REPORT OF MR. FRANCIS II. APPLETON.
507
In reclaiming old land, he began by improving it by proper cultivation and draining, so as to thus provide for a larger amount and better quality of fodder, and afterwards turned his attention to the introduction and propagation of improved races of cattle. These improved cattle were yellow and white Austrian and Styrian varieties, and he says that he "invigorated the stock by introducing pure-blooded bulls and heifers, sometimes every year, at other times every other year.”
It is part of his system to sell no crops from his estate except in a manufactured condition. To accomplish this, breweries, sugar-factories, oil-factories, etc., were built on the several estates with successful results.
In the ninth year after his directorship of Lib&jic, he says, " the productive power of the whole cultivated area, taking the average per acre, had gradually risen, after subtracting the seed value, to the amount of 29.7 bushels estimated in rye, whilst the average per acre for the fifteen years, from 1821-1835 yielded by the three-field system, was only ten bushels, estimated in rye. I was induced by these remarkable results to discourage the three-field system, and above all free-farming, where no rule at all is followed, and to recommend rotation of crops as the very best of all systems.”
The accompanying Table A will be found interesting and instructive. The yield and profits resulting from Mr. Horsky’s instrumentality, on the several estates named, were remarkably large, we are told, compared with those given by the former system, the average of several years being taken. The table is taken from Mr. Horsky’s work, " The General Introduction of the Kotation of Crops.”
I hope to be able, at no very distant date, to secure a copy of this work and place it before the public in English.
As regards the manner in which the yield in rye is computed, the computation adopted by Mr. Horsky seems to be the one generally recognized by his country. I have not yet examined it, but as it is contained in his work just referred to, I shall expect to examine it later.
Up to the present year, Mr. Horsky says that he has systematized 225 farms situated in all parts of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Styria, Hungary, etc.