26—1846.] THE 
AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 
433 
GRICULTURAL TRAINING SCHOOL, Hod- 
desdon, Herts, one mile from the Broxbourn Station on 
the Eastern Counties’ Railway. Under the direction of a Com- 
mittee of Management. Established for General and Scientific 
Education, including every branch of Agriculture and Civil 
Engineering. 
Resident Head Master.—Mv. HASELWOOD. 
Resident Assistant Masters. 
Mr. J. DONALDSON, 
Mr. E. ASHFORD, 
OLROYD. 
Mr. AIRD, 
Mr. A. W. JACKSON, 
Mr, H 
Agriculture. 
Prof, Doxarpsow, Author of *' British Grasses, Manures,” &c. 
Botany. 
Prof, Coorzn, F.L.S., Author of “ The Botany of Sussex,” &c. 
Chemistry.—Professor ASHFORD. 
Geology, Mineralogy, &c.—Professor JACKSON, F.G.S. 
Management and. Diseases of Cattle. 
Professor J. B. Stwonps, M.R.C.V.S., Lecturer at the Royal 
Veterinary College, London. 
Natural and Experimental Philosophy.—Mr. A. W. JACKSON, 
Practical RI and Levelling. 
Mr. Hasenwoop, and Mr. A. W. JACKSON. 
n extensive Farm, Library, Museum, and Laboratory, are 
attached to the School; and the charge for Board, Lodging, 
Lectures, &c., is so arranged by the Committee of Management, 
as to include every expense (except for Washing and Books), at 
TWENTY-FIVE GUINEAS THE HALF YEAR. 
The School Session is divided into Two Terms ; viz. from the 
80th of January to Midsummer, and from the 30th of July to 
Christmas. 
The course of Education embraces the Classics, Mathematics, 
Natural and Experimental Philosophy, Mechanics, Physics, 
of whom every information may be obtained, 
and references had to gentlemen whose sons are now at the 
Institution, from most of the counties of England ; also from 
Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. 
The Agricultural Gazette. 
SATURDAY, JUNE 27, 1846. 
WzpwsepAY, —  8—Agricultural Society of England 
TnunspAY, —  9—Agriculeural Imp. 
LOCAL SOCIETIES 
Leyland 
FARMERS’ CLUBS. 
July 7—Dorking — Wingerworth — 
July 1-Monmou 
= ergavenny Ardleigh- St 
outh 
2 ~Hawivk —Blofield and Wal- 
sham —Richmond-hire 
— 8—Wrentham — Debenham — —Richmondshire — Lewes — 
Hadleigh—Wakefield— Clay- Wiveliscombe—St. Peter's 
don—Lichfiel — 8—Harleston 
4 Probas—Collumpton—Car- | — 9—Grove Perey 
Tavist 
agriculture in all its phases, and capable alike of 
exciting and satisfying our enquiries ; and there 
cannot be a doubt but that their collection and 
publication would be an invaluable boon to the 
agriculture of the country, and would serve alike to 
stimulate and to direct the future exertions of 
science and practice to improved systems of 
cultivation. 
Their value to science is explained by the consi- 
deration that philosophy builds her general prin- 
ciples jon a wide basis of facts, and that agri- 
cultural science must arise out of the materials 
supplied by experience. 
And we must not forget that the information 
thus collected from the results of experience over 
large districts is not liable to those incidental influ- 
ences which may disturb the results of single and 
isolated experiments. A statement of the experi- 
ence of twenty persons in twenty parishes is as 
valuable and trustworthy as that of the experience 
of one person twenty times repeated; on which 
account the suggestions of science, based on the 
experience of a district, will be safer and more use- 
ful than if they were founded on individual experi- 
ment or individual opinion only. A great saving 
of time in the diffusion of truth, which is of the 
highest importance, would thus be accomplished. An 
authentic statistic record of our agriculture would 
afford to men of science a source from which they 
would extract truths that no one could refuse to 
acknowledge. We should, in fact, by such means 
supply them with a well of information, whose 
waters none would hesitate to drink. 
The same means which would enable science to 
improve agriculture, would also confer a similar 
ability on the practical farmer. They would point 
out to the cultivator the full extent of the riches 
which the soil can be made to yield, and the nature 
of the means which have been, and are, employed 
to develope the resources of particular districts. 
