British Agriculture. 
291 = 25 
east, centre, and south-east in spring and summer. The whole 
estern side of the country is comparatively mild and moist, and 
pecially adapted for green crops and pasture. The east, having 
enerally a deeper soil and greater heat in summer, is best suited 
wheat and barley. It produces 64 per cent, of all the wheat and 
barley grown, and 74 per cent, of the pulse crops. The west, on 
the other hand, contains more than twice the extent of permanent 
asture, and produces nearly double the number of cattle. The 
aters of the Gulf Stream envelop the British Islands. Their 
apours, carried over every part of the Kingdom by prevailing 
iwest winds, temper the cold of winter, and the heats of summer, 
his favours the growth, on the west especially, of succulent 
erbage and green crops, and we are free from the extremes 
xperienced on the Continent. Grass and green crops flourish 
n all parts of the country, and both in the low lands and on the 
ountain pastures of the west and north, sheep feed unsheltered 
nd unhoused during both winter and summer. Beasts of prey 
e unknown. 
The annual rainfall in the lower parts of the country varies and rainfall, 
rom 25 to 35 inches. In the mountainous districts these figfures 
ay be doubled. But, limiting our consideration to the culti- 
ated lands, it must be obvious that an annual rainfall upon an 
ere of land, in the one case of 2500 tons and in the other of 
500 tons, accompanied by corresponding humidity of atmo- 
sphere, will greatly modify the respective systems of husbandry 
practised. Accordingly, the eastern half of the country may be 
correctly described as the corn and fattening region, and the 
western half as the dairy and breeding region of the Kingdom. 
The winter temperature is more severe in the east than the 
west, and that of the summer warmer and more sunny and 
better suited to the ripening of wheat ; while that of the west, 
being less scorching and more cloudy, is better adapted to 
pasture and oats. The value of live-stock is so much greater 
than corn, that it is not found profitable to push the limit of 
cultivation to a greater height than 800 feet in the east and 
500 in the west, and these limits are becoming more circum- 
scribed by the increasing cost of labour and the continued rise 
in the value of live-stock. 
The soil varies greatly in fertility, and its cultivation is 
regulated both by the amount it yields and the cost of cultivat- 
ing it. The most profitable and productive soil is that which 
is at once fertile and easy of cultivation. A rich loam which Weight and 
yields a ton of wheat to the acre is less costly in labour than a lelative value 
poor clay which yields little more than half that weight. "°P*- 
Between corn and straw an average crop of wheat, barley, and 
oats, will weigh two tons an acre ; about two-fifths being corn 
