford principle, with a covering of sifted gravel. The rock should be quarried for the purpose and laid thus — Farm Roads on Strong Soils. 93 It is not necessary to have the pieces uniform in size so long as .the upper surface is regular and the whole firmly set. The hand- laying of the stones will cost, on an average, three farthings per square yard (see instance No. 6), Where neither native gravel nor rock is to be obtained, metalling from a distance has to be imported by canal or railway for the covering, and the total cost is much increased thereby. The writer has constructed roads on the Oxford and lias clays, of which the cost per chain has varied from 2/. 85. 4f/. to 5Z. 55. 6(/. In the first instance clean native gravel, of excellent quality, and which did not require sifting, was wholly used. In the latter the metalling for the covering had to be obtained from a considerable distance by canal, with a heavy cartage from the canal to the road : burnt clay was used for the foundation. This substitute for natural metalling is daily coming more and more into use through- out the Gault, the Oxford, and the Lias clay districts. In these clays the proportion of sand is generally less than in others, and therefore a superior description of ballast is made. Coals, too, are cheaper in the Midland and North-Eastern counties than in the South-Eastern counties, and this fact has had its influence in bringing burnt ballast more into use, and in making its manu- facture better understood. The approximate cost per chain of the several descriptions of roads suitable to the clay districts of the greensand, the oolitic, and lias formations will be as follows : — No. 4. With unsifted gravel wholly. £ s d jPorma^iott (as detailed") IG Metalling, 9 inches deep, IG^ cubic yards, at -iid. per yard; digging and clamping 062 Filling, at %l. per yard 02 1 Carting I5 miles, at 10'7. per yard per mile 10 8 Spreading, breaking, and finishing, at 2^d. per yard . . 3 5 Total cost per chain .. ..' 2 8 4 No. 5. With broken oolitic or lias rock wholly. £ s d J^o?-ma1357'<4 or drammgs J Containing nitrogen 31*08 Equal to ammonia 37'73 * * 625"80 of ash consisted of : — Silica 9-51 Phosphates of lime and iron 72'65 Carbonate of lime 59"oS Sulphate of lime 14-27 Carbonate of magnesia .. .. 9*95 ,, potash 297-38 Chloride of potassium 60*64 sodium 101-82 It will be observed that these drainings contain about double the amount of solid matter which was found in the liquid from the first heap. The composition of this solid matter compared with that of the solid matter in the liquid from the first heap, moreover, presents us with some particulars to which it may be advisable briefly to allude. In the first place I would remark that notwithstanding the greater concentration of the third liquid, as compared with the first, the proportion of ammonia present in the form of ammoniacal salts is less than one-half; for whilst the first drainings contained in the gallon 39 grs. of ready-formed ammonia in round numbers, the third drainings contained only 15 grs. per gallon. It thus appears that drainings from manure-heaps in an ad- vanced stage of decomposition contained, as may be naturally expected, a larger proportion of ready-formed ammonia than the liquid which flows from heaps composed of fresh dung. It is further worthy of notice that the first drainings contained nearly all the nitrogen in the form of ammoniacal salts, whilst the drainings from fresh dung contained the larger proportion of this element in the form of soluble organic substances. The most important constituent of farmyard manure, i.e., nitrogen, thus is liable to be wasted in the drainings, whether they proceed from rotten or fresh manure, for in either case it passes off in a soluble state of combination. Whilst speaking of the nitrogen in the drainings of dungheaps I ought to mention that in both the liquids examined in detail I 138 Farmyard Manure. have detected readily the presence of nitric acid. In the liquid from fresh manure there were apparently mere traces of nitrates, but in that from rotten dung the proportion of nitric acid was so considerable that I hoped to be able to determine it quantita- tively. But I found the large amount of soluble organic matter to interfere sadly with the nitric acid determination ; and, unable to supply for the present correct results, I merely mention the fact that these liquids contained nitrates, and trust to be able to supply this deficiency in these analyses at a future period. In the next place I would observe that the proportion of organic and inorganic matters bear to each other a different rela- tion in the first and in the third liquid. In the liquid from rotten dung the proportion of mineral matter exceeds that of organic substances, and in the third liquid the reverse is the case. We learn from this that soluble organic matters are very liable to become decomposed ; and it is not unlikely that all putrescent organic matters before assuming a gaseous state are first changed into soluble matters. In the first stage of decomposition, i.e., during the active fer- mentation of dung, the constituents of farmyard manure are ren- dered more and more soluble ; hence, up to a certain point the amount of soluble organic matters increases in manures. But when active fermentation in manure heaps becomes gradually less and less energetic, and finally ceases, the remaining fer- mented manure is still liable to great and important changes, for it is subject to that slow but steady oxidation, or slow combus- tion, which has been termed, appropriately, by Liebig, Erema- causis. To this process of slow oxidation all organic substances are more or less subject. It is a gradual combustion, which ter- minates with their final destruction. Hence the larger proportion of organic matter in the liquid from the manure heap formed of fresh dung, in an active state of fermentation, and the smaller proportion of organic matter in the drainings of the first heap, in which the dung had passed the first stage of decomposition, and been exposed for a considerable period to the subsequent process of eremacausis, or slow com- bustion. The formation of nitric acid from putrefying organic matters has long been observed, but the exact conditions under which it proceeds are by no means satisfactorily established, and much room is left to further extended investigations. The mineral substances in the drainings from fresh dung are the same as those from rotten. Like the ash of the latter, the liquid from fresh dung-heaps contains soluble phosphates, soluble silica, and is rich in alkaline salts, especially in carbonate ot potash, of which there are nearly 300 grs. in a gallon of the liquid. Farmyard Manure. 