Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1839. Excerpt:... Thus will a piece or field of the best grasses be laid down permanently, and be on the improve for many years; yielding annually either excellent hay or rich grazing. There are several other agricultural plants which engage the attention of British farmers, namely, the hop, saffron, flax, hemp, medical poppy, and Teazels or clothier's-brush. All these I have seen cultivated: but having no experimental knowledge of their culture or value to the cultivator, decline advancing any thing concerning them, which I could only extract from other books. DESTRUCTIVE ANIMALS. The wild animals injurious to farmers are all so well known as to need no description. Rats and rabbits, where allowed to become too numerous, are serious enemies; and it is a pity that the latter are under the protection of the gamelaws. Foxes destroy rabbits, and so far, are useful to farmers; but if they allow them to visit their folds or hen-roosts, they have only themselves to blame. Polecats, stoats, and weasels, are dangerous to poultry; but even they kill great numbers of mice; and if they frequent barns or rickyards, neither rats nor mice can abound. Among birds, the owls are the most indefatigible mousers both about the homestead and in the fields, and therefore should be cherished wherever they may take up their abode. Next in usefulness are the rooks, which live for the greatest part of the year on grubs which devour the roots of grass and corn. In very dry weather the grubs descend into the earth: and the ground being hard at the same time, the rooks cannot dig deep enough to reach them. Thus half famished, the poor rooks are driven to invade a field of wheat or barley, just as the grain begins to ripen, or perhaps to a cherry orchard, to allay hunger. But from committing such depre...