391 



society to the vice-cousul for the United States Government in this island, with a 

 request that it be transmitted to the Minister of Agriculture, showing that, whereas, 

 from the statements above mentioned, it would seem that a fraudulent traffic has been 

 carried on by soi-diaant importers of Jersey cattle, the number said to have been intro- 

 duced into the United States being considerably in excess of the whole number exported 

 from this island within the period specified ; that from the said statements it must be 

 presumed that other than Jersey-bred cattle are introduced into the United States as 

 such — a practice which if not checked would soon prove seriously detrimental to the 

 reputation of an insular stock, producing disappointment to the purchaser, and ulti- 

 mately tending to stop the legitimate trade which has long existed between American 

 purchasers and breeders in this island. 



Further, with a view to check any fraudulent traffic of the sort and to enable such as 

 may desire to obtain the pure stock from this island, it was 



Resolved, That the assistance of this society be given to any person or constituted 

 body whose application to it is officially recommended. 



FRA. LABEY, 



Hon. Secretary. 



Status op agriculture in England and America. — The Liv- 

 erpool Daily Courier, in a highly commendatory notice of the reports of 

 this Department, notes the remarkable contrast in the popular estimate 

 of agriculture in England and the United States. It says : 



American agricultural interests are well cared for, being watched over by a State 

 Department which in various ways manifests deep solicitude for the farmer's welfare. 

 On the other side of the Atlantic it is not so fashionable as here to ridicule the culti- 

 vators of the soil or the breeders of cattle. Here [in England] the notion is steadily 

 developing that it is commerce, and not agriculture, which provides food for the mil- 

 lions, and the farmer is considered a selfish non-entity, who is regardful only of his 

 own interests, a weakness to which manufacturers and merchants never desceud. In 

 America, farming is recognized as a useful occupation, and will continue to.be thus 

 esteemed till the great Republic is planted as thickly as England with smoke-begrimed 

 factories and cottages. The State Department which watches over American agricul- 

 ture is not a paternal institution to worry farmers, but it collects and disseminates very 

 valuable information over the vast area of the States. Its monthly and annual reports 

 are not simply great arrays of figures, laboriously gathered and piled into bewildering 

 columns, which tell only half the story they were intended to convey, and.this long after 

 the statistics can be of much practical use. They promptly provide useful returns and 

 hints. The meaning of the figures is made apparent so that the agriculturist can 

 deduce important lessons. Estimates of experts as to actual facts are supplied. In 

 England there are many journals devoted to agriculture, but the information does not 

 bear the official stamp, and is not invariably trustworthy, while the figures from the 

 British Statistical Department reach the public much too late. A monthly system as 

 well as the annual one would be a boon to British agriculturists as well as to others. 



English stallion-purchasing subscription. — Lord Calthorpe has 

 inaugurated a project for raising £10,000 in annual subscriptions of £100 

 for five years, to accumulate a fund for the purchase of ten or more per 

 annum of thoroughbred sires of sound constitution and good action, such 

 as no private capitalist would find it profitable to purchase. These stal- 

 lions are to be placed each year in a district to be selected by a judicious 

 committee, and travel through it for the purpose of serving half-breed 

 mares only. At the end of five years, fifty choice stallions, purchased 

 by the association, would have begotten five thousand foals of superior 

 mares. This would have a powerful influence in elevating the breed of 

 horses in the country. 



Utilization of sewage in England. — The local committee on hy 

 giene in Croydon, Surrey County, England, have, after long discussion, 

 pronounced in favor of the irrigation system in the disposal of sewage. 

 Experiments upon the farm of Beddington, extending over fourteen 

 years, show that upon land advantageously situated, surface irrigation 

 permits the purification of sewage- waters without injury to the sanitary 

 condition of the neighborhood. A population of 55,000, using about 

 20,000 water-closets, furnish a vast amount of organic manure, which, 

 with a fixed proportion of rain-water, is carried by a large drain about 



