52—1846.] 
THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 
857 
BY HER ROYAL LETTERS 
MAJESTY'S PATENT. 
LIGHT, CHEAP, Ax» DURABLE ROOFING. 
HOMAS JOHN CROGGON, of 8, Lau- 
i treet 
Pountney Hill, €: don, 
Begs to call the attention of Noblemen, Gentlemen, and the 
Public, to his 
PATENT ASPHALTE FELT, FOR ROOFING, 
As adopted by Her Majesty’s Woods and Forests, and by the 
ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF BNGLAND, 
on their buildings at N tle-on-Tyne, and H; quare, 
London ; also, by the leading members of the above and other 
Agricultural Societies of England, Scotland, and Ireland. 
The Price of the Felt is only ONE PENNY PER SQUARE 
FOOT, being considerably less than half the price of slates, 
Tiles, Thatch, &c. There is also a very great saving in the 
wood-work, as the Felt, from its lightness, does not require half 
the weight of timber that slates or tiles do. The Felt can be 
manufactured of any required length, by 32 inches wide. 
Tuomas Jonn Cnoaocox, 8, Laurence Pountney-hill, Cannon- 
street, London. 
Of whom also may be had Railway Felt, Sheathing Felt for 
Ships’ Bottoms, and Dry Hair Felt for covering Boilers, Steam 
Pipes, &c. 
“The Agricultural Gasette. 
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1846. 
MEETINGS FOR TWO FOLLOWING WEEKS. 
Tuemspay, Dac 8i—Agricuitural Imp. Soc. of Ireland. 
Wronespay, Jan. 6 Highland and Agricultural Society. 
7-~Agiicultucal Imp, Soc. of Ireland, 
LOCAL SOCIETIES. 
Nomen 
FARMERS? CLUBS. 
Deo, 30—Newton—Dorking. ec, 81~Carlton-on-Trent 
— 81—Bolsover—OtterySt.Mary Jan. 1—Wrensham—Tavistock — 
Z Grove Ferry. Sr. Germans 
A DISPASSIONATE judge must, we think, conclude 
that the AwNvar EXHIBITIONS of our great AGRI- 
CULTURAL Socreris are more useful in their in- 
direct tendencies than they are, directly, aud in 
themselves. Itis not so much the ‘Show’ as the 
‘gathering’ that does the good. 
Public opinion, in connection with farming as a 
business, is ascertained and corrected by weekly 
meetings at market-places; prices and. prospects 
being there settled and discussed; and how shall 
public opinion on the details of farming as an art be 
ublished, or even formed, unless, for these, too, we 
ave meetings at convenient intervals. It is as 
important that right notions prevail in the one case 
às in the other; the *business' is founded upon 
the *art;' and surely the latter deserves as much 
attention and investigation as the former. 
This has been generally acknowledged: and 
hence, the many Farmers’ Clubs established for 
monthly discussions in ail our districts and counties. 
And we confess that it is to those points in which 
they resemble the meetings of a Farmers’ Club 
rather than to those which constitute their profess- 
edly characteristic features that we look for the use- 
fulness of our great annual agricultural assemblages. 
Meetings of so many, and the discussions which 
ensue, whether they be officially superintended or 
not, certainly do most usefully inform the general 
mind. We have no doubt that the English Agri- 
cultural Society, for instance, has (not to speak of 
its influence in improving agricultural machinery 
and in maintaining our improved breeds of cattle 
'To take 
that to it, 
I 
and sheep) done much good in this way. 
a general illustration, we may safely sa 
by these meetings, we owe the estab 
right notions about the relations of s 
practice in agriculture, and the greatly improved 
position of the former, consequent upon the sober- 
ing down of those extravagant expectations in 
which many indulged, from the late happy union of 
the two. i 
These meetings, in short, gather farmers toge- 
ther from all parts of the country, and the exhibi- 
tion gives them matter for diseussion—they may dis- 
parage the specimens exhibited, or even condemn 
the principle which has collected them—but the 
benefit of converse on these and other topics re- 
mains. 
We would apply these remarks more particu- 
larly to the Smithfield Club’s Annual Show of Fat 
Cattle at Baker-street. The ‘meeting’ is useful, 
and as long as the means which attract it are harm- 
less, good is done, and people may be glad of it. 
