^. -v^s t^^ >^^/ -Y"' V I :P^ '.-^^C^v; ^>' ^.^' ^^^■^ ^■i 7/o >6 ff LIBRARY MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE NO.. 7_6jS-C.__ DATE.6.:i£f_£ SOURCE H_^t_c.h--iuj[Lci.,_ ^— ^'^ 1655 CHAPEL ' ^' ^^' ly^ v^ '^ THE FARMER S MAGAZINE. VOLUME THE THIRD. (THIRD SERIES. JANUARY TO JUNE, DCCCLIII. LONDON : 'UBL1^>HED BY ROGER.SON AND TUXFORD, 246, STRAND. MAY BE HAD BY OKDKR THROUGH ALL BOOKSELLEES. I 7 S l Kogersoii and Co, 246, Strand. 1 N IJ E X . Agriculture, a few words on its Politics, 32^ Agriculture and Free Trade, 127 Agriculture and the Rural Population abroad. 244 Agriculture, Calendar of, 3(35, 460, 553 Agriculture, its prospects in ajourney of a thousand miles through the provinces, 388 Agriculture, the Effects of the Gold Fields on, 33 Agriculture of the Bible, 41 Agriculture, what Science ma)' do for, in respect to the arrangement of home-made manures, 104 Agricultural Biography, 17, 107, 315, 398, 489 Agricultural Districts of England. By the Times Commissioner, 72,444 Agricultural Geology (Prize Essay) by Mr. Whitley. Remarks on it, 200 Agricultural Improvements, 120 Agricultural Labourers, Advantages derived from providing adequate cottage accommodation for, 70 Agricultural Reports, 87, 182, 27<3, 369, -402, 557 Agricultural Queries, 50O Answers to Agricultural Queries, 459, 50O Averages, Imperial, 94, 188, 282, 375, r)07 B. Bark, Price of, 471 Bark, Sale of 367 Bees, Notes on, 552 Beetroots, Irish, Experiments, 204 Beet Sugar, Sale of Irish, 149 Bere, Peruvian or skinless. Value of, 546 Blight in "Wheat, its Origin, 250 Bull, Description of a Hereford, 95, 190 Bull, Description of a Short-horned, 1, 3/7 Butter Making, 220 Butter, the Price of, 94, 188, 376, 471, 568 Cattle Dealeis, Important Decision to, 452] Cattle : Fat, the Shows at the close of 1S52, !33 Cattle, on the best mode of Housing, Soiling, and Pasturing, 114 Cattle-trade, Review of the, 88, 182, 276, 370,463, 557 Cheese Making from a small Dairy, 233 Cheese Press, Dick's, 13 Chemical and Mechanical Science ; —its Progress and Importance to Agriculture, 7 Chicory, 419 Chicory, Price of, 94, 471, 567 Chicken, Gapes, Pip, 274 Churning Machine, a simple one, 16 Clay t\ Moor Land, 293 Clover Sickness, 521 Clover, Broad, v. Cow Grass, 424 Cochin China Fowls, Description of Plate, 3,77 Cochin China Fowls, Extraordinary Sales of, 15, 168, 274,426 Cochin China Mania, 252 Compensation Cases, Important, 359, 443 Copenhagen, the late Duke of Wellington's favourite Charger, Description of, 95 Corn Metage Question, 177 Corn Trade, Reviev.- of the, 90, 181, 268, 278, 371, 465, 563 Corn Trade of Liverpool, 528 Cottages for Agricultural Labourers, on their Con- struction, 499 Couch or Twitch Grass, 294 Currency per Imperial Measure, ]8S, 281,375, 470, 567 D. Diseases in Cattle, their Peculiarities and Treatment, 320 Diseases in Farm Stock, its Prevalence, 266 Drainage, Arterial, 119 Drainage of the Test and Anton Valleys, 427 Draining, On, 519 E. Education, Industrial and Agricultural, 162, 420 Emigration, Its f fleets on the Agricultural Interest, 134 F. Falkirk Tryst, 487 Farm Buildings, On the Advantage of portable ones. By Baruch Almack, 25 Farm Buildings, Description of Plate, 189 Farm Produce, Y>'eigbts per acre produced in Ireland, 82 Farmers' Club of l^ondon; Annual Dinner, 5S Farmers' Clubs, 1C4 Farmers' Clubs — Chippenham Hundred, 324 Croydon, 70, 152, 264 East Berwickshire, 166, 234 London, 50, ITl, 205, 33 J, 413, 505 St. Germains, 297 Staindrop, 263 Winchester, 134, 140, 225 Farmers' Clubs, the Necessity of a more intimate Connection of the Local with the London Club, 352 Farmer's Friend, The, 530 Farmers ; What should they do ? 358, 43G Fish, on their artificial Production in our Rivers, 457 Food, its Preparation for Stock, 351 Grass-land, On the permanent Improvement and Management of inferior, 4 1 1 Grass Seeds for permanent Pasture, 298 Grazing, On, 3S7, Green Crop, On preparing Land for a, 12 Guano, Australian, 165 Guano, Substitute for, 89 n. Hampshh'e and Sussex Down, Experiments on their fattening Qualities, 14 Harvests of 1851 and 1852, Comparison between, 174 Hides, Prices of, 94, 1S8, 282, 376, 472, 568 Hop Duty ; Mr. Hodges' Plan for reducing it, 330 * Hop Duties, 176 Hop Market, 94, 471, 567 Horticulture, Calendar of, 86, 180, 272, 366, 461, 555 I. Insects injurious to the (^"rops of Agriculturists, 28 Ireland, the Census of, in 1851, 131 Labourer, the Farm, his Accomodation and Treat- ment in Health and under Disease. By J. Donaldson, 2 Land, its political Economy, 549 Land, What are the Principles on which it should be valued ? 523 Landed Property, The Transfer of, 545 Landlord and Tenant, Ike, 288 Lime, Superphosphate of. By Cuthbert W. John- son, Esq. 473 Lime, On, 512 M. Manures, Mineral and others— their Action and Value. By C. L. Flint, 305 Manures, Prices of, 4 72 Manures, Experiments on the Growth of Txirnijjs with special, lp3 Manuring Crops, On, 27 Maize, Brood, Description of Plate, 283 Meat, On increasing the Supply of, 96 Meteorolog)', its Connection with Agriculture. By Cuthbert W. Johnson, Esq., 10, 191, 285 Meteorological Diary, 85, 179, 275, 368, 554 Mole, The, a Sub-cultivator, 251 O. Oat Flour. By J. Towers. ^^76 OniTUARY : — C. Chavnock, Esq. Ox, Hereford, Description of, 473 O.v, North Devon, Description of, 283 Pasture Land, Cultivation of, 438 Patents applicable to agricultural Purposes, 486 Peat Charcoal, (Irish) 425 Peat Charcoal, its jjeculiar Applicability. By J. Towers, 283 Plants, their Food, 217 Pleuro-Pneumonia in Cattle, Inoculation as a Protective, 221 Ploughing, On, 308 Potato, Culture in Cornwall, 347 Potato Disease, 47 Potato Markets, 94, 188, 282, 376, 471, 567 Potatoes, Details of Experiments in raising, 150 Poultry Mania, 181 Poultry, on, 252 Poultry, on the Profits of breeding them, 407 Poultry Show, Great Metropolitan, 169 Poult ly Yard, 255 R. Rain, the Fall of, in 1852, 123 Rain, Variation in the Fall of, &c., 213 INDEX. Rains in 1852, Effects of, oi in 1S53, 159 Rat-lrap, new, Uescrij)tion of, 43 .andlord and Tenant Tanks and Tank makinj?, 172 Tenant Farmer, the, 270 Reviews— Tenant Farmers and Landowners of England. Let- j ter from Samuel Jonas to the, 202 The Poultry Book, 560 „,, J Tenant Right, 203 " They hring gay flowers to deck thee now, 181 | ^ ^ ^^^.^^^ ^^ ^j^^ ^^,^ ^.^^^ ^^^ ^^^j^^^^^ mi „.•..!. »l, _ 1~».,1.„ lol o » brought into Parliament last year, 514 Tenant, the Out-going r. the Incoming, 40G Timl)er, Price of, 472 Timber Tree, new— the Deodar, 490 Top-dressing Grass Land in Windsor Park, 338 Three years with the Duke, 181 Root Crop.