502 
only a little over seven inches long; are a brown¬ 
ish black above, mottled with brown or white. 
Over each eye are two cream-colored stripes, while 
the lower surface is of a whitish cream-color, 
streaked and spotted with black. They pair 
about the middle of April, and build their nests 
generally a fortnight later, usually in marshy 
places, close to the earth or on the bare ground. 
The nest is generally composed of rushes and 
long grass, and lined with some soft material. 
In it are commonly laid five eggs, pale blue, 
slightly tinged with purple and marked with 
lines and spots of blaok. The young male and 
female birds are alike, but soon the plnmage of 
the former begins to show the distinguishing red¬ 
dish markings on the shoulders. When captured 
young the birds soon accommodate themselves 
to the situation ; grow quite familiar with their 
owners, are fond of uttering their somewhat 
monotonous but not unmusical notes, and seem 
to be highly delighted with their performance. 
gmi ®fiptcs, 
MR. MECIH’S STATEMENT TO HIS 
VISITORS. 
Julyieth, 1ST8. 
[This statement with which Mr. J. J. Mechi 
of Tiptree-Hall Farm. England, favors us, was re¬ 
ceived just too late for last week’s issue.— Eds.] 
Once more I am gratified to see around me a 
band of agricultural improvers, and of men in¬ 
terested in land. As this will probably be my 
last agricultural gathering (for I was 76 last 
May.) I make the following statement:— 
My object in commencing and continuing 
these gatherings haB ever been to stimulate to 
an improved agricultural practice, knowing, as I 
do, that the land of this kingdom, taken as a 
whole, is not half faimed, and that our home¬ 
grown food could bo considerably aud profitably 
increased by an additional investment of both 
landowners’and tenants’ capital. Facts justify 
this conclusion, for, while in some well-farmed 
districts tenants' capital is £20 or more per acre, 
and the landowners’ improvements have involv¬ 
ed great costs, the average tenants’ capital of 
Great Britaiu is estimated at, or under, only £6 
per acre, and in Ireland at £1 lesB. The land- 
owners’ capital is probably £30 per acre. In con¬ 
sequence there is a low scale of production and 
profit, and a dependence on foreigners for more 
than half our daily broad, and much of our meat, 
butter, cheese, potatoes, Ac. 
There is not the excuse of want of oapit&l, for 
it is in excess of our home utilization of it, so 
we loan it to other nations, to the extent of 
Beveral hundred millions sterling, and thus ena¬ 
ble them to grow food for ua, and to compete 
with us in trade, commerce, and manufactures. 
An improvement of our land laws and a com¬ 
mercial practice applied to agriculture would 
tempt capital, aud keep more of our money at 
home; but British agriculture iB still shackled 
and fettered by antiquated land lawB and re¬ 
strictive covenants. Its feudal conditions still 
linger and struggle for existence in the midst 
and presence of a free, gigantic and wealthy 
commercial development, where millions change 
hands in minutes and hours, in printed slips of 
paper, such as bills of lading, commercial bills 
of exohange, Ac.; while an acre of cold clay, 
worth £30 or £10, has a ceremonial of musty 
parchment and antique history, involving an 
unendurable delay of cost, time, and uncer¬ 
tainty. 
In commerce, possession by a respectable per¬ 
son is an evidence of ownership. If yon want 
to buy or sell a million of consols, you walk up 
to a comfortable old gentiemau at a desk iu the 
Bank of England, you are accompanied and 
identified by a knowu stockbroker, the buyer 
and seller sign their names in a book, and the 
million has changed owners. It is a disgrace 
that we have not public land register offices for 
cheap and ready transfer. 
In 1811 I purchased Tiptroe-Hall Farm (all 
freehold, except 17 acres) for £25 per acre. It 
has been since valued by eminent and opposing 
valuers at £50 per aero; and I believe that, even 
without the house and gardens, it would com¬ 
mand nearly that sum. It is a notable and en¬ 
couraging faot that iu 1868 (a good wheat year) 
I sold the wheat crop off Willow Field, with its 
straw, at £29 4s. per acre, being £4 4s. more per 
acre than I paid for the purchase of the land. 
