260 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



on foot in every possible direction. The cake, or cheese, re- 

 maining after fixed oils are expressed from oleaginous seeds — a 

 substance rich in phosphates — produced wonders in fitting those 

 lands for the production of wheat. Marls were turned up, and 

 freely applied to the surface. A new breed of sheep was intro- 

 duced, in place of one less profitable, — among other good results 

 of which, was the stamping together of the soil, and rendering 

 it more tenacious of moisture. Oxen and pigs were fattened in 

 great numbers, for the purpose of enriching the fields. Bone- 

 earth was applied in large quantities, as a manure for the turnip- 

 crop. The result has been, that it has become one of the finest 

 wheat regions in Britain. 



Still another proof of what science can achieve in agriculture, 

 is afforded in the contiguous county of Lincolnshire, which, little 

 more than fifty years ago, was, to the extent of one quarter of its 

 area, little better than a perfect waste. It contained one barren 

 range of hills, near forty miles in extent, known under the name 

 of Lincoln Heath ; where, in old times, a lighthouse was erected, 

 to prevent travellers from being lost in crossing its surface. It 

 now presents the marvellous contrast, of the most perfect field- 

 agriculture in the whole country ; and is little else than a suc- 

 cession of well-constructed houses, barns and offices, surrounded 

 with crowded grain-stacks, on farms varying from 500 to 1000 

 acres. It is now an abundant grain country, yielding also vast 

 crops of turnips, and sustaining immense flocks of sheep. One 

 farmer, in 1823, took 700 acres of this once inhospitable and 

 dreary region, then not worth the yearly rent of a pair of rab- 

 bits to the acre. By a system of four-course rotation of tur- 

 nips, barley, clover, and wheat, the first of the course being 

 sown with 16 bushels of bones per acre, and the turnips con- 

 sumed on the land by sheep, together with the feeding of hay 

 and straw along with oil-cake to horned cattle, he has raised the 

 entire tract to the fertility of a garden, and himself to indepen- 

 dence. The wolds of Yorkshire, to the north of Lincoln, have 

 undergone a similar renovation. 



At the extreme northern end of Scotland, in latitude 58 1-2 

 degrees, where, less than 50 years ago, a few small farmers lived, 

 in rude cabins, and under the shelter of side-hilJs, whose only 



