THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 



[Nov. 23, 



786 ^_ 



the same rate of loss, give off ne.-.rly 4 lbs. of this vo!«- I to the working classes, and politically dangerous. I itaareholde™, and of their prospects ; to see those hose 



tile alkali; and as the estimate will not be taken to 

 highly if we consider every solid yard in the dunghill, 

 during the whole period of its active decomposition, t 

 evolve at least as much gas as escapes from one square 

 yard of surface in a month, it will follow, that upon the 

 moderate dressing of 10 solid yards per acre, there wil 

 be a loss of 40 lbs. of ammonia, and consequently, as 

 Liebig has shown, a loss of what would suffice 

 for nearly 10 bushels of Wheat. "With every pound 

 of ammonia which evaporates, a loss of 00 lbs. o( 

 Corn is sustained."— {Agricultural Cltemhlry, p >gr 

 193.) Now, grant me the accuracy of the Professor's 

 debtor and creditor account between Corn and ammonia, 

 and I will give any one all the Wheat I grow who will 

 teach me to grow all that I lose. At all events, the ne- 

 cessity of getting our volatile friend into " a fix" is most 

 evident, and for this purpose we may use with advan- 

 tage both gypsum and sulphuric acid. On making the 

 dunghill in the first instance, and when subsequently 

 turning it over to accelerate fermentation ami decompo- 

 sirion, it will be advisable to strew a thin layer of gypsum 

 after every rise of 2 feet of manure, and ultimately we 

 mar pour on the top as many pounds of sulphuric acid, 

 diluting each with a bucket of water, as there are single 

 hor loads in the dunghill. I can state, as the result of 

 experiment, that this application of dilute acid imme- 

 diately checks the evolution of vapour and the escape of 

 ammonia, and consequently, at a very small cost, it im- 

 proves the agricultural value of the manure, and there- 

 fore tends to secure what Liebig holds out as the reward 

 of good farming — M th >est \ sible crop every year." — 

 . — 7. B. Rrade, Stone, Aylesbury, 



Non-employed individuals must not starve : but, as they 

 produce no food, they must be sharing the bread of the 

 industrious— this is an Injustice, an indirect one, felt 



hut not seen. 



Let us inquire why capital finds its way readily to every 

 foreign loan or hazardous scheme*, that tends to give the productive powers of our grateful, but neglected soil 

 strength to foreign countries and to weaken our own. — throwing to the winds the question of foreign impor- 



■*•-*" * * ' * tation or protection. How pleasant to see in our 



shipping lists, that having abundance of Corn, we are 

 exporters of Flax, oils, and other matters, which we are 



Directors possess most talent, energy, and discretion" 

 publishing their Annual Reports and stimulating or 

 shaming the sluggard agriculturist! How much more 

 grateful to s^e Mr. Cobden and Mr. Baker on the same 

 committee, exercising their great abilities to stimulate 



THE RELATIVE POSITION or AGRICULTURE. 



IvviRYTiUNG connected with Agriculture seems ano- 

 malous. Agriculture and Manufactures, Trade and 

 Commerce, are really I >om friends. Still they appear 

 to be sworn tnemies— n gulf of non-communication 

 yawns between them ; they are like a chain in two parts, 

 inting a connecting link to render it available. The 

 connecting link in the disunited chain must be " Capital- 

 ised Companies for the Improvement of Agriculture." 



