49 



wheat fell off £1,047,000; flour, £83,000; lard, £91,000; maize, £235,000 

 potatoes, £37,000. The total gain was £432,000 ; total loss, £1,403,000 

 of which two-thirds was in wheat alone. Leaving out that cereal, the later 

 importation shows a small net gain. This shows the beueficent iufluence 

 of a large domestic cereal crop. Lower prices have made the reduction 

 in values of hirger proportion than that of quantities, which is, however, 

 quite large. 



Potato CULTURE in England. — The Eoyal Society of England has 

 been unremitting in its efforts to stay the potato malady. One of its 

 meuibers. Lord Oathcart, has offered a prize of £100 for a memoir upon 

 the disease and a complete remedy. This offer not having produced any 

 satisfactory result, the society offered a similar prize for an early potato 

 that would resist the malady for three years. The seed was sent to 

 each of the great potato districts — Yorkshire, north and south, Cum- 

 berland, Tyld, in Lancashire, Marsh, in Lincolnshire, Essex, Hig- 

 ham, in Kent, Devonshire, Stalford shire, Bedfordshire, North and South 

 Wales, Morayshire, Perthshire, the Lothians, Kenfrewshire, Ulster, Con- 

 naught, Leinster, Munster, and other parts of the United Kingdom. 

 Six varieties were experimented with, but not one escaped the disease. 

 The experimenters concur in the necessity of rejecting damp soils for 

 potato-culture, and also agree that manure should be applied before 

 planting. They also agree that the seed should consist of whole pota- 

 toes, of medium size, instead of fragments. The importance of this 

 tuber in the British Lsles is shown by the fact that it occupied alto- 

 gether, in 1874, 1,412,851 acres, of which 520,430 were in Great Britain 

 and 892,421 in Ireland. The product, estimated at £14 per acre, amounts 

 nearly to £20,000,000, or $100,000,000. 



The English agricultural laborer. — The forces at work through- 

 out the civilized world for the elevation of the laborer have already 

 greatly ameliorated the condition of the English peasantry. The ad- 

 vance in their wages has been considerable, though unequal in different 

 localities. The number of allotments of gardens for laborers has greatly 

 increased. No less than 67,422 such holdings were returned in England 

 alone in 1872. They are more numerous in the corn counties than in 

 those mainly devoted to grazing. Educational facilities, hitherto en- 

 loyed sparingly by this class, are more generally improved. There is 

 beginning to be felt, as the natural though not legitimate result of this 

 awakening, an antagonism between labor and capital, stimulated doubt- 

 less by unwise counsels of the la,borers and possibly also of the Fanners' 

 Union. The question was recently discussed quite fully in the London 

 Farmers' Club, the leading participator being Mr. Herbert Little, from 

 whose address the following extract is taken : 



Actuated more, apparently, by silly spite than by higher motives, the present policy 

 of the union seems to be that of wholesale deportation of agricultural laborers to for- 

 eign lands. A more dangerou'^ game could scarcely bo played, or one less likely to ful- 

 fill the intentions of its promoters. Far better would it be to encourage migration to 

 tLe fullest extent from overstocked country districts to those home centers of manu- 

 facturing industry where labor is already at a premium. There is the danger that if 

 within reach of their native soil they may at any time be deluded into the idea that 

 after all they were as happy and well otf there, and that they may feel a desire to re- 

 turn. But get them well out of their native land, argue their present advisers, and 

 not only is there little fear of their return to trouble us, but those who are left behind 

 immediately become worth higher wages. But this consequence by no means neces- 

 sarily follows, while the great impetus given to emigration may be succeeded by a 

 reflux or paralysis which may entirely upset the calculations of the emigrants' friends. 

 There is even danger that a reaction may set in against emigration altogether, if the 

 hordes of unskilled rustics who are now being shipped off almost against their inclina- 

 tion, should fail to find in the countries to which they are exiled the blessings promised 

 by their unscrupulous advisers. All eady America complains of a surfeit of unskilled 

 4 A 



