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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



I have formerly stated that on my land I have found that 

 two bushels of seed-wheat, as compaied with one bushel, 

 reduce the yield bj' a sum equal to the rent of t lie land. 



Mr. Hewitt Davis is entitled to great credit for what he 

 did practical!}' in proving the advantages of thin sowing, 

 combined with deep and clean cultivation. 



In dealing with such an enormous area as the cereal crop 

 of the United Kingdom, the waste of seed forms an aggre- 

 gate item of national importance. 



I never found any farmer who complained of my not 

 having straw enough : on the contrary, thick-sowers have 

 admitted that the quantity was much larger than their own. 



On light, chalky soil, or limestone rock, esf'ecially at 

 high elevations, as in Gloucestershire, I hare known 

 thick and early sowing practised, because, by covering 

 the ground early, it protected the roots from froat. We 

 know quite well that, whilst the leaf of wheat suffers little 

 from frost, the plant when root-frozen is destroyed. Under 

 such circumstances, it might be advantageous to thin-out 

 the wheat by hoeing in the spring. 



Trusting that these remarks may lead to a due considera- 

 tion of the question, I am, yours truly, 



J. J. Mechi. 



Tiptree I fall, Kelvedon, Essex, Aug. 12. 



THE LABOURER'S OPPOSITION TO THE USE OF MACHINERY, 



Mob law will rarely do to reflect on. An argument 

 enforced by the breaking of heads and the smashing of 

 windows does not evince much reasoning power, how- 

 ever great it may be in physical force. Beyond this, 

 rioters do not often know what they really want, and 

 seldom press a point which does not eventually tell 

 ayaiust themselves. A movement that defies order, de- 

 stroys capital, and interferes with the industi'y of a 

 country, cannot be attended with any actual good. It 

 is a hard thing to say, but, as a rule, we may regard 

 such outbreaks as altogether mischievous and unjust. 

 A few designing ringleaders, who can profit only 

 by confusion and violence, carry the others with them; 

 and once thus excited, nothing is so senseless or so 

 suicidal as the conduct of a crowd. Friend or foe fly 

 equally before their indiscriminate fury. If in want 

 of work, they pull down a manufactory ! Or, crying for 

 bread, set fire to a bakehouse ! AVell might the Duke 

 feel they were not to be trusted, and regard with equal 

 indifierence their hurrahs and their hootings. What 

 a fine estimate of mob rule was that significant wave of 

 the hand towards kiS iron blinds, when they cheered 

 him home to Apsley House ! 



There was a day, an almost forgotten one now, 

 when agriculture had its own peculiar class of these 

 , oflTeuders. When men in want ol' work considered the 

 best thing they could do would be to ruin their em- 

 ployers, and that the first act of justice to their 

 starving families was to have a stack-yard in flames. 

 At such a time the farmer who strove to produce the 

 most food was regarded proportionately as their 

 greatest enemy; and they broke-up his thrashing 

 machines and condemned his hay- makers, simply in 

 self-defence. The rising generation of either master Oi- 

 man would now scarcely credit this. And yet it is not so 

 many years ago that such lawless sway was exercised — 

 when the goorl Mr. Hornsby, of Grantham, had to 

 •* swear in" all his artizans and mechanics against the 

 threatened attack of the agi-icultural labourer, who 

 would have nothing but flail thrashing, broad-cast sow- 

 ing, and liand hay-making. With the customary short- 

 sightedness of any one in a crowd, he could not see that 

 machinery might aid him quite as much as his master; 

 and so he threatened and stormed on— to an inevitable 



conclusion, which brought himself to the gaol, and his 

 family to the workhouse. , 



If anything could tend, or has tended to elevate the 

 labourer beyond the rank of a mere drudge, it has been 

 the extended use of machinery. If any one thing has 

 developed his intellectual faculties, raised the nature of 

 his employment, and increased his own self-respect cBid 

 appreciation, it has been this further use of mechanical 

 power. Nay, it has added to his comforts ; and, if 

 cheap bread be his great want, has as cer- 

 tainly become the means to such an end. 

 Should wo grow the crops we now do, without 

 this agency ? Could M'e bring them on, or harvest 

 them in the condition wo do, without that machinery 

 which is at present regarded as the very necessity of 

 good farming ? The farm servant himself, with his 

 increasing intelligence and better use for his abilities, 

 has come to fully acknowledge the advantage of such 

 appliances ; and the man who years since would have 

 headed a riot to destroy a horse-thrashing-machine, 

 would most likely now fly into open revolt only when 

 you put a flail into his hand, and a barn-floor for 

 him to hammer on. 



At harvest time more particularly, it seems like 

 flying in the face of Providence not to secure our corn as 

 quickly as possible. Vrith wheat got up in better con- 

 dition, it is a very logical sequence that the poor will 

 have better bread. Accordingly the reaper is coming 

 more and more into use : its action has been progres- 

 sively improved, and the workmen as gradually ac- 

 customed to i's management. And so when, a few 

 seasons back, as Mr. Mechi writes, he was inclined to 

 return his Hussey, " the men were too good judges to 

 part with such a friend, although for the first year 

 or two their want of practice caused them a little 

 trouble ; but their own self-interest soon taught them 

 to take care and keep it in good working order." 

 Strange as it may sound, at the very time this letter 

 appeared — a set of lawless rioters had possession 

 of a town of some importance, with the avowed 

 object of preventing the use of reaping-machines for 

 the ingathering of the harvest. They paraded the 

 streets, they visited the neighbouring homesteads, they 

 ill-treated women,they beat old men, and robbed farmers 



