nips or carrots, I am not prepared to say. But no attempts, within my knowledge, have been made among us of a systematic agriculture; and until we enter upon some regular rotation of crops, and our husbandry becomes more systematic, no distinguished success can be looked for. As to our soil, as has been remarked, there is no inherent incapacity for the production of any of the common crops. We can raise wheat in Massachusetts. The average crop in England is twenty-six bushels to the acre. From my own farm, where the soil is comparatively thin and poor, I have obtained this summer seventy-six bushels of wheat upon three acres of land. It is not, therefore, any want of capability in the soil; but the improvement and success of our husbandry must depend upon a succession of crops adapted to the circumstances of our soil, climate, and peculiar condition.

In England, a large portion of the turnip crop is consumed on the land where it grows. The sheep are fed out of doors all winter; and I saw many large flocks, in the aggregate thousands and even millions of sheep, which were never housed. This was matter of surprise, especially considering the wetness of the climate; and these sheep are often exposed in fields where a dry spot cannot be found for them to lie down upon. Sheep are often folded in England by wattled fences, or hurdles temporarily erected in different parts of the field, and removed from place to place, as the portions of the crop thus fenced off are consumed. In some cases they are folded, and the turnips dug and carried to them. In such cases, they are always fed upon lands which are intended the next year to be, as far as practicable, brought under cultivation. I have seen many laborers in fields, employed in drawing the turnips, splitting them, and scattering them over the land, for the use of the sheep, which is considered better, often, than to leave the sheep to dig for themselves. These laborers are so employed all winter, and if the ground should become frozen, the turnips are taken up with a bar. Together with the turnips, it is thought important that sheep should have a small quantity of other food. Chopped hay, sometimes a little oil-cake, or oats, is usually given. This is called trough food, as it is eaten in troughs, standing about in the field. In so moist a climate as that of England, some land is so wet that, in the farmer's

phrase, it will not carry sheep; that is, it is quite too wet for sheep to lie out upon it. In such cases, the turnips must be carried, that is, removed from the field, and fed out elsewhere. The last season was uncommonly wet, and for that reason, perhaps, I could not so well judge; but it appeared to me that it would be an improvement in English husbandry, to furnish for sheep, oftener than is done, not only a tolerably dry ground to lie on, but some sort of shelter against the cold rains of winter. The turnips, doubtless, are more completely consumed, when dug, split, and fed out. The Swedish turnip, I have little doubt, is best suited to cold climates. It is scarcely injured by be ing frozen in the ground in the winter, as it will thaw again, and be still good, in spring. In Scotland, in the Lothians, where cultivation is equal to that in any part of England, it is more the practice than farther south to house turnips, or draw them, and cover them from frost. I have been greatly pleased with Scotch farming, and as the climate and soil of Scotland more resemble the soil and climate of Massachusetts than those of England do, I hope the farmers of Massachusetts will acquaint themselves, as well as they can, with Scotch husbandry. 1 had the pleasure of passing some time in Scotland, with persons engaged in these pursuits, and acknowledge myself much instructed by what I learned from them, and saw in their company. The great extent of the use of turnips and other green crops in Scotland is evidence that such crops cannot be altogether unsuited to Massachusetts.

Among the subjects which of late years have engaged much of the attention of agriculturists in England, few are more important than that of tile draining. This most efficient and successful mode of draining is getting into very extensive use. Much of the soil of England, as I have already stated, rests on a clayey and retentive subsoil. Excessive wetness is prejudicial and destructive to the crops, Marginal drains, or drains on the outside of the fields, do not produce the desired results. These tile-drains have effected most important improvements. The tile itself is made of clay, baked like bricks; it is about one foot in length, four inches in width, three fourths of an inch in thickness, and it stands from six to eight inches in height, being hemispherical, or like the half of a cylinder, with its sides elongated. It somewhat resembles the Dutch tiles which are seen

