'Zo6 



MEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



JAN. 89, 1840. 



Prom the Journal of the English Agricultural Society. 



PRESENT STATE OF THE SCIENCE OF AG 

 RICULTURE IN ENGLAND. 

 [Concluded.] 

 There is another point connected ivitli cattle, on 

 which the extension of our present knowledu^e, as 

 practised in the northern districts, and inquiry as 

 to the possibility of further improvement upon those 

 practices, appeirs e.xtrcnisly desirable: this is the 

 feeding of stock. In our southern counties the 

 arable farm is kept in heart chiefly by the nianurr 

 of the sheep flocks, such flocks indeed as no arable 

 farms can produce but in tliis country. The beasts 

 kept during winter in tlio yard, sometimes poorly 

 fed, and only not losing condition, trample the 

 straw until it has the appearance, though it often 

 possesses little of the virtues, of dung. On well- 

 managed northern arable farms, on the contrary, 

 the cattle are tied up in the yard to be fattened, and 

 are fed not only on turnips, but on large quantities 

 of oil cake, purchased at the expense often of many 

 hundred pounds by the fanner. Now it is well 

 known that the better the beast is fed, the more 

 valuable is the manure produced, and that by oil 

 cake in particular its fertilising power is almost 

 doubled. Interesting experiments have been made 

 at the instance of the Highland Society, with a 

 view to ascertain the relative value of food in the 

 stall-feeding of cattle ; but much remains doubtless 

 to be cleared up by experiments yet to be made. — 

 It may even be worth inquiry whether, on farms 

 where fattening of stock is largely carried on, a 

 somewhat harder course of cropping might not be 

 permitted, without fear of impoverishment to the 

 land. Peas, for example, and on some ground, po- 

 tatoes, are a scourging crop; but if the peas, in- 

 stead of being carried to market, are given to the 

 farmer's stock, it may be a question whether the 

 superiority of tlie manure may not more than com- 

 pensate to the farm the previous loss of condition 

 which the crop has occasioned. On this subject 

 of feeding, it is impossible to pass over that heavy 

 article of the farmer's expenses — the keep of farm 

 horses. Here, however, it will be sufficient to 

 inake a short extract from the printed report of a 

 club of practical farmers, who have for some time 

 met at Harleston, in Suffolk, for the excellent pur- 

 pose of discussing doubtful points of agricultural 

 science. Jt will not be useless, however, first to 

 give a list of the subjects which they had selected 

 for the last year's inquiry, since it shows the spirit 

 of improvement which is at work in the agricultu- 

 ral body. 



" On the use of saltpetre as a manure. 



On the nnnagetnent and cheapest method of 



keeping farm horses. 

 On spade husbandry. 

 On the best method of improving neat cattle in 



the district. 

 On shoeing horses. 

 On stall-feeding. 



On the best method of keeping farming accounts: 

 Whether or not it is beneficial to consume by 



stock any part of the straw the produce of 



the farm. 

 On chaff cutting." 



With respect, however, to our immediate sub 

 ject, the Report of the Harleston farmers, as it 

 stands in the ' iVlark-Lane E.xpress,' Feb. 11th, runs 

 as follows: — "Your committee, in common with 



every member of the club, was astonished to find 

 that, amongst a body of farmers, all residing with- 

 in tour or five miles of the place of meeting, all 

 using a similar breed of cart horses, and cultiva- 

 ting a similar description of land, such an aston- 

 ishing difference in the expense of maintaining 

 their cart horses should exist, amounting, in au- 

 thenticated statements, to upwards of .50 per cent., 

 whether estimated at per head for eacli cart horse, 

 or per acre for the arable land." That is to say, 

 not only, with an equal number of acres to plough, 

 the horses of one farmer cost twice as much as 

 tliose of another ; in which case the difference 

 might arise partly from the different number of 

 working cattle maintained ; upon which a second 

 question would arise — which farmer had too many, 

 or which had too few ? — but also the very same 

 number of horses stood in to one I'armer at double 

 the expense which they did to the other. " What, 

 greater proof," the Harleston committee very prop- 

 erly ask, " could be required of the necessity for 

 discussion ? and if no other subject had ever been 

 brought before your club, we are of opinion that 

 by debating this question alone it would have ren- 

 dered incalculable benefit to the neighborhood ; for 

 what member, who now learned for the first time 

 that his neighbor was cultivating his land at much 

 less cost than himself in one of the heaviest items 

 in a farmer's expenses, but would go home and im- 

 prove on his farm management ?" 



