30—1846.] 
THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 
505 
ECONOMICAL, EFFECTUAL, AND DURABLE 
ROOFING. 
BY HER MAJESTY'S ROYAL LETTERS PATENT. 
C ROGGON'S PATENT ASPHALTE ROOFING 
FELT, with which the Committee Rooms of the Houses 
of Parliament are entirely covered. The above Material has 
been used and highly approved by the Nobility, Gentry, and 
Agrienlturists generally, and Patronised by many Members of 
the Royal Agricultural Societies of England, Scotland, and 
Ireland, and by Her Majesty's Office of Woods and Forests, 
Charles Barry, Esq., R.A., &c. &c. ; has been used for several 
years at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Gardens, Chiswick ; 
the Swiss Gardens, Shoreham, Sussex; on the Duke of Buc- 
cleuch’s, and the Marquis of Anglesey's Property, &c. &c. and 
(under slate) the Royal Agricultural Society’s House, Hanover- 
quare; its advantages areCOHEAPNESS, LIGHTNESS, 
DURABILITY, and ECONOMY. Being a Non-Conductor, it 
as been proved an efficient ** Protective Material” to Plants, 
8 PRIOE, ONE PENNY PER SQUARE FOOT. 
amples and Testimonials sent by Post on application. 
MAS JOHN CROGGON. 
8, Lawrence Pountney-hill, Cannon-street, London. 
The Agvicultucal Gazette. 
SATURDAY, JULY 25, 1846. 
MEETINGS FOR THE TWO FOLLOWING WEEKS. 
Wepsuspay, July 2 nd. 
THURSDAY, — 80—. 
TnuonspAY, 
n FARMERS’ CLUBS. 
uly 27 — Wellington. | Aug. 3—Exminster’ 
= 99—Hereford —Newton m t. Peter's — Abergavenny 
f 
To80-Otery St Mary Nairnshire — Rochford 
= 81—Rhins of Galloway. Had- Hundred — Framlingham — 
leigh— Lichfeld— Wakefield Winge wort 
Aug, 1— Northampton — Melrose — 
6—Grove Ferry — Richmond- 
urham — Cardiff — Calling- k 
hire—Hawici 
ton —  7-Northallerton — Tavistock 
> 3—St. Columb — Newark — — Chelmsford — Wadebridge 
Wenlock — Cirencester — —Claydon 
Selby—Markethill —  8-Baachory 
Wuarrver may be the feelings with which a 
future change may be regarded by those who are 
distrustful of the policy which directs it, there are 
ew minds unwilling to listen to what may tend to 
reconcile them with the terms of a struck bargain, 
With an event that is past praying against or for ; 
and it is with no spirit of triumphant self-vindica- 
tion that we should, even under more highly-war- 
Tanting circumstances, again approach the prac- 
tical, and so to speak, agricultural consideration of 
those financial measures, which during the past 
alf year have received so immense a share of 
thought and discussion from nearly every branch 
of the community, and have recently received a 
Consummation at once so much less protracted and 
imposing than their long agitation had created, as it 
Were, ihe habit of expecting. If the progress of 
Opinion amongst some sections of the public is a 
little a-head, like an advanced guard, of the moving 
column of legislative action, the interval which 
divides off the rear-guard of wary dissentients on 
the other hand, is seldom disproportionately great 
Or any long period—example wins over more con- 
Verts than argument—or, to pursue our metaphor, 
daily dissension will break up an array that no front 
attack could turn. 
