Great Britain -- Description and travel; Great Britain -- Rural conditions
Some time in May, he
drilled a piece of Swedes on four feet ridges. The fly took them off. He
had cabbage and mangel-wurzel plants to put in their stead. Unwilling to
turn back the ridges, and thereby bring the dung to the top, he planted
the cabbages and mangel-wurzel on the ridges where the Swedes had been
drilled. This was done in June. Late in July, his neighbour, a farmer
Hulbert, had a field of Swedes that he was hoeing. Mr. Budd now put some
manure in the furrows between the ridges, and ploughed a furrow over it
from each ridge. On this he planted Swedes, taken from farmer Hulbert's
field. Thus his plantation consisted of rows of plants _two feet apart_.
The result is a prodigious crop. Of the mangel-wurzel (greens and all)
he has not less than twenty tons to the acre. He can scarcely have less
of the cabbages, some of which are _green savoys_ as fine as I ever saw.
And of the Swedes, many of which weigh from five to nine pounds, he
certainly has more than twenty tons to the acre. So that here is a crop
of, at the very least, _forty tons to the acre_. This piece is not much
more than half an acre; but he will, perhaps, not find so much cattle
food upon any four acres in the county. He is, and long has been,
feeding four milch cows, large, fine, and in fine condition, upon
cabbages sometimes, and sometimes on mangel-wurzel leaves. The butter is
excellent. Not the smallest degree of bitterness or bad taste of any
sort. Fine colour and fine taste. And here, upon not three quarters of
an acre of ground, he has, if he manage the thing well, enough food for
these four cows to the month of May! Can any system of husbandry equal
this? What would he do with these cows, if he had not this crop? He
could not keep one of them, except on hay. And he owes all this crop to
transplanting. He thinks that the transplanting, fetching the Swede
plants and all, might cost him ten or twelve shillings. It was done by
women, who had never done such a thing before.----However, he must get
in his crop before the hard weather comes; or my Lord Caernarvon's hares
will help him. They have begun already; and it is curious that they have
begun on the mangel-wurzel roots. So that hares, at any rate, have set
the seal of merit upon this root.
_Whitchurch, Thursday (night), 22 Nov._
We have come round here, instead of going by Newbury in consequence of a
promise to Mr. BLOUNT at Uphusband, that I would call on him on my
return. We left Uphusband by lamp-light, and, of course, we could see
little on our way.
_Kensington, Friday, 23 Nov._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account