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very productive of meal; the straw, however, is harsh and coarse. The Hopetown is a valuable description of oat, and well suited for high exposed districts, as well as for general cultivation. The Tartarian oat is excellent for coarse poor soils, and has been found superior for this purpose to the Potato oat. It is well calculated for exposed situations, having a less tendency to shed its seed than most other kinds.

When land is first brought into cultivation, or first broken up from pasture, oats generally form the first grain crop. Oats may also follow clover, and they are sometimes sown with clover and grass-seeds. They often follow potatoes and green crops, in which case the land should be ridged up in the winter, and when the seed is sown, the land should be well harrowed, and then rolled across the ridges.

The quantity of seed must depend on the nature of the soil, and the variety to be sown. On poor soils, from the plants not spreading, oats should be sown thick. The Hopetown, and some other varieties, do not tiller out, and therefore require more seed to be sown. The quantity of seed necessary, varies from four to five bushels per statute acre, and broadcast-sowing is generally adopted. A change of seed is always desirable with oats as with other grain.

The usual time of sowing oats, is from the middle of February to the middle of May. Early sowing is to be preferred, as the grain is then generally found of better quality; but late sowing often produces the greatest bulk of straw. Care must be taken to sow when the ground is dry; but the precise time between the two periods above specified must be governed by the weather, climate, and other circumstances, of which the farmer alone can judge.

Oats are more extensively grown in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, than in England; and in the former countries greater attention is paid to the cultivation of this grain than in the latter, where the poorest soil is generally selected for it. The produce differs according to the soil and climate. The maximum quantity, soil and climate being favourable, may be estimated at fifty

bushels, and the minimum twenty bushels, per statute acre; the average being about four quarters. Oat straw is preferred to any other as fodder for cattle, it being considered more nutritive.

The oat crop is seldom very seriously damaged, unless the season be extremely wet or windy; but the early varieties are liable to shed the grain when handled, and therefore require to be cut before they are quite ripe. This, however, should be done with caution, as cutting when too green is injurious. Oats form a considerable portion of the food of the people in Ireland, and also of the peasantry in Scotland, the northern counties of England, and the greater part of Wales; and the chaff, when mixed with turnips or potatoes in a steamer, is good for pigs and cattle. The straw is soft and elastic, and is used for a variety of purposes, as well as for the stable and farm-yard.

RYE.

Rye, is not much cultivated in the southern counties of England, although it produces good crops on indifferent soils. It does well on thin sandy soils, and on reclaimed bogs or moors; and its cultivation may therefore be often desirable. It is, however, necessary that the soil should be well worked, and kept in good tilth, and free from weeds.

In Germany, rye is universally used for feeding horses, the straw being sliced down and given to them as chaff; and in Holland the grain is much used in distillation. The produce of straw is very abundant, and it is highly prized for thatching.

There are two sorts of rye, the winter and the spring sorts. The latter succeeds well after potatoes, and is much grown on the Continent; but the former kind is chiefly grown in the British Islands.

Rye is useful for sowing with tares and winter vetches, the rye acting as a support to the vetch, and the mixture affords excellent spring feeding. A bushel to the acre is the usual quantity sown in this way. It is some

times sown on stubble, after one ploughing and har rowing, for green feeding for lambs and ewes in February or March; and this practice, on light gravelly or sandy soils, is generally found advantageous.

Rye is much used for bread all over the continent of Europe, and also in Wales, and some parts of England and Scotland. It is often likewise mixed with wheat flour for that purpose, and is considered to be very wholesome. Rye is likewise much used by distillers, and is roasted and used as a substitute for coffee, by the poorer classes in the mining and manufacturing districts of England.

BEANS.

Beans. The bean, like all other plants cultivated for their seed, is an exhausting crop, although less so, it is believed, than any of the corn crops. From the nature of its growth, and its being always cultivated in drills, which admit of horse and hand hoeing, it must be regarded as a cleansing crop; and it is therefore well suited to prepare the land for wheat or barley. Beans thrive best on strong clay lands, heavy marls, or deep loams: but sandy soils are generally not well suited to their cultivation. In cold wet climates, and bleak, exposed situations, beans will rarely ripen.

