PAPERS READ 



BEFORE THE 



ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



I. — On the present State of the Science of Agriculture in England. 

 Read March 13, 1839. 



Though tlie national importance of husbandry will he at once 

 admitted by every one, it may be well at the outset of our under- 

 taking not to content ourselves with a general notion of that im- 

 portance, but to look for a moment at some of the items which 

 constitute its annual value. The wheat produced in England and 

 Wales is estimated by Mr. Mac Culloch, one year with another, 

 at 12,350,000 quarters. This single head of produce, therefore, at 

 an average price of 50s,, will amount to nearly 31 million pounds 

 sterling, yearly. The oats and beans have been reckoned at 

 13,500,000 quarters, and will give another head of 17 J millions 

 sterling per annum. The grass lands, again, are supposed to 

 yield, year by year, produce worth very nearly 60 millions sterling 

 (59,500,000). The practical inference to be drawn from these 

 large numbers is obviously this, — that, if by any improved process 

 it be possible to add even in a small proportion to the average 

 acreable produce either of arable or pasture land, this increase, 

 small as it may seem, may be in fact a very large addition to our 

 national wealth. The average produce of wheat, for instance, is 

 stated at 26 bushels per acre : if, by a better selection of seed, we 

 could raise this amount to 27 bushels only, a supposition by no 

 means unlikely, we should by this apparently small improvement 

 have added to the nation's annual income 475,000 quarters of 

 wheat, worth, at 50s., about 1,200,000/. yearly, which would be 

 equal to a capital of 24 millions sterlmg gained for ever to the 

 country by this trifling increase in the growth of one article alone, 

 and that in England and Wales only. 



But it is not merely with regard to the total of any branch of 

 produce that numbers afford a striking result. The value of one 

 crop of a single article of produce on an individual farm may be 

 large, and the loss of that crop very serious; and since in the 



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