*, on feeding Cattle with, 337 Royal Agricultural Lnprovement Society of Ireland its Progress and Prospects, 48G Royal Agricultural Society of England, 339, 381, 532 190, i Seed Time, 348 Seeds, Price of, 94, 188, 282, 370, 470, 507 Sheep, Disease in, 295 Sheep, on Breeds for difterent Localities, By J. Donaldson, 299 Sheep, in shearing fat ones for Smilhfield, 393 Sheep, their Importance, Variety, Management, and ! Diseases, 439 Short-horned Cattle, Sales of, 459, 550 Smithfield Club Cattle Show, 02 Smithfield Christmas Cattle Market, 68 Smithfield Club Prize Cattle, Weights of, S3 Smut in Wheat, Chloride of Lime a Pre^'entive of the, 10 Soils, on the absorptive Power of, 40 Soils, on the Application of Nitro^-en to, 28" Sniling in Summer, Experiments on, 484 [Turnip Crop of 1853, 543 j Turnip Grater, Mr. Bushe's, 155 I Turnip Plant. By C. W. Johnson, Esq., 379 i Turnip Phnt, adventitious Aids for, 522 j Turnips, Cultivation of, 195, 251 I 'Turnips, on growing, 432 Turnips, Disease in, 124 Turnips on Clay Lands, on raising, 500 Tythe Commutation Table, 149 v;. Wages, 353, 391, 517 Watercresses, their Cultivation on dry land, 531 Watkin, Sober, Esq., Dinner to, 158 Water drilling, 3S6 Weather, Observations on the, 150 Weeds and Weeding, 477 Wheat, Educated, 397 Wheat, Indian corn, and other grains from the Black Seas. Rej)ort by A. Mongredien, 250 Songs'tress, a celebrated Mare, Description of, 473 i Wheat Plant, on the. By C. W.Johnson, Esq., 102 Stallions for 1853, 454 ; Wheat, the Cultiration of, 31 Statistics, Agricultural, &c., 163, 271, 290, 350, ! Wheat Sowing, 178 396, 408, 428, 49S, 548 ' Wool, Austrahan, 367 Stock, economical Mode of fattening, 430, 483 I Wool at the river Plate, 410 Stones. Description of a Machine for picking up, 1 Wool, Chemical Constituents of, &c., 48 Sugar B'-et 15 Wool and Meat Trade explained, 7 Swede Turnips. 458 , Wool Markets, 94, 1S8, 282, 370, 472, 568 Swede Turnips, their Value half-a-century back. Wool Report (German), 207 45g Wool Trade, annual Report of the, 173 THE EMBELLISHMENTS A Short-horned Ball Page . 1 A Patent Machine for ]'ick.ing uj) Stones 1 Dick's Cheese Press . 13 Simple Churning Machine. . . 16 A Devon Bull . 95 Copenhajfen, the Duke of Wellington's favourl te Charger . 95 Illustration of a Tank for a Farm -stead . I7i A Hereford Bull. . . 189 Plans of Farm Buildings . . . ISO A North Devon Ox. . . 283 Levity ;— a Brood Mare . « . 283 Cochin China Fcvls . . 377 A Short-horned Bull 1 . 377 New Rat-trap • . 437 Songstress, a Celebrated mare -r . 473 A Hereford Ox . '' . 473 )^§ .\- ^ § ^ THE FAEMEK'S MAGAZINE. JANUARY, 1853. PLATE I. A SHORT-HORNED BULL. Phcenix (10608) calved March 28, 1848, bred by and the property of Mr. Thomas Crisp, of Hawk Hill, Alnwick, got by Ronald (8507), dam (Duchess) by Guy Faux (7062), g. d. (Young Red Duchess) by The Peer (5455), gr. g. d. (Red Duchess) by Bachelor (1666), — Duchess) by WelUng- ton (683),— (Bright Eyes) by Admiral (4), — by Sir Harry (1444), — by Mr. R. Ceiling's Colonel (152), — by a grandson of Hubback (319), — by a son of Hubback (319), has won the following premiums : — 1849. As a yearling, first prize at Border Union Agricultural Society, 1851. For best old bull, first prize at Border Union Agricultural Society. „ Ditto, ditto, at Northumberland Agricultural Society; likewise Silver Cup with Five Sovereigns added, for best of all prize bulls exhibited at the above meeting, held at Newcastle-on-Tyne. 1852. For best old bull, first prize at the Royal Agricultural Society of England's meeting at Lewes. „ For best old bull, first prize at Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland's meeting at Perth; likewise Sweepstakes at the above meeting, open to all ages, including winners of premiums in former years, and Silver Medal to breeder. „ For best old bull, first prize at the Royal Irish Agricultural Society's meeting at Galway, and Silver Medal for best short-horn bull of any age exhibited, hkewise Gold Medal for best prize bull of any breed or age; and Silver Medal for breeder of the above. PLATE II. A PATENT MACHINE FOR PICKING UP STONES; INVENTED BY MR. J. T. FOSTER, OF NEW YORK. This important machine was recently invented and patented by Mr. J. T. Foster, of New York, who is well known to the agricultural interest of the United States for several of his previous inventions. The great utility of such an implement as herein represented will be readily appreciated by every farmer, and will open a new era in agriculture. It is calculated to clear of stones from 7 to 10 acres of land per day, with the aid of a good team of horses ; making a saving of at least 200 per cent, over hand labour, and does the work effectually, leaving no stone in its track, and completely harrowing the ground. To describe the machine more fully, we refer to the steel engraving annexed. Letter C repre- sents a cyhnder containing four rows of teeth, or lifters ; this cylinder is secured to the axle, and is made to revolve by the friction of the wheel G, which is also secured to the axle, the other wheel running independently to accommodate itself in turning. B represents the rake, held in its place and supported by the arms F F, through which the axle passes ; by such means the rake hangs on the OLD SERIES.] B [VOL. XSJCVIII.— No. 1. 2 THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. centre of its own circle, which is considerably greater than the cylinder to admit a stone of the size of a peck measure to pass between, and is capable of being adjusted by the crank and shaft seen just behind the rake, not indicated by letter, and held in its required position by the dogs or palls A A. It will now be perceived that as the machine moves forward the rake collects everything that is not capable of passing between the teeth, which are but three inches apart ; and at the distance of every four feet the rake is relieved of what it has accumulated by the revolving lifters, which convey them into the hopper, E, which is on a sufficient angle to allow them to roll into the box, D D. When the box has accumulated a load, the driver, by turning the crank, raises the rake to a height to clear any obstacle that might be in the way, locks it, drives off, and dumps as with an ordinary cart, and is ready to repeat the operation by simply dropping the rake. A machine to pick up stones we have ever considered among the last of inventions, but now we have a simple, efficient, labour-saving implement. This machine is well adapted for harvesting potatoes : and while doing this, as well as picking stones, cultivates the land. We deem this invention of great importance to the farming interest, and one of those that will affiard the facilities to practical agriculture that are requisite to place farmers on a footing with those in other arts of life. Every considerable improvement in the labour of the farm has an important bearing in national pros- perity and the general interest of humanity. THE FARM LABOURER. HIS ACCOMMODATION AND TREATMENT IN HEALTH AND UNDER DISEASE. BY JOHN DONALDSON, Late Professor of Agriculture and Botany, at Hoddesdon, Herts, and author of Prize Essay on the Cultivation and Management of Underwood, awarded by the Royal Agricultural Society of England. The best arranged social systems that have yet been enacted in the world assign a very large portion of the human race to the performance of labour, in order to obtain a remuneration wherewith to live and procure the necessaries of life. In civilized communities, labour is the most valuable of all pos- sessions, and the exertions of it produce all the elegancies of life, and render the existence of mankind comfortable and happy. Labour is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities : nxoney the nominal price only. Like other commodities, it has both a real and a nominal price. The real price is the quantity of the necessaries and conveniences of life which are given for it ; the nominal price is the quantity of money. The labourer is rich or poor, is well or ill rewarded, in proportion to the real, but not to the nominal price of his labour. The rent of land and the profits