Sept. 22, 1S55.J 



THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 



63.1 



Theld a meeting on this point ; among other places, at Hawick. 

 when there was a sort of compromise effected; the farmers agree- 

 •ne to support the inquiry provided they were allowed to direct 

 thfir answers to myself; they seemed to prefer that I should 

 receive and look at them rather than any neighbour.— I 

 hjive described the staff; I shall now describe the schedule. 

 The occupant was asked to state, first, the total number of 

 •cres on his farm, then the total number of these arable, and 

 the manner in which the farm was subdivided; that is. the 

 -create of every crop, of fallow, Grass, sheep-walk, waste, roads, 

 fences &c A return of wood was taken exclusively from the 

 proprietor! The schedule also contained columns of stock. I 

 have already stated that the tillage farmer was required merely 

 to state, as a basis for after inquiry into his produce, that which 

 ▼as patent to any one, the acreage of his crops; but as acreage 

 affords no criterion, in pastoral districts, of the stock maintained 

 on it, the stock farmer had to return directly the number of head 

 possessed by him. The Committee will observe, with reference 

 to stock, that when I got the answers to the schedule, the work 

 was done. I had merely to add the individual returns in each 

 district, and to put the results of different districts together, in 

 order to show the stock of a county ; but I had another process to 

 go through in order to arrive at the yield of the crops : though 1 

 had received from every occupant a return of his acreage, and of 

 how that acreage was subdivided into Wheat, Barley, Oats, &c, 

 gach a return did not tell me how many bushels per acre he had 

 raised. It was deliberately considered, and it was very early 

 resolved, that it would be most impolitic and inexpedient, with a 

 view to success, to ask the farmer any direct question as to his 

 produce. We believed that, as a voluntary measure, it would 

 not succeed if he were so asked ; and that there was less risk of 

 deception by resorting to some indirect method, such as we did 

 adopt. The method was this : the enumerator of a district and 

 his committee, the committee being a jury for the district, and 

 the enumerator, you might say, being the chancellor of that jury, 

 received written instructions from me in the course of the summer 

 to keep their ears and their eyes open, to observe how the crops 

 were looking, to inspect their respective parishes, and to ascer- 

 tain their neighbours 7 opinions as to the prospects of the harvest; 

 and by such a course of inquiry, commenced before and continued 

 after harvest, while the crop was growing, when it was cut, after 

 it had been stacked, and up to the time of some of it being 

 threshed or weighed, each man in his own parish was directed 

 to form an estimate of the probable average yield per acre of each 

 grain and root crop. The enumerator then summoned his com- 

 mittee or his jury together; they compared notes for the different 

 parishes, struck an average for the district, and reported to me 

 that for their district, in their opinion, the average yield amounted 

 to so many bushels of Wheat per acre, so many bushels of Barley, 

 Oats, &c., and so many tons of Potatoes, Turnips, &c. I issued 

 the schedules on the 1st of May; there were two reports that 

 year, one of acreage and stock, and the other the estimate of the 

 crops ; the first report was dated 25th of July. The supplementary 

 report or estimate of produce was not published by the Board of 

 Trade, but by their permission by the Society on our own respon- 

 sibility ; it was dated 19th November; so that it took from the 

 1st of May to the 19th of November to complete the inquiry.— 

 Will you state what alterations you introduced in 1854, and what 

 alterations you think might with advantage be introduced in the 

 collection of the statistics ? In 1854, at a conference with the Board 

 of Trade in relation to the Industrial Museum, which has since 

 been established in Scotland, the Duke of Hamilton, the Duke of 

 Buceleugh, and other members of the Highland Society, availed 

 themselves of the opportunity to urge the prosecution of the 

 statistical inquiry, and I was required by Mr. Cardwell to esti- 

 mate the cost of putting the same measure into operation over 

 the whole of Scotland, which had been tried experimentally in 

 three counties ; the sum estimated was 60007., which was granted. 