139 Sufficient evidence is thus presented in the analyses of these liquids, that, as the draining-s of both fresh and rotten dung- heaps are allowed to flow into the next ditch, concentrated solutions of the most valuable constituents of dung are carelessly wasted. With a view of preventing such a serious loss, I have sug- gested the propriety of carting the manure on the fields, when- ever practicable, in a fresh state, and of spreading it at once. It may be objected that the application of manure in a fresh state, equivalent to winter manuring, and especially the spreading of dung, will lead to waste, inasmuch as the rain which falls during the winter and spring has much more chance of washing out fertilizing substances from dung than by applying it at the time of sowing. This objection would indeed be a valid one, if we were not acquainted with the fact that all soils containing a moderate proportion of clay possess the property of retaining the more valuable constituents of manure ; but, this being the case, the objection on these grounds cannot be admitted. With more force, however, it may be made with reference to liglit sandy soils, and it is indeed upon such soils that manure is best applied in spring. I would remind the reader of the interesting and important observations of Mr. Thompson with respect to the property of soils of absorbing manuring matters,* and beg to refer him to the highly important investigations of Professor Way on the same subject. The papers of Professor Way on this subject are full of interest ; they embody highly important results, and constitute most valuable contributions to our agricultural literature. A careful perusal of these papers will afford strong evidence that soils not merely possess the power of absorbing and retaining gaseous ammonia, but that they also have the property of sepa- rating this fertilizer, as well as potash and other manuring matters, from their soluble combinations. Professor ^Vay principally operated with simple salts, and it may therefore be urged, with some plausibility, that, in the case of a highly complex mixture of soluble substances, such as that presented in the liquid portion of manure, changes may take place in the soil which lead to a waste of manure, when applied long before the crop is sown which it is intended to benefit. Thus it may be urged that it by no means follows that because a soil absorbs ammonia when a solution of sulphate of ammonia is passed through it, the same absorption will take place when an ammoniacal salt, mixed with some dozen of other substances, is passed through it. * Journal, vol. xi. p. 68. 140 Farmyard Manure. Fully impressed with the force of such an argument, I was anxious to determine, by direct experiments, the changes which liquids like the drainings of dung-heaps and liquid manure undergo when brought into contact with soils, and to ascertain at the same time to what extent soils of known composition pos- sessed the power of absorbing manuring matters from such com- plex liquids. It is hardly necessary to observe that tlie results to which the experiments to be described presently have led, apply not merely to the liquids experimented with, but extend to compound manuring matters in general and to faimyard manure in particular, for the drainings of dung-heaps may, indeed, be regarded as the very essence of dung. The deductions which can be legitimately drawn from my experiments, therefore, apply in a special manner to farmyard manure. In order to ascertain to what extent various soils possessed the power of absorbing manuring constituents from the drainings of dung-heaps, I determined to employ a limited quantity of soil and a large excess of liquid. To this end, 2 parts by weight of liquid were well mixed with 1 part by weight of soil, and lelt in contact with the latter for 24 hours, after which the clear liquid was drawn off and passed through a filter. Experiments to ascertain the Extent of Absorbing Properties of Soils of known Composition. 1. Experiment made with the Drainings of Dung-hcajis com- jwsed of rotten Dung. — The drainings employed in this experi- ment were the same which contained in the imperial gallon 664'64 grains of solid matters, the detailed composition of which is given above. The composition of the soil used in the expe- riment is given below. The surface-soil contained a good deal of organic matter, a fair proportion of clay, little sand, and a moderate proportion ot carbonate of lime in the form of small fragments of limestone. It was a stiffish soil, belonging to the clay-marls. Its subsoil was richer in clay and of a more compact texture and less friable character than the surface-soil. The mechanical analyses of soil and subsoil gave the following results : — Surface-soil. Subsoil. Moisture when anal j'sed 5"3G 3'66 Organic matter and water of combination .. 25'8G 8'79 Lime 14-30 2G-03 Clay 34-84 56-76 Sand 19-64 4-76 100-00 100-00 Farmyard Manure- 141 In the chemical analysis of this soil the following results 'were obtained : — Surface-soil, Subsoil. Moisture when analysed H-SB 3"66 Organic matter and water of combination .. 25-86 S'79 Oxides of iron and alumina 13-88 10-13 Carbonate of lime .. .. .. 14-30 2(3-03 Sulphate of lime .. '.. '.. .. '.. .. -56 Not determined. Phosphoric acid and chlorine : . : . • •. . . . traces Carbonate of magnesia 1-04 1 Potash .. -07 [ 1-67 Soda , .. .. -is) Insoluble siliceous matter 38-75 49-73 100-00 100-00 2000 grains of this soil and 2000 grains of subsoil were mixed with 4000 grains of the liquid from rotten dung. After 24 hours the clear liquid was carefully drawn off and filtered. Its original dark brown colour Avas changed into a pale yellow colour. This soil thus possessed in a high degree the property of decolourizing dark-coloured liquids like the washings of dung- heaps. 1200 grains of the filtered liquid, passed through soil, were distilled in a retort nearly to dryness, and the ammonia which was given off carefully collected in an apparatus containing hydrochloric acid, and so constructed as to secure the perfect absorption of ammonia. The amount of chloride of ammonium obtained on evaporation of the acid liquid in the receiving-vessel was "02 grains. This gives for 1 imperial gallon of liquid passed through soil 1I'49 grains of ammonia. Originally the drainings contained, per gallon .. ,. 39-36 After filtration through soil they contained, per gallon 11-49 Absorbed by 70,000 grains of soil . . . . 27*87 amm. 1000 grs. of this soil thus absorbed -396 of ammonia. On evaporation of another portion of the same liquid passed through soil, 1 imperial gallon of filtered drainings was found to contain : — 164-88 of organic matter. 