my t You say, that you are more in breasts of its own choicest creadebt than you ever can repay. tures. About the time of my This is being just and generous last return to England; that reat the same time: just, because turn, which the Magistrates of it really does appear that you Manchester intimated their inhave derived advantages from my tention to hail in so hospitable a labours, which advantages admit manner; that return for having not of payment and generous, merely announced which the because you must well know that Lanchashirers crammed a man into in giving me leave to publish jail for ten weeks; about the such a letter you were doing what time of that return, when frightvery few men would do; and, ened corruption was as busy as indeed, that it was an act, which, the devil in a high wind, spreadall circumstances considered, Iing her nets and forging her could have no right to expect at chains; about the time of that your hands. return, when every vile wretch that could stutter out words of abuse upon me, or spatter them down upon paper, the Farmer's weekly Museum, having been applied to by a "Young Farmer" for information as to the question, "whether any one in England "had tried Cobbett's American The public, in general, and even you yourself, may not know that there is such a publication as the "FARMER'S WEEKLY JOUR"NAL." This publication is, I am told, supported chiefly by Landlords. Its main object seems to be to cause rents to be kept up although the labourer be crushed" mode of cultivating the Swed ́to powder; from the Numbers" ish turnip," answered in someof it that I have seen, I should what the following words: "we suppose it to be, in proportion to" know enough of Cobbett and its circulation, as effective a tool" of America, too, to advise our of corruption, as is to be found"correspondent not to believe in the country. That such a 66 publication should aim blows at me is not at all surprising; for I have long been a target for every arrow in the quiver of that atrocious corruption, which has at What can be coarse, what can last, driven its arrows into the be rude, when applied to the any thing that Cobbett says.” Now, what chastisement can be too severe for the man who could put this upon paper? Talk of coarseness! talk of rudeness ! writer of this? Is it coarse to nour on yourself. The public Is it should be informed that the Year's that country. You, it appears, thought the instructions worthy of attention; you tried the method; you found it to be what you have described it; and, like an honest and independent man, you have enabled me to communicate to the public an account of the effects of your experiment. call a brute a brute? thought rude to call the house- Residence came out in three breaker, or the murderer, a vil-parts, the first in 1818, and the lain? Of what use are terms two others in 1819. They were like these if they are never to be written for the double purpose of applied? And ought not the giving instructions for the rearing word base and the word scoundrel of cattle food in America, and of to be taken out of the dictionary, communicating useful information if they are not to be applied to to persons going from England to the writer of this sentence? Upon the face of the thing, without any facts to illustrate it, this was a most detestable act. The wretch had seen my book or he had not if the latter, how could he offer an opinion upon the subject at all; and if the latter, he must have been a wilful perverter of truth, and that, too, for the sole purpose of injuring my reputation, though in doing that he was doing a manifest injury to his correspondent and to the nation at large. But, when this malignant sentence is contrasted with the contents of your letter, is there a man of honour in England, who will not feel indignant at the base scoundrel who could your Year's Residence in Ameput such a sentence upon paper? rica, I. began, and drilled six I now proceed to insert, ac- acres of Swedish Turnips, at the cording to your obliging permis- distance of four feet, and transsion that letter which does such planted six acres at the same ample justice to the Agricultural width. I ploughed three times Part of my Year's Residence, from the plants, and a few days and which reflects so much ho- after I moulded, them up again, Bergh Apton, (near Norwich) DEAR SIR, 1. I have often wished to perform, and am now about performing, an act of justice to you, by stating the result of my following your culture of the Swedish Turnip, 24 In 1819, as soon as I got 66 with the Northumberland plough. drills on the ten furrows, about This was one of the worst years twenty inches distant; these were for Swedish Turnips (in this hoed three times, with a horse neighbourhood) I ever knew, yet hoe which I made, and which mine were the CRACK of performs the work better than any this part of the country. I had hoe I have seen. I hoe three of many visitors to see them and the Northumberland ridges at the my neighbour and friend, Doc- same time, on the ten furrow tor Rigby, whose experiments in ridges,the horses going in each furfarming do him very great credit, row, and hoeing the whole ridge; expressed his approbation, and these hoes will cut from three to was highly pleased with the mode four inches in depth, which I of culture. mention to prove that the two latter had good hoeings. 