THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



387 



THE PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE AND THE COUNTRY MEMBERS. 



The chairman of the Central Club must have felt 

 himself in rather a difficult position when the members 

 met to consider " The Progress of Agriculture" — cer- 

 tainly as open-handed a thesis as the wildest of talkers 

 could have wished to address himself to. As a natural 

 consequence of such liberty of action, every man rode 

 his own favourite hobby, and the progress of agriculture 

 came, in turn, to depend upon thrashing corn by the 

 flail— the application of town-sewage— the selling by 

 weight instead of measure — the diseases of the turnip 

 crop — and the pedigrees of English gentlemen. In 

 fact, the magnitude of the question was generally too 

 much for the meeting, and the discussion we fear will 

 read as one of the least edifying the society has yet 

 commanded. 



Fortunately, the introducer of the subject came 

 better prepared. Mr. Robert Smith's opening paper is 

 indeed remarkably comprehensive, touching as it does 

 on almost everything that has at any time tended to 

 the development of the art. He is content not merely 

 with a retrospective view of how agriculture has fared 

 in our own country, but brings Cato, Varro, and 

 Virgil alongside of Bake well, Ellman, and Francis 

 Duke of Bedford, as the best of all good com- 

 pany. As a review of what has been gra- 

 dually accomplished, Mr. Smith has supplied the 

 Club with a very interesting address. We are our- 

 selves, however^ inclined to regard the present progress 

 of agriculture as a question rather of prospective than 

 of retrospective consideration. We look, indeed, on 

 the general advancement of the art as of comparatively 

 very recent date. Such men as those referred to in 

 Mr. Smith's paper, especially those living towards 

 the close of the last or the commencement of the 

 present century, no doubt did much towards putting 

 English agriculture on an improved footing. They 

 supplied us, as it were, with the fundamental prin- 

 ciples of the pursuit ; but it was not until long after 

 that these came to be commonly taken up. The 

 establishment of the Royal Agricultural Society was de- 

 termined on at a very happy time; and from this we 

 may fairly date the real progression of tlie business. The 

 one great secret of this has been the increased facilities 

 of communication and transit — in a word the use of 

 steam. Without railway accommodation, the English 

 Society, like the Board of Agriculture, might have 

 fallen through. It undoubtedly could never have 

 made such meetings it has now year after year con- 

 tinued to climax. The very Farmers' Club, but for 

 this powerful ally, would have had no monthly re- 

 unions. The farmers would have heard the news and 

 kept to the ways of their own parish ; while a few 

 wealthy amateurs might have still amused themselves 

 with experiments, that few others would understand, 

 and fewer still attempt. 



In thoroughly conning over the lesson thus bi'ouglit 



by post and parcel home to his door, it was perhaps as 

 well to leave the man a little to himself, and see what 

 he could make of it. Now tliere is no possible question 

 but that during the twenty years' cycle in which we 

 have been achieving such decisive progress, agriculture 

 and agriculturists have been left very much to them- 

 selves. It has become rather a pride and boast to say 

 the Legislature, or the Government, does nothing for 

 us. In fact, no man enjoys so thorough a sinecure as 

 the honourable gentleman who represents the agricul- 

 tural interest. There is really nothing now for him to 

 do. We accept the price of wheat at whatever it may 

 happen to be, and go on refining our shorthorns and 

 amending our steam-ploughs without any necessity for 

 formal protection or encouragement. Notwithstanding 

 this, we are inclined to think that the further progress 

 of farming may be greatly facilitated by a little more 

 attention in high places. Let us take Mr. Smith's own 

 catalogue of public questions, that call for considera- 

 tion and adjustment : — The weights and measures by 

 which agricultural produce is sold ; the establishment 

 of a better system of taking the corn averages ; a re- 

 consideration of the malt tax ; agi-icultural statistics ; 

 the adjustment of the game laws, so as to substitute 

 " winged game " for the four-footed trespassers ,• a 

 better understanding of the law of customs and 

 covenants, as regards the quitting of a farm ; an 

 extension of the Government draining loan ; and lastly, 

 the i^reparation of a new and complete Ordnance 

 map, upon a large and comprehensive scale, under 

 the direction of the Government. 



Now what is likely to come of all or any of these at 

 the rate which we have lately been going ? Does the 

 honourable member for the agricultural interest take a 

 really active part in forwarding any of them? The 

 merchants, and especially the farmers, have for the last 

 year or two been declaring more emphatically than 

 ever that they require some uniformity of system for 

 the sale of corn. The honourable member for the 

 agricultural interest does not trouble himself in the 

 least about such a matter. Most probably he will take 

 care not to be present when such a question comes on. 

 Or, the corn averages should really be more carefully 

 taken. The honourable member's friends, the farmers, 

 have been telling him so almost ever since he has been 

 in the House. But he keeps their secret wonderfully 

 well, and never mentions a word of it to any one else. 

 He has even struck the malt-tax paragraph out of his 

 address ; and as to the "game laws, farm covenants, 

 or Ordnance maps, he must be a very sanguine rural 

 elector indeed, who expects his representative ever to 

 say anything about such things as these. As a rule, in 

 fact, it is all the other way. It is rather low to talk 

 too much about your own business, and the county 

 member never talks about it at all. Mr. Caird may 

 linvo something to impress about the price of gnnno ; 



