26 
THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 
[JAx. 10, 
best flour to bake is not necessarily the most nutri- 
tive; Now,a patent has been taken out for another 
method ofbaking, and one which will probably become 
adulterate his flour to almost any extent, without 
risk of detection from the appearance of the bread. 
And, as we said before, we consider this subject 
to be of great importance ; one indeed which de- 
serves a searching investigation, It will always be 
the farmer's interest to supply such goods as best 
answer his customers' purpose, and what he wants 
is, information to guide him in selecting from among 
the many prolific varieties of grain now offered for 
sale, that which, while it answers the circumstances 
of climate and soil in which he is placed, shall, at the 
same time, yield the most nutritive and intrinsically 
valuable flour. "This information must be supplied 
to him by the chemist ; aud there are two questions 
which require to be fully answered, 1st, What is the 
actual composition of the existing varieties of grain ? 
and 2d, Are the nutritive qualities of varieties con- 
stant? i. e. supposing 8 varieties to be named, will 
they always preserve a constant relative position in 
the scale of nutritiveness ? 
Now a lengthened investigation of the kind here 
required is enormously expensive. Five hundred 
pounds were lately subscribed in Scotland for such 
an investigation into the constitution of one vege- 
table—the Potato: this exhibits the cost of such 
inquiries as far too great for private individuals to 
undertake. Sir G. Mackenzie, after urging the 
subject in vain upon the attention of our national 
Agricultural Societies, has taken the first two or 
three steps on the road himself; he has gone just 
far enough to enable him to point out its direction, 
and the difficulties which encumber it, and he has 
thus, to some extent, facilitated future inquiries, but 
these should now be undertaken by a public body, 
and we venture to suggest the formation of a so- 
ciety for this purpose. The subject is, as we have 
said; a matter which concerns the great body of 
consumers, even more than the. farmers, and the 
proposition should, therefore, meet with the more 
general acceptance. We have only to add that we 
shall be happy to receive the suggestions of corre- 
spondents on the subject, and that, should any par- 
tres be disposed to take the matter up in earnest, 
we can put them in the way of those who are wil- 
ling to second their efforts. 
THE BENEFIT OF FARMING WELL FROM THE 
COMMENCEMENT TO THE END OF A LEASE 
(Continued from page 10. 
‘Wrru respect to your remarks on clauses 14, 15, 16, 
and 17, I would observe that my argument was founded 
on 15 per cent. being the average profit where a tenant 
invests 107. per acre in farmingland, for which he pays30s, 
rent, and clears 30s.gain. Where then isthe risk of losing 
his capital? I freely admitthatsome years he gains more, 
and some years less than others, owing tothe uncertainty of 
the English climate, but also owing to this very un- 
certainty it follows that it is highly improbable that 
there should be a succession of bad seasons in con- 
secutive years, which must be the case before loss of 
eapital eould fairly be attributed to the climate, and if 
a tenant should say that he does not clear 30s. per acre, 
let me ask him has he fulfilled his part of the case as I 
stated it? Has he invested 10/. per acre in the busi- 
ness? Has he invested 5/.* Even if he could answer 
the latter question affirmatively, does he expect to clear 
30s. per acre? If so, he would clear 30 percent. ; and 
I again ask, Where is the risk of his capital? Then 
with regard to his being the active partner, ean any one 
say that receiving five times as much interest in propor- 
tion to his capital as compared with that of the land- 
lord or sleeping partner, is not a fair equivalent or 
compensation for his personal exertions? When you 
look to various professions, as law or physic, &c., where 
a partner is taken into an old established firm, do you 
not generally find that the new partner does most of the 
work, the old one becoming the sleeping partner, and 
et receiving the lion’s share of the profit? However, 
I will candidly confess that the prospect of becoming 
lions themselves may in some instances have a con- 
siderable influence on persons entering into partnership 
on such terms in such professions ; consequently, that 
where such a prospect is not held out the active partner 
ought at once to receive more than the sleeping one, 
and I do not think that the proportion before men- 
tioned is at all unfair, my object being merely to suggest 
that the extra rate of interest is sufficient compensation 
for the tenant béing the active partner,and that the 
uncertainty of the English climate is not on an average 
of years a cause to which “risk of capital” can be attri- 
buted. Want of sufficient capital, or the fear of invest- 
ing it in improvements, are far more likely to cause a 
tenant tolose what he has. Without the former every- 
thing connected with the farm is done at a disad- 
vantage, and without discarding the latter what would 
have become .of my friend and his fallow? How 
was he, without being blameable in either of these re- 
spects, injured by want of discretion only in not at once 
resorting to the course he afterwards adopted! But 
none of these evils are the fault of the land, or of the 
landlord, or of the amount of the rent, or of the climate, 
but rest solely with the tenant or his circumstances, or 
his discretion; add to this, that sometimes when: a 
tenant has freely invested his capital, and realises a 
large profit, he fancies that all this income is interest, 
and spends it accordingly on his family, or in his gene- 
ral style of living, forgetting to put by each year so 
much for repayment of principal, and you have then 
probably the chief causes of farmers’ losses laid before 
you, all of which they bring upon themselves. And 
now, in reply to the remark that “ Landlords risk 
nothing, because they are sure of having their land 
again,’? I will quote the words of your Leading Article 
in the Gazette of the 15th ult. “ As the matter stands 
at present, land is often entered upon out of condition.” 