The wheat was sold for 63s. per qr. The follow¬ 
ing year I grew on the same held 7 X A qr. of 
Rivett wheat per acre. 
I have resided on the farm for 35 years, and 
all my ohildren were born here; aud, thanks to 
drainage and open fields, with pure air and good 
water, our doctor’s bill has been at a minimum. 
My first act of improvement was to remove all 
fonces and trees, drain every field, then deeply 
subsoil and well manure the land- Good roads 
were made, and sufficient buildings were erected. 
I am pleased to be able to say that my endeav¬ 
or to improve the general practice in agriculture 
has not been entirely unsuccessful—at ah events, 
in this neighborhood, for great changes have 
taken place. The country has been cleared, 
land drained, new buildings erected, including 
especially covered yards. Within Bight of my 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
house my neighbor, Mr. Harvey, who is with us 
to-day, has recently erected some very excellent 
ones at a cost of many hundred pounds, and he 
finds it pay, and is prepared to say so. 
When I first came here labor was in great ex¬ 
cess and small demand. Now the reverse is the 
case. Wretched hovels are being superseded by 
decent cottages, and, in fact, ail round here we 
are on the " improved track.” Church, chapel 
and school accommodations have marched with 
the rest, and we are a changed, and, I believe, im¬ 
proved people. So much for once poor Tiptree. 
THE GREAT AGRICULTURAL QUESTION OF THE DAY 
is how can we so profitably improve our general 
agriculture (especially our large area of inferior 
waste land), so as to euable us to withstand the 
competition of fertile aud foreign countries, 
where, as in the United States, India, and other 
colonies, immense areas of virgin soil can be had 
at a nominal cost, and with a more favorable 
climate than ours ? My 35 years’ experience on 
this farm, which is naturally a poor one, is that 
it can only be done by improvements, effected 
jointly by the action of land-owners and ten¬ 
ants—and by the abandonment of certain un¬ 
profitable, antiquated practices and conditions. 
All this means a larger acreable capital, both by 
land-owner and tenant. 
We thought wo were safe in the matter of 
meat, but that comforting illusion is being ispid- 
ly dispelled, for mighty steam haB so bridged 
tbe wide ocean, that, aided by chemical science, 
foreign meat, alive and dead, may he said to 
walk into our markets side by side with our 
own supplies. 
This is a land-owner’s quite as much as a ten¬ 
ant’s question, for non-profit must result in low 
rents. 
Agricultural improvements will evidently fail 
to keep pace with onr rapidly increasing popu¬ 
lation. Obsolete customs and habits are diffi¬ 
cult to eradicate. Some idea of the capital re¬ 
quired to amend our 47,000,000 of mixed aereB 
may be deduced from tbe fact that only Is. per 
acre amounts to £2,360,000. My improvements 
oost nearly £25 per acre. His Grace, the 
Duke of Sutherland (whose representative, Mr. 
Wright, we have the pleasure to see here), is 
expending £35,000 annually in reclaiming 1000 
acres of his Scotch property, which represents 
1,260,000 acres. Its present rental averages 
about Is. per acre. Its future, or improved 
rent, will, no doubt, be 25 times that amount. 
On our 47,000,000 of farmed acres, £25 per acre 
would amount to the euormouB sum of £1,175- 
000.000 added to the first oost of the land, so 
that there need be no hope or fear of our arriv¬ 
ing quickly at the end of agricultural progress. 
MEMORANDUM. 
I take this opportunity of laying before you 
my views on several important agricultural ques¬ 
tions, and I also add an account of my cropping, 
which is similar to that of other years:— 
Chops at Tiptree-Hai-L Farm— 1S78. 
13 aereB of Taunton Dean wheat. 
Golden Drop wheat. 
Club-headed Kvugh Chair wheat. 
Square-headed nUeut. (apparently a 
cross between the ola YVliiie Chuff 
Red and Piper s Thick-Set}. 
Suffolk Red wnoat. 
Rivett wheat Oaken as usual after or¬ 
dinary wheat). 
Glanl White wheat. 
Harley (Utt.cn ns usual arter wheat). 
