An A mcrican viciu of English Fanning 



13 



mechanical aid can accomplish is done, to 

 ensure the highest yield from the land. It is 

 next to be seen in the extraordinary liberality 

 with which they restore to the earth, by 

 means of purchased manures, all those ele- 

 ments of fertility which are exhausted in the 

 process of cultivation. It is estimated, by 

 chemical analysis, that wheat absorbs 40 of 

 every 100 parts of nutriment contained in 

 the soil. Now some idea of the enterprise 

 of English agriculture may be formed (added 

 Mr Wall) when I state to you that in a single 

 year, the year 1837, the first year of its 

 general use as a fertilizer, the foreign bones 

 imported were valued at the Custom House 



at 1,500,000 dol., since which time it is esti- 

 mated that the amount paid for imported 

 bones alone amounted to 150,000,000 dol. 

 Since 1S41, upwards of 1,500,000 tons of 

 guano have been used. 



Mr Wall also spoke in high terms of our 

 system of drainage and the rotation of crops. 

 " I believe," he remarked, " that nothing 

 more perfect in rural economy can be con- 

 ceived than their rotation of root and grain 

 crop. The root cultivation has indeed been 

 the salvation of England. "With as much 

 truth as force has it been said that the power 

 of the British Empire rests upon her coal, 

 her iron, and lier turnips." 



STATUTE HIRING, OR HIRING FAIRS. 



IN connexion with the present movement 

 to advance the pecuniary interests and 

 general well-being of the agricultural labourer 

 by means which, as we have already pointed 

 out, we consider injudicious, and by the quo- 

 tation of figures which have been proved 

 erroneous, we think the subject of statute 

 hirings one of considerable importance. 



These fairs, or statutes, as we have before 

 had occasion to point out, originated at a 

 time when the labourers were legitimately 

 asserting their right to more wages. The 

 labour market had been fearfully cleared 

 out by " the plague." Shepherds and plough- 

 men, reapers, cowherds, and horsemen, had 

 been ruthlessly ridden over by that stern 

 entity on the white horse, whose name is 

 Death. Naturally, those who survived Avished 

 to obtain higher wages for their work. They 

 felt that farmers could not get on without 

 them, that the field of labour to draw from 

 was so circumscribed that they could com- 

 mand their own terms. Their notions of 

 supply and demand were doubtless of a very 

 crude character, proceeding more from in- 

 stinct than reason ; for political ecomony at 

 that time had little been thought of — far less 

 elevated into the dignity of a science. 



But those days were not as our days. 

 Liberty of individual action did not exist, and 

 the poor labourer, who, in the period in which 

 we now live, under such circumstances, would 

 without effort have obtained an increase of 

 compensation for his toil, was, under penal- 

 ties, forced to present himself in market 

 places with symbols of his particular branch 

 of agricultural occupation around his hat, or 

 on his breast, and take such money as the 

 farmer decreed. It is strange, seeing that 

 statute fairs were instituted to the disadvan- 

 tage of the rural labourers, that they should 

 be so disinchned to have them abolished. 



The scenes at hiring fairs are of the most 

 disgraceful description. Men and women 

 stand upon the streets, and submit to criticism 

 of the same kind that v/e hear about cattle at 

 agricultural exhibitions. They are judged 

 upon present form rather than upon past per- 

 formances. Style instead of character is the 

 basis of their engagement. To this mode of 

 hiring the frequent changes of ploughmen and 

 domestic fiirm-servants in many districts may 

 be ascribed. The farmer, as a rule, knows 

 nothing whatever about the capabilities of 

 the servants for the work they have under- 

 taken, whether it be in handling a plough or 



