GRAIN MARKETS OUT OF LONDON. 325 



Nothing furnishes by the acre more nutritious food for man or 

 beast. Nothing, as grain or grass, is capable of more varied and 

 useful application. No plant cultivated returns more to the land, 

 in manure, by way of compensation for what it takes from it. 

 The dampness of the English climate, the deficiency of sunshine, 

 and in general the coldness and heaviness of the English soil, 

 forbid its production here.* If it were introduced here without 

 duty, with a view to fatting swine and cattle, there would be, in 

 my belief, a clear gain, on the part of the farmers, of the manure. 

 I am not conscious of any interested views to bias my judgment 

 in this matter ; for, besides an absence of all commercial interests, 

 from which my pursuits in life are entirely foreign, I think there 

 is reason to believe that, if its admission into England were free, 

 the supplies of this article from the shores of the Mediterranean 

 would nearly preclude the competition of the United States. 



LIV.~ GRAIN MARKETS OUT OF LONDON. 



Grain markets are established in all the principal towns of the 

 country, and are generally held weekly. In almost every town 

 where a regular market is held, there is held a corn market. 



* In some few cases, where the locality and the season have been peculiarly 

 favorable, the earliest kinds have ripened ; but it cannot be depended on, and 

 any attempt to cultivate it on an extensive scale would doubtless prove a failure. 

 I am not certain that it may not succeed as a green crop for fodder. If so, it 

 would be found that no crop would yield more, or more nutritious feed for stock : 

 or make more milk, beef, or mutton ; or furnish a better feed for horses. It is 

 confidently stated, upon authority which I cannot doubt, that it has yielded, in 

 New England, at the rate of thirty-nine tons of green feed to an acre ; and some 

 persons have assumed that double this quantity can be grown. A distinguished 

 agricultural friend here is now making the experiment of growing it for green 

 feed. We must wait for the result. I imported the seed for him ; but the various 

 expenses attending it almost forbid a repetition. The unfortunate man, who has 

 to run the gantlet through salesmen, and freighting agents, and commission 

 agents, and wharf agents, and carriers, and above all custom-houses, finds himself, 

 at the end, much in the situation of the man who went down from Jerusalem to 

 Jericho ; but without even a kind Samaritan to pity his destitution, or assuage 

 his wounds. 



28 



