128 



coombs of barley, at \2s. per coomb, would amount to 36/., 

 fifty coombs at 15s. would obtain 371. 10s.; consequently ten 

 coombs in every sixty have been worse than thrown away, for 

 the money was given to the encouragement of foreign agricul- 

 ture, and to the employment of foreign labourers, while Eng- 

 lish labourers, for the want of work, were compelled to seek an 

 asylum in Union-houses, where they were maintained in idle- 

 ness. 



Scarcely a guinea of those immense sums paid by the farmers 

 of this to the farmers of a foreign country for oil-cake meets an 

 adequate return. Thousands of bullocks are often sold in 

 Smithfield which do not pay the wages for tending, and some 

 not even the drover's expenses. The best returns seldom leave 

 anything for cake ; and so long -as foreign produce is substituted 

 for our own to fatten cattle, the effect will be similar. Besides, 

 the demand for barley, from many causes, decreases every year ; 

 and as the ports are open at a less rate of duty, the surplus 

 must be infinitely greater. Surely, then, it must be incumbent 

 on the agriculturists of this country to alter their system, and 

 obtain a supply of artificial food from the resources of their 

 own soil. In proportion as the cultivation of barley could be 

 curtailed, the supply must necessarily be diminished, and the 

 command of price placed more in the grower's power. The 

 money value to him of the less supply would, as I have attempted 

 to show, be equal to that of the larger. To prevent so 

 great an excess in future, the appropriation of one acre in seven 

 of all lands that were intended to be sown with barley to me 

 growth of linseed, peas, and beans, would reduce the supply 

 to the extent I have mentioned ; have precisely the same effect 

 on the price of barley ; be extremely beneficial to the soil in 

 the rotation of crops; and afford some millions of tons of 

 nutritious food, upon which cattle and sheep will thrive beyond 

 the belief of those who have never tried the experiment, return- 

 ing at the same time as rich and lasting a description of manure 

 as can possibly be obtained from any other source. 



Connected with our present system of farming is an immense 

 annual outlay for foreign manures, and in which doubtless as 

 many impositions are practised as with cake. I believe if the 

 Belgian mode of making manure were practised in this country, 



