§07 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY. 
AddreBB 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
78 Duane Street, New York City. 
SATURDAY, AUG. 9, 1879. 
AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION IN ENG¬ 
LAND. 
The present agricultural distress iu the 
British Isles is the chief topic of discus¬ 
sion not only among landowners and ten¬ 
ant-farmers, whom it affects most inti¬ 
mately, but also iu Parliament, the pub¬ 
lic press aud among the entire intelligent 
community. Every week the subject is 
anxiously ventilated in agricultural meet¬ 
ings throughout the country; acrimoni¬ 
ous debates have taken place in the 
House of Commons concerning it; a 
Boyal Commission has lately been ap¬ 
pointed to investigate its cause and 
devise some remedy; a measure pro¬ 
viding for the appointment of a Minister 
of Agriculture with a seat in the Cabinet, 
has been adopted by a large majority of 
the Commons, despite the opposition of 
the Government; the newspapers and 
agricultural journals are full, every issue, 
of lengthy reports of the speeches of va¬ 
rious notabilities on the matter, as well 
as with editorial amplifications, sugges¬ 
tions and lucubrations ; while wherever 
in public or private the educated classes 
congregate, the agricultural outlook is as 
common a theme of conversation as the 
state of the weather, the news from Zulu- 
laud or the latest sensation. 
Nor is the universal interest manifested 
in the question without ample cause. At 
no time in the modern history of the 
kiugdom have the owners and occupiers 
of the land been so greviuusly harrassed 
as at present. Five unfavorable seasons 
in succession have not only cut short the 
profits of the tenant-farmers, but in most 
cases inflicted a money loss upon them. 
The evils which, under the most favor¬ 
able circumstances, must naturally result 
from so many consecutive poor harvests, 
have been disastrously increased by com- 
petion with the cheap products of foreign 
nations, especially with those of this 
country. From these two causes com¬ 
bined it is estimated that the loss iucHi¬ 
red by the agricultural community dur¬ 
ing the last season alone, has not been 
less than £68,000,000, or S280.720.000. 
Should the causes that have produced 
this state of affairs continue, it requires 
no gift of prophecy to foretell the speedy 
ruin of British agriculture. Nor are the 
teuant-farmei's the only sufferers; for 
the landlords also have, as a rule, had 
their incomes curtailed by necessary re¬ 
ductions in rent, by the numerous bank¬ 
ruptcies of their tenants, by greatly in¬ 
creased poor-rates, and because, in many 
cases, as it has been impossible for them 
to let their farms, they have been forced 
to manage the land themselves at a much 
smaller profit than that usually returned 
by the skill, labor aud capital of those 
who hired it from them. Moreover, man¬ 
ufacturers and the vast multitude em¬ 
ployed by them have also suffered more or 
less severely from the distress among the 
farmers. The agricultural industry forms 
the chief element iu the home market, 
which, in the United Kingdom, is eight 
times as valuable as the export trade, and 
the embarrassment in this industry has 
necessarily augmented the depression in 
manufacture and commerce, which now 
affects our transatlantic cousins. One- 
third of the capital of the country is en¬ 
gaged in its agriculture; certainly for 
three, uud probably for five years, this 
third has been nearly unproductive, and 
thewholenationmust suffer from the com¬ 
parative unprofitableness of so much of 
its resources. 
But the short crops duo to unfavor¬ 
able seasons, and the low prices necessi¬ 
tated by close competition with cheap 
products, are accidental causes of the 
present distress. There are others, how¬ 
ever, that lie in the very nature of some 
of the national institutions. The former 
causes may be obviated iu future by a 
change in the weather and a change iu 
the tariff; the latter can be removed only 
by the abrogation of the laud laws, which 
means a social aud political revolution ; 
for it is the existence of these laws, that 
for ages has kept social distinction and 
the government of the country in the 
hands of the landowners. Their repeal 
therefore would, in time, work a mighty 
revolution iu English society and iu the 
form of English government. But as the 
English people have an exaggerated esti¬ 
mate of the excellence of their social and 
political conditions, as they are thorough¬ 
ly conservative in regard to social and 
political matters, and as these laws have 
the sanction of time-honored usage and 
the support of vested interests, it is Bafe 
to predict that dire necessity alone will 
force their abrogation, and then only 
after a struggle of extreme bitterness. 
