Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 2, 1802).djvu/118

98] their suddenly retreating from one place, and appearing at another.

An easy method of destroying this insect, is to place phials, half full of beer, or any other liquid, near their holes, whence they will crawl into them, and cannot escape. Cats are very fond of crickets: but the vast quantities they consume, often occasion their death. Hence it is more advisable to destroy these insects, either by pouring hot water into the holes through which they retreat, or exposing boiled peas, or carrots, mashed up with quicksilver, in places which they frequent. Another mode of exterminating them, consists in placing pea-straw near their habitations, and then immersing them into water, together with this straw, to which they are peculiarly attached.  : See.  Crocus. See.  CROP, usually signifies the corn gathered off a field, in harvest.

Till the middle of last century, the best common courses of farming in Britain, consisted of a ', which, by several ploughings, broke up and cleaned the ground, but left the soil exposed to the scorching rays of the sun, during the hottest season, without any shading crop; and on this the farmer sowed ', which was succeeded by ' or '; then followed ', or ' (or both) on one part of the farm, for the space of ten or twenty years: the other moiety, during that time, being laid out in common pasture grasses. When any change was to be made, the part in grass was ploughed and prepared, and then thrown into the same course or rotation of crops as above: that which had been in crops, was sown with mixed grass-seeds (but not clover), to lie for ten or twenty years, as before. The whole arable part of the farm thus parcelled, included neither the homestead nor the standing meadow; so that an arable farm of 300 acres admitted of 150 being in grass lay, or old field, and 150 in crops. The fields which bore crops, were seldom equal in quantity, but in the following plan we have ventured to consider them so, for the better comparing of the old and new systems:

The fallow, wheat, and barley crops, are exhausting, that is, they deprive the land by exhalation of part of the vegetable nutriment deposited in it; the peas, or beans, which operate as a manure, ameliorate; but the rays of the sun on the naked soil, in the hot season, cause a considerable portion of the essence of the manure, and also of the ground, gradually to exhale.

The new system of rotation or courses of crops, was introduced about the middle of the 18th century, and is founded on the following principles, namely; 1. To fallow, and at the same time to have a shading and ameliorating mild crop growing on the fallow, while it is under the plough or hoe; 2. Never to sow any species of corn in succession; 3. To sow , or an equivalent on every field of small grain; and lastly, by means