THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. gi 



and butter have a wide renown, as also the pears which 

 are grown in the open air, but each of which is protected 

 on the tree by a separate cap, and still more the fruit 

 and vegetables which are grown in the hothouses. In 

 a word, it will suffice to say that on the whole they ob- 

 tain agricultural produce to the value of 50 to each 

 acre of the aggregate surface of the island. 



Fifty pounds' worth of agricultural produce from 

 each acre of the land is sufficiently good. But the more 

 we study the modern achievements of agriculture the 

 more we see that the limits of productivity of the soil 

 are not attained, even in Jersey. New horizons are 

 continually. unveiled. For the last fifty years science 

 especially chemistry and mechanical skill have been 

 widening and extending the industrial powers of man 

 upon organic and inorganic dead matter. Prodigies 

 have been achieved in that direction. Now comes the 

 turn of similar achievements with living plants. Hu- 

 man skill in the treatment of living matter, and science 

 in its branch dealing with living organisms step in 

 with the intention of doing for the art of food-growing 

 what mechanical and chemical skill have done in the 

 art of fashioning and shaping metals, wood and dead 

 fibres of plants. Almost every new year brings some 

 new, often unexpected improvement in the art of agri- 

 culture, which for so many centuries had been dormant. 



We just saw that while the average potato crop in 

 the country is six tons per acre, in Jersey it is nearly 

 twice as big. But Mr. Knight, whose name is well 

 known to every horticulturist in this country, has once 

 dug out of his fields no less than 1284 bushels of po- 

 tatoes, or thirty-four tons and nine cwts. in weight, on 

 one single acre ; and at a recent competition in Minne- 

 sota 1 1 20 bushels, or thirty tons, could be ascertained 

 as having been grown on one acre. 



These are undoubtedly extraordinary crops, but quite 



