24—1846.] 
THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 
393 
ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND, 
TENDERS FOR CONTRACT, 
HE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF 
ENGLAND is desirous of receiving TENDERS from Inn- 
keepers or others to contract for the supply of a COLD DIN- 
NER for 1200 persons, with a pint of Port, Sherry, or Bucellas, 
to each person, in the Great Pavilion of the Society at Neweas- 
tle-on-Tyne, on Thursday, the 16th of July next, on the occasion 
SE ensuing Annual Country Meeting for the Northern Dis- 
rici 
Printed Forms of Tender may be obtained on personal or 
written application to the Secretary, at the Office ofthe Society, 
No.12, Hanover-square, London, and must be returned to him. 
at that address, properly filled up, on or before Tuesday, the 
23d inst: the Soeiety not binding itself to take the lowest 
By Order of the Council, 
James Hupson, Secretary. 
PARKER and Wrart’s, Surrey-street, Blackfriars, London. 
Agents to Messrs. MINTON & CO., the Patentees, of Stoke- 
upon-Trent, Also Patentees of the PORCELAIN BUTTONS, 
cheaper and more durable than Mother-o'-Pearl, &c. 
The Agricultural Gagett 
SATURDAY, JUNE 13, 1846. 
MEETINGS FOR TH 
Waosuepay, June 17— 
pS 
TWO FOLLOWING WEEKS. 
ety of E; 
Tayrepax, — 25—ARi 
LOCAL SOCIETIES.—Wel's (Ireland)—Belfast Flax Society. 
4 FARMERS’ CLUBS. 
| June 25—Ottery St, Mary 
— $6 Rhiascf Galloway 
June 15 Botley 
Cl O€)-Newton 
Let us return to the subject of Breaxrne vr 
“Grass Lawps. 
It is with the landowner that the decision with 
Tegard to them must rest, and therefore we must 
endeavour in the first place to ascertain what inte- 
rest he hasin their permanence. We by no means 
wish to place him in the invidious position of one 
whose interests are opposed to those of the rest of 
the community; on the contrary we believe that 
his decision inthis matter, if founded on an intelligent 
and long-sighted review of all the circumstances 
connected with it, will be one for the general advan- 
tage; and that, in fact, if it be not advisable for 
landowners to break up their pastures, neither in the 
long run vill any other class connected with agri- 
culture benefit from it. 
Permission to break up a pasture-field is always 
Considered a favour done to the farmer, and it is 
generally accorded either as the only method of 
quieting complaints of an over highly pitched rent, 
ori i tion of an i l annual payment. 
Now, what the landlord desires, and what of course 
Can alone render it his interest to grant this per- 
mission on any extensive scale, is that this increase 
of rent be permanent. This can be attained only 
by a similar permanence in those circumstances on 
which rent depends, viz., the fertility of the land, 
and the excellence of its cultivation ; and to these 
points we must therefore first address ourselves :— 
* How can the fertility of what is called ‘new 
land? be maintained ?" 
It must be acknowledged that this has been the 
great difficulty with most landlords. Pasture-lands 
are not so liable to maltreatment as those which 
are under the plough. They can but be robbed of 
their natural produce of Grass; and that will 
dwindle away as the land deteriorates without the 
entire impoverishment which in arable culture is 
produced by cross-cropping, And the history of 
many a badly-managed Grass-farm is but a record of 
this gradual deterioration, until, the rent being ulti- 
mately loudly complained of, the land has been 
broken up, only to undergo that more rapid im- 
poverishment to which it is rendered liable by the 
more efficient means of exhaustion which arable 
Culture supplies. We have known many pasture- 
elds maltreated thus : permission has been obtained 
for their conversion ; they have been made to bear 
repeated crops of Wheat; and when they could 
yield no more, they have been laid down for “rest,” 
as it is called, and, after the lapse of years, broken 
Up again, simply to undergo a repetition of this mis- 
Management. We have in our eye just now a large 
field not many miles from where we write, which was 
roken up many years ago and sown to Teazles, of 
which it yielded a crop more than equal in value to 
the fee simple of the land ; the consequence was that 
the soil having, under the favourable circumstances 
of that year, been taxed to the utmost of its powers, 
yielded nothing in the next year ; nor has the scanty 
lerbage with which it became naturally coverec 
3ince been equal to the keep of more than a sheep 
Os two per acre per annum. But it has been 
“resting” all this while, and being now supposed to 
have recruited its powers, it has been again broken 
Up during the past season, and is again covered by 
=) Most promising plant of Teazles ; and, should the 
ensuing summer be dry, it will no doubt again 
Yield a valuable but most scourging produce. We 
9 not know if the former tenant threw up the oc- 
Cupation when he had pocketed the proceeds of his 
last Teazle crop, but it is as evident that it was his 
interest to do so as it is manifest that his treatment 
of the land was most injurious to its proprietor. 
