Agriculture in England. 



3 



very moderate supposition, we shall find that^ since there are 48 

 millions of cultivated acres in Great Britain and Ireland, a demand 

 for country labour amounting- to 48 millions sterling would thus 

 be created ; a demand exceeding that which the railroad bills pro- 

 fessed to create in the session before last^ and far more advantageous 

 in its effect on the labourers, inasmuch as the demand would be a 

 gradual one, not severing them from their homes and their 

 families. The assumed outlay, however, of a pound only, for the 

 permanent improvement of each acre, is probably far too low : 

 SL, 41., or even 5/., would be scarcely too much. There is much 

 wet land on which 8/. or perhaps lOl. might be laid out to advan- 

 tage ; but at 41. only, the new progressive demand for the villager's 

 only commodity^ the work of his hands, would be about 200 mil- 

 lions. So large an outlay as this last must indeed, in part, be 

 necessarily deferred for a long course of years ; but in whatever 

 degree it may arise, it has, on the other hand, the further advantage 

 arising from the nature of the work to be done, that the demand 

 would necessarily take place in the winter months, when labour is 

 most difficult to be obtained, not in the summer, when the crops 

 are in progress, and the labourer finds already sufficient employ- 

 ment. 



It would be an inquiry of much importance to investigate in 

 detail the manner in which this permanent improvement of the 

 soil might be conducted in the various districts of England, but 

 the subject is so e;s;tensive that it requires to be handled separately ; 

 or, rather, it must be a leading object of our members' future in- 

 quiries, to collect such facts and make such trials as may give a 

 solid answer to so extensive a question. Great assistance may 

 doubtless he derived from the knowledge which geological maps 

 have lately afforded us as to the general outlines of the various 

 subsoils which lie immediately under the surface of our fields, and 

 powerfully affect, as every practical farmer knows, the produce of 

 the upper soil through which alone the plough usually passes. 

 These beds of sand, stone, or clay cross England, in irregular 

 courses, from south-west to north-east : the blue lias, for instance, 

 from Charmouth in Dorsetshire, to Whitby in Yorkshire ; and 

 thus, by the help of a geological map, it might be known that a mode 

 of improvement which had been well tested on a farm in Dorset- 

 shire, would be applicable, due allowance being made for differ- 

 ence of climate, to another in Yorkshire. Manifest, however, as 

 is the assistance that might long since have been derived by agri- 

 culture from geology, we know no book which has endeavoured 

 until very recently* to secure that kindred aid for the Science which 



* In 1837 Mr. .Tohn Morton bad the merit of publishing a work on tbe 

 appUcation of geolo»v to agriculture. 



B 2 



