58 



pf those impediments against which our ancestors had to con- 

 tend have long since been removed. They had but little 

 incentive to engage in a new branch of business, while with 

 us it is much otherwise. Our forefathers were comparatively 

 free from the burdens that press so heavily upon the agri- 

 culture of the present day, of which by far the greatest is an 

 unemployed population. We find that no longer ago than 

 the year 1781 the cultivation of flax was recommended on the 

 score of increasing our population, by inducing " numbers 

 from the Continent to settle in England, as a great national 

 advantage."* And the landowners of Argyleshire are also 

 reminded that " the riches or productiveness of their estates 

 must depend more on the number of the people, than of the 

 sheep, by which they are occupied."! 



Formerly the value of linseed, and the chaff from the bolls 

 as cattle food, was utterly unknown. Both were disregarded, 

 and cast into the steeping-pits with the stalks. If a little of 

 the seed were at any time saved, it was always sold to the oil- 

 mill, never consumed on the farm. The only chance, therefore, 

 of remuneration centred in the fibre. Hence the dreaded 

 exhaustion of the soil, and the prohibition of its growth found 

 in old leases. 



But to us flax is a double crop, the most important part of 

 which is the seed. For, admitting that the fibre would obtain 

 more money at market, yet the seed being consumed by cattle 

 on the land where grown, its influence is diffused over the 

 whole farm, and it returns to the pocket of the farmer a ten- 

 fold greater profit in the shape of meat, corn, &c. 



In former times the exercise of agricultural skill and science 

 was extremely limited; and, whether flax or wheat, the ex- 

 hausting effects of a good crop were not easily remedied; 

 now agricultural skill and science have advanced in an extra- 

 ordinary degree, aided by industry, learning, and chemical 

 research, so that deterioration of soil consequent on any crops 

 is no longer to be feared. Then sufficient hands were scarcely 

 found to till the land ; iiow we have an overwhelming popu- 



* See letter signed Dorsetshire Gentleman, 

 t Agricultural Survey of the county of Argyle. 