This necessity may be deferred by the 
speedy repeal of some of the most inju¬ 
rious of their provisions. At present, 
owing to the absence of compulsory re¬ 
gistration and to the mass of antiquated 
verbiage and intricate technicality that 
renders the transfer of land impossible 
without the expensive aid of a skilled con¬ 
veyancer, it is a costly and tedious under¬ 
taking to invest in a freehold. A case 
has recently been mentioned in which a 
poor man who bought three acres of 
glebe land, had. to pay $565 merely for 
the legal examination of the title deed. 
The passage of a compulsory registration 
law, like that iu force in many Conti¬ 
nental lands and in this country, would 
so facilitate and cheapen the purchase 
of laud that the number of freeholders 
•would be constantly increasing aud the 
burden of rent proportionately dimin¬ 
ishing. Moreover, this increase of 
freeholders would lessen the social 
distinction at present attached to the 
possession of land, and gradually deprive 
it of the “fancy” value it now bears, and 
in this way enable the farmers of the 
future to realize, a fair interest on the 
capital invested in the purchase of their 
homesteads. • 
Within the last 25 years the number 
of land-owners in the United Kingdom 
has been constantly dwindling, while the 
aggregate value of the laud has increased 
nearly 15 per cent., and the rental, on an 
average, five shillings an acre. At pres¬ 
ent the rental of the agricultural lands in 
England amounts to the enormous sum 
of $350,000,000 a year. This is the tax 
which the farmers of the oountry have to 
pay to the landlords for the privilege of 
investing their labor, skill and capital in 
the effort to wing a livelihood from the 
soil, wliile hampered by a meshwork of 
restrictions created by land-owning legis¬ 
lators for the benefit of their own class. 
The British farmer is not permitted to 
follow the system in agriculture which 
seems to him the most advantageous for 
his owu interests, but must conform to 
the regulations which the landlord deems 
most conducive to his own benefit. The 
tenant, in nearly all cases, is compelled 
to use a stipulated quantity of fertilizers, 
either bought or made upon the farm ^ 
he must follow the rotation of crops pre¬ 
scribed, not by his own judgment, but 
by his landlord’s wishes, and he must 
dispose of part of his produce as dictated 
by the latter, who generally insists that 
a certain proportion of it must be used 
ou the farm for his own benefit. Owing 
to the rigid and complicated law of fix¬ 
tures, passed by landlords for their own 
gain, all the improvements put on the 
laud belong to the laud-owner. The Ag¬ 
ricultural Holdings Act of 1875 pretended 
to secure to the farmer some compensa¬ 
tion at the end of his lease for the im¬ 
provements he might have put on the 
land, but the measure was hampered by 
so many clauses and provisos that, in 
practice, the amount of such compensa¬ 
tion usually depends on the landlord's 
pleasure. To prevent, ns much as possi¬ 
ble, all chauees of risk to the latter, the 
law gives him a first lieu upon the crops 
to secure any debt due him by the tenant, 
while the claims of all other creditors 
must be postponed to his interests. 
These interests having been secured 
by these aud similar precautions, the law 
provides carefully fur his amusement by 
a rigid system of game laws. Not only 
is the farmer severely dealt with for in¬ 
terfering with the partridges or pheasants 
that may be met with on his own acres, 
but even rabbits—the greatest pest of the 
agriculturist—are protected, and the de¬ 
spoiled farmer has no redress. Nor is 
this ail; for, haviug wastefully fattened 
the game for his lord’s sport, he must 
patiently see, without legal indemnity, 
his meadows, pastures and grain fields 
poached and his fences injured by ^the 
reckless rush of that lord and his friends, 
amusing themselves by boldly following, 
with horse aud hound, the fox or the 
timid hare. Surely it is time that the 
laws that sanction these grievances should 
be wiped from the statute book whose 
pages they disgrace. It' this be done 
before agitation on the laud question 
arouses bitterness throughout the com¬ 
munity, it is not improbable that the 
measure will give a new lease of life to 
existing laws concerning entail and set¬ 
tlement, the two features in British legis¬ 
lation that are mainly responsible for the 
accumulation of real estate iu the hands 
of the aristocracy. 
Iu addition to high rent, short crops, 
foreign competition and legalized hard¬ 
ships, the British former finds another 
cause of distress in the increased expense 
of working his farm. Within the last 
quarter of a century its ratable value, 
and consequently the taxes on it, have 
increased considerably; local taxation 
for sanitary and other purposes have 
multiplied; labor costs about 25 per cent, 
more, and is worth fully 12 per cent, less; 
the requirements of present agriculture 
demand a considerable increase of capi¬ 
tal, for which its products return little or 
no interest. 