of stock are measured by labour, and the component parts of price are included in the quantity of labour which they can each of them purchase or command. In every society the price of each commodity resolves itself into one or all of the three parts— labour, rent, and profit; and in every improved society all the three enter, more or less, into the price of the far greater part of commodities. There are some cases where the price of a few commodities resolves itself into the two parts of the wages of labour and the profits of stock, and a smaller number consists wholly in the wages of labour. The produce of labour forms the natural recom- pense or wages of labour. In that original state of things, which precedes the appropriation of land and the accumulation of stock, the whole produce of labour belongs to the labourer, as he has no master or landlord to share with him. But this original state of things could not last beyond the first introduction of the appropriation of land and the accumulation of stock. As soon as land be- comes private property, the landlord demands a share of all the produce which the labourer can either raise or collect from it. The rent is the first deduction from the produce of the land ; and the second is the profit that accrues from the produce of the labour that has been so employed. The pro- duce of every kind of labour, in any art or manu- facture, is liable to the hke deduction of profit. The common wages of labour depend every where upon the contract that is made between the two parties to whom belong the profits of stock and the wages of labour, but the interests of these parties are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, and the masters to give as little, as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower, the wages of labour. The masters commonly succeed ; for, being fewer in number, they can more easily combine : and the law does not prohibit their combinations as it does those of the workmen. In all disputes the masters generally have the advantage, and reduce the wages to the lowest point. Wages should be sufficient to maintain the labourer, and some- what more, or it will be impossible for him to THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. bring up a family. The demand for labourers in- creases with the additions to the revenue and stock of every countiy, which is the increase of national wealth. The augmentation of wealth, and not the overflowing abundance of it, causes the highest rate of wages ; and the increase of population has a most decisive ett'ect. The liberal reward of labour is the necessaiy consequence and the natural symptom of increasing wealth. The scanty maintenance of the labouring poor is the plainest proof that things are at a stand, and the starving condition that they are going fast backwards. The hberal reward of labour, as it is the effect of increasing wealth, is also the cause of increasing population. Various causes combine to fix the price of labour; and it is not a little remarkable, that unproductive labours are the best paid. By unproductive labour, is meant that which adds no value to the materials on which the work is performed. The employment of the higher orders in society is unproductive of any value, as it does not fix itself on any vendible commodity, or permanent object, which endures after the labour is past, and for which an equal quantity of labour can be afterwards pro- cured. The declamations of the actor, the harangues of the orator, and the tunes of the musician all perish in the very instant of their production. Yet, not- withstanding this very evident fact, unproductive labour is ever the best remunerated, as the per- formances require more expense and greater ex- ertion in acquiring the necessary parts of the art. Coarse and vvilgar practices which admit of an easy performance, and which are accessible to a greater number of performers, are valued at a much lower rate than others which require a greater quan- tity both of VcAue and labour in acquiring the aptitude of execution. Grossness and refinement find in this case, as in most others, the remuneration for the expenditure of labour and its value. The coarser'materials form the pedestal of society, and the value increases upwards till the top ceases to perform any necessary function, owing to the elevation being supported by the joint-efforts of the nether contributions. The position of the farm labourer ranks him among the worst paid of the labouring classes, as his employment is menial and coarse, and requires very little or no preparation for its performance. The exertions are of the rudest kind, and are ac- cessible to the most untutored human being that is at all capable of observation and imitation. And though a superior skilfulness can be sho\vn in that art as well as in all others, yet it fails to attract much notice, or to elevate the performance to any superior remuneration. The number of persons who are capable of acting the labourer, and the want of the means that are necessary to advance to a higher station, have fixed and kept the wages of agricultural labourers at the very lowest amount that is capable of supporting a living frame of use- ful action. This position in the social system en- titles the objects of it to the kindly feeling and bene- volence of the class that employs them, and to whose benefit the current of circumstances directs a large share of the produce of labour. This ex- tension and 'application of the better feelings of human nature is very loudly and most imperioi.sly called for, in order to rectify in some measure the defects of the social system in not giving to every fellow-creature a competent share of the essential necessaries of life. It is the serious blunder of all systems that have yet existed ; but it seems to be the fate of mankind, throughout every variety and degree of error, ere they arrive at the happy termi- nation by finding the right path. No super-struc- ture can stand steadily without a safe and durable foundation : it must be wide and comprehensive, or the top may overbalance it ; the structure must bear equally on the underparts, or too much pressure on one place may crush and destroy some of the supports, that will disconnect and break the combination of tlie whole edifice. The want of this most valuable and essential considera- tion has produced every revolution and rebellion that has happened on the face of the earth ; want induces discontent, and being fed by other evils, proceeds to canvass the propriety of the immea- surable distance between the bottom and the top of the social fabric, and to enquire if a nearer ap- proach could not be made with mutual advantage. Having said thus much we will now consider the size of the farm and the form of building to be occupied by the labourer. The size of farms that are most proper for the active and useful development of capital may vary from 200 to 500 acres. The first extent could not be lowered without cramping the energies and restricting exertion ; and the last amount of acres could not be exceeded without too much increasing the indi- vidual possession, and preventing the employment of a moderate amount of capital. The intervening numbers between 200 and 500 may aflFord the suit- able employments for the varying sums of money in the hands of individuals. It is however necessary that