Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 1, 1802).djvu/232

204] the cuttings, by covering the ground, will shade it, keep it moist, and gradually be converted into manure, which, as strong lands are apt to chap, and such only being fit for beans, will be of great utility.

Beans intended for seed, should be plucked up by the roots, before they are quite ripe, instead of cutting the stalks: thus they will receive nourishment enough after being removed, to ripen fully, and no seed will be lost; which otherwise happens to a great quantity, in their cutting and removal.

Beans have long been used by our most celebrated agriculturists, as a preparatory crop for wheat-lands. The beneficial effects of this method are so well known, that it is unnecessary to expatiate upon the subject. We must, however, observe, that in the year 1795, the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, adjudged a premium of twenty guineas to, Esq. an ingenious improver of rural economy (whose successful exertions in planting ), for his judicious culture of beans and wheat. He sowed fifteen acres in February, 1794, with the Vicia faba equina, or small horse bean. The quantity of seed was six pecks to the acre; and the total expence 29l. 14s. 3d. or 1l. 19s. $7 1⁄4$d. per acre. The produce was fifty-nine quarters and one bushel, which were sold for 120l. 11s. and 6d. A detailed account of this interesting experiment, may be seen in the fourteenth volume of the Society's Transactions.

In the year 1796, Mr., of Bankside, near Doncaster, received a similar premium from the Society, for having drilled sixteen acres of land with beans, and sown it with wheat in the same year. He employed 's Drill Machine, and the beans were of the same species as those sown by Mr..

Another premium was also given to Mr., of Tynningham, who, in the spring of 1797, drilled three fields, containing nearly twenty-three acres and a half, with beans, and sowed them with wheat in the same year. This process is described, at considerable length, with several interesting remarks, in the seventeenth volume of the above-mentioned work.

The Duke of, about eleven years since, made an experiment, to ascertain whether the soil of the common fields of Northamptonshire, and the adjacent counties, would alternately bear a crop of wheat and beans, for a series of years; after giving it a light dressing of dung, namely, from twelve to fifteen loads per acre, every third year; without rendering the land poorer than it was when first cultivated for this purpose. After having manured the field in the manner specified, the Duke, in the first year, sowed one half of it with wheat, and the other half with beans. The success of this plan was so great, that in a letter to, Esq. dated August 1899, he observes, he has continued this alternate course of crops ever since, without having in a single instance admitted a fallow.

Having stated these useful and interesting facts, we shall submit the practical application to the judgment of the reader. But the last-mentioned experiment by no means proves, that a summer fallow may not, on some particular lands,