All these causes sufficiently account for 
the present distress among our farming 
friends across the water. The extent of 
the losses of even some #f the best of 
them is shown by the balance sheet of a 
farm of 600 acres, lately published in the 
London Times, and which is a fair speci¬ 
men of many similar accounts which have 
appeared in other papers. This shows 
an annual deficit of $1,700 for the last 
three years. During that time the an¬ 
nual outlay on this farm of alluvial river 
loam was $17,700, exclusive of the ex¬ 
pense of the farmer’s family, while the 
income was only $10,000. Nearly half 
the outlay was made up of rent, $7,500, 
while the taxes amounted to $750. What 
industry can prosper wit h such a tax paid 
by labor to idleness, while so many other 
drawbacks trammel its efforts! 
-» »♦- 
“FIRMING” THE SOIL. 
“ I find this matter of firming the soil is 
looming into vast importance. I was out 
among the bulb-growers in Long Island last 
week ; one of them showed me a bed of gladio¬ 
lus seed that he had sown last epriug, nearly 
all of which had failed to germimue except 
a small portion in a hollow where the water 
had stood and finned the soil around the seed.” 
—[Peter Henderson, in Hew York Tribime. 
We have raised Gladioli from seed for 
the past ten years, and have found that 
they germinate freely only in the shade, 
in moist soil, or both. The seeds, more¬ 
over, are winged, light and, as they must 
be sown shallow, many would blow away 
iu a loose, dry soil. The better germina- 
tiou of those “in a hollow where the 
water had. stood” need not, therefore, be 
attributed to the “firmness” which the wa¬ 
ter had caused. Had corn been planted 
upon the same field, probably the re¬ 
verse results would have attended ger¬ 
mination, else we need have very little 
faith in underdraining. Mr. Henderson’s 
address upon the advantages of “ firm¬ 
ing the soil” seems to have been copied 
by almost every agricultural journal in 
the land as if it'were full of information 
both new aud valuable. But we had sup¬ 
posed that the necessity of “firming” a 
loose soil after seed-sowing was known to 
every farmer and that the general use of 
the roller or similar implement for this 
purpose, was a sufficient proof thereof. 
It is a very plain case that seeds, to ger¬ 
minate well, must have soil in contact 
with them—otherwise the tender radicle 
receives no support and at once perishes. 
Especially is this true if seeds are sown 
during a period of dry weather when 
there is little moisture in the air spaces 
between the particles of soil, to assist in 
nourishing the germinating seed. “Firm¬ 
ing” the soil, therefore, means simply the 
insuring of contact between the seed and 
the medium iu which it is to grow. The 
looser the soil, the more is “ firming” 
necessary ; the more clayey the soil the 
less is it' necessary. To “ firm" a clayey 
soil would be detrimental to seed germi¬ 
nation. Its tendency is to “firm” itself too 
soon, thuB excluding air aud moisture. 
The best that we can do with a clayey 
soil is to pulverize or break it up as finely 
as possible, so as to insure its contact with 
the seed. In this way also we render it a 
slower conductor of the heat of the day 
and the coolness of the night, both of 
which are harmful to the quick and vig¬ 
orous germination of most seeds. We 
conchide that the “ free propagation” of 
Mr. Henderson's address is rnther a mark 
of consideration for this well-known seeds¬ 
man than a tribute to its value, notwith¬ 
standing “the vast importance into which 
this matter of “firming” the soil is loom¬ 
ing.” 
THE SIMPLEST THING. 
It seems to us that there have been more 
frauds perpetrated during the past sea¬ 
son upon oountry people by irresponsible 
* ‘ tree agents" than ever before. At 
least we have heard more about these 
frauds than ever before. Cheats prosper 
where there are willing dupes. If people 
are sufficiently interested in plants to buy 
them of peddlers of whom they have uo 
kn owledge, it would seem that they would 
be sufficiently interested in plants to read 
reliable horticultural literature which 
would effectually guard them against im¬ 
positions. The'time for fall planting is 
again close at hand. All respectable 
agricultural journals will announce the 
catalogues of trustworthy nurserymen. 
We repeat our advice so often offered. 
Send for them—compare them and then 
select from those that offer at the lowest 
prices the plants desired. The remedy is 
a simple one and costs merely the stamp 
on the letter of application. We experi¬ 
ence a malicous satisfaction when we 
find—as we always have found—that 
those who purchase the wonders which 
these shrewd aud unprincipled tree ven¬ 
ders offer, do not subscribe for country- 
home journals. Headers may rest as¬ 
sured that all meritorious novelties are 
recorded in their pages as soon as known. 
