PROGRESS OF llNailSH AGRICULTURE. 221 



seed and manure together, or in its permitting the use of the horse-hoe, 

 though these effect a saving in money equal to one fourth of the value of 

 the crop ; hut its great saving in the moist, uncertain climate of England, is 

 time. A day's delay in sowing by hand has lost many a season, whereas one 

 horse-drill does the work of fifteen men. The clod-crusher, again, reducea 

 the lumps to tilth, that no wooden " beetle," no loaded " sledge," no army 

 of clotters could have broken, while on light land it gives consistence to the 

 8oil, making thousands of acres of corn stand upright which would otherwise 

 have been rotting on the ground. 



Under high farming, the manual labor employed is both increased and con- 

 centrated. A greater number of men are required per acre, and a lesser 

 number in proportion to the produce. With mechanical assistance the crops 

 are less dependent on the seasons, and each operation is more quickly performed. 

 With improved breeding tlie stock is increased in quantity, more early and ma- 

 tured, and bears finer and more profitable meat. Four year old horned sheep 

 are replaced by mutton grown in thirteen months. The aged cows or worn- 

 out oxen, which form the staple of the continental meat markets, lose from 

 fifteen to twenty per cent, more in cooking than our well-fattened oxen and 

 heifers, to say nothing of the difference in the quality of the flesh. At every 

 stage the farmer who farms for money profits — not like the backwoodsman, the 

 metayer or peasant proprietor, merely to feed his family — loses by rude im- 

 plements, ignorant cultivation, and coarse-bred live stock. At every stage of 

 progress the modern English farm becomes more like a manufactory, produc- 

 ing on a limited surface enormous quantities of food for man, turning Peru- 

 vian guano into corn, bones from the Pampas into roots, Eussian oil-cake, 

 Egyptian beans, Syrian locust-pods, into beef and mutton. The gain to the 

 farmer and the landlord is, we repeat, the most insignificant part of the benefit. 

 The agriculturist is the manufacturer of food for the nation, and upon his 

 skill, under Providence, it depends whether plenty or scarcity prevails in the 

 land. 



To give some idea of the modern system of English agriculture, we subjoin 

 a brief description of three farms in three different districts of England — the 

 first, a light land self-drained ; the second, clay, sand, and good pasture ; the 

 thii'd, stiff clay ; and all cultivated by tenants who have not expended money 

 to purchase glory, but who have invested capital in order to earn a profit. 



Mr. John Hudson, whose name is familiar to all English, and many French 

 and German agriculturists, began ftirming half a century ago. In 1822 he 

 entered upon his now celebrated farm of Castle Acre, which consists of self- 

 drained land, and is a fair specimen of the Norfolk light soil. At that period 

 the only portable manure was rape-cake, which cost 13/. a ton, and did not 

 produce any visible effect upon the crops for a month. The whole live stock 

 consisted of 200 sheep and 40 cattle of the old Norfolk breed. He adopted 

 what was then the new, now the old, and what is perhaps destined to become 

 the obsolete four-course Norfolk system — that is to say, 250 acres pasture, 

 300 wheat, 300 barley : or, in dear years, GOO wheat, 300 roots, and 300 

 seeds, the rest being gardens and coverts. On these 1200 acres he at present 

 maintains 10 dairy cows, 36 cart-horses, a flock of 400 breeding ewes, and 

 fattens and sells 250 Short-horns, Herefords, Devons, or Scots, and 3000 Down 

 sheep. The crops of swedes average from 25 to 30 Ions, the mangold-wurzel 

 from 30 to 35 tons per acre. His wheat had, in 1855, averaged for the previ- 

 ous five years, 48 bushels per acre ; the barley 56 bushels. Of the seeds, the 

 clover is mowed for hay. the trefoil and white clover are fed down by sheep, 

 and there are no bare fallows. The purchased food given to the cattle in the 

 straw-yards and sheds, and to the sheep in the field, consisting of oil-cake, 

 meal and beans, cost 2000^ a year. The greater part of this oil-cake is charged 

 to manure, which it enriches in quality as well as increases in quantity ; but 

 the direct expenditure on artificial manure — guano, nitrate of soda, and super- 

 phosphate of lime — amounts in addition to 1000/. a year. Wages absorb from 