210*20 of inorganic matter. Before filtration through soil, the imperial gallon con- tained : — 268'10 grains of solid organic substances. 368-98 of mineral matters. A considerable quantity of both organic and mineral matters thus was removed from the liquid in contact with the soil. Z>. A similar experiment was made by diluting 4000 grains of 142 Farmyard Manure. the same dralnings with 4000 grains of distilled water, and leaving this more dilute liquid in contact for 24 hours with 2000 grains of the same soil and 2000 of subsoil. The filtered liquid contained in the gallon : — Ammonia 6"91 Organic matters 118'50 Mineral matters 147*36 Total amount of solid matters in gallon .. 272"77 The 147'36 of mineral matters (ash) consisted of — Silica 2-38 Phosphates of lime and iron 1'54 Carbonate of lime 79"72 „ magnesia 6'17 Sulphate of lime 7"92 Chloride of sodium 18'90 „ potassium 26'44 Carbonate of potash 4-29 Originally the liquid employed in this experiment contained 19*68 grains of ammonia to the gallon. After passing through half its weight of soil it contained only 6"91 grains of ammonia. Consequently 1277 were retained by 35,000 grains of soil, and 1000 grains of soil absorbed '365 grains of ammonia. This result, it will be seen, agrees closely with the first experi- ment, in which undiluted drainings were used, and ascertained that 1000 grains of the same soil absorbed '396 grains of am- monia. In both instances it was thus found that rather more than two- thirds of the amount of ammonia present in these drainings in the form of ammoniacal salts were retained by a very limited quantity of soil. I have purposely used a large amount of liquid in comparison with that of soil. If, under such conditions, the soil is capable of retaining two-thirds of the whole amount of ammonia present in a liquid like the one examined, it is not too much to expect that no ammonia whatever will be lost in practice by carting manure on the fields in autumn and spreading it at once. The quantity of soluble ammoniacal matters in a heavy dressing of the best dung does not amount to many pounds, and such a quantity, in relation to the weight of the soil ready to take up ammonia from the manure, is so insignificant that the most scru- pulous may rest satisfied that in a soil containing even a small proportion of clay no ammonia will be lost by dressing the fields in autumn. Other no less important changes than those referring to the absorption of ammonia will strike the reader to have taken place in these drainings left in contact with the soil. Farmyard Manure. 143 For better comparison's sake, T will give the composition of the drainings before and after passing through soil, and tlien make a few additional remarks which are suggested by such a comparison. Composition of Braininrjs from Botten Dung. 1 imperial gallou contains— Before After Filtration Filtration through Soil. Ammonia (in the form of ammoniacal sails) 19'6S G-91 Organic matters 134'05 118'50 Silica -75 2-38 Phosphates of lime and iron 7*90 1"54: Carbonate of lime 17*46 79*72 Sulphate of lime 2-18 7*92 Carbonate of masnesia 12"83 6"17 Chloride of sodium 22*85 18*90 „ potassium 35*25 20*44: Carbonate of potash 85*27 4*29 iJO' 38*22 272*77 It will be observed that this liquid, in passing through the soil, has undergone a striking change. Leaving unnoticed several minor alterations in the composition of the original liquid, I would direct special attention to the very small proportion of carbonate of potash left in the drainings after contact with this soil. It will be seen that, out of 85 grains of potash contained in the original liquid, no less than 81 grains have been retained by the soil. This is a result of the greatest importance, inasmuch as it shows that the soil possesses, in a remarkable degree, the power of removing from highly-mixed manuring substances not only ammonia from ammoniacal salts, but also the no less important soluble potash compounds. According to this result, 1000 grains of soil absorb no less than 2*313 grains of carbonate of potash. But, in addition to car- bonate of potash, a considerable quantity of chloride of potas- sium is retained in this soil by passing the washings from rotten dung through it : for it will be observed that nearly 9 grains of this salt, or, in exact numbers, 8*81, were retained in the soil. The avidity of the soil for soluble salts of potash is the more remarkable, as it offers a striking contrast to the apparent indif- ference of this soil to absorb soda from its soluble combinations ; for it will be seen that the liquid, after filtration through the soil, contains only about 4 grains less of common salt in the gallon than before filtration. In a purely chemical point of view, soda salts are closely allied to salts of potash, and yet there is a marked difference observable in the power of this soil, at least, to absorb the one or the other alkali. 144 Farmyard Manure. As regards tlie practical effect which salts of soda and potash are capable of displaying with reference to the nutrition of plants, the former are not to be compared to the latter in point of efficacy. It was believed at one time that soda was capable of replacing potash in the ashes of our crops, but this opinion was not based on trustworthy evidence. On the con- trary, the best and most extensive series of ash analyses of our crops show that whilst the amount of potash, within certain limits, is constant in the ashes of plants, that of soda, especially of chloride of sodium, is liable to great fluctuations, arising, no doubt, from local conditions of the soil. The fact that soils are capable of absorbing potash from soluble manuring matters, whilst no special care is manifested by them to retain the equally soluble soda salts, appears to me to account, to some extent at least, for the comparative constancy of the amount of potash in the ashes of our crops, as well as for the fluctuation of the amount of soda in the same. The power of soils to retain potash in large proportions must have the effect of converting the salts of potash in the manure applied to the land into compounds which, though not altogether insoluble in water, are yet sufficiently difficult of solution to permit only a limited and fixed quantity to enter into the vege- table organism in a given period. The case is different with salts of soda ; for as soils do not appear to retain them in any high degree, and plants have no selecting power, but absorb by endosmosis whatever is presented to the spongioles of their roots in a state of perfect solution, it is evident that more soda Avill enter into the plants when grown on a soil naturally abound- ing in this alkali or heavily dressed with common salt, than when grown upon a soil poorer in soda. We have here, at the same