Agriculture and manufactures are not antagonistic in- 

 terests ; but the r< rse. They are as essential to each 

 Other as the limbs to the body— injury to the one must 

 be suffering to the other. Agricultural production is the 

 life-blood of the nation. Tint increase in food which 

 the Almighty so incomprehensibly vouchsafes to us, and 

 with which we cannot dispense for a day, is the artery of 

 circulation ; the veins of exchange bringing in return 

 manufactures and luxuries. The precious metals or credit 

 represent the balance between them. It is a well- 

 established fact, that there is in trade, manufactures, 

 and commerce, a superabundance of capital, whilst in 

 agriculture it is as sadly deficient. Ask an improving 

 landlord or tenant, why their virions improvements are 

 so scantily and temporarily effected — they will say, m 



th'Jt it is prof Ic t make them permanent, but 



because tliere i> n icient commaud of money to 

 do Jt is pain 1 f c talented and spirited agricul- 

 turists crippl d anJ r :iaed by the want of that capital 

 which in towns an J ci s ) abounds as scarcely to com- 

 mand 3 per cent., ;_ i consequence forced into rash 

 speculations, or inv J i.i loans to foreign nations, with 

 whom we may be to-morrow at war, and who now injure 

 us in t r ade, Sec. 



In agriculture there are few or no bills of exchange, 

 or other means by which an honest and industrious man 

 may trade on the c i'al of his wealthier neighbour. In 

 trade, commerce, or manufactures, the abundance of 

 capital permits all the advantages of an extended credit. 

 In agriculture but fe i such facilities exist. It is the 

 w t of ca; A that causes so small an employment of 

 agricultural labour. A good farmer will readily admit, 

 that every man's Labour pays a profit, and that the more 

 labour he employs the greater is his advantage. But 

 then, Saturday night comes ! Where is the money to 

 come from to pay them ? Tis twelve long months, at 

 least, before that money is returned to him. 



Labour itself is the very best of capital when employed, 

 but we neither employ it vsiii d ley payments, nor 

 alow it to employ itself without money payments, by 

 means of allotments. We grasp and grudge the indus- 

 trious labourer's patch of ground, but, inconsistently 

 enough, pay cheerfully heavy gaol, police, or pauper 

 rates, to restrain or punish the crimes consequent on his 

 non-employment, poverty, and demoralisation. I mention 

 these matters as strong evi lence of the necessity of 

 applying the surplus capital of towns to the improvement 

 of agriculture. A man with his cow, pig, and an acre 

 of ground, has a stake in the soil. If non-employment 

 and poverty fill your gaols, it is a logical deduction, that 

 employment and comfort can alone emp'y them. 



Self-interest should alone induce us to take up the 

 question, but the higher moral sense of justice to the 

 general welfare commands us so to do. Honour is due 

 to those counties — Lincolnshire for one — where cottagers 

 can keep a pig or a cow, without being suspected of rob- 

 bing their masters. Those masters will be found to be, 

 as a natural consequence, men of talent, capital, and 

 education ; and their woikmen many degrees in advance 

 of those without either cow, pi^, or hud ; ragged, and 

 half-s arving on seven or eiglr shillings per week. The 

 comparative criminal records of these districts would be 

 instructive. The condition of the cottager is too fre- 

 quently a true index to the character and position of his 

 employer. Want of employment, under any circum- 

 stances, is injurious to the community at large. Too 

 much thinking, and too little muscular action, is preju- 



Wliy have we companies, British and foreign, for every 

 object except agricultural improvement ? Is it because 

 the 3 per cents, pay only 3 per cent.? Certiinly not ! 

 Is it because we do not feel confidence in our landed 

 tenures ? Is it that there is no disposition to improve 

 the soil? I answer — decidedly none of these causes. It 

 is because we have no authorised and competent channel 

 for the profitable investment of surplus capital in agri- 

 cultural improvement. 



Ignoranc-; and want of combination are at the root of 

 the evil. Everything in this way is left to individual 

 enterprise. As well might a single shareholder attempt 

 constructing his portion of a railway, with all its com- 

 plicated accompaniments ! Imagine him attempting such 

 an object, himself without experience, and unaided by 

 all the various aggregation of talent necessary for the 

 details of such an open m. The idea is absurd ; and yet 

 the scarcely less complicated operation of landed im- 

 provement is, up to this hour, left in the position I have 



described. 



