350 Best Means of Increasing the Home-Production of Beef. 
value, as predicted by the pessimists. Prices will, no doubt, be 
equalised, and, in the case of wheat, except through social revolu- 
tion or other unforeseen causes, quotations are likely to rule low. 
During the Crimean War prices were inflated, old pastures were 
broken up, and wheat was grown on lauds never naturally 
adapted, to the growth of the crop ; the nitrogen contained in 
the first 9 or 10 inches of some old pastures was sufficient to 
produce two or three crops in succession without any outlay on 
manure. But a day of reckoning was at hand : prices declined, and 
the exhausted soils could no longer produce crops sufficient to pay 
the cost of cultivation independently of rent. Then followed the 
craze for laying down to permanent pasture ; the labourers were 
driven from the land, industrious men were ruined, farms were 
thrown up on all sides, and the latter state was worse than the 
first. I am happy to think there is a more hopeful prospect. 
Men are quickly becoming aware of the fact that the success of 
agriculture does not depend on laying the whole of the land to 
grass. The more intelligent and industrious are changing their 
system to mixed husbandry ; and, where the farms are well- 
equipped with buildings, there is little difficulty in finding tenants 
at fair rents. 
I wish to lay stress on the importance of breeding and rear- 
ing ; in fact, any farm, to be successful, must be self-supporting 
in the matter of stock, and to this end the cultivation of the 
tillage land must be subservient. Throughout a great part of 
England the farmer can produce all the feeding-stuffs he re- 
quires ; the cereals and legumes, and even linseed, he can grow 
as cheaply as the cultivators of the highly-extolled virgin soils 
of the Far West. With our present reduced rents, and a clearer 
knowledge of the use and value of artificial foods and fertilisers, 
I do not despair of growing wheat on suitable soils at a profit, 
even at the price of 30s. per quarter ; aud in good seasons we 
are still able to produce fine samples of malting-barley. All 
second-rate corn must be used in the rearing and feeding 
of stock. 
Soil and climate to a considerable extent fix the habitat 
of the different races of our domesticated animals. Whatever 
the breed, the first stage of improvement must begin with the 
male, and to this end it is essential that pure-bred sires be 
used. I have known many instances, in the dairy-districts, of 
well-bred Shorthorn bulls being used for a few years ; then, 
on the mistaken notion of a narrow-minded economy, a bull- 
calf is saved from a favourite cow, and eventually used in the 
herd, which soon reverts to its original state. To a tenant- 
farmer of ordinary intelligence, I cannot conceive a more inter- 
