No. 2. 



Scientific Farming. 



75 



culture, and, within the last century, the 

 strides which have been made in this inter- 

 esting department of knowledge, are aston- 

 ishing. Tull's system of horse-hoeing and 

 drill husbandry has introduced a numerous 

 train of drills, dibbling or planting-machines, 

 horse-hoes, ploughs, rollers, scufflers, scarifi- 

 ers, cultivators, hoe-harrows, watering-ma- 

 chines, breaks, drill-harrows, horse-rakes, &c., 

 which we now meet with everywhere, where 

 the old system of plain ploughing, harrowing 

 and broad-cast sowing prevailed, to the infi- 

 nite loss of seed and growth of weeds. 



Then comes, the scientific genius of Sir H. 

 Davy, Thompson, Fourcroy, Parmentier, Kir- 

 wan, Gay Lussac, and many other eminent 

 chemists, who have all employed themselves 

 in the investigation of the real nature of soils 

 and manures, and a vast increase of produc- 

 tive power has been the result ; the best mix- 

 ture or rotation of crops has been determined 

 by experiment, and the benefits of stall-feed- 

 ing clearly demonstrated : a great variety of 

 vegetables have been added to the already 

 plenteous growth, with which modern tillage 

 has enriched both the summer and winter- 

 stalls, while the improvement of the breed 

 of cattle and sheep by Bakewell and the Cul- 

 leys, the growth of fine wool by Lord Somer- 

 ville and others, have been as remarkable as 

 the superior cultivation of the soil. 



The science of draining has found devotees 

 equally ardent, and has produced the most 

 astonishing consequences ; in many instances, 

 the mere act of draining has quadrupled the 

 produce of land ; in the weald of Kent, land 

 which produced only a rental of five shillings 

 an acre, has been raised to five-and-twenty ! 

 And all these objects have been watched 

 over, canvassed, and stimulated by the estab- 

 lishment of agricultural societies, agricultu- 

 ral journals, agricultural newspapers, and 

 ploughing-matches! Agricultural associations 

 are now to be found in almost every county, 

 and often in different districts of the same 

 county, which offer premiums on the best 

 specimens of horses, cattle, sheep, swine, 

 crops, &c., the best ploughing, and the most 

 steady and industrious farm and household 

 servants; and it is a new and unspeakably 

 delightful feature in rural life, to see the 

 whole farming population of a district has- 

 tening, on a given day — gentlemen, farmers, 

 and farm-servants, all in their best array — to 

 gome spot where the cattle are shown, the 

 ploughing done, the prizes awarded by um- 

 pires, chosen from amongst the most skilful, 

 and speeches made, all for the interests of 

 agriculture ! 



And it is really curious to see, on our sci- 

 entific farms, the great variety of implements 

 and machines which these causes have pro- 

 duced ! Ploughs of every different construc- 



tion, and by different patentees; harrows, 

 drills, cultivators! Every different crop has 

 its peculiar apparatus for expediting its cul- 

 ture, for preparing the land, getting the seed 

 into the ground, cleaning and dressing the 

 crop while growing, for harvesting it, thresh- 

 ing and cleaning for market ; for sowing 

 pease, planting corn, drilling roots, and for 

 chopping and slicing them for cattle ; ma- 

 chines for cutting and making of hay, for 

 stacking it quickly, and for chopping and 

 steaming it; for ploughing up weeds, moor- 

 land and high-roads ; for reaping and raking 

 by wholesale ; for tapping deep springs and 

 guttering the surface for the escape of sur- 

 face water ; for ploughing the sub-soil as well 

 as the surface ; for paring and levelling lumpy 

 land; for cross-cutting furrows in mossy 

 land; machines for channelling and irrigat- 

 ing low lands; sod-paring, lime-spreading, 

 bone-sowing, corn-shelling, corn-cracking, 

 clialT-cutting implements, with threshing- 

 mills, winnowing-machines, steaming appa- 

 ratus, ratteries, novel butter-churns, new- 

 fangled mole-traps, poultr)''-feeders, by which 

 the birds might help themselves from tin 

 boxes, so that other feathered depredators 

 might not be able to go shares with them, and 

 patent hog-troughs ! Truly, Solomon might 

 say thast men had sought out many witty in- 

 ventions, but how any one can now say there 

 is " nothing new under the sun" is indeed a 

 puzzler. 



And who shall aggregate and estimate the 

 numerous and valuable suggestions and arti- 

 cles of anonymous writers in the difTerent 

 periodical agricultural journals, and the per- 

 sonal labours of such men as the Dukes of 

 Buccleugh, Bedford and Portland, Lord So- 

 merville and Mr. Coke, of Holkham, now the 

 Earl of Leicester 1 Men who have spent their 

 lives in the unostentatious, but most merito- 

 rious endeavour to perfect the agricultural 

 science of the world ! Surely, with the ex- 

 ception of naturalists, there are no men whose 

 pursuits seem to yield them so much real 

 happiness as intelligent agriculturists, whose 

 hearts are in the business; and there are 

 none who are more truly the benefactors of 

 their country. Walter Scott in his memoir 

 of the Duke of Buccleugh relates a circum- 

 stance worth recording. When the Duke 

 was asked why he did not leave his estates 

 in the country, during the spring of the year 

 of scarcity, 1817, and visit London as usual, 

 he, by Vv'ay of answer, pointed to a list of 

 day-labourers, amounting to nine hundred and 

 forty-seven individuals, whom, independent 

 of his regular establishments, he was pro- 

 viding with the means of subsistence, by em- 

 ploying them on his estates ! and if we allow 

 to each labourer two persons only, who were 

 dependent upon his wages for support, we 