on the roofs of the old houses in Albany and New York. A ditch is sunk, eighteen or twenty inches in depth, and these drains are multiplied over a field, sometimes at a distance of only seven yards apart. The ditch or drain being dug, these tiles are laid down, with the hollow side at bottom, on the smooth clay, or any other firm subsoil, the sides placed near to each other, some little straw thrown over the joints to prevent the admission of dirt, and the whole covered up. This is not so expensive a mode of draining as might be supposed. The ditch or drain need only be narrow, and tiles are of much cheaper transportation than stone would be. But the result is so important as well to justify the expense. It is estimated that this thorough draining adds often twenty per cent. to the production of the wheat crop. A beautiful example came under my observation in Nottinghamshire, not long before I left England. A gentleman was showing me his grounds for next year's crop of wheat. On one side of the lane, where the land had been drained, the wheat was already up and growing luxuriantly; on the other, where the land was subject to no other disadvantage than that it had not been drained, it was still too wet to be sowed at all. It may be thought singular enough, but it is doubtless true, that, on stiff, clayey lands, thorough draining is as useful in dry, hot summers as in cold and wet summers; for such land, if a wet winter or spring be suddenly followed by hot and dry weather, is apt to become hard and baked, so that the roots of plants cannot enter it. Thorough draining, by giving an opportunity to the water on the surface to be constantly escaping, corrects this evil. Draining can never be needed to so great an extent in Massachusetts as in England and Scotland, from the different nature of the soil; but we have yet quantities of low meadow lands, producing wild, harsh, sour grasses, or producing nothing, which, there is little doubt, might be rendered most profitable hay-fields, by being well drained. When we understand better the importance of concentrating labor, instead of scattering it, when we shall come to estimate duly the superior profit of "a little farm, well tilled," over a great farm, half cultivated and half manured, overrun with weeds, and scourged with exhausting crops, we shall then fill our barns, and double the winter fodder for our cattle and sheep by the products of these waste meadows.

There is in England another mode of improvement, most important, instances of which I have seen, and one of which I regard as the most beautiful agricultural improvement which has ever come under my observation. I mean irrigation, or the making of what are called water meadows. I first saw them in Wiltshire, and was much struck with them, not having before understood, from reading or conversation; exactly what they were. But I afterwards had an opportunity of examining a most signal and successful example of this mode of improvement, on the estates of the Duke of Portland, in the North of England, on the borders of Sherwood forest. Indeed, it was part of the old forest known by that name. Sherwood forest, at least in its present state, is not like the pine forests of Maine, the heavy, hard wood forests of the unredeemed lands of New Hampshire and Vermont, or the still heavier timbered lands of the West. It embraces a large extent of country, with various soils, some of them thin and light, with beautiful and venerable oaks, of unknown age, much open ground between them and underneath their wide-spread branches, and this covered with heather, lichens, and fern. Sherwood forest, indeed, is not less interesting for the natural beauty which charms the eye, than for its venerable antiquity and historical associations. But in many parts the soil is far enough from being rich. Upon the borders of this forest are the water meadows of which I am speaking. A little river runs through the forest in this part, at the bottom of a valley with sides moderately sloping, and of considerable extent, between the river at the bottom and the common level of the surrounding country above. This little river, before reaching the place, runs through a small town, and gathers, doubtless, some refuse matter in its course. From this river, the water is taken at the upper end of the valley, conducted along the edge, or bank, in a canal or carrier, and from this carrier, at proper times, suffered to flow out very gently, spreading over and irrigating the whole surface, trickling and shining, when I saw it, (and it was then November,) among the light-green of the new-springing grass, and collected below in another canal, from which it is again let out, to flow in like manner over land lying still farther down towards the bottom of the valley. Ten years ago, this land, for production, was worth little or nothing. I was told that some of it

had been let, for no more than a shilling an acre. It has not been manured, and yet is now most extensively productive. It is not flooded; the water does not stand upon it; it flows gently over, and is applied several times in a year to each part, say in March, May, July, and October. In November, when I saw it, the farmers were taking off the third crop of hay cut this season, and that crop was certainly not less than two tons to the acre. This last crop is mostly used as green food for cattle. When I speak of the number of tons, I mean tons of dried hay. After this crop was off, sheep were to be put on it, to have lambs at Christmas, so as to come into market in March, a time of year when they command a high price. Upon taking off the sheep in March, the land would be watered: The process of watering lasts two or three days, or perhaps eight or ten days, according to circumstances, and is repeated after the taking off of each successive crop. Although this water has no doubt considerable sediment in it, yet the general fact shows how important water itself is to the growth of plants, and how far, even, it may supply the place of other sources of sustenance. Now we in Massachusetts have a more uneven surface, more valleys with sloping sides, by many times more streams, and such a climate that our farms suffer much oftener from drought, than farms in England. May we not learn something useful, therefore, from such examples of irrigation in that country?

With respect to implements of husbandry, I am of opinion that the English, upon the whole, have no advantage over us. Their wagons and carts are no better; their ploughs, I thought, not better anywhere, and in some counties far inferior, because unnecessarily heavy. The subsoil plough, for which we have little use, is esteemed a useful invention, and the mole plough, which I have seen in operation, and the use of which is to make an underground drain, without disturbing the surface, is an ingenious contrivance, likely to be useful in clay soils, free from stone and gravel, but which can be little used in Massachusetts. In general, the English utensils of husbandry seemed to me unnecessarily cumbrous and heavy. The ploughs, especially, require a great strength of draught. But as drill husbandry is extensively practised in England, and very little with us, the various implements, or machines, for drill-sowing in that country quite surpass all we have. I do not re