Suggested Changes of Farming System. 227 



APPENDIX VIII. 



SUGGESTED CHANGES OF FARMING SYSTEM. 



Rbad at a Meeting op the Border Union Agriculturai, 

 Society at Kjsi<so, October 31, 1902— the Right Hon. 

 THE Eari, of Dai,keiTh, M.P., in The Chair. 



Before beginning my lecture this 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 cannot 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, bnt 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 maybe 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 introduc- 

 tion the farmer relied on farmyard 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 

 he of the greatest value, by affording a stimulus at a critical period 



p 2 



