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HAVING been repeatedly requested by gentlemen in all parts of the kingdom, to name such courses of crops as I thought would be advantageous, I very readily complied to the best of my judgment with the desire; but as it is necessary to be more diffuse in explanations than possible on the leaf of a pocket-book, I promised many to be more particular in my intended publication; 1 shall, therefore venture to recommend such modes of cultivation as I think, after viewing the greatest part of the kingdom, will be found most advantageous. TURNEP COURSE.1
DIRECTIONS. PLOUGH the field once in october into flat lands; give the second ploughing the beginning of march; a third in april; a fourth in may; upon this spread the manure, whatever it may be, if any is designed for the crop; dung is the best. About midsummer plough for the last time. You must be attentive in all these ploughings thoroughly to extirpate all root weeds, particularly couch (triticum repens)
and water grass (aira polymorpha)
; the former is the white root, which is under ground, the latter, which knots on the surface, and is, if possible, more mischievous than the former. Children, with baskets, should follow the plough in every furrow to pick it all up and burn it, and as fast as it is done sow and harrow in the turnep seed. The best way of sowing is to provide a trough, from twelve to sixteen feet long, three inches wide and four deep, made of slit deal, half an inch thick, let it have partitions twelve inches asunder, and a bottom of pierced tin, one hole in the center of each division,2
the holes in the tin should be just large enough for a seed to fall through with ease, thin lids slide in a groove and meets in the middle; in the middle of the trough two circular handles of iron; the seed is to be put, a small quantity at a time, into the divisions, and a man taking the trough in his hands walks with a steady pace over the land, shaking it sideways as he goes: if he guides himself by the centers and furrows of the beds, he will be sure not to miss any land; cover the seed with a light pair of harrows. A pint and half of seed the proper quantity for a plantation acre; the large globular white Norfolk sort, which grows above ground, yields the greatest produce. As soon as the crop comes up, watch them well to see if attacked by the fly, and if very large spaces are quite eaten, instantly plough again, and sow and harrow as before. When the plant gets the third or rough leaf, they are safe from the fly, and as soon as they spread a diameter of three inches is the time to begin to hand hoe them, an operation so indispensably necessary, that to cultivate turneps without it, is much worse management than not to cultivate them at all. Procure hand hoes from England eleven inches wide, and taking them into the field, make the men set out the turneps to the distance of from twelve to eighteen inches asunder, according to the richness of the soil; the richer the greater the distance, cutting up all weeds and turneps which grow within those spaces, and not leaving two or three plants together in knots. Make them do a piece of land perfectly well while you are with them, and leave it as a sample. They will be slow and awkward at first, but will improve quickly. Do not apprehend the expence, that will lessen as the men become handy. On no account permit them to do the work with their fingers, unless to separate two turneps close together, for they will then never understand the work, and the expence will always be great. Employ hands enough to finish the field in three weeks. As soon as they have done it, they are to begin again and hoe a second time to correct the deficiencies of the first; and for a few years, until the men become skilful in the business, attend in the same manner to remedy the omissions of the second. And if afterwards, when the turneps are closed, and exclude all hoeing, any weeds should rise and shew themselves above the crop, children and women should be sent in to pull them by hand. IN order to feed the crop where they grow, which is an essential article, herdles must be procured; as a part therefore of the system, plant two or three acres of the strait timber sally, in the same manner as for a twig garden, only the plants not quite so close, these at two years growth will make very good sheep herdles, they should be six or seven feet long and three feet high, the bottoms of the upright stakes sharpened, and projecting from the wattle works six inches, they are fixed down by means of stakes, one stake to each herdle, and a band of year old sally goes over the two end stakes of the herdle, and the moveable stake they are fixed with: the herdles are very easily made, but the best way would be to send over an Irish labourer to England to become a master of it, which he would do in a couple of months. BEING thus provided with herdles, and making some other shift till the sallies are grown, you must feed your crop (if you would apply them to the best advantage) with fat wethers, beginning the middle of november or first week in december, and herdling off a piece proportioned to the number of your sheep, let them live there, night and day, when they have nearly eaten the piece up, give them another, and so on while your crop lasts: when you come to have plenty of herdles there should be a double row in order to let your lean sheep follow the fat ones, and eat up their leavings; by which means none will be lost. The great profit of this practice in