'ROSPECTS OF SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE. 13 



practisiug from the most remote ages, and in the most skilful manner, 

 various arts which the progress of modern science has but recently in- 

 troduced into civilized Europe ; cultivating their soil with the most assid- 

 uous labour, and stimulating its fertility by means which we have hith- 

 erto neglected, despised, or been wholly ignorant of — but which the dis- 

 coveries of the present time are pointing out as best fitted to secure the 

 amplest harvests — and have thus been enabled to compel their limited 

 soil to yield a sufficient sustenance to its almost unlimited poi)ulation.* 



Experience and example, therefore, encourage us to look forward to 

 still further improvements in the art of culture, and, independent of such 

 as may be derived from purely mechanical principles, theoretical 

 cnemistry seems to point out the direction in which important advances 

 of another kind may reasonably be anticipated. The Chinese are said 

 to be not only familiar with the relative value and efficiency of the va- 

 rious manures, but also to understand how to prepare and apply without 

 loss that which is best fitted to stimulate and support each kind of plant. 

 How far this statement is exaggerated we are unable at present to de- 

 termine, but it is in this direction that chemistry appears likely to pro- 

 mote the advance of European agriculture. The practical farmer al- 

 ready rejoices in having in one ton of bone dust the equivalent of 14 

 tons of farm-yard manure; some of the most skilful living chemists 

 predict that methods will hereafter be discovered for compressing into a 

 still less bulky form the substances required by plants, and that we 

 shall live to see extensive manufactories established for the preparation 

 of these condensed manures. t 



* An intelligent correspondent reminds me that the agricultural skill of the Chinese is 

 questioned by recent writers on the customs of that country. This doubt is founded chiefly 

 on the rudeness of their agricultural implements and the scarcity of cattle, whether horses 

 or cows, among them. But in this densely peopled country the hoe they employ serves 

 the purpose of every other implement (^Davis's China, ii. ^), and where the place of cat- 

 tle is supplied by an equivalent number of men, there can be no comparative want of 

 valuable manure. The population of China, however, is probably not so dense in all the 

 provinces as it has hitherto been supposed. Many writers have estimated the entire 

 population at 300 millions, while recent statists reduce it to 175 millions. Taking even the 

 higher estimate, the population is not more dense than in England and Holland— the area 

 of China proper being 1,200,000 square miles, or eight times that of France. It is considera- 

 bly less dense, indeed, if we take into account the number of horses and cattle which in 

 Europe are reared and fed on the produce of the land. We may hereafter expect more ac- 

 curate information, however, especially regarding the interior of this interesting country.— 

 See Appendix A. 



1 Should the opinions above expressed appear too sanguine to some, or be treated by any 

 of my readers as merely theoretical, 1 would refer them to the words of Mr. Smith of Dean- 

 ston, the inventor of the subsoil plough, and the introducer of the greatest practical im- " 

 1 provement in modern agriculture. After stating that at least threefourth.t of the ichole ara- 

 ble lar>d in the country is under very indifferent cvMure, chiefly from the want of complete 

 draining and deep working, and, adverting to the increased produce it may be made to 

 yield, he says, " it is not at all improbable that Brilain may become an exporting country in 

 grain in the course of the next twenty ye&rs."— Remarks on Thorough Draining and Deep 

 Ploughing, by James Smith, Esq., of Deanston Works, p. 22. Were the population to 

 remain stationary, Mr. Smith may be right ; at all events, this opinion shows that even 

 practical men do not despair of attaining to a pitch of improvement in agriculture which 

 theoretical writers dare not venture to predict. 



But among all persons of enlarged information a similar opinion prevails. Thus the 

 eloquent author of a recent work on the principles of population says, " the single alteration 

 of substituting the kitchen-garden husbandry of Flanders in our plains, and the terraced 

 culture of Tuscany in our hflis, for the present system of agricultural management, would 

 at once doubl^j the produce of the British islands, and procure ample subsistence for twice 

 the number of .ts present mha.bit&nts.''— Alison's Principles of Population, I. p. 216. These 

 hopes are not to be rejected or suppressed ; for, though they may never be fully realized, 

 yet they are, as it were, the seeds of exertion, from which ample harvests of good may 

 hereafter be reaped. 