Who put it so? The former tenant. “A period of 
five years elapses, during which the tenant is repairing 
it!” Do you think the landlord does not suffer for this 
being necessary ? “ For the next ten years the tenant 
reaps the fruits of good farming.’ Then, after ten 
years’ experience, why does he not continue to reap 
such fruits? And (now comes a fallacy) “then, from 
a regard to his own interests, he proceeds to diminish 
his expenses.” But does he not, if the former sentence 
be true upon ten years’ experience, also diminish his 
gains? “And ultimately he leaves the farm as he 
found it." hat is to say, the next tenant is to have 
five years’ labour and outlay of capital to restore it to a 
good state of cultivation, and the landlord, if the land is 
not left worse than at the commencement of a 20 years’ 
lease, finds that at all events he has gained nothing by 
granting it. I believe the whole of this paragraph, 
which I have copied from your Paper, to be true, ex- 
cept that which I have pointed out as containing a fal- 
lacy. I have already admitted that a regard.to their 
own interests may be frequently, perhaps generally, 
the true motive as there stated, the fallacy lying in the 
tenant’s ignorance of the results to themselves of this 
line of conduct. ` The only remedies there proposed are 
“either to relet him the land, or to pay him such share 
ofthe expense of the preceding year's green crops as 
may remain unexhausted for the benefit of the incom- 
ing tenant's first grain erop, and by paying him the full 
value of, all straw and manure he may leave behind." 
Tf, on entering, he found a year's manure in the fold- 
yard, gratis, ready for his fallows or fallow crops, as 
ought to be the ease, what plea can he set up to a right 
to be paid for manure on quitting ? and so on for straw, 
&e, It has been found that where the custom has been 
o pay for manure the tenants sometimes deprive the 
land of its due share previous to quitting, so as to collect 
a large heap for sale, a considerable part of which, if 
applied to the land as it ought to have been, would not 
have been to be purchased, and although this is short- 
sighted policy, probably as regards their own interests, | 
it is both annoying and injurious as well as unjust to 
the landlord. With regard to the other remedy I believe 
it is found in practice that landlords are quite as anxious 
to relet to good tenants as the tenants are to remain 
under good landlords, and a sense of mutual, not “uni- 
lateral," benefits arising from liberal conduct on both 
sides is the best bond of connection between the parties. 
I quite agree with you that where a tenant farms with 
spirit to the end of a 20 years’ term he may reasonably 
expect to have the refusal of the farm again, either as 
tenant from year to year or on a new lease as may suit 
the views of the parties ; that is, he ought to be pré- 
ferred to a stranger in whatever arrangement the 
landlord may make, but he must not expect to 
have it again at the same rent, which would be 
ble, as I have d to show, for this 
would annihilate again the landlord’s consideration 
in granting the term. n the other hand, I would 
observe that no tenant has a right to injure his landlord 
even though the motive be to benefit himself. Let 
tenants but reflect on their.duty to others as well as on 
their own peculiar interests, and it may probably prove 
as I have before suggested, that they will reap more 
benefit from pursuing a good system of husbandry to 
the last day of their leases, than from the course more 
generally adopted. The too prevalent custom of ex- 
hausting land as far as they can previous to quitting, 
re-acts most injuriously on the class of tenant farmers, 
and tends as much as anything to indispose landlords to 
grant leases, which are difficult to break on their parts, 
and leads them to prefer tenants from year to year, 
whom they can dismiss at once if they perceive that 
they are acting unfairly by the land instead of being 
obliged to submit “to a system of exhausting it for five 
years Besides, in taking a new tenant, one of the 
first questions that a landlord naturally asks, is why and 
how is he quitting his present farm ? And if the answer 
be unsatisfactory he will probably experience consider- 
able difficulty in finding a landlord venturesome enough 
to take him as tenant where an estate is wel! conducted. 
