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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



and farmeries have been so improved by public companies, 

 farmers will be found willing to pay a doubled or a tripled 

 rental, provided they see that such increased rent only re- 

 jiresents a fair interest on ths necessary improvements; 

 and such estates, or portions of tbem, would readily find 

 purchasers. We all know that farmers like to hold under 

 public bodies (such as Charities, &c.), because their tenure 

 is more secure, and they are more free from personal or po- 

 litical iuterference or caprice than when holding under a 

 single individual. I have no doubt that Parliament will 

 some day so facilitate the registration and transference or 

 exchange of lands, that public companies may be found to 

 deal with land improvements. It seems odd that, while 

 hundreds of millions of capital flow into almost every 

 other channel, British or foreign, agriculture has not been 

 dealt with, except lately, on a limited but beneficial scale, 

 by the " Land Drainage" and " Land Improvement" Com- 

 panies. When I suggest public companies, I mean that 

 they should do, on a large scale and with immense re- 

 sources, that which it would be impossible for individuals 

 to accomplish, and, having made all necessary improve- 

 ments, sell or let the various farms so improved. 



Land Draining. — It would be an insult to this Club to en- 

 ter into details on this now well understood subject. Its 

 influence on the quality and quantity of the food of the peo- 

 ple is, over a large area, enormous ; but still non-drainage is 

 the rule, and drainage the exception. In this respect there 

 is a grand future for agricultural improvement. Laud drain- 

 age was practised in Essex and Suffolk one hundred and 

 twenty years ago, on hard chalky clays, and mixed or friable 

 soils, and no doubt greatly increased the produce and re- 

 putation of those counties as grain producers. Strange, 

 however, to say, it is hard to make farmers believe that in 

 the tenacious (birdlime-like) collapsing clays, drainage is 

 of any use, and there is consequently an enormous extent 

 of such soils undrained in Essex and elsewhere. It is easy 

 to understand that this prejudice arose from the impossi- 

 bility of using with advantage in such soils bushes or straw, 

 the only draining materials formerly in use — these butter- 

 like soils collapsing and stopping such drains ; but now 

 that we have tileries for makiug pipes or tubes, no such 

 danger need be apprehended, and 1 hope our friends will 

 soon give up their prejudices, and so fill their pockets. 

 Honourable mention should be made of the names of El- 

 kington. Smith of Deanston, Josiah Parkes, Bailey Denton, 

 and Clutterbuck, in connection with the science of this art. 

 Scotland was seventy years behind Essex and Suflfolk in 

 this matter of drainage, but then our Scotch friends did it 

 in earnest, and have connected with it deep cultivation and 

 subsoil cultivation, and in this respect are in advance of 

 English agriculturists, Scotland owes to James Smith, of 

 Deanston, her drainage and deeper cultivation, and an early 

 appreciation of the value of town sewage. I had the plea- 

 sure to know this useful man, and his views agreed with 

 my own, that we were still only on the threshold of agricul- 

 tural perfection. 



River Reform, so ably descanted on by Mr. J. Algernon 

 Clarke, will surely soon make its way. In fonner times, 

 when our daily bread depended on the action of our water- 

 mills, the law was strained in favour of the miller, who may 

 be said to have occasionally, and not unfrequently, used the 

 adjoining lands as reservoirs of water from the river, to the 

 ruin or injury of the said lands; but now that mighty steam 

 has insured to us, at all seasons, a comfortable loaf, a change 

 is taking place, and the Judges have recently, in a most ior- 

 portant issue, ruled that the unseen water in the land is the 

 property of the landholder, and that even if sinking wells 

 and using the water should dry up a river by diverting sub- 

 teiraneously its waters, no action would lie. Open ditches, 

 or rivulets leading to a river, must, however, be still re- 

 spected. This decision must lead to most important results, 

 enabling landowners to dry or lower the level of the water 

 in their soil, and use it for irrigation if desirable. 



