224 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



JAN. 1, 1S40. 



From the Journal of the English Agricultural Society. 



PRESENT STATE OF THE SCIENCE OF AG- 

 RICULTURE IN ENGLAND. 

 Thoiigli the national inipurtance of husbandry 

 will be at once admitted by every one, it may be 

 well at the outset of onr undertaking not to content 

 ourselves with a general notion of tliat importance, 

 but to look for a moment at some of the items 

 which constitute its annual value. 



The wheat produced in England and Wales is 

 estimated by Mr Mac Culloch, one year with anoth- 

 er, at 12,350,000 quarters. This single head of 

 produce, therefore, at an average price of 50i., will 

 amount to nearly 31 millions pounds sterling, year- 

 ly. The oats and beans have been reckoned at 

 13,500,000 quarters, and will give another head of 

 17 1-3 millions sterling per annum. The grass 

 lands, again, are -supposed to yield, year by year, 

 produce worth very nearly CO millions sterling — 

 (59,500,000.) The practical inferencc-to be drawn 

 from these large numbers is obviou.sly tiiis, — that, 

 if by any improved process, it be possible to add 

 even in a small proportion to the average acreable 

 produce either of arable or pasture land, this in- 

 crease, small as it may seem, may be in fact a very 

 large addition to our national wealth. The ave- 

 rage produce of wheat, for instance, is stated at 20 

 bushels per acre : if by a better selection of seed, 

 we could raise this amount to 27 bushels only, (a 

 supposition by no means unlikely, we should by 

 this apparently small improvement, have added to 

 the nation's annual income 475,000 quarters of 

 wheat, worth, at 50s., about 1,200,000/. yearly, 

 which would be equal to a capital of 24 millions 

 sterling gained for ever to the country by this tri- 

 fling increase in the growth of one article alone, 

 and that in England and Wales only. 



But it is not merely with regard to thi total of 

 any branch of produce that numbers afford a strik- 

 ing result. The value of one crop of a single arti- 

 cle of produce on an individual farm may be large, 

 and the loss of that crop very serious; and since 

 in the improvement of agricultuse we have to look, 

 ■unfbrtimately, at least as much to the prevention of 

 loss as to tiie increase of profit, it may be worth 

 while on this head to take an instance from a vege- 

 table of ;eeniingly inferior value, the turnip. 



It is WcMl known that in the south of England, 

 during two or three dry summers preceding the 

 last, many farmers have lost nearly the whole of 

 their turnip crops ; and that by the drought and 

 the ravages of their accustomed foe, the turnip fly 

 only, independently altogether of their new enemy, 

 the black caterpillar : after repeated sowings, a 

 crop came up, but so late in the year, that, for want 

 of warmth, little or no root was formed, and the crop 

 could not be valued at more than H. an acre. In 

 the north, on the other hand, where farm-yard ma- 

 nure is liberally given lo this crop, and carefully 

 applied in the ridjes on which the seed is drilled 

 in immediate contact With it, where bone dust is al- 

 ec purchased for the same purpose, on such highly 

 cultivated ground there would be far less risk of 

 failure arising from the ordinary causes mentioned 

 above. There is many a light-land farm in the 

 south of England, of .")00 acres, on which 100 acres 

 have not produced turnips worth more than 200/, 

 or 300/., while tlie more spirited culture actually 

 practised in Yorkshire might have yielded 20 tons 

 of Swedes or 30 tons of turnips from each acre. It 

 is ditRcult to reduce the advantages of this superior 

 yield to a money value. At the price for which 



the former roots liave sold in one neighborhood we 

 are acquainted with, a high price it is admitted, 

 but still one that has been paid for many years, 

 they would have been worth 2000/. : so that the 

 difference in the result of the two practices would 

 be 1500/.; or, if an acre of the land be worth 1/. 

 yearly, a difference of produce from one-fil'th only 

 of the farm amounting to three times tlie rent of the 

 whole. Without insisting, however, upon this case 

 which is an extreme one, the following quotation 

 from a recent statistical work, will be sufficient for 

 all practical farnieis : "The produce of turnips when 

 cultivated in tlie broadcast manner, varies from 5 to 

 15 tons an acre.; the latter being reckoned a very 

 good crop. In Northumberland and Berwickshire, 

 a good crop of white globe turnips, drilled, weighs 

 from 25 to 30 tons, the Yellow, and the Ruta Baga, 

 or Swedish, a few tons less." 



We may consider, in another point of view, the 

 national effect which might result from a general 

 improvement of agriculture : that is. the additional 

 employment that would arise from any general ef- 

 fort made on the part of the landowner or the ten- 

 ant to improve permanently, as by drainage, for in- 

 stance, the texture itself of the soil : we do not 

 mean of waste ground, hut of that which is already 

 and has been perhaps for centuries, in course of 

 cultivation. If a pound, only, were thus laid out 

 on each acre, (a very moderate supposition,) we 

 shall find that, since there are 48 millions of culti- 

 vated acres in Great Britain and Ireland, a demand 

 for country labor amounting to 48 millions sterling 

 would thus be created ; a demand exceeding that 

 which the railroad bills professed to create in the 

 session before last, and far more advantageous in 

 its effect on the laborers, inasmuch as the demand 

 would be a gradual one, not severing them from 

 their homes and their families. The assumed out- 

 lay, however, of a pound only, for the permanent 

 improvement of each acre, is probably far too low ; 

 3/., 4/., or even 51., would be scarcely too much. 

