370 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



My impressions of English and Scotch farming are, on the 

 whole, rather less favorable than I expected they would be. 

 There is less difference, I think, between that and our own than 

 we have generally been led to expect. The English farmer 

 understands the necessity of the application of capital to land, 

 perhaps, better than the American, and he has more to apply. 

 Where one controlling mind can direct the improvements upon 

 vast tracts and has the means to forward them, we might 

 naturally expect great results, especially at those points which 

 most strike the eye. But I saw as poor farming in England as 

 is often seen in New England, though less of it. Land is too 

 expensive there to be neglected. Moreover, labor is too cheap 

 to make it necessary that it should be neglected. 



A mild climate with frequent rains, through the growing 

 period, gives the country a perpetual greenness and luxuriance 

 which we can only rarely show, however perfect our agriculture 

 may become. For some crops this constant moisture in the 

 atmosphere and the soil is admirably adapted, and the English 

 farmer has had the wisdom to avail himself of the advantage it 

 gives him to raise a vast amount of root crops, and on them to 

 fatten stock for the market on which he realizes his returns. 



We can travel in no part of England without seeing the fields 

 and hill-sides covered with sheep. Tlie number in comparison 

 with our own is quite wonderful. Li this respect, sheep hus- 

 bandry, and in the systematic breeding and feeding of stock, in 

 general, it strikes me that English farming is decidedly superior 

 to our own, and that we may learn many a useful lesson from 

 it. Perhaps the same may be said also with regard to the 

 economy and care of manures, the liberality of their applica- 

 tion, and the general willingness to make large investments 

 in permanent improvements with a confidence of good returns, 

 but in the mechanical manipulations of the farm, the imple- 

 ments of husbandry, the economy of labor in accomplisliing 

 results, I think on the whole we may fairly claim superiority. 

 The farming of the English would not always succeed so well 

 with us, nor would ours with them. Each is better adapted to 

 the circumstances in which it has grown up than the other. 



The climate of Scotland is well adapted, also, to grazing and 

 to the raising of roots and those crops which luxuriate in con- 



