ture; and they also found that great stress was laid by agriculturists upon growing the largest possible roots. This he was inclined to think a great mistake. He had just read a very able paper by Dr. Wolf, the principal of an agricultural college in Germany, in which he stated that on their experimental farm, there had been a piece of newly broken-up land planted with the sugar beet, which was used for the purposes of distillation; and it had produced a magnificent crop of large, beautiful, and luxuriant roots; but after they had been grown they had been found to be quite useless, for the sugar manufacturers would not take them at all. Now, it was a well-known fact that sugar produced fat; yet it was not that principle in the feeding materials of roots, or any other thing, but nitrogen, that possessed the greatest feeding value. Well, as regards nitrogen, Dr. Voelcker had performed a recent experiment on fusty clover hay, and found that it showed more nitrogen when fusty than sweet hay did. No practical man would believe this; at least they all knew that sweet hay was better than fusty (a laugh); they were not all scientific men, but scientific men might meet with practical men at the clubs, and find that they had arrived at conclusions such as these. He trusted his friend Mr. Reader's large roots would not turn out the same as Dr. Wolf's; it would be a bad affair for him after the liberal allowance he had given them, and it was a question whether they ought not to keep to such an amount of roots per square acre as not to produce them of an over large size. They were aware that large roots did not possess that amount of nutrition that small roots did. Mangel wurzels of over 10 lbs. weight when cut open were generally found to be hollow and insipid. If that were the case it was impossible they could contain the same amount of nutrition. In conclusion he expressed himself pleased and proud to meet them all, and to see the Club flourishing, and he hoped that they would all again have the pleasure of meeting together and learning that the Club derived benefit from its intercommunication with others.

LANDLORD AND TENANT.

Mr. T. H. SAUNDERS, in responding to a call made upon him, expressed himself extremely obliged to his excellent friend Mr. Randall, and to the company. One thing Mr. Randall said with especial truth, and that was, that whenever an experiment had been made by him, he had always given the advantage of it to the club. He had told them in what he had failed, and he believed he had told them too in what he had succeeded. He had been happy and proud to belong to the club ever since it had been established in 1846, and he hoped that it might continue to flourish for many a year to come. Mr. Bone had alluded to the benefits introduced by the club into the neighbourhood, to which it had been of the greatest advantage; for if they took the line of bills that belonged to the district, no man could fancy the extent of that advantage unless he had previously seen them in their original state. It was not good for a farmers' club if every man in it did not speak ont whatever he knew. It did no good to come there and say nothing. Yet a great many members came there and never spoke out at all. Nor was there any good in adhering merely to one side of a question. Agriculture could go much further than it had yet gone. He thought that it might assist the landlord as well as the tenant. Mr. Calcraft had alluded to the propriety of his admission to the club, because Mr. Calcraft was a landowner, and at first sight the club ap peared to be merely a farmers' club; but what did that mean? It meant a club devoted to the benefit of agriculture at largeto the benefit of the landlord, the farmer, and the labourer, all

of those three interests being bound up in one. They should be happy, therefore, to see the landlord amongst them, if he came to meet the tenantry, and to hear their discussions month after month. The tenant could not go on single-handed; and if the landlord came in that spirit, they would be happy to see him, that he might see in their discussions what it was that they really required; but if he came not in that spirit, he ought to be expelled the club. If he came to them as Mr. Calcraft had come that night-let him come. If the landlord and the tenant went hand-in-hand together, England might defy the world. He was happy to see Mr. Calcraft becoming a member of the club, and hoped he would continue to be one for some time to come. The advantages of such clubs were too numerous to relate; but in a few words he had given the heads of his opinion regarding them; and he hoped that

he had not said anything that might be disagreeable to anyone on the subject of landlords entering the club. His (Mr. Saunders's) was only one opinion; everyone had a right to his own opinion. If the landlord came there to see what was wanted, he would find that they wanted only a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, that they only wanted interest upon their capital; but if he did not come, he might think that the results of farming were double what they really were. He would find that the farmer did not get more money than was his due. Look at the manure bills. Good crops were not all profit: but, if the landlord was willing to spend a shilling, the farmer was willing to spend a shilling too. He had omitted to say that he hoped the young members of the club would, more generally than they did, take up subjects and introduce them for dis. cussion, and thus the opportunity would be given to the elder members of setting them right. He thought that in this view of the matter the clubs were good schools for young men.