We by. no means admire the laughter in which the 
Times indulges at its own caricatures on this sub- 
di thi 
1 t 
‘art’ of farming. Let those who, 
admire it, ground their praise on its affording a sort 
of agricultural holiday at this merry-making time of 
year—or, even, let them, if they can, argue for its 
value to their ‘business’ as affording a profitable 
sale of fat stock, and we have no word of reply ; 
for,no doubt, it has all the useful influence of a 
holiday—doubtless farmers going up to London on | kinds, have been regularly entered ; and all that has 
its account consider it so; and, no doubt the 
‘meat’ of fat beef is so much better than that of 
lean, as to command a higher price—doubtless, also, 
the tallow.market as well as the butcher's shop must 
be supplied ; but let them attempt to advocate its 
merits as (what all such exhibitions ought to be) 
directly influential in improving the practice of agri- 
culture ; and we must take up that position of pro- 
test in the matter which we have all along main- 
tained, 
'These remarks, we repeat, are directed merely 
against the Show itself, not in disparagement of its 
indirect advantages, which are many. Amongst 
these we may name the proof which it certainly 
affords of the profits of feeding ; for, properly under- 
stood, the exhibition illustrates the extent rather 
than the heightto which the practice of fattening is 
carried in this country; the specimens shown are 
but the ones or twos out of large herds, and the 
greater theloss upon the individuals, the stronger is 
the inference that the returns from the whole are 
abundantly sufficient to boar it. 
The extent to which profitable feeding can be 
carried is no doubt much overpassed by the exhi- 
bitors at Smithfield ; but it is worth while remarking 
that to a certain extent there are advantages attend- 
ant on permitting the process to its last stage. 
1,) As the auimal becomes covered with fat, a 
saving of food takes place, so much is not required 
as fuel for the maintenance of animal heat. (2) 
And in addition to this the manure of a fatting ani- 
malis more valuable than that of one which is also 
growing. Food minus the matter secreted by the 
one leaves a richer residue than the same food minus 
the matter secreted by the other. Food minus fat 
—tho manure in the one case is richer than food 
minus flesh and bones—the manure inthe other. 
SS 
We have still a few words to add on the subject 
of FARM Accounts. 
There is one class of expences which should be 
kept separate from all the others—viz. those which 
are incurred in the permanent improvement of the 
land, and in bringing it into that state of cultivation 
which it is intended to maintain. Many tenants, 
secured by,a lease, are engaged in this which is 
properly landlords’ work ; and for them, in the first 
and second years of their occupation, to charge 
against the returns of those years the whole cost 
which has been then incurred would be obviously 
wrong. Wherever the same capital is invested, 
and the same skill and judgment exercised, the ac- 
counts should, certainly, show a similar annual 
income ; and so, no doubt, if properly kept, they 
will, plus or minus the extra-ordinary effect of 
weather and prices. But to do as is often done— 
to charge upon each year all that, during it, has 
been invested in the permanent improvement of the 
land, would have the contrary effect of exhibiting a 
loss upon every fresh investment of capital, and 
consequent additional exercise of skill. All such 
expenses should be placed in a ‘dormant capital’ 
account, and which on the whole sum which appears 
there at the end of each year (along with all the 
rest of the farm capital) the usual per centage 
should be charged in the annual balance sheet, 
such a portion only of the principal should 
also annually be charged before the ‘balance’ 
is struck, as shall exhaust the ‘account’ by 
the end of the lease, If 1007. be spent in drain- 
ing during the 10th year before this period, then 
year after year on the Dr. side of the dormant 
capital account the sum standing will be 902, 80/., 
701., &c.; 107. per annum being annually abstracted 
and charged on the gross produce of the farm be- 
fore the clear profit of the year can be ascertained, 
and in addition to this, 5 per cent. has also every 
year to be charged on the 907., 807., 70l., respect- 
ively, which at those periods represent the amount 
of the farmer's eapital still remaining invested in 
that particular form. 
Now as regards the yearly inquiry into the 
profit or loss attendant upon the twelvemonth’s 
proceedings, itis really a very simple affair. Sup- 
pose a farmer to have commenced his year’s 
accounts aright, he then entered (whether actually 
or not), by purchase, into his position; and the 
several portions into which his capital at that time 
invested might then have been divided were 
placed on the debtor side of the several accounts 
which concerned them. The Sheep account re- 
ceived its record of the value of sheep on hand, and 
of that portion of food to be consumed by them 
then remaining ; the Wheat account received its 
record of grain in rick and barn, of seed sown, of 
ploughings, harrowings, &c., by which the crop had 
till then been benefited: and so on. Since then, 
payments on account, whether for labour or stock, 
or food ; and receipts on account, for produce of all 
now to be done is to estimate the present position 
of the farmer just as if he were about to give up 
business altogether, and to place as per valuation 
his present invested capital on the creditor side of 
the several accounts to which it belongs. It then 
merely remains to arrange the balances of these 
accounts—debtor or creditor as the case may be— 
in columns on a sheet ; to charge 5/. per cent. upon 
the working capital of the concern together with 
that share of the dormant capital which this year 
must return; and the balance when struck will 
represent the income of the year. ; 
THE RIGHTS anp PRIVILEGES or LANDLORD 
AND TENANT. 
