THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



339 



doubled, supposing the increased rent represented the 

 improvements made by the landlord. Non-imp rovo- 

 ment was unprofitable. If some one were to offer him 

 a farm of a thousand acres of undrained land, he would 

 not have it as a gift, to be compelled to farm it him- 

 self." 



But the speech of the autumn has, so far, been 

 clearly that of Mr. Ferrand, at the Keighley Meeting, 

 in Yorkshire. lie touched on almost every thing Mr. 

 Mechi referred to, as well as on many other important 

 branches of the subject. Mr. Ferrand is worth fol- 

 lowing. He has evidently much practical experience, 

 a sincere liking for the pursuit, and the ability as a 

 landlord to indulge a little in experimentalizing upon 

 it. He traces the advancement of his own neighbourhood 

 with a force that may not be without its moral else- 

 where : "In the year 1815, his uncle, Mr. Walker 

 Ferrand, of Harden Grange, received a premium at the 

 Otley Agricultural Show, for having turned over with 

 the plough the greatest quantity of land by a pair of 

 horses driven by the holder; and in those days it 

 was usual to plough with horses, three, six, or even 

 nine in a line. The same quantity of land could 

 now be easily turned over with a pair of horses driven 

 by the holder. He was sure tuey might safely say 

 that, even in ploughing, great improvement had 

 taken place in that district ; but when they saw the 

 face of the country at the present time, and compared 

 it with what they knew it to be, either from expeiience 

 or information, forty years ago, the agriculturists of 

 Keighley had a great deal to be proud of. And how 

 had the present state of things been accomplished? 

 Not by idleness, not by slovenly farming, nor by being 

 drones, which many people of late years had been 

 pleased to call agriculturists ; but by an energy, a zeal, 

 and a determination to improve their land and increase 

 their crops, which did infinite credit to the farmers of 

 the district." 



There is a deal of plain truth and honest praise in 

 all this— a desire to allow merit where it is really due, 

 and that we conscientiously believe has been deserved 

 by the English farmer in his endeavour to raise the 

 status of his business. And yet how oddly it reads with 

 what Mr. Mechi had to deduce for the good men of 

 Manchester! — that the present cultivation of this 

 country was disgraceful to English agriculture, that we 

 had not done our duty in this respect, and so forth. 

 But we take it, if English agriculture be a dis- 

 grace to this country, it is an example to nearly 

 all others. Mr. Ferrand himself refers to this meet- 

 ing at Manchester, in a passage on the art of 

 draining, which has the recommendation of being by 

 no means wedded to any one certain depth or distance. 

 The more, indeed, a man studies this — the more expe- 

 rience he has, the more ready will he be to admit the 

 impossibility of setting up any one standard of 



maxinmm or minimum. There are, though, King 

 Canutes yet, who sit in self-appointed dominioQ 

 over the waters, and declare — " Thus far shalt thou 

 go, and no further !" On the other hand, the prac- 

 tice of Mr. Ferrand has been thus diversified :— 



'' He had lately read a speech delivered by a most 

 able man, Mr. Brooks, at the Manchester agricultural 

 meeting, in which it was boldly stated that every 

 farmer should drain four feet deep. Mr. Mechi, a large 

 farmer in the South of England, also said a great deal 

 about deep drainage. He (Mr. Ferrand) had himself 

 drained land three feet, three feet six inches, and four 

 feet deep, in different kinds of soil, and he found each 

 system to answer in the particular field in which it was 

 tried ; but in some instances, "jvliile he had drained 

 three feet deep and cleared all the water, he had 

 drained three feet six inches deep in another field, and 

 might as well not have drained at all. Instead, 

 however, of taking up the old drains, he put down new 

 drains, half way between the old ones, four feet 

 deep, and in doing that he believed he did not exag- 

 gerate when he said that he struck, in a ten-acre field, 

 into some 30 or 40 springs of water which had entirely 

 missed in the previous drainage; and he had made 

 that land in two years grow a most beautiful crop of 

 white clover (applause). To accomplish this, he had, 

 after draining the laud, done what a great many per- 

 sons called him a fool for doing— spread all the sour 

 clay soil which he had dug out of the drain on to the 

 surface of the land. That clay, however, contained a 

 mass of indigenous clover seed, and by its use, and the 

 system of drainage which he had adopted, he was now 

 able to show a field which astonished every person 

 who saw it. While he told this fact, and also informed 

 the assembly that the adjoining field, which was 

 drained three feet deep, also answered, he must not 

 forget to mention that when he came into white, soft, 

 porous soil, on a sloping hill side, he drained six, 

 eight, ten, and in one place as much as twelve feet 

 deep, till he got to the springs, and by that means he 

 carried off the water, and got the field perfectly dry." 



Mr. Ferrand proceeds at equal length on the cleans- 

 ing of land, the growth of root crops, " the tilling" of 

 pastures, and the importance of good breeds of stock. 

 In a word, this speech at Keighley is a grand answer 

 to the abuse the party Mr. Ferrand is identified 

 with has been so long subject to. Few men were more 

 conspicuous in the battle of Protection than Mr. Fer- 

 rand himself; none more " outrageous" on the ques- 

 tion. And, when this was settled, when the battle was 

 lost, what did he do ? Sit down in gloomy despair, 

 and court the ruin he had predicted ? Not a bit of it. 

 He drained, he manured, he ploughed deep, he in- 

 vested money in every reasonable way ; and he said, " If 

 there is a chance still for agriculture she shall have it." 

 Could Mr. Mechi or Mr. Caird have done more ? 