MANURING ROOTS.

were

Mr. FOWLER said he would observe in regard to the subject of their discussion that evening, but without attempting to detract from the course that had been pursued by Mr. Reader, in using so enormous a quantity of manure for his roots, that he coincided with his friend Mr. Bone. They might draw an inference from what occurred in managing grass lands; when they placed manure upon grass lands the stock did not thrive so well. On a field of his own, some large swedes grown on a spot where there had been a dunghill; and he had been curious to ascertain whether a solid inch cut from these large swedes weighed as much as a solid inch from the ordinarysized swedes in other parts of the field? He tried this, and found that the solid inch from the ordinary swede considerably outweighed the other: he did not go to grains and minutiæ, but the fact was so. He did not wish to raise a discussion on the point of Mr. Reader's largely manuring; but he agreed with his friend, Mr. Bone, that they might gather some practical information by considering the difference in value betwixt large and ordinary-sized roots.

Mr. READER said: With regard to the size of roots alluded to by Mr. Bone, he (Mr. Reader) never meant to compare a large root grown, say in a bog, with a root of the same size grown on strong land; for he was convinced that, if they grew large roots on bog-land, they would not prove of equal quality with roots grown on stronger land. But, still, they were not afraid, the other way; and, for one mistake they made in very liable to err in that way. They rather erred, he was growing roots large, they made fifteen in growing them too small. The largest he had raised this season had been given their feeding qualities: he assured them that these pigs had to his running store pigs, and that was a pretty good test of had nothing else this fall (Hear, hear), and that the sows in farrow had had nothing but the trimmings of the roots. He was glad to say that there were not a few of them that were not hollow; in corroboration of which he should refer them to Mr. Watt, who had cut them. A square inch, cut from a root which had grown in a "mixen," was hardly a fairly sample of a field; for it was seldom that they made a "mixen" all over a field. But, no doubt, were they to take a square inch from a root grown on strong land, and another from a root grown on boggy land, they would find the square inch grown on the strong land considerably the heavier. If, however, the error alluded to did occur, it was seldom on the strong land of their hills, where there was acid enough to dissolve the bones, and not a particle remained in a short time; for the land ate all up.

Mr. DARBY, of Lytchett, in an able speech in support of Mr. Bone's view, said that it was better to grow medium-sized than large roots, which, before they were pulled, began to decay; and related an experiment in which he had succeeded in rendering fusty hay edible by steaming alone, without the

aid of salt.

Mr. RANDALL took up the point, into which he said the question raised by Mr. Bone resolved itself: whether turnips had better be sown in 18-inch drills 9 or 10 inches apart, or in 2-feet drills 14 or 15 inches apart? It was, in his opinion, the 18-inch drill, yielding a moderate-sized turnip, that gave the most crop and the best feed for stock.

He also alluded to a peculiarity of the club. He had scarcely ever known one member of the club carry off the best prize for two years running, the successful candidate being almost always sure to be beaten next year.

Mr. CLARKE only rose on being loudly called for, and gave the following very interesting account of his produce. He had grown upwards of twenty acres of roots, not very large, but, as Mr. Symonds, who was the judge, could tell them, tolerably good. His system was a four-course one. His first sowing had been on the 10th of May, his next 14th May: to the baulked-up land he had applied 12 cart-loads of dung, prepared in the field, and spread upon the baulks 3 cwt. superphosphate and 1 sack of bones, and it had been his intention

to use 1 cwt. of guano when using the horse-hoe; but he had not had an opportunity of using the guano, the season being so dry that it seemed like throwing it away. Taking up 4 square rods of mangel, he had honestly divested them of all tops and roots, put them on the weighing-machine, and, although he had not been asked the weight, he should state it: it was 39 tons 18 cwt. The roots were regular, uniform, and, notwithstanding that the season had been so dry that at one time there was scarcely a leaf to be seen on them that had not withered away, they had turned out a very good crop, and would keep his stock for the winter.

The conviviality and discussion were kept up till 10 P.M., when the company dispersed.

