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Watty received a premium of £20. for the third best crop; the produce of well saved hay on two acres was 9 tons, 14cwt. and 2qrs.; the ground, a bog of little value. The following extract, from the Caledonian Mercury comes so strongly in aid of the above statements, that I cannot refrain from re-publishing it :

In the Caledonian Mercury of Thursday last, there is an advertisement offering to let the farm of Pennyland, part of the estate of Dalswinton, in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, belonging to Patrick Miller, Esq. of Dalswinton. The farm contains 1000 Scots acres; 289 acres have been laid down with clover, rye-grass, &c. and there are also 76 acres laid down with Fiorin grass; and it is the intention of the proprietor to lay down, in the course of the present year, 124 acres more with that grass. The following extract from the advertisement shews the great utility of cultivating Fiorin grass, and is in the highest degree honourable to our countryman, the Rev. Dr. Richardson.

"As Mr. Miller has cultivated Fiorin grass for five years, upon all kinds of soil, and to a much greater extent than any other person in Britain or Ireland, he is now perfectly satisfied that the Rev. Dr. Richardson has been the means of calling the attention of agriculturists, by his persevering and patriotic zeal and diligence, to the knowledge and value of a grass, which will prove of the greatest importance to the United kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland. Although it may not yet be known to what extent this grass may become valuable; or to what purposes it may be most probably employed, nor the number of sheep or cattle that may be fed and supported upon one acre's produce of this grass; Mr. Miller is nevertheless happy, that he can, without hesitation, declare, from his own experience, that Fiorin grass is a most valuable ac

quisition in the way of agriculture. Upon grounds which were let for twenty-one years, at one shilling per acre, and for which he could not, after advertising the same ground to be again let, obtain a higher rent, this ground had been laid down by him with Fiorin at an expence of about 10. per acre, which has produced 300 stones of excellent Fiorin hay, per acre, 24lbs. to the stone, and he believes that there are many thousands uncultivated acres in Scotland, of the same quality with his, which, if properly laid down with Fiorin, after being inclosed and drained, would produce crops equally good with his. Mr. Miller is also happy, that he has it in his power to affirm, that the second and third year's crops of Fiorin are superior to the first, and require only a top-dressing the second year. For how many years the Fiorin may continue to be equally productive, he cannot from his own experience say; but what he considers of the greatest importance is, that sheep and cattle may pasture with great profit and advantage, if not after the first, yet always after the second year's crop, upon ground which, before being laid down with this grass, would not have supported their weight. All the sheep he has slaughtered, during some weeks past, for the use of a numerous family, have produced mutton, at twenty months old, after seven weeks feeding upon the after math of Fiorin, equal, if not superior to mutton of any age, however fed, and he has no doubt of having mutton of the same quality for some months to come, from sheep of the same age fed upon Fiorin hay. During the three months of last Autumn, Mr. Miller fed twenty-eight work horses, at work every working day during that period, upon Fiorin fresh cut, without any other kind of food, and no work horses could go on with their

work, and be in better condition at the end of that time."

SECTION VI.

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ARTIFICIAL GRASSES.

THE use of those is confined to a few gentlemen; very few farmers ever think of saving artifical grasses; if they sometimes do, red clover is the only one, but as to soiling with it in the house, the only beneficial way of using it, it is almost unknown; it is always pastured on, a most wasteful practice, as, if the clover is good, a great proportion of it is destroyed by the feet of cattle, besides the danger of losing cattle by eating too much at one time. Soiling, unless carelessly managed, is free from this objection, and cattle are obliged to eat without selection, for according to Sir Humphry Davy, "the attachment or dislike to a particular kind of food, exhibited by animals, offers no proof of its nutritive powers." I have seen colts brought from the fair of Hospital in the county of Limerick, toss about good oats with their noses, and leave it behind them in the manger. I have also frequently seen sheep refuse turnips at first, but contrary to the opinion of Dr. Lawrence in his Farmer's Kalendar, I scarcely ever knew any animal refuse potatoes, though he says, page 424, "I have given them in large quantities, with bran and "wash, to large store pigs, in styes, without any good "effect; also to young pigs, running the yard, with "ill effect. I tried my stables round, with the same suc"cess that a certain German cultivator experienced, "(see Annals of Agriculture,) I could only persuade

one old mare to bite a raw potatoe, and she spat it "out again; so horses it seems, as well as doctors, dis

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agree." That horses will not be able to perform hard work, if fed on raw potatoes without corn, who ever doubted? but that they injured young pigs running in the yard, I shall not stop to remark on, but to state that the best pork I ever have tasted, was fed entirely on raw potatoes and grass; the general fact is, that pigs, as well as most other animals in Ireland, (I do not know how it might have been with Dr. Lawrence's epicures,) except those put up for fattening, seldom get enough, they are only kept alive; the same may be said of fowl. I think it is incumbent on every proprietor of land to try experiments, on a small scale, of every vegetable for the use of cattle. Several of our young gentlemen would find it a very pleasing antidote to ennui; they would be more healthfully employed than lounging on sofas, when they are not occupied in the sports of the field Lord Kaims says, "violently active in the field, supinely indolent at home:" and I should imagine, that conversations on the comparative value and mode of cultivating land and its produce, would be far more useful than the general topic, and kept up for whole nights, on the powers of different horses to leap walls, and the short time it took them to ride a certain distance; the entire merit in both cases remaining with the horse. I am, however, happy to state, that this worthless character is wearing out fast, and in nothing has the benefit of the frequent intercourse with England been more visible than the change of manners. Vetches or tares are little known in this county; if they were tried by farmers, they would be found to preclude the expensive necessity of fallowing; they have been proved to prepare ground for wheat much better than a naked fallow; the one pays rent, the other adds a year's rent

to the expense of the wheat crop; but to make them produce their best effects, they must be sowed thick enough (four bushels to the acre) to be a smothering crop, and consumed in the house by stock; the value of the manure produced by this practice must be added to the comparative account against the naked fallow. There are two varieties of vetches, winter and spring; the winter vetch, sowed in spring, frequently mildews and is spoiled; the spring vetch, sowed in autumn, at the same time with the winter vetch, has been entirely destroyed by frost, whilst the other has escaped. It is not very easy to distinguish the difference in the seed or plant, and frequently one kind is sold for the other. It is an excellent practice to sow with the vetches a thin crop of rye, beans, or even oats; they help to support them. Where this crop is used for soiling, it is seldom cut in time, by which means a great proportion of the crop becomes too old, and the stalks too hard for cattle; though many think they are most beneficial in this forward state. Swine, and all kinds of fowl, especially geese, will fatten on them at this period of their growth.

SECTION VII.

MODE OF HAY-MAKING.

THE general mode of making hay is very injudicious; the meadow is usually cut at a very late period, when much of its value is lost; with an idea of getting as much as possible from the land it is frequently deferred until October, especially by those who buy the meadows standing; the evil of this practice is not confined to the

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