276 THE 
AGRICULTURAL GAZE 
TTE. [APRIL 25, 
the great seal of the corporation of that town, in final 
ratification of the terms of arrangement which had 
passed the great seal of the Society at the last monthly 
meeting of the Council. 
Mr. Grey, of Dilston, Mr. Crosby, of Kirkbythore, 
and Mr. Johnson, of Warkworth, having placed their 
services at the disposal of the Council, in reference (to 
the carrying out of details connected with the ensuing 
"Country Meeting in the northern district, the Council 
ordered their best thanks to be communicated to those 
gentlemen respectively for their kind offers. 
Mr. Josera Rice, of Abbey House, called the atten- 
tion of the Council to the desirableness of measures 
being taken as much as possible for the purpose of 
enabling the ingenious but small implement maker, o 
limited means, to exhibit the cheap, simple, and perhaps 
in??many cases most efficient implement, invented by 
kim, at the Country Meetings of the Society. 
Conveyance ro NEWCASTLE.— The Secretary reported 
to the Council the steps he had taken, pursuantly to the 
order of the Council, for the purpose of obtaining in- 
formation on the subject of' conveyance by railways 
and steamers from different parts of the kingdom to 
Neweastle-upon-Tyne, The various communications 
connected with these inquiries were laid before the 
Council, who directed that when replies from the whole 
of the parties to whom application has been made shall 
have been received, the Secretary be requested to in- 
elude the points of information thus obtained, in the 
classed form of schedule, to be transmitted to the 
several exhibitors of stock and implements for their 
guidance, 
Rarmway LrsERALITY.— The Secretary then called 
the particular attention of the Council to communica- 
tions he had received from Mr. Creed, secretary of the 
London and Birmingham Railway Company ; from 
Mr. Herbert, secretary to the London and Dover Rail- 
way Company ; and from Mr. Swan, secretary to the 
Newcastle, North-Shields, and Tynemouth Railway 
Company, conveying in the most liberal and handsome 
terms the great satisfaction it-gave to the chairman 
and board of directors of their respective companies to 
be enabled to promote the disinterested and national 
objects of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, 
by granting a free transit along their respective lines of 
railway to the stock and implements intended bona fide 
for show at the country meetings.— The Duke of Ricu- 
MOND expressed the gratification it gave him to hear of 
as well as in;the case of no farm-yard manure at all. 
All the produce of diseased Potatoes has proved to be 
sound and good ; even that experimental portion of it, 
which for the last six weeks prior to ripening has been 
exposed to a moist heat ; such experimental portion, 
instead of exhibiting any tendency to disease under 
such condition, furnishing on the contrary finer Pota- 
toes—not only sound and mealy, but much superior 
both in size and quality. From the tubers planted in 
a box in October, in dry heat, five sprouts have been 
taken successively from each tuber, and planted along 
with the original tubers in the open ground for a crop : 
all the plants of this multiplied crop are now growing 
luxuriantly. 
CnETACEoUs Gyrsum.—Myr. MovLz, of Western 
Canada, addressed a further communication to the 
Council, on the subject of the results obtained by him 
in that part of the world with the cretaceous gypsum, 
to whieh he had referred in his previous letters ; with 
an opinion, that to the use of this cheap dressing he 
attributed the great fertility of Canada, and a statement 
that on one of his own 50-aere fields, chiefly Wheat, he 
had last summer grown 40 bushels per acre ; the land 
of his farm having been through the usual roíation of 
crops for the previous nine years, and the portion on 
which this Wheat was grown never having had any 
dressing whatever, pting one bushel per ll 
of the eretaeeous gypsum in question. At the sug- 
gestion of the President, it was arranged that Mr. Moyle 
should be requested to send a ton of this manure to 
the Society, which would be tried by individual members 
of the Council, and the practical result of its applicabi- 
lity to the soils of this country ascertained. 
Mr. Fuller, M.P., transmitted from the Rev. James 
Williams one of the Potato-eye scoops used in North 
Wales, along with a statement of his experience in the 
improvement in the bulk of the Potato as food after the 
extraction of the eye, around which the development of 
the vegetative principle being the strongest, the re- 
moval of such portion along-with the eye, removes, in 
his opinion, the cause of that “strong” flavour found 
inthe Potato at this season of the year. 
Mr. Rogers, of Liverpool, transmitted a communica- 
tion, suggesting the trenching of ground this year for 
Potatoes. 
Mr. Forsyth, gr. to the Earl of Shrewsbury, trans- 
mitted’a Pamphlet on the Culture and Economy of the 
the great liberality which these railwa; p had 
thus shown towards the Society, and he had much 
pleasure in moving that a vote expressive of the best 
thanks of the Council for these communications, and of 
the high sense they entertain of the value of these most 
liberal concessions, be conveyed to the chairman and 
board of directors of these railwa; ies respec- 
Potato, and also a communication on the subject of 
H: ki 
The Commissioners of Excise presented 50 copies of 
the Parliamentary Report on Feeding Cattle with Malt, 
for which mark -of attention the Council ordered their 
thanks to be returned. 
