MS 



THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE 



nly employed one labourer each, was 38,821 ; those 

 mploying two 33,535; three, 21,17*2; ten, 9660; 

 wenty, 3153: forty, 403: fifty. 213 : and those em- 



those era- 



These 



labour themselves, assist d by their children and by the 

 employment of occasional labour. 



The number of fanners in Great Britain in 1851 who 



em 



twenty, 31 ; forty, 403; fifty, 213 

 ploying sixty labourers and upwards, 182. 

 returns are exclusive of women and children. 



It needs also be stated that of the total number of 

 persons who returned themselves as farmers, no less 

 than 22,982 were engaged in some other pursuit or 

 business besides that of farming, and amongst this 

 number we find 2434 inn or beershop keepers, 1885 

 millers, 1463 nurserymen, 1*230 land proprietors, and 

 1352 butchers. Tne remainder of these persons were 

 emiaged in various oilier occupations. 



From the foregoing statements it will be observed 

 that it is very difficult to arrive at any satis' tory 

 results with regard to the exact number of farm 

 labourers employed. The only way in which we can 

 get a tolerably fair view of f he proportion of the popula- 

 tion engaged in agriculture is to view the whole number 

 of persons employed in agricultural occupations as a 

 clas9 ; and * a class compare them with the total popu- 

 lation. On doing this we find that 2(i per cent, of the 

 males, and 8 per cent, of the females, of 20 years of a«e 

 and upwards— and 8 per cent, of the males and nearly 

 3 per cent, of the females under 20 years of age, were 

 specially employed in agriculture in the year 1851. 



From what has been said, it appears that the agri- 

 cultural classes have increased' in number since 1831 

 but decreased as compared with the increased popula- # 

 tion, that is to say that although the toUl number of "j 

 persons employed in agriculture has somewhat increased 

 since 1831, it has not increased in the same proportion 

 as the population. 



The agricultural classes of Great Britain, therefore, 

 as regards number, may be stated to occupy a nearly 

 stationary position ; the efforts of the farmers being 

 rather directed towards the greater production of the 

 land under cultivation than to the inclosure of unculti- 

 vated lauds. 



In the United States of America not only are the 

 farmers paying greater attention to the fertilisation of 

 the lands already unier cultivation, but the stationary 

 position of the agricultural classes in that country is 

 also apparent, although not arising 

 same causes as in England. In 

 Reports on Agriculture for 1849 it is stated, 

 reference to that country, " That it is a notorious 

 that farm labourers do not seem to increase ; they are 

 every where scarce, aud the demand for their labour in 

 the towns and manufacturing villages enables them to 



command high wages Farmers can with difficulty 



obtain Sufficient labouring men, notwithstanding the 

 almost half million of arrivals" (immigrants). 



It is very probable that the increased education of rile 

 working classes may have in some measure been the 

 cause of this scarcity of labourers, aud if so, the still 

 increasing education of the masses will materially affect 

 the position of the farmer. For it is evident that when 

 the masses become more generally educated, they will 

 be better able to undertake skilled employments, and 

 therefore the farmer will have to raise the wanes of his 

 labourers 





forth her powers or counteract her efforts, it seems that 

 nothing short of a miracle can find food for the enor- 

 mous number of animals, now all at once starting 

 into existence, and clamouring for that supply which 

 she has so unprecedented^ withheld. What is to be 



done I 



An answer to this question will, perhaps, be one which 

 will interest your farming readers more than anv other, 

 perhaps not less than the taking of Sebastopol itself-— 

 and to this question I now apply myself. The first 

 grand requirement in the feeding of ewes is, not only 

 that they should have a sufficiency of food, but that that 

 food should be succulent in its nature, and capable of 

 enabling them to secrete a sufficient quantity of milk for 



their Iambs. 



The second grand requirement in feeding of ewes and 



lambs is, to do it so economically, that Wiile they get the 



benefit, the farmer does not suffer in Ins pocket beyond 



what he may reasonably replace. Now I asked a large 



flock-master the other day how he fed his ewes, and 



what he thought the best food for bringing them to their 



milk. " I give them Oats," he said ; " nothing like Oats." 



