ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
339 
“may be. estimated at 108 millions sterling. Now, if by any im- 
proved process it may be possible to add, even in a small propor- 
tion, to the average acreable produce either of arable or pasture 
land, this increase, small as it may seem, may be, in fact, a very 
large addition to our national wealth. The average produce of 
wheat, for instance, is stated at 26 bushels per acre. If, by a better 
selection of seed, or better mode of tillage, we could raise this 
amount to 27 bushels only, a supposition by no means unlikely, we 
should, by this apparently small improvement, add to the nation’s 
annual income 475,000 quarters of wheat, worth, at 50s., about 
£1,200,000 yearly, and which would be equal to a capital of 24 
millions sterling gained for ever to the country.” 
A little while afterwards, another practical illustration is given 
of the important consequences of seemingly trifling improvements. 
“ The produce of turnips, when cultivated in the broad-cast manner, 
varies from 5 to 15 tons an acre — the latter being reckoned a very 
good crop. In Northumberland and Berwickshire, a good crop of 
white globe-turnips, drilled, weighs from 25 to 30 tons; the yellow 
and the Ruta-Baga, or Swedish, a few tons less.” 
Referring afterwards to an improved and increased system of 
drainage, another view is taken of this subject, and a very interest- 
ing one. “ If a pound only were, in this way, laid out on each acre, 
— a very moderate supposition — there are 48 millions of cultivated 
acres in Great Britain and Ireland, and a demand for country labour, 
amounting to 48 millions sterling, would thus be created; a de- 
mand exceeding that which the railroad bills professed to create in 
the session before last, and far more advantageous in its effect on 
the labourers, inasmuch as the demand would be a gradual one, not 
severing them from their homes and their families.” 
We are transcribing from the admirable Introductory Essay, by 
Mr. Pusey, on the “ Present State of the Science of Agriculture in 
England.” We must be pardoned for extracting another quotation 
on a subject in which we are still more concerned. “The saving 
effected in the cost of production, through the early maturity of the 
new Leicester sheep, or of the cross between the new Leicester and 
the Cotswold, has been calculated, by a practical farmer in Glou- 
cestershire, at nearly 20 per cent. ; that is to say, it would have 
cost about one quarter of the outlay more to supply the present 
quantity of mutton consumed in this country under the old system 
than by the new. This may be taken as a moderate estimate so 
far as the new Leicester blood and its propensity to early fatness 
has hitherto extended. It may be worth the inquiry, how far the 
South-down race has been improved in this respect; or how far it 
may be capable of such improvement and of thus combining rapid 
maturity with its own superior hardihood.” 