The Members of Council and Governors present then 
tively. This motion was carried unanimously. 
Naxep Bartry.—The PRESIDENT laid before the 
‘Council a communication received from the Horticul- 
tural Society on the subject of the Hordeum regoceras, 
a kind of Naked Barley, raised in the Chiswick Gardens 
from seeds transmitted to England by Capt. Monro, 
who stated them to have been obtained from “ the 
finest Barley grown by the Chinese Tartars.” The 
‘seeds thus placed at the disposal of the President, had 
not only been distributed by him for trial among par- 
‘ties capable of testing the value of the plant, but having 
himself received from China three years ago a supply 
of the same kind of seed through a relative of his neigh- 
bour the Earl of Ilehester, he had dibbled the two 
supplies alongside each other, and in autumn he would 
report to the Council the result, and furnish seed for 
further trial. In the meantime, he might state that as 
this Barley was unfit for malting, he did not anticipate 
that it would be of any further use in this country than 
as an early green feed. 
CurvEsE RAPE-SEED AND Orr.— The Presipent also 
daid before the Council a communication from the Hor- 
tieultural Society on the Brassica Chinensis, or Shang- 
hai Oil-plant, a hardy annual, grown for the sake of its 
oil over the whole country round that city, but which 
may be cultivated in almost every kind of soil ; and 
though of no imp: in an horticultural point of 
"view, may be fraised by farmers for feeding cattle, or 
‘on account of the oil which it so abundantly yields. He 
had likewise placed portions of this supply of seeds in 
the hands of the Rev. A. Huxtable, and other parties, 
for trial, and would report the result.— The Council 
ordered their best thanks to be transmitted to the Hor- 
ticultural Society for these communications, and for the 
‘supply of seeds, and the first two parts of the Journal of 
that Society with which they were accompanied. 
Poraro Expertments.—The Presrpent took that op- 
portunity of communicating to the Couucil the results of 
experiments on the growth of Potatoes from diseased 
tubers, of which he had on a former occasion reported 
the progress, These highly interesting and important 
experiments will be detailed in all their circumstances 
an à paper which his lordship expressed his intention of 
preparing for publication in the Journal of the Society. 
Among the results obtained by Lord Portman in these 
experiments, the following striking facts may be briefly 
stated :— 
Where eyes were planted which had been scooped 
out, but allowed to become stale, the greater part of 
them have failed: but where fresh eyes were planted, 
all of them are growing, Of the autumn-planted Po- 
tatoes, all are doing well in dry ground ; but only half 
are doing well in ground less friable, the other half 
proving rotten: the same effect resulting under the 
latter condition, both on and under farm-yard dung, 
ded to the business of the Special Council. 
Sercran Counctt.—The Right Hon, Lord Porrman, 
President, in the Chair. 
The Secretary laid before the Council the various do- 
cuments he had received from nine of the cities and 
corporate towns situate within the distriet for the 
Country Meeting of the Society in the year 1847, in 
q of the ieation into which, pursu- 
antly to the instructions of the Counci!, he had entered 
with the authorities respectively of those places. 
The Council having taken into due consideration the 
whole of these documents, at length selected such four 
of the localities as appeared from the evidence fur- 
nished to the Council to be best suited for the purpose 
of the Country Meeting of that year, to which the per- 
sonal visit of the Committee of Inspection should be 
directed, and on the respective capabilities of which for 
such purpose the Committee should be requested to re- 
port to the Monthly Council on the 6th of May next, 
when the final selection of the place of meeting will, 
reeably with the bye-laws, be made. * 
OFFICIAL AGREEMENTS.—Mr. Mires, M.P., gave 
notice that, at the next Monthly Council, he should 
move, “ That, in future, no agreement which may be 
entered into with local authorities relative to the place 
of the Annual Country Meeting, shall be held good, 
unless the corporate seal,attested by the signature of 
the Mayor, be applied to such document,” 
The Weekly Council stands adjourned to Wednes day 
next, the 29th instant. 
Farmers’ Clubs. 
Lowpow : Improved Form of Farm Leases.— April 6. 
—Mr. Brapett, in rising to open the question, com- 
menced by saying that of the many subjects which in- 
terested the agricultural world, there was none of 
reater importance than that which related to the bar- 
gain to be made between the land owner and the land 
occupier ; and it was upon the way in which that was 
carried out, that much of the prosperity of both must 
depend. They must admit that this bargain ought to 
be mutually binding ; that was to say, that it should be 
so framed as to prevent the tenant from itti 
14, in others again 21 years; and in Scotland 19 years 
was the favourite term. Why it should be so he knew 
not, but so it was ; that period appeared to suit very 
well, and it generally secured to the landlord a good, 
honest, industrious, and improving tenanf. "They could 
not expect that the tenant would employ his capital and 
go into improvements of his farm unless he had fixity 
of tenure ; and that not such as would merely enable 
him to derive back the money which he had put into it ; 
but such as would give him a handsome profit into the 
bargain. If they considered how few years would suffice 
to enable the tenant to get back his money, he did not 
think there would be much necessity for legal leases. 
