459 



plan is self-supporting, unless, indeed, tbe increased value of the char should render it 

 advisable to sell it. 



Steam-cultivation in Scotland. — There is evidence of great im- 

 provement in the agriculture of the uortli of Scotland ; and it appears 

 to have been promoted by reducing the size of home farms to smaller 

 and more manageable dimensions, few of them now exceeding 200 acres, 

 by a judicious system of rotation of crops and a more liberal use of 

 manure; and by steam "cultivation. It is claimed that the intro- 

 duction of the steam plow has been the chief agent of the great changes 

 which have been produced in the direction of profitable husbandry. A 

 larger breadth of land has been brought into cultivation, and immense 

 tracts of waste land, hitherto covered with heath, have been reclaimed 

 and rendered capable of producing good crops of cereals, vegetables, 

 and grasses. Thousands of acres of moss, and heavy clay, and hill-side 

 lauds, which could not be reached by ordinary methods of culture, after 

 being trenched and drained have been brought by the steam plow and 

 harrow into a cultivable state. Where neither men nor horses could be 

 employed, the steam plow has been made to tear through everything. 

 To avoid the risk of the breakage of gear in rough land, where the plow 

 is liable to come against boulder stones and old tree-roots, a plow with 

 a revolving coulter has been introduced — that is, a coulter which will 

 cut its way smoothly nutil it meets with a root or stone, when it will 

 pass over it with a rotary motion. 



The foreign hop-crop. — The hop crop in England the present year 

 is said to be remarkably fine, being large, heavy in quantity, and su- 

 purb in quality. It is described as being the fifth largest crop of the century. 

 The growth will average half a ton per acre. As 60,000 acres were cul- 

 tivated, the yield will be, therefore, 30,000 tons, which is said to be an 

 excess of 7,500 tons over the annual requirements of the brewing trade of 

 the country. The Belgium hop prospects are also represented as being 

 remarkably heavy ; and at Nuremberg the crop will be from one-third 

 to one-half more than last year. From Pleiufield, in the celebrated 

 Spalt district, a good average produce is expected. In the lower Pala- 

 tinate (Rhenish Bavaria) one-fifth more hops were grown the present 

 year than in the last season. From Hanover, likewise, and indeed from 

 almost all the hop-growing districts of Europe, alike favorable accounts 

 are received. The German, French, and Belgian crops are represented 

 as being of superior quality, the portion of brown or diseased hops be- 

 ing unusually small. The estimated value of this year's crop in Eng- 

 land is $18,000,000. Although there is an increased consumption in 

 Germany, France, and Belgium, there will be a considerable surplus for 

 exportation in all those countries. In the United States the crop will 

 not supply the»home demand, although, according to the agricultural 

 census, the crop is sevenfold •svhat it was in 1850, the State of New 

 York producing two-thirds of the whole amount ; so that large importa- 

 tions from both England and the continent are anticipated. 



New system of land-tenure in Egypt. — In the monthly report 

 of the Department for July, reference was made to the rapid increase of 

 the area of cultivable lands in Egypt, resulting from the wise improve- 

 ments of the present Khedive, whose aim is to ameliorate the system of 

 land tenure, so that there may be something like private ownership of 

 land. Egypt proper is estimated to possess about 5,000,000 acres of 

 arable land, four-fifths of which is state property, the tenants who oc- 

 cupy it having nothing like a freehold or fee simple, and no title in fact 

 4 



