Suggested Changes of Farming System. 177 



APPENDIX VI. 



SUGGESTED CHANGES OF FARMING SYSTEM. 



Jiead at a meeting of the Border Union Agricultural Society at Kelso; 

 October 31, 190^— the Right Hon. the Earl of Dalkeith, M.P., 

 in the Ghair. 



Before beginning my lecture bhis afternoon I will, with your per- 

 mission, make a few remarks on part of the speech which my friend, 

 Mr. C. J. Cunningham, made the other day at the Yetholm Show 

 Dinner. The gist of his remarks on agriculture in Scotland were 

 that it is deteriorating, and I have heard the same remark made by 

 many others — two of them farmers of great experience. At first 

 sight their opinions would appear to be ill-founded, for in these days 

 we have much better agricultural machines of all kinds, better 

 horses, and certainly better stock than we had, say, fifty years ago, 

 and all the operations of agriculture are carried on as well, or better 

 than they were. Where, then, does the alleged deterioration come 

 in ? It comes in, I am sorry to say, from a most serious cause — the 

 gradual deterioration of the soil in all these cases where the land 

 caimot be fed with such large supplies of farmyard manure that the 

 humus can be adequately maintained. What proportion of the soils 

 of Scotland have been thus harried out owing to the decline of their 

 vegetable matter it is impossible to say, but that the proportion of 

 land that either cannot be supplied at all with farmyard manure, or 

 is only supplied with very insufficient quantities, is very large, there 

 can be no doubt. It is in order to endeavour to remedy this serious 

 defect in our agriculture that I have asked you to listen to the 

 following remarks ; but, before proceeding, it may be as well to note 

 exactly how it was that so much of the land has thus been run out. 

 It was so owing to the introduction and injudicious use of artificial 

 manures. Previous to their introduction the farmer relied on farm- 

 yard manures, and the accumulation of humus, by leaving the land 

 long in grass ; but, when artificial manures came in, he could give 

 the plants a sufficient stimulus to grow a large root system, which 

 could not otherwise have been grown, and this root growth enabled 

 the plant to exhaust the land. Artificial manures, if backed by 

 farmyard manure or turf, may often be of the greatest value, by 

 affording a stimulus at a critical period of the plant's growth. 

 Without these aids, or ample supplies of humus, in some form, the 

 stimulated plants must deplete the soil. 



As we are living in changing times, the members of this Society 

 will probably agree with me in thinking that it is very desirable that 



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