By C. Wrex HoskrNs, Esq. 
[Tux following remarks on this subject were delivered 
at the July meeting of the Stratford-on-Avon Agricul- 
tural Society, 
. If the subject of our discussion involved nothing more 
important than the questions—whether draining-tiles 
should be laid 3 or 4 feet deep ; whether Turnips were 
best drilled upon the flat or on ridge; whether guano 
should be applied to grain crops direct, or through the 
intervention of a fallow crop ; whether fallow crops 
shall be consumed on the land, or whether even upon 
light soils it were not the best economy, in the end, to 
continue them in the yard or in covered sheds ; whether 
the Suffolk punch or the Cleveland bay was the best 
horse for agricultural purposes. If it were any such 
question as this, upon which I had simply to ring the 
first peal, in order to furnish the subject for your own 
harmony of discussion when my strain was over, I could 
of necessity feel no more than a pleasing interest in the 
statement of my own views, and in the after effect which 
they might have upon the minds of others. But when I 
see that the subject which we are to consider to-day is one 
which, besides its own inherent difficulty and intricacy, 
has, ever since the day on which your chairman first 
announced to me the desire that I should undertake it, 
been the topie of so much consideration and debate at 
many recent agricultural meetings throughout the 
kingdom, and is so closely interwoven with the great 
questions which have for many months occupied the 
Legislature of this country, I need hardly assure you 
that I approach it with as deep a sense of its difficulty, 
and of diffidence of my own power to grapple with it, 
as the most cautious hearer, or the most interesed party 
on either side, could desire. It is one of those subjects 
which the more I have studied and the more fully I have 
considered, the more I havefelt that he who undertakes 
it at all must expect the fate that is said to await the 
candid umpire, namely, to afford but small satisfaction 
to each of the parties whose interest he is called in t 
consider relatively with the other. Yetin the discharge 
of such a task a man must make up his mind before 
hand that if he is to speak usefully he must speak 
boldly, and that if his hearers first on one side and then 
on the other should not find his words agreeable, that 
both should at least have cause to confess that they are 
sincere. Amongst those that I address, there are both 
proprietors and occupiers, and I myself should feel 
unqualified to speak at all unless I could speak in both 
characters, 
I am not one of those who would endeavour to serew 
down modern agricultural practice to the forms of 
ancient usage or worn out habits ; yet in the discussion 
of a subject so old as the relation of landlord and 
tenant, I think it may throw some light upon the situ- 
ation of each party, to cast an eye back to the circum- 
stances and course of events out of which that relation 
had its origin. Ishall not detain you long upon this, 
because I am more anxious to come to the present and 
practical part of the subject, but it will facilitate that 
object to trace from its t the agricul J 
tenure of land, in order that if we should find that at 
the present day there is much in it that is artificial, and 
much that is undefined, we may be able to form an idea 
how itarose and why it is so, and may therefore see 
what may be required in the progressive demands of 
society, to put it upon a more certain and a more 
na‘ural footing. A 
The origin of the present relation of landlord aud 
tenant was that establishment which prevailed over 
nearly the whole of Christendom, called the feudal sys- 
tem; under this system the king was not only the 
ruler but in point of fact the proprietor of. the whole 
lands of the kingdom. These he granted in immense 
tracts, including in some cases nearly a whole county, 
to the first lords or barons of the realm, in reward 
generally for services in war, andin return for which 
they became his vassals, and followed him with the 
armies raised out of their fiefs or possessions, so granted 
to them. They again in turn let out to inferior vassals 
the different portions of these goodly estates, in 
return for services paid to them, either in men or 
War was the universal trade, and the rela- 
position, served with the most unhesitating obedience 
and vassalage the one next above him, L 
those below him. This arrangement of the classes of 
society, which were few in number, and separated by 
an almost impassable gulf from each other, extended 
not over this county alone, but over the greater part of 
