244 AGRICULTURE. 



many cases for the whole, and in all for a large portion of 

 his rent, tithe, and taxes, either on his own capital or on 

 the staple of his farm. Neither of these funds is likely 

 to answer his drafts long. What then must be done ? He 

 can only improve his position in one of two ways ; either by 

 producing more at his present cost, or by producing his 

 present quantity at less cost or partly by the one and 

 partly by the other. Produce can only be increased either 

 by enabling your crops to avail themselves more fully of 

 resources already existing in the soil which is improved 

 culture ; or by adding resources to the soil which is extra 

 manuring; or partly by one and partly by the other. Im- 

 proved culture is a leech, and tends to exhaustion. You 

 have a horse going four miles an hour; you flog him, and 

 he goes eight; but the next time you flog him he will only 

 go six, and so every time in a diminishing ratio, till at last 

 he will not go at all. If your whip is only sharp enough 

 to increase his pace from four to six in the first instance, 

 he will probably go a little longer, but will only traverse 

 the same ground in the end. To this general rule there 

 is, in practical husbandry, one important exception. To 

 the extent to which the improved culture effects the extir- 

 pation of weeds, the cultivation crop may be increased 

 without producing increased exhaustion. (We will have a 

 word with Jethro Tull's new-fangled disciples, the spade- 

 husbandry men, by-and-by.) Even if this view of the 

 case be wrong, still the advantage of improved culture 

 must be estimated by a balance between increased cost and 

 increased produce. Extra manuring may be effected from 

 two sources, either by purchasing manure directly, or by 

 purchasing it circuitously, i. e. manufacturing it by the 

 agency of cattle. In the latter case the manure is equally 

 purchased, whether the cattle consume food expressly 

 bought for them, or whether they consume what would 

 otherwise have been sold. Which is the cheaper way of 

 providing extra manure ? That may be a question difficult 

 to answer, because the cost in one case is fixed, and in the 



