Great Britain -- Description and travel; Great Britain -- Rural conditions
Returned this morning and rode about the farm, and also about that of
Mr. WINNAL, where I saw, for the first time, a plough going _without
being held_. The man drove the three horses that drew the plough, and
carried the plough round at the ends; but left it to itself the rest of
the time. There was a skim coulter that turned the sward in under the
furrow; and the work was done very neatly. This gentleman has six acres
of _cabbages_, on ridges four feet apart, with a distance of thirty
inches between the plants on the ridge. He has weighed one of what he
deemed an average weight, and found it to weigh fifteen pounds without
the stump. Now, as there are 4,320 upon an acre, the weight of the acres
is _thirty tons_ all but 400 pounds! This is a prodigious crop, and it
is peculiarly well suited for food for sheep at this season of the year.
Indeed it is good for any farm-stock, oxen, cows, pigs: all like these
loaved cabbages. For hogs in yard, after the stubbles are gone; and
before the tops of the Swedes come in. What masses of manure may be
created by this means! But, above all things, for _sheep_ to feed off
upon the ground. Common turnips have not half the substance in them
weight for weight. Then they are in the ground; they are _dirty_, and in
wet weather the sheep must starve, or eat a great deal of dirt. This
very day, for instance, what a sorry sight is a flock of fatting sheep
upon turnips; what a mess of dirt and stubble! The cabbage stands boldly
up above the ground, and the sheep eats it all up without treading a
morsel in the dirt. Mr. WINNAL has a large flock of sheep feeding on his
cabbages, which they will have finished, perhaps, by January. This
gentleman also has some "_radical Swedes_," as they call them in
Norfolk. A part of his crop is on ridges _five_ feet apart with _two
rows_ on the ridge, a part on _four_ feet ridges with _one_ row on the
ridge. I cannot see that anything is gained in weight by the double
rows. I think that there may be nearly twenty tons to the acre. Another
piece Mr. WINNAL transplanted after vetches. They are very fine; and,
altogether, he has a crop that any one but a "_loyal_" farmer might envy
him.--This is really the _radical_ system of husbandry. _Radical_ means,
_belonging to the root; going to the root_. And the main principle of
this system (first taught by _Tull_) is that the _root_ of the plant is
to be fed by _deep tillage_ while it is growing; and to do this we must
have our _wide distances_. Our system of husbandry is happily
illustrative of our system of politics. Our lines of movement are fair
and straightforward. We destroy all weeds, which, like tax-eaters, do
nothing but devour the sustenance that ought to feed the valuable
plants. Our plants are all _well fed_; and our nations of Swedes and of
cabbages present a happy uniformity of enjoyments and of bulk, and not,
as in the broad-cast system of Corruption, here and there one of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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