The annual meeting was held at The Grey Bull, Hexham, on the 12th of January. The following were appointed the officers of the society for the ensuing year: Secretary, Mr. Lee; President, John Grey, Esq.; Vice-Presidents, W. B. Beaumont, Esq., M.P., John Errington, Esq., Mr. Nicholson, and Mr. Brown Committee-Messrs. William Trotter, Goodrick, Dodds, Harle, M. Stephenson, Cook, and R. E. Ridley.

At half-past two about seventy of the members sat down to dinner.

The chair was occupied by John Grey, Esq., Dilston House.

The CHAIRMAN gave in succession the loyal toasts. He then called upon the secretary to read the following

"REPORT.

"In presenting the twelfth annual report the committee have again the satisfaction of stating that the society continues to increase, and has now 164 members, with a balance of £35 1s. 11d. in the hands of the treasurer. The committee have to express their thanks to those members who have so ably introduced subjects for discussion. The monthly meetings during the past year have been well attended, at which discussions took place on the following subjects:-Jan. 13, The landlord's interest in a lease, and its tendency to promote good cultivation;' introduced by John Grey, Esq., Dilston. February 10, On farm accounts;' introduced by Mr.J. Lee. March 10, On the prevention of diseases among farm stock;' introduced by Mr. Woomack, Shildon Hill. April 18, On hay-making;' introduced by Mr. William Trotter, East Acomb. Oct. 13, On the prevention of diseases among cattle and sheep; introduced by Mr. Woomack, Shildon Hill. Nov. 17,On the selection of agricultural seeds;' introduced by Mr. C. Reid, Humshaugh. Dec. 8, On harvesting corn, and the advantages of mowing over reaping;' introduced by Mr. Harley, Mill Hills. The premiums given by the club for the different operations in harvest-work excited great competition; there having been 44 entries for mowing, 10 for binding and stooking, 21 for taking up and sheaving corn after the mowers (by women), nearly the whole of which work was done in a most satisfactory manner. Only two reaping machines were brought into operation; that of Burgess and Key attracted great attention, and did its work remarkably well. The committee beg to suggest that premiums be again offered for the best mowing, taking up corn, &c."

On the motion of Mr. STEPHENSON, the report was adopted.

ON THE DESTRUCTION OF WEEDS.

The CHAIRMAN then said it was now his duty to bring before them the subject of the day's discussion, and he begged their forbearance. That he had not put pen to paper on this subject, and that he had been able very little, indeed, to consider in what manner it ought to be brought forward, he begged them to believe was not out of any disrespect to the club, or from any want of cordial feeling towards its rules, but merely that his time had been of late very constantly and very anxiously exercised; so that he had come there with the mere purpose of opening to them a subject which he

believed was so familiar to them all as to be rather one which must be dealt with in conversational discussion than in the manner of any lengthened lecture. It was not one of those subjects which was very imposing, as embracing any parti cular or high principle connected with the legal tenure of land, or with the rights of landlord and tenant. It was, however, notwithstanding this, one of the very greatest importance in all the round of agricultural practice. That any man of common sense should expend money in purchasing and applying manure to his land for the purpose of growing weeds, was too great an absurdity to be for one moment entertained; and they knew that the perfection of cultivation was to have the land they were occupying in such a condition as to grow merely that crop which they intended to produce, and to grow it to the greatest perfection. It would be unreasonable and absurd in any man to think he would employ cultivation and manure upon a field which he had sown with wheat, and then to let it expend one-half of its fertility in producing docks and thistles. It would be equally absurd for any farmer to give such encouragement to the noxious weeds which were grown as if he were to sow them for the purpose of rearing them. It happened to him about two years ago-at least the last time he was requested to take any part in the proceedings of the Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland-to have remarked, in passing through that country, amidst many luxurious crops, a very great proportion of weeds, of course taking away from the bulk of the crop in the first place, and considerably injuring the sample of corn in the other. He was called upon on that occasion, in the presence of the Lord Lieutenant and many of the aristocracy, to give an address to the people of that country upon some subject which he thought might be beneficial. The show of that day was a very magnificent one, and he might have taken a laudatory strain, and have praised the people of Ireland for the great exertions they were making, and the great success they had achieved in the breeding of stock; hut he took that very subject which happened to be the subject of their discussion that day-the absurdity of allowing their land to be drained by noxious weeds; and in consequence of that address, some discussion had been going on in that country lately, and Now, if there be any truth in this (he continued), that by a paper had been sent to him, from which he read an extract. clean system of farming in Ireland, one-fourth, or even much less than that, of the produce would be increased, how well must it be worth the while of the cultivator of the land to do all he could for the destruction of the weeds! It was very true that the man who might expend something in cleansing his own field of weeds was not very much advantaged if his neighbours all around him allowed theirs to go to seed, and even if the road-sides-as he was sorry to say was too often the case in this country-were allowed to grow thistles and docks, the seeds of which were spread about by winds, and carried down ditches by floods, and so deposited on the lands below. There were various kinds of weeds which required very different treatment; some, such as the dock, thistle, and others, planted their roots in the ground, and could not very well be extirpated except at great pains in extracting them individually as they grow. This was an expensive and slow process, yet it was well worth their while to do as much in this line as they could. There were other weeds which

