HIGH FARMING. 249 



expressed in vain. We did, in the passage to which Mr. 

 Johnston excepts, anticipate for agriculture a revolution to 

 be occasioned l>y economical pressure ; and we still fear 

 that our anticipation was correct, and that the revolution is 

 in progress. All the merely arable farmers, below the first 

 class, whom we see or kn w, have employed for the last 

 two years less labour, have purchased less manure, and are 

 wearing out their farms and themselves. Our observation, 

 indeed, though not confined to the midland counties, lies 

 principally in them, and there the practice of arable farming 

 is at a very low ebb. Many of the farmers depend mainly 

 on other modes of occupying their land, and every operation 

 connected with crops raised by the plough is performed at 

 much greater cost and in a much more imperfect manner 

 than in the southern or eastern counties. We do not 

 think that on farms where the principal dependence is on 

 dairying, grazing, or sheep-breeding, the pressure is very 

 severe. Grass farms have been less affected than arable, 

 partly because there has been a less percentage of fall in 

 the price of their produce than in cereals, but principally 

 because the cost of production has not hitherto fallen in 

 the same ratio as the price of produce, and on grass farms, 

 as compared with arable, the cost of production is a very 

 immaterial item. Gloomy, however, as is the view which 

 we take of the present state of arable farming, if we are 

 asked whether it will again prosper in England ? limiting 

 our ideas to the degree of pecuniary prosperity which is 

 due to a very engaging, a very salubrious, and a tolerably 

 certain employment, we answer without hesitation, that we 

 believe that it will ; but not till after a revolution. We 

 feel strongly the pain of a revolution, and we are quite 

 aware, that no business, partly from the habits of those 

 who carry it on, but much more from real natural impedi- 

 ments, from its fixtures we may say, and from its tenures, 

 submits so slowly and so unwillingly to a revolution as 

 agriculture in England. Still the revolution must and will 

 be effected, and those will have the best chance of pros- 



