6.—1840.] 
CLARK'S HOTHOUSE | 
METALLIC f WORKS. 
55, LIONEL-STREET, BIRMINGHAM. 
Proprietor, Mr. THOMAS CLARK. 
Superintendent of the Works, Mr. JOHN JONES, — 
N returning his grateful thanks to the Nobility, 
Gentry, and Public at large, for their libcin. patronage of 
the above Establishment during a pe: reanty 30 y 
Mr. CLARK begs to state that the re cı the duty on G: 
enables him to offer his METAL u10 110 and GREENHOUSES 
at a greatly reduced price, These: Houses are glazed with 
British Sheet Glass, in panes of from 24 to 30 inches in length, 
and of such thickness as to preclude all danger of accidental 
reakage, whilst that which arises from the action of frost 
(frequently amounting to 25 per cent. per annum), is effectually 
prevented by the peculiar mode of glazing adopted. As a sam- 
ple of his Metallic Hothouses, in which all the most recent im- 
provements are happily combined, Mr. Crank refers with pride 
and satisfaction to the magnificent range erected by him in 
the new Royal Gardens at Frogmore, which is admitted by all 
competent judges to be the most complete and perfect of its 
kind in the world. 
Che Agricultural exasette. 
THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 89 
“No; it would cost five or six pounds an acre to 
drainit.” And how much more would it then grow 
per aere with the same labour? “ Why, perhaps 
eight or ten bushels.” Well, then, there’s the price 
of eight or ten busheis to set against the interest of 
five or six pounds. “ But I have not got the capital 
to drain it with!” , Have you not? Why, then, 
you have hired a mill that you can't work ! andthe 
more you try to raise your prices artificially in 
order to cure that evil, the fewer and less able your 
customers will be, and the worse your business will 
become? “ But my landlord speaks differently ; he, 
like me, wishes for high prices." Does he? Then 
he is under a GREAT MISTAKE! for lower prices 
would bring you more profit, and you could afford 
to pay him a higher rent. High prices are as un- 
favourable to the landlord's rent as they are to the 
tenant's profit. Every application of capital that 
enables you to grow more produce per acre at the 
same expence, increases the value of the land to 
rent, while it lowers the price of the produce. There's 
a paradox for you! Present it to your landlord with 
my compliments, and if he asks you whether 
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1846. 
MEETINGS FOR THE TWO FOLLOWING WEEKS. 
WxosxspAY, Feb. 1 
THünsDAY, — 19— 
LOCAL SOCIETIES.—Bath—Gondhurst—Newry. 
FARMERS’ CLUBS. 
Feb. 9—Hereford — Great Oakley— | Feb. 
Wenlock—W. Market—Ciren- 
y 
cester — Yoxford— Exminster — St. Germains— 
—Selb: Chelmsford — Halesworth — 
— 10—Dorking—St. Peter’s—Wot- Wadebridga 
ton Basset — Rochford Hun- | — 14—Probus—Winchcomb—Swan- 
dred—Framlingham 
— li—Braintree and Bocking — 16— Botley 
Iw the retrospective view of the experiences of 
late years which we ventured upon at the opening of 
this, we endeavoured to point attention to two 
leading features in the history of past AGRICULTURAL 
Practice, as having tended to retard improvement. 
One, we stated, was obvious, and of common re- 
mark, viz the disproportionate application of 
capital to this, as compared with the other great 
objects of enterprise around -us: the second we 
pointed to as a deeper seated, and less generally 
noticed evil, viz., that “the Farmer’s attention has 
been hitherto called rather to the price that he 
could obtain for a given quantity than the amount 
that he could grow upon a given space.” 
Postponing the first of these considerations, we 
request the attention of our readers to the second. 
Having detected the pickpocket, we now proceed 
te try him. The charge against this offender, this 
same **Price" is, that whereas the whole attention 
and energies of the farmer should have been directed 
to the true and legitimate object of his trade, 
namely the production of corn of the best quality, 
and in the greatest quantity, and with the utmost 
economy,—this fickle, deceiving, changeable rogue, 
this artful dodger, has captivated and drawn away 
his the said farmer's mind and attention from his 
real business and best interests, and like a true 
Jack o'Lantern as he is, now shining up aloft, now 
sunk in the slough of despond, has dragged John 
Bull *through mud and mire, through brake and 
briar” in a vain, visionary, and ruinous pursuit, that 
has disappointed himself, and made him ridiculous 
to others. Like the dog in the fable, in snapping at 
the shadow he has dropped the substance. But 
we do not blame him. We blame those who directed, 
or rather distracted his attention to it, and who 
ought to have known better. The object of trade 
is profit: and PROFIT DOES xor DEPEND UPON PRICE. 