What I said to him was this : " You remind me very 



"Kn. 14, 



much of an old joke against a brewer, who upon a friend 



from precisely the 

 the Patent Office 



with 

 fact 



i 



for if he does not, he cannot expect a man 

 to be content to do the work and receive the pay of 

 unskilled labour, when he has the means in his power 

 of acting just in the opposite direction. 



The introduction of machinery, however, in the place 



««n«?.:i! A J I„l - Ml I 1 .• 



him, e any fool may brew good beer with good malt and 

 Hops ; but the grand art and mystery of brewing is to 

 brew good beer without either.' So I say, any one 

 ,may keep up the condition of his ewes, aud get up 

 his lambs, with plenty of Oats, but to do it withour,- 

 1 There's the rub.' : ' Now, it is a fact well known in 

 animal physiology that highly nutritious food, in a 

 concentrated state, does not produce the same beneficial 

 effects upon an animal fed with it, as food less nutritious 

 but more bulky ; bulk is essential to bringing the mecha- 

 nical action of the stomach into play, and, though a pint 

 of Oats is essentially more nutritious than half a pint of 

 Oats mixed with half a peck of chart', yet the latter would 

 be more beneficial than the former, because of its 

 mechanical effect. And this brings me to the question 

 of the economical feeding of ewes and lambs ; and the 

 substance which I point to, is straw. " Straw," some 

 one will say, " 1 should like my ewes to eat straw." 

 Straw this season is the farmer's sheet-anchor. Thanks 

 to a bountiful Providence, if we have no Turnips, we 

 have plenty of straw. Of straw, as a light-land farmer, 

 I would say, as the poet of " The Seasons" beautifully 

 said of health: " He that hath thee hath little else to 

 wish for 



everything with thee." I remember visiting a success- 

 ful Norfolk farmer many years ago, one who by his 

 farming had lined his pockets well ; I found him in his 

 chaff-house, standing beside a large heap of straw chaff, 

 and seeing it prepared for seme operation. I asked 

 him what he was going to do with it. *' Stay a minute," 

 said he, " and I wiil show you." Presently a man came 

 in with two pails full of hot boiling Linseed mucilage, and 

 emptied them amongst the chaff, which act he repeated, 

 and then mixed straw chaff and mucilage all up together. 

 " There," said my friend, « that's what 1 do with my 

 straw ; and if those who grow the wretched stuff called 

 Mow-land hay' knew how worthless it is, they would 

 never be at the trouble of saving it, while they can get 

 good straw. I feed all my horses and bullocks upon 

 straw chaff." I was a younger man then than I am now, 

 yet I have never forgotten the lesson which I then 

 learned ; but I fancy I have rather improved upon my 



an economical and nu tr i tious~lbooT^w| ~f^ 

 will eat with a relish, and that as often !\\ U * lr *• 

 repeat it. * * the 7 pl** % 



I will venture to say that whoever will d 

 systematically will find that he has got hoM^ 8 pl * 

 which, if it does not make his fortune, will ^ 

 save his animals from starvation, and his pr ^^^ 

 ruinous outlay. Packet iroja i 



At the B __ _ mt iwu 



hundred score of ewes and lambs 'and^th^ * 

 by this mode, without having scarcely a sound T> 

 left upon my farm, and without the assi^ 1 ^ 

 corn, meal, or cake ; and I never bad my ewes andl * 



do better in all mv exnerien™ 7?**J„*.:„i.n,..!:' a *k 



present moment I am feedi 



Hall Farm, near Brandon, March 20 in th* i 

 Norwich Post of March 28. . ime ^l 



totk 



Home Corn 



Agriculture as a Science. 



The difficulties which i 



; he that is so wretched as to want thee wants 



tins difficulty ; and to raise the wages of the skilled ' ' " " ■ - - « • - * B J nurses 



hands he will then require to employ (which will be 

 fewer in number than those at present engaged) to the 

 Standard of that of the manufacturing labourer, and 

 thus the skilled agricultural labourer will be placed on 

 an equal footing with the skilled manufacturing labourer. 