Ask a capitalist, why he does not invest his money in 

 land or agriculture? He *ill look sternly grave, and 

 quote a hundred instances where individuals have ruined 

 themselves by such a course. So now he rushes into 

 some foreign loan or project, to the great injury of his 

 own countrymen, fearful of the " law's delay" in convey- 

 ance with all its multifarious objections, pro and con, 

 most likely alarmed by the rumoured fate of some friend 

 who, having at last got his estate, knows nothing about 

 the management of it, and after struggling with incom- 

 petent tenants or designing ones — new leases, valuations, 

 tormenting applications for repairs to the old dilapidated 

 buildings, appeals for returns of rent, and a hundred 

 other vexations, finds his rental reduced to 2^ per cent 

 or less, sells at a loss, and retires from the contest in 

 despair. His example is quoted, and his mishap magni- 

 fied to a hundred other capitalists, who ever after, from 

 father to son, shun the dangers of meddling with so dis- 

 astrous an affair as landed investment. 



As to agricultural improvements, why if a man has 

 the courage to attempt it, he will at the outset encounter 

 a host of doubts, prejudices, and obstructions— a hundred 

 conflicting opinions as to the width, depth, distance, and 

 materials of his drains will present themselves. Should 

 he by good fortune settle this matter rightly, he is as- 

 tounded with multifarious suggestions on subsoiling and 

 courses of cropping, quantities and distances of seed, and 

 state of crops for harvesting. As to artificial manures, a 

 very host of nitrates and sulphates beset him in front and 

 rear, with soot, salt, and guanos on every side. He 

 turns pale at the perspective of lime and chalk. Unde- 

 cided and bewildered by their contending claims, he is 

 coolly told that a perfect knowledge of agricultural 

 chemistry, geology, entomology, and bo'any, can alone 

 enable him to decide correctly. Having pondered upon 

 the respective merits of short horns, long horns, and no 

 horns ; Downs, Leicesters, Cheviots, Kents, and Cots- 

 wolders ; and whether corn, cake, Carrots, or Coleworts, 

 are most fattening — he hurries away to inspect a 

 thousand complicated implements of agriculture, which 

 it would require a life of mechanical education and skill 

 effectually to appreciate and discriminate. In despair he 

 gives up the contest, loses his money or dies, leaving no m 

 authorised version of the knowledge he has acquired, but 

 bequeathing to the venturous few the same course of toil, 

 trouble, doubt, and disappointment ; but had he suc- 

 ceeded, his motives would be misrepresented, his facts 



now obliged to purchase ! Could we but produce food 

 with as much speed as we do manufactures, we should 

 indeed, be a great nation — we have the means to do so 

 had we but the method. Had such companies existed 

 years ago, millions of our money, lent or wasted to 

 strengthen other nations, would have been employed at 

 home in adding to our happ ; ness and welfare. My 

 earnest wish Is, that I may be spared to see my sug- 

 gestions in practical operation — it will be amongst the 

 happiest moments of my life ! Our duty to our country 

 and to ourselves claims our attention to this matttr.— 

 J. J. Mechi, 4, Lcadcuhall-slrect. 



P.S. — There are already some Agricultural Colleges, 

 Agricultural Drainage Companies, and no doubt there 

 will be Loan Companies, Improvement Companies, and 

 Companies for the cultivation of Flax, Oils, &c, which 

 are now purchased of foreigners. 



THE PLOUGH. 



(Continued from page 738.) 



In considering what mode of ploughing will insure 

 the attainment of our object in the process, it is evident 

 that we cannot reason from the operation as performed 

 on land already in a loose state ; there, indeed, no dif- 

 ference would be perceptible between the work of two 

 very different implements. If we are to compare the 

 work of two ploughs, it must be when on land, such thfl 

 the form and position of the sods, as each is cut and 

 turned over, will be preserved* Instead, ho v. ;-, of 

 comparing the work of two ploughs, and ascertaining 

 which is superior, let us consider the work of only one, 

 and inquire under hat circumstances it will be perfect. 