Producers are only too glad to publish 
them Bince they have no other means of 
bringing them’before the public. When, 
therefore, strange agents talk of strange 
plants of marvelous properties or that 
produce anomalous fruits, they may un¬ 
hesitatingly be set down as impostors. 
Applause in Churches.—Applause 
by the congregation of what ministers 
say in the pulpit, has grown of late years 
to be of common occurrence. It was at 
first heartily denounced. Then it was 
tolerated. Now many congregations ap¬ 
plaud as if it were quite “the thing.” We 
believe that the City of Churches (Brook¬ 
lyn) bears the honor of having introduced 
this custom, which is well in keeping 
with the inscrutable religious sentiment 
that pervades a large portion of that 
church-going community. Upon the oc¬ 
casion of Moody and Sankey s first ap¬ 
pearance since their vacation—passed by 
Mr. Moody on his farm, anil by Mr. 
Sankey in Europe—“a burst of applause 
greeted the close of the first hymn. ” But 
Sir. Moody promptly checked it. He re¬ 
minded the assembly that they were in 
the house of God, not in a theater, and 
the indiscretion was not repeated. We 
are in favor of “liberal ideas” in all 
things—political, social and moral—but 
it has always seemed to us that applause 
in church during Sabbath worship, dese¬ 
crates the place and the time, and must 
strangely grate upon the sensibilities of 
those wlio are collected together to rev¬ 
erence God. If it is the minister we go 
to worship, then it is well to clap the 
hands or to laugh when he says anything 
especially good or funny. We hope that 
Brooklyn’s irreverent innovation will 
never be tolerated, at least in the churches 
of our quiet hamlets aud villages, and 
that our country people will continue to 
deem a reverential silence an essential 
part of their Sabbath devotion. 
- M » — - 
BREVITIES. 
“Give us the man who sings at his work.”— 
Carlyle. Would whistling answer ? 
The Golden Rural is again our first tomato 
to ripen. Will our readers tell us how it is 
with them ? 
Dn. A. C. Williams. Hugo, Ill, tells us that 
he raised a head of Defiance wheat with 115 
grains iu it. Why, Doctor, did not you think 
to seud us that head of Defiance wheat, so that 
we could have had it drawn aud e ngraved ? 
Work vigorously while you . work—have 
your wits about you, aud never take two steps 
when one will answer. Then as soou as fatigue 
is felt, it is better economy to take a nup tliau 
to contiuue labor. No man can be prompt, 
happy, enthusiastic, or even systematic, that 
habitually overworks himself. 
Mr. Geo. J. Kellogg writes us from Janes¬ 
ville, Wis., as follows : “Among the Black Rasp¬ 
berries, Great Western takes the lead, being 
nearly twice the size of Maiumoih Cluster, as 
vigorous aud productive and more hardy, as 
Mammoth Cluster was killed badly the past 
winter, while Great Western was uainjured.” 
The haste with which many of us jump at 
conclusions isillustrated in nothing better than 
the condemnations which are being heaped 
upon Pearl Millet. These writers are altogciner 
premature. Let them wait a bit—count thirty 
and hold their wrath. Two weeks beuce they 
will wish to recall their hasty words. Judging 
from our tests of last season, it does not start 
into vigorous growth before the latter part of 
July m this climate— and the present season it 
is the same. 
Mr. Wm. Parry writes us of the Cuthbert: 
“I consider it one of our most valuable 
Red Raspberries, and it may be placed by 
side of the Queen of tue Market, which it 
very much resembles in large size, bright red 
color, haudsome and attractive appearance, 
strong, vigorons growth, hardy and produc¬ 
tive canosT aud it has probably descended from 
the same healthy parentage. We propose 
plantim; them both largely and would recoin- 
meud others to do so, believing that whoever 
plants cither or both will be well rewarded.” 
Potted sitraw bery plants can be purchased 
for 50 cents per dozen. \\ «• recommend Sharp¬ 
less, Cumberland Triumph, Prouiy's Seedling, 
Charles Downing. Borden 30, Pres. Lincoln. 
Miner’s Prolific, Champion. Kentucky and 
Glendale, for trial. A fair proportion of them 
may be relied upon to give satisfaction in any 
soil In which the Strawberry will thrive at all. 
Prepare the gtOttnd liberally; in a uure liberally; 
set the plants one foot by 18 inches apart 
and see—you who have never given any par¬ 
ticular attention to the Strawberry—if your 
family do not declare that “ it pays.” 
