THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



281 



In these districts, the allowance in money is called 

 the "'deaf stint," an allusion to the keep of a second 

 cow which had been disused, and become dead or 

 deaf. The custom had dwindled into one cow, and 

 the quota of money : in former times the wages had 

 been wholly paid in produce. 



The above arrangements may appear to be the 

 remnant of feudalism, and akin to the payment of 

 rents of land in grain, which have never got into 

 any favour or adoption in use ; but the applications 

 are wholly different, and made under entirely differ- 

 ent circumstances ; and several feudal regulations 

 are by no means the very worst arrangements for 

 human society, when dispassionately considered 

 and legitimately established. The inhabitants of 

 Rome enjoy the privilege of fresh water in abun- 

 dance, free of any charge. The rising generation 

 of ploughmen hinds are much better trained at the 

 parental fireside, than in congregations, as lodgers ; 

 or in villages, as frequenters of the beer shop : the 

 whole attention is at home, and never diverted to 

 follies and debaucheries. It is essential that 

 ploughmen live in close contiguity to the farmery ; 

 and the payment of wages, in produce, is prefer- 

 able to money ; always including in the very fore- 

 most place the keep of a cow, to yield milk to the 

 children, as no other such food is yet known. The 

 keep of a pig and of poultry adds to the posses- 

 sion; and the garden yields a mo^t healthy food in 

 vegetables. 



The great and glowing defect of the hind system 

 of these countries is the very insufficient accom- 

 modation of the cottage dwellings, which are ex- 

 clusively formed of one apartment on the ground 

 floor, in the average of ten feet square : into this 

 pinfold the father and mother with four or more 

 children are huddled, along with a grown-up son 

 and a female worker; and in it, the common decen- 

 cies of life are impossible to be preserved. The 

 beds are wooden boxes, and are carried about by 

 the removing hinds; the fire-grates are also pulled 

 down, and carried away at each migration of the 

 occupier. Where the genius of agriculture has 

 been truly said to have placed its chosen residence, 

 the ideas of the owners and occupiers of land have 

 not been able to rise to the height of a second floor 

 for a cottage, in order to separtte the sleeping and 

 sitting apartments, and to afford different apart- 

 ments for age and sex. This provision, along with 

 a second apartment on the ground floor, and some 

 back buildings, are essential to any human habita- 

 tion, with a back door for the sake of ventilation. 

 Fixed bedsteads may be placed to remain in the 

 sleeping apartments ; and it is idle to say that the 

 hinds themselves do not wish such things ; for im- 

 provements are only required to be shown, in order 

 to be adopted, Some fifteen or more years ago, the 



rev. Dr. Gilly, vicar of Norham, on the south 

 bank of Tweed, made a most pathetic appeal to 

 the benevolence of the landowners, on behalf of the 

 hind in respect of dwellings, which are only the 

 stall of a stable, in which the animal performs 

 every function of nature. Little response, if any, 

 has been returned to the reverend gentleman, who, 

 along with the instruction of the poor, laid the du- 

 ties of property before the rich. The midland and 

 southern counties of England are far ahead of the 

 hind districts, in point of accommodation; the ha- 

 bitations, such as they are, contain two floors ; and 

 all examples of that kind have been shown by the 

 manufacturers. J. D. 



ANCIENT NOTIONS OF VEGETATION.— At the 



close of the sixteenth century the one idea seemed to be 

 that there existed ;i universal, generative, and fructifying 

 salt, to which all soils and earths owed their fertility. This 

 was the crude "agricultural chemistry" of its time, and the 

 philosophers of that age proceeded to show the vegetative 

 virtues of salt, declaring that it not ouly promoted genera- 

 tion in plants, but procreation in animals. " Plutarch doth 

 witnesse, that ships upon the sea are pestred and poisoned 

 oftetimes with exceeding store of mice. And some hold 

 opinion that the females, without any copulation with the 

 males, doe conceive ouely by licking of salt. And this 

 maketh the fishmongers' wives so wanton aud so beautifull." 

 After mauy illustrations tending to show that common salt 

 was the salt meant, the farmer was told that the philoso- 

 phers " speak not of common salt," but of a mysterious 

 " vegetative salt." This assumed philosophy was stated 

 with confideuce, and its expression maintained with obvious 

 conceit. " The secret virtues which lie hid in salt confirm 

 the same. For salt whiteneth all thinges, it hardeneth all 

 thinges, it preserveth all thinges, it giveth savour to all 

 thinges ; it is that masticke which gleweth all things toge- 

 ther ; it gathereth and knitteth all mineral matters, and of 

 manie thousand peeces it maketh one masee. This salt 

 giveth sounde to all thinges, and without the sounde no 

 metall will wring in his shirle voyce. Salt maketh men 

 merrie, it whiteneth the fleah, and it giveth beautie to all 

 reasonable creatures ; it entertayneth that love and amitie 

 which is betwixt the male and female, through the great 

 vigour and stirring uppe which it provoketh in the engen- 

 dering members ; it helpetb to procreation ; it giveth unto 

 creatures their voyce, as also unto metalls. And it is salt 

 that maketh all seeds to flourish and growe, and although 

 the number of men is verie small which can give any true 

 reason whie dungue should doe anie good in arable groundes, 

 but are ledde thereto more by custome than anie philoso- 

 phical reason, nevertheless it is apparaunt that no dungue 

 which is layde uppon barraine groundes could anie way 

 enrich the same, if it were not for the salt which the straw 

 aud hay left behind them by their putrifaction." Sir Hugh 

 Piatt expressed his astonishment that so good a philosophy 

 aa this should have remained for a long period unnoticed. — 

 Philp's Progress of Jgricullure, 