the labourers live upon the farm, and that they be located at an easy distance from the farmery; the dwellings must be erected at the expense of the landowner, as they are a permanent property in which the farmer has only a usufructuary interest; the site of the dwellings may be so chosen as not to interfere with the shape of a field— a common or a cut oflP space of ground which projects from or abuts upon any field or plantation that has been laid out and settled. The required number of B 2 THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. single dwellings may be formed in a square with an open south front, or in the form of a circle or a polygon. If the ground be naturally dry, the first floor may be on a level with the earth ; but if the soil be clayey and wet, the floor must be raised one foot at least, and the space filled with broken stones. This precaution will secure a dry flooring, which is very desirable, and highly conducive to health. The base of the excavation must have an inclination to one corner to discharge into a drain the oozings of the wet soil, which might form a body of water, and throw upwards a cold dampness that would prove injurious to inmates. All wetness must be re- moved from dwellings; the broken stones must be rammed hard into their position, and then covered with dross or very small gravel, on which the floor- ing of bricks is laid ; one stone step will be required outside the door to reach the floor. All cottages must have two apartments on the ground floor, of about 20 feet by 1 5, and a stair in the centre that leads to the upper accommodation. The kitchen must be provided with a fixed iron fuel grate, a boiler and a small oven at the sides; the better apartment may have only a common fixed grate, but the windows must be made to open in warm weather; and the walls are to be well plastered. The very first step in the improvement of human dwellings is to separate the sitting from the sleep- ing apartments. When a family is huddled to- gether in a single apartment, where they sit, mess, and sleep, the decencies of life cannot be preserved, and a vitiation of character is insensibly produced. Neither can propriety be observed where cooking is done in the sitting apartment ; an unavoidable degree of filthiness occurs in cooking, which is dis- agreeable to the person who sits by and looks on. Every dwelling, therefore, should consist of two rooms on the ground floor ; one for common pur- poses, and the other for sitting and taking the meals. On the second floor there must be at least three sleeping apartments, formed partly in the roof by means of a height of one story and a-half of building. These apartments are floored with boards, and surrounded with lath and plaster. The window may be in the roof. Light bedsteads might be fixed here, belonging to the house. Four apartments might be occasionally formed, to accommodate families of a greater number of indivi- duals. A small room for a dairy may be formed below stairs, and a door should open backward into the garden. This latter appendage is indis- pensable, for the purpose of growing vegetables, which are the most wholesome and essential of all human food. The width of the garden must be the length of the house, and extend so far back- wards as to form a space of 600 square yards at least, divided into the number of separate pos- sessions by a thin fence of hedge or boards. In a corner of the garden, and covered by some low trees or tall shrubs, the privy may be placed, with a box receiving the excrements, which can be pulled backwards, lifted up, and emptied occasionallj', and the contents mixed in compost. A few fruit-bearing bushes will subdivide the garden. Behind the house, at the distance of fifteen feet, there may be placed a range of low buildings, form- ing the back premises, for the purpose of conceal- ing the necessary utensils, which never should be seen or exposed to view. The back wall may be the highest, and form a lean-to ; and the houses may include a washing apartment — a fuel-house and a lumber-room. The wash-house must have a boiling-vat and a fire-place. These back premises are most essential to any comfortable dwelling. The ashes may be very beneficially mixed with the contents of the privy or with earth. In the congregated form of the buildings which we have now recommended there will be an open space in the centre, where a pump must be sunk for the common use of all the habitations ; and a large oven or a bakery should also be raised for the general use. A longitudinal range of low buildings must be built for pig-sties, the back wall carrying the lean-to roof, and the front wall forming the low front of the shed for the pig. Each dwelling must have a single accommodation for fattening two pigs yearly with the potatoes and other vegetables. We mention this accommodation as a most essential part of the labourers' real wants. The eaves of the roofs of the houses must be provided with spouts, to catch the rain water and convey it to casks fixed at proper places, to give it out as soft water for washing purposes. Water of this kind is a very useful possession in localities where the spring water is impregnated with mine- rals, which is often the case. The intercepting of the water from the roofs prevents it from falling on the ground and wetting and damping the front area of the dwellings. Though water be an essential element in every kind of hfe, yet dampness is very hurtful in its presence, and should be most carefully removed. We have ever very strongly advocated that the farm labourer have a cow kept, as a part of his wages ; and in order to secure to him a constant supply of milk throughout the year, we further ad- vance an opinion that the cow belong to the far- mer ; and that when one goes dry before the time of calving, another be given for the use of the labourer which is in the full flow of milk. Of all the varied productions which the habitable globe affords, and whose use is known to man, none can be compared with the milk of the cow for the use THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. of a young family, and the products of it in the shape of butter and cheese. The value of it is reckoned 4s. or 5s. weekly, according to the price of the articles in the locality. We also recommend that a quantity of potatoes be planted in the field for the labourer, along with the crop of the farmer, in a quantity not less than ] ,000 yards of drilled length ; this allowance to be valued as a part of his wages, as the use of the cow is accounted for. This jiotato ground will yield roots for the use of the famil}', and for feeding two pigs yearly ; and also food for ducks and hens which it may be con- venient to keep. The garden will afford the early potatoes till the field growth come into use, and also the smaller culinary vegetables in their season. In Scotland and the north of England the farm labourers are paid nearly the whole amount of their wages in kind, and very beneficially ; but whatever part of his wages he may receive in produce, we recommend the use of a cow and a quantity of po- tato ground as the most essential values that can be given him. The paying of wages in the produce of the farm saves the farmer the labour and e.