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A Prize Stallion, the property of Mr J Robinson of Broughton. How wester

Lammin Published by Rogerson & Tutland 24 mnd 802

THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE.

NOVEMBER, 1862.

PLATE I.

NAPOLEON; A PRIZE STALLION.

THE PROPERTY OF MR. JAMES ROBINSON, OF THE GROVE INN, BURY NEW ROAD,

MANCHESTER.

Napoleon, bred by Messrs. Barber and Worth- | Warwick. Napoleon also won the first prize of ington, is by Great Britain, out of a cart mare for which they gave 100 guineas when nine years old, with a foal at her foot ten weeks old. Her dam, bred by Mr. John Freeman, Wheatley Grange, Nottinghamshire, was out of a first-rate Lincoln mare, by Abraham Newland, a horse which travelled 21 seasons on the same ground with great

success.

Great Britain, late Mr. Robinson's, was got by Bangup, the property of Mr. William Stich, of Stentone House, Derbyshire, a stallion that has served nineteen seasons in the same district, and is the sire of many valuable horses. Bangup was got by Sancho, the property of Sir George Crew, of Court Abbey; while Great Britain's dam was bought by Mr. W. Stich, at Lincoln, for the purpose of breeding first-class horses; and she threw to Bangup Great Britain and the Derbyshire Hero, who won the first prize at the Agricultural Show at Shrewsbury, and was sold in the yard for 200 guineas.

Napoleon is a bright bay horse, standing 17 hands 1 inch high, with remarkably short back, capital middle, clean legs, good feet, and fine freedom of action.

Napoleon has won 98 prizes at the various agricultural shows, including the first prize at the Manchester and Liverpool Agricultural Show, in 1859, beating a large field of first-class horses, including Mr. Benjamin Taylor's England's Glory, the first prize horse at the All England Show at

£15 at the Great Yorkshire Agricultural Show at Pontefract in 1860; the first prize of £10 and silver medal at the Royal North Lancashire Agricultural Show in 1860; and a cup value 20 gs. at Burnley, in 1860; the first prize of £5 and medal at Drighlington and Addwalton Agricultural Show, in 1860; the first prize at Rochdale of £10, in 1860; a prize of £20 at Burton-on-Trent, in 1860; the first prize of £30 and silver medal of the Staffordshire Agricultural Show at Wolverhampton, in 1861; and the first prize £10 and silver medal at the Royal North Lancashire Show, in 1862, the sixth time he has won that Society's first prize; the first prize of £10 at the Manchester and Liverpool Agricultural Show, in 1862, the eighth time he has taken that Society's first prize.

Napoleon is a sure foal-getter, and there are a great many colts travelling by him. His stock have fetched extremely high prices, and won more prizes at agricultural shows than any other horse's stock. A three-year-old filly has won about 20 first prizes; and a two-year-old, out of the same mare, also by him, has won 21 first prizes. Lord Derby refused £200 for a colt by Napoleon before he was two years old, and for which his Lordship has since refused £300.

Napoleon has been open for the last four years to show against any horse living for either £100 or £500, as well as to back and draw against any travelling stallion. Mr. Robinson, his owner, still stands to his challenge.

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THE LAND'S END AND THE LIZARD.

BY CUTHBERT W. JOHNSON, ESQ., F.R.S.

The soils of the district naturally vary in value with the nature of the rock on which they rest; those resting on Serpentine, like most of those into whose composition magnesia largely enters, are not fertile. A fair specimen of Serpentine Rock was found to contain Silica Magnesia

