5g AGRICULTURAL SURVEY

APPENDIX.‘No. IX.

Lixtrad of a Letter to Sir RICHARD SUTTON, Bart.

SIR RICHARD,

I AM extremely sorry I have not had an earlier opportunity of communicating these few scattered hints which I have been able to colleét, for Mr. Lowe in his survey of this county; and I regret that I have not the pleasure of giving more information upon so important and interesting a subject as I could wish, having been more in the habit of observation than practice; however such as have occured'to me worthy of any degree of notice, I here offer you.

Lands under tillage in this county, whatever may be their rotation of crops, are‘generally fallowed the third or fourth year from the preceding fallow; and it is; and has been the custom, to lay upon such fallows the manure arising from the lands in tillage upon the same farm, and to plough in the same. This praétice has been exploded by many,~ yet discontinued by few. Where it’ has béen the’ case, that instead of ploughing in the manure-with the fallows, and suffering its most subtile parts to descend: below the sphere of vegetation, it has been spread upon the stubbles ofthe succeeding crop, whether wheat or barley before, or early in the winter, a good pease crop has scarcely been known to fail, which if grown upon barley stubbles will prepare the soil for wheat; notwith- Standing it may be asserted, that the crop immediately after the fallow will lose the advantage of its manure. I'am’ justified in’ this opinion‘by several observations, and my own experience, that littleg or no advan-~ tage, and sometimes a disadvantage, to the first crop,