time, an interesting illustration of the fact that the soil is the great workshop in which food is pre- pared for plants, and that we can only then hope to attain unto a more perfect knowledge of the nutrition of plants and the best means of administering to their special wants when we shall have studied, in all their details, the remarkable changes wliich we know, through the investigations of Mr. Thompson and Professor Way, take place in soils when manuring substances are brought into contact with them. The subject is full of practical interest, but also surrounded by great difficulties, which, it appears to me, can only l)e overcome when the investigation is taken up in a truly scientific spirit, without reference to the direct application which, in due course, no doubt, well-established chemical prin- ciples will receive in agriculture. It is the undue anxiety to obtain at once what is popularly called a practical result, the grasping after results which at once may be translated into so Farmyard Manure. 145 many bushels of corn, which is a great hindrance to the more rapid advancement of agricultural science ; and it is to be hoped, for the sake of the true interests of the really practical man, that the voice of those capable of understanding and appreciating purely scientific results will be sufficiently powerful to keep in check the too great anxiety for immediate results. In the next place, I beg to direct attention to the absorption by the soil of the phosphates contained in drainings. If it is borne in mind that the soil and subsoil with which the liquid was brought into contact contained a large excess of carbonate of lime, it is not more than would be naturally expected, if we should, see the soluble phosphates of the original drainings converted by the carbonate of lime into insoluble compounds. Having already remarked upon the power of this soil to retain ammonia, I beg in conclusion to point out the large quantity of carbonate of lime in the filtered liquid as worthy of notice. This large amount of carbonate of lime is easily explained by the presence of much lime in the soil. Before filtration the liquid contained only about 17^ grains of carbonate of lime, and after filtration as much as nearly 80 grains. Thus whilst potash and ammonia are absorbed by the soil, lime is dissolved and. passes into the liquid, which is filtered through the soil. Not only is the quantity of carbonate of lime considerably increased in the filtered drainings, but that of sulphate of lime in a minor degree also. It is highly satisfactory to me to find the observations of Pro- fessor Way with respect to the relative power of soils to retain ammonia, potash, soda, and lime, confirmed in my experiments with a liquid containing a number of fertilising agents required by our crops. The composition of a liquid like the washings from dung- heaps, when passed through soils, necessarily must be influenced by the composition of the soils employed in the experiment. The results here given and the remarks just made therefore hold good only with soils of a similar composition to the one used in this experiment. Before describing the next filtration experiments, I may state that I have thought it a matter of some interest to examine what amount of solid organic and inorganic matter a given quantity of pure water would dissolve from the soil, the composition of which has been stated above. Accordingly, one part by weight of subsoil and one part of surface-soil were mixed with four parts by weight of distilled Avater, and the whole, being occa- sionally stirred up, left to subside for twenty-four hours, after which time the water was filtered from the soil and carefully analysed. VOL. XVIII. L 146 Farmyard Manure, An imperial s;allon of this water was found to contain 84'88 grains of dry residue (dried at 220° F.), consisting of — Organic matter, and a little water of com- \ AQ.(\n. bination J Carbonate of lime 26*84: Sulphate of lime 5"73 Phosjiliate of lime, with a little oxide of iron '65 Carbonate of magnesia "50 Chloride of sodium 1'25 Potash -99 Silica -92 84-88 The amount of organic matter in this water is very great ; it arises from the great excess of decomposing organic remains in the soil, and imparted to the water a yellow colour and disagree- able smell, not unlike the smell of water in which flax is steeped. It will he further observed that even pure rain-water is capable of rendering soluble a considerable quantity of all those mineral constituents which are found in the ashes of our crops, and there- fore are necessary to their growth. 2. Filtration experiment made ivitli the draininrjs of a dung- heaj} composed of fresh-mixed farmyard manure. — Having ascer- tained in the previous filtration experiments that a soil containing a good deal of clay and lime is capable of removing from com- pound manuring substances all the more valuable fertilising con- stituents, I was anxious to determine to what extent soils deficient in both clay and lime possessed the property of retaining fer- tilising substances from drainings of dung-heaps. The compo- sition of the liquid used for this experiment is given above ; it is the same liquid collected from a fresh dung-heap which in a gallon contained 1357*74 grains of solid matter. The soil selected for experiment was a light, sandy, red- coloured, very porous soil, containing, as will be seen by the following analysis, only little clay and still less lime, but a good deal of organic matter. It was submitted to a minute and careful mechanical and chemical analysis, and furnished the results embodied in the subjoined tables : — 1. Mechanical Analysis. Moisture 3-45 Organic matter and water of combination 13'94 Coarse white quartz sand 47"00 Fine red sand and a little clay deposited from water on \ -j^o.qo standing 5 minutes / Coarse clay deposited on standing 10 minutes .. .. 2'82 Fine clay deposited from water on standing for 1 hour 6'30 Finest clay kejjt in suspension in water after standing "I g.gy longer than 1 hour J 100-00 Farmyard Manure. 147 It appears from these results that nearly half the weight of this soil consists of pure white coarse quartz-sand, which can be readily separated by washing. The deposit which settled from water after five minutes' standing consists chiefly of fine red sand mixed with very little clay. The remainder is clay in a very finely subdivided state, besides humus and some water of combination. The result of the mechanical examination thus shows that the proximate constituents of this soil are present in an advanced state of decomposition. In the following tabular statement the minute chemical composition of the same soil is given : — 2. Chemical Analysis. Moisture 3-45 * Or2;anic matter and water of comLinatiou .. 