Tenanl-Pdght and Leases. — The history of the past shows 

 that the former violent fluctuations in prices acted as a bar 

 to security of tenure by lease : no landlord or tenant be- 

 lieved in an average of prices. Without going into the 

 question of Free Trade, our Tithe Commutation Act has 

 afforded ua something like an approximation of averages 



over a given period. Let us hope that the words " average 

 56s. per quarter for wheats" may give confidence in leases : 

 it is certain that without leases no tenant will invest his 

 capital in improvements, unless secured a tenant-right for 

 such investments. The Scotch 19 years' lease appears to 

 ensure a good improving tenantry, and a large increase of 

 rental at the end of the term. In Essex, a man without a 

 lease may expend ^20 an acre in drainage, chalking, and 

 other improvement, and if he dies, and the farm be given 

 up, not a shilling of it would come to his executors. 



The Labour Qualion. — Labour is silently, but surely, 

 slipping away from agriculture to the better food 

 and higher pay of other industrial occupations. The 

 parliamentary and excursion trains have provided a 

 quick and cheap transit, and so have our coasting 

 steamers. The new implemental requirements of agricul- 

 ture, both British and foreign, have absorbeJ many a farm 

 labourer; and the almost unobserved but regular trans- 

 mission of the same class to distant colonies, by the Emi- 

 gration Commissioners, also tells upon the farmer's labour 

 store. This is well for the country, for necessity is the 

 mother of invention ; and agriculture may be more readily 

 impelled by need than by persuasion to resort to that mighty 

 power which has enriched our manufacturers. Experience 

 has taught us that, as farm labourers come in contact with 

 manufacturing towns or cities, they can only be retained on 

 the farm by an increase of wages ; our southern and non- 

 manufacturing districts will not, therefore, long retain cheap 

 labourers, especially now that the penny press makes them 

 acquainted with the money advantages of an employment 

 elsewhere. 



The Labourer's Condition and Collage. — The labourer 

 being the most important tool in agriculture, it is de- 

 sirable that he should he sharp and well polished, as well 

 as strong. This has not hitherlo been sufficiently at- 

 tended to, but it must very soon be. The schools now gra- 

 dually erecting will enable the rising generation to read the 

 instructions tor cleansing, repairing, and managing the 

 steam engines which agriculture must put up. They will 

 also be able to read their Bible and their penny newspapei ; 

 probably hereafter they may be not thought unworthy of 

 local libraries and literary institutions, also baths and wash- 

 houses. The extension or abolition of the law of settlement 

 will destroy the old selfish and unfeeling practice of foisting 

 on your neighbour, in his old age or affliction, the man 

 whose labours, in bis youthful vigour, contributed to your 

 wealth. The landlords are beginning to believe that the 

 indecent propinquity of crowded bed-rooms, added to the 

 evil sanitary results of insufficient house room, tell indi- 

 rectly, but most unfavourably, on their pecuniary interests. 

 The profit from good labourers' cottages must always be, 

 in some degree, indirect. 



Meal-making, — Future advances in agriculture will, I 

 venture to predict, be based upon and identified with the 

 production of a much larger acreable quantity of meat than 

 we at present produce. The constant increasing prices of 

 meat plainly testify that demand is exceeding supply, and 

 that foreign nations cannot make up the deficiencj'. Our 

 acreable area being limited by the ocean, the only means of 

 doing this must be the extensive use of purchased food and 

 manures, and by the economy of the sewage of our towns. 

 The consequence of this improved system will be felt in our 

 grain crops ; for the more meat you produce, the more 

 manure you make, and, consequently, the more corn per 

 acre you will grow on the arable portion. This production 

 of more meat will necessitate a better knowledge of the 

 mode of producing it, having regard to a profitable result. 



The future Character of Farm Residences and Farmeries, 

 — It is notorious that if you are to have for your tenants men 

 of capital and intelligence, their residences must be suit- 

 able to their intelligence and means. I know practically, 

 and it is notorious, that on many of our large south country 

 farms the residences are totally unfit for such a class of 

 men ; who, I believe, would willingly pay an increased 

 rental for such necessary accommodation. The landlords 

 of such farmers are therefore obliged to put up with men 

 of inferior capital and intelligence. Surely a farmer of 700 

 acres, with a capital of i£10,D00, should not be less fa- 

 vourably housed than a merchant or a trader, 



