56 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
SPEECH OP Koa. WM. 0. RIVES, AT SARATOGA. 
We have perused the speech of Mr. Rives 
with a great deal of pleasure. It is full of ap¬ 
propriate facts and illustrations, and does great 
credit to the accomplished Virginian’s agricul¬ 
tural attainments. Mr. Rives has long been in 
the occupancy of a large plantation, and many 
years since introduced upon it a fine herd of 
improved cattle and horses. He has added to 
these by recent importations, and especially by 
the introduction of one or" more of the best 
Cleveland bays. His observations are particu- 
w UI Llj J Uf i cspcv^t, ct'O 1-10 licio boon cvv». 
extensive observer in Europe, under every ad¬ 
vantage for correct and comprehensive observa¬ 
tion, We make some quotations from his speech: 
In England, for example, the actual cultiva¬ 
tor or occupant of a farm is very rarely the 
owner. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred 
he is a tenant, frequently for a short term, with¬ 
out sometimes even the security of a lease. It 
is not in human nature under such circumstan¬ 
ces that the farmer should be very solicitous to 
make improvements of which the chief benefit 
may accrue to another, and it is indeed won¬ 
derful, and a fact most honorable to the tenant 
farmers, that, in despite of this prevailing dis¬ 
couragement and that other oppressive tradition 
in the shape of tithes, wdiich subjects them to in¬ 
creased burthens in proportion to their skill, in¬ 
dustry and experience in improvements, English 
agriculture should be what it is. 
In the country which is separated from Eng¬ 
land by a narrow sea, and yet more by strongly 
contrasted national character, institutions and 
manners, the discouragements of agriculture are 
of a precisely opposite nature. 
There it is not the monopoly, but the extreme 
and unnatural subdivision of landed property 
and the diminutiveness of farms, almost to the 
verge of the infinite divisibility of matter, that 
opposes the most serious obstacle to the general 
progress of agi icultui al improvement. 
What would we think on this broad continent 
of ours, of a field measuring one and one half 
yards by two, and a farmer owning and cultivat¬ 
ing a single furrow, and that by no means a 
long one ? And yet in Lorraine there arc exam¬ 
ples of the former, attested by the authority of 
a grave and respectable French writer; and in 
Brittany the common name applied by the peas¬ 
antry to his possession is sillon, or furrow, and 
it is in fact often nothing more. It is estimated 
that there are about a million and a quarter of 
proprietors in France, none of whom hold more 
than two hectares, or five acres of land. 
Dividing the whole area of the country by the 
total number of proprietors of every grade, the 
average size of the farm is about eleven and a 
half acres. This inordinate subdivision of land¬ 
ed property, encumbered, too, for the most part, 
with hereditary mortgages which have descended 
with the land from father to son, must, it is evi¬ 
dent, in much the larger number of instances, 
leave neither the space nor capital necessary for 
an improved system of husbandry. That there 
are, notwithstanding, examples of high and sue- 
CCSSrui running In r*rcinucr, Jo vuiy u pruoi 01 me 
national genius for administration, organization, 
and the application of science to art, exemplified 
in a pursuit where both are so important and so 
fruitful. 
Edmund Burke, writing in 1795, and in that 
same representation to Mr. Pitt which contains 
so much matter for the instruction of the agri¬ 
culturist and the statesman, says : “A farmer in 
England, who cultivates twelve hundred acres, 
cannot proceed with any degree of safety and 
effect with a less capital than ten thousand 
pounds, and he cannot, in the ordinary course 
of culture, make upon that great capital of ten 
thousand pounds, more than twelve hundred a 
year. This is a profit of twelve per cent.” Sir 
John Sinclair, twenty-five years afterwards, 
speaking from reports made to the Board of Ag¬ 
riculture by farmers in a large number of the 
counties of England, says that “profits of farm¬ 
ing on arable farms rarely exceed from ten to 
fifteen per cent, on the capital invested,” which, 
it is added, are little enough, considering that 
few employments are more subject to casualties 
than farming, or require more unremitting at¬ 
tention. 
