No. 10. 



Examples of Improvement. 



sod 



surin<T the profits of their profession ; let them 

 seek its honour and advancement, and to ex- 

 tend to their children, and to the rising gen- 

 eration generally, the favourable inlluences 

 to be derived from such associations. 

 James Canby, 

 c. p. holcomb, 

 Bryan .Tackson, 

 John Jones, 

 William Tatnall, 

 Committee. 



Examples of Improvemeut. 



I HAVE spoken of the preparation of the 

 land, by culture, for the deposit of the seed, 

 under the heads of ploughing, subsoiling, 

 paring, deep-stirring, scarifying, and har- 

 rowing; but there were two processes going 

 on in Cornwall of so peculiar a character, 

 that I deem it proper to detail them. 



1, Tehidy.—The first was at Tehidy, the 

 residence of Lady Bassett, under the direc- 

 tion of an intelligent and accomplished ag- 

 riculturist, a gentleman well established in 

 the principles, and familiar with the prac- 

 tices of agriculture, in the best cultivated 

 districts of Scotland, and who was employed 

 not merely to put the home-estate under a 

 proper course of management, but, by ex- 

 ample, counsel, advice, encouragement, and 

 rewards, to assist and induce the tenants on 

 the property to abandon the objectionable 

 and profitless modes of husbandry which 

 they had long followed, and introduce a 

 better system, which the experience of the 

 most improving and best farmers in the 

 country had sanctioned. 



An extensive tract of land on the sea- 

 coast was underlaid, about three inches be- 

 low the surface, with a compact bed of flint 

 stones, of four and six inches in depth, and 

 might indeed be very properly called mac- 

 adamized. Vegetation on such land was 

 almost hopeless, for the mould, or vegetable 

 matter, on the surface, had little depth, and 

 no plough or cultivator could penetrate this 

 obstinate mass of stones. But this farmer 

 undertook to remove with pickaxes this en- 

 tire mass of stones, and had accomplished a 

 considerable tract when I had the pleasure 

 to visit it. The piles of stones lay as thick, 

 and very much larger, than cocks of hay, 

 upon the field, preparatory to their being 

 carted away, for the making or repairing of 

 roads. Under this layer of stones was found 

 a soil which could be broug'it into, and under 

 proper manuring, would liberally reward, 

 good cultivation. The Cornish men, who, 

 in the capacity of miners, are accustomed 

 to face difficulties of no ordinary magnitude, 

 and will march up against the brazen walls 



of a copper mine, where they may pick and 

 hammer away for weeks and months without 

 reward, with as much indificrence as they 

 would cut away upon a loaf of stale bread, 

 performed this service with a labour and 

 perseverance worthy of all praise. Under 

 this layer of stones was a soil capable of 

 productive cultivation, and the reward was 

 found in the crops which were growing on 

 a portion of the recovered land. After the 

 stones were removed, the land was subsoil- 

 ed, and a crop of turnips, manured with 

 guano, was taken. The effects of guano, 

 when the land manured by it was compared 

 with a part of the field manured only with 

 the ashes of the furze, were here most re- 

 markable. The exeperiment was a brave, 

 and though labour was at a low rate, it was 

 an expensive one; but as the land was com- 

 paratively without value in its former state, 

 the only question in the case was, whether 

 the land, after being redeemed in this way, 

 would be worth the expense of the recovery. 

 Heavy as this expense was, the land became 

 worth a great deal more than it cost. In 

 fact, it was so much land literally created 

 by the process; and its situation, where it 

 was easily accessible, greatly enhanced the 

 value. 



2. ScobeWs Farm. — The other experi- 

 ment to which I referred, was going on be- 

 between Penzance and Land's End, on the 

 farm of Colonel Scobell — a farm, in respect 

 to parts of which the culture would seem 

 like going upon a forlorn hope, the land pre- 

 senting a most forbidding aspect; and yet in 

 its results exhibiting a conclusive test of the 

 best husbandry, by its permanent improve- 

 ments, and its ample returns for the labour 

 and expense bestowed upon it. 



Some parts of Cornwall — where the hos- 

 pitality of the inhabitants is in an inverse 

 ratio "to the quality of the soil — reminded 

 me of a tract of country very well known 

 to many persons in the United States, 

 through which the turnpike-road passes be- 

 tween Lynn and Salem, in Massachusetts, 

 which some one facetiously called tlie 

 "abomination of desolation." There is this 

 remarkable difference, however, in favour of 

 Cornwall, that, like some old miser, who 

 seeks to conceal his riches under an appear- 

 ance of extreme squalidness and destitution, 

 it is underlaid with ine.xhaustible mineral 

 treasures, as I myself, in a dress befitting 

 the occasion, with a lighted torch in my 

 hand, descending by the slippery rounds of 

 a ladder seven hundred feet, and traversing 

 two miles under ground, had the gratifica- 

 tion — for so I may call it, since I am once 

 more on the surface — to witness. In this 

 part of the country there is little wood, and 