13'94 Carbonate of lime '"^^ I ^eTher^-^o^o*"' ' Sulphate of lime "^3 i fi^e!' (Containing S O3 '31) Alumina 14-74 Oxide of iron 5-87 Magnesia "18 Potash (in a state of silicate) .. .. '25 Chloride of sodium '11 Phosphoric acid, combined with iron and alu- ■> ,^.->. miua (equal to bone-earth •131) / Soluble silica (soluble in dilute potash) . . . . 7'42 Insoluble siliceous matters (almost entirely 1 ,..■,. 09 white sand) j- ou t- »:< «g-2& Value of Nitrogen, Phosphoric Acid, and I'otash. .^-K ■+» -!;.-*■ ■*» »— 0 T»tN lOlOCO rt -*-» ^ "d i2 ja . o in in "lo — . i^ C3 bX) m •n too t- — — 1 ^ :=; _ ci — 1 rt '' •^ 3 6 lo — « o »^ cr. 00 < "3 ^^ CO 'J^ CJ CO C^ ^1 rH ^ rt ^ o U r^ ^ 'g .a p< ^ ,/ O -!• O 'fO '^ OS o _Q 0> — CO CI CO -H a g ^ ^ . . • ^J • S a 01 CO o «n c l^ d ■^ O CO i^'O CIO CO B ^ "COCO'I ^ 1" o t^ o ."t^ *3 '"* ^ p:^ . CO iM => 'fi .n •^ to a: -r T -^ -^ CJ to ^ — —1 CI m ■* CI ^^as CO o o - " 3 "3 -^ OT '-S m _ CO OS -S'5 ;S -^ CO iri CO lO o I'ra ^^a «— iCOCO CI T CO . •o rO (-T .1^ o rt • ^ toH S m 0> O CO c» o := CO CO -o CO ^ to r^ « =il lO ^Xi . CO o •^ i^ O ■-" Ol ' C 1 Ol O) l'- to 'S l^ l» O tH ■<3< Tjl ■* P^ o « CO rH ■* CO CO CO 00 '-' v> a r^ O O O 00 00 00 CO ■*^ t^O'OO tOtD to to ^ S ■-*j ^ r-i Tj. CI 35 a> o> £3 n. ^ p. -tJ 1 >>^S ■ ■■:; g ci c3 3 « '^ 3 "W o =: ^ •"• 1 S^mOHm <:3 Pm u .Q OT .= c '^ '* >n «m i^- coo *" CO -e^* _l^ .S n ■c °i eg « CO -H " _, P 'S TJ •a o 5 c 2S ^ ■zi -3 2 = m-^ '^S qo ^ Dairy Management. 173 This material, though of its kind particularly rich in nitrogen, is not worth more as manure than 2s. Q\d. per 100 lbs,, or less than one-twentieth of its value as food. These investigations, which have more or less occupied my attention for several years, have changed considerably my mode of treatment for fattening. I am satisfied that the most economical use of food rich in albuminous matter is together with straw or other materials which are deficient in this element. I now use for fattening, bean and oat-straw and shells of oats in equal pro- portions, with a limited supply of turnips, never exceeding GO lbs. per day to each, and the following extra food : — 3 lbs. of rape cake .. .. i I lb. malt combs . . . . I steamed together with the straw. f lb. bran ) If my turnips fail in spring, by supplying 2 to 2i lbs. of rape- cake in addition I find the result equally favourable. On this fare my cattle thrive satisfactorily, and make usually at the rate of 14 lbs. per week each. I sometimes substitute ^ lb. per day of linseed-oil for the 2 lbs, of rape-cake without turnips, the gain by which T find satisfactory. One of a lot of 14 fed in this mode gained at the rate of 24 lbs. per week from March up to July, 1856, being the greatest gain I have observed in the course of my experience as a feeder. Having received numerous applications from vendors to become a purchaser, and inquiries as to what I thought of the properties of carob or locust beans, I may call attention to its comparative composition with Indian meal, which it most nearly resembles, and in comparison with which its value is decidedly inferior. There is little difference in the feeding effects of sugar and starch ; the former contains somewhat more of oxygen, which in some slight degree facilitates its consumption In the respiratory process ; but in the same ratio it is deficient in carbon, and has consequently less of the property of producing fat. , The respective quantities of oxygen from the air required for the consumption of 100 parts of starch are 118-52 „ sugar lOG-67 „ fat 292-14: These numbers seem to denote the comparative labour or exer- cise of the organs of respiration requisite for the consumption of these elements of food respectively, or, in other words, for the support of vitality. Their relative composition is — Carbon. Hydrogen. Oxygen. Fat .. .. 78-13 ,, 11-74 ,. 10-13 Starch.. .. 44-45 .. 6-17 .. 49-38 [percent. Sugar .. ..40- .. 6-66 .. 53-34 174 Dairy Management. Whilst these analyses have been in the course of preparation, with the view of being inserted in the Society's Journal, another month has elapsed, during which I have proceeded with my observations on dairy produce. On the 12tli of March I pur- chased Mr. Smith's cow (see p. 153) for 12/. 10.?., being more than her market value, for the purpose of trying her on my food ; her yield of milk had then diminished to 8 quarts per day. On the 31st of March, four weeks from the former weighing, and nineteen days after being treated with my food, her yield of milk had increased to 9^ quarts per day, and her weight to 8 cwt. 1 qr., being 28 lbs. increase. Mr. Pawson's cow, which was continued on the same food, viz., meadow-hay ad libitum, and a more limited supply of tur- nips, reduced her yield of milk to less than 5 quarts per day, without alteration in her weight. My cow first ])laced on trial with those of Mr. Smith and Mr. Pawson, gave a yield of milk of 12 quarts per day, and gained 28 lbs. in the four weeks, her weight on the 31st of March being 10 cwt. 2 qrs. The weight and the yield of milk of the six, on the olst of March, were — March i. Yield of Millc per Day. March 31. Yield of Milk per Day. Gain in 4 Weeks. Weight of No. 1. .. 9 cwt. qrs. lbs. 10 26 11 1 Quarts. 8 14 cwt. qrs. lbs. 10 3 113 Quarts. 8-9 14-9 lbs. 58 50 „ 4. .. 10 14i 10 1 13 28 „ 6. .. 10 3 14 112 12 84 »7 11 10 113 10 84 11. .. 9 2 11 10 1 12 84 On referring to the previous weighing, there was little or no gain from Feb. 4:th to March 4th5 the cows being at that time in a somewhat more relaxed state. During March they wholly regained their consistency. The gain shown in the weighing, March 31, by the six cows, appears therefore unusually great. It should however be computed as made during the eight weeks, from Feb. 4th to March 31st, being with an average yield of nearly 12 quarts (11"66) per day each, at the rate of S^lbs. each' per week on the average. No. 11, it will be observed, is stated as giving more milk on the 31st than on the 4th of March. It occasionally happens that cows drop their yield of milk for a day or two, and then regain it, especially when in use. The whole of these six cows were kept free from calf till February, when Nos. 2 and 4 were sent to the bull. I had some hesitation in regard to No. 4, from her Dairy Management. 