PROGRESS OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. £17 



increased the live stock on every light land farm. The owners of strong re- 

 tentive soils were anxious to imitate their light land neighbors, and, to grow 

 the roots which were seen to afiFord such profits in beef and mutton. Deep 

 drainage enabled t!iem to realize these aspirations. 



For centuries the farmers of clay soils liad been engaged in trying various 

 expedients for saving their corn crops in wet seasons. The land was laid up 

 in " lands," " backs," or " steches," that the rain might flow off into inter- 

 vening surface-drains, a few inches deep, and which were formed of turf, 

 bushes and stones. Not unfrequently an anxious farmer would traverse his 

 cornfields after heavy rains, spud in hand, and try to lead the stagnant little 

 pools to the neighboring ditches. In favorable seasons the clay usually gave 

 excellent crops of corn, (grain), but a wet season destroyed the husbandman's 

 hopes. These stiff soils had been preferred, until light heath land had been 

 brought by sheepfolding, marling, and root-growing into profitable culture. 

 The introduction of thorough drainage restored them to their ancient pre-emi- 

 nence. Hundreds of thousands of acres, formerly condemned to remain poor 

 pasture, or to grow at long intervals uncertain crops of corn and beans, haye 

 been laid dry, rendeied friable, and brought into a regular rotation, in which 

 roots find their place. Sheep stock thrive where previously a few dairy cows 

 starved ; the produce has been trebled, the rental raised, and the demand for 

 labor increased in proportion. In the neighborhood of Yorkshire manufacto- 

 ries, moor-land not worth a shilling an acre rent, has been converted into dairy 

 farms worth two pounds. When it is remembered that the principle upon 

 which these results depend was not enunciated till 1843, it will be seen how 

 rapid and mighty has been the recent progress in agriculture. A second pub- 

 lic loan of four millions was granted in 185G, and it has been estimated that 

 in the ten previous years upwards of sixteen millions had been invested by the 

 nation, and by private companies and individuals, in thorough drainage. 

 There is no longer truth in the saying that the capital and soil of the country 

 have never been acquainted. All the branches of farming business felt the 

 influence, for the improved stock originated by Blakewell, the artificial food 

 raised to feed the improved stock, the scientifically constructed drills, horse- 

 hoes, and other implements which the Norfolk rotation called into use, all 

 met with an extended development in the retentive soils rendered kindly by 

 the use of " Parkes' clay pipes." It will usually be found that an advance 

 in one direction gives a corresponding impulse in every other. 



The Royal Agricultural Society had an important share in the propagation 

 of the principles of thorough drainage, first propounded by their autlior in 

 a complete shape in a lecture at one of their meetings at Newcastle. Another 

 great change, by a fortunate coincidence, accompanied, or rather preceded the 

 conquest over the clay lands. This was the chemical revolution, which gave 

 the farmer the use of concentrated portable manures, for stimulating the 

 growth of crops in a degree unknown to the preceding generation. Previous 

 to 1835, as nearly as we can fix the date, agriculturists, in addition to farm- 

 yard dung or night-soil, employed as manures, lime, chalk, gypsum, marl, 

 soot, salt, saltpetre, rape-cake, and bones. The discovery of the fertilizing 

 properties of hone was accidentally made at a Yorkshire foxhound kennel. 

 Liberally used on the heaths and wolds of Lincolnshire, it was the philoso- 

 pher's stone which turned rabbit-warrens and gorse fox-coverts into fields of 

 golden grain. A Mr. Nelson, one of the late Lord Yarborough's tenants, used 

 to say that " he did not care who knew that he had made 80,000/. out of his 

 farm by employing bones before other people knew the use of them." But 

 what succeeded in one parish, or even in one field, often failed in the next, and 

 sometimes the farm which had once yielded bountifully in return for a dress- 

 ing of lime or gypsum, stubbornly refused to respond to a second applicaHon. 

 Worse than all, the root crop — the foundation of the famous Norfolk rotation, 

 the wealth of half a dozen counties — began to'fail, devoured in tender infancy 

 by the fly ; and, without the turnip, where was the food for sheep and winter fed 



