THE FARMEil'S MAGAZINE. 



23 



which landlord aud tenant had made in permanent improve- 

 ments. Draining, marling, and chalking', without manure, 

 would not suffice to meet the exigencies of the present day. 

 The production of what are called artificial manures, and the 

 increase of food for stock, are the points to which the know- 

 ledge of the practical farmer, and the science of the chemist 

 and geologist are most usefully directed. The spirited 

 English farmer of the preseut day is not content with 

 the feeding substances grown upon his own farm, and finds 

 nothing which produces meat on his animals, and good manure 

 in bis yards, so readily as linssed cake. In one year, 1857, 

 he expended in this article alone more than £2,000,000, 

 whilst the imports of inferior grain, much of which was no 

 doubt consumed by the agriculturists, amounted in the sane 

 year to £8,000,000. At the present time, also, the agricul- 

 tural chemists declare that the cake made from the seed of 

 the cotton plant is of equal value to linseed cake, but as great 

 losses have occurred from the use of cakes made from the 

 huak crushed up with the seed, great caution must be dis- 

 played in the choice of the best samples. In manures, no less 

 than in food, the agriculturist's outlay has been considerable, 

 and the aid afforded to him by the geologist and the chemist 

 most remarkable. In 1800, Sir Humphrey Davy called the 

 attention of English farmers to the guano, or deposits of dung 

 of the sea fowls, on the coasts of Peru. But no importation 

 of it took place until 1841. In that year, Mr. Myers im- 

 ported twenty casks of it into Liverpool, and since then the 

 use of it has become so general, that, in ten years ending with 

 1857 the English farmer expended more than £20,000,000 in 

 its purchase. Bones have been even more extensively used as 

 a fertilizer, and the discovery that their manurial property was 

 increased by solution with sulphuric acid is due to Liebig. 

 But we are not dependent only on bones to produce the great 

 turnip manure, superphosphate of lime; for Buckland, aud 

 Henslow, and Paine found that the different geological forma- 

 tions were rich in fossil remains, and the analyses of these by 

 Liebig, Lawes, and Solly proved their great manurial value. 

 Tliey now, under the manufacturer's hand, produce the com- 

 mercial superphosphate of lime ; and so the farmer carries to 

 the fields which are too distant from his homestead for the 

 farmyard manure, the dung of the sea-bird from the coast of 

 Peru, and the fossil remains of the antediluvian world. But 

 agriculture has benefited no less by the skill of the engineer 

 and mechanic, than by the scientific research of the geologist 

 and chemist. Although no implement has yet displaced the 

 plough in the cultivation of the soil, and its preparation to re- 

 ceive the mellowing of the winter's frost, still much has been 

 done towards assisting the autumn cleansing of stubbles by 

 the broadshare and the cultivator. By the use of the?e the 

 farmer is now able, in the southern counties especially, to de- 

 stroy the couch grass during autumn, and bring his fallow- 

 laud into the fittest state for turnips in the spring. Other 

 implements have made equal progress; but the great 

 problem of modern agriculture is the application of steam 

 to the cultivation of the soil. If this can once be 

 successfully carried out, the mine of wealth which exists 

 almost untried in the clay lands of England may 

 yield up its resources, and the clays may become as much 

 sought after as are now the light lands. At present, the 

 wet weather of autumn usually prevents the clay-land 

 farmer from cleaning his stubbles, ploughing in his manure, 

 and sowing his wheat with the ordinary force of horses 

 sufficient for the farm. But if steam comes in to his assist- 

 ance, these operations will be performed ; and the land will 

 be left ready for winter under the most favourable aspects ; 

 and we may expect from it heavy crops of corn, and even 

 of mangold wurzel. At present, two different principles of 

 steam cultivation occupy men's minds — one in which the 

 Steam shall drive the locomotive, and itself work a rotary 

 digger, preparing the seed-bed at once for the corn ; and 

 the other in which steam only supplies a motive power to 

 implements now existing. Although the principle of the 

 first is apparently the most correct, its application hitherto 

 has not been practically successful, the complex nature of 

 the machinery, and the cumbrous weight of the implement, 

 impeding its operation on the soil. Two implements on the 

 other principle have each achieved well-merited success 

 —one manufactured by Mr. Fowler, the other by Mr. 