 I may mention, that the same system generally was followed in 

 1854 as in 1853. There were only two alterations of any moment 

 to which I think I need allude : the first I have already explained, 

 namely, that the schedules were issued directly by me, and 

 returned to me. The other alteration was, that in 1853 we served 

 schedules upon all occupiers holding as small a portion as 2 acres, 

 so far as my memory serves me ; but in 1854 we made rent, and 

 not extent, the line of demarcation : we still believed it to be 

 absurd to send schedules to every little occupant of land, who 

 could neither comprehend the schedule, nor fill it up; but we 

 thought rental was a better limitation than acreage : a man might 

 hold 2 acres, and pay a comparatively large rent, much larger 

 than one in the Highlands holding 20 acres, and paying a few 

 Shillings ; we therefore adopted the money limitation to fix the 

 point at which schedules should be issued. We found it necessary 

 again to draw a distinction between the Highland and the Low- 

 land districts ; we believed we might safely send schedules to all 

 persons in the Lowlands paying a rent of 10Z, and upwards ; but 

 we were told that it would generally be fruitless to seek direct 

 information from Highland tenants paying less than 20Z., so that 

 it was resolved to take direct information, by the service of 

 schedules, from all tenants in 26 Lowland counties rented at 10Z. 

 and upwards, and in the seven Highland counties at 20Z. and 

 upwards. With regard to those below these marks, it was 

 further resolved that I should devise some means or other of 

 getting, through indirect channels, information to lay before 

 Goverment, in order to exhaust the margin down to the lowest 

 possible figure. This supplemental report is now ready to be 

 lodged with the Board of Trade The issue of the schedules by 

 jae, and the mode of treating the small holders, are, therefore, 

 the two principal changes in 1854 as compared with 1853. 



James Cairo, Esq., examined.— You are aware ot the mode 

 ^nich has been pursued in England by the Poor-law Commis- 

 sioners, through the agency of their officers, in attempting to 

 obtain information during the past year ?— 1 am so, in so far as 

 tneir report gives me that information. Is it your opinion, that 

 that is the best means of obtaining such information, or can you 

 Bl3 ggest to the Committee any other mode which in your opinion 

 would be better calculated to obtain the desired results?— I do 

 not think it the best mode of obtaining that information; I my- 

 selt suggested to Mr. Cardwell, about two years ago, a mode 

 which I subsequently read before the Society of Arts, and which, 

 " your lordships will permit me, I will again go through. The 

 m am object is to obtain trustworthy returns, and those with the 

 'east necessary expense. Trustworthy returns can only be 

 obtained through trustworthy officers, responsible for the correct 

 performance of their duty, and working under a system which 

 *nords a ready test of accuracy. Economy will be promoted by 

 employing a small number of competent and responsible men, 

 rather than a very numerous body of local officials, each of whom 

 ajust receive a fee, while they would be comparatively irrespon- 

 sible, and, from their numbers, subject to no satisfactory test of 

 accuracy. The first point to be ascertained is the acreage under 

 each different crop, and this is by far the most important part of 

 ™e inquiry. This will not be an estimate, but a record of facts. 

 £■ l s requisite, therefore, that it be conducted with care and deli- 

 beration, and, as it may be begun as soon as the seed is sown, 

 Jhe three months of May, June, and July may be occupied in 

 * w Part of the inquiry. There could be no reasonable objection 

 °& the part of any occupier to an inquiry as to the manner in 

 which the surface of his farm is cropped. That is quite a different 

 question from demanding to know the total produce of his crops. 

 *t may be proper, therefore, to make answers to this inquiry 



2?K llsor7 » if "ecessary, which necessity, it is believed, 

 would very rarely arise; nor would there bo the same objec- 

 5£L° n the part of tne farmers to answer such questions 

 mi2lf Put hy a res P° nsi » 1 e and confidential officer, as by what 

 J"»gut be thought a prying and irresponsible neighbour. 