Black oats (after a green and root crop 
in 1877). 
Blue peas. 
White peas. 
Champion peas, 
mangel, 
kohl raht. 
cabbage, 
winter tares. 
Red clover (for hay). 
Italian rye-grass (1st year). 
Italian rye-grass (2d year), 
permanent pasture for hay. 
Live stock. 
19 fattening cattle. 
1 cow. 
231 sheep (we breed tnem). . „ . 
7 working farm horses, several of them very old 
servants, and must soon go. 
AGRICULTURAL COMPETITION. 
Although the reduction of rent is a gain, it is 
not that only which will save a farmer. There 
is a severe and, I fear, fatal competition going 
on and increasing between the ancient and mod¬ 
ern farmer. The latter, with larger means and 
with all the mechanical aud manurial aids of re¬ 
cent times, can and does produce his crops at a 
much smaller percentage of cost than his ancient 
competitor who may be deficient in these advan¬ 
tages. Landowners should consider this, and, 
by doing their share of progress, stimulate the 
adoption of a new and improved praotioe. Cov¬ 
ered yards, drains, and steam in the field aud at 
the homestead, deeper cultivation, the horse hoe, 
reapers aud mowers, open fields, and suitable 
accommodation for abundant meat-making, are 
all elements in diminution of cost per bushel of 
grain, or pound of meat. So are the catting up of 
straw and green crops, and the pulping of roots. 
The use of iron hurdles on wheels, and sewage 
irrigation where possible, pays. 
PASTURE OB ARABLE. 
I have been a good deal snubbed for Btrongly 
recommending the abolition of poor permanent 
pasture, and my critics, who farm their grass¬ 
land well, are rather hard on me, not observing 
the words “poor" or poorly-farmed pasture,where 
the practice is too oornmon of feeding the sheep 
on pasture by day and folding them on the ara¬ 
ble land at night—robbing Peter to pay Paul, or 
removing money from one pocket to another 
without gain or increase. The consequence is 
an exhaustion of manurial element, and a growth 
of weeds or inferior plants, which can exist 
where the better grasses have died out. 
My plan of making grass pay is to fold sheep 
on it, and bring to the fold plenty of cake, 
corn, malt, culms, or other food. Where this 
is done, and the climate is suitable, grass-land 
often pays better than arable, because there is a 
minimum of horse and manual labor, and a sav¬ 
ing of seeds and expensive implements and ma¬ 
chinery. Bat now the statistics show a misera¬ 
ble estimate of hay cut—as only 18 cwt. per acre, 
and no doubt much of it poor in quality, for we 
have tall grass and hay made from it, which has 
little value for feeding purposes. 
Bad farmers are safe and free from restric¬ 
tions ; they must not sell their hay, but they 
may sell the essence of it in the shape of milk, 
cheese, and lean stock, without the purchase of 
artificial food or manures, and they thus ex¬ 
haust the soil. 
DIFFICULT FARMS TO LET. 
1 could name a district iu Essex where not a 
farm is to let, aud where there would be many 
applicants for a vacant one. Around and near 
this district is an extensive area of dense clay 
farms, for which tenants can be only now ob¬ 
tained by a very considerable reduction of rent 
and other favorable conditions, such as a year’s 
rent free, freedom of action, and perhaps only 
10s. or 12s. per acre rent. In warm, dry seasons, 
when the land cracks widely, these lands pro¬ 
duce abundant grain, mangel and olover ; but in 
wet seasons they are unfruitful, and are always 
costly to work, requiring very powerful and ex¬ 
pensive horses. Too many of these farms are 
uudrained, and even when drained, woe betide 
tbe stranger who imagines that deep, open far¬ 
rows and water farrows are unnecessary. 
Tho most successful farmers of these lands 
are those who, immediately after harvest, plow 
out their furrows and water-furrows, so that 
when tho winter rains come, tbe water may find 
a ready escape, instead of soaking tho clay into 
dense mud. Tho plowed land, or seed-bed, is 
thus kept in a somewhat friable condition, and 
the horses can walk iu the furrows, instead of 
plunging into deep mud. 
