R07AL AGRICULTURAL SOCIKTr. Vl 



mainly created it ; but, like moonshine, it may produce corruption, and, 

 like moonshine, its influence is a borrowed one. Give the moonshine of 

 night, then, say we, to love and the lute ; but for the general interests 

 of the country, for the labourer, and the mechanic — be theirs the broad 

 sunshine of day ! 



As we have never been of the opinion of those who attribute the low 

 price of corn to the imperfect operation of the corn-laws — since, " in 

 point of fact," to use Lord Stanhope's own words, " they amount to a 

 positive prohibition;" so neither have we, at any time, considered " that 

 the depression of the agricultural interest is to be attributed to that high- 

 way robbery, the confiscation edict of Sir Robert Peel ;" and, therefore, 

 it is not toa " replenishing the country with paper" that we look to any 

 vital improvement in agricultural affairs. 



It has, indeed, been ably and rationally argued, that, as the Union of 

 England and Scotland with Ireland has, or ought to have, placed all 

 three countries on the same footing as to currency, it is unfair 

 to allow the circulation of paper notes of small value to the one, yet to 

 deny it to the other, which has been, for some years, and still is, the case. 

 To this v/e answer, well ! and why are there not small notes in England .'' 

 If " the Royal Agricultural Society" really think that this system would 

 be a panacea for agricultural distress, why don't they form themselves 

 into a Joint Stock Banking Company, and issue 1/. notes.' Would 

 government interfere to prevent it .'' We trow not — but, then, should 

 that portion of the population who are interested rather in keeping 

 down the price of agricultural produce than in making it rise — should 

 these, we say, determine not to circulate the said notes of the said 

 company, would the government, could the government. Whig be it or 

 Tory, make a law to compel them so to do .' and, if not, to what extent 

 would a limited circulation of them assist the agriculturist ? 



On turning to the prospectus issued some short time previous to the 

 meeting, we were struck with the quotation from an able writer, that 

 " in Wales, agriculture is still most backward, the country does not 

 produce half of what it is capable. This remark is not much less appli- 

 cable to England; in fact, were all England as well cultivated as 

 Northumberland and Lincoln, it would produce more than double the 

 quantity that is obtained from it." Should such be the fact, — and who, 

 on authority quoted by such competent judges as the Agriculturists 

 themselves, may venture to doubt it ? — would it not be worth while for 

 the landed proprietors to experiment whether that, which the plough 

 has avowedly failed to do, might not, to a certain extent, be effected by 

 the spade ? because, if the same acre, which, now under plough cultiva- 

 tion, produces, on an average, no more than twenty bushels of wheat, 

 can be made to produce, under that of the spade, thirty bushels, the 

 income of the cultivator of it would be increased 33 per cent, and that 

 too, be it observed, without the assistance of hawthorn-bushes leafed 

 with one-pound notes and exchequer bills. To the proposition of the 

 revival of the annual grant given by the government to the old 

 '■ Hoard of Agriculture," wc do not object, neither do we to the govern- 

 ment affording the use of some public building for a museum, library, &c. 

 As to Frederick the Great, his barbarous age, and his yearly expenditure 

 of £300,000 in the encouragement of agricultural improvements.Ave must 



