1803.] On the Improvement of Dewn-Lands. 327

weight of the carcase, but to what other breed may we look even for 1-14th?

I believe no instance can be adduced wherein by crossing with the Spanish, this increase hath not been observeable. I haye known it to hold in the Ryeland, the Southdown, the Mendip, the Dorset, and the Wiltshire, and have now some lambs of the first cross from Welsh ewes, about which[ can at present say nothing, but that I anticipate a similar result.

And remain Sir, your obedient servant, Bath, May 13, 1803. NEHEMIAH BARTLEY. — ane a EEG Le Sa ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF DOWN-LANDS. To the Editor of the Agricultural Magazine. SIR,

BEG leave to offer my testimony in confirmation of the I practice of your Correspondent whose signature is a Hill Farmer, in improving Down and other poor grass Land by giving it two successive turnip fallows, and then laying it down with seeds, without taking even one crop of corn from it. I can bear witness to the excellence of this practice, but it is not a singular or uncommon piece of husbandry, it is fre- quently adopted in my neighbourhood, which ciicumstance, I think, is a strong argument in its favor. And it isa inethod, too, used even by what are called downright plodding far- mers, which is likewise, in my opinion, a powerful recom- mendation.

Lord Sherborne, who resides in the vicinity of Burford, and who is probably as good a judge, of what is beneficial or otherwise to land, as any in the island, seldom refuses per- mission to his tenants to adopt this species of husbandry, even on land, concerning which it is stipulated by lease,“ that it shall never be broken up.” In the year 1800, his Lordship ad- vanced one step farther than the indulgence here specified, under the severe pressure which then prevailed from the ereat scarcity of grain, he was induced to comply with the request of at least one of his tenants at Aldsworth, who offered a pound per acre in addition to the usual rent of bis land, to be permitted to take one crop of barley after two crops of turnips, and then to lay the land down with seeds,

The result of this permission was an excellent crop of bar- ley, or four quarters to an acre, on land which was not capa- ble of supporting two sheep upon an acre before it was brought under the present mode of culture. The crop of seeds, name- ly, rye grass and broad-cloyer, which succeeded the crop of pale was very early,(which is a consideration in a barren and hilly country of the first importance,) and was very luxuriant, and it still retains these qualities in an astonishing