1 84 Estimate letween Grass and Arable Lands. 



meadows on the banks of rivers liable to be flooded, and such 

 as can be irrigated, no one would think of convL-rting into 

 tillage ; but ail u;i'ass lands from ten to thirty shillings per 

 acre rent, I should wish to see tilled bv judicious agricul- 

 turists. It is not necessary to give validity to my opinion 

 by an exact detail of the produce of grass lands and arable 

 lands of the value to which I have confined my assertion. 

 If grass lands let for ten shillings per acre yield the cross 

 sum, on an average of years, of seventeen shillings, there 

 is so very little expense upon them the tenant could not 

 coraplairj. If let for twenty shillings, thirty shillings may 

 be the gross produce : if for thirty shillings, let forty-live 

 shillings he the average. As rates and taxes advance with 

 the reals, probably this niav be a fair estimate. In a na- 

 tional point of view, how can these sums be equivalent to 

 those which must be produced from arable land, when every 

 ngriculturist is convinced that the expense of labour only 

 on every acre of land well cuUi\'ated will amount to more 

 than three pounds i)y the time its produce is carted to mar- 

 ket ? Whilst therefore these lands continue to pay the far- 

 anerfor his additional trouble, skill, and capital, it is evident 

 the national produce must be increased. But some gentle- 

 men apprehend such a preference to the plough would in- 

 crease the price of butchers meat to an alarming height. 

 To this Mr. Adam Smith would answer, that wheat will 

 ultimately regulate the price of all the necessaries of life. I 

 have full faith in the conclusion drawn by this able writer ; 

 but, as a farmer, I can obviate this objection without re- 

 sorting to his authority. Take this course of husbandry on 

 lands worth thirty shillings per acre, turnips, or cabbages, 

 oats, clover, and wheat. The eighth part of an acre of 

 good turnips steamed, and v>ith the liquor mixed with oat 

 straw cut, will keep a full grown beast in good order six 

 months. An acre of turnips, with the first crop of clover 

 hay, will fatten two bullocks in the same time. The wheat 

 straw, with tlie addition of one-eighth of an acre of turnips, 

 will winter another beast ; and the second cut of clover an- 

 other. Thus the produce of straw, turnips, and clover, 

 from the four acres, with the addition of one-fourth of 

 an acre of turnips, will keep three beasts six months, 

 and in the same time will fatten two bullocks of fifty 

 score each. The produce of four acres of srass land 

 let at thirty shillings per acre, would not send two fat bul- 

 locks to the n.arket, and summer two. If 1 be correct in 

 my statement, which I trust 1 am, the advantage in favour 

 of the arable lands is iTiorc than the whole of the crops of 



wheat 



