742 
Ilislorij of the IjinjUsh Landed Intercut. 
Then we have the birth and growth of the great Agricultural 
Society, and all the other great births of that period, amongst 
others, the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836, which removed the 
chief impediment to and paved the way for the general advance 
of scientific agriculture ; an Act that demonstrates the benefits 
wise and beneficent legislation may confer upon a languishing 
industry ; Government drainage — another example of wisely 
directed legislative intervention — applied chemistry, railways, 
and steam. By the advent of the National Society the Woburn 
and Holkham sheep shearings were made national and expanded. 
It has been well said the Royal Agiacultural Society has done 
I’or farming that which the great fail's of the Middle Ages did for 
commerce — they concentrated and diffused knowledge, brought 
customers and producers into contact, and helped to extinguish 
deep-rooted prejudices in the pleasurable excitement of social 
gatherings. Mr. Philip Pusey must be represented in the fore- 
front of the advance, a delightful combination of scholarship and 
English practical good sense and energy. With him let Mr. 
Chandos Wren Hoskyns be represented, with in his hand the 
Historij of Agriculture in Ancient, Mediceval and Modern 
Times, a work small in bulk but grand in conception and 
execution, from the pen of the most eloquent agriculturist that 
our time has produced. 
Mr. Gamier truly says in his preface, “This book is for the 
statesman as well as the agriculturist ; ” he goes on to say “ The 
artificial enhancement of any nation’s agricultural profits cannot 
be permanently beneficial ; in such case the germs of failure are 
inherent.” And, say I, any English statesman would under 
existing circumstances find it difficult in the long run to resist 
if clamorously asserted the argumentum ad veidrem.” 
After all that has been said and done in regard to progress, 
without a knowledge of history, it would be heartbreaking to 
contemplate agriculture in its immediate aspect. It is not 
marching, it is hardly marking time, perhaps stepping back ; 
the flower of the rural population — men born and bred and 
trained on the farm — is being dispersed and driven in to further 
congest the labour markets of the already congested towns ; 
the unseen but essential reserve of condition in the land is 
being largely overdrawn ; the agricultural plant — in the sense 
of essential equipment and appliances of and upon the land — is 
being run out ; no hopeful prospects open before us ; the con- 
tinuous tendency in the level of prices of nearly every agri- 
cultural commodity is to fall below the cost of production. On 
the high authority of Sir John Lawes we are just now told that 
“it is remarkable of how little value the experience of a very 
