The Progress of Scientific Agriculture. 443 



to introduce it at all on their estates.^ The effects of all this 

 extra manuring, Caird tells us, were as follows : Twenty-seven 

 years previously the stock annually kept on Hudson's holding 

 was 400 sheep and 30 bullocks ; in 1850 it averaged 2,500 sheep 

 and 150 bullocks. The yield of the wheat and barley had 

 become nearly doubled, and we should not be exaggerating if 

 we added on our own responsibility that, increased rental 

 and expenditure notwithstanding, the profits were probably 

 doubled also. 



What has now been said of one farm or of one county will 

 be found to apply to all England. Eighty years -before Caird 

 traversed the country, Arthur Young had made his world- 

 famed tours, and for comparative purposes it is better to ex- 

 amine the two sets of statistics, each afforded by one indi- 

 vidual mind, than those resulting from the varying points of 

 view of many writers. Caird himself recognised this advan- 

 tage, and ignoring entirely the Reports furnished to the Board 

 of Agriculture some fifty years before, he set to work to com- 

 pare the results of his experiences in 1850 with those of Young 

 in 1770. He found that in eighty years the average rent of 

 arable land had risen a hundred per cent., viz. from 13.s'. 4cZ. per 

 acre to 2(j.s\ lOd. ; the average produce of wheat per acre 14 

 per cent., viz. from '23 bushels to 26| ; and labourers' wages 

 34 per cent., from 7s. 3d. to 9^. Id. Prices of produce had 

 generally risen ; butter, for example, 100 per cent,, meat 70, 

 wool upwards of 100, but bread had remained the same. The 

 increase however of 14 per cent, on the average yield of wheat 

 per acre did not indicate the total extent to which this produce 



* The use of nitrate of soda became especially tabooed on the Norfolk 

 light lands when superphosphate of lime fell into disrepute. Without 

 the lasting manurial effects of the latter, the immoderate use of the 

 former brought about a speedy exhaustion of the soil. Superphosphates 

 were discontinued because they led to serious losses in the flock when fed 

 on root crops thus manured. No scientific reason has, I believe, been 

 recorded for this result, but it is probable that the prevalence of arsenic 

 in the iron-pj-rites of commerce used in the manufacture of sulphuric 

 acid was at the root of the mischief. The poisonous effects of bones 

 dissolved in sulphuric acid are, I venture to suggest, on heavier soils, 

 neutralised by the absorbent qualities of the mould, but these are not 

 sufficiently effective in the case of the light turnip lands of Norfolk. 