As the tourist arrives at the good town of Penzance | interesting temple will not fail to attract the tourist's he perceives much that is novel and interesting. He notice. It is the place of worship of the most southerly will feel that the district is not without its reminiscences English parish. It is surrounded by two or three and instruction to the cultivators of lands not possess- farms, whose live stock bear evidence of care and coming so mild and genial a climate as the westernmost fort. The pastures here are good-the root-crops excelpeninsula of Cornwall. Neither will the agriculturist lent. The gateless passages into the capacious and forget that to Penzance he owes Davy, who may be well-cared-for churchyard, and thence into the rector's fairly regarded as the founder of agricultural chemistry. gardens-the open church-doors-all indicate the order Davy was born there in 1778, of very humble parents. and confidence reposed in each other by those who The inhabitants of the town show with a just pride the dwell around the Lizard. house in which he was born. Some of those who were schoolboys when Davy was a pupil of Mr. Borlase, a surgeon of Penzance, well remember that he used to astonish the boys with some of those brilliant displays of explosive mixtures which in after years he was used to exhibit in the course of his lectures before the members of the Royal Institution and the old Board of Agriculture. This was the board of which Sir John Sinclair was long the president, and the more celebrated Arthur Young the first secretary. It was at the Grammar School of Penzance that Davy received his education; and in his will he left to this school one hundred pounds, on condition that the boys should have an annual holiday on December the 17th, the anniversary of his birth. This town-the most westerly in England—also gave birth to Davy's great friend and brother-president of the Royal Society, Davies Gilbert, to the celebrated Admiral Lord Exmouth, to Borlase, the natural historian of Cornwall, and other distinguished men.

The agriculturist, when he visits Penzance, will soon see much around him that is interesting. The noble Mount's Bay, the adjoining districts extending to the Land's End and the Lizard Lights, including both the most southerly and the most westerly parishes of EngThe kindness land, are all fraught with interest. of manners, the intelligence, the independent bearing, and the good looks of the inhabitants will not escape his notice.

Prot-oxide of iron
Alumina

Water .....

40.12

40.04

3:47

2.

13.36

98.99

The soils resting immediately on the Hornblende Clay-slate are the most fertile of any in the Penzance district. Now the analysis of an ordinary specimen of black Hornblende Rock will give the reader a good idea of the mineral composition of the Hornblende Slate soils. It was as follows:

Silica ...

Lime.....

Magnesia..

Prot-oxide of iron
Alumina

Fluoric acid..

45.69

13.85

18.79

7.32

12.18

1.50

The Granite soils are not so fertile as those of the Hornblende Slate. Their mineral portion is far more compound than those of the Hornblende. Granite, we must remember, is composed of three substances, viz., felspar, mica, and quartz. It is by the gradual disinte

As soon as we leave the town of Penzance we find our-gration of these by the action of the atmosphere that selves on soils resting chiefly on the Clay-slate Rock; but, in our way to the Land's End, we soon leave these fertile lands, and reach the inferior, but productive, soils resting on the Granite.

If we proceed in a contrary direction, towards the Lizard, after leaving the Clay-slate soils, we cross those resting immediately on the Hornblende Slate; and then arrive at the Serpentine Rocks and their soils, which extend nearly to the Lizard. It is almost at the extremity of the peninsula-on whose southern cape those celebrated Lizard lighthouses are placed-that we find a small district composed of Mica Clay-slate, many of whose soils are deep and fertile, especially those around the church of Landewednack. This little

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largely supplies the metropolitan markets. I was struck, when at the town in September of the present year, with the luxuriant growth of the brocoli.

There is a good deal of land around Mounts Bay, from which they procure two good crops of vegetables in the year, viz., early potatoes and brocoli. The potatoes, which they begin to plant in October and November, are raised in April, and the cauliflower, or brocoli, are immediately planted. Of these, it was estimated that in the season of 1861-62 at least 600 acres were grown immediately around the town of Penzance.

The planting of the early kidney potatoes in Cornwall, as described by Mr. J. Paynter, commences the latter end of October, and continues until Christmas. Lay is best adapted for the purpose, which is turned down in a peculiar manner by hand labour, and a good tilth obtained on the surface by the dexterous hand of the workman. The manure used is generally sea weed. The "sets" are placed in the drill, a little earth thrown on them, and the sea weed placed over the whole. A better plan is to place a little rotten stable dung between the earth and the sea weed. The early potatoes are not banked up, but merely hoed, and this not after the middle of March. They are grown chiefly on what the good Cornish men call the growan (gravelly) soils; but the most extensive breadth is on the greenstone rocks, where they intersect the clay slate, in the fine sheltered districts near Penzance; 1,000 acres of which is said to yield a clear rental of £10,000. A few of the potatoes are taken up early in April, and these are worth on the spot 1s. 3d. per lb., and sometimes even 2s. 6d. These are not obtained by digging up the entire plant, but by carefully examining the root with the hand, and pulling off such tubers as may be sufficiently large. The root is then covered up again. The potatoes are full-grown about the middle of May (Jour. Roy. Ag. Soc., vol. 6, p. 429).