Few will be disposed to deny that the progress 
9f the Corn-law question, in and out of Parliament, 
during the last six months, has afforded some illus- 
tration of these remarks :—to “come in like a lion 
and go out like a lamb,” is the proverbial character of 
the most important month of the agricultural year; 
nd it would almost have seemed to lend its pres- 
tige to this great question—vital in its nature to all 
Men ; but to the agricultural body, vital in a double 
ae And if it was our natural task and duty at 
h € opening of the year to state, apart, if possible, 
Tom class-like or contracted views, the nevertheless 
y agricultural aspect which the question pre- 
HEN to our minds ; so would we desire, in the 
ane spirit, and with the same single and circum- 
wribed object, to review it now, placed as it is 
d the fuller light of more matured experience 
hel advanced reasoning. In this regard we cannot 
T referring to the words of a respected and prac- 
hie agricultural contemporary :—^ We entertained," 
tio Writes, *a very decided opinion that the reduc- 
n of duty upon foreign cattle and meat made in 
m Would so soon as sufficient time had elapsed to 
Aot be 
Corn B 
ex 
den 2 
i Quarters of foreign corn on the eve of one of 
ang would have a most serious effect in depres- 
8 prices. Lord AsHpurton who from his com- 
aimee knowledge and experience must be pre- 
pon geebable of forming à more correct opinion 
e subject than almost any member of the 
Boe House, felt so strongly upon the point, as 
ge the necessity of some arrangement to regu- 
late the release of the foreign corn from the bonded 
warehouses, and thus prevent the great reduction of 
price which was anticipated. The whole of this 
large stock is now in the market, and what is the 
result? Why, that the averages are actually higher 
than they were before the bill permitting its release 
at the low duty was passed. Now, we do not mean 
to infer,” continues our contemporary, “that the 
alteration in the law may not produce lower prices ; 
we only invite attention to the fact that both as 
regards cattle and corn, hitherto the result has been 
different to what was anticipated. If, then, expe- 
rience thus sets opinions at nought, is it not useless, 
nay is it nof unwise, to maintain the strife of opinion, 
to foment discord, to indulge in acrimonious feeling, 
and thus waste those valuable opportunities for 
mutual improvement which an intercommunication 
of ideas and practical information afford, and which 
will at all events assist us in meeting the evil conse- 
quences anticipated, should they hereafter unfortu- 
nately arise."* 
To an exhortation equally congenial and un- 
expected, arising upon views however belated in 
their expression, we would without the ungracious 
pause of start or question, offer our ready sub- 
scription. The approach of Truth is too dearly- 
prized an arrival, not to merit a joyful recognition 
even * while yet afar off" and be welcomed with 
the fatted calf. It is not in us to ask, norif it were 
should we have time to wait for an answer to the 
vainly teazing question, in what part of Pluto’s 
dominions may be assigned a repository for exploded 
opinions, and event-disproved assumptions, analo- 
gous to that which is said to await unaccomplished 
good intentions. We gladly leave in the hands of 
the proper superintendent of the “unclaimed luggage 
department” the enl t and extra 
dation that seems daily more and more required, in 
the catacombs and charnel-houses of dead errors. 
Our business is with the living ; for never yet did a 
falsehood die without leaving a truth for its executor. 
For 30 years that falsehood lived and flourished 
like the green bay-tree, and now its place is nowhere 
to be found. Peace to its ashes. For 30 years we 
tried hard to assure ourselves that by making laws 
restrietive of God-intended commerce, we could 
insure the profit by bolstering up the home price of 
the first and foremost article of human produce and 
consumption ; that if free-trade were proved true of 
everything besides, it was false in agriculture—that 
however “positive” to the loom, the mine, the 
smelting-house, or the shop-counter, it was for some 
inherent cause of variation, “negative” to the 
plough. The distress-sales of farming stock that 
have crammed the columns of our country-news- 
papers in years of cheapness and plenty like 1834, 
and anon in years of scarcity and dearness like 1839, 
have furnished the unheeded commentary upon the 
text, and have tried the truth of the assumption and 
the success of the experiment. Whilst the manu- 
facturer of everything else has been trying to reduce 
his prices, and has looked to the increase and 
economy of production for his profit, the manu- 
facturer of corn alone has clung drowning to the 
floating straw of law-protected price for his safety 
and assurance ; and while his more skilful and in- 
telligent neighbour and brother-farmer was laugh- 
ing at the fluctuations of the corn-market by raising 
40 bushels to the acre where he was raising 25, he 
has swallowed the camel that was quietly stalking 
on the other side of his boundary-fence, while 
straining at the gnat of “ foreign competition.” 
Put the case in its smallest compass. You and I 
cultivate adjoining acres of equal quality ; you raise 
30 bushels on your acre by better management and 
skill and knowledge than that which enables me to 
grow but 25 on mine. At 6s. a bushel you will 
make more money than I shall by selling mine at 
7s. "Teach me but your mode of farming, skilful 
neighbour, and with an odd mark of 40 acres I shall 
jog home from the market, where Wheat is selling 
at 48s.: a quarter, a “better man” by 107. than I 
now do after selling at 56s. Sure never was para- 
dox more susceptible ofarithmetic! Let the grower 
of 20 bushels an acre add but 4 bushels to his pro- 
duce by a small accession of skill and knowledge, 
and he will make more money at 6s. a bushel than 
he made before at 7s. Let us view it how we may 
to this complexion the matter must come. Must 
come! Nay it has come years and years ago ; else, 
let any one explain how with a population increas- 
ing by a thousand fresh mouths a-day to feed, we 
have, without a corresponding increase of foreign 
importation, overtaken the advancing demand, and 
are, from the same fields, supplying greater numbers 
at a lower rate. 
