1864. | Agriculture. 659 
of vertebrate animals upon the earth. Phosphates applied to the soil 
bring about the growth of clovers among the grasses, and they are also 
especially necessary on dairy farms, as evidenced by the quantity of 
them which exists in the milk or cheese sold off such farms; and it is 
a curious circumstance that the cheese-dairying especially should be 
confined to those geological districts where the formation contains not 
the mere stony remains of shell-fish and crustaceans, but the bone-dust 
of a higher order of animals. Among the other facts specified in these 
lectures is the existence and the uses of enormous quantities of earth- 
worms in the soil of grass lands. An experiment over a considerable 
surface of land led to the estimate of their quantity at 1,000 Ibs. weight 
per acre; and it is declared that so large a quantity must, by its effect 
on the texture of the land, and by its ultimate addition to the very 
substance of the land, be an important contribution to its fertility. 
Some discussion has arisen in connection with dairy-farming in 
Cheshire, from a paradoxical speech by Sir H. Mainwaring, Bart., at a 
recent agricultural meeting, when he set himself to arouse thought 
and excite controversy amongst the dairy-farmers of that county by 
the confident utterance of what appeared to them, as it does to us, in 
direct opposition to both local and general agricultural experience. 
His assertions were that drainage, bone-dust, and broad-breasted bulls 
had been the ruin of the Cheshire dairy-farmers. But the facts un- 
questionably are that the drainage of the pasture-lands of Cheshire, 
the application of bone-dust to them, and the short-horn cross upon 
their dairy-cows, have been of the greatest agricultural service in 
that county! Sir H. Mainwaring’s idea that over-drainage injures 
grass is, however, te some extent, countenanced by the first or second 
year’s experience of it; the wet-land grasses disappear before the 
better grasses suitable to the improved condition of the soil make 
their appearance ; but the ultimate influence of drainage upon grass- 
lands is rarely unsatisfactory. The use of bone-dust, again, tends in 
a very remarkable degree to the improvement of the pastures by the 
extraordinary development of the clover-plant, which immediately 
follows. And there cannot be a doubt that the Welsh or long-horned 
cattle, formerly common on the Cheshire farms, have been greatly 
improved and, in some instances, usefully displaced by the short-horn 
breed, which stands at the very head of the cheese-producing breeds 
of the country. 
We have only one more fact to add to our quarterly summary of 
agricultural intelligence. ‘The Royal Agricultural Society of England 
has offered 50/. for a prize on middle-class education, having especial 
reference to those who are dependent on the cultivation of the soil. 
They were informed by Mr. Morton, at the general meeting held last 
December, that although by their charter they had been incorporated 
for the very purpose of promoting the education of the farmer, yet that 
particular object specified in their charter had hitherto received from 
them no attention whatever. A committee was thereafter appointed 
to consider in what way the “seventh national object” specified by the 
charter could be promoted, and this is the result of the committee’s 
inquiries. It seems to us that the offer of a prize on middle-class 