But he held that the enterprising tenant who brought 
his knowledge to bear in improving they ty which 
he farmed, was entitled to a rate of profit far beyond 
what the mere interest on his money would afford him. 
They all knew as well as he did, that the farmer was in 
most cases tied down to a certain course of cropping ; 
very ordinarily to four crops, namely, one-fourth to 
naked fallow, one-fourth to spring corn, one-fourth to 
Clover, and one-fourth to Wheat. He mentioned this 
for the purpose of showing the absurdity of the system. 
There were, of course, variations from this plan ; some 
where green crops, Turnips, and other things were 
allowed to be grown in fallow, and others where Beans 
and Peas, with Clover, were allowed to be taken. But 
he had met with many instances of the plan he had first 
mentioned, although they knew that the system of 
naked fallows was pretty nearly exploded. He recol- 
lected an instance in which the proviso of naked fallow 
appeared in the lease, and he called upon the party 
in order to speak to him upon the absurdity of it; and 
also to remonstrate on the absurdity of tying down 
the tenant to put down Clover once in every four 
years. The reply was, that the tenant must plant his 
Clover, and if it did not take, he would then be 
allowed to put in Peas and Beans. Thus, the 
tenant would in that case be called upon to spend 10s. 
or 12s. an acre without any benefit whatever to the 
landlord. He mentioned this as a specimen of cases 
which had frequently come across him. Leases con- 
taining these objectionable provisoes were drawn and 
persisted in time after time, and he could only account 
or it in this way, that the old form of lease was handed 
down from generation to generation, and adopted, 
whether conformable to the wants of the present day or 
not. The family lawyer was called in to draw a lease, 
and the old, musty record—which did all very well at a 
period when farmers could neither read nor write—was 
got down, and a lease drawn according to its prescribed 
form ; and if the tenant remonstrated against any of its 
obsolete provisions or covenants, the reply was, “ If you 
do not sign that, you can’t have the farm at all.” Well, 
what was the consequence ? Why, the lease was signed 
for the sake of getting the farm, thrown into the bureau, 
and never thought of any more until the tenant was 
about to quit it. His experience was, to a certain de- 
gree, limited upon these points. But he knew that fre- 
quently, when the tenant was about to quit his farm, 
and when the lease was read, and covenants which he 
ought to have observed were pointed out to him, he 
remarked : * Oh ! I never looked at that.’ ‘The lease, 
in fact, under such circumstances, became a dead letter 
until the end of the term for which it had been taken, 
and the conditions were enforced, and the tenant was 
made subject to covenants to which he ought never to 
have been subjected. If these objectionable clauses 
could, by any means which they could devise, be substi- 
tuted by more plain and understandable ones, which 
tenants could and would act under, why they should ac- 
complish a great and permanent good. In some leases 
there were covenants for reserved rents of as much as 
10/7. an acre for certain offences. Now, all these things 
ought to be, and should be, got rid of : the punishment 
bore no proportion to the offence. The tenant certainly 
ought not to do anything in opposition to his lease ; but 
if he did, he ought at least to have the same amount of 
justice measured out to him as a person would in one of 
the criminal courts, where the punishment would only 
be proportionable to the offence. Reserved covenants 
would doubtlessly be well got rid of altogether. He 
did not think there was any great objection to the sys- 
tem: of imposing penalties ; for if a penalty were 
conditionally imposed, say of 507., 1007, or 2004, why 
he did not so much object to that, as it only, in point of 
fact, meant a penalty to cover the amount of damage 
done to the estate by the misconduct of which the tenant 
might have been guilty. It was said that it was much 
more easy to find fault than to mend ; however, think- 
ing it might be useful, he had turned his attention to 
what a lease ought to embrace ; and he would take the 
liberty of very shortly stating the sort of lease which 
would accomplish the objects which they had in view, 
namely, to secure the rights and interests of the !and- 
lord, and at the same time to give liberty and elasticity 
tions of the tenant, and enable him to do 
waste upon the estate of his landlord, at the same time 
giving him all the liberty and all the rights chat he 
could enjoy short of that. Now, leases, as at present 
drawn, did not secure this object. They found leases 
teeming with reserved rents and shifts, but very little 
appeared in them which had the effect of securing to 
the landlord what were his just rights, and of giving 
liberty and elasticity to the operations of the tenant. 
He apprehended that in dealing with the tenant, the 
point next in importance to the lease itself was the 
term of the lease ; and they could hardly go into any 
county without finding that the terms of leases varied. 
They had in some counties the term of seven, in others 
T 
those things which it was so desirable to do at the pre- 
sent day. In the case of every lease with which he 
had anything to do, he should like that it should be 
short ; he had in the way of business frequently to read 
over leases of five, six, or seven skins, and he was of 
opinion that a lawyer must be badly acquainted with his 
business who could not draw a lease in one skin. The 
conditions might be made equally stringent, whether 
the lease occupied one skin or six. (Hear, hear) He 
would just mention one case, which had occurred very 
near to the place where their excellent chairman was 
born :—A tenant had had some dispute with his land- 
lord, and came to consult him as to what he should 