\- pense of converting it into money, and it saves the labourer the trouble of finding the articles to be bought with the money he has got from the farmer, and which are often difficult to obtain. When he gets them from the farm, the value is enhanced by the ease with which they are got. The money wages should be paid weekly, and on the Friday evening, which gives the Saturday to lay out the necessary items for the succeeding week's provi- sion. "Where the sum of money is small, on ac- count of a large part of the wages being paid in kind, the payments in cash may be monthly, quarterly or half-yearly. The amount of the yearly wr.ges of the labourer should be the highest that the social circumstances of the country can afford, and assisted by every indulgence which an active and willing benevolence can suggest and bestow. Employers have ever committed a very fatal mistake in depressing wages, and grinding down to the very lowest ebb the al- lowance of support to their fellow-creatures. A willing mind is ever a fruitful one, and will perform any action that is within the reach of possibility. On the other hand, harshness and ill-usage alienate every affection, and render the services of labour to be the mere efforts of compulsion, devoid of any care or interest in the result of the object. Every agent of performance should have an interest in the productive return of the labour. The hours of labour should not be too many. In summer the commencement of work may be at 7 .\.M. and continue till noon, and begin again at 2 P.M. and stop at G in the evening. Nine hours are quite suflScient for the performance of the due amount of labour, when the horses and the labourers are all in the proper condition and temper : an hour less might even suffice. A long number of dreary hours tires the spirits, exhausts the energies, and keeps a quantity of work too long in hand. Quickness and dispatch are great and invaluable requisites in every business. During winter, or from the beginning of No- vember to the middle of March, the commencement of labour may be with the broad appearance of daylight, and end with the beginning of darkness ; allowing one half-hour at noon, in which to give the horses a feed of oats, and the labourers to take luncheon. Short intervals between refreshments are beneficial both to man and beast. During rainy and stormy weather in severe climates all out-door work must be suspended, and confined to in-door operations. It is inhuman to expose men and animals to the rigours of the external ele- ments. The dwelling-houses, having at least three sleep- ing apartments, will give accommodation to the junior branches of the family, some of whom will be brought up to rural toil, and enter upon the profession of their parents. These labourers will be paid wholly in money, weekly, according to the rate of the locality. Proper accommodation and kind treatment will do much to incline the children to the rural occupation. On the other hand, a pinched allowance in every shape tends to drive them away from the most necessary and useful of all employments, to seek a better remu- neration and more kindly feelings in some other grade of operations. We think the practice of the young plough- men lodging with their parents is preferable to their being boarded in the farmer's house : the example and authority of the parents are longer continued, and the contagion is avoided which always arises from a number of persons being congregated together, and which induces the one to follow the evil habits and customs that are pre- sented to their observation by the other. Nothing adds more comfoit to the dwelling of a human being than an ample supply of fuel where- with to cook the victuals with the necessary dis- patch, and by the influence of warmth to banish every tendency to moisture and dampness, and pre- serve every perishable article in the proper condi- tion of a dry existence. For this purpose, where coals abound and are cheap, the farmer incurs the expense of the carriage of the fuel, and the labourer pays the prime cost. A store of this most essen- tial article is very conveniently provided when the teams of the farm are not particularly busy. In countries where timber forms the chief article of ombustion the farmer ought to incur the expense THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. of carriage, and further assist in arranging the purchases, and in making the payments easy. The means of procuring the necessary education must not be overlooked, as it forms a very primary arrangement in every condition of civiHsed society. Reading, writing and arithmetic are branches that are most essentially necessary to every human being, and they must be carried to the utmost ex- tent possible. For this purpose the communica- tion of it to the labourers must be wholly " gratis," owing to the very low rate of wages which the cir- cumstances of the present social system allows them, and which precludes them from being able to pay for their education. Every parish, according to its extent, should be provided with two or more schools, within easy distances that the labourers' children can walk from at a very early age, and continue till the time of entering upon the em- ployment of labour : the funds necsssary to up- hold the schools to be levied upon the landed pro- perty. To this arrangement no valid objection can be made. In all civilised and estabhshed communities no out-door work should be performed by females. The quality, as well as the quantity, of work has a very strong and visible etFect on the female frame, both bodily and mental: the woman is thus de- graded to the level of a beast of burden, and becomes destitute of the beauty and delicacy of her sex. Light work on the farm — as the harvest- ing of hay and corn, the hoeing of turnips, and the barn-work in winter — may be tolerated where it cannot be done without ; but it must be observed that all out-door work has the most certain effect of vitiating the female character, and debasing every finer feeling. No better criterion of the civilisation of a people need be required than the general treatment of woman — in the respect v/hich is paid them, and the estimation in which they are held. Any debasement of the human species must be avoided, and even prohibited. As the wages of the labourer are utterly in- adequate to enable him to obtain the comforts of life, and as labour is the most essential and valu- able ingredient in all established communities, and consequently is entitled to the most humane attention, it is suggested that every parish clergy- man be educated so far in the medical art as to prescribe in all common cases of illness, and thus join together the charge of the body and the soul. In extreme cases a professional man would be necessary, when the common means were found to require assistance. The medicines to be afforded by the landed proprietor would be a trifling item, but a vast advantage to the labouring poor. A legislative enactment would be required to en- force the medical qualification, of which no person can doubt the vast benefit. Such an enactment is immeasurably superior to the ordinary occupa- tion of legislation. Every consideration should be banished from the human mind, that has no relation to the well-being of our fellow- creatures, and for which reason can assign no grounds. As labour is the power that produces every enjoy- ment in life, it ought and must be the primary and chief consideration, that it