Instances might be multiplied to show the risk 
whien under common circumstances (for it is in our 
pasture districts that the least ability to manage 
arable land exists), landlords suffer by granting 
permissionto convert Grass land. The first essential, 
then, to be obtained before such permission be 
granted is sufficient intelligence in the tenant: 
such intelligence as will enable him to see his own 
interest in the adoption of an alternate system of 
husbandry. And with such intelligence, provided 
the other necessary conditions be fulfilled, we believe 
there is no risk whatever of endangering the 
annual value of an estate by leaving its cultivation 
entirely to the will ofits cultivators ; binding them, 
however, it may be, by such few and simple regu- 
lations as they will themselves heartily admit. Let 
one of these stipulations be, that each year half of 
the land, whether it be “new? or “old,” shall be 
made to produce crops of food to be consumed on 
the farm; and another, that no straw be sold off 
the land. And if a hearty and intelligent ac- 
quiescence in these be accorded by a practical 
man, of ordinary energy and sufficient capital, and 
acquainted with approved methods of husbandry,we 
would not fear to let him the land to cultivate it as 
he pleased. Under these circumstances, no land- 
lord need fear injuring his estate by converting its 
pastures. On the farm from which we write, nearly 
200 acres have been broken up during the past seven 
years, and we venture to assert that the land has 
been getting richer and richer every year, and that 
positively we do not know what to do with the straw 
which it yields, and that the consumption of root 
crops and straw produce an amount of manure which 
it is absolutely feared to apply, for the land is thereby 
so puffed out and enriched that, excepting in dry 
summers, the grain crops are all laid and injured ; 
and were it not for the liberality of the landlord, 
who gives permission to sell a portion of the green 
crops, spending some of the returns in oilcake 
or artificial manures, and thus maintaining an equal 
amount of fertilising ability in the farm manure at 
the same time that its bulk, and therefore its inju- 
rious influence on the texture of the soil, are dimin- 
ished ; were it not for this, we really should not see 
away out of this growing and annually increasing 
damage, for each greater crop of straw increases 
the stock of manure, increases that by which an in- 
crease in the bulk of the grain crop would be again 
produced. And with the wet season of last year, 
at the same time that a diminution was suffered of 
one quarter per acre of Wheat in the usual average 
yield of the land, the enormous quantity of straw to 
which the decrease is attributable, has produced by 
its consumption, and that of the root crops, a quan- 
tity of made manure equal to upwards of 40 cubic 
yards for every acre to which, under the rotation, 
manure comes to be applied ; it has thus laid the 
grounds out of which we have no doubt a similar 
experience will arise when that land shall again 
come to yield a grain crop in a dripping season.* 
The landlord need be under no fear of his land 
being impoverished by being broken up, except 
where the tenant has inclination or permission to 
“run it out.” 
And it is satisfactory to find that the researches 
of scientific men corroborate the experience of the 
agriculturist on this point. Dr. DaunENY, in his 
memoir on the rotation of crops, lately read before 
the Royal Society, and published in their ** Trans- 
actions,” points out the enormous supplies which 
every soil contains of those substances on. which fer- 
tility depends ; supplies existing to be sure for the 
most part in a sort of dormant condition—for but a 
small portionis at any one time available as the food 
of plants ; and that small portion may be removed 
by cross cropping, and sterility may thus be pro- 
duced ; but it is only temporary, for rest and expo- 
sure during rest to the influence of atmospheric 
solvents, will prepare from the almost unlimited 
storehouse at command, a fresh stock of food for 
ensuing crops. All this is borne out by experience, 
and the truth ofa theory is thus established on which 
we might raise a conclusive argument for the per- 
manence (under conditions of proper cultivation) of 
that fertility which a newly broken-up pasture field 
always possesses, and on which, of course, its value 
to rent depends. 