The greatest fortunes that have ever been made in 
business have been made by the application of in- 
vention and capital with the object of lowering the 
price by economy of production, and thereby in- 
creasing the demand by i ing the ption 
Lok at the Cotton-trade. When did the Peels and 
the Arkwrights make their gigantie fortunes? When 
they lowered the price by cheapening the production, 
and got 20 customers for one by lowering the price! 
But “this does not apply to agriculture.” How so? 
Is not agriculture a trade? Are not the plough 
and the soil together the machine that makes corn ? 
And does not the applieation of capital in draining 
your field enable you to produce a better article, 
and in greater quantity, upon the same space, and 
with less labour, and therefore more economy ? Does 
it not, therefore, enable you to sell it cheaper, and 
when it is cheaper will not the half-fed poor be able 
to buy more of it? The application of capital has 
a natural tendency to lower prices by economising 
production, but so infinitely more numerous are the 
poor than the rich, that the instant you lower your 
price you haye ani increase of cust. 
which tends again to keep it up by the more extended 
demand, and you find that it is better to turn 50 
pence than one shilling, and that you get more 
profits with a low price than you did with a high 
One. * T can't afford to sell corn under 7s. a bushel,” 
you say. Can’t you? Is your farm all drained ? 
your informant was not “some cotton-twisting, 
political - economy - mongering spinning - jenny,” 
tell him no! he was a farmer and a landlord, 
whose whole income is from his land, as was 
that of his ancestors before him. But while 
you are about it, comfort his astonishment by the 
assurance that while capital, and every advance in 
agricultural science, tend to lower price by increas- 
ing acreable produce, the rapid increase of popula- 
tion tends to keep up prices by increasing the de- 
mand, and the farmer and landlord will gain at 
both ends ; for price, so supported, does increase 
profit: but in no other way. Tell him that if re- 
strictive duties on importation prevent lower prices 
from coming in at the door, the substituted compe- 
tition at home brings them in at the window ; but 
with this disadvantage, that do what you will you 
cannot relieve your glut from this source, when, as 
in 1834 and 1835, you get one. If prices will get 
lower one way or the other, is it not safer to open 
a road out as well as inwards, and give to the ad- 
vancing powers of the British plough-share all that 
Britons want, “a fair field and no favour?" to chal- 
lenge all the world to a ploughing-match, and beat 
them on their own ground, Great as our home de- 
mand already is, we are rapidly overtaking it: we 
are approaching that condition when we must 
increase our business whether we like it or no! 
Tell him, moreover, that the English demand 
is already so powerful, that it influences the 
price current at Dantzic, Königsberg, Hamburgh, 
Stettin, Odessa, and every port in the world 
that has still corn left for importing nations, 
which are yearly increasing, while the exporting 
ones are diminishing. That so vast is the influence 
of the British demand, that for every shilling that 
they could affect our prices they would affect their 
own from five to ten. That with an unfettered 
trade England will become the corn-mart, as 
she is already the money-mart of the world; 
and her agriculture, no longer a sliding, uncer- 
tain trade, will at once assume! its true cha- 
racter as a great business and a safe investment 
for capital, by which, as we have beaten them 
in every otherart, we shall beat them in our agri- 
culture, which, though now “in its infancy, bids fair 
to attain a stature that shall vindicate its place 
among the rapid and gigantic growths that modern 
times have seen in other arts, and exemplify the 
scientific and economie truths that their progress 
has established," and tell him not to be in a panic, 
for in a very few years he willsee and understand all 
this as clearly as it is seen by his humble adviser— 
QU WEICH. 
Is 1842 the aggregate expenditure of the Mid- 
land's Railway Companies was nearly 220,0007. on 
a revenue of about 440,0007. In 1845, under Mr. 
Hupson’s amalgamation of those companies, the ex- 
penditure has been 207,0007, and the revenue 
625,0007. The dividend, which was formerly 2l., 
is now 67. 12s. 9d. Acting, we suppose, on the 
supposition that what is true in this respect of the 
rail is true of the road, Sir Ronerr Pzrr proposes 
to take ras Manacrment or Hicnways out of the 
hands of the local authorities, at the same time ren- 
dering compulsory those district amalgamations 
which, under the existing law, are now only volun- 
tary. From the instances, which he adduced, where 
advantage had been taken of the permission in the 
law alluded to, it appears that an original expendi- 
ture of Gd. to 9d. in the pound for surveying and 
repairing the roads, was, under the centralised 
system afterwards in force, reduced to from 11g, 
to 3d. in the pound ; the money in the former case 
being in effect thrown away, while the work now is 
being done in the best manner. 
