The Conniry Gentleman" s Magazine 



in due time, on the face of the ground, the 

 most beautiful and weighty crop of thistles, 

 docks, charlock, and other occupants that 

 the eye could see on a summer day. The 

 few delicate stalks of corn that came up, in 

 rearing their heads in the incipient " struggle 

 for existence" with their robustious compeers, 

 soon gave up the contest, and were never 

 seen more till after harvest. 



This was what may be termed the rudimen- 

 tary period of agriculture ; and the defective 

 results were too apparent to be unobserved 

 or unappreciated. When men of intelligence 

 and education, therefore, began to turn their 

 attention to the subject, it was evident such 

 a state of things could not continue. The 

 ■\mter of the article " Agriculture " in the old 

 " Encyclopedia Britannica," says, " after the 

 peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, most of the nations 

 of Europe, by a sort of tacit consent, applied 

 themselves to the study of agriculture, and 

 continue to do so, more or less, amidst the 

 universal confusion that succeeded." How 

 far this may be correct we will not pretend 

 to say, nor might it be proper to assert how 

 far agricultural improvement would not have 

 had effect, although the celebrated event re- 

 ferred to had never taken place. Many 

 things possibly conspired to bring about the 

 new state of things, and among others, not the 

 least ostensible was the march of intelligence 

 through the gradual spread of general educa- 

 tion. 



We come now to the improved restrictive 

 period, and the first great improvement that 

 took place was the abolition of outfield and 

 infield. This was accompanied by the adop- 

 tion of a system by which the whole land in 

 the hand of the occupier was laid out in a 

 certain number of divisions, on each of which 

 divisions the crop was to be changed every 

 year ; no crop of the same kind, especially 

 €orn crops, being sown in the same soil 

 twice in succession. This plan not only en- 

 abled the succeeding crop to take up the 

 food in the soil proper for its growth, which 

 had been rejected and left in the ground by 

 its predecessor, but by a system of laying 

 out regularly and periodically a division of 

 the ground without any crop, called fallow- 



i/ii::;, an opportunity was offered, to a certain 

 extent, for clearing the land of weeds, which 

 by the previous plan there had been no 

 possibility of effecting. 



A great step in advance of husbandry cer- 

 tainly was the rotation of crops S}-stem. But, 

 like many other improvements, the merits of 

 which are usually not estimated at their proper 

 value, but are either unjustly decried or un- 

 reasonably commended — it was immeasurably 

 exalted ; many farmers firmly believed in the 

 finality of the process, and every proprietor 

 came to the conclusion that the ne plus ultra 

 of the practice of agriculture had been thereby 

 arrived at. 



Accordingly, the system was universally 

 adopted, prescribed, and recommended ; it 

 became the subject of all eulogium, and the 

 ideal of all theory ; it formed the model for 

 all practice, and the pole-star for all improve- 

 ment, and all leases were framed and 

 designed on its basis — constituting it the limit 

 and land-mark of all law and practice on the 

 subject. 



In a primordial state of things, certain 

 laws are laid down which are naturally grown 

 out of. We smile at the wholesome restric- 

 tions that were necessarily imposed upon us 

 while in our bib and tucker. The history of 

 our country informs us even that that free and 

 unfettered exercise of liberty, which we regard 

 and boast as the natural right of every 

 Briton, and which, from the spirit of the 

 people, seems an inherent element in our 

 constitution, has, in certain critical conjunc- 

 tions of society, been found necessary to be 

 superseded. But such abnormal social condi- 

 tion uniformly passed away with the emer- 

 gency which evoked it. 



It may, in like manner, have been expe- 

 dient and proper at one time to impose on 

 agriculture conditions having the quality of 

 stringency, till the nature of the subject should 

 be well ascertained and understood. This 

 severity was the more expedient and excus- 

 able considering the admittedly superior 

 nature of the substitute. Our leases are 

 all drawn on the principle of the adoption of 

 a certain alternate or interchangeable course 

 of cropping (assumed doubtless to be the 