In Scotland, beans are managed with the greatest care, and are proportionally productive. It is there not uncommon to see twenty acres of beans in one field, without a single weed being allowed to appear among them; the drills being so distant as to admit of a horsehoe, or light one-horse plough, to work between them. Weeds are thus effectually kept down, and the ground is left nearly as clean and as fine after a crop of beans, as it would be after a naked summer fallow. In this way, beans form an excellent auxiliary to summer fallowing, and as a preparation for wheat.

Although most frequently drill-sown, beans may be dibbled with advantage, especially on small farms; but in all cases the ground ought to be ploughed with a

deep furrow in the autumn, or early in the winter. Two ploughings in spring are always advantageous, and the winter furrow may be given in the direction of the former ridges, by which mode the land will be sooner dry in spring, than if it had been ploughed across. After the autumn ploughing, the land will be mellowed by the winter frosts; and early in February, if it be sufficiently dry, it should be cross-ploughed, and broken as fine as possible by heavy harrowing.

Do not, if you can avoid it, cart out the manure for the bean crop until it is wanted, and then spread it and plough it in at once. Take the furrow slices at about six inches; and in every third furrow, close to the edge of the cut, let women or children plant the beans, four to six inches apart; then cover the seed with the next furrow slice, and so proceed throughout the field, taking care to regulate the size of the furrow to the width of the drill. After this apply the harrow.

The root of the bean penetrates deep into the soil, and deep ploughing is therefore necessary to its perfect growth. With proper management, and on strong soils, the bean may be cultivated alternately with wheat, on the same land, for several years. In the Isle of Thanet, barley, beans, and wheat is the usual rotation.

Beans ripen slowly, and should therefore be put into the ground as early as the weather will permit: if later than the end of March, the ripening of the crop will be precarious. Indeed, beans must generally be considered an uncertain crop, in consequence of their backwardness in ripening, except under favourable circumstances of soil and climate.

The distance between the drills should be regulated by the nature of the soil. On strong clay land twentyfour to thirty inches is recommended, to admit the horsehoe or plough to be freely used between the drills, for on such soils the hand-hoe in dry weather will have little effect. On looser and thinner soils, the intervals may be something less; and eighteen or twenty inches between the rows, will be found to afford room enough for hand-hoeing.

When the beans have made some progress, set the

horse-hoe to work between the rows, and let this be followed by the hand-hoe, to cut up any weeds the horse-hoe may have left; and any weeds growing in the rows among the beans must be removed by hand. These operations must be repeated as often as necessary, and not a weed must be allowed to remain in any part of the field.

PEAS.

There are two varieties of the field pea, the early and the late. The early kind may be sown at any time till the end of May, but the late kind must be sown in February or March, to give it a better chance of ripening. The early pea seldom exceeds three or four feet in the length of its straw, and in a favourable season and good soil produces a good crop of grain. The late pea is larger in the grain, and its straw is five or six feet in length. It is more valuable for fodder, but is less certain in its produce, than the early sort.

Peas are nearly of the same nature as beans, in regard to nutrition; but they will grow on soils of a lighter and poorer quality: the preparation of the land is the same for both.

Broadcast-sowing of peas should never be practised. Drilling ought always to be adopted, as it is better for the crop, and admits of horse and hand hoeing, to keep the soil free from weeds; and it is only when this is done, that the cultivation of peas can be usefully adopted. When sown in drills, four bushels of seed to the acre will be generally sufficient.

The soil in which peas grow best, is a sandy loam, neither too moist nor too dry. A mixture of calcareous earth is highly favourable to the growth of peas; and chalk, marl, sea-sand, or lime, is found to forward their growth more than any other kind of manure. The grey or field pea is found to succeed best on strong soils, and the white or garden kind on light dry lands.

The straw, or haulm of the pea, cut into chaff, is used as fodder for horses. It makes excellent provender,

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