nobody confiders them of more value; and confequently, I can get no more rent for them. I have therefore taken feveral of then into hand, with a determined refolution to improve them. if poffible, which I have not the least doubt of effecting. I cannot convey an idea, of my method better than by giving au account of the course I am now pursuing. My first eflay was on what is called an overland, (that is, land without a tenement belonging to it) of above fixty acres. Thirty of which lay on the north fide of a fharp valley. The defcent on one fide, and the afcent on the other, are fo quick, that it is not practicable to carry any manure to the faid thirty acres but on horses backs,: the expence of which would be too great for it to answer. The laft tenant had left it in woeful plight, having, as he said, ploughed it as long as he could get two corns for one, miferable condition indeed! The first two years I left it to the manage ment of my hind, who cleaned it, and fowed it with every fort of grain, but the return was fuch as left nothing for rent. Ac length he told me it was to no purpose to plant it any more, unless I would be at the expence of beftowing a good dreffing upon it to improve it. This I refolved not to do, for I have no idea of any thing being an improvement, that does not pay the extra expence and increafe the neat profit. Indeed you may increase the quantity of produce, and put your land into better condition; but if to effect this you are at more expence than the: improvement will repay, I must call this measure the reverfe of improvement; for though your land may be improved, your fortune is impaired, this indeed would be buying gold too

dear.

I therefore told him I faw clearly it would never answer the expence of carrying manure to it, I would therefore try another method, from which I hoped better fuccefs than he had met with; he answered he withed I might, with a fmile, that plainly denoted his incredulity; fo averle are most of those people to every method they have not been accustomed to.

However, he was to follow my directions. I faid to him you fee here are the two upper fields (about eleven acres) have now lain above a year fince the crops were got off, they have nothing growing upon them but ftrong weeds, which are the natural produce of the foil, as thistles, horfe daileys, brambles, &c.

Thefe are first to be eradicated; therefore fet a couple of ftrong ploughs to work, fix oxen to each, and plough the two. fields deep and well, then let them as foon as proper be well dragged, rolled, and harrowed, and the ploughings, &c. repeated until the land is clean, well opened, and pulverized. ` This was repeated at proper intervals through the winter, and until the following May. By that time they were got tolerably clean and in good condition. The foil of each of thefe fields was very different though, no larger, they each confifted of fome very dry land, and fome altogether as wet. The firt was a poor, ican, aty ground; the latter a tough, moory, clofe. earth

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earth mixed with an imperfect marle, which held water like a dish. I had a pit funk in the most depending part to drain off the water, and ordered the earth to be spread on the flaty ground at a proper time. As I faid the land was in good order the May following; I therefore ordered the moift parts of the fields to be fown with rye-grafs, and the dry parts with trefoil and burnet: which as foon as pretty full blown I ordered to be mowed, made into hay, and fet up in a rick in a corner of the upper field. The fields to be then laid up until October, or until the grafs had done growing. Then to turn into the faid fields half a dozen mares and their foals which I had at that time, with fome young cattle to have the run of the faid thirty acres during the winter. I alfo ordered a linny or hovel to be erected in the most heltry part of the fields, large enough to fhelter a dozen horfes under it, for them to go into at pleafure. A rack to be put up, and when the grafs was nearly eat up, to cut the rick, and fill the rack once or twice a day as might be neceffary. Also to carry straw to litter the hovel, which fhould be cleaned out once in a week or ten days, and a ́ dung heap formed of the fame. In this manner the cattle fhould remain until the end of February, or until the grafs began to fpring.