 It is believed that the value of the operation of 

 ploughing lies in the exposure of a fresh surface, and 

 in the raising of earth in the form of ribs, which, when 

 pulled down by the harrows, forms a seed-bed. That 

 ind is thus best ploughed which has (he greatest surface 

 exposed, and which has the greatest quantity of earth 

 raised in the form of these ribs. In other words, sup- 

 posing, in the annexed figure, the crooked line, A B, to 



C F 



represent the surface of the field (and the dotted lines 

 which represent sections of the sod will show how such 

 a surface is produced by ploughing), then where this line 

 is a maximum, and where the earth raised in the form of 

 ribs which are represented by the sections a, b, &?., is 

 a maximum, then the land is perfectly ploughed. Ic is 

 demonstrable that, with any given depth of furrow i 

 one of these conditions exist, the other exists also. 1 hat 

 is— wberever-the surface exposed is a maximum, then 

 with the existing depth of furrow, the quantiry of e n 

 raised as ribs above the general level is a maximum. Vk e 

 do not now take into consideration any question regarding 

 the proper depth of ploughing, and it is very p< ;ble, 

 ' in fact it is the case, that two specimens of ploughing 

 may be of equal merit in respect of tue two points ju.t 

 aUuded to, while the one may be superior to the other 



disbelieved, and his character blackened by those who 

 consider tha k . agricu'tural ignorance is bliss, and that 

 improvement opens the eyes of the landlord, to the injury 

 of the tenant. Now all this might be easily obviated and 

 prevented by a well conducted company, having practical 

 directors, with proper engineers and officers. Do away 

 with the law of mortmain as regards such companies. 

 Let them purchase waste or poor lands — drain, char, 

 trench, crop, and let them. Let there be rival companies, 

 id their shares quoted at the i tock exchange, the same 

 as ra'lway companies. Their success would dep:nd upon 

 their abilities and results ; and a man disposed to invest 

 his money in agricultural improvement could, without 

 any personal trouble, buy or *ell his shares, or bequeah 

 them, without more anxiety or care than attends any 

 other investment. 



The importanceof such companies is too obvious to need 

 comment ; all other undertakings, however useful or great, 

 I consider secondary and subservient to the production 

 of our daily bread, and the provision for our daily labour. 

 Let our city capitalists and our great practical agricul- 

 turists combine — let one find money and the other 

 judgment : let them consider their interests inseparable 

 (as they really are). How delightful will it b? to see in 

 our daily papers lists of Lwd Improvement Companies 

 for every county in England, 1, eland, Scotland and 

 Wales, quoted on the Stock Exchange 1 How pleasant 

 to watch and compare the management and success of a 

 hundred such comp es, to read of their meetings of 



* OciuOei x2k.li, ib4». J if l i. iw faji'-^ns appear in lUla 



d*y's Spectator, \ e 96O:— "A raflwaj pn ra Lisbon 



;>orto, thr Urem a«»d Coimbra, half the nee >ry 



capital to be raised in England, ami half in Por " •• One 



hundred Thames Tunnel shires, on which 5000/. have been 

 pa'd, were sold the other day for 30?." Can A nlmral Im- 

 provement Companies turn out worse than this ?— i.J.M. 



in res 



The s 



pect of the third point, the depth of the operat on. 



Sbjeet, however, of the proper depth of plough: 



does no" properly fall within the scope of these remarks 



anTmore^than does the subject of the pro, • ■■>• of a 



ilht furrow, or that of any other crcum-tance de- 



ifnt on the will or the skill of the ptopgfai J ; it 1. 



J h those oarts of the operation which, being de- 



y 



strai 



pen 



only with those part 



S-OT3- of the plough, are beyond the con- 



irA of the ploughman, that we have to do. 



lr u „L confine our attention to a single od. I« 



corner of the sod that has just 



thus it assumes itsjnal P-'"- ^ forms , gupport 



that of the figure in 



Nation will also show that both of these point, 

 pend entirely on the form and on the position of he to* 

 1 t. .a^rtainine what is the proper form of the 



: ascertaining 



what form -ill insure the ezposure of the !«*•»**!£ 

 2?J* is evident that we have only two forms to ^ 



from 



that in" which the angle b c d (see the M**W 



ht angle, and that in which it is ow» 