they had most to contend with, and the process of fallowing well, and careful hoeing, and clearing the drills of the growing crops, was perhaps the only true mode of overcoming these their annual weeds, such as wild mustard and chickweed, and worst of all, that enemy to cultivation, couch grass. The first step, as he conceived, in obtaining an entire clearance of weeds of this description, is to have the land properly drained; for draining was the great cardinal virtue of agricultural progress. If they happened to be going over a farm, as was often his case, and saw a spot in a field more brown and less fertile and more productive of weeds and couch than another, they were told, "That is a wet spot: we can't get it well worked." But then there was such a thing as draining to extract the wet; and in other cases they found that if a portion of a farm was very foul, the excuse for this was, "It was a wet summer when it was last in fallow, and we could not get it cleaned." There was great truth and reason in these things; but the only way to overcome them was to take the wet out of the soil and to make it uniform in its surface, so that the same manner of work and the same kind of cropping will be equally suited to the whole of a field. These were subjects that he hardly need detail to a company like that, because they were matters of practical knowledge that were before them, and they were subjects of everyday experience; at the same time, it was perfectly allowable, when they were met together to endeavour to improve the management of a district and its farming and general produce, that these things should be taken under their very serious consideration. Another subject-that of fallow ing, which was one of the greatest possible importance-had lately been very much discussed, and great recommendation had been given to autumn fallowing. It had been said by very good judges that if they wished them to judge of tenantry let them look over their farms in autumn, and that the best tenant would be seen by the cleanness and style in which the fallowing had been done; he did not mean bare fallow alone, but a fallow which consisted of green crops, put up in such a way that horse hoes, hand hoes, and all the implements used for such purposes, could be employed. Last autumn gave a good opportunity, which he was happy to see made available by many farmers, for cleaning the land and advancing the work for the ensuing spring. The spring might not happen to be so favourable as was the autumn. He had, in his small wayit was too small for him to presume to set himself up as an example of good farming-but still, if there was safety, economy, and advantage upon a small scale, that advantage and economy must tell in the same proportion upon a larger scale. It happened to him that he had only a small patch of ground, in which was about ten acres of turnips each year, and he had only one pair of horses to do that, carry his coal, and everything he wanted. It therefore required him to economise the labour; some part of his land was rather strong and heavy, not very congenial for turnip soil, although he had a portion of that too, though if it were worked and laid flat in the common way in the spring, and then should get a very heavy fall of rain, it would run together in such a way that his poor pair of horses could never again overcome it, or put it into such a condition as they all knew was necessary for the production of a turnip crop, because the small seed of the turnip would not vegetate, and could not grow well if the soil into which it was put was not equally minute in its particles, and as near in a state of powder as might be; but if land with a little dampness or tenacity in it requires to be worked up late in the season, he needn't tell them, practical farmers, what a difficulty there was in overcoming that loss of time, and in getting a crop of turnips. The plan he had followed-and he hoped they would not think it presumptuons in him to name it to them, and they could follow it or not-was this: He began, as soon as the crop was stored, or as soon as possible, with skim-ploughing the surface, harrowing and raking it together, and carting it off, putting it into the fold-yard to be the nucleus of the manure heap for next year. He then gave the land a deep ploughing, harrowed it, and put it into drills ready for the manure. When the manure was put in he reversed the drills, and so it lay, and nearly one-half of his turnip land was now in that condition, drilled, manured, and exposed to all the changes of the atmosphere during the winter. It came to be found in a mellow condition in the spring, and the turnips were sown upon this; whereas, as he told them before, if the land required to be worked up in a damp state, he could not make turnips of it at all, and for the few years he had practised this, he had never failed in finding that the turnips sown upon that portion of the land