3. I was also visited by several Parsons; they came on pur- 5. In the October following, I pose to see my Swedish Turnips, began to take off the leaves of and I must say I have always the Swedish Turnips as you refound the noses of these gentry commended, and for three months very keen; I allude to the gene- I fed my hogs, in the yard, on rality of them, for there are them. I might pull off about a some very honourable exceptions. waggon-load to the acre. With They looked at the turnips for these my hogs kept in good the same reason the magpye thriving condition. I several looked into the bone, to see if times put some beet-root into any more was to be got out of it: -THE SYSTEM! the yard; but I observed that the hogs would not touch them when they could get the Swedish Turnip leaves. But the best part 4. This last year, 1820, I had thirty acres of Swedes. The culture I carried on as follows: is yet to come; for my hogs I put in six acres at four feet, made me, by my following this transplanted, ploughed the same your advice, two hundred loads of as before, three times from the most excellent muck. plants and three times back again; 6. I will now relate a circumten acres were put in on the stance that will at once prove Northumberland ridges, thirty the comparative difference of inches in width; and fourteen the modes of culture. GEORGE acres on ten furrow ridges, four KETT, Esq the Sheriff of the The County, called on me to see near six hundred loads; this year the different systems. He ex- already I have burnt near two pressed himself much pleased hundred, and have a considerable with the four-feet rows; and, he quantity yet to burn. wishing to purchase an acre or ashes cost me eightpence per two of Turnips, I begged he load, and I put on thirty loads would take them where he pleased, to the acre. This I find quite out of the different modes of cul ture. He said he admired those sufficient. Your Obedient I shall ever think myself your on the wide ridges; but, if I debtor, for the information I have pleased, he would send his Stew-gained in reading your Year's ard and let him take them where Residence in America; and I he thought they were best. I have humbly endeavoured, to very much approved of this offer. make you recompence by these The Steward came: I went with statements, and beg leave to rehim over the different fields with main my son, and requested him to take them where he considered them best. He made choice of those put in at four feet distance. I then told him we had weighed and measured a rod of each, and that the Turnips he chose were the heaviest. This year also was very unfavourable for Swedish distances put against the thirty Turnips with us, the grubs being inches, and against the twenty so numerous, that we sometimes inches; and we have the transfound ten or more, when hoeing, at a plant, and the Turnips when full grown had holes in them eaten by the grubs, more than an inch in depth. The produce was six hundred and forty bushels per acre. I have persevered in burning earth, which you so strongly re Here, then, we have the best possible evidence of the utility of my work. Here we have my method put against the Northumberland. We have the four feet planting, at four feet distances. The transplanting is the method to which I give the preference; and on this the superior merit is stamped by your trials. The circumstance mentioned in the fifth paragraph of your letter, that Mr. Kett, first by himself, and next by his steward, gave the commended. Last year I burnt preference to the four feet rows, and to the transplanted of those [nating powers of lawyers! They rows, is complete in point of evi- are cunning enough to be sure; dence; because here was opinion and to the Parsons faculty of backed by money laid down,which smelling out good things, all hisis always a pretty good proof of tory, ancient and modern, bears sincerity. testimony. But, for discrimination as to the quality of articles of food, commend me to a pig, young or old; and those who regard a pig's snout as made for nothing but to grunt and to grub with, must have taken less delight in the society of hogs, and The facts mentioned in your fourth paragraph are very interesting. No one, who reads that paragraph can help perceiving the great importance of the method there mentioned. I am decidedly of opinion that this plant never ought to be consumed upon the paid less attention to their manground, under any circumstances.ners than I have. A hog is none The greens in that case are pretty of your fanciful philosophers; nearly all thrown away, and they none of your abstract politicians: are nearly equal, weight for he cares not a straw about apweight, to loaved early York cab-pearances and tastes: the simple bages, which are, weight for question with him is, "will this weight, worth twice as much as "thing lay flesh upon my the things called cattle cabbages," bones?" and if that question and will (in proportion to the be answered in time that they stand upon the ground) produce a much heavier crop, all the difference in the expence being in the mere act of transplanting. I have repeatedly phy and pig policy: "will the observed, in the course of my work," measure do us good: will it give that the criterion of excellence in the nation strength: will it cattle crops is, the preference" make the millions happy:" these given by hogs. Will a hog are the questions that I put; and "thrive upon it?" That's the upon the answers that reason question; and if that question be gives to these questions, all Statesanswered in the negative, the ar- men should regulate their conticle is not worth cultivating upon duct. I have said that a pig will good land. Talk of the discrimi- reject every plant, except the 66 the affirmative, down his throat it goes as long as there is a space sufficient to contain a pin's head unfilled in his maw. I am for the pig philoso |