 «e acreage under each different crop having been ascertained, 

 "je occupier would be required to say not what was the actual 

 Froance f a particular field, but what was the average produce 



harJS 8 v f eacn cro P ou his f&rm in ordinary years. Before 



viz I important facts would thus have been ascertained, 



•> urst, the extent under each kind of crop; secondly, the 



average produce per acre of ordinary years. Taking the fore- 

 going data as the principles on which to conduct the inquiry, the 

 following would be the plan of operations, — (I do not say that this 

 is the only plan, or anything like it, but it is one which i have 

 considered). I will suppose a branch of the Tithe and Inclosure 

 Commission Office, or such other office as the Government may 

 deem most suitable, to be the central office for issuing instruc- 

 tions, comptrolling officers, inspecting and testing the accuracy 

 of the returns, and for arranging them for publication. One, 

 two, and in some cases, three collectors of returns for each 

 county, according to its extent, would be appointed. These 

 would be selected as men of known competence ; each col- 

 lector would be employed, on an average, 90 days before 

 harvest in ascertaining the acreage under each crop, and 

 other particulars; and 10 days after harvest in ascertaining 

 the comparative yield of the last crop. The colh 

 provided with his map and list of occupiers, would, between the 

 1st of May and the end of July, personally visit every occupier of 

 land within his district, and mark down in ji b ook the several 

 particulars required to be ascertained. This book would, when 

 completed after harvest, be forwarded to the central office in 

 London, and would be preserved for the purpose of being after- 

 wards tested by the personal inquiry of a bupenor officer. Imme- 

 diately after harvest the collector would ag:tin visit each parish 

 in his district, and satisfy himself as to whether the crop of each 

 kind was an average, or how far it was above or below an average. 

 Having already calculated the average produce of each crop in a 

 parish, he would alter that to correspond with the actual produce 

 of the particular season. Thus, for example, if he had ascer- 

 tained that a certain parish had 1500 teres in Wheat, which at 

 the rate of the average of years yielded 39,000 bushels, but that 

 the actual yield of that year had proved 2 bushels an acre below 

 the average, he would subtract 3000 bushels from the above 

 quantity, and return 36,000 bushels as the estimated yield 

 of "Wheat in that parish. The main part of the calculations 

 having been completed before harvest, the alterations necessary 

 after harvest would be made with great facility, and the gross 

 returns of the crops be ready for publication by the 10th of October. 

 Monthly reports of the state of the growing crops at the most 

 critical period would be made during the three months of inquiry. 

 It would be part of the duty of the central office to test the 

 returns of every collector, by an inspector taking his returns for 

 a particular parish, and investigating on the sj each statement 

 recorded. This should be done in spring, so that the estimate 

 might be compared with the fact after the crop was threshed out, 

 and thus any carelessness or gross inaccuracy would be detected 

 and a useful guide be supplied for the future. Incompetency or 

 carelessness would be visited with Ion of employment. After 

 the gross returns of produce were issued (which would be the 

 first object), it would be the duty of the central office to compile 

 from the returns such valuable statistics as had a special bear- 

 ing on the agricultural improvement of the kingdom, and of 

 every separate district in it. I think the mode which was 

 adopted in Scotland of sending returns direct to the Secretary of 

 the Highland Society, and having local committees to fix "the 

 averages, was an extremely good one in theory, but there was no 

 opportunity of checking the correctness of the returns, which 

 were sent direct to Edinburgh. It appears to me that there is a 

 machinery in Scotland at the present moment, upon which this 

 inquiry might be with advantage engrafted. I have here a copy 

 of a schedule which has been issued under the Land Valuation 

 Act of Scotland, which has just come into force, and under which 

 the occupiers and proprietors are, under a penalty, bound to 

 return the nature of the subject they occupy, the parish in which 

 it is situated, the estimated extent; the grain rent, the kind of 

 grain if a grain rent, the amount of conversion in converting it 

 into money; the drainage interest, if any is paid by the tenant; 

 and it would be easy to add three or four columns, embracing the 

 returns with reference to each crop; this is required under an 

 Act of Parliament; and there have been in every county in Scot- 

 land valuators appointed who would be very useful men for ob- 

 taining this information. 



