Twf is the Best Agricultural Agent. 13 



less than four years in grass, naay have the system 

 shortened to three years, or even to two, and both 

 such lands, and those laid down to permanent pasture, 

 again brought under the plough will be the more 

 fitted for profitable corn growing than ever they were 

 before. 



I have said that the production of stock at the lowest 

 possible cost is what the farmer has solely to rely 

 upon, and this, of course, involves the production of 

 their food at the lowest possible cost. Both these 

 facts must obviously govern the farming policy of the 

 future. How, then, can the farmer most cheaply pro- 

 vide food for stock? This, again, depends, of course, 

 as to the way manure can be most cheaply supplied. 

 Now, as every gardener and cultivator well knows, the 

 cheapest and best form of manure is a good turf, for the 

 decaying sod not only supplies the plants with food, but, 

 what is nearly as important, and some might say of even 

 greater importance, provides a good nest, or, in other 

 words, good physical conditions in the soil. And it 

 was on this turf that for so long a large proportion 

 of our agriculture in Scotland depended, when vast 

 quantities of land, enclosed within the last fifty or 

 sixty years, were ploughed up. But in the process of 

 time this resource has become exhausted. It must be 

 again supplied, and this can only be effectively done 

 within a moderate period of time by growing a 

 mixture of large-rooting and deep-rooting plants, 

 managing them well after they have grown, and 

 giving them four to six years' time to form into a 

 turf. When, then, the farmer again ploughs up the 

 land, he will start his rotation with the same advan- 

 tages which the farmers had when they enclosed and 

 ploughed up old pasture lands; he will so be enabled to 

 produce good crops at the smallest expense, and 

 without the aid of any manure, excepting some arti- 

 ficials with his turnips, and eventually without any 

 when the land has become sufficiently charged with 



