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[ 24 J

For remarks,&c.

PREPARATION FOR CROPS.

PARTLV, from the construction of the plough, and partly, from the prevalent idea of the cultivators, that without great strength, little can be done, in most parts of the county, as I have before observed, four horses are generally put to a plough, even if the work is a second or third tilth: and on land that has lain a few years, the strength is often increased to six horses!

In the inclosed parts, very little fallowing is practised: the farmers being now in general convinced, that meliorating green crops, are more serviceable to the land, and profitable to the occupier, than the old method of letting land lie idle, choaked, and exhausted with weeds.

On the downs, one ploughing suffices for most crops; this is however hardly ever done with less than four horses, and some- times more!!

The rational and frugal mode of using oxEx, is but little fol- lowed in this county: indeed the greatest part of Berkshire is that kind of soil, which is rather inimical to their hoofs; so that they cannot be recommended, except in some parts of the Vale of White Horse, and the clay lands at the northern, and southern extremities of the county.

BuRN-BAkKINC, as I have before observed, has been too preva- lent in this, as well as in the neighbouring counties. There are too many visible proofs, in the hill and down parts of Berkshire, to what beggary and poverty that practice reduces land.

Among the best farmers, the general custom is, to«pot- dung“ for their wheat crop, and feed off their turnips with sheep; so that each pieceé of land gets well manured every other year, besides occasional foldings, on the stubbles, as the course is proceeding.

The downs, from the great distance they usually are from the