Now, this statement we have to acknowledge is 
somewhat irrelevant to our present purpose (it is 
not our t a: present to consider the poliey o 
Sir Romzar's proposal); but we make it simply to 
iroduee a few remarks on a subject which, as it 
will soon be considered in Parliament, is likely also 
to attract no inconsiderable attention from the 
public. We wish to direct attention, not to the 
most economical method of applying the funds pro- 
vided by law for the maintenance of roads (whether 
turnpike roads or highways), but to the most advan- 
tageous, the least injurious method of collecting 
them. And we beg to lay before our readers a 
work from which all our information on this subject 
has been obtained, viz.—* Road Reform ; a Plan 
for Abolishing Turnpike Tolls and Statute-labour 
Assessments, and for providing the Funds necessary 
for maintaining the Public Roads, by an Annual 
Rate to be levied on Horses.”* The calculations 
and proposals in this book have merely local bear- 
ings ; they are all the more definite and intelligible 
on that account; they are confined to a statement 
of the income and expenditure, under existing cir- 
cumstances, of the Road Trusts constituted under 
certain Acts of Parliament for Fife and Kinross- 
shires; with estimates and illustrations of the same, 
under the alterations which are proposed. Half of 
the book is taken up with the historical and statis- 
tical matter necessary to establish the data on which 
the author’s reasonings are afterwards founded ; 
and the latter part of it is occupied with the plan 
of Road Reform which Mr. Pacan has proposed, 
and we have no doubt that those even who are 
not technically interested in the subject of it 
will agree with us in considering it both inte- 
resting and instructive. In place of the present 
tol system, from the produce of which a very 
large sum has to be deducted for expenses of 
collection, &c., and the present system of levying 
rates upon land, &e., which involves the injustice 
of laying the entire burden of repairing highways 
upon the agricultural interest, at the same time 
that they are equally chargeable with the rest of 
the community for the support and maintenance of 
turnpike roads—in place of these methods, Mr. 
AGAN proposes such a tax upon horses in the 
several districts as shall suffice not only to pay the 
annual expense of maintaining the roads of all kinds, 
but also to provide a sinking fund for the payment 
of existing debts. The sum required in Fife and 
Kinross-shire is estimated at 18,0557. 16s. 8d.; to 
provide this sum it is proposed tolevy 30s. annually 
on each horse, by which, as there are 12,000 horses 
in those counties, the sum of 18,0007. will be ob- 
tained, and to make up the rest by a similar tax of 
less amount on other draught animals, as well as by 
the rental derivable from the toll-houses and steel- 
yards, which will then no longer be required for 
their former purposes. The advantages of this 
method of raising funds for maintaining roads are 
very numerous. Mr. Pacan has most thoroughly 
exhausted that branch of his subject ; we had no 
idea till we had read his book how very many in- 
jurious bearings the present system has on industry 
generally. Mr. Pacaw's plan of road reform in- 
volves the placing roads of all kinds under the same 
management and surveyorship ; it will greatly faci- 
litate the execution of such a measure as Sir R. 
PEEL proposes to enact for the centralisation of 
road management ; it will do away with that in- 
equality by which, under the present system, parties 
having few horses may be chargable to a higher 
amount for the maintenance of the roads than those 
who use many. It will immensely diminish the ex- 
penses of coaching, and, in a corresponding degree, 
of course, it will facilitate intercommunication 
between villages and small towns.] To use the 
enthusiastic language of our author, “ The abolition 
of tolls would cause infinitely more driving; more 
driving infers more horses; more horses infer an 
increased demand for hay and corn. At present we 
are in an artificial condition. The toll-gates bound 
the drives of many, whether for business or plea- 
sure. Once remove them—once throw the roads 
open, and we shall see public and private vehicles 
of every description flying over the length and 
breadth of the land.” 
Mr. Pacan enlarges upon this subject at great 
length, and poiats out in most interesting detail the 
very injurious influences exerted on agricultural 
and all other industry by the present system of road 
management. But we have not room to follow him 
further. We strongly advise our readers to study 
his volume for themselves; and we also hope that 
it will engage the attention of those before whom 
the present system will shortly be laid with a view 
* By William Pagan, write Sons, Edinburgh, 
Svo, pp. 336.—We must mention that Mr. Sayer, of Kingston, 
ad the merit of making a somewhat similar proposal some 
years ago. See p. 548, Ag. Gazette, 1844. 
he expense of a two-horse coach per stage, paying two 
LT 
tolls, is 621. 8s. per annum, 