It is true that by offering more than the worth of a farm 
he may induce some persons to accept him as tenant ; 
but it will probably end in loss to both. ‘I wish to con- 
clude this by requesting tenant farmers not to fancy that 
these remarks are made in an unfriendly spirit; far 
from it. merely wish to lead them to.refleet on the 
results of different modes and principles of conduct, and 
I think it will. be found that if they would keep rigid ac- 
counts of every item of expenditure, comparing the 
produce of improved with that of unimproved land, and 
this again with the extra expense incurred in such im- 
provements, so as to ascertain what kind of improve- ` 
ment yielded the greatest and most permanent return 
for the outlay, they would find it to their own interests 
to farm well throughout the whole of their tenancy, and 
that in their ease as in most others, duty to their neigh- _ 
bours and their own interests are more nearly con- 
nected than they seem to suppose, and I have introduced 
a case in point to prove how necessary it is to throw 
overboard the fear of benefiting a landlord if a tenant 
would benefit himself, or even in some instances not be 
the cause of his own ruin while seeking only, without 
any ill or improper motive, merely to avoid outlay. 
In answer to your correspondent, * A Young Land- 
lord, I would say that a lease. is “ unilateral,” chiefly 
where the tenant is deficient in capital, for then there 
is nothing tangible for the law to take hold of if he farms 
badly, while at the same time the law gives him a hold 
of the land which nothing but a lawsuit, and that of 
doubtful issue, can break, If then he is disposed to 
grant leases, let them not be too long: 14 years will 
amply repay for many improvements, and some ought 
to be expressly stipulated for in the lease, to be effected 
within a fixed time from its commencement, or in default 
the lease to be void. Draining where wanted is perhaps 
the greatest improvement a tenant can reasonably be 
expected to effect. If buildings are wanted, the land- 
lord ought to erect them; as a lease would be inconve- 
niently long for the interest of property, if granted for a 
term that would repay a tenant doing this. lf, however, 
he ean find tenants with high principles of general 
conduct, which I consider a principal if not the chief, 
point to be attended to, combined with sufficient capital 
and skill, leases, properly drawn may be beneficial to 
himself as well as to his tenants, and in this case, as 
stated in your reply, he need not fear the results being 
all on one side. Referring once more to your Leading 
Article of the 15th ult., it will appear that the last five 
of a 20 years' lease are of no use to a tenant, unless to 
exhaust the land for that space of time bea benefit. Ithere- 
foreadvise * A. Young Landlord,’ if he is not thoroughly 
acquainted with the character and circumstances of the 
person applying for a lease, to grant a 7 years’ lease 
first, and at the expiration of that time if he finds 
everything satisfactory he may grant an extension of 
the term. -If you think it may be of any service to your 
readers, I may perhaps at intervals forward to you some 
remarks on certain covenants usually inserted in leases, 
or, agreements from year to year, with a view to elicit 
the opinions of others also upon them, so that the reason 
of adhering to some which, though proper and necessary 
to be retained, are frequently objected to, may clearly 
appear, or that the objections to any that cannot be 
shown so to be may gain strength and prevail, and with 
the further view of suggesting the more general adop- 
tion of certain clauses caleulated to secure a tenant 
f loss of capital, if dismissed by his landlord without 
Tom 
just cause, from having recently invested it in perma- ' 
nent improvements.—.4 Looker-on. 
EXPERIMENT ON ELECTRO-CULTURE AT THE 
GARDENS or tue ROYAL BOTANIC SOCIETY, 
By Epwarp HARMER SHEPPARD, Ese. 
In the early part of the past spring my attention was 
directed to the subject of promoting an increased 
growth of plants by means of some particular appli- 
cation of electricity or galvanism. ` Considering that 
this is quite anew subject, and at present but very little 
understood, and that until the last few months it has 
never received that attention which its importance 
deserves, it is our duty to be very careful in our expe- 
riments and very guarded in our inferences from them, 
The following description and remarks, therefore, are 
brought forward rather with a view to excite attention: 
and induce further research than to propound theories 
or to make assertions which instead of promoting the 
object in view might only tend to mislead. 
It has long been believed that electricity produces:a. 
stimulating effect on vegetation. We read that as far 
back as the middle of the last century, a Mr. Maimbray, 
of Edinburgh, announced that he had succeeded in 
proving that single plants separately electrified grew 
more rapidly and vigorously than those which were not 
so treated ; and since that time this experiment has 
been frequently repeated, and with the same results. 
It has been proved that the growth of a common 
Hyacinth in a glass is much accelerated by giving it 
daily a few sparks from the electrifying machine. Sir 
Humphrey Davy likewise instituted experiments upon 
the germination of seeds, and he noticed that voltaic’ 
electricity powerfully affects plants, and that they grow 
very rapidly near the negative pole of the voltaic battery 
and not quite so rapidly near the positive pole. He 
also observed that drooping plants may be made to 
revive on the artificial application of electricity. A 
highly charged state of the atmosphere, too, causes a 
more healthy colour, and a more rapid development of 
leaf and branch.7 Every leaf indeed is proved to be a 
natural conductor of electricity, collecting the electric 
fluid which surrounds it, and appropriating it to some 
necessary but as yet unknown purpose in its economy. 