These profits, too, it must be borne in mind, 
are the profits of the tenant farmer, after paying 
rent to his landlord. That the profits of farm¬ 
ing in England have not diminished since the 
time of Burke and Sir John Sinclair may be 
safely assumed; and that they are not less on 
the Continent in all cases wdiere a like system 
of liberal, intelligent husbandry has been stead¬ 
ily pursued, admits but as little doubt. The 
able and experienced Director of the Model Farm 
a.; 5 r.or., in tHo neighborhood of Versailles, 
informed me a few months ago, that the profits 
of that establishment were fourteen per cent.; 
and as it is the property of a joint-stock compa¬ 
ny, and its accounts are regularly audited at the 
close of the year, there can be nothing of the 
vagueness of conjecture in this result. 
GREAT SALES OF SHORT-HORN CATTLE IN 
ENGLAND. 
As much interest is now manifested in the 
sales of short-horn cattle, we copy from the 
London Agricultural Gazette the following 
account of the most famous which have taken 
place in England, from Mr. Charles Colling 
down to Earl Dtjcie. In a former number a 
typographical error occurred in the gross 
amount of Mr. C. Colling's sale, ivhich, as we 
did not see the proof, went to press uncorrected. 
It should have been £7,115 17s. instead of 
£715 17s. 
Short-horn breeders have hitherto dated from 
Charles Colling’s sale, on October 11, 1810, 
or from that of his brother Mr. Robert Col¬ 
ling’s stock some seven years later; or, much 
later still, perhaps from the sale at Wiseton of 
Lord Spencer’s herd, on the 11th September, 
1846; or from the sale of the celebrated Kirk- 
leavington herd on the 9th of May, 1850. These 
have all been great eras in the history of the 
Durham breed, but none of them, it may safely 
be said, has exceeded in importance that which 
has just occurred in Gloucestershire. We look 
back upon the first of these events as on the 
birthday of that more general interest which 
now so widely prevails in the fortunes of this 
undoubtedly the dominant breed of cattle in 
this or any other country. It was, as it were, 
the expiry of some patent or monopoly of im¬ 
mense public value, or rather the sale of it in 
parts to a more numerous proprietary. The 
results of that patient skill and perseverance 
exhibited for so many years by the father oi 
short-horn breeders were then distributed and 
scattered, and became the means, in the hands 
of others, of extending the improvements which 
he had originated. The local name became lost 
in the more general one, and people no longer 
spoke of the “Teeswater,” but of the “Short¬ 
horn ” blood. 
It is curious, however, to observe that the 
influence of that event still exists, and that not 
in me disguised or diluted form in which, after 
the lapse of nearly half a century, one might 
expect to find it—but in particular instances as 
intense and definitely marked as on the day 
when it first made itself known. The high 
average price that was fetched by the stock at 
Tortworth last Wednesday was due not merely 
to the number whose descent w r as traceable 
directly from Mr. Charles Colling’s herd, but 
to the especial value placed upon a particular 
tribe descended from a particular animal in that 
herd. From Young Duchess, one of the seven 
heifers then sold, there has descended a family 
bearing her name, in which the merits of the 
original, due to Mr. Colling, have in the hands 
of Mr. Bates, and latterly of Lord Ducie, been, 
not merely enduring, but increasing with the 
lapse of time, and, of course, with the number 
of the individuals inheriting them. The original 
Duchess fetched 188 guineas 42 years ago, and 
now Duchess 59, 6 years old, of the eighth 
generation from her, fetches 850 guineas; 
Duchess 64, 4 years old, of the seventh genera¬ 
tion, fetches 600 guineas; Duchess 66, also of 
the seventh generation, hardly 3 years old, 
fetches the extraordinary price of 700 guineas; 
Duchess 67, of the ninth generation, 15 months 
old, fetches 350 guineas; Duchess 68, of the 
eighth generation, 11 months old, fetches 300 
guineas; Duchess 69, of the ninth generation, 
5 months old, fetches 400 guineas; and Duchess 
70, of the eighth generation, calved about. 6 weeks 
ago, fetches 310 guineas. This last was the calf 
of Duchess 66, so that cow and calf fetched the 
altogether unparalleled sum of one thousand 
and ten guineas! Besides these there were also 
offered for sale two bulls descended from Duch¬ 
ess No. 1—the Duke of Gloucester, nearly three 
years old, sold for 650 guineas, and the fourth 
Duke of York, nearly 7 years old, fetched 500 
guineas. Excluding one cow of this family 
which we have not named—as, owing to some 
doubts existing as to whether she would breed, 
she fetched but a low price—the nine animals 
descended from Charles Colling’s Young 
Duchess, three of them being calves, fetched 
the enormous sum of 4,160 guineas, averaging 
462 guineas apiece. 
