30 
LandmarTcs in British Farming. 
structed. Quantities of land required drainage, and with the 
demand came the supply of necessary improvements. Smith of 
Deanston (1834) and Josiah Parkes (1843) made known their 
discoveries. Keed’s cylindrical pipes (1843), Scrogg’s machine 
for their construction (1 845), and the loan facilities provided by 
Parliament in 1846, enabled prudent landlords to drain their 
estates. New means of transport and communication brought dis- 
tant markets to the door. Steam and machinery lessened the cost, 
and lightened the toil of production. The farmer’s resources 
of crops, manures, winter-food and mechanical labour were in- 
definitely increased. Mechanics, capitalists, architects, physiolo- 
gists, botanists, statisticians, were enlisted on the side of the 
farmer. Unnecessary obstructions to economical tillage were 
removed ; convenient farm roads were provided. The waste of 
natural manure was prevented, and a great variety of portable 
artificial fertilisers were discovered. Sprengel and Liebig led 
the way in the study of agricultural chemistry. From 1835 on- 
wards the use of nitrate of soda and guano gradually spread. 
British guano, superphosphate of lime (Lawes, 1 843), coprolites 
(Henslow, 1843), ammoniacal manures (Odams, 1851), revolu- 
tionised the old rules of cropping. The increased use of 
manures stimulated not only produce, but drainage ; for if the 
land remained wet, their value was lost. Live-stock was 
better bred, better fed, and better housed ; veterinary science 
made gigantic strides, and valuable animals were no longer 
sacrificed to ignorant quacks. Agricultural colleges were 
founded. New rotations and new varieties of field crops were 
introduced. Legislative changes, such as the commutation of 
tithes, the poor laws, the enfranchisement of copyholds, the En- 
closure and Drainage Acts, the provision of agricultural statistics, 
promoted the reviving prosperity. High-farming, good roads, 
good homesteads, good crops, good stock, good farmers, became 
the rule and not the exception. 
This progress was rudely interrupted by a disastrous period 
of agricultural depression. One remarkable feature of the 
financial crisis of 1873-89 is, that it is not local but universal. 
The South-Sea Bubble ruined thousands, but in England only. 
The disaster of the Mississippi scheme affected France alone. 
Now the barriers of European nations are broken down, and the 
continent suffers or prospers as a whole. But the examination 
of the causes and effects of the depression hardly fall within the 
limits of the present paper. 
R. E. Prothero. 
