The forty oxen which go off are fammered in the beft pafture, and finished with turnips the enfuing winter. The ufual way has been to draw the turnips, and to give them either stalled or in cribs placed in the yard, with plenty of ftraw to browle and fie upon but laft winter an experiment was tried, which answered extremely well, and will be again repeated next winter: this was, penning the oxen by day upon the turnip land, in the manner that theep are penned, with this only difference, that the turnips were thrown up into cribs, inftead of being left to be trodden into the ground and in the nights they were driven into a yard, with a tenporary fed well littered with rufhes, fern, and leaves, and turnips and barley-ftraw given to them in cribs. They thrived very faft, and every one of them made at least eight loads of good muck in the night-yard, befides the benefit done in treading and dunging on the land in the day-time, which was very great, the foil being very light. The refult of the ox fyftem is, that charging the ox for his agiftment the. first year, for the value of the grafs and turnips the laft year, and put ting what he has in three intermediate years as an equivalent for his labour, after every allowance for rifk, each ox will pay at leaft twenty per cent. profit. In what inftance does a horse produce fo much?

I do not contend that the ox can be ufed on all foils; upon a very ftony foil he cannot: nor can the horfe in all places he wholly excluded from hufbandry; but every occupier of a large farm may at leaft ufe fome oxen to very great advantage. They are all worked at Windfor in collars, as their step is found to be VOL XLII.

It may not be improper to mention a very fimple method which has been difcovered, of firft training them to the collar, which is nothing more than putting a broad ftrap round their necks, and fastening one end of a cord to it, and the other to a large log of wood, and letting the ox draw it about as he feeds in his pafture, for three or four days, before he is put into harness, by which means he is very much brought forward in docility.

I have before obferved, that twenty per cent. may be confidered as the average profit of an ox; ftating them to be bought in at 107. and allowing them to fell for 251. taking off 101. for the two years they are not worked: but last year, beans being of very little value, they were kept longer than ufual, by being ftall-fed with bean-meal, which anfwered very well, as they were brought to an average of nearly 30%.; and one of them, a Glamorgan hire ox, originally bought for 87. and, from his compact round make, always called the little ox, thrived to fuch a furprifing degree, that he became too fat to be able to travel

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travel to Smithfield, and was therefore fold to Mr. Charlwood a neighbouring butcher, for 477.

Next to the advantage obtained from oxen, as much benefit as poffible has been endeavoured to be derived from fheep, by means of the fold. Two ewe flocks are kept, of four hundred each: the foil being light and dry, admits of winterfolding (except when the weather is wet) upon the young clover; a practice much to be recommended, as it is productive of a great crop of clover, and prepares the land the enfuing autumn for a crop of wheat without any farther afliftance. Another excellent practice is folding upon light land, in dry weather, immediately upon the fowing of the wheat, which may be put forward, or, kept back, a fortnight or three weeks on that account; and it is not amiss to have the fold rather large, and to give the fheep a turn or two round the fold in a morning before they are let out, to tread and fettle the land, which does a great deal of good, over and above their dung.

A third method of folding has been found to answer almoft beyond defcription. This was first tried in the winter of 1793; but from an idea of the fhepherd, that it injured the fheep, has been fince difufed: but as there is good reason to believe that there was no just ground for fuch an opinion, it is meant to be revived next winter.

A dry fheltered fpot is felected, and fods of maiden earth, a foot deep, are laid over the space of a very large fold. It is then bedded thinly with rushes, leaves of trees, fern, mofs, fhort ftraw, or ftubble; and in hard or wet weather, the flock, instead of being penned upon the clover, in the open fields, is put

into this warmer fold, where the ufual quantity of hay is given to them in racks; and every night they are fo penned, the fold is fre littered. When this has been continued, at intervals, during the winter, a layer of lime, chalk, rubble, or afhes, fix inches thick, is fpread over the whole furface; and when it has heated together, about the month of April, the whole is turned up, and mixed together, and makes the very beft manure that can be ufed for turnips.

I have been particular in defcribing thefe methods of folding, as they are not common in any place, and in others entirely unknown, and to gentlemen who have parks and large plantations which afford abundance of leaves, this hint may be the more deserving attention.

Upon the Norfolk farm, the land not having been yet marled or clayed, the clover is apt fometimes to fail, which is alfo the cafe elfewhere, upon the fame fort of land. When this happens, his majefty does what every other perfon in a fimilar fituation fhould do; instead of letting the ground remain unproductive, the next year it is fowed with vetches, which are nearly as valuable as the clover, and wheat always grows remarkably kind after them.

As to implements, the Norfolkplough is chiefly what is ufed; and upon a light foil, it is certainly preferable to any other. It ploughs a cleaner furrow, by completely moving the whole body of earth, and inverts it much better than any other plough; and to establish its fuperiority over the common ploughs of the neighbourhood, I need only add, that from its conftruction it is nearly the draught of an ox eafter. There

There is likewife a Norfolk-harrow, very useful for harrowing what are called brufh-turnips, or any other turnips, preparatory to their being hoed. I must be allowed, likewife, to mention the drill- roller, which confifts of caft-iron rings, made at the Norwich foundry, and flipped on upon a round piece of wood, as an axle-tree. This is one of the beft things that has ever been introduced, for the preparation of the land for any fort of corn, where the foil will admit of its being ufed. By the corn being fo well depofited, it takes better root, and at least one fourth of the quantity ufually fown may be faved.