J. H. Maxwell, Esq., further examined. — With regard to 

 the opinion which Mr. Caird has expressed, that there is a want 

 of means of testing the accuracy cf the returns as now made, can 

 you suggest to the committee any mode by which an efficient 

 test may be furnished, if you think none at present exists ? Mr. 



aird, to a certain extent, is right ; but, to a certain extent, he is 

 wrong as to the want of any test of accuracy under the scheme 

 which was devised and worked out by me. There is to a certain 

 extent, a test of accuracy ; I described on Tuesday how inciden- 

 tally I had here and there a valuable test of accuracy, by the in- 

 vestigations of certain members of the committee who conceived 

 it was their duty to collect the acreage of their parishes, and the 

 identity between their reports and the aggregate of the individual 

 returns from such parishes. It may be said that this was acci- 

 dental, but if the result of the accident be valuable as a test, I 

 could easily do the same thing here and there again. If it 

 was one year done here, and another year there, and if the result 

 was such as to satisfy Government of the bona fides of the farmer, 

 and that their returns of acreage were substantially correct, it 

 would to a certain extent, serve as that test of accuracy which 

 Mr. Caird thinks is wanting. There was another test of 

 accuracy; in some instances the enumerator of a district re- 

 quired me, to enable him to estimate the crops, to send him, not 

 what the acreage of this man was, or that man, for I would not have 

 done that — those were confidential statements to me — but what 

 the general acreage of the crops over a district or in a parish 

 was. In such cases any glaring error necessarily attracted his at- 

 tention, or that of the member of committee for that parish. Many 

 trivial errors were discovered, which led to a great deal of corre- 

 spondence on my part, with a view to trace and put them right; 

 but the character of the errors was such as to satisfy the enume- 

 rators and myself, that there had been no intention to deceive. 

 That was another check. Mr. Caird was asked by a noble lord, 

 whether his views as to the want of accuracy in the Scotch re- 

 turns were based upon the fact of inaccuracy, or only upon an 

 opinion that there might be inaccuracy. Mr. Caird stated, that 

 in his own district there were some slight Inaccuracies ; of course 

 they must have been very slight, because he being my enumerator 

 in that district, they were not communicated to me, and I have 

 not heard of them till the present moment. There is another 

 test, which, as a farmer, Mr. Caird must admit exists; those 

 schedules show the rotation of a farm, and every person who 

 knows anything about farming, and gets accustomed to reading 

 the schedules, will see at once where there is a material misstate- 

 ment. If there should be 150 acres of Barley in the return, and 

 there are only 15 or 50, it will speak for itself, and lead to corre- 

 spondence in order to trace the error; this was the case repeatedly 

 last year. It may be asked, moreover, what is the object which a 

 farmer has to deceive in making his return of acreage. In preparin 

 an estimate, the parties may kave an interest in falsifying the esti- 

 mate but I put great faith in the honesty of the farmers in Scotland; 