be rewarded ; and if not in the first award of value, that it be redressed and assisted by subsequent considerations, and for which the labourer has a just and inahenable claim. Every breath that is passed between the lips, every word which is uttered, every muscle of the body that is exerted, every footstep that is moved for- wards, all the conceptions of the mind, and every feeling of the heart, joined with the actions of the hand, must point steadily and unerringly to that object which is the only sphere of occupation that is worth the time and attention of rational beings, that are in a state of sanity. The physical necessities claim the first notice, for upon them the mental superstructure is built. An improved animal physical condition may be obtained without a corresponding moral development ; but no great mental improvements ever will be reached, without the essential physical nutrition that arises from a competence of the necessaries of life. No mental emanations can proceed from a starved physical condition ; the senses are callous, and the deposit- aries of transmitted intelligence are weak and in- capable of entertaining ideas, and of making the proper deductions. Every faculty is benumbed, and every nerve of action is unstrung. Hence arises the very slow pace of human improvements ; the greater part of mankind are placed and held in a condition that most completely and effectually forbids any attempts of individuals to emerge from it, except in a few cases of desperate resolve, severe struggle and privation. The emancipation and rise of the lower orders would accelerate and hasten the grand events of human perfections, not only in the numerical ratio of the multitude that would be brought into the path of onward progress, but in the multiplied aggregate of the mind, and the glorious manifestations that would accompany the imbinding and setting loose of so many imprisoned sparks of etherial essence. To- wards this purpose, the very first step is to place the objects within reach, and to shorten the dis- tances of approach ; to commence the ascent by affording the necessary aliment of an existence that looks to a more elevated and better state of being. Every individual class of society should be placed within the tangible reach of the upper gradations, and have a stable foundation whence to begin the ascent. When this stepping-stone is denied, the THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. flight will be very rarely attempted ; and the world is deprived of the incalculable benefits that would accrue to the human race, from the mental aspira- tions and the practical resolutions of the number of intellects that are thus confined. Such an enlarged development of mental exertions would far outstrip the eftbrts of societies and of individuals, who join in a comparatively weak concert, in order to promote advancements in a ratio that is very frightfully reversed from the universal estimate that ought to prevail. Luxury is supported Ijy labour ; and it is fair, it is just, it is reasonable — in fact, it is imperative that the duties which nature has imposed on the possession of the refined enjoyments of life, ])e on the other side performed. Humanity and duty in this case join their powerful voice in calling for the performance of the most necessary of all obligations, viz., the commencement of the extinction of the vast and accumulated debt of property to poverty, a debt that has no figures of calculation, nor any measure of extent. THE WOOL TRADE AND MEAT TRADE-FORESHADOWL\G THE CHANGE THAT MUST BE MADE IN OUR AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM— EXPLAINED. BY AN EX-FARMER. By taking warning we are often able to avert an impending calamity; and, by proper exercise of judgment, that which threatened to eclipse any branch of trade, or other ordinary occupation of life, may be dispelled, and the comfort of usual light maintained. Those persons who take warning in these cases, and turn their attention to proper account, are they who are rewarded for their trouble and industry, and this because they have acted for the relief of others of the great family. Great countries, that are divided and subdivided into interests, will ever experience, or rather exhibit, real oppression in some branch of trade or trafHc that is followed by numbers of their people ; but when these are foretasted, they are generally light- ened by the exertion of the number or numbers that are likely to be directly interested. The natural jealousy of men has begotten an impression that the suffering of any branch of civihzed occu- pations is relief and comfort to others ; that is, it is thought that the loss of money by any branch of trade, or the prosecutors of it, is the gain of others. But this is a great mistake ; for it is by maintaining the prosperity of itself that any interest can add to, and increase, the comforts of other parts of the community. Money is a very fascinating element of our present system of exchanging our produc- tions ; but it is a great error to suppose that it will add one fraction to our comforts if by obtaining it another class is deprived of the means of exertion. Experience will teach many of our present preten- ders to philosophy, that it is to prosperous interests that we must look for increased comforts, and not to the result of depriving them of the means they require for exertion. A great branch of trade, in which farmers are closely interested, is now threatened with suf- fering that it has never before experienced ; and this by a serious falling oflf in the supply of the raw material of the goods which form it. It appears that manufacturing of, and ti'ading in, woollen goods of all kinds, and parti- cularly of fine qualities, have increased very rapidly within the last twenty or thirty years, which have been maintained and encouraged by increased sup- plies of wool from our colonial possessions. The flocks of New South Wales have increased to so great an extent, that it is stated, on good authority, that the amount of about 120,000lbs. (which was exported from thence in 1828) has increased to the quantity of above 40,000,000lbs. per annum — at least this was exported last year. But now it is stated on good authority, and the imagination will assist in causing it to be accepted as a truth, that the gold mania in that country has tempted shep- herds to forsake their flocks and masters, either without notice, or with that peculiar manner and speech which become the most prominent parts of iUiterate people, when outward evidence beget an inward principle, that fortune and future indepen- dence may be obtained by a change in their actions. The discovery of much gold there has had that influence over the people of this character, that they have abandoned their former and accustomed mode of Uving, leaving the master of a flock to attend to and shear it himself. Ships have been deserted in the same way; and in both instances the love of the glittering metal was so powerful that no tempta- tion in the shape of high wages would induce these shepherds and sailors to stop where they were. What will be the future result, as well as the present loss to the proprietors of these flocks, and the large number of industrious people that compose the class which depends on the supply of wool from that country for employment, it is impossible