The Flemish farm, which I have before mentioned, was fo named from an intention at firft, of carrying on a fyftem of husbandry fimilar to that practifed in Flanders, which confifts of an alternate crop for man and beaft: but the foil being furong and cohefive, upon trial, it has been found to anfwer beft under a fourcourfe fhift, more like fome parts of Gloucestershire; as thus, first year, wheat; fecond, cabbage or clover; third, oats; fourth, beans. The quantity of arable land on this farm is one hundred and fixty acres, or forty acres in a fhift. There are two things obferved upon this farm, which may be worth notice: the first is the practice which has for thefe two years paft been adopted, of taking off the tops of the beans juft as the bloffom is fet; this not only improves the quality, but increafes the quantity, and caufes them to ripen fooner, which is a confiderable advantage, by giving time to get the fucceeding crop of wheat in, perhaps, a fortnight earlier. The other is, that of fowing clover early in the fpring, among

twenty acres or one half of the wheat, and bufh-harrowing and rolling it in. This has produced a very fair crop of clover the next year; and the other half, after the wheat, is winter and fpring, fällowed, and planted with cabbage. There is a double advantage refulting from this; that one half of this fhift, fo managed, becomes a fummer crop, and the other half a winter crop; and by obferving the next year to change the parts, by fowing the clover where the cabbage was before, the clover and cabbage do not come round upon the fame ground but once in eight years.

Cabbage has been tried feveral years, but his majesty's husbandmen never got into the right management of it till this year; but now the crop is remarkably fine.

**

It will not be improper to mention, that the drum-headed cabbage is the beft fort; that the feed fhould be fown in Auguft, the plants firft fet out in November, and tranfplanted for good in July. The next thing to be noted is their application: they are certainly inferior to turnips for fatting, but fuperior in the increase of milk, either of cows or ewes, and therefore they are particularly good where there is a dairy or a breeding flock of theep: and I truft his majefty will, the next yeaning feafon, try an experiment, of which I have high expectation, which is to flice or quarter the cabbage, and feed the ewes with them upon fuch of the meadows as want manuring, which I flatter myfelf will be of ineftimable fervice to the ewes and lambs, and be the means of increafing the next years crop of hay confiderably.

The true light of viewing thefe improvements is to confider them as

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a fort

Criminal Profecutions against Witches in the 17th Century; from Nichols's Hiftory of Leicestershire.

THE

HE following letter from alderman Robert Heyrick, of Leicefter, to his brother fir William, in the year 1616, relates to an extraordinary tranfaction which took place at Hufbands Bofworth.

"Although we have bene greatly bufyed this 4 or 5 days paft, being fyfe tyme, and a bufy fyfe fpeacylly about the araynment of a fort of woomen, wytches, w' 9 of them fhal be executed at the gallows this fornone, for bewitching of a younge gentellman of the adge of 12 or 13 years old, beinge the fon of one Mr. Smythe, of Husbands Bosworth, brother to Mr. Henry Smythe, that made the booke which we call Mr. Smythe's Sarmons. Your man Sampfon ftays, and yt is to tedyous to write anny one thing unto you of the matter; and the examynacyons and finding out of the matter came to my hand in wryting juft as I be gan your lettar. Only I will fignifye unto you of the child's ftraunge fits, who was brought hythar of Sayturday laft to be fhewed to the -judges; and fince his coming hither he hath had dyvars wonderful ftraundg fyts in the fyght of all the greateft parfons here, as dyvars knyghts and ladies, and many othars

of the bettar fort, moft tereble to be tolld. Sir Henry Haftings hath doon what he colld to hold him in his fit; but he and another as strong as he could not hold him; yf he might have his arm at liberty, he woolld ftryke himfelife fuche bloes on his breft, being in his shirt, that you myght here the found of yt the length of a long chamber, foumtymes 50 blocs, foumtyms 100, yea foumtymes 2 or 300 bloes, that the leaft of them was able to ftryke doune a ftrong man; and yet all he did to himself did him no hurt. 6 of the witches had 6 severall (perits, one in the lyknes of a hors, another like a dog, another a cat, another a pullemar, another a fifhe, another a code, with whom every one of them tormented him he woolk make foom fyne according to the fperit; as, when the hors torment. ed him, he would whinny; when the cat tormented him, he would cry like a cat, &c. When he was in his fyt, they were foumtymes brought to him, and then they were chardged to fpeake farten woords, and to name theare fperits, and one of them to fpeak yt aftar another; as thus: " I such a one chardge the hors, yf I be a wiche, that thott com forthe of the child." And then another by her fperit to doe the like; and fo till all had doone. Yf anny of them woolld speake a woord Dd3 contrary