But Time is more powerful than arguments ; and 
when three móre years shall have explained to us 
the parable of “ the fox who smelled a smell,” we 
shall, perhaps, begin to discern on which side of the 
* Mark Lane Express, July 14. 
sea that washes our coasts the real competition lies, 
and shall recognise our true profit not in “ the price 
we can obtain for a given quantity, but the amount 
we can grow upon a given space."— V. H. 
Ir the benefits arising from a system of AGRICUL- 
TURAL STATISTICS are so palpable, and so important 
to the general interests of the country as we have 
attempted to prove—if they afford a necessary ad- 
junct to legislation, and a valuable auxiliary to prac- 
tical agriculture, the question—Why have the at- 
tempts of Government to obtain them failed ? forces 
itself upon our consideration. 
One answer which has been given, and indeed is 
usually given, by apologists for ministerial mistakes, 
is that the farmer is too jealous to afford the re- 
quired information. It is this excuse which Mr. 
Porrer gives for the neglect which as we have 
shewn in a previous quotation, he so seriously re- 
grets. “There is reason to believe,” says he “that 
if any comprehensive measure were adopted by 
Government with a view to ascertain the actual 
condition of the country as regards its agriculture, 
so much jealousy and so many groundless fears 
would be excited in the minds of the persons from 
whom information must be sought, that the returns 
obtained would be so incomplete as to be of little 
value.” And this assertion has been with cuckoo- 
like constancy reiterated until it has become the 
doctrine of many who have never inquired into the 
matter for themselves. The only reason which this 
opinion can claim as a title to our belief, is that it 
has hitherto had undisputed possession of the public 
ear—a title, however, which though it may be good 
in law is bad in logic. 
But this is not the only counterfeit which has 
passed current for a length of time at the expense 
of the farmer. It was the fashion while giving just 
praise to the manufacturing and commercial enter- 
prise of the kingdom—enterprise which no English- 
man can fail to be proud of—to lament the want of 
energy on the part of the farmer, and the slow pro- 
gress of agricultural improvement. Yet, itis a fact 
clearly demonstrable, barren as we are of modern 
statistics, that agriculture is in a much higher posi- 
tion m this than any other country—that its pro- 
gress has been greater at this than at any other 
time—and that it has been excelled by no one 
branch of physical industry in its efforts to keep 
pace with the growing wants and requirements of 
the age. And the farmer is libelled when it is 
asserted that he is himself the only hindrance to the 
collection of Agricultural Statistics, Do we find 
that the intelligent cultivator isin the habit of keep- 
ing his light under a bushel? Do not the proceed- 
ings of our clubs show the merits of various systems 
of cultivation? Does the farmer hesitate to de- 
clare the extent, cost, and results of his improve- 
ments? Do our pages show the particulars of no 
experiments in the application of capital and science 
to practical agriculture? Can it then be said that 
the farmer will refuse to Government what he does 
not deny to individuals ? 
If the farmer does not shrink from avowing the 
peculiarities of his practice, and the particulars of 
his improvements, which are the main items we 
require—is it the ordinary routine of his business 
and the gross acreage and amount of his several 
crops, which he will not give an account of? This 
is not likely to be the case. A man of intelligence 
cannot wish to hide matters so open to every eye 
in his village, as his course of cropping and acreage 
of occupation ; and as to his average produce any 
intelligent resident in the village could estimate it 
pretty closely. Itis not a journal of his business 
transactions tnat is required, a detail ofthe crop of 
each field which is to be published ; but general re- 
sults, without that particularization that would 
make the inquiry inquisitorial, except in cases where 
great improvements and peculiar results have been 
obtained, and of these no man is ashamed, 
It was once urged that it would be opposed, be- 
cause it would promote the knowledge of the land- 
lords, whom the farmers wished not to know too much. 
There was atime when this argument might have 
applied. This was when farming was conducted 
with less capital and less skill, and had to face less 
competition than at present. At that time, too, the 
duties of property were not so generally recognised 
as its rights. Since then, however, a change has 
taken place. The relative position of owner and 
occupier is now better known. The farmer is now 
recognised as a manufacturer of food, and the land- 
lord as the owner of the “power” or mill. Prices 
are reduced, and quantity has been augmented to 
meet competition ; and this has been accomplished 
by throwing into use an additional amount of capi- 
tal and skill. The tenant has therefore now estab- 
lished a claim to be considered as a trader, obtain- 
ing a living upon the exercise of his own capital of 
money and labour ; and the success of his exertions 