to predict. For if shepherds cannot be kept to protect the flocks from native injuries, such as ravages by wild dogs, and losses by straying and losing them- THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. selves in so wild a country, why it is very clear that the number of sheep will decrease as fast as they have increased, and the amount of wool we shall receive will decline in the same ratio. It would not be a display of wisdom to retort upon this interest for the manner in which it has despised the home produce of wool, which has given employment to workers of the coarser cloths, and the supply of which has been materially reduced by the manner in which forced sales were effected in past years, and in 1848 in particular; and which reduction of flocks of this country was caused by the amount of expenses having to be made up by quantity of sheep sold ; thereby causing that which was, or should have remained, as fixed stock of the farmer, to be marketable or circulating stock. It would not be compatible to follow the line of de- scription and argument which we have been in the habit of receiving ; but to exhibit in practice that which experience will teach people^ in general in due time — that in proportion as one influential in- terest suffers other interests must suflfer indirectly, by participating in such deprivation. It is a loss to ourselves, moreover, to do the one ; and it is pro- fitable to do the other. Practical relief is profitable ; for by supplying the demand of a number of people we receive a profit for ourselves, let that supply be composed of what it may. The probability of a rise in the price of wool, from the above causes, and the certainty of a rise in the price of mutton, are suflScient inducements for persons to turn their attention to the increase of their flocks of breeding and "feeding" sheep; and to consider them before the produce of corn of any kind, as we are so inun- dated by foreign countries as to cause a doubt as to whether it can be produced at the ordinary rate of interest on employed capital. The importance of the above question may be pretty well understood by the fact that a large meeting of the manufacturers of the West Riding was lately convened, resolutions read and adopted, and a deputation appointed to wait upon the Colonial Secretary, with a view of inducing Govern- ment to adopt means by which this branch of trade might not be diminished. It is considered proper to send out English shepherds and shearers to protect and clip the flocks. But if this be done, it will be requisite to send a soldier to a shepherd ; and the probability would then be that the two would connive together and start for the diggings. However, it may be remarked, without prejudice or ill-feeling, that if, as these manufacturers say, farmers must depend on their own exertions, with- out any reUance on Government— if this is to be the policy of the day, as they or their represen- tatives say it must, why it can hardly be fair that a portion of the revenue of this country should be appropriated to conveying men over the water to serve their end, by making wool cheaper, and thereby keeping down the price of home growth, the producers of which are unjustly contributing to the revenue in the shape of taxes on their own produc- tions, and articles in which they are directly inte- rested. If farmers are to depend upon themselves, and have no help from Government whatever, how can it possibly be expected that manufacturers can have their immediate interests and misfortunes in- terfered with ? It seems but fair that they should practise their own policy ; and, instead of fleeing to Government in such cases as these, " depend upon their own exertions." To accomplish the object they have in view, if as important as they say it is, they may soon raise a private fund for the purpose. Whilst manufacturers are devising schemes to protect the supply of wool abroad, it is the farmers' business to endeavour to increase that division of their produce which they may reasonably expect will advance in price. I have already urged the necessity of paying as much attention to the growth of sheep and wool as circumstances would possibly allow, as I was then confident that these would prove more profitable than any other part of the productions of the British agriculturist ; inasmuch as more corn may be grown by sheep feeding than cattle feeding, as much weight of mutton as beef if made from a given quantity of feed, the fleece constituting extra profit — and the greater the price of it per pound, of course the greater inducement there is to carry out the system to its utmost possible extent. Mutton cannot be imported into these islands to any great extent, as no neighbouring country produces a large super- abundance, and what is imported is of an inferior quality. But cheese, butter, pork, as salted, and hams and bacon, can be forwarded across the channel and Atlantic of good quality, being already very much improved, and in as good a state of preservation as they can be sent from any county in England to the London market. The change necessary to be made in our pre- sent system of management is, the greatest possible amount of green crops must be grown, and instead of growing beans and peas between barley and wheat on middling land, a crop or two of some kind must be produced, such as rye and tares, winter oats, and so on, for spring feed, and then a crop of early white turnips (after the system already recommended) for autumn feed, which will leave the land in a far richer condition for after-crops of corn. Clover must be fed for the most part ; and if there should not be enough feed for horses under this system, the deficiency must be made up by foreign beans, oats, and so on; or those persons who have been in the habit of buying THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. English feed for their trade horses must depend on foreign countries for a supply. These are the changes that must be made in this particular part of our agricultural system, and this has been suggested by the increase of persons to an acre of land in our country, the readiness with which corn can be imported, and the perishable nature of animal matter. The prices of meat will shortly be high, considering we are open to competition with the whole world in corn, and what is produced by inferior sorts of it — meat. It is the i)erson that watches the course of things, and has in readiness what he for- sees thereby will be required, who makes the greatest profit by the turn of the times. And we have evidence enough to show that the supply of meat will shortly be limited throughout this country. Those persons who help to prevent its being too limited will be they who will be- nefit themselves. It will not be dear, although the demand will be greater than the supply, and this for no other i-eason than because much money is thrown out of circulation by the present policy of the populace. Prices will, however, rise as much as the amount of money afloat will admit of. In regard to the management of sheep, they can- not be changed too often, as food of different fields varies in quality, and therefore flavour, and that which is trodden and pressed down rises and be- comes sweet and tempting to the appetite. Fields should therefore be divided in proportion to the size of the flocks to be kept