Framingham, Its Agriculture, Including the Economy of a Small Farm (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1820 Excerpt: ... crops of rye, which are consumed much looner than vetches. I have a less breadth of layer this year than usual, but it having been pretty well set on the ground, and the season having been favorable, I have had, at least, an average crop of hay. The farmer is however, occasionally, and indeed, not infrequently, disappointed in this crop; and as a hay crop, it must always be liable to injury from wet weather, at the time of hay making: I suspect there is, also, some defect in the principle of its culture. Some lands and some atmospheres are certainly more favorable to grass, whether natural or artificial, than others; and in one or both these respects, Norfolk is, probably, less favorable to it than Cheshire or Lancashire; yet Norfolk has exhibited much more skill in the cultivation of artificial grasses, and in the regular yearly laying down with grass seeds about a fourth of the arable part of every farm, than was ever applied, in this way, in either of those counties, rich as they are in natural pasture. The only country in which clover 6eems to have been cultivated with certainty and complete success, is Flanders; the strongest possible motive, indeed, exists in that country for obtaining full crops of it, for, as the Rev. Mr. Ratcliffe says, in his Report of the Agriculture of Flanders, page 59, "upon the cultivation of this plant hinges, apparently, the whole of the farmer's prosperity;" and he further says, ." the luxuriance of the clover is surprizing, and doubly so, when you enquire thequantity of seed sown/' which is little more than six pounds per English acre, and which costs no more than six-pence a pound, for a soiling crop. Mr. Ratcliffe considers this to be accounted for only, "in the fine preparation and extraordinary cleanliness of the Flemi...