came quickest into leaf, and overcame in the shortest period that great difficulty of rearing a good crop of turnips-that of coming quickly to the hoe. He ascribed it to this reason: the land upon the top of the drill was exceedingly mellow and fine; the manure had been undergoing-not the fermentation which it got when thrown into great heaps, where it dispersed its ammonia into the air, and wasted much of its best virtues-but it underwent the slow and quiet process of fermentation throughout the winter, covered up with soil; and they found in the spring all the soil contiguous to the manure in a soft and brown condition, having inhaled much of the virtue which the manure had given off. It was generally the practice to use some kind of extraneous matter with that from the fold-yard; the manner of doing this was only to run the drills over with a light harrow of any kind, but more especially with those little concave harrows of which they had seen specimens-one horse drawing two, and doing two rows at one time. This puts the top of the drill a little on the bite, and the guano, bone-dust, or other manure sown was set up to a top of the drill by passing a double mould-board plough through it. The seed was sown upon this portion of the soil; and he believed Mr. Lee and other neighbours that might have seen his process would bear him out in saying that the produce had not only been very quick, but very good. He thought this a matter important to be considered, because the quantity of turnip land in this and other countries was much increased, and naturally so, from the introduction of extraneous and foreign manures, which, together with draining, allowed farmers to go over a much larger surface. If, then, by such a process as this there was an economy of labour, and if that economy was at the same time connected with success in the production of a good crop, it could not but be a subject worthy of their consideration. He invited discussion, and said he should be very glad to answer any question relative to the subject. On that and all occasions he should be most happy to do his humble endeavours to promote the welfare and advancement of the agriculture of Tyneside.

Mr. DODDS had always followed the practice recommended by the Chairman, of getting his fallow clean in the autumn; and the mode he took to do so was very simple. If the land was light, he simply put the grubbers through it, and commenced harrowing and hoeing, and if necessary raking. If the land was at all stiff, he took an ordinary plough-several had been invented, but they only added a great many implements to the farmer's stock, and were expensive to obtainwith a few broad shares, and it could be used with or without the mould-board. He got out the twitch with great facility by simply cutting the roots with the mould-board of the plough; but a little bit of sheet-iron instead of the mouldboard would make the twitch come out much more readily than if turned over altogether on its back, or left lying. After going over it once with grubbers and hoes and rakes he grubbed it again. The land cleaned much more easily in autumn than if the tools were left to ramify during the winter. If they set to work immediately after harvest, especially on dry lands, to get out the twitch, the work would be greatly lightened in spring.

Mr. LORAINE wished to impress the importance not only of destroying the weeds, but of destroying them at the proper time. The greatest enemy to the farmer was the thistle-a weed whose seeds blew far and wide caused an immense expense, and caused the corn to reap badly. When thistles were not cut till they were a certain height, they ripened, and the seeds were blown in all directions. He asked Mr. Grey to suggest the right time for destroying thistles.

Mr. BIRD said he had about seventy acres of land, ten of which were in turnips. The great seminarium of twitch grass was the seeds. On dry lands he pushed on his seeds as well as he could, with a little assistance from nitrate of soda; he cut them before they were well seeded, and then he afterwards got a crop of turnips. Then came barley and seeds, and he took care to cut them before they were shedding their seeds, and in time also to get a very good crop of turnips. Then he came with barley afterwards, and sent his work-people to see if any weeds were left; they found very few left; and after he had had four years' experience of this practice, he had no necessity to gather a weed, because the land was clean. A farmer, having a sixteen-years' lease, could save the expense four times over before the lease was out.

Mr. LEE found no difficulty in letting grass remain two