Denmark, Sweden, and Ilussia. 
209 
It is far more usual in continental countries than among us for 
the larger farmers to follow some branch of agricultural manufac- 
ture, if I may so call it, by which part of the raw produce of the land 
is converted into an article of more ready sale, and perhaps of larger 
profit. A distillery is the most common appendage to the farm. 
By the manufacture of brandy large quantities of potatoes are 
worked up into an easily transported article, while the refuse 
helps to feed the stock. More rarely a brewery is attached ; but 
they require more skill, the produce is more bulky, and the raw 
material itself, from which the liquor is prepared, is of as easy 
transport, and generally meets as ready a sale. The manufacture 
of sugar from beet is pronounced in France to be the most advan- 
tageous and one of the most natural adjuncts to the ordinary 
routine of the farmer ; and in every part of Sweden where the 
beet flourishes efforts are now making to introduce it as a sub- 
sidiary occupation on the larger properties. A method has been 
discovered of preserving the beet during the long winter without 
alteration of the sugar in its sap, and thus a sufficient stock being 
laid in, a new means of employment for the people during the 
snowy months is likely to be in certain districts obtained. 
The above sketch of the march of improvement in Sweden, and 
of the line it is taking in the several provinces, will not, I trust, 
have provetl fatiguing to my reader. To myself the more detailed 
account contained in the President's report has proved very inte- 
resting. Each statement of what has been done tells also of much 
that yet remains to be done. The different steps adopted in 
each province show how much circumstances must modify the 
course of the most zealous and enlightened improvers, and how 
impossible it is to lay down any general plan by which the 
greatest amount of good can in every locality be effected at the 
least cost of money and of time. Here better instruments should 
be first introduced — there a better rotation ; here agricultural 
tracts ought to be first disseminated — there a skilful agricul- 
turist, by personal counsel and persuasion, Avill effect the most ; 
here exhausted pasture should be ploughed up — there old tillage 
land laid down to grass ; here one piece of land is robbed to en- 
rich another — there manures are altogether wasted ; here better 
breeds of cattle are the first thing requii-ed — there an efficient 
system of drainage would most largely increase the produce. 
It cannot be doubted, however, that the mode adopted in 
Sweden of publishing officially and diffusing through all the 
provinces a knowledge of what is doing in each, must be pro- 
ductive of much good. The improver in each district will benefit 
by the exertions made in other parts of the country. He will say, 
can this not be done here — will beet, or clover, or turnips, not 
grow upon some of our land — would not a visit from the agricul- 
VOL. IV. p 
