x66 



TJic Country Gentleman'' s Magazine 



i^eneral rule and undeniable proposition, that security 

 for improvements will induce and encourage them, 

 while the very reverse will take place in the case of 

 doubt and insecurity. 



I entirely agree with your lordship as to the ques- 

 tion of education. It can hardly be expected that 

 uneducated men should appreciate the necessity for 

 educating their children ; but it will not be so with 

 the rising generation, under our new laws. The love 

 of education in Scotland began when John Knox, 300 

 years ago, compelled the heritors, or landowners, to 

 erect a school in every parish ; and it is owing to this 

 general education that we find, everywhere out of 

 .Scotland, Scotch bailiffs, stewards, gardeners, and 

 managers, and successful men in other pursuits. 



I think that we ought not to regret the great in- 

 crease of size either in our farms, factories, ships, or 



commercial and trading concerns. It affords evidence of 

 our greatly increased wealth, caused by the intelligent 

 appreciation of the use of steam ; and it is to this 

 cheap and effective power that farmers must look for 

 greater profits, landowners for higher rents, and the 

 country at large for more abundant and cheaper sup- 

 plies of food. 



I hope that our enormous and rapid increase of 

 wealth produced by steam will not render us too 

 luxurious or too idle. There is a danger of this, 

 judging from past history. The time will come when 

 the tenant farmer's capital on arable land will be;^20 

 tO;^25 per acre in order to get the largest per centum 

 of profit, and that the piece-work done by the well- 

 paid, well-fed, well-housed, and well-educated la- 

 bourers of the future will be as cheap or cheaper 

 than it is now under different circumstances. 



CAPITAL APPLIED TO AGRICULTURE. 



By Mr R. S. Frier.' 



SO late as the middle, indeed nearly 

 the end of the last century, agricul- 

 ture may be said to have been in its 

 infancy. The rotation of crops was scarcely 

 understood. From careful observation an 

 old farmer certainly knew potatoes after pota- 

 toes or wheat afterwheat was not likely torn eet 

 with great success ; but he did not know that 

 a crop of potatoes delighted in an excess of 

 potash, or that of wheat in an excess of mag- 

 nesia, or that by the continued cropping of 

 land certain quantities of particular mineral 

 constituents were necessary to ensure a full 

 crop. It is some time certainly since the 

 great effects of ammonia were known, but it 

 is only recently that the farmer knew that by 

 its liberal application he might have abund- 

 ance of straw and very little grain, unless a 

 due proportion of phosphates with the 

 various alkalies were also present. A great 

 proportion of the landed proprietors of this 

 country have done little or nothing for the 

 advancement of agriculture. Land as an in- 

 vestment is considered one of slow returns, 

 as certainly it is, but the owners of land for 



* Read before the Gala Water Farmers' Club. 



the last forty years have assuredly no reason 

 to complain. Landed property that was 

 purchased at a fair market rate some forty 

 years ago has, in many instances, where 

 money was judiciously invested in improve- 

 ments, given two or even three times the 

 rents then current, and that often entirely 

 from the expenditure of the tenant's own 

 capital in drainage, in the use of extraneous 

 manures, and foreign foods ; so that these 

 men, who probably brought their land to 

 yield them 3 per cent., are now in the receipt 

 of 9 per cent, for their money. While many 

 landlords discharge their duties as such in a 

 most creditable manner, too many of them 

 — and these, unfortunately, the largest en- 

 tailed proprietors in the country — are utterly 

 indifferent either to their property or the in- 

 terests of their tenants, and leave the ad- 

 ministration of their estates to parties from 

 whom the only qualification asked or appre- 

 ciated is that of being able and willing to 

 extort the maximum immediate return which 

 can be got out of the land. 



PROPRIETORS, FARMERS, AND LABOURERS. 



Much capital has, no doubt, been foolishly 