 There is much wet land on which 8/. or perhaps 

 10/. might be laid out to advantage ; but at 4/. only, 

 the new progressive demand for the villager's only 

 commodity, the work of his hands, would be about 

 200 millions. So large an outlay as this last must 

 indeed, in part, be necessarily deferred for a long 

 course of years ; but in whatever degree it may 

 arise, it has, on the other hand, the further advan- 

 tage arising from the nature of the work to be done, 

 that the demand would necessarily take place in 

 the winter months, when labor is most difficult lo 

 be obtained, not in the summer, when the crops are 

 in progress, and the laborer finds already sufficient 

 employment. 



It would be an inquiry of much importance to 

 investigate in detail the manner in which this per- 

 mnnent improvement of the soil might be conduct- 

 ed in the various districts of England, but the sub- 

 ject is so extensive that it requires to be handleil 

 separately; or, rr ther, it must be a leading object 

 of our members' future inquiries, to collect such 

 facts and make such trials as may give a solid an- 

 Rwer to fo extensive a question. Great assistance 

 may doubtless be derived from the knowledge which 

 geological maps have lately affiirded us as to the 

 general outlines of the various subsoils wliicii lie 

 iuimediatply under the surface of our fields, and 

 powerfully affect, as every practical farmer knows, 

 the produce of the upper soil thn ugh which alone 

 the plough usually passes. These beds of sand, 

 stone, or clay, cross England in irregular courses, 

 from southwest to northeast : the blue lias, for in- 



stance, from Charmouth in Dorsetshire, to Whitl 



Yorkshire ; and thus, by the help of a geologic; 



maj), it might be known that a mode of im:;rovi 



ment which had been well tested on a farm in Do 



setshire, would be applicable, due allowance beii 



made for difference of climate, to anotlier in Yor 



shire. Manifest, however, as is the assistance th 



might long since have been derived by agricultu 



from geology, we know no book which has endea 



ored until very recently* to secure that kindred a 



for the science which is the immediate object 



our society's labors. But, although it is impose 



ble to follow this question of the permanent ii 



provcment of soils into all its details, it may not 



amiss to look for a moment at its more general fe 



turos ; bearing in mind, that we are not now see 



ing for positive conclusions on which we would r 



commend that immediate outlay should be ma 



on a large scale by practical farmers, but are e 



deavoring, as is the business of societies which d 



sire to enlarge the bounds of actual knowledge, 



obtain such a bird's-eye view of the field of inqi 



ry as may show us what are the lines by which ' 



may best hope tn effect onr advance into a count 



we desire lo explore. All subsoils, then, as h 



been said, may be roughly divided into clays, san 



stones — or rather the clayey, sandy, and stony: 



the two former of which, the upper soil genera 



partakes of their mechanical nature, that is to s: 



the soil resting on clay will probably be close, a 



on sand loose; while in all the three it will chep 



cally partake more or less the subsoil's nature, tl 



is, its substance will usually resemble, more orle 



the bed on which it rests, fjr the plain reason, tl 



it has partly been formed by the wearing a 



breaking up of that bed. Where sand predoi 



nates in the soil and subsoil, thin veins of clay i 



not of unusual occurrence in the latter, and whi 



the.se are found they may be turned to great i 



vantage; but to all sandy ground the Flemii 



have long applied a method 'f singular perse 



ranee and proved success, which is shortly as i 



lows. Tliey dig trenches of rather more thai 



foot in width, and about a foot deep, over th 



field, at such a distance from each other that " 



intervals or lands between them are five times v 



width of the trench, from the bottom of which, 



suming the soil to be ten inches deep, they hi 



therefore dug up besides two inches of subsoil, g 



as they proceed they fling the whole over ea 



land on wliich the seed has been previously sov 



wliich they thus cover. The trench, being shifi 



sideways each year, and the same process renew 



at the end of six years two inches of the wh' 



subsoil will clearly have been mixed Mith the i 



per surface, and the soil deepened by that amou 



The original trench is then dug pe-liaps two 



dies lower, and at the end of another "'x years t 



more inches, at least, of depth, will have been ga 



ed. In this way, after four or five courses of trem 



ing, that is to say, after twentyfour or thirty yet 



the soil is brought to a depth of 18 or 20 inches 



uniform qiiality.f . Nor does the industrious Fie 



ing fold his arms when this labor of life has be 



accomplished. The bed of mould into -rt-hich 



has converted the natural ground is preserved 



similar toil. On a farm called Vollander, a lit 



beyond Courtray, consisting of about 140 acres, 1 



*In 1837 Mr John Morton had ihe merit of pubhshint 

 work on the application of geology to agriculture. 



tSee Flemish Husbandry, by the Rev. W. Rhara, p. 7 

 Lilirary of Useful Knowledge. 