175 having suffered from pleuro. Her milk, tested by a lactometer, denoted a less than average proportion of cream ; still in quantity, and keeping np its yield for a length of time, being of more than ordinary capability, I decided to retain her. Nos. 1 and 7, which are giving respectively 8 and 10 quarts per day, are in a state of fatness ; they will probably be sold in June as prime fat, when their yield of milk will probably be 6 and 8 quarts per day each. They may be expected to fetch 20/. to 23/. No. 6 is also in a state of forwardness. No. 11, which suffered considerably from pleuro, is in comparatively lower condition. During the season, from the close of October to the close of January, I avoid purchasing near-calving cows, which are then unusually dear, my replenishments being made with cows giving a low range of milk and intended for fattening : I find them more profitable than those which are quite dry. The pre- sent season I had additional grounds for abstaining from buying high-priced cows from the recent presence of pleuro. On the 2nd of March I had occasion to purchase a calving cow, which was reported to have calved on the 28th of February, Her weight on the 4th of March was 9 cwt. 1 cp-. I supplied her with 35 lbs. of mangel, and hay ad lihitum, of which she ate 22 lbs. per day. The greatest yield she attained was some- what more than 13 quarts per day. On the 31st of March her weight was 9 CAvt., being a loss of 28 lbs, in four weeks. Her yield of milk had diminished to Hi quarts per day : a week after this her milk, during six days, was kept apart, and averaged 10 quarts per day ; being at first rather more, at the close rather less, than this. The cream produced from these 60 quarts was 9 pints, the butter 63 oz. The butter from each quart of cream was 14 oz. The proportion of butter to milk was 63 oz. from 60 quarts — rather more than 1 oz, per quart. An equal quantity of milk from a cow (calved Oct, 8th) treated with steamed food, and set apart for comparison, gave less than 7 pints of cream, which produced 79 oz, of butter. In quality and agreeableness the butter from steamed food and cake was decidedly superior to that from hay and mangel. Mr. Stansfeld, of Chertsey, has supplied me with the following interesting particulars of two Alderney cows which were treated as follows : — Malt- Eape-cake. Bean-meal. Bran. combs lbs. lbs. lbs. lbs. From Dec. 1st to Jan. 15tli with swedes aiid meadow-hay. From Jan. 15th to Feb. 17th, pulped and fermented swedes, meadow-hay, and ,,3 2 2 2 From Feb. 17th to May 1st 5 ..2 2 176 Dairy Management. Results : — Dec. 1st to Jan. 15th, yield of butter from each quart of cream lOf ozs. Jan. 15th to Feb. lltli' ditto ditto 14 ozs. Feb. 17th to May 1st ditto ditto 18| ozs. The yield of butter in proportion to milk, Dec. 1st to Jan. 15th, is described as unsatisfactory. Ditto ditto Feb. 17th to May as 2 ozs. per quart, which is their maximum jiroportion. Soon after calving the two cows give 18 quarts of milk per day ; on the 15th of May 15 quarts per day. Mr. Stansfeld has completely satisfied himself that by the pro- cess of fermentation the turnip loses its disagreeable taste, and that his butter is of excellent quality. If I take the supply of turnips, 120 lbs. per day, as requisite for the maintenance only of the cow, the nutritive elements will be — ■ Albumen. Oil. Starch and Sugar. 1-98 -264 7'92 Reckoning the oil as used for respiration, and computing it in proportion of 5 to 2 as compared with starch = .. .. "GB 8-58 The food supplied to the cow consists of — lbs. Water. Dry. Albu- men. Oil. Starch and Sugar. Fibfe. Minerals. 1-95 •70 Phos- phoric Acid. Hay .. .. Stored Mangel 22 35 2f 28-0 19-3G 7- 2-03 1-05 •59 8-74 4-20 6-05 1-05 •30 •05 26-36 3-08 •59 12*94 1-10 2-65 •35 The 13 quarts of milk yielded of butter Deduct for moisture, &c. Butter in the skimmed milk estimated as Oz. 13-60 2-28 11-32 •68 oz. 12 •00 12 ounces of pure oil in the butter are f lb. = •75 The oil in the food lb. •59 The starch and sugar .. 12 -94 Used for animal respiration . . 8 58 4-36 There appears, then, in this supply of food •SO lb. oil and 4'36 lbs. starch for the production of ^75 in the butter from 13 quarts per day, the cow's greatest yield. At the time the milk was tested, aftermath hay was substituted for first-crop hay, in equal Dairy Management. Ill quantity. This, it will be observed, is decidedly richer in oil. Her produce had lessened to 10 quarts per day ; her production of butter was 10'50 oz, per day, or of pure oil about 9 oz. ; for the supply of oil the aftermath hay alone would be much more than adequate. On examining the adequacy of the food for the supply of albumen for the casein, lbs. I find this to "be 3 08 I assume that in 120 Ihs. of turnips, as required for) , .go maintenance, in a normal state I 1-10 Which, according to Haidlen's analysis, will be adequate to the supply of 8-GO quarts per day. The supply of mineral substances is in excess. The cow under this treatment gave — Soon after calving fully 13 quarts per day. 5 weeks after calving Hi ,, In less than 8 weeks after calving ..9 „ and with this there occurred also a loss of weight. We find this cow, supplied with food amply rich in every element suited to her wants and purposes, with the exception of the nitrogenous principle only, lowering her condition, and likewise her yield of milk till it approaches a quantity for which her food enables her to supply a due proportion of casein. About the 20th of April the cow's yield being reduced to 9 quarts per day, her food was changed to steamed mixture ; soon after this her yield increased to 11 quarts per day. Her weight, April 28th, 9 cwt. ; May 16th, 9 cwt. 14 lbs., yield of milk 11 quarts. I now introduce the dairy statistics of Mr. Alcock, of Alreville, Skipton, who has for some time been practising my method of treatment, with such modifications as are suited to his circum- stances. During the winter season Mr. Alcock's food consisted of mangel, of which he gave 20 lbs. per day to each, uncooked ; together with steamed food ad libitum^ consisting of wheat and bean sti-aw, and shells of oats. lbs. per Day. Carob bean and Indian meal, for each .... 