Ireland is being able to sell your fat sheep in the spring when mutton almost doubles its price. If you fat oxen with turneps they must be given in sheds, well littered, and kept clean, and the beasts should have good hay. Take care never to attempt to fatten either beasts or wethers with them that are lean at putting them to turneps; the application is profitable only for animals that are not less than half fat. UPON the crop being eaten there is a variation of conduct founded on circumstances not easy fully to describe, which is ploughing once, twice, or thrice for barley; the soil must be dry, loose, and friable for that grain, and as clover is always to be sown on it, it must be fine, but if the first ploughing is hit in proper time and weather, the land will be in finer order on many soils than after successive ploughings. The farmer in his field must be the judge of this: suffice it to say, that the right moment to send the ploughs into a field is one of the most difficult points to be learned in tillage, and which no instructions can teach. It is practice alone that can do it. As to the time of sowing the barley in Ireland I should miss no season after the middle of February if I had my land in order. Sow three quarters of a barrel, or a barrel and a quarter of barley to the plantation acre, according to the richness of the land, if it had a moderate manuring for turneps, and fed with fat sheep, three quarters or a whole one would be sufficient, but if you doubt your land being in heart sow one and a quarter. Plough first, (whether once, twice or thrice) and then sow and cover with harrows of middling weight, finishing with a light harrow. When the barley is three inches high, sow not less than 20 lb. of red clover to each plantation acre, if the seed is not very good do not sow less than 25 lb. and immediately run a light roller once over it; but take care that this is in a dry day, and when the earth does not stick at all to the roller. When the barley is cut, and carried from the field, seed the clover before winter, but not very bare, and do not let any cattle be on it in the winter. Early in the spring before it shoots pick the stones clean off where you intend mowing it for hay, but if you feed it this is unnecessary. As to the application of the crop for hay or food it must be directed by the occasions of the farmer; I shall however remark, that it may be made exceedingly conducive to increase the number of hogs in Ireland, as it will singly support, all quarter, half, and full grown pigs. If mown it should be cut as soon as the field looks reddish from the blossoms: it will yield two full crops of hay. WITHIN the month of october let it be well ploughed, with an even regular furrow, and from half to three quarters of a barrel of wheat seed sown, according to the richness of the land, and harrowed well in. When this crop is reaped and cleared the course ends, and you begin again for turneps as before. THIS system is very well adapted to sheep, as the clover fattens them in summer, and the turneps in winter.—Excellent as it is for dry soils, it is not adapted to wet ones; the following is preferable. BEAN COURSE.3
DIRECTIONS. WHATEVER the preceding crop, whether corn, or old grass, (for the first manure is properly applied, but unnecessary on the latter) plough but once for planting beans, which should be performed from the middle of december to the middle of february, the earlier the better,4
and chuse either the mazagan or the horse bean according to your market; the single ploughing given must be performed so as to arch the land up, and leave deep furrows to serve as open drains. Harrow the land after ploughing. Provide slit planed deal poles ten feet long, an inch thick, and two inches broad, bore holes , through them exactly at sixteen inches asunder, pass pack-threads through these holes to the length of the lands you are about to plant, and there should be a pole at every fifty yards; four stakes at the corners of the extreme poles, fasten them to the ground, the intention is to keep the lines every where at equal distances and strait, which are great points in the bean husbandry to facilitate horse hoeing. This being ready, women take some beans in their aprons, and with a dibber pointed with iron make the holes along the strings with their right hand, and put the bean in with their left; while they are doing one set of lines, another should be prepared and fixed ready for them. Near London they are paid 3s. and 3s. 6d. a bushel for this work of planting; but where they are not accustomed to it they do it by the day. The beans are put three inches asunder, and two or three inches deep. A barrel will plant a plantation acre. A light pair of harrows are used to cover the seed in the holes, stuck with a few bushes. By the time the cold easterly winds come in the spring they will be high enough to hand hoe, if they were early planted, and it is of consequence on strong soils to catch every dry season for such operations. The hoes should be eight inches wide, and the whole surface of the space between the rows carefully cut, and every weed eradicated. This hoeing costs, near London, from 5s. to 7s. 6d. per English acre, but with unskilful hands in Ireland I should suppose it would cost from 12s. to 14s. per plantation acre, according to the laziness in working I have remarked there. When the beans are about six inches high, they should be horsehoed with a shim, the cutting part ten or eleven inches wide. A plate of this tool is to be seen in my Eastern Tour.