Whilft this is doing another of the fields fhould be ploughed and got ready to fow in like manner the following May. As the extent of the pafture will be increafed, fo may the number of cattle to be wintered on it, and at the beginning of the fecond winter, there will be dung enough to manure one of the fields, which I would have spread on the upper field in Decem-ber or January at furtheft, by which means I hope to have another good crop of grafs. Thus are you to go on, year after year, and field after field, until the whole has been well cleaned, cultivated, and dreffed. I do not expect it will answer to let it lay for grafs more than two or three years, therefore in the winter after the first year, I would have dung spread on the field or fields that were mowed, which will give encouragement to the next crop, and leave it fufficiently in heart to bear a crop of barley or oats, with which I would have you fow either clover, rye-grafs, or trefoil as beft fuits the land, taking but one crop of corn to two of grafs, which cannot fail of improving those lands, as I would have them conftantly fed in the winter as above directed, and the dung that is made by the cattle to be ufed for the manuring that land only; for it is a kind of injustice, if one may fo fpeak, to carry the produce off, and not leave the manure that arifes from it, and is its natural due. A robbery that is too frequently committed, which keeps fuch land in a perpetual state of poverty. Thefe thirty acres, in the condition I first found them, were not worth more thau half a crown an acre, but by the above management, are well worth ten fhillings at least, and by the fame means are capable of much more improvement.'

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Another point of great moment is introduced here, which merits particular attention, viz. the inconveniencies that very large farms are of to the public, and their obftructing the national improvement of agriculture.. This bit of management, though on a fmall fcale, plainly fhews what an impediment to improvement is the letting out lands in very large farms.' And it is accordingly introduced and difcuffed more at large afterwards.

The method, fays he, here laid down for the improvement of land circumftanced as before mentioned, is fo clear, fo eafy, and fo little expenfive, that I think no reasonable doubt can be entertained of it, or objection made to it. I mean that of eating the produce upon the lands, and manuring them with the dung the cattle make there. Perhaps it may be objected, that fuch cattle may live upon wafte rough lands, without any fuch provifion being made for them. I answer that is true if confined to a few months in fummer, and a large range be given them; this fcheme does not prevent the making the best of fuch lands, but is calculated to provide for the cattle in the winter, when they. would ftarve on fuch wafte lands, and to furnish manure for the purpose of improvement with the leaft expence of carriage.

The only material confideration is, whether the lands in queftion are capable or worth attempting to improve them. If they are abfolute rock, or poor fand or gravel, without any mixture of foil, and no clay, loam, or marle near at hand; to be sure they are not worth the leaft trouble or expence; but let them be fand or gravel as poor as you please, if you can have a binding earth of almost any fort, at a little expence, you may eafily render them fertile, by giving them firft a good coat of fuch earth, and feeding the cattle upon the produce as above;. this in a very few years would convert land almost barren, into good fertile corn land, and at the fame time clear the whole expence, while it was doing.

This in my own opinion is a fpecies of improvement, that deferves the clofeft attention, as perhaps there is not another to be found, which may in general be made fo advantageous, and extenfively useful. It comprehends every kind of land that is capable of improvement, and the distance from the farm yard is no very great inconvenience, as all the labour it requires on that account is, a boy's going once a day to give the cattle fodder and fpread fome litter, and this not until the grafs is gone and the weather fevere. Then the litter is neceffary to increafe the quantity of dung as well as to be of ufe to the cattle. By fuch management land that is very indifferent in its natural ftate, may very foon be made good corn land to the great advantage of the owner.'

The fubjects that come next under confideration are, Meadow Lands-Pafture Lands--Arable Lands-Of Ploughs VOL. XL. Feb. 1776.

