192 RURAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



The whole of the system can only be advantageously 

 practised in the districts most favourable to the produc- 

 tion of cereals that is to say, in the south-east, where 

 the crisis told the most severely. In the west and north, 

 cereals are being almost entirely given up. Division of 

 labour thus makes a fresh step : the cultivation of cereals 

 becomes extended upon the lands most adapted for them, 

 and is diminished on those least favourable to their pro- 

 duction. Upon the whole, it does not appear that the 

 proportion of corn-sown lands ought sensibly to change. 

 In those districts where the attention of farmers is being 

 more and more directed to the feeding of cattle, the re- 

 sults obtained solely by means of stabulation and the use 

 of liquid manure, if not better, are at least more certain. 

 I will quote but one example the farm of Cunning 

 Park, in Ayrshire. This farm, which is only fifty acres 

 in extent, was, previously to the crisis, in the average 

 condition of England. The rent did not exceed 25s. per 

 acre, and the gross produce 4 per acre ; now the gross 

 produce reaches 24 per acre, and the net at least 8. 

 Nevertheless, Cunning Park produces only milk and 

 butter ; but as a result of the new methods, it now 

 supports forty-eight in place of ten cows, and each of 

 these cows is much more productive. 



Such are the general features of the present agricultural 

 revolution high farming, as it is called. I must, however, 

 point out one more circumstance which may serve still 

 further to characterise the system the war waged against 

 hedges and game. 



When pasturage was the leading feature in English 

 farming, large hedges had their use, but as stabulation 

 increased that use diminished ; they may, moreover, be 

 replaced by low hedges or other enclosures. Farmers 

 now find them only inconveniences ; they take up a 



