Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 471 



The soil at home covers huudi'eds of thousands of animals -svhich 

 should have fed our people and enriched our country. When, in 

 1864, the British government attempted to check the traffic in dis- 

 eased animals, in accordance with my recommendations, the farmei-s 

 not only stood aloof from the project, but openly denounced it and 

 its authors. Their interests they thought were not those of the 

 general public, and if plague destroyed their stock, it was right 

 and jjroper they should be saved from ruin by selling their dead 

 and dying cattle to the people. 



This short-sightedness was soon manifested when the cattle plague 

 was carrying off its five, ten and fifteen thousand animals weekly. 

 They were compelled to bury their carrion then, and they found 

 themselves not only, in too many cases, bankrupt in pocket, but the 

 objects of sympathy, seeking relief from associations to which 

 liberal donations were given by our nobility, craving indulgence at 

 the hands of the landlords, and asking government for compensa- 

 tion for slaughter stock — stock slaughtered to check the rapid pro- 

 gress of contagion. 



Had the farmers of the United Kingdom been wise in time; had 

 my profession held a better position in our country, we should not 

 have been laughed at by our neighbors, the French, who got the 

 plague indirectly through us, but who could boast of a knowledge 

 and an organization, whereby the most fatal and devastating o^ 

 animal pestilences could be held in check. 



I am, as an Englishman, proud of much that is good- in th® 

 British farmer, and of the advanced position of British agriculture. 

 Last week I told you that improvements in our system' of tiliage, 

 the reclamation of waste lands, drainage, liming, and ^milar- pro- 

 cesses, are tending; to diminish the amount of local or indi^^nous^ 

 diseases on our soil. I am, therefore, not blind to the good, although 

 I have been placed frequently in the unpleasant position oriuiving 

 to deny the evil of that system, which has doomed us- to. an annual 

 loss of many millions sterling. Theory has been loud and long 

 continued with us for more and for cheaper- food; and yet,, for a 

 whole quarter of a century, we have persisted in a foreign trade 

 in live animals, conducted on principles so bad that it has entailed 

 on us a loss of not less than two of our superior British animals 

 for every single one that has traversed the German ocean. 



Do not, I pray you, fimcy that the conditions under which you 

 enjoy life here are so very far diflerent from those which prevail 

 in the old country. The life of an American^ i£ I can read youi 



