208 THE PRINCIPLES OF 



therefore let us grow turnips upon it year by year, what 

 would we experience ? We would find among other dis- 

 advantages that our land devoted to stock would become 

 "stained" and foul, not from weeds, but it would become 

 stained and unwholesome for sheep. We cannot carry sheep 

 over a field several times with close folding without noticing 

 that the sheep are not thriving. We can see it in the wool ; 

 and in their whole appearance. We notice it in the fact 

 that they "scour," or are subject to diarrhoea, and above 

 all we notice an increased mortality. The corn crop is 

 the great purifier of arable land for sheep-farming, and 

 if there were no other reason than this, we would find 

 sheep farmers would still be compelled to carry out corn 

 cultivation. Every shepherd knows it ; the ground becomes 

 sour and unwholesome, but a wheat crop or a corn crop seems 

 to remove everything which is deleterious, and it comes out 

 again fresh and good for the feeding of sheep upon it. I 

 look upon that alone as a very great reason, and one seldom 

 insisted upon, for the maintenance of rotation of crops. 



The next point I wish to direct attention to is the question 

 of relinquishing crop cultivation, and letting the land once 

 more return to a natural condition that of permanent 

 pasture ; that is, in other words, the question of the abandon- 

 ment of agriculture altogether, and betaking us to the semi- 

 barbarous occupation of pastoral life. It is rather a sad 

 alternative in a scientific age like this, but it is the tend- 

 ency, as we see by an examination of agricultural statistics. 

 I believe there is about one-sixth less corn grown in this 

 country now than there was twenty years ago, and the 

 amount of permanent pasture has increased in proportion. 

 There are certain classes of land in which this change is 

 progressing, and there are other sections- of land in which 

 arable cultivation is still likely to hold its own. On all stiff 

 clay soils there is a strong tendency to let them fall back to 



