396 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE, 



manual labour has (from various causes) increased. 

 Again, it must be mentioned that the English farmer 

 has to depend upon his own exertions, and cannot look 

 to Government grants or Government assistance. He 

 has no statistics or history of his art ; he has no ad- 

 justment of his weights or measures, no board of agri- 

 culture, no minister or representative in the State. But 

 yet he has held his ground, and continues to feed the 

 people. The future of our agriculture is full of interest. 

 There are subjects before us well worthy of considera- 

 tion. Amongst them is a growing desire to treat agri- 

 cultural pursuits upon " commercial principles." From 

 this cause the occupation will become commercial, small 

 farms will have to succumb to large ones, talent and 

 capital will reap their reward ; education will progress, 

 the tenure of land and security for unexhausted im- 

 provements will become matters of fact, as commercial 

 transactions. The project of steam-power has been 

 boldly launched, and the ingenuity of man is now 

 at work to adapt it for general employment ; but this 

 is yet a venture, and has an eminence to surmount that 

 will require the talent of an age. The Royal and West 

 of England Agricultural Societies have each offered a 

 liberal prize for an Essay " on Steam Cultivation," 

 These prizes may bring out an amount of talent that 

 may aid the movement; but the " plant" as yet pro- 

 duced is far too costly for general adoption. There is 

 yet considerable room for perfecting our breeds of live 

 stock, that they may become more generally developed 

 in " every district, and the right animals be cultivated 

 in the right place." The economical consumption of 

 their food, early maturity, and a better knowledge of 

 their diseases, are alike essential to our future good. 

 The extension of draining is another very important 

 element ; and it would be well if the Government grants 

 were extended upon a liberal basis. The waste lands of 

 England are again wailing for improvement, and offer 

 an inviting field for enterprise in juxtaposition to that 

 of emigration to " a land we know not of." Artificial 

 manures are yet in their infancy ; it being no uncom- 

 mon thing to realize and consume a crop of roots be- 

 fore they are paid for, thus commercially-improving the 

 farm by manures and sheep to the full benefit of every 

 one, at little cost to the farmer. The improvement of 

 grass-land is indeed a national subject, and must fol- 

 low the advances of the arable lands. A series of ex- 

 periments upon grass-lands, conducted under the ma- 

 nagement of an agricultural society, would elicit much 

 practical information as to the results of different ma- 

 nures, the soil and situation being well considered. 

 Amongst other public questions, there yet remains for 

 consideration an adjustment of the " weights and mea- 

 sures" by which agricultural produce is sold ; the es- 

 tablishment of a better system of taking the corn avera- 

 ges; a reconsideration of the malt tax, agricultural 

 statistics, the adjustment of the game laws, so as to 

 substitute " winged game" for the four-footed tres- 

 passers ; abetter understanding of the law of "cus- 

 toms and covenants," as regards the quitting of a farm ; 

 an extention of the Government draining loan ; and 

 l.r '.^'jt'i: nraparation of anew and complete " Ord- 



nance map," upon a large and comprehensive scale, 

 under the direction of the Government (cheers.) 



Mr. E. B, AcTox (the Temple) was not surprised to 

 find so large an audience ; and was greatly indebted to 

 Mr. Smith for bringing on the question of agricultural 

 progress, as he has fairly exhausted every topic. He 

 (Mr. Acton) was old enough to remember the time when 

 in the western counties scarcely a neighbour looked over 

 his neighbour's hedge, and the sheep were so bad from 

 starvation on the hills, that, instead of fulfilling the old 

 nursery rhyme of "bringing their tails behind them," 

 they were in fear of losing them altogether, from being 

 bred in-and-in, instead of being renewed by the good 

 services of Messrs. Jonas Webb, Ellman, and Bennett's 

 high-bred stock ; but during the last twenty years a 

 wonderful change had come over the scene, owing to 

 the happy union of practice with science. So long as 

 the corn laws existed the question of agricultural im- 

 provements were not much mooted, and for this rea- 

 son — the then existing fluctuating duty operated as a 

 premium on the growth of corn in this country, to 

 the exclusion of foreign produce, and farmers went on 

 doing very well in their usual jog-trot way. But the 

 gradual advance in the price of land derived from manu- 

 factures and commerce gave a powerful impetus to 

 rural pursuits ; gentlemen turned farmers with the hope 

 of making money, augmenting agricultural capital, and 

 calling forth a more enterprising race of cultivators, 

 and an economy of labour by means of machinery, which 

 laid the foundation of that success which had placed us 

 in the proud position we now occupied in the eyes of 

 foreign nations. They had also now a tenant-right, giv- 

 ing the tenant a compensation for unexhausted improve- 

 ments before the conclusion of the tenancy, over and 

 above those of common husbandry covenants ; as also 

 remedies for enforcing the taking or payment of farm 

 fixtures, either by the landlord or the money-tenant, 

 subsequently embodied in the Landlord and Tenant's 

 Act of the 14 & 15 Vict. c. 25 ; so much so, that tenant- 

 right agreements were fast susperseding the old obsolete 

 ridiculous set of covenants which incumbered old farm 

 leases, and which seemed as if they were framed in the 

 days of the patriarchs of old. 



I\Ir. W. Bennett (Cambridge) said that the lecture 

 to which they had hstened from Mr. Smith was, in 

 his judgment, calculated to be of great service to the 

 country. It enabled them to look back all the way they 

 had travelled for 40 or 50 years, to note what they might 

 have done well and usefully, what they had done ill, and 

 in what they might mend matters for the future. Mr. 

 Smith had mentioned the fact of the introduction of the 

 Swedish turnip about GO years, and he (Mr. Bennett) 

 recollected that when he was a boy everybody was turn- 

 ing his attention to its culture. It was lamentable to 

 think, however, that the swede had lost much of its 

 merits in many parts of the kingdom. In his neigh- 

 bourhood, for instance, it had been so extensive a failure 

 during the last few years, that they had begun to ques- 

 tion much whether or not agriculture was to be pro- 

 moted by the continuance of its growth. The matter 

 was one of vast moment, inasmuch as everybody knew 



