242 



prevented that plan from being carried out 

 on every line of railway in the kingdom. We 

 know that railway officials of all grades are 

 exceedingly averse to anything which savom-s 

 of coercion ; but in such a pressing case as 

 that to which our remarks have refe- 

 rence, public opinion must be brought 

 to bear upon them, so that they shall 

 be compelled to act in accordance with the 

 dictates of humanity, and for the benefit of 

 the public which suffers loss, more or less 

 directly, from the manner in which live stock, 

 conveyed by railway are treated. Surely the 

 Lords of the Privy Council, who have the 

 power to make regulations for conducting the 

 cattle trade, would, if applied to in the proper 

 manner, compel the railway companies to 

 take steps for supplying live stock with water 



TJic Country Gcntlcinaiis Magazine 



at regular intervals along the different lines. 

 Chambers of Agriculture and similar associa- 

 tions are, of course, the proper parties to move 

 in the matter ; but we consider that societies 

 established for the prevention of cruelty to 

 animals would be acting quite in accordance 

 with their legitimate objects if they, too, 

 asked the Privy Council to exercise its autho- 

 rity in order to compel railway companies to 

 attend to this matter. It need not create 

 any surprise if the great heat and drought of 

 this summer should be followed by an unusual 

 amount of mortality amongst live stock ; and 

 if so, the additional sufferings endured by 

 railway-carried animals are certain to have an 

 even more prejudicial effect on their health 

 than usual. No time should be lost, and we 

 strongly urge instant action in the matter. 



MEEDS. 



NOTWITHSTANDING the long-con- 

 tinued drought and intense heat, 

 which has dried up our rivers and springs, 

 stunted the growth of our cereals, burned up 

 our pastures, and left our turnip fields with- 

 out a plant to indicate the nature of the seed 

 sown or the crop expected, we find abundant 

 evidence of the truth of the old proverb, 

 that " ill weeds thrive apace." In pasture 

 fields, where not a vestige of vegetation 

 denoting cultivation is to be seen except 

 withered stems, thistles lift up their heads as 

 defiantly as ever, and ragworts have lost 

 nothing of their usual sturdy habit of growth. 

 Turnip plants may not gladden the eye of 

 the farmer, but coltsfoot spreads its broad 

 leaves regardless of heat and drought. Oats, 

 in many instances, may not be long enough 

 in the stem to hide the clods, but there is no 

 lack of charlock, skellock, kedlock, or by 

 whatever other names that universal pest is 

 known ; and manifold forms of that particular 

 kind of unprofitable vegetation, which we call 

 weeds, are to be seen everywhere infesting 

 fields and waysides. 



There is nothing new in this : the evil is as 



old as Adam, but the lapse of time has not 

 rendered it less vexatious. With each suc- 

 ceeding year it is again and again brought 

 under our notice in such a palpable form as 

 to defy our overlooking it. It has been the 

 theme of innumerable after-dinner agricul- 

 tural orations ; men of the highest scientific 

 attainments have not considered it too humble 

 a subject for investigation; practical writers 

 on rural matters have over and over again 

 described it as the standing reproach of their 

 profession ; but it still exists almost in prime- 

 val force, and the subject, looked at from an 

 agricultural point of view, is as fresh as ever. 

 It does seem strange that men, Avho com- 

 plain, and not Avithout reason, of high rents 

 and heavy taxes, should voluntarily add to 

 those rents, and virtually increase those 

 taxes, by cultivating — for it is cultivation in 

 a certain sense — a species of vegetation which 

 not only does not yield them any return, 

 but actually injures those crops which are 

 naturally looked to as the means whereby the 

 farmer expects to be remunerated for his 

 labour. If thistles, docks, or ragworts are to 

 be allowed standing room, they ought to be 



