420 Agricultural Tour 



In tlie preceding observations upon Danish agriculture the 

 reader will perceive that there are peculiarities and deficiencies 

 in the culture of the land in that country, compared with English 

 practice; and yet several things will also strike him as satisfac- 

 torily accounting for the differences, and in some measure justi- 

 fying some of the deficiencies. Thus : — 



1st. Denmark grows with ease more food than her population 

 can consume ; and^ as markets for the excess of produce are not 

 abundant, corn is necessarily low in price, and does not therefore 

 yield so large a return to the grower, or so highly stimulate the 

 arable culture of the land. Hence the prevalence of pasture in 

 Jutland for the raising of cattle, for which there is a constant de- 

 mand, and in Holstein for the manufacture of butter, which is 

 readily exported. Hence also the growth of other crops, such as 

 rape, for the seed of which the sale is easy, and which, on soils 

 that suit it, yields a greater profit than any other arable culture 

 yet introduced into these provinces. The same reason justifies 

 in some measure (if want of capital vrere not in most cases a suffi- 

 cient reason) the neglect of expensive improvements — such as the 

 draining of the land, which in very many localities would not only 

 increase the absolute quantity of corn produced, but would enable 

 the arable land to grow corn of a more valuable kind. 



2nd. But the nature of the soil necessarily causes, in many dis- 

 tricts, a different mode of cropping from that which prevails among 

 ourselves. The food of the people is, in most countries, originally 

 determined by the peculiar character of the soil. Large tracts of 

 land have proved unwilling, by all the forms of persuasion hitherto 

 tried, to grow anything well but rye and buckwheat, and these some- 

 times but indifferently. On most of the soils of Jutland these kinds 

 of grain used alone to give a sure return : hence it became the ob- 

 ject of the farmer to raise the largest quantity of these varieties 

 of corn ; and the national produce became, naturally enough, the 

 national food. And now, when an improving agriculture offers 

 to supply other grain in abundance, the national taste remains ; 

 and because the people prefer to live upon rye-bread, much rye 

 must still be raised. The produce of the barley and oat, and more 

 rare wheat lands, is in a great measure exported. 



Again, the marsh-lands readily indicate their own most pro- 

 fitable employment. Hovr far their value, as rich pastures, is 

 capable of improvement, I am unable from personal observati(;n 

 to state. That so much other land is in pasture is owing in part, 

 as I have already said, to the jnore ready market for live stock 

 and for dairy produce ; but in part also to a want of capital, which 

 Avill probably be long unsupplied. 



3rd. In regard to the improvements which might be effected in 

 Denmark — supposing that of supplying better implements to be 