3 Bran and malt combs If Bean meal 3^ Eape cake * 3 Of extra food .. .. llf * The rape-cake used by Mr. Alcock was of foreign manufacture, evidently rich in oil, but containing mustard, and ou this account supplied iu less proportion. VOL. XVIII. N 178 Dairy Management. From March 19tli, when his store of mangel was exhausted, he increased his supply of Indian meal to 4 lbs. per day, and omitted the carob bean. During the month of January Mr. Alcock obtained from 759 quarts of milk 1323 oz. of butter, being fiom each 16 quarts 26|^ oz. During February and March, from 7368 quarts of milk, 12,453 oz. of butter, or from each 16 quarts fully 27 oz. ; so that rather less than 9i quaits of milk have produced 16 oz. of butter. The average produce from each quart of cream was 20i oz. Mr. Alcock fattens his cows whilst giving milk, and sells them whilst giving 4 to 6 quarts per day. He quite agrees with me that it is far more profitable to buy far-milked cows for fattening ; and obtains, from a change to his food, 2 to 3 quarts per day more than the cow had given previously. Though Mr. Alcock's cream is not so rich as v/hat I have described in a former Journal, it is more than ordinarily so. His mode of separating his milk from his cream differs from my own, his milk being set up in leaden vessels, from which, on the cream being formed, the old milk is drawn, by taking a plug from a hollow tube with perforated holes in the centre of the vessel. To this difference I am disposed in some degree to attribute the less richness of Mr. Alcock's cream. On examin- ing the cream with a spoon, after the dairy-keeper had drawn off the milk, I observed some portion of milk, which would have escaped through my perforated skimmer. Mr. Alcock's proportion of butter from milk, which is the matter of practical importance, is greater than what I have shown izi a former volume of this Journal, being from each 16 quarts of milk 27 oz. of butter. Quality of Butter. — In January, 1857, samples of about 56 oz. each of butter of my own, and also of Mr. Alcock's, were sent to the laboratory of Messrs. Price and Co.'s candle works at Bel- mont : — My butter was found to consist of (taking the pure fat only) — Hard fat, mostly margarine, fusible at 95° .. .. 45-9 Liquid or olein 54*1 100-0 Mr. Alcock's— Hard fat, mostly mai'garine, fusible at 100° .. .. 3G'0 Liquid or olein - .. •..•■.. 64'0 100-0 For these analyses of butter the agricultural public are indebted to the good offices of Mr. George Wilson, director of Messrs. Dairy Management. 179 Price and Co.'s manufactory. It will be observed that Mr. Alcock's milk is richer in butter, and that his butter is also richer in proportion of olcin to margarine than my own. Professor Thompson (' Elements of Agricultural Chemistry,' 6th edition, p. 317) states that winter butter consists more of solid, and summer more of liquid, or olein fat. An analysis of butter made in Vosges, gives — Summer. Winter. Solid or marE^arine fat 40 .. .. 65 Liquid (or oleiu) fat 00 . . . . 35 100 100 In Lehmann's ' Physiological Chemistry ' (Leipsic edition, vol. ii, p. 329) an analysis of butter by Bromus, gives — Margarine 68 Olein 30 Special butter oil 2 100 It vv^ill be observed that my butter may be classed as summer butter, and that Mr. Alcock's is the richest in proportion of olein. Both were produced in the month of January. These results are important, and completely establish the con- clusion I had previously formed, that the quantity and quality of butter depend essentially on the food and treatment ; and that by suitable means you can produce as much and as rich Latter in lointer as in summer. From information derived from various sources in the district in which the same breed of cows is kept, the average quantity of butter from milk is somewhat more than an ounce to each quart, or from 16 quarts of milk 17 to 18 oz. of butter. Tliis is during summer, and whilst the cows are at grass. During the winter season the supply of butter from the dairy- keepers in this vicinity falls off to one-fourth of what they pro- duce in summer. I am led to infer that there is some misapprehension as to what forms the excellence of butter. On inquiring of a Jermyn- street factor, I learnt that rich oily butter is preferred in Avinter, and hard butter in summer. This preference to hard butter in summer will doubdess be owing to its withstanding better the effects of heat, and consequently being more palatable. It seems probable that the higher price of butter, in com- parison with that of suet or other solid fat, is due not only to its agreeable flavour but also to its proportion of olein, which is known to be more easy of digestion, and more available for respira- tion than solid or margarine fat. We find it preferred for pastry n2 180 Dairy Management. and other culinary preparations, in which its peculiar flavour disappears ; the essential oil in which this resides being very volatile and easily removed by cooking or exposure to frost. Olive oil, which amongst the vegetable oils has the greatest proportion of olein (72 to 28 margarine), is much used in culinary preparations, especially on the continent. Any one who has partaken of a beef-steak nicely prepared with refined olive oil in the cuisine of a first-rate foreign hotel, will scarcely detect the substitution of this oil for butter. The price of refined olive-oil to consumers is about equal to that of butter; whilst that of linseed oil, rape, &c., ranges at from Aid. to hcl. per lb. Use of Rape-calie. — Having had considerable experience in the use of rape-cake as food for cattle, I offer some suggestions to those who have been less accustomed to it, my consumption of this material for dairy cows and for fattening being upwards of twenty tons per year. When I first gave an order to the manufacturer with whom I chiefly deal, about six years ago, on explaining to him the pur- pose for which I required it he requested time for its prepara- tion, and recommended that I would give him, at the time the fresh seeds arrived, an order to the extent of my requirements for the year. As the quantity I ordered fell short, I sent for a further supply without notice ; on its arrival I was not satisfied with its appearance or effects. On making a complaint, I was reminded by the manufacturer of his request that 1 would give him pre- vious notice. He then explained that his object was to select seed free from mustard or other impurity. Since then I have had no occasion to find fault with the cake from this manufacturer. A sample of this was found by Professor Way to contain, of Moisture 8-49 AVoody fibre 8-61 Starch, gum, sugar, &c. .. 37'93 Albummous roatter .. .. 31'42 Oil and fatty matter .. ., 10'65 Ash 2-90 100-00 I have occasionally bought German or Danish rape-cake ; it is made up in thick square pieces of a rich green colour, and not so hard pressed. An analysis of this by Professor Way gave, of albuminous matter 30 and of oil 13"16 per cent. Until this season I had no grounds to find fault with this foreign cake, but was satisfied to pay for it a higher price, owing to its superior rich- ness in oil. In this season's importation I was led to suspect some admixture of mustard-seed. On macerating a sample in tepid water, I perceived an admixture of yellow husks, and like- Dairy Management. 