 When farming is managed entirely upon scientific prin- 

 ciples it will be necessary for the farm labourer to know 

 something of those principles, and so we may hope that 

 the position of the agricultural labourer will eventually 

 be greatly improved. 



With regard to the territory which is lying waste it 

 is possible that science may aid u* ba reclaiming a 

 portion of it, and when we consider the wants of the 

 coming generations it appears most necessary that every 

 step should be taken to increase the fertility of the soil, 

 as well as to restore waste lands to fruitfulness. It is 

 worthy of notice that some thousands of acres of land 

 in this kingdom, hitherto employed for agricultural 

 purposes have, during the last few years, been used for 

 the construction of railroads, and thus been subtracted 

 from the total producing area of the country. To make 

 up this deficiency, as well as to provide for the increasing 

 wants of the people of this land, is in the power of the 

 agricultural classes, and it is hoped that they will, ere 



long, a*a«ien to a seuse of their own and country's 

 interest. J 



season 



HOW ARE WE TO FIND FOOD FOR OUR 



FLOCKS I 



e°f a ;lVrl 6 ***%** Which P**« ra » st anxiously upon 

 e farmer s consideration at the present moment this 

 the most urgent and obtrusive . P 1^55^ 

 like this, when our soft Turnips, on which we 

 depended for our ewes and lambs, are almost unte7 

 sally destroyed, aud when the extreme EX32L 

 Of the season is compered, in which xS^"^ 

 unable or unwilling to awake from her £? wS 

 sleep or the sharp nightly frosts, like fetters' of iro7 

 bmd her hand and foot, and either prevent her putting 



and bullocks only, I give it also to ray ewes and to my 

 fatting sheep. 



We have all laughed at the old joke of the two 

 penitents, who being enjoined penance to a distant 

 shrine, were to proceed there with Peas in their shoes. 

 One performed his journey gaily and expeditiously, and 

 returning home, met his poor foot-worn crippled 

 brother hobbling along, having hardly made any way at 

 all, who asked how it was that, enjoined as they were a 

 like penance, the other should have got over his ground 

 to gaily and so quickly, whereas he was in torture, and 

 had all his misery yet before him. « Well, to tell you 

 the truth," said the more sly and fortunate brother, "I 

 took the liberty to boil my Peas." And here's the 

 secret of using straw chaff— cook it ; you will never get 

 sheep to eat it successfully without, unless a portion of 

 pulped root is mixed with it. 1 steam mine. To do 

 this 1 have brick vats, which will hold about 500 bushels 

 with perforated false bottoms; beneath these false* 

 bottoms is the steam supply pipe, which I can regulate 

 at pleasure, but where there is not a supply of steam a 

 substitute may be found in this way : take any large 

 receptacle— it may be a mash tun, or anything else, the 

 larger the better ; place within it a layer of straw chaff 

 about 4 inches thick, sprinkle this well with boiling 

 water, put in another lajer of chaff, sprinkle this in 

 like manner, and so on, until your vessel or receptacle 

 is full • press it down tolerably compact, cover it well 

 up and let it stand until the straw is thoroughly 

 cooked I find it best to mix a small quantity 

 of good stover or bay chaff with the straw chaff 

 before steaming-say one- sixth part or one-fourth 



?**' £ y ° U J 1 " 6 ! P,e . Dty; 5t « ives to flavour 

 to the straw, and makes it very palatable ; and I also 



add just a little dust of salt to flavour it ; and those who 

 are fortunate enough to have some Swedes or Mangold 

 left will do well, with the aid of my pulping machine to 

 palp a few, and mix with the chaff after it is cooked 

 sufficiently, when they will find, to their great saSfac 

 tion, and that of their animals, that th^v wl L"™ ; 



