Robert Bdkewell. 
31 
which he is known to have acted ; the fact that nnder some 
conditions consanguineous breeding might be practised with 
most advantageous results was another. Upon these two 
principal rules all the other parts of his system appear to hang. 
They are sufficiently known, and are indicated in the foregoing 
notes. Men have been really, for a century past, following 
Bake well’s words and practice whilst denying that he had ever 
disclosed the “ mystery ” of his success, and breeds superseding 
his own have risen from the use of the knowledge which the 
world owes to Robert Bakewell. 
Wm. Housman. 
Lune Bank, Lancaster. 
ECONOMY IN CULTIVATION. 
At a time like the present, when farming generally is at a 
lower ebb than at any other period during this century, when 
corn-growing seems impossible, and land is going rapidly 
out of cultivation, owing to low prices and increasing cost of 
labour, we, whose living depends on farming, have to consider 
whether we have to abandon the pursuit of a lifetime, and take 
up we know not what — for most of us, from one cause or 
another, are unfit for any other employment — or whether we 
should pack up what little yet remains, and try our fortunes in 
those countries where rent and taxes are not, whence flow those 
inexhaustible streams of corn and meat that have driven us to 
such lamentable straits. 
But many of us are too old for such a change, and none of 
us like being beaten by anybody, whether a foreigner or of our 
own kin ; and before taking this last desperate step, I think we 
should fully consider the situation, and endeavour to find some 
means by which the struggle against foreign competition can be 
successfully maintained until the tide turn. 
Farming, as I do, on a very considerable scale, both as to 
stock and corn, my mind has been much exei’cised on this sub- 
ject. One naturally first looks for higher prices as the remedy, 
but hopes in this direction seem only born to die young ; bad 
crops in this country seem to produce a fall in prices, owing to 
inferior quality of grain and abundance in other lands. If we 
anticipate that America will soon be consuming all she grows, 
are there not other new fields of virgin soil, in the Argentine, 
South Africa, and elsewhere, all being rapidly opened up by 
the aid of British capital ? Hope in this direction will, I fear, 
only make the heart sick. 
