32 
Fifty Yearn' Progress of British Agriculture. 
In the same direction the Royal Agricultural Society of 
England some years ago commenced a series of experiments on 
the growth of crops and the fattening of live stock with special 
relation to the manures applied and the food used, and to the 
effect of the manures resulting from specific kinds of food. 
The Duke of Bedford, with great liberality and public spirit, 
has placed suitable land and buildings at the disposal of the 
Society, whose Council, under the guidance of their scientific 
officials, regulate and superintend the experiments. The whole 
is open to public inspection, and the results are carefully 
elaborated and published in the Journal of the Society. 
A most useful class of agricultural improvements has been 
the introduction, during the Society's existence, of improvements 
in the seeds of the various kinds of corn and vegetables, as well 
as the earlier maturity and improved character of the live stock. 
By careful selection, and more recently by hybridisation, im- 
proved varieties of wheat, barley, and oats have been introduced 
with much success, and the same with potatoes, mangel, and 
other vegetable crops. The improvement in sheep and cattle is 
even more conspicuous. Probably one-fourth in weight of meat 
brought to market has been added in these fifty years by the 
earlier maturity of our live stock. What was exceptional then 
has now become general. The quality of seeds of all kinds, and 
of sheep, cattle, and horses, in all parts of the country has 
greatly and generally improved. 
In regard to farm implements, the most certain gain has 
been in the introduction of the reaping and mowing machine. 
This machine, originally the invention of a Scotch clergyman, 
was for many years neglected in this country, but was, in 1834, 
improved and perfected by Mr. McCormick in the United 
States, where the crops of vast plains of wheat could not other- 
wise have been handled from want of labour. In 1818, 700 of 
the McCorniick reapers were sold in America, and the annual 
sale had grown to 50,000 in 1881. Again introduced in» this 
country in recent years, when difficulties arose between em- 
ployers and labourers, the use of the reaping machine made 
by the leading implement-makers of England rapidly spread, 
being constructed in this country to meet the requirements 
of much heavier crops than those in America. The farmer 
now reaps and gathers his corn at a great saving of cost, and 
in the knowledge that at the most critical season he is able 
to secure his crops with little outside help. Sheaf-binders 
attached tc the machine are successfully coming into use. 
The steam cultivator, first invented by the late John Fowler, 
of Leeds, and much improved by his successors in the business, 
