1856. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



117 



have hitherto devoted to professional pursuits, to 

 commerce and to politics, they cannot fail to suc- 

 ceed, and at the same time, to give a character and 

 influence to the business, which will induce ambi- 

 tious and enterprising young men to engage in it, 

 instead of resorting to the city, and burying them- 

 selves in dark and dingy counting-rooms, and in- 

 haling the villanous smells and gases of foul docks, 

 and mouldy cellars, and smoking lamps, instead of 

 the pure air of heaven in the open fields, and entan- 

 gling themselves in the mysteries and anxieties of 

 trade, in which nine out of every ten are sure to 

 foil. It is such men that agriculture needs, men, 

 who, after acquiring a good education, and cultiva- 

 ting all their faculties in the best manner, shall 

 then devote the dew of their youth and the 

 strength of their manhood to the cultivation of the 

 soil. Men who have acquired wealth by other pur- 

 suits, and then engage in farming to gratify their 

 taste and amuse their fancy, will never do much to 

 improve practical agriculture, or raise the charac- 

 ter and standing of the farmer. B. 



For the New England Farmer. 



RUEAL ECONOMY OF THE BRITISH 



isles-No. i. 



SOIL AND CLIMATE. 



Mr. Editok: — I shall attempt, in a few numbers, 

 to interest you and your readei's with such facts as I 

 can collect respecting the rural economy of England, 

 or rather of the British Isles. 



In the first I shall endeavor to give some account 

 of the theatre of agricultural operations in these 

 Islands — the soil. 



■ The British Isles have a total area of 77,394,433 

 acres. England pro])er has about thirty-two mil- 

 Hon acres. But these seventy-seven million acres 

 are far from being of uniform fertility ; on the con- 

 trary, they exhibit greater differences than can be 

 found in any other country. England alone forms 

 about one-half of the whole territory, while Scot- 

 land and Ireland divide the remainder between 

 them in nearly equal proportions. Each of these 

 three grand sections should itself be divided in re- 

 spect to farming, as in other points of view, into 

 two separate parts, England into England proper 

 and Wales ; Scotland, into Highlands and Low- 

 lands ; Ireland into south-east and north-west re- 

 gions. .Enormous differences exist between these 

 different districts. 



Of the thirty-two millions of acres in England, 

 two millions and a half are, and I'emain, entirely 

 unproductive, having hitherto resisted all attempts 

 at cultivation. Of the remaining twenty-nme and a 

 half, two-thirds at least are ungrateful and stub- 

 born lands, which human industry alone has sub- 

 dued. 



We pause to ask, whether the soil of New Eng- 

 land, which by so many is considered such poor 

 farming land, is naturally inferior to that of Old 

 England ? 



But we will be more minute in our description 

 of the soil of the British Islands. The southern 

 point of the Island, forming the county of Cornwall 

 and more than half of Devonshire, is composed of 

 granite soils. There, in the ancient forests of Ex- 

 moor and Dartmoor, and in the mountains which 

 terminate the Land's End, and those verging on 

 the Welsh peninsula, are nearly two and a half 



million acres, of little value. In the north of Eng- 

 land are more mountains, which separate England 

 from Scotland, and ramify through the counties of 

 Northumberland, Cumberland, \yestmoreland, and 

 parts of Lancashire, Durham, York and Derbyshire. 

 This region contains upwards of five million acres, 

 worth scarcely more than the former. 



Wherever the ground in England is not hilly, it 

 is, in general, naturally marshy. The counties of 

 England and Cambridge, now reckoned especially 

 the first among the most productive, were formerly 

 but one vast marsh, partially covered by the sea, 

 like the polders of Holland opposite. In other 

 parts of the Island are extensive sands abandoned 

 by the sea, — the county of Norfolk is nothing else. 

 There remain in England, the undulating hills 

 which form about half its whole surface, but these 

 lands are not all of the same geological formation. 

 The Thames basin is composed of a stiff clay, called 

 London clay. The counties of Essex, Surrey, and 

 Kent, as well as Middlesex, belong to the clay-bed 

 called in England, stiff land, and well known as ex- 

 ceedingly troublesome. Left to itself, this clay never 

 dries in England, and when not transformed by 

 manure, and improved by draining, farmers despair 

 of making anything of it. It prevails throughout the 

 south-east of England, and makes its appearance in 

 many parts of the midland districts, as well as in 

 the east and north. 



A long band of chalky lands, of indifferent qual- 

 ity, runs through this great bed of clay, from south 

 to north, forming the greater portion of the coun- 

 ties of Hertford Wilts and Hunts, the chalk show- 

 ing itself, almost in a jiure state, on the surface. 



The sandy clay lands, -with calcareous sub-soil 

 and the loams of the lower valleys, occupy only about 

 ten millions of acres of England. The rivers being 

 short and the valleys confined in the narrow island, 

 alluvial lands are rather scarce. It is light soils 

 which predominate in England, what were formerly 

 called, poor lands, or moors 



I beg the reader to dwell on this description of 

 the soil of England, and to think what cultivation 

 has made it. Now, a few words of the climate. 

 The mists and rains are j)roverbial ; its extreme 

 humidity is little favorable to wheat, which is the 

 prime object of all cultivation ; few jilants ripen 

 naturally under its dull sky ; it is propitious only 

 to grasses and roots. Kainy summers, late autumns, 

 and mild winters, encourage, under the influence of 

 an almost equal temperature, an evergreen vegeta- 

 tion. Here the action of climate stops — nothing 

 need be asked of it, which demands the interven- 

 lion of that great producing power — the sun. 



How much more propitious is the summer and 

 autumn climate of New England to ripening the 

 fruits of the earth when the farmers, by deep tillage 

 counteract the effects of drought. I will not 

 say that the Ncm' England winter climate is as fa- 

 vorable for the preparation of land, for crops, or 

 for the keeping of stock, as that of our father-land. 



A few words concerning Wales, Scotland and 

 Ireland. Wales is a mass of mountains covered 

 with barren moors. Including the adjacent islands 

 and that part of England bordering upon it, it con- 

 tains five million acres, only half of which are capa- 

 ble of cultivation. 



The two divisions of Scotland, the Highlands and 

 Lowlands, are pretty equal in extent, and contain 

 about ten million acres each. The Highlands, 

 without exception, form one of the most unfertile 