181 "Wise the smell peculiar to mustard. More completely to satlsfy myself, I sent a sample to Professor Way, who reported it to contain mustard. As dealers now charge a higher price for this material, for food, in comparison Avith what they charge for it as manure, they are clearly responsible for its being of a quality suitable for food. To prevent the cake becoming mouldy, I cover it over with shells of oats which have been kiln-dried ; chopped straw, if dry, would equally serve the purpose ; by this means its flavour is also preserved — indeed, by keeping for a time, I find it become milder in taste, and more easy to masticate. Management of Grass-land. — In describing the crops or pro- tluce adapted for dairy purposes, 1 think it proper to notice my treatment of permanent grass, meadow and pasture. I reside on the borders of a district in Yorkshire, over which you may travel 50 or 60 miles without seeing, except here and there, an isolated patch in tillage, and I am enabled to state, from observation, that in this extensive tract of permanent-grass the occupiers depend almost wholly on the excrement of their cattle for main- taining the fertility of their land. Whilst in some of the corn- growing districts the farmers purchase guano or other extra manure, at the rate of '20s. per acre over the whole of their hold- ings, by far the majority of those in the district I am speaking of {from which a continued deportation of cattle and also of dairy produce takes place), depend wholly for manure on tlie excre- ment from their stock, and do not replenish with extra materials. As my own treatment of permanent grass differs materially from this, I proceed to describe it and its results. My meadows, from their high condition, preserve their verdure through winter ; during the month of March, and up to the first ■week in May, they afford excellent pasturage for ewes with their lambs, of which they carry at the rate of four per acre till the first week of May. Some portion is left untouched by sheep for early soiling, which I usually commence about the 26th of May. From the 20th to the 30th of June my mowing for the main crop of hay usually takes place. The aftermath is again cut either for soiling or for aftermath hay, so that each meadow is mown twice during the season. After the second mowing a nice aftermath grows, which serves for the next year's ewes, which are bought early in October, and turned on the meadows together with their ram. Soon after the ground is clear, the weather being suitable (I prefer it cloudy or wet), the fresh excre- ment from the tanks under the tails of the animals is carted on and dressed in. The whole of my meadow land gets a dressing of this once a year. The excrement is c|uite free from straw. I 182 Dairy Management. formerly procured peat soil to mix with it to neutralise the smell ; but am at present usins^ for that purpose scrapings which are carted on, free of charge, by the conservators of the roads. Both for soiling and as aftermath the grass thus dressed is eaten with relish. I find little difficulty in getting manure of this kind into the ground. During warm, moist weather, when the absorbent powers of the soil are in full activity, the whole dressing soon disappears. I have known the cocksfoot-grass, the property of which for quick growth as aftermath is Avell known, attain a height of 3 feet in five or six weeks after mowing. In addition to this yearly dressing with excrement, I apply guano at the rate of 2 cwt. to each acre, I do this usually in the spring. I have, however, thought tliat I derived equal, if not greater, benefit from its application in very wet weather in November. The growth during Marcli was sensibly greater than on adjacent land on which the guano was not applied till April ; and tlie main crop of hay was certainly not less than on that dressed in April. Mode of Haymaliivfj. — -As the process of hay-making differs so much,, and is in some districts so inefficiently performed, I ven- ture to describe the method I am using, and to which I give my personal attention. No farm operation requires greater care than securing the hay crop. Till lately I deferred mowing the grass till it was in flower. In the year 1856 I cut it before the flowering time. Though this early cut grass shrinks more in the stack, yet I find it weigh proportionately heavier. It is not unusual for a square yard cut from the solid part of one of my stacks to Aveigh 30 stone imperial : I have known it exceed this. The solid part of a small stack of aftermath hay from seven acres of this season's growth weighed 26 stones imperial. 1 find it of advantage to employ a full complement of haymakers. In travelling through the country I have seen but one haymaker employed where I should have half a dozen. I find six haymakers, if fully em- ployed, earn their 12s. or 14.v. for one day far better than a single man would earn the same sum in six days. The liaymaking or tedding machine has in my practice super- seded the expensive operation of spreading by hand. When the grass has been spread a sufficient time, the haymakers turn it with their hand-rakes from the sun or wind. At the close of the day the grass or hay is raked together in rows ; the space between each row is left quite bare. In this state it remains overnight, to prevent the bleaching effects of the falling dew and the moisture from the ground. Early in the morning, as soon as the bare ground between the rows is dry, the haymakers turn over the Dairy Management. 183 rows, the under side of which, and the ground on which they have laid, are completely wet from checked evaporation. This operation of turning is easily performed, and well repays the labour. When the ground is dry the tedding-machine is set to work, and the turning and drying are repeated. When the ■weather is at all doubtful we resort to the lap or shake cock, in making which the haymaker gathers up an armful, say 8 to 10 lbs. of partly dried grass, and lets it fall lightly on a heap. He then thrusts his hands under the heap, lifts and folds it without press- ing, and sets the heap quite lightly on the ground with the end. towards the wind : in appearance it is not unlike a lady's muff of large size. It is a common saying, that well made lap-cocks will stand a fortnight's rain free from damage. Without sub- scribing to this, I have no hesitation in stating, that in no form does partly-dried grass keep so well as in lap-cock. The rain falling on a lap-cock is thrown oif in a somewhat similar manner as from an umbrella. 1 never recollect finding a well-made lap-cock thoroughly wetted. By the mode I have described I accelerate the process of hay- making ; and it is by no means uncommon for me to secure my crop in less than half the time required by my neighbours. On the hay becoming sufiiciently dry, it is formed into wind-rows and then drawn together by a sweej:) into large pikes of about three loads each, with conical tops which are slightly thatched with straw.* When the pikes have undergone a partial sweating, they are carted away and well intermixed in stacking. This pikeing before stacking