600 Garden Calls. 



ever be worth while in Britain to build stoves, or form any other erections 

 for drying corn, because what would be gained to the farmer in a bad sea- 

 son, would be lost to him by the capital thus employed, which would be un- 

 productive in good seasons. If an extraordinary exertion were to be made 

 for drying the corn crop, a temporary structure of poles, to be covered and 

 imcovered at pleasure, with rolls of canvass, in Mr. Forrest's manner 

 (p. 5 10.), might be erected in a twenty-acre field, and the corn either placed 

 in shocks under it, or spread in layers on hurdles, supported from the ground 

 by other hurdles. But even this plan could never become general in a 

 corn country, and we think it would be a folly to introduce any thing of the 

 kind in Britain. The circumstance of such plans being thought requisite, 

 in consequence of the wetness of our seasons, affords an additional argu- 

 ment in favour of free trade ; in which case corn would only be grown in 

 those countries where the climate was most favourable to all the operations 

 connected with its production. Comparing one country of Europe with 

 another, nothing can be more certain than that the British Islands, both in 

 soil and climate, are formed by nature for the growth of the pasture grasses 

 and herbage plants ; and hence we have always said, that beef, mutton, and 

 horses will one day be the staple produce of the country. 



It is a connnon and well-meant remark of town's-people, that a bad har- 

 vest, by requiring more labour for getting in the crop, is better for the 

 labourers; but in proportion as it is good tor the labourers, it must be bad 

 for the farmer and the consumer, and surely no good is worth much that is 

 not good for the whole. With respect to the advantages which labourers 

 now derive from the extra-labour required at harvest, we should not be sur- 

 prised to see them reduced in a ver}' few years, at least in the northern coun- 

 ties,,to little or nothing, and the scythe and the sickle laid up in a corner, 

 as well as the spinning-wheel and the flail. In Scotland, where men of large 

 capital have embarked in agriculture, it will probably not be long before 

 this result is realised. Various reaping machines have been produced from 

 time to time during the last 1 5 years, and the approaches have been nearer 

 and nearer towards perfection. In September, 1828, a reaping machine, 

 invented by Mr. Peter Bell, was tried at Powrie, in the county of Forfar, 

 before the member of parliament and the sheriff of the county, and forty 

 landed proprietors and practical agriculturists, all of whom put their names 

 to a declaration which is given in the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture for 

 Nov. 1828. This declaration states, that the machine cut down a breadth of 

 5 ft. at once, was moved by a single horse, and attended by from six to eight 

 persons to tie up the corn ; and that the field was reaped by this force at 

 the rate of an imperial acre per hour. The cost of the machine is 30/., un- 

 questionably too much for a small farmer; but if such machines were to 

 come into general use, a class of men would arise who would hire them out 

 to be worked, or probably work them themselves ; and should this last mode 

 become general, we have no doubt Finlayson's harrow (Vol. II. p. 250), 

 and a portable threshing and winnowing machine, would be worked by the 

 same persons. The declaration mentioned thus concludes: — " We con- 

 sider it unnecessary to advert to the advantages attending the introduction 

 of an efficient rea[)ing machine, as these advantages are universally acknow- 

 ledged ; but we beg leave to express our conviction, that Mr. Bell s reaping 

 machine will come immediately into general use; that it will confer a signal 

 benefit on agriculture; that his invention is of national importance, and 

 that he deserves the highest encouragement for his active and strenuous 

 exertions for the public good." 



Notwithstanding the very unfavourable weather, and disappointments at 

 Dorking and various other places, we have not passed these fifteen days 

 without instruction and gratification. The wheat crop appeared in general 

 to be at least of the average quantity and quality ; in some places, as 

 between Godalming and Haslemere, and from the last place to Midhurst on 



