Capital applied to Agriculture 



367 



expended in consequence of the farmer on 

 many estates knowing that at the end of 19 

 years he must either be prepared to give an 

 extravagant increase of rent or quit his farm, 

 and therefore his improvements are of a 

 superficial and temporary nature. Millions 

 of money have in this way been lost by the 

 farmers of Scotland, and much by the pro- 

 prietors themselves from the indifference of 

 the latter. It is truth when I say that the 

 cultivated land in this countr)'- is still not 

 more than half-drained, and even much of 

 that within a radius of 10 miles of the two 

 largest cities in Scotland. Many proprietors 

 in this country have dreamed away their op- 

 portunity. Those sensible nien who have 

 thrown out inducements for improving 

 tenantry, for men of capital and intelligence, 

 and who have invested the surplus capital 

 accruing from their advanced rents in the ne- 

 cessary buildings, in the drainage and proper 

 fencing of their estates, will now reap their 

 reward. Many of those proprietors who 

 have large landed estates on high situations, 

 on account of the want of success and the 

 appearance of exhaustion from its previous 

 cropping in the last century, strictly prohibit 

 their tenants from breaking them up ; 

 by doing so, they restrain the employ- 

 ment of the capital of others, and limit the 

 agricultural population which they would 

 naturally employ, forgetting that the advanced 

 system of growing green crops, and the 

 rearing and fattening of sheep upoji these 

 lands, would renew them to their pristine 

 vigour by adding to their potash, their phos- 

 phates, and by bringing their latent vegetable 

 and mineral constituents into play, thereby 

 doubling their productions. Many pro- 

 ])rietors of land have uniformly accepted the 

 highest offers for their farms, without regard 

 to men or capital. These men will now 

 suffer for their short-sighted policy. No 

 sensible man will now, with an ordinary lease, 

 begin the v/holesale drainage of his land with 

 his own capital unless he knows that he is 

 dealing with men of strict integrity and 

 lionour. The value of drained land will now 

 be better understood than ever, and from its 

 enhanced value the undrained land will be 



many degrees less valuable. From the 

 present and prospective change in the price 

 of labour it is not at all improbable that 

 much land in this country will ultimately go 

 out of regular cultivation ; but at any rate the 

 rapid progress of advancement which has 

 gone on for the last generation will now re- 

 ceive a check. Were we even able and 

 willing to pay for the labour at its enhanced 

 value, where are we to find it ? There is, no 

 doubt, plenty of work in draining, trenching, 

 fencing, &c., for an agricultural male popula- 

 tion of one-half more than there now is, but 

 the bone and sinew of our country have left 

 for the backwoo.ds of America, there to till 

 and plough for themselves, and to send their 

 surplus grain to supply the deficiency of our 

 own productions, when many of these men 

 might have been profitably employed in 

 draining and trenching in their native parishes, 

 and that, too, since the effects of draining 

 were well understood, and when labour could 

 be had at one-half the price it now is. The 

 agriculture of this country will now go slowly 

 on till the inducements for emigration held 

 out by the various colonies are lessened from 

 the price of labour being better equalized 

 with other parts of the world. 



INSECURITV OF CAPITAL INVESTED IN 



THE som. 

 The insecurit}- of capital invested in 

 agriculture and the slow and inadequate re- 

 turns derived from it, as compared with 

 general investments in the commercial world, 

 no doubt partly arises from the want of 

 '^•' tenant-right," and also from the extremely 

 unsatisfactory state of the game and other 

 land laws, and must in sonie degree attract 

 those who have money from the cultivation 

 of the land, together witli the great induce- 

 ments held out by the various colonies and the 

 ultimate large returns made in those countries 

 where money is regularly and in most cases 

 safely lent out at 12 to 15 per cent, to those 

 who have not adequate means of their own 

 for the rapid improvement of their estates. 

 Most farmers are at this day pushing their 

 sons into other professions from these causes 

 and from the circumstances of their being 