through the summer. If artificial food or corn be used, the kind and quality should be changed according as the weather changes the quality of the feed. Nothing can be so unskilful as to buy that which is cheap or weighty for money. "When the air is moist for a day or two, and the weather wet for another day or two, that which will act as an antidote to the food of the fields, made relaxing thereby, should be given. Rye is the best ; wheat of inferior quality is good ; and old beans, particularly those that were grown in hot climates, as Egj'ptian. Price is so little to be considered, that it is here out of the question, as there is seldom a great variation from the usual relative value of such like commodities. AVhen the weather becomes hot and dry, such things as act contrarily should be given as trough food. Bran, and other refuse of the mill ; barley, which if " speared" or germinated would be the finest }.os- sible food for cattle of all kinds in hot, dry weather (and this may be urged as another element of the past reasoning against that odious tax on malt, rendered still more so by our present policy, as the excise would soon be about, not only the ears, but the effects of any one who had his barn floor, or any other floor, stji'ewed with wetted barley) ; some- times this trough food may be greatly reduced with propriety, and the stock of the granary re- served for a future time. When this may be done is when the season is advanced and there is plenty of seed in the clover, and the weather is at the same time genial, and therefore a fair quantity of leaves is admixed with the stalks and heads. The system of wetting barley for a day or two can- not be too strongly impressed on the minds of the readers, as I will stake the value of my inquiry into these matters on its efficiency ; and there is no waste from grinding and " tolls," and no expense of cart- age to mill and charges for the process, which amount together to more than the labour would be to prepare it for, and put it into, the troughs in the way suggested. In cattle feeding it must not be forgotten that the faster any animals are fattened the greater profit there is upon them— when they are treated as nature intended they should be. For it requires a certain amount of food to support the ivaste of them under any circumstances, and this waste is no more per day when they are skilfully fed and fatting rapidly, than when they are increasing slowly in this way. Indeed, it is often less under the former circumstances, as they then rest con- tentedly, whilst under the latter they run what they had off their back again. In regard to the produce of wool by manage- ment, there is, I believe, one material point over- looked ; at any rate I have never heard it remarked upon or seen it in print. It is the dressing used to prevent the " fly" in sheep. The caustic proper- ties of ordinary "fly- powder" jsrecew* more tcool from growing than the " fly" would cause to be cut off if no dressing were used. Some of this is so drying to animal texture, from the quantity of mineral poison it contains, that it turns the wool black, as is often observed where it has been ap- plied. It does not require much consideration to conceive that the growth of this wool is stopped. Indeed, the backs of sheep are often made flat by it, and to appear as if they had been " top'd." Half a pound is frequently lost in this way; on long-wool sheep it is more. This subject is worthy of close attention; and any one who can give a receipt, or recommend the preparation from experience of its efficacy on the one hand, and harmlessness on the olher, has the opportunity granted to him for distinguishing himself for his ingeniousness of disposition and honourable desire to increase the comforts of others when it can be done cheaply and without alarm for his own safety. The seasonfor this application is coming round,and I know of nothing that would be more important to the readers of an agricultural journal than such in- formation as that which I have said is more re- 10 THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. quired than persons in general seem to be aware of. We are not manufacturers, and look upon our craft as suspiciously as if each competitor was a knave. By showing others how to increase the bounty of nature we increase our own happiness. There is some philosophy at the bottom of that sentiment. METEOROLOGY, ITS CONNECTION WITH AGRICULTURE. BY CUTHBKRT W. JOHNSON, ESQ., F.R.S. In a previous number of this valuable Magazine (vol. xxxvii. p. 382), I alluded to the evaporation of water from the surface of soils. This exhalation is found to be materially increased when the ground is tenanted with plants. This portion of our en- quiry has been well examined by Mr. J. Prestwich, in his able work " On the Water-bearing Strata around London ;" and, as he well remarks, p. 118, we must not forget, in examinmg the rain-fall of any district, that the existence of vegetation must intercept a large portion of the rain. This, he adds, has been partially allowed for in the experiments of Dalton and Dickenson, in both of which the sur- face was covered with a growth of grass. But this is hardly enough ; the more active and vigorous vegetation of the corn crops and of trees is pro- ductive of a far greater evaporation. What it may amount to has not yet been determined by a suffi- cient number of direct experiments. As an indi- cation of the importance of vegetation in absorbing the rain-fall, I may mention that a tree of average size is supposed to yield by evaporation from its leaves about 2 to 2 \ gallons of water daily ; and in some recent interesting experiments of Mr. Lawes {Jour. Hort. Soc, vol. v.) three plants of wheat or barley, grown in pots, gave off in the course of six months of their active growth nearly 1 1 gallon of water ; for every grain of dry produce, from either wheat, barley, peas, beans, or clover, 200 grains of water were evaporated. This will enable us to form some general esti- mate of the evaporation caused by the same de- cription of vegetation on any given area. Professor J. F. Johnston, in his Lectures on Agricultural Chemistry, p. 927, calculates that the average gross produce per acre of these crops, supposing the wheat to yield per acre 25 to 30 bushels, the barley from 35 to 40 bushels, the beans 25 to 30 bushels, the peas 25 bushels, and the clover 2 tons, will be as follows : — Seed, Straw. Total, lbs. lbs. lbs. Wheat . . . 1750 3300 6050 Barley . . . 1986 2300 4285 Beans . . . 1700 2950 4650 Peas . . . 1650 2700 4350 Clover . . . 4480 — 4480 To these totals, continues Mr. Prestwich, we have to add the weight of the stubble and roots, which may be taken roughly at one-half of the weight of the straw {Johnston, p. 745, and Bous- singauWs Rural Economy, by Law, 408) ; and then, as I am informed by Mr. Lawes, to subtract one-seventh of the weight as harvested, for water. We shall then obtain the following proximate re- sults : — The rain-fall we may suppose to be 25 inches, which is equal to an armual fall of 564,934 gallons of water per acre, or 357,911,335 per square mile. Evaporation of Water during Growth. Per acre. Per square mile. Gallons. Gallons. Wheat . . 114,860 73,510,400 Barley . . 93,180 59,635,200 Beans . 106,000 67,200,000 Peas . . . . 97,720 62,540,800 Clover . . 115,380 73,843,200 In calculating