Poor Karkeek, of Truro, in his prize report on the Farming of Cornwall (Jour. Roy. Ag. Soc., vol. 6 p. 428), gave, in the words of Mr. W. E. Geach, a description of the potatos of the valley of the Looe, where great quantities of potatoes are grown for the London market. In some of the parishes which adjoin the cliffs and the river, where sea-weed can be obtained at a small expense, the greater portion of the land intended for a wheat crop is first planted with potatoes. The preparation for the last-named crop commences in the months of January and February, by carting out the accumulated soil from the hedges into small heaps; if this should not prove sufficient, furrows are ploughed up across the field, and the soil also added to that which the hedge-grips produced. On these "bottoms" of earth, dung from the farm-yard, sea-weed, and sand are deposited and mixed together. The quantity of dung and weed amounts generally to about 25 cart loads per acre; sand from 12 to 14 loads. The lay is then partly skimmed, the one portion being turned over on that which remains, and is called "turning to rot." After it has been "to rot" for two or three months, it is harrowed down fine, and

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if any couch appears, it is burned; but barning is not
generally liked for potatoes, it being considered that
the ashes cause the potato to be of a soapy, close
nature. The manure is spread as the potatoes are
planted, which is done by ploughing a furrow, into
which the sets are dropped by women and children.
A man follows and pushes in the manure on the sets
with the back of a rake; the plough returns, and
covers the whole with another furrow; two small
furrows are then ploughed without any sets, which gives
place sufficient between the rows of potatoes. When
the field, or a given portion thereof, is planted, the
land is harrowed down fine, which completes the work.
The potatoes are taken up as soon as they are ripe by
men, women, and boys, with an implement called the
digger," having three prongs, like a dung-fork, only
turned downwards instead of looking forward, as those
of that implement. The price for "digging" the
potatoes varies from 15s, to 20s. per acre; the produce
averaging from 240 to 300 Winchester bushels of 8
gallons per acre, which in the season will fetch at the
As soon as the
ship's side from £18 to £20 per acre.
land is clean of potatoes, the wheat is sown, after
which a barley crop too often follows, without any
other manure being applied to the land than that for
the potato crop. The potato tillage is an enticing one
at first view, promising as it does a fair profit; but
since no manure is made by the crop, no portion of it
being consumed on the farm, there is no provision
made for another year's cropping beyond the sea-weed
occasionally to be obtained at the sea-side,

The produce of vegetables in Cornwall for the London market has materially increased since Mr. Karkeek wrote. It was at the last Truro meeting of the Bath and West of England Society, that the chairman of the West Cornwall Railway observed (Farm. Mag., vol. lv., p. 43): "From the 4th of December last to the 23rd of March, just four months, there passed over the West Cornwall Railway 6,986 crates of brocoli, weighing in the aggregate no less than 866 tons 11 cwt.; and I beg to say that the land conveyance of nearly 900 tons of brocoli in some three or four months from the west of England to the millions of London and the north was an impossibility until the appearance of the locomotive. Again, from the 22nd of April to the 7th June-a period of six weeks only— there was conveyed and transferred in a similar way, 8,566 baskets of potatoes, weighing 439 tons. Four hundred and thirty-nine tons of early potatoes transferred from the west of Cornwall in about six weeks, to a good market in the large and populous districts of the kingdom, is no bad illustration of the aid railways extend to agriculture."

The sea-sand which is used so extensively in Cornwall, owes its chemical value as a manure chiefly to the presence of carbonate of lime. It is only on the heavier kind of soils that it beneficially operates mechanically in rendering the land more friable. It is true that the carbonate of lime exists in the finelybroken shells of which sand is composed, but the sand also contains silica, alumina, and a small portion

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