302 



NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 



July 



minute slip of horse radish and plant it, but it pro- 

 duces as large a root as though we had planted a 

 piece weighing a pound, and so with many other 

 plants. We have experimented with potatoes for 

 several years, but have not been able to see any 

 sort of difference in the product between planting 

 large or small ones. But let us have the experi- 

 ments he suggests, by all means. 



For the New England Farmer. 



RURAL ECONOMY OF THE BRITISH 

 ISLES-No. 13. 



MIDLAND COUNTIES. 



Buckingham, Berkshire, Oxford, Wiltshire, Warwick, 



Worcester, Rdtland, Leicester, Staffordshire, 



Nottingham, Djsrdisuire. 



Pursuing our agricultural tour, we arrive at the 

 central counties of England. 



Buckinghamshire, directly west of London, has 

 an area of 470,000 acres, with a population of only 

 160,000, which, in England, indicates a county ex- 

 clusively agricultural. The lands of this county 

 are about equally divided among the various crops, 

 the farms are of all sizes, large, small and middling, 

 the extent of hill and level is about the same, and 

 strong and light soils divide the county between 

 them. The valley of Aylesbury is reckoned one of 

 the most fertile in the kingdom. Its pastures are 

 devoted to the fattening of sheep and oxen and the 

 feeding of milch cows in the proportion of about 

 one-third of each of these kinds of stock. There is 

 no remarkable feature in the agricultural condition 

 of the county. 



Berkshire adjoins Surrey higher up the Thames. 

 Its soil is sandy and poor in the east, as in Surrey, 

 and in this part are Windsor Forest and tracts of 

 micultivated heath ; the rest of the county is com- 

 posed of calcareous hills or downs, and of a valley 

 famed for its fertility, called the White Horse Vale, 

 from one of its chalk hills having been cut in the 

 form of a horse. The chief occupation of the valley 

 is the making of cheese. The chalk hills pasture 

 sheep similar to the Southdown. The fattening of 

 pigs is carried on to a great extent near Farring- 

 don, the breed being the well known Berkshire. 



The most celebrated farm m Berkshire is that of 

 Mr. Pusey, President of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society. The farm consists of 377 aci'es, well man- 

 aged in all its branches. But the most striking 

 thing is the breeding and fattening of sheep. The 

 flock consists of 800 head, half of which are breed- 

 ing ewes. In winter, they are fed with roots, and 

 during summer on irrigated meadows, Mr. Pu- 

 sey proposes to feed, during the five summer 

 months, 75 fine Southdowns upon two acres of 

 these irrigated meadows. The sheep are put on 

 the meadows in pens, and as the grass is eaten 

 down, the pens are shifted. Before putting the 

 sheep on, the water is stopped off, and let on again, 

 when they are removed. Mr. Pusey asserts that, 

 fed in this Avay, and finished off on corn and oil- 

 cake, in sheds, they are fattened, at a year old, and 

 sold at a high price to the butchers. All acknowledge 

 that Mr. Pusey has succeeded in fattening four 

 times the usual number of sheep, and doubling the 

 produce of wheat on his farm. But Mr. Pusey's 

 farming is high farming, and the general opinion is 

 that he does not realize a profit from it. High 



farming is well for those who can afford to lose 

 money, and, by its experiments, may suggest meth- 

 ods, by which economical observers can obtain suc- 

 cessful results. 



Oxford is an epitome of the soil and agriculture 

 of all England, 



Wiltshire is divided into two very distinct parts, 

 north and south. The northern portion, consisting 

 of verdant valleys, through which flow the tributa- 

 ries of the Avon, is a country of grass and dairies. 

 The southern, composed of extensive calcareous 

 downs, like Dorset, is a region of wheat and sheep. 

 Here we have the famous Salisbury Plain. In the 

 south large farming prevails, and Salisbury Plain 

 presents to the eye the appearance of a deserted 

 country, where a few farms, at great distances from 

 each other, are hid from view, in hollows ; and 

 where fields of wheat, without a tree or fence, ex- 

 tend as far as the eye can reach. It would appear 

 that an excessive and mistaken application of large 

 farming has been here practiced. In no part of 

 England are wages lower or poverty more rife. — 

 The forms are too large for the capital employed 

 on them, and not suited to wheat, the fovorite end 

 of large farming. The size of a farm is to be fixed 

 by a sound discretion, taking many things into 

 view ; but it should not be disproportioned to the 

 capital employed on it. This is an axiom in agri- 

 culture. There is a limit to everything. Large 

 farming is well, when it diminishes the expenses 

 of production ; useless, when it increases them. 

 That system of farming is best, which pays the best 

 wages and the best profit, and provides most equal- 

 ly for the largest number from the returns of the 

 land. 



"We observe quite another state of things in the 

 midland counties of Warwick, Worcester, Rutland, 

 Leicester and Stafford. Situated between the grass 

 county of the West and four-course system of the 

 east, this district presents a happy combination of 

 both systems ; it is the richest farming district in 

 England. Beginning Avith Warwickshire, we at 

 once see the chief cause of its great rural prosperi- 

 ty. The parts of the county which have hitherto 

 fallen under our observation, have been exlusively 

 agricultural, with outlets and markets, no doubt, 

 from their proximity to Ijondon ; but the great 

 stimulus of manufactures, within the counties them- 

 selves, has been entirely wanting. In Warwick- 

 shire, Birmingham, with its dependencies, a great 

 manufacturing district, presents itself. The popu- 

 lation of the county is one to the acre, and four- 

 fifths of the population are engaged in manufactur- 

 ing ; whence it follows, that an acre is required to 

 produce food sufhcient for one person, and that a 

 farmer, who brings his produce to market, finds four 

 consumers to bid for it, and these consumers all in 

 the receipt of high wages, which enable them to 

 pay good prices. How is it possible that agricul- 

 ture should not prosper, under such circumstances ? 



It must not be supposed, that the soil of War- 

 wickshire is good throughout. All the northern 

 part of the county was, at one time, an immense 

 moor, covered with wood and heather ; now half 

 the land is under grass, the remainder arable, and 

 cultivated, generally, upon the Norfolk system. — 

 Nor must it be supposed that the system of large 

 farming prevails ; the average of farms is 150 acres, 

 and the majority under this size, in all the manu- 

 focturing counties, a circumstance which is most 

 satisfactory to an American, as this division of farms 



