THE FIRST AND FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE IN AGRICULTURE. 13 



that vegetable matter reproduces itself in all the ordinary crops 

 of the farm, just in accordance with the quantity and quality of 

 it contained in the soil ; this truth, despised as it has been during 

 the past thirty years, defies contradiction. 



For as much as was written last year in the North British 

 Agriculturist newspaper and other places about the green lands 

 or old townships of Sutherlandshire, no one explained how these 

 lands at first became enriched. The present wealthy farmers of 

 Sutherlandshire have told us that it is next to impossible for 

 them to restore these lands to the high prestige at which they 

 stood eighty years ago. Notwithstanding that they have first- 

 class roads, railways, and abundance of manures and feeding 

 stuffs at their command, none of which the men of old, who 

 improved these lands, had in their day, need I say that these 

 lands were improved by the application of vegetable matter alone, 

 and by the same method that the farming in Shetland is being 

 conducted at the present day. And we may judge of its lasting 

 properties from the fact that it has stood a process of carrying 

 away of this fertility by the sheep to the tops of the hills for a 

 period of eighty years. This is another proof that vegetable 

 matter is entitled to the first place in agriculture. Tillage added 

 nothing to the improvement of this land. Tillage is never 

 resorted to but to take something out of the land. Those who 

 write about ploughing up grass land to renew it do not under- 

 stand the subject. There are not a few farmers who tell us that 

 they have better crops of oats after two-year-old grass than after 

 three-year-old grass, and use this as an argument in favour of 

 the five course rotation. Their averment may be true, but where 

 it is true it show^s that any former supply of vegetable matter in 

 the soil is nearly exhausted, and that now^ they are confined to 

 the byre dung for a supply of this fertiliser, which, when applied 

 to the turnip crop, becomes also exhausted by the time it reaches 

 the third year's grass. And as common rye grass and common 

 red clover die out about the same time, or get weak, there may 

 really be less vegetable matter in the soil in three-year-old 

 grass than in two-year-old, — so the belief that the crop follow- 

 ing it would not be so good is not without foundation, but 

 the argument is in favour of the ]»rinciple treated of in this 

 essay, and strikes peculiarly hard against the six shift with three 

 grasses ; but the fact that nine-tenths of farmers in Scotland do 

 not sow the proper seeds necessary to supply good grass all the 

 year round, nor of a permanent cliaracter, is fatal to really liigh 

 farming. True, manures and time will bring in these grasses, 

 but it takes seven or eight years to do so, which is a serious loss. 

 TTow can rye grass, a i)lant that dies when two or three years old, 

 and almost destitute of root leaves, be expected to restore fertility 

 to an exliausted soil ? It is a mistake to expend money in 

 top-dressing rye-grass alone, but it is one of tlie greatest mistakes 