Since the above was in type we have cut the 
following, of a later date, on the same subject, 
from the Marie Lane Express: 
The Tortworth Herd. —In support of the 
views we expressed a week ago as to the popu¬ 
larity of the herd of Short-horns just submitted 
for public competition at Tortworih, we may 
observe that the ball Usurer , which was pur¬ 
chased by the late Earl Ducie, at the Wiseton 
sale, in 1848, for 400 guineas, (being out at hire 
since February, 1852,) was omitted. On behalf 
of the executors, Mr. Strafford disposed of him 
by private contract, for a large sum, just previ¬ 
ous to the sale, to Mr. J. R. Kiukham, Hagnaby, 
one of the most celebrated breeders in the coun¬ 
ty of Lincoln. On reference to the list, as pub¬ 
lished last week, it will be seen that this bull 
was the sire of many valuable heifers. Further¬ 
more—if, indeed, additional proof were wanting 
of the sound judgment of the late Earl—we have 
only to add that the celebrated bull, Grand 
Duke, which was sold at the great Kirkleaving- 
ton sale, ever constituted a matter of regret to 
his Lordship that he had not purchased him. 
He was last month sold, by private contract, by 
Mr. Bolden, of Red Bank, near Lancaster, to 
Mr. Jonathan Thorne, of New-York, for the 
large sum of one thousand guineas. This bull 
was the first calf of Duchess 55th, and the sire 
of the renowned Duke of Gloucester; Duchess 
64th and Duchess 66th were the produce of 
Duchess 55th. Thus it will be seen that these 
three animals, the produce of one cow, also re¬ 
alized the immense sum of two thousand three 
hundred guineas, [eleven thousand five hundred 
dollars of our money.] 
We shall give some account, in our next, of 
Mr. Thorne’s purchases in England the past 
summer, together with extracts from Mr. Rotch’s 
letters, who made the negotiations for him. We 
should be very glad to hear what those have to 
say who sneered at our favorable opinion of the 
Duchess tribe, publicly expressed twelve years 
ago, on our return from England, after thorough¬ 
ly examining these cattle in Mr. Bates’ yard, at 
Kirkleavington. Who was right then in his 
judgment? We now proceed with the extract 
from the Agricultural Gazette: 
This we need not say is far beyond any thing 
of which records of the breed can boast in the 
past; and we doubt not that it is as little likely 
to be paralleled in the future. The short-horn 
breed has reached its climax at Tortworth, we 
do not say in intrinsic merit, or in agricultural 
importance, but in individual value, and as com¬ 
pared with that of other produce of the soil. 
We shall never again hear, at sales, heifers and 
even calves started at 100 guineas, rising to 200, 
300, and even 400 guineas, in successive bids, 
and afterwards by steps of 50 and 25 to sums 
of £600 and £700. We believe that enterprise 
