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TJic CounUy Gcntlcuians Magazine 



the disease the " Norfolk Cattle Plague Association," 

 and collected, by rate and subscription, upwards of 

 j^26,oo3. The observance of the orders in Council 

 were enforced on all the members, every effort was 

 made to stamp out the plague, and though not com- 

 pletely successful, it was confined within reasonable 

 limits. After paying two-thirds of all the losses, we 

 have now a balance of ;^ 14,000 invested in the Funds 

 to meet a fresh outbreak, or any similar agricultural 

 calamity. 



The cattle plague has taught us many a lesson. 

 Amongst the chief is this : that, by bold and decisive 

 measures, we have not only got rid of this pest, but 

 we have well nigh eradicated those other foreign 

 diseases that for a quarter of a century have found a 

 home in this country. The stoppage of the importa- 

 tion of all stock not intended for immediate slaughter, 

 and confining fat cattle to the ports of debarkation, 

 and the restriction and regulation of the sale and 

 transit of our own stock, have accomplished this, and 

 never were our cattle and sheep more healthy than they 

 have been for the last two years. True, we have our old 

 complaints and local disorders to afflict us, and we may 

 expect plenty of disease amongst our young sheep this 

 autumn, but our stock are in a singularly good state of 

 preservation, and we believe that the only way to keep 

 them so is to stop a further introduction of cattle plague, 

 pleuro-pneumonia, small-pox, foot-and-mouth disease 

 and scab, by the establishment of waterside markets 

 for the slaughter of all foreign stock. The public 

 ought to know that healthy stock means, in ordinary 

 seasons, cheap meat, and, as the foreigner at present 

 only sends us one-twelfth of the cattle and one-twenty- 

 fourth of the sheep that are slaughtered in the United 

 Kingdom, it is the direct interest of the consumer to 

 keep our home stock free from disease. Statistics 

 prove that more British cattle have died from foreign 

 disorders than have been imported from abroad, but 



when we ask for the adoption of the very best plan 

 for keeping out these diseases, we are charged with 

 seeking renewed protection by the exclusion of foreign 

 meat. 



This one subject of the sale, transit, and slaughter 

 of stock, would occupy more time than is allotted 

 (even by special indulgence) to my paper, so I must 

 bring these crude remarks abruptly to a conclusion, 

 and I will sum u]) my whole case in a few words 

 which, although written ten years ago, are still more 

 applicable at the present time. "The Norfolk 

 farmers delight in the idea of producing large supplies 

 of grain and meat for the increasing multitude, but 

 their business object in manufacturing these necessaries 

 is not to feed the public but to make farming pay. 

 At reasonable rates this high farming will answer 

 \v\i\\ very low prices of grain common four years ago, 

 or great mortality amongst stock, it cannot. All the 

 leading agriculturists of the county who have been 

 consulted, declare that farming requires more capital 

 than care ; but the profits on the money invested are 

 much smaller than formerly. Farmers' expenses in- 

 crease, and though, of course, their receipts are also 

 more, they have not yet increased in the same propor- 

 tion. There can be very little doubt of the truth of 

 this conclusion that improved farming means, in other 

 words, the judicious application of more capital to the 

 cultivation of the soil ; and as the broad acres of old 

 England cannot be made broader, it is the duty of 

 every British yeoman to make them more productive ; 

 but he wants, like other producers, to live by his 

 occupation and expects to be paid for his time and his 

 capital. If the nation require the farmer to produce 

 more of the necessaries of life, every obstacle which 

 now hinders improved agriculture should be removed, 

 and every facility afforded for the security of that 

 capital which the tenantry must now, more than ever, 

 embark in the cultivation of their farms." 



THE DEFICIENCY OF PLANTS IN SPRING-SOWN GRASS 



SEEDS. 



AN East Lothian correspondent writes as follows 

 on this important subject: — "The very dry 

 summer of 1868, accompanied as it has been by many 

 days of tropical sunshine, has caused a partial failure 

 of the young grass. There is a want both of clover 

 and rye-grass. Early sown grass seeds look well 

 enough. The young plants having got a deepish root 

 before the dry weather set in, and being shaded from 

 the scorching rays of the sun by a well advanced 

 cereal crop, a number of fields already show 

 a strong and vigorous looking blade. Late sown 

 fields, on the other hand, appeared both blanky and 

 thin when the grain crop %\-as being cut ; we 



were under the impression the young grass had 

 completely died out, as scarcely a vestige of a 

 plant appeared, and those looked sickly and weak ; 

 however, the rains have caused vast improvement, and 

 in most fields the young grass will recover. Where it 

 is very thin we would recommend Trifolium incania- 

 tum, mixed with Italian rye-grass, to replace the defi- 

 ciency. Trifolium incarnatum is an annual, indigenous 

 to the soil of Italy and the south of France. It grows 

 considerably taller than red clover, has oblong 

 cylindrical spikes of a dark crimson. It is ^own in 

 large quantities on the stubbl.-s in tlie oath uf Eng- 

 land, immediately after harvest, and in preparation of 



