334 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



bulls and steam-puffed rams means agricultural improve- 

 ment, then we are the real Simon Pures. Agricultural im- 

 provement ! when you can run on a railway for fifteen— aye, 

 and for twenty miles, through the finest soil and country in 

 the world, and not see a ridge of corn, or a man at a day's 

 work, except dressing a sheep, or perhaps mending a gap in 

 our slovenly fences. Agricultural improvement ! when the 

 county of Galway has only yet reached 13, Leitrim 13J, 

 Mayo 12, and the fine inland county of Eoscommon only 

 1 7i acres per cent, of cill tillage ! Agi-icultural improvement ! 

 when there has not been seen in the Dublin market for the 

 last three months a sample of home-grown wheat, and in 

 many of the provincial markets neither wheat nor oats ! 

 We are now living on sour American flour, or doubly fer- 

 mented foreign wheat, the very dust and smell of which, on 

 delivery at our fjuays, would suffocate and surfeit a very pig. 

 Such is the indigestible, guts griping, and choleric tenden- 

 cies of this foreign stuff, and such the necessity and demand 

 for purgatives, that our Dublin Reviewer, some week ago, 

 thought well to counsel liis readers as to the advantage of 

 turning some of their othenvise half-barren fields into the 

 growing of medicinal herbs, for the better scouring of her 

 Majesty's liege subjects from the dangerous effects of bad 

 foreign corn and flour. The Morning Herald, the other dayi 

 in a lengthened and able article on our food prospects, also 

 lamented the extent of mortality in London, and appeared 

 to attribute its height to the state of the atmosphere; but, 

 knowing the complaints here, we fear the same cause exists 

 in London, and which is nothing more nor less than over- 

 fermented and unwholesome foreign corn and flour. 



This, then, is what our new-fashioned model farming, 

 blarney, and speechifying have done for Ireland. Now, let 

 US see what the arts, science, and machinery, the Lois- 

 Weedon system, that modern amateur, the Daily News (the 

 seer into the dark future, and whose forebodings are too 

 likely to be realized^, are doing, and are likely to do for 

 England. We have no authorised statistical data to guide 

 us with regard to fair England. She, however, thought well 

 of knowing what Paddy and Sandy were about; but John 

 Bull's deeds of darkness, it appears, were so dismally black 

 that they could not bear the light of day, and he will insist 

 on carrying on his trade in the dark (but more of this again). 

 We have, however, such data as enable us to see a little 

 behind the scenes, and will for the present serve our pur- 

 pose. 



Like a great many others, we, for a number of years, had 

 our misgivings as to the capability of British soil being suf- 

 ficient to grow food for the fast increasing population ; but, 

 thanks to the statistical system adopted in Ireland and 

 Scotland, that delusion is now completely dissipated. AVe 

 can not only tell to an acre what these portions of the United 

 Kingdom have been doing, but what they must still do, and 

 tlie scope they have for additional doing, before they even 

 reach a five-course rotation, on our arable surface. 



We have been for a long time jjoring over and prying into 

 a proper system of agricultural statistics, even before there 

 was any agitation about them. The alarm consequent on 

 this rather cold and wet season caused us to try and dis- 

 cover something of England's position, and we think we 

 have discovered sufficient to account for the tenacity of con- 

 cealment. England and Wales represent an area of 

 37,324,915 acres. Now, suppose we allow a-half — 

 18,6(32,457 — for cities, gardens, pleasure grounds and parks. 



and which we suppose, from what we have heard of England's 

 surface, will be considered an extravagant allowance. 



There ia only one-fourth of Ireland under all waste, and 

 three-fourths arable. Two-thirds of Scotland are, we may 

 say, perfectly waste, that is, incapable of beinf; cultivated. 

 Well, then, we have here for England 18,662,457 acres for 

 the purposes of tillage, and nearly equal to the whole of 

 either Ireland or Scotland. But suppose, for the purpose of 

 preventing all cause of difference, we allow twenty per cent, 

 more for farm steadings, gardens, lawns, and old meadows, 

 which perhaps we might be inclined to keep sacred, if we may 

 80 speak. Well, still we have a surface of 14,929,967 acres. 

 Will the most absolute Hotspur, Percy, or champions of the 

 greea acre, either in England or Ireland, deny or dispute this 

 portion of mother earth being applied to the production of 

 food for men, when we can prove, as clear as that two and 

 two make four, that, under a proper rotation of cropping, it 

 would produce nearly double wliat it can do now in money, 

 beef, mutton, and bread and butter? Then let us see what the 

 result would be in wheat alone. We shall resolve the 

 14,929,967 acres into a five-course rotation, as that which we 

 understand is moat common in England, and suppose one" 

 fifth under wheat, being 2,985,993 acres, which, at four quar- 

 ters (or 32 bushels) per acre, would produce, under deduction 

 for seed, 10,834,225 quarters of home-grown wheat, and 

 something over 4J bushels to every human being, young and 

 old, on English ground. 



Who the n would oppose statistics, were they carried no fat" 

 ther than to ascertain this scientific fact of wheat production 

 — the staff of life? But, instead of this happy state of 

 things, what do we find ? M'Culloch represents the area of 

 EngUsh tillage in 1850-4 to be 11,400,000 acres; her produc- 

 tion in wheat, under deduction for seed, as 9,642,857 quarters. 

 But no later than same time in this last summer we saw in 

 your journal the area of English tillage, as returned by the 

 Poor Law Commissioners, to be something over 7,000,000 

 acres only, and which, on a five-course rotation, would only 

 afford, under deduction for seed, 5,075,000 quarters, or 2^ 

 bushels per head. 



Now, these last figures are more like the truth, and are 

 borne out by the English market returns for 1855-6-7. 

 Where then is the much-boasted effects of the arts, science, 

 and machinery ? where the hope of those who have nailed 

 their faith to a spinning jenny, and their stomachs to the 

 chemist's crucible. And we would venture to tell this prog- 

 nosticator of evil, this would-be amateur agriculturist of the 

 Daily News, and all such frothy phi! idophers, that they had 

 better betake themselves to those subjects that they may and 

 can understand, than thus be misleading the public on a sub- 

 ject of such vital importance, by holding out phantoms that 

 never can be realized, and dangerous even if possible of real- 

 ization. 



If, then, the effects of arts, science, and machinery have 

 been to reduce Eugland's tillage during a period of five years 

 4,000,000 acres, aad, as a natural result, her bread by one- 

 half; if Ireland's blarney and speechifying have also, within 

 the same period, reduced her area of tillage by hundreds of 

 thousands of acres, and thus rendered us the victims of 

 famine — we think the sooner such arts, science, and ma- 

 chinery, such blarney and speechifying are numbered amongst 

 the things that were, the better. Yours, &c., 



ConnaugJU, Sept. 8th, Plough, Plough. 