Sheep cannot he kept on these lands in winter, 
hence their nnacceptability. Covered yards and 
steam plows owned by the farmer are the beBt 
modifiers, for an opportunity lost is irrecovera¬ 
ble. The farmer must use hia Bteam plow ex¬ 
actly at the right time—the happy opportunity. 
STEAM FLOWTNO COMPANIES 
are, I fear, too ofteu unprofitable both to own¬ 
ers and farmers, and the causes appear to me 
very obvious, especially in a stiff clay or un¬ 
drained district; for, during wot weather, they 
are unavailable on the muddy adhesive soil. 
When a farmer has his own steam plow he can 
choose his opportunity, and when not in use, the 
engine which works it, and the attendant, can 
be otherwise employed on the farm, but in the 
case of hired engines tbe drivers must be paid, 
work or no work. And as a result, the price 
charge d to the farmer is much more than if he 
used his own tackle. 
The removal to and from distant farms in¬ 
volves a heavy cost for fuel, wages, wear and 
tear, all which culminate in a far too heavy 
charge for the farmer’s profit. It appears to 
me, clearly, that the farmer should be able to 
use bis own tackle just when he finds it most 
profitable or convenient to do so. He can thus 
plow, cultivate, harrow, or roll, just in the way 
or to the depth that he chooses as rnoBt suitable, 
and, in my opinion, at half tho cost of hired 
work. His engines and driver will be employed 
mostly at other work, and ho haB merely to in¬ 
cur the interest of money on the tackle when 
not in use.—J. J. Mechi. 
The following is taken from an account of the 
visit to Mr. Meohi, published in the London 
Times, the next day: 
“Tiptree-Hall Farm.— A party of Gentle¬ 
men interested in Agriculture, including Mr. 
Read, M.P., Sir T. Aoland, M.P., Mr. Moiley, 
M.P., and Mr. Pell. M.P., visited Mr. Mechi 
yesterday at Tiptree Hall. The Loudon con¬ 
tingent left Li verpool-street station at 11 o'clock, 
and at Kelvodon station they found vehicle*) 
waiting, in which they were conveyed, through 
pleasant country roads, to Tiptree-hall Farm. 
Many of the neighboring agriculturists were al¬ 
ready on the ground, and the whole party was 
welcomed with characteristic cordiality by Mr. 
Meobi. Tho leading features of Mr. Mechi’s 
farming are well knowu. As he himself says, 35 
years ago, when he purchased Tiptree-hall farm, 
he was considered a revolutionist. He was a 
leveller In a double sense. He not only disregarded 
the old notions as to drainage, but he cut down 
all tho treoB, removed the cumbrous and weed- 
producing fences, put in their place light iron 
hurdles on wheels, applied manure lavishly, 
made good roads, and erected strange-looking 
buildings, some of which now, owing to the gen¬ 
eral application of steam to the work of the 
farm, resemble more a manufactory in Lanca¬ 
shire than a farmstead iu Essex. The visitors 
first examined the livo stock, and it was mode 
sufficiently clear that Mr. Mechi’s system had 
not injuriously affected his interests as a breeder 
and feeder. The grain crops were in fine oondi- 
6 
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A Hits. 40 
tion, though iu two places deficiencies in the 
barley were observable. Compared with wheat 
seen before Tiptree-hall farm was reached, Mr. 
Meohi’a was luxuriant; and when it is remem¬ 
bered that his land is naturally poor, the con¬ 
trast was oven, ifc may be said, remarkable. Of 
the complete nature of the change which has 
passed over Mr. Mechi’s farm, perhaps it’s only 
necessary to mention that whereaB in 1841 he 
purchased the land, nearly all freehold, for £25 
an acre, it has been since valued at £50 an acre. 
But at what outlay was this change brought 
about ? Mr. Mechi says bis improvements cost 
nearly £25 per acre. His improvements are not 
all, however, Bank in the Boil. HiB interested 
visitors noted the covered yards, the steam 
machinery in tho field and at the homestead, the 
suitable accommodation for meat making, the 
iron hurdles on wheels, and sewage irrigation. 