They would show him what Nature can do when 
her energies are directed by capital and skill, 
agents which have in so many cases converted the 
morass into meadow land, the heath into harvest 
fields, and the fever-breeding fens into first-rate feed- 
ing pastures. They would show him, by the evi- 
dence of facts, how an improved rotation, a fresh 
sort of crop,a fresh mode of managing an old one, 
the adoption of a new power, or the use of a new 
i t, has i 
k— 
6—St. Columb -Great Oakley Chelmsford — Halesworth — 
zW. Market—Cirencester— Wadebridge 
Yoxford —Market-hill—Wel- — 1l—Dartford — Winchcomb — 
Swansea 
Tue advantages which a system of AGRICULTURAL 
Srarrsrics would confer upon the practice and the 
science of Agriculture, are not unimportant. If 
they are not generally appreciated it is because 
they are not generally known. We have already 
seen how such a body of information would bear 
upon the public interests. It would form ajudicious 
appendix to past legislation, and a valuable index 
to future policy ; and similarly, by putting us in 
possession of a more enlarged experience than 
individual observation can grasp, and by setting 
forth the many great facts which are calculated to 
€ncourage and instruct us in the improvement of 
Cultivation, would it form both counsellor and guide 
0 the science and the practice of farming. 
To render it thus valuable, however, it is evident 
that our statistics must be both correct and com- 
Plete, affording a full and perfect epitome of the 
details and results of practice under its various 
aspects in every part of the country. This would 
involve a statement of the acreage produce and 
Management of each of the cultivated crops; of 
the various systems of management, their expenses, 
and results; of the various breeds of stock; the 
number of each class; their ages and weights; of 
the extent and management of each description of 
Soil, and of the rents, labour, and improvements 
executed and required upon each ; also of the uses 
to Which agricultural capital and productions are 
Applied; the amount spent in manures, in hand- 
labour, in animal and mechanical power, and 
in machines ; it would also require an account of 
is proportions of the produce used directly for 
‘ood, converted into beef and mutton, and consumed 
in maintaining the physical power by which the 
Operations of the farm are carried on. 
he statistics should also not merely state general 
Tesults on each head, but they should refer. to each 
district and each system separately. We must 
ave details as well as mere summaries. Returns 
Ought also to be gathered periodically, so as to 
Point out the progress made in each locality during 
ach interval, and they should particularise the 
Various discoveries made and improvements exe- 
Cuted in each period; the extent to which they 
ad been carried out, and the room there is for 
urther extension. 
f thus constituted they would be illustrative of 
Į d the produce or reduced 
the expenses of cultivation, They would point out 
what energy has accomplished ;;how it has enabled 
us to overcome natural difficulties ; to remove the 
superfluous water from the hill and the hollow ; to 
remedy physical imperfections of surface soils by 
the addition of materials which are hid beneath 
them ; and to create fertility by the use of manures 
gathered from the caves of India, the battle-fields 
of Europe, the deserts of Africa, and the distant 
islands of the Pacific. They would also show him 
the vast unexhausted resources which the cultivator 
has yet to avail himself of, 
A volume of agricultural statistics worthy of the 
country must, in this manner, be of use to all classes 
who are connected witn the cultivation of land. 
Containing a concentration of our knowledge and 
experience, it would alike instruct by its details and 
stimulate by its results the capitalist, the landowner, 
andthe tenant. Ifthetenant should be encouragedto 
imitate others in improvements which he was pre- 
viously ignorant of, and to make such furtherimprove- 
mentsas his own peculiar circumstances might call for, 
the capitalist would be taught that there is ample 
scope and verge enough for investment in the im- 
provement of the uncultivated and half-cultivated 
acres of this country; while for speculation he 
would be informed that the earth-bank is of all 
“banks” the safest—the ploughshare is of all 
“shares” the most pleasant to hold—the manure 
deposit of all “deposits” is the most certain to 
afford a “return ;” for interest upon each of these 
is secured by the strongest of all “ bonds” the bond 
of gratitude, which binds mother earth to return to 
her children full recompense for the exertions used 
in her service. 
The landowner would learn an equally valuable 
lesson—that his estates are valuable to him in pro- 
portion as skill and capital are employed in their 
cultivation ; and that, therefore, in giving his tenant 
equitable terms and liberal tenure, he is giving 
him the power to improve. 
From the same source he would obtain a know- 
ledge of the many contingencies which are a hin- 
drance to the profitable cultivation of the soil—the 
mischances of season, the ravages of insects, the 
losses arising from wind, hail, blight, and mildew, 
and from the advent of epidemic and endemic dis- 
orders, alike common to the vegetable and animal 
roduce of the farm—from the national and local 
burthens which bear upon the cultivator—the 
amount of capital sunk in permanent improvements, 
which with interest has or ought to be returned. 