some of them may refuse to give information, but I have th 

 most perfect confidence in their honesty and bona fides when they 

 do give it; and as it was only the acreage which was asked from 

 them, a fact any one could ascertain, and as the individual returns 

 of acreage were not to be published, but only the acreage of 

 a large district of parishes, it the farmer put as much confidence 

 in my honesty as I did in his, he had no object in deliberately 

 misstating his acreage, and I do not believe it was done. S 

 much for the test of accuracy; but I will go a little further, and 

 say, if there is no test of accuracy in the cheme which has b n 

 worked out in Scotland, 1 want to know where it is in that which 

 Mr. Caird would substitute for it. I did not exactly gather 

 whether Mr. Caird meant to apply the machinery to Scotland 

 that he spoke of in the first part of his evidence as to England, 

 for, there, there is no test of accuracy. If the general scheme 

 which he proposed for England, particularly in reference to the 

 estimates of produce, were to be proposed for Scotland, I would 

 object to it on the ground, inter aUa, that there is no test of 

 accuracy. It appears to me to be a fallacious scheme ; he starts 



on an assumed basis which does not exist, and that contains 

 no test of accuracy whatever. The basis of Mr. Caird's scheme 

 for estimating oduce is the average yield of ordinary year* 

 for each farm : 1 am perfectly c« nt of this, whatever 



means may exist or establishing this basis in England, there- 

 are no such means in S tland. In - tland if they would give 

 it you they could not, the have not the means. It may be- 

 that after statistics have been in operation for some years, and 

 the attention f farmers has been di i to the subject of 



averages, th might be abl-' to give it, but in the mean time 

 they could not individually give y<m that which is the foundation 

 of Mr. Caird's scheme, an accurate average of each crop for the 

 last five years. I will prove that in this way : 1 thought it was 

 exceedingly desirable last year to be able I give some indication 

 how far the result of the harvest of 1*54 might be above or below 

 an average ; I did not attempt to get each farmer to say what 

 was his average produce over a series of ordinary years, that 

 would at once have been goin^ into the inquisition which Mr. 

 Caird would like to avoid; but I said to the enumerators and 

 committer, try and find out for me generally, in a rough way, 

 how far the crop of 1 4 is above or below the crop of an ordinary 

 year. Even in that general wa in a t islderable nu er of 

 districts In Scotland the enumerator and his committee, although 

 men appointed to the office on account <f their skill and 

 professional knowledge, were unable to give m< any such 

 report. And I may mention that in one of the two dis- 

 tricts of Wigtonebire, Mr. Caird's own county. 1 failed in 

 obtaining such informal i. Further, as I understand it, the 

 rest of Mr. Caird V. scheme, he \ < notes. ha\ got this 

 ordinary average, t » determine how far the average of the current 

 year is above <>r below the ordinary on by applyiug to it the 



mean of the west r. I understand he t es \h* average of ordi- 

 nary years, and according to what the v\ 'her has been, he 

 determines how far this \ea is above, or In low that ordinary 

 avei e. Mr. Cairo.— I may be alloi I to say, perhaps, that I 

 only take the weather as a very Important element. Mr. Max- 

 well. — The ueath- is an important « lent, but it is a very 

 difficult * ienl t<« judge ->f. We have n meteorological ob- 

 ■ervations in Scotland, and we have no means of establishing 

 what the wt c has been, and, besides that, the mean weather 

 may have been very excellent, but an unfortunate thunder 

 shower at a critical time may have done a very great deal of 

 harm. 1 look upon Mr. Caird's own k erior intelligence and 

 knowledge of these matters a* having rather run away with 

 him upon this subject, and that he expects tanners in general to be 

 able to do all he can do himself. My general objection to Mr.Caird's 

 scheme is that it is an estimate upon an » iniate ; his acreage is 

 a fact I admit, but he has an estimate rpon an estimate in this 

 way: he has to estimate the average produce of ordinary years; 

 that average must be necessarily an estimate, Mid then there Is 

 an estimate of the weather to be brought to bear upon the firsts 

 in order to get at the produce for the year. So that he gets at 

 the produce of the yeat by means of two estimates, both of 

 which. I think, would be apt to be fallacious. 



.James Cairo, 1 ,-., further examined.— Having heard the 

 evidence of the last witness, have you any wish to explain any 

 portion of your former evidence? Yes; with regard to Scotland, 

 I think the objection Mr. Maxwell takes that the schedule I 

 suggest would be n irded as a tax-paper, does not in the least 

 degree hold, inasmuch as it is a tax-paper for county rates, and 

 the rates in Scotland are almost entirely paid by the landlords. 