Deep cultivation, drains, and sewage irrigation 
have effected much at Tiptree-hall farm; but 
energetic application of all the scientific im¬ 
provements connected with husbandry has 
helped in at least an equal proportion.” 
-» »♦- 
DAIRYING AND GRAIN RAISING. 
E. W. STEWART. 
The temptation during the first fifty years of 
the settlement of all our States has been to raise 
constant crops of grain, and, making no use of 
the straw for feeding, it has been burned to get 
it out of tbe way. If the straw were evenly dis¬ 
tributed over tho field on which it grew and 
burned, it would return a large proportion of the 
mineral constituents removed in the grain crop, 
but this is never done except when the header 
is used. It is necessary that some compensa¬ 
tion should be provided for tbis great draft upon 
the fertility of tbe soil. The only permanent 
compensation to the soil for the losses in crops 
is iu stock feeding. Every country that has 
held a respectable position iu agriculture has 
done it by feeding slock to its full capacity. 
Eaglaud has doubled her wheat production dur¬ 
ing tho last fifty years, and has also doubled 
her stock feeding. She has besides shown her 
wisdom in using immense quantities of bones 
aud guano. 
This country is fast becoming the grain pro¬ 
ducer for a large part of Europe, and is no 
doubt destined to greatly increase thiB surplus 
of breadstuffs; aud is it not high time that our 
fanners had entered upon the practice of a set¬ 
tled system of compensation for their depletion 
of tho soil by cropping? Our dairy products 
are finding new apd wider markets, year by 
year, and I believe are yet destined to reach as 
high figures as in meat exports. Dairying is 
admirably adapted to be the complement of grain 
raising. Its product is marketable at all times 
of the year. The returns may be had from 
month to month, or even weekly, aud this as¬ 
sists the farmer in paying expenses between tbe 
annual crops. The cow gives a better letuiu 
for tho food consumed than the steer—that is, 
her product brings a much larger sum than the 
growth of the steer. The average cow produces 
about 4,000 lbs. of milk, which will make 400 lbs. 
of cheese, or 180 lbs. of butter. This cheese 
will bring during any scries of ion years, at 
least $40, and the butter $45 to $50, whilst tbe 
growth of an ordinary steer will not reach more 
than half these sums. The best cows, as also 
tho best steers, will just about double these fig¬ 
ures, but there is generally a large balance in 
favor of tbe cow over the steer ; besides the re¬ 
tain for steers only comes once in two and one- 
half to four years. I advocate the propriety of 
keeping only tho best cows and the best steers, 
for tbe profit must be very small on the poorer 
classes of stock, kept for any purpose; but our 
comparison is drawn between the averages of 
such as are generally kept. 
Grain raisiug produces a large amount of 
straw, which, by a little study of the combina¬ 
tion of foods, will euable the farmer to carry bis 
cows through tbe wiuter. A little grain mixed 
with straw will give a proper balance of constitu¬ 
ents. The grain farm may have plenty of land 
near the barn in condition to raise those annual 
summer green crops adapted to feeding milch 
cows. These are winter rye for early spring 
soiling or pasturing - rye makes good pasturage- 
oats, oats and peas ; vetches and oats; Hunga¬ 
rian grass, millet aud Indian corn. The oat and 
pea crop (ono of oats to two of peas) makes 
odc of tbe moat desirable combinations of food 
for the production of milk. It should be cut 
when the pea is in blossom. Hungarian grass 
on a light and fine soil producos a large growth 
of excellent food for feeding green, or even for 
pasturing, if not fed too close, aud also makes 
excellent hay if cut and cured before blossom. 
It becomes too woody if allowed to ripen, the 
same may ha said of millet. But for profitable 
stock feeding or dairying, much reliance should 
be placed upon clover, both for pasture and win¬ 
ter feeding. Clover fed with straw in winter 
an equal weight of eaoh—makes a well-balanced 
food. Grain land should have clover every third 
year in the rotation. The clover penetrates 
deeply and brings up the dormant fertility of the 
subsoil. The roote ramify so extensively and 
furnish such a body of vegetable matter to de¬ 
cay in the eoil as to furnish an important ma- 
0 