It is cheap, simple, and not apt to be out of order, one horse draws it, which should be led by a careful person, another should hold the shim, and guide it carefully in the center between the rows. It cuts up all weeds effectually, and loosens the earth two or three inches deep; in a little time after this operation the hand hoe should be sent in again to cut any slips which the shim might have passed, and to extract the weeds that grew too near the plants for that tool to take them. This is but a slight hoeing. If the weather is dry enough a second horse hoeing with the shim should follow when the beans are nine or ten inches high, but if the weather is wet it must be omitted, the hand hoe however must be kept at work enough to keep the beans perfectly free from weeds. Reap the crop as soon as a few of the pods turn darkish, and while many of them are green, you had much better cut too soon than too late. You may get them off in the month of august, (in England the mazagans are reaped in july) which leaves a sufficient season for half a fallow. Plough the ground directly if the weather is dry; and if dry seasons permit (but you must be guided entirely by the state of the weather, taking care on this soil never to go on it when wet) give it two ploughings more before winter, leaving the lands rounded up so as to shoot off all water, with deep and well cleansed furrows for the winter. It is of particular consequence for an early spring sowing, that not a drop of water rest on the land through winter. THE first season dry enough after the middle of february, plough and sow the oats, harrowing them in, from three fourths of a barrel, to a barrel and a quarter according to the richness of the land. As the sowing must be on this one ploughing, you must be attentive to timing it right, and by no means to lose a dry season; cleanse the furrows, and leave the lands in such a round neat shape that no water can lodge; and when the oats are three or four inches high, as in the case before-mentioned of barley, roll in the clover seed as before, taking care to do it in a dry season. I need not carry the direction farther, as those for the turnep course are to be applied to the clover and wheat. THE great object on these strong and wet soils is to be very careful never to let your horses go on them in wet weather, and in the forming your lands always to keep them the segment of a circle that water may no where rest, with cuts for conveying it away. Another course for this land is, In which the beans being managed exactly as before directed, three ploughings are given to the land, the third of which covers the wheat seed: this is a very profitable course. POTATOE COURSE.5
DIRECTIONS. I will suppose the land to be a stubble, upon which spread the dung or compost equally over the whole field, in quantity not less than 60 cubical yards to a plantation acre. If the land be quite dry lay it flat, if inclinable to wetness arch it gently; in this first ploughing which should be given the latter end of february or the beginning of march, the potatoes are to be planted. Women are to lay the sets in every other furrow, at the distance of 12 inches from set to set close to the unploughed land, in order that the horses may tread the less on them. There should be women enough to plant one furrow in the time the ploughman is turning another, the furrows should be not more than five inches deep, nor broader than nine inches, because when the potatoes come up they should be in rows 18 inches asunder. The furrows should also be straight, that the rows may be so for horse hoeing. Having finished the field, harrow it well to lay the surface smooth, and break all the clods, and if the weather be quite dry any time in a fortnight after planting run a light roller over it followed by a light harrow. About a fortnight before the potatoes appear, shim over the whole surface of the field with one whose cutting edge is two feet long, going not more than two inches deep; this loosens the surface mould, and cuts off all the young weeds that may be just coming up. When the potatoes are three inches high horse hoe them with a shim as directed for beans that cuts 12 inches wide, and go three inches deep, and immediately after hand hoe the rows, cutting the surface well between plant and plant, and also the space missed by the shim. Repeat both these operations when the plants are six or seven inches high; and in about three weeks after give a hand hoeing, directing the men gently to earth up the plants, but not to lay the mould higher to their stems than three inches. After this nothing more is to be done than sending women in to draw out any weeds that may appear by hand. Take them up the beginning of october, first carrying away all the stalks to the farm yard to make dung: then plough them up across