 The farmers or occupiers have scarcely any interest in those 

 valuation returns, and would make no objection to them. I think 

 that is a sufficient answer to Mr. Maxwell's objection that my 

 proposal of employing the count y valuators would connect the 

 statistic returns with taxation. With regard to the impossibility 

 which Mr. Maxwell says there is in ascertaining the averages, 

 and the instances which he lias adduced from Scotland, in which 

 his inquiry on this point was not answered, I beg to state that the 

 distinction is very obvious. If you ask a man, as he did, to tell 

 you the average produce of a hundred different farms in half-a- 

 dozen different parishes, he may very probably say, I cannot 

 tell you what it is, but if you ask him to tell you' the average for 

 his own farm, he will have no difficulty whatever in doing so. 

 I never found any difficulty of that kind in my inquiries in Eng- 

 land. Mr. Maxwell seems to think that farmers do not know 

 that, even in their own case ; but I beg to ask how a man could 

 hire land at all, if he did not ascertain its quality by its relative 

 produce to other land. It i> because 1 acre ieids so many 

 bushels more than another that it brings a higher rent. The first 

 point a man would inform himself on would be, " What is the 

 average produce of this land naturally ?" He would be ignorant 

 of his business if he did not know what the average produce was 

 of the farm which he held. In reference to the objection which 

 Mr. Maxwell took, that the plan I proposed would occupy so 

 many months, that could be obviated at once by employing more 

 collectors; if 200 collectors do it in three months, a certain pro- 

 portion more would do it in two months : you do not alter the 

 total amount of the expenses, but only the number of the people 

 who are for a proportionally shorter time employed. His objec- 

 tion to leaving schedules for a lengthened period does not hold in 

 my case, as I do not propose to have any schedules. Mr. Max 

 well seemed to say that there was some test at present in Scot* 

 land, and that I ought to know that, from having acted on his 

 staff in my own county. I may pay that 1 felt it my duty (being 

 in the county when he visited it for the purpose of explaining 

 the matter to the farmers) to do everything in my power to assist 

 the Government in this inquiry. Having gone to the meeting 

 which Mr. Maxwell has referred to. I acted as chairman, and 

 assisted him in explaining and enforcing his views: and the 

 gentlemen then present insisted that I should myself act. which 

 I consented to do with great pleasure. But I told Mr. Maxwell 

 then, and still maintain, that he has no test of accuracy. The 

 whole of the returns were sent direct to Edinburgh; they were 

 never sent back to us, and we never had any means of testing 

 their accuracy. Mr. Maxwell seems to misapprehend my plan, 

 when he describes it as an estimate upon an estimate. It is an 

 estimate on a fact; an estimate of produce on an ascertained 

 acreage, which is all that can begot by any plan whatever. I 

 wish to say that I do not in the least degree desire to appear in 

 antagonism to Mr. Maxwell; on the contrary, I think he dewrves 

 very great credit for the spirit in which his system, such as U 

 was, has been carried out in Scotland. 



ON FATTENING POULTRY. 



(Continued from p. 620.) 



Chapter I.— The Pp.in-oiples of Feeding. 



Section II.— Examination of ike Substances used in Fattening 



Poultry. 



Supposing the principles above-stated be correct — and 

 both theory and practice tend to prove their perfect 

 truthfulness— it is obvious that the value of any sub- 

 stance used as a food for fattening animals can only be 

 ascertained by a reference to the relative quantity of 

 warmth-jiving, flesh- forming, and fat-forming materials 

 it contains ; and such an examination will give us a true 

 »dex of its money value, and enable us to ascertain 

 how far the practice of feeders has been based upon 

 right principles. 



Oats and Oatmeal. — Oats or oatmeal are perhaps 

 more largely employed th an any other grain in fattening 

 poultry ; and in this case the experience of feedere 

 strikingly corresponds with the results afforded by 

 scientific examination. Oatmeal contains, in every 

 100 lbs., 6 lbs. of fat or oil, 18 lbs. of flesh-forming, 