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-Soils

-Soils and Crops fuited to them-Of Change of Crops on different forts of Land-Of the Quantity of Seed. Of draining Land.-Of Fences-the comparative Usefulness of Horfes and Oxen-Of Burn-beating Land-Of Manures-Lime-Soot and Ashes-Malt Duft-Sea Salt-Animal Substances-Of the Atmosphere, confidered as Nature's grand Repository of Manure. On this head, the author acquiefces in the great prin- . ciple of the new husbandry, that the earth is fertilized from the atmosphere--Of Improvements in general-Recapitulation. The fecond part of this work confifts of the following heads : The Improvement of Eftates by the Owner-by planting timber, particularly the oak, and other trees useful for building --Of wet moory Soils. The author has enlarged on this article, and fhews the great profits of planting aquatics on this kind of foil, from his own experience.-Then he proceeds to treat of the Improvement of poor barren Heaths-Of Planting the outward Fence of an Estate with Fir Trees, and the inward Hedges with Apple and Pear Trees; and concludes this head as follows:

Much more might be faid on the advantages of planting. timber, &c. but to be more particular feems quite unneceffary. I fhall, therefore, conclude this article with this obfervation ;. that it feems clear to me, the difference between planting an eftate with timber judiciously, and not planting it at all, or having any grow upon it, would in forty or fifty years time, amount to a fum equal to twice the prefent value of the eftate. Any man who attends to the importance of thefe facts, and is perfuaded in any confiderable degree of the truth of them, one would imagine would never reft fatisfied, in a total neglect of this fo very defirable branch of improvement."

The author introduces two late writers on agriculture, MrPeters and Mr. Young, upon whom he makes fome fevere remarks, and treats them very ludicrously. And next remarks on the author of the Complete English Farmer, chiefly on two points; firft, the practicability of dividing very large into fmall farms, without lofs to the land owner, which that author ftates as impracticable, chiefly on account of the expence to the owner, of erecting farm houfes, and the other neceffary buildings for the fmall farms; but which our author maintains may be done, upon the grounds on which he had before founded his arguments; namely, that ten or more farm houses and neceffary offices, fuitable to the tenants of fmall farms, may be erected at a lefs expence to the land owner, than the Complete English Farmer states as neceffary to erect one farm houfe and offices to accommodate one tenant who rents a farm of 2001. a year; that the owner

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of the estate would be greatly benefited by fuch division of his land; and that fuch a measure would be highly advantageous to the public. This is a matter of great importance, and is clearly stated by our author, who gives many inftances of fuch farm houses and offices, for fmall farms, in different parts of the kingdom. The other point that these gentlemen differ in opinion, is in relation to the bounty on corn exported, which is endeavoured here to be proved to be highly injurious to the public; and in the course of the argument, the author defires that those who are of a different opinion, will point out the infufficiency of his arguments against the bounty; this invitation will, it is hoped, induce the author of the Complete English Farmer, and other gentlemen who are of his opinion in this matter, to debate it with candour and impartiality, as it is undoubtedly a matter of great and general importance.

This treatise contains much knowledge of the fubjects treated of; and the perufal of it, we doubt not, will give much fatisfaction to the intelligent readers.

IX. Effays relating to Agriculture and Rural Affairs; in two Parts. 2 vols. 8vo. 6s. boards. Cadell.

THIS

"HIS work contains Effays on feveral fubjects, under the following heads: vol. I. Of Fences compofed of Turf, Stone, and Quickfets of different Kinds, for Inclofing the Fields of a Farm, and for the Defence of Orchards, BleachingGreens, &c-Of Securing the Banks of Rivers, and the contiguous Lands fubject to be flooded-Of Draining fuch Lands and Bogs-Of Levelling high Ridges in arable LandOf fowing Grafs-Seeds-and of Hay-making.

The author treats of these at large, and very clearly. The whole is the work of a practical author; and the more valuable, as he distinguishes throughout, with a scrupulous exactness, what is the refult of his own experience, from matters of opinion only, or theory. The firft Effay is upon inclosures and fences; a fubject of general ufe and importance iu rural affairs.

Fences are made with turf, ftone, or quickfets. Of the first the author fays,

The greatest part of the dikes of this kind, that I have feen, are made of a confiderable thickness, with a ditch on each fide; the heart of the dike being made up with the earth that is taken from thefe ditches, and only a thin wall, on each fide, is built of folid feal from top to bottom; the confequence of which is, that

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