uivuu* auuTu aii uuici ^ «^ maiming tne nrst attention 

 it consists in a general ignorance of the Qualities r 

 temperament of the staple soil. True it is that culuY 

 tion has made great advances during this 19th ceutnrv 

 and indeed since the time when Arthur Youn»,m I 

 wrote in favour of bones as beneficial to clay lands '«J 

 when Marshall, in 1705, asserted that one farmer in 

 Norfolk had applied rape-cake for 20 years at the rate 

 of 1 ton to 3 acres, which cost from 21. to 31. per acre 

 Artificial manures were, however, little thought of fflj 

 the organic manure produced upon the farm was found 

 to be insufficient to recruit a soil exhausted by inade- 

 quate tillage and injudicious cropping. Judging from 

 the many statements and opinions recorded in otr 

 numerous periodicals, and the facts we obtain from 

 personal inspection, we arrive at the conclusion that 

 agriculture still remains, to a great extent, under the 

 guidance of empirical routine, and that little is 

 really known of causes or principles. The discordant 

 and even opposite results obtained from the use of 

 any kind of fertiliser upon different portions of one and 

 the same farm or garden yield proofs conclusive of the 

 existing ignorance of the first principle above alluded to; 

 and therefore until the mineral elements of the soil and 

 subsoil be thoroughly understood, any system of agri- 

 culture must be more or Jess defective and uncertain in 

 its results. But how is such knowledge to be obtained! 

 If the plain and direct answer- u By analysis of the 

 soil" be returned, then the immensity of the under- 

 taking must render the attempt all but hopeless ! Here, 

 however, it is but just to inform the Euglish reader 

 that the Highland Society now offers, at its own expense, 

 to have correct analyses made of the soils and manures 

 used by those farmers who may compete for its 

 premiums with special manures. Aided by the steady 

 and rapid advance of chemical science, with the most 

 delicate tests and refined processes, much might be 

 locally effected during that deep laboration of laud 

 which must precede the thorough draining of every 

 good farm, and wherein the temper and constituent 

 minerals would, to a great extent, be discovered, and 

 the required system of manuring indicated. Since 

 the first appearance of Liebig's work the mineral 

 constituents of the ground have been much studied, 

 and less has been thought of stable and fold manures.. 

 Those elements are sandy or silicious matter, alumffl* 

 or the basis of pure clay, chalk (carbonate ofM> 

 and oxide of iron. These minerals are found » 

 extremely variable quantities in every fertile land, m 

 of that I had ample means of proof during «tf ^ £„ 

 experience in Berkshire. I first consulted SirH. VW 

 and went through the minute details given m tne i- 

 pages, commencing at p. 140, of his fourth »g r,CUkt r~ 

 lecture. Clever as these were nearly 50 years ng0jj» 'l 

 (and also the processes of the late Dr. Henry) »»«» 

 bring out clear results, particula: ly in the chs»jnaW D 

 the oxides of iron and phosphoric acid. lbe K 

 and mechanical washing through tin srrains £jj rf 

 so as to arrest silicious particles, and carry off n 

 and more divisible fine matters, proved more 1,,st ^ QCtf 

 in so far as that they at once exhibited the su • ^ 

 which constitute the texture of the sample. F^ 

 step improvement advanced ; and about the e^ ^ 



trituration, aeration, and comminution oi *"J"' | j n iik£ 

 and also the good effects that would folio* # 

 course in the renovation of old ground oDj, ^ g ^ f 

 cultivation of its upper stratum to the deptn i ^ 

 inches only. If we desire to manure on w {q # 

 ciples with auxiliary fertilisers approprm ^ g ^ 

 requirements of the earth, we must, &» & ^ everf 

 acquaint ourselves with the actual con di tl ^^a* 

 rod or pole and rood of land prior to the m mt $m 

 any particular crop. The subject of °ff ]l]See & c& 

 such as those of the dung-heap and oi . J iirr eiS^ 



™ and that for a 



Lime, *l*°i 



requires great attention, and that for a V 



noticed 



-.".5 



«i*mc uuuceu uy any wruer». **•"•-* , ^y or v •' 



essential specific claim not to be passe faflflV* 

 looked ; but space cannot now be hfio r( * ' ^ pn ll 



. space cannot now u* *•— . Apr** j 

 of !U interest. J. T? <ffi%**£ 



objectg are ol i;reat interest. J- -«•> K ""' j , Jm 



Newhn-A Hot Union.— Report of V* ^4 

 Committee for the. near ended ChrVtma*, 



V 



