Fields intended for summer fallows should be turned up in the preceding autumn, immediately after removing the crop, at which time also all stubbles should be turned in, and (after lying free from water during the winter, and while spring work is going on) ploughed during the succeeding summer, in the manner I have recommended. By such a fallow, weeds and insects are destroyed, and a single horse, with a common Irish plough, can open drills for the wheat with perfect and all the succeeding crops will be clean. Now, my good friends, have any of you ever seen such a fallow?-Believe me it is much better than giving two scratchings, and turning cows, calves, horses, mules, asses, and pigs, to cut down the thistles, ragweed, docks, &c. &c. which should never be suffered to grow at all. ease; No. III. The arrangement of the farm-fences-gates-and garden. Arrange your house in order due, THE size of your fields should depend on the extent of your farm, the nature of your soil, and the sub-soil, the rotations to be adopted, the number of ploughs, the siope of the ground, its being in pasture or tillage, and the nature of the climate. If you have a very large farm, you should have large fields-suppose from 15 to 25 acres and the number is to be regulated by the rotation of crops which you intend to have. In a four-crop rotation, 4 or 8 fields will answer best; in a six-crop rotation, 6 or 12 divisions must be made and these fields should be of equal size. In cold and wet climates, and in pasture lands, the shelter of many enclosures is desirable; but in tillage countries, fields cannot be too open and airy for drying the land and saving the crops. The shape of the field, whether on large or small farms, should be square, or rather oblong square. In fields of the latter shape, there are in ploughing, the fewest turnings and shortest headlands ; but of all things (if you have any brains or eyes) do not make crooked ditches. The loss of labour in irregularly bounded fields is very great; it has been ascertained, that in square fields, five ploughs will do as much work as six, when the sides are unequal, and men's labour is probably lost in the same proportion. Short ditches (in IRISH, geroges,) should never be seen on a decent farm. In fact, the fewer fences the better, as no cattle should be turned out, but all soiled in house or yard, winter and summer. This, in fact, is the consummation of farming economy, and secures manure for the smallest farmers. Consider what a foolish thing it is to have one-tenth of your ground under great, wide, ugly ditches, straggling in every direction, and dividing your farms into parkeens, merely that you may have a bit of pasture for a horse, (who ought to be in stable,) or some other equally bad reason; consider the waste of land for which you pay rent, tithe, and county cess. From small holders particularly, economy, in this point, would be expected; and yet it is with them, who can least afford the loss, that the greatest number of useless ditches are to be seen. Again, are these banks sufficient security against trespassers? Are they so well-faced with well-trimmed and close set thorns, as to afford shelter, or even ornament? No; they are generally crooked, and crumbling heaps of clay, occupying with their dykes, ten or twelve feet, without tree or bush, and so thinly covered with furze, that every stray beast who has the common use of its legs, may scramble over them at pleasure. I am willing to admit, that a thick furze fence is most useful, even handsome; and in bleak aspects, and mountainous soils, the very best that can be made; out if not close and regular, it gives an appearance of artificial wildness, which is most unpleasing. I know that where other fuel is dear and scarce, the poor must have furze, or perish from cold; but in such case, thorns may stand in front, while furze have possession of the back of the ditch; and among the thorns, at the distance of three or four feet from each other, I would have you plant alternately, ash, oak, sycamore, and birch quicks. In moist places, osiers and sallows would be most profitable-cradle making alone, in Ireland, causes a great demand for timber of this description. When these grow up among the others, they form a fine hedge-row, and become valuable to the planter, as well as creditable to his taste and judgment. There is no cottier who cannot have abundance of ozier and timber sallows about his house, and every farmer and gentleman should propagate them. They are of quick growth, easily propagated, good shelter, and very beautiful and valuable at every age. One word about planting your thorns: Get 4 year old plants if you can, and when making a new fence, do not take away the corn earth from the seat on which your plants are to be laid, for by so doing you rob them of their nourishment. There is no use in planting them if you take away their means of support. Now in dry lands (where open dykes are useless,) you need only throw up a spit or two of earth, two feet in breadth, to plant the thorns in. In this case, however, you cannot let your cattle enter on the ground until the hedge be full grown. If you are bent on pursuing the old grazing plan, of course the thorns can only be safe in the breast of a ditch with a wide trench, where they will take care of themselves. A dry wall, or hedge, such as I have above recommended, takes about two feet in breadth. What a saving is here! In Scotland,* in parts of which, land is set to farmers for 61. and 77. per acre, these narrow low fences are up • In Berwickshire and East Lothian. general; the hedges there are trimmed and short, to prevent birds from lodging in them, and to permit the ripening of corn on the head-lands. Now, is it not grievous to see such waste of land-such ugly and extravagant fences, on almost every Irish farm? I cannot control or disguise my abomination of furze fences: if trimmed, they become useless for fuel; if straggling, they are frightful-the very signs and tokens of bad taste and negligence. So much for your field fences. I shall only now add a hint or two about gates and garden enclosures. How many fields are there in this county without a proper way of getting into them, or out of them? Is it not shameful to see whole farms, belonging, perhaps, to men who could easily give one or two hundred pounds marriage portion with a favourite daughter, without a single field-gate? Gaps thrown down, gaps thrown up, or stopped with a cart (as need may require), half a dozen times in the year; and all this trouble and expense to save five or six shillings! Besides, when, on the high road, a gap is levelled, and the free course of water stopped, you run the chance of being fined for injuring the road. Put this into your account, along with the time lost in knocking down and making up gaps every year, and you will see that the balance is in favour of gates. As to the enclosing of your kitchen-gardens, (for I am willing to think that you will all have them,) I must urge you to plant thickly round them: hollies, laurels, and other evergreens, but most particularly timber-sallows, &e. should here appear in abundance. A farm-house without its proper appendage of garden, (and orchard too,) is a bleak, miserable looking thing. Above all, you will particularly oblige me by having your gardens in front of your houses, with your dunghills in the rear, near the sheds where the cattle stand. No. IV. Cottage cleanliness-Personal tidiness-Jenny Dempsey. Then banish first, the slattern's vice, Be always clean, 'tis done with ease, HAVING concluded my last number with some hints about your garden fences, I shall now address you on the state of your houses, furniture, &c. An Irish cabin, if it belongs to a very small holder, or mere labourer, is generally unfit to be seen; often without a chimney, smoking horribly of course, and rarely having more than one very small window, which will not open, with most uneven and crumbling walls, seldom uniformly dashed and white-washed, except in those places where active and anxious landlords reside; personally looking to the comforts of their thriving tenantry, and showing what can be done in Ireland. In the barony of Forth, the houses are of a far better description as to size and accommodation, than any other farm houses which I have seen throughout Ireland. But the dark mud walls, though generally well built in that barony, and the bawn and dunghills in front, give them a very dirty and disgusting appearance. Now the encouragement which is held to all holders of ten acres and under, for neat, cottages, by the two Farming Societies of this county, is quite sufficient, even if your own comfort was not intimately concerned, to induce you to be clean and neat; and yet in the barony of Forth, more especially, there has not hitherto been, I believe, a single application for a cottage premium. Why, one would almost think that HoGs, if they could speak, would cry out for clean, |