It appears then, even from the superficial survey 

 contained in these few pages, that the practice of 

 farmers varies greatly in different parts of this coun- 

 try, on points whore there is no question which 

 practice is best. But it appears also that there 

 are innumerable points of farming on which no one 

 ought to give a positive answer, because no cer- 

 tain knov ledge exists. How then is such certainty 

 to be obtained on a matter which involves so large 

 a national profit and loss ? Surely, as in othersci- 

 ences, by careful observation and well-considered 

 experiment. But in many sciences this process, 

 however difficult, is at least within the reach of ev- 

 ery inquirer. '! he chemist requires but a room in 

 which to set up his furnace and evolve his gases : 

 ni^t so the agricultural inquirer ; he requires a large 

 farm (for a small one would be insufficient,) and a 

 large capital, too, practically engaged in its culti- 

 vation. Neither would one farm be sufficient, since 

 the results of its treatment would apply to one soil 

 only, and subsoil, one climate and elevation ; where- 

 as there are, even in this country, many soils and 

 subsoils, climates and elevations ; and it can scarce- 

 ly be expected tliat,either by individual or by pub- 

 lic means, such farms should ever be provided in 

 such number. Still, we wish, as agriculturists, 

 instead of uncertain local rules of practice, unknown 

 beyond the districts in which they are severally 

 handed down, to attain the knowledgi! of general 

 certain laws, not less certain because liable to 

 many equally certain local exceptions, — that is to 

 say, if we wish to raise our important art to the 

 rank of a science, this difficulty must be overcome. 

 After all, however, it is not a difficulty with which 

 we alone have to cope. On the contrary, botany, 

 geology, and other sciences which might be nam- 

 ed, depend equally upon the collection of numerous 

 minute facts, bj individual observers, over a large 

 surface, even that of the whole globe. But it has 

 been found, in these and in many departments of 

 knowledge, that by the formation of permanent so- 

 cieties, having the promotion of the particular sci- 

 ence for their special object, great progress has 



been attained. Such a society, by bringing to- 

 gether men who are already desirous of a commi 

 end, encourages their zeal, and attracts other li 

 borers into the field. U also regulates their e: 

 deavors, as their mutaal intercourse shows themi 

 more clearly the points of doubt which partioular* 

 ly require to be cleared up. Further, sticW socii 

 ety, as it spreads forth its branches, prflPdes f 

 scattered but disciplined host of observers and pi-' 

 oneers. Lastly, the facts thus obtained are recor- 

 ded, and gradually accumulate, until, by careful 

 comparison of the points in which they agree, soma 

 general rule is discovered ; and, of those in which 

 they differ, the exceptions are also found, and tha 

 causes of those exceptions. It is thus that ge* 

 ology has grown into a science within the pre.-ent 

 century. It may be said, indeed, that the labor of 

 observation on so minute and extended a scale is 

 great, and tlie prospect of practical improvement, 

 at best, problematical. It might be asked, in re- 

 ply to such spiritless objections, why agriculture 

 should be the only science in which patient pursuit 

 of knowledge found no reward ? — or whether, while 

 the philosopher, from mere love of science, seeking, 

 for instance, to learn the fixed causes which gov- 

 ern the most changeful and seemingly accidental 

 of all natural things, notes down daily, from year 

 to year, the shiftings of the wind and the rise or 

 fall of the weather-glass, hoping that at last he may 

 be able to arrange these endless vicissitudes unde; 

 some regular system, and thereby know of a cer- 

 tainty the signs of the sky, — we, the owners and 

 occupiers of the land, on a matter whiirein we 

 have a strong interest, in which the whole nation, 

 as consumers, and many millions as laborers, have 

 an interest also, on a matter too in which so much 

 improvement has been long ago made, so much is 

 still making, and so much is in prospect, should 

 alone be so faint-hearted, or so short-sighted, as to 

 doubt that, by our combined exertions, the bounds 

 of our own science may be enlarged; and that, be- 

 sides this hope, which is sufficient for the followers 

 of other sciences, wo inay at the same time advance 

 our own interests, give more bread — not to our loss, 

 but with our own gain — to our dependent work- 

 men, and strengthen at the same time the country's 

 resources .' 



But such arguments are not needed. On the 

 contrary, there are proofs on all sides, whether in 

 the weekly increase of this society's numbers, in 

 the local societies which are springing up in every 

 county, in the farmers' clubs which are being form- 

 ed, the new machines which are invented, new ma- 

 nures, and new varieties of seed which are announ- 

 ced — above all, and practically, in the improving 

 face of the country ; which show that the British 

 farmer is not liable to the charge of being blindly 

 attached to ancient practice, but is ready, with the 

 cauticn however which befits a man whose liveli- 

 iiood is in agriculture, as well as his pleasure, to 

 adopt improvements in his art, and even to seek 

 for them — that the spirit of inquiry is afloat — that 

 this Society is formed therefore in an auspicious 

 time, and does but represent the wishes of those 

 whose whom it seeks to unite in the road of knowl- 

 edge, which they are already disposed to pursue, 

 ;ind that its exertions will be engaged, not so much 

 in stimulating as in methodizing the general desire 

 for improvement. How we may best combine and 

 order the separate etibrts of our individual niembers 

 on the details of whose exertions, duly combined, 

 in the various paths of our diversified art, to a com- 

 mon end, and carefully and honestly made known 