the field; making these new lands very wide, that is 4, 5, or 6 perch over, in order to leave as few furrows that way as possible. Provide to every plough from ten to fifteen men with three pronged forks, and a boy or girl with a basket to every man, and dispose eight or ten cars along the land to receive the crop, I used three wheeled carts, as they do not require a horse while they are idle. Have your wheat seed ready brined, and limed, and the seedsman with his basket in the field; as soon as the ploughman turns a furrow, the seedsman follows him close, spraining the seed not into the furrow just opened, but on to the land thrown over by the plough, the forkmen then divide themselves at equal distances along it, and shaking the mould which the ploughman turned over with their forks, the boys pick up the potatoes. In using their forks they must attend to leaving the land regular and handsome without leaving holes or inequalities, as there is to be no other tillage for the wheat. They are also always to stand and move on the part unploughed, and never to tread on the other; they are also to break all the land in pieces which the ploughman turns over, not only for getting all the potatoes, but also for covering the wheat. And thus they are to go on till the field is finished. If your men are lazy, and do not work hard enough to keep the plough constantly going, you must get more, for they should never stand still. The treatment of this wheat wants no directions, and the succeeding crops of the course are to be managed exactly as before directed, only you need not manure for the turneps, if the potatoes had in that respect justice done them. FLAX COURSE. DIRECTIONS. THIS for flax on light and dry soils, the turneps to be managed exactly as before directed, and the remarks on the tillage of the turnep land for barley are all applicable to flax which requires the land to be very fine and friable; I would roll in the clover seed in the same manner, and the weeding and pulling the flax will assist its growth. Let the flax be saved and stacked like corn, threshed in the spring, and the process of watering and dressing gone through the same as in the common way. This husbandry is exceedingly profitable. THIS for strong soils. The bean land to be prepared for the flax exactly in the same manner as before directed for oats. FOR any soils except the very strong ones. The potatoes to be managed exactly as before directed, only upon taking them up the land to be left till spring, but if wet no water to be suffered on it in the winter. In the spring to apply more or fewer ploughings as will best ensure a fine friable surface to sow the flax in. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. IN very stoney soils, the implement called a shim cannot be used to any advantage; in which case the operations directed for it must be effected by extra hand hoeings. By land
I mean those beds formed in ploughing by the finishing open furrows: the space from furrow to furrow is the land
. IN ploughing wet soils be attentive to get these lands gradually into a right shape, which is a direct segment of a circle. A large segment of a small circle raises the centers too high, and makes the sides too steep; but a small segment of a large circle is the proper form—for instance, DIAGRAM HERE THE segment of a
appears at once to be an improper shape for a broad land, but that of b
is the right form; keeping wet soils in that shape very much corrects the natural disadvantages, permitting the teams to go on to wet soils in wet weather, is a most mischievous practice; but it is much worse in the spring than in the autumn. In all these courses it is proper to remark, that keeping the fallow crops, that is the turneps, beans and potatoes, absolutely free from all weeds, and in loose friable order, is essential to success. It is not necessary only for those crops, but the successive ones depend entirely on this conduct. It is the principle of this husbandry to banish fallows, which are equally expensive and useless, but then it is absolutely necessary to be assiduous to the last degree in keeping these crops in the utmost perfection of management, not a shilling can be laid out on them that will not pay amply. THERE are in the preceding courses several refinements and practices, which I not only approve, but have practised, but omitted here, as I do not think them likely to meet with the necessary attention in Ireland. LAYING LAND TO GRASS. THERE is no part of husbandry in Ireland less understood than this branch, and yet where land is to be laid down, none is more important. BEGIN according to the soil, with either turneps, beans or potatoes, and manage them as prescribed in the preceding instructions. If the land has been long under a bad system, by which it has been exhausted and filled with noxious weeds, take a second crop managed exactly like the first, but one only to be manured. After this sow either barley, oats, or flax, according to the tenor of the preceding directions, but instead of clover seed rolled in, harrow in the following seeds, with those spring crops: quantities for a plantation acre, 15 lb. perennial red clover, called cow grass, (trifolium alpestre)
12 lb. of white clover, trifolium repens)
. 15 lb. of narrow leaved plantain, called rib grass, (plantago lanceolata.
) 10 lb. of yellow trefoile. Which if bought at the best hand, will not usually exceed above twenty-five shillings. All the ploughings given for this end, must tend to reduce the surface to an exact level, but then a very correct attention must be used to dig open furrows, in order to convey away all water. 1
For dry and light soils. 2
Some are made with five holes in every other division: these variations are not of consequence, if the quantity sown be right. 3
For strong and wet soils. 4
In England it is proper to wait till the heavy Christmas frost breaks up, but as such are rare in Ireland, the same precaution is not necessary. 5
For light and dry soil; potatoes never answer on clays or strong wet soils.MODES
O F
AGRICULTURE
RECOMMENDED TO THE
GENTLEMEN of IRELAND.
Arthur Young, A Tour in Ireland, made in the years 1776, 1777, and 1778 (London: T. Cadell, 1780)