 Smith, of Woolston. The former performs its work as the 

 old plough did, inverting the soil ; the other by means of 

 a cultivator, breaking it up and pulverizing it. The tenant- 



farmers of England have not been slow in recognizing the 

 merits of these machines ; and, in spite of their great 

 original cost, and the heavy expense of their wear and tear, 

 several of each kind are now at work on farms in ditferent 

 parts of England ; and the farming world are looking for- 

 ward in sanguine hopes of great results being produced by 

 them. There is still much room for improvement in the 

 simplicity of their construction, and in the diminution of 

 their cost. Steam has, however, asserted its supremacy in 

 other departments of the farm ; and Mr. Dent gave several 

 details connected with the steam thrashing-machines, for 

 which he was indebted to Messrs. Clayton and Shuttle- 

 worth, of Lincoln. The reaping machines next occupied 

 attention ; and their progress was traced since 1851, and an 

 «)pinion expressed that Messrs. Burgess iind Key, Crosskill, 

 and Cuthbert could ench now supply implements such as 

 the tenant-farmer might buy with confidence. Mr. Dent 

 then expressed bis regret that agriculture was the only 

 branch of industry in which the inquirer was ignorant of 

 the results that had followed upon enterprise ; that, though 

 every one could see droves of oxen and Hocks of sheep 

 fattening on land which once barely supported a few geese 

 or a starving donkey, and though turnips and grain now 

 grew where formerly the flag and the rush waved, and 

 crept year by year up. the moorlands and downs of Eng- 

 land, still no one knew how many acres we cultivated, how 

 many quarters of corn we produced. The statician, de- 

 ducing wonderful laws, which seemed to gov.rn the whole 

 universe, from correct figures on every other subject, was 

 at a loss when he took English agriculture in hand ; and the 

 producer and consumer were alike wanting in the knowledge 

 of what one could supply for the other's wants. Regretting 

 that time would not allow more than a glance at the bota- 

 nical discoveries, the history of the flocks and herds, the 

 discouragement of disease, and changing seasons, Mr. 

 Dent said there were yet many improvements needed. One 

 still saw bad farm-buildings, great spreading hedgerows, with 

 their accompanying timber ; estates overrun with hares and 

 rabbits, and the turnips and wheat bearing testimony to these 

 plagues of a farmer's life ; ill-bred cattle, bare fallows, and, 

 more than all, grass land neglected and not cared for, and good 

 farming unfortunately not yet the rule. In social position and 

 intelligence, the farmer of the present day has made as much 

 progress as he has in the cultivation of the land. You will 

 find in the farm-houses of the highly cultivated farms in Lin- 

 colnshire, Yorkshire, and Norfolk, elegant women and men of 

 mind, yet fully informed and able in their profession. There 

 was at one time fear and regret expressed at the prospect of 

 the race of small farmers dying out. Mr. Dent said he could 

 not share in that regret ; as a rule, the small farmers had been 

 men of small means and small education — but little removed 

 from their labourers, and oftener sinking down to the class be- 

 low, than rising to that above. The idea of their entertaining 

 more sympathy and more fellow-feeling for their labourers had 

 been disproved by experience, and the higher the land was cul- 

 tivated the better was usually the condition of the working 

 population. Relerring to the condition of the labourer, Mr. 

 Dent expressed his thanks to, and made several quotations 

 from letters of gentlemen residing in different parts of Eng- 

 land, containing much valuable information on the subject. 

 The effects of the law of settlement, he showed, had been to 

 banish labourers from the close parishes, to the injury of the 

 farmer as well as of themselves ; that the farmer suffered 

 from the distance at which his labourers resided from 

 their work, and the extra toil imposed upon them by their 

 morning and evening walk ; whilst the labourer, driven away 

 by the wealthy landowner, was the prey of speculators in the 

 open parishes, and paid a high rent for wretched accommoda- 

 tion. Although landlords aud tenants are now awakening to 

 these evils, still they are unfortunately the great cause of sin 

 amongst the rural population of England; and from every 

 part of England, by clergy, farmers, and land-agents, the same 

 testimony is borne as to the insufficiency of cottage accommo- 

 dation for the purposes of ordinary decency. This is mainly 

 a landlord's question, and one which many landlords are 

 taking up, but on those who continue to neglect it a very 

 heavy responsibility rests. Geufrally wages are improved, 

 and work is more regular; even in Dorsetshire, and the 

 southern counties of England, the same testimony is borne 

 that wages are more generally paid in money ; and the system 

 of giving liquor in part payment is dying out, though this still 



