Relating to Agriculture. 125 



which will aid in at once saving the agvicultuval situa- 

 tion, and arresting the decline in the numbers of our 

 rural population, till a statesman can be found patriotic 

 enough to take charge of the Agricultural Department, 

 and with enough energy and moral courage to compel 

 the attention of the House of Commons to the require- 

 ments of British agriculture. 



One word more. Any statesman can see for himself, 

 by visiting Clifton-on-Bowmont, how great tracts of 

 land now abandoned to pasture of a most worthless 

 kind can be brought again under profitable cultivation 

 with the aid of the system 1 have initiated; and how, 

 therefore, the further abandonment of arable, with its 

 consequent decline of our rural population, may be 

 arrested. The more this subject is studied, the more 

 clear does it become that the worst enemy of the 

 rural population is the British Government, and it 

 will continue to be so until it follows the methods 

 for the advancement of agriculture which have been 

 adopted by all civilised Governments. 



