8 Agricultural Changes Adopted in La Manche. 



and agricultural implements and machines; and the 

 explanation of their resistance to agricultural change is 

 that they cannot afford to attempt improvements which 

 are to them of a more or less speculative character, 

 and are afraid of being persuaded to adopt measures 

 which may turn out to be failures. An improved 

 animal they can see, and from it gain an immediate 

 and certain result, and the same is the case with an 

 improved or new implement. But the return from any 

 new course, such as altering their rotation or laying 

 down land to grass, either permanently or for five or six 

 years, requires a considerable time in order to prove 

 the utility of so doing, and, in the case of grass in 

 especial, they are hampered, tlo doubt, by that part of 

 the old saw as to "making a pasture breaking a man" — ■ 

 a saw once most true in consequence of bad and im- 

 proper seeds and bad methods of laying down, and not 

 so very long ago, but now most ridiculously false, as I 

 shall afterwards clearly show. And now I come to a 

 most important point, to which these remarks naturally 

 lead up, and to which I desire to direct special attention. 

 I have said that our farmers are afraid to attempt 

 agricultural changes which to them are of a more or less 

 speculative character. I have italicised the words " to 

 them," because the very agricultural changes to be 

 recommended here are precisely those which have been 

 adopted in the La Manche district in Normandy, where 

 the farmei'S have universally given up cereals for per- 

 manent pasture, and this, too, notwithstanding that 

 they had the so-called advantages of Protection. Just 

 enough land is now given up to wheat for household 

 consumption, to buckwheat for the food of pigs and 

 poultry, and to roots, lucerne, and other temporary 

 pasture sufficient for the winter food of live stock. 

 The adoption of this course is universally considered 

 to have been the saving of fai-mers of La Manche. A 

 similar course would have been the saving of farmers in 

 many parts of these islands. Why, then, were such 