A collection of agricultural statistics would also 
be of essential use in the determination of specific 
questions relative to agricultural practice. For 
instance, they would afford us definite and trust- 
worthy information of the extent and quality of the 
waste and uncultivatedlands—details of the progress 
of any specific improvement, and factsthat wouldtend 
to throw light on various disputed practices. For 
example ; if we obtained an account of the various 
systems of draining, the cost and the effects pro- 
duced by each, we should also possess the equally 
important statement of the quantity of land yet 
requiring draining ; and of the impediments to such 
improvement arising from want of capital, want of 
outfalls, ke. As an instance of the usefulness of 
this sort of information ; of its applicability to the 
elucidation of points of policy or practice, we may 
recall attention to the manner in which the statis- 
tics of South Gloucestershire, collated by “ M. S." 
(pages 195, 196, and 215, Agr. Gaz. 1845) afforded 
us valuable illustrations of the policy of breaking 
up inferior Grass lands. (Vide pp. 261, 277, 1844.) 
Nor would it be the least valuable use of statisti- 
cal information, that in pointing out the peculiar 
products and resources, and the special burthens of 
various districts, it would afford the best of all evi- 
dence as to the real claims of each locality to the 
consideration of the Legislature, in the furtherance 
of local improvements and national works. 
Take for example railways, in the prompt yet 
judicious encouragement of which practical agricul- 
ture is deeply interested. Had it been possible for 
a Committee of the House to have obtained correct 
statistics of the capabilities and requirements of 
various portions of the country, much money that 
has been spent in expenses might have been saved; 
many schemes originated for purposes quite irre- 
spective of public good, which have been carried 
by dint of bold assertions, might have been rejected ; 
and many projects which have been burked by in- 
dividual influence, or the power of monopoly, might 
have been successfully prosecuted to the advantage 
of the community at large. 
Brermzs Down Lanps, to which we referred 
last week, there is an immense extent of inferior 
Grass lands in this country which might profitably 
be broken up. These are for the most part our 
low-lying undrained pastures, either clayey, or, 
because wet, of an adhesive texture; they pro- 
duce large quantities of the Sedge (Carex), inter- 
mingled with the other Grasses ; they are to be 
found in large tracts on our blue lias, coal, and ol 
red sandstone geological formations ; and large 
portions (provided only we could get capital for 
tenants and capital for landowners; the one to 
enable their due cultivation afterwards, and the 
other to lay out in drainage and buildings now) 
might be broken up with profit immediately, and 
doubtless all of them will be broken up with profit 
to all parties concerned, ultimately. 
The farm from which we write affords a good 
illustration. A few years ago it contained some 
arable land, but for the most part consisted of cold 
undrained meadows. The difference between its 
present and former value is doubtless owing in great 
measure to a large outlay on buildings, roads, and 
drainage ; but what has given these their influence 
has been the permission of the landlord to break up 
these pastures. In the following table we have 
selected some of its fields, and stated their valuation 
ten years ago and their value now :— 
TEC 
L e 3. : t E 
3g 208 
No. of Field |Nature | “53 oan 
on old Plan, | 1836. | 258 3 
eg fa 
aS ane 
G | © i 
uae ence | —— EURES MEI 
sd. | s. d.| 8 d. 
The whole X i “4 3 i$ 47 0|24 3 
92 sture 3 T" 
E o: 7 0 |} 8 | Arable} 50 0) 35 0 
59 Do. 27 0 2 Do. 50 0]|23 0 
89 Do. na 3 
Do. 12 0 16 Do. 3 0|21 6 
67, 71, 72 Do. 1T “wales Do. 52 0/35 0 
15 Do. 20 0| 6 | Do. 0,30 0 
15.106 | Do. | 1 0| a | Do. | 32 0|21 0 
85, 86 Do. 13 0| 7 | Do. 47 0 | 34 0 
*143, 144, 152| Arable | 36 0 | 12 Do. 44 0| 8 0 
*153 Do. 34 0| 18 Do. | 44 0110 0 
7^9 "These were dry grounds—“ the best Potato grounds in the 
parish.” 
We consider this to be both am extraordinary 
and an instructive Table ; but let us first justify the 
items in the 6th column by a history of some of 
these fields. 
No. 8 (see col. 4) was one of the poorest fields on the 
‘arm ; it was drained in 1840, and pared and burned 
in the autumn of that year. It was ploughed into 
perch-wide ridges, without reference to the position of 
the drains, and it lay so till the spring of 1841, when it 
was sown to Oats and yielded a large crop, upwards of 