It is properto refer here to a fact connected with 
this subject, from which, however, experience shows 
that nothing need be feared. Mr. Darwin has 
= Perhaps, in such a case, the best method for gradually 
bringing down the exuberant fertility of the land, without in- 
juring it by imperfect cultivation, would be to adopt a rotation 
‘similar to that of Mr, Dimmery, described by Mr. Morton in the 
‘English Agri. Soc. Journal;” where Wheat is followed by 
green crop fed off, and that by Potatoes, or other green crop, 
sold; this would give two fallow crops in three years, but it 
would also involve the sale of two crops off the land in the same 
time. 
shown that the rest in which land lies when in pas- 
tureis favourable to the activity of worms, to whose 
agency he has proved that we mustin great measure 
attribute the fine texture of our surface soils, and it 
has been urged that in breaking up Grass lands we 
break up and destroy those efficient arrangements 
which are in progress for the deepening and refin- 
ing of our soils. But to show that nothing of this 
kind need be feared, it only needs that we refer to 
the experience of gardeners on this point, who find 
no injury, but, on the contrary, great benefit, and 
increased fertility, from a repeated trenching and 
overturning of the soil to its full depth. 
Let us just repeat the point which we have been 
endeavouring to illustrate: an intelligent tenant 
having been obtained, provided the other necessary 
conditions be fulfilled, no landlord need fear grant- 
ing him permission to break up such pasture lands 
as he may deem it advisable to convert. The 
“other necessary conditions” we have yet to con- 
sider. 
Tue Sraristics or BRITISH AGRICULTURE have 
yet to be ascertained. -No one ventures to deny 
the important uses which a body of information of 
this sort would serve. The politician laments his 
ignorance of the real extent of the resources of 
agriculture; how far they have been developed, 
and under what circumstances. The landowner is 
similarly in the dark as to the true position of the 
interest in which he has so large a stake. The 
minister admits the value of the information such 
facts convey; yet, strange to say, we are still 
without them. Legislation, however, goes on. 
Measures affecting agriculture are discussed with the 
greatest confidence. Old figuresandestimates, which 
though they have never been disputed, have never 
been confirmed, pass current; and where there is a 
dearth of these ancient facts, it is still easy to 
imagine or concoct “modern instances” more 
suitable to the circumstances of the case in hand. 
As an illustration of the “flexibility” of the sta- 
tistical facts (!) which we are now in possession of, 
we may mention that the annual value of the agri- 
cultural produce of this kingdom was estimated by 
two opposite authorities a few weeks ago at 
220,500,0007. and 600,000,0007. respectively. This 
circumstance, illustrative of the manner in which 
figures can be made to bear out the most opposite 
conclusions, strikingly shows us the necessity which 
exists for more precise knowledge on a subject of 
so much consequence as the real position and ca- 
pabilities of agriculture. Nor is this an individual 
opinion founded on isolated grounds. It is an evil 
acknowledged by our most eminent statistical au- 
thorities. ‘It is much to be regretted,” says Mr. 
Porter, “that in this country, rich as we are in 
the possession of facts connected with , man 
branches of social economy, we are almost unin- 
formed with regard to the statistics of agriculture. 
The knowledge we have upon that most important 
subject—the quantity of land in cultivation within 
the kingdom, is entirely due to the industry of an 
individual whose estimates have never either been 
confirmed or questioned. What proportion of the 
cultivated land is applied to the production of any 
one article of food, it has never been attempted to 
ascertain. We know every rood of ground that is 
employed in the cultivation of Hops, because of the 
direct financial interest which the Government has 
in ascertaining the fact; but it does not appear to 
be sufficiently understood how the national interest 
can be concerned in any kind of knowledge that 
does not yield money to the exchequer.” Still 
more culpable does our neglect of this subject 
appear, when we consider that, with one ex- 
ception, ours is the only country in Europe 
where the Government is not acquainted with 
the true position of each branch of this im- 
portant interest, as exhibited by correct periodical 
returns of the results of the labour and capital 
employed. Young even as America is she obtains 
at decennial periods the fullest information on the 
oints we neglect, and to them her statesmen look 
with no slight interest * as the indices of the real 
progress which has been made in the interval, and 
as an exemplar of the results of the system. of legis- 
lation which has been worked upon. 
It cannot, therefore, be less important that in 
England, where every branch of physical industry is 
in that stage of progress when jealousy is rife and 
no one can be elevated at the expense of another, 
e extracts which 
we shall shortly publish, from the replies of Col. H. S. Randall, 
of Cortland, U.S., to a ie S y 
of the United States, asking for statistical information on Agri- 
cultural subjects. e answers are extracted from the 
Secretary's Report to Congress, and “were elicited," says the 
Cortland Democrat “for the purpose of 
example, 
