THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



117 



This ig certainly very handsomely put, though it strikes 

 us the argument cuts all the other way. If the exhibi- 

 tions of the Society are descending to be merely " agri- 

 cultural fairs," should not there be an eflfort made to 

 make them something more ? Is not the Royal Agri- 

 cultural Society just such an institution as should be 

 " a tribunal of authority " ? Let the reader mark what 

 it has done in this way, and then ask why it should not 

 continue to do so ? 



" In the earlier stages of the gi'eat agricultural 

 movement we have witnessed, it was probably advan- 

 tageous to stimulate and concentrate on agriculture the 

 inventive talent of the countiy. With this view the 

 promoters of our agricultural societies adopted the plan 

 of offering prizes for the best implements and machinery 

 for the cultivation of the soil. The immediate effect of 

 this system was to single out the best maker of each 

 particular machine, and to spread his name far 

 and wide beyond the limits of the particular dis- 

 trict in which his reputation had already been estab- 

 lished. At the outset, therefore, the distribution of 

 prizes proved advantageous to those manufacturers 

 whose machines had acquired a marked excellence, as 

 it gave them a status throughout England, which they 

 had previously no means of obtaining beyond a very 

 limited sphere. A prize implement was a new thing 

 in the countiy, and consequently attracted great atten- 

 tion. It was sought after by tlie practical and leading 

 minds in agriculture, so that prize machines were very 

 speedily found upon the farms of enterprising agricul- 

 turists in most parts of the country." 



But we have got beyond this, and the system is now 

 found to be full of defects : — " The hurry and bustle of 

 trials, settling in minutes what could scarcely be settled 

 in days" — " Prizes have lost their significance, and the 

 application of further stimulus would prove injurious." 

 — " We have reached a stage when artificial stimulus is 

 needless and baneful." — "Such a state of progress has 

 been obtained, that machinery may be left to the simple 

 principles which regulate tlie great business of bargain 

 and sale all the world over." — " By the prize sys- 

 tem, the energy of the manufacturer is dissipated 

 in frivolous rivalry." — " He is unnerved by the 

 anxiety consequent upon ceaseless excitement" — 

 " Great expense is entailed upon the manufacturer 

 T)y these competitive trials, and an extra per-centage 

 to cover such must be paid by the purchaser." — " Prizes 

 in some instances — as with reaping machines— retard 

 the very object they were intended to accomplish." 

 — " This is the only branch of industry subject to arti- 

 ficial stimulus," — and so on ! 



It has happened, naturally enough, that, in proceed- 

 ings embracing so wide a field, and extending over 

 such a length of time as those of the Royal Agricul- 

 tural Society, a mistake may now and then have 

 been made. It would have been very strange had 

 there not. Assume a man may have won " cleverly" 

 with what his distanced opponent might call a " racer;" 



or something may have been encouraged as an 

 improvement which was in reality nothing of 

 the kind. Still this "racer," this extra excitement 

 may not all go to the bad. Look at the animal it is 

 named after. He may not perhaps turn out the most 

 useful sort of horse himself; but where should we look 

 for the useful ones without him ? The hacks and hunters 

 and others that can do the hard work, all should have 

 a dash of the racer blood in them. And it is in this wo 

 see the advantages of the prize system. It keeps every- 

 body right up to the mark, and makes them go the 

 pace with the times, even though it may be at the 

 cost of some little "anxiety and excitement." 



The main object of this pamphlet may be very briefly 

 summed up. It is that the judges should publish elabo- 

 rate reports instead of awarding prizes ; but even "the 

 report should not be drawn up in a competition spirit, 

 but should be a plain statement of facts." That is to 

 say, the judge should be especially instructed tiot to in- 

 form us that A's drill was better than B's, or C's 

 steam-engine preferable to D's. He may not even as- 

 cend, like the wine-merchant's list, from " old and 

 dry" to "older and dryer," and " olderer and dryerer" 

 still. Like Touchstone, the public will have to rest 

 content with a " very good answer," though, when they 

 come to examine it, this may be but "so-so." 



Honestly, then, we do not think that the "Associa- 

 tion of Agricultui-al Engineers" has made out a case. 

 The prize system has, altogether, worked well. It may 

 have its drawbacks, or require some revision. We be- 

 lieve, however, that day by day shall we have the trials 

 better adjusted ; and that it will be but a bad omen for 

 our agricultural societies when their meetings are 

 sufiered to sink into the negative importance of 

 agricultural fairs. 



MARKET GARDENS AND DEAD 

 FALLOWS. 



Sir, — Would it not appear monstrous for a farm labourer, 

 upon the strongest of clay land, to have his garden, or any 

 part of it, a dead fallow ? If he had, would he not be con- 

 sidered bordering on insanity? A market gardener, of 

 great eminence, at Fulham, was heard to say, in a railway 

 carriage, a short time back, that if he rented a clay land 

 farm, the first step he should take, if under a North Lin- 

 colnshire tenant-right, would be to underdrain the whole of 

 the farm sufficientlJ^ He would have no dead fallows, 

 instead of which he would have two green crops in one 

 year,, one of vetches and the second of rape. He would 

 consume half the vetches upon the land with cake and 

 corn, and the other half of the vetches he would mow and 

 get as hay, and consume it in the winter with cattle eating 

 cake and corn ; and the rape to be consumed with sheep 

 eating cake and corn. The rape to be eaten off by the first 

 week in November, before the land got too wet. " This is 

 the way I would farm the land under tenant justice, but 

 not without," said the market gardener, who strongly re- 

 commended the Marie Lane Express to add more science to 

 practice. Samuel Arnsbv. 



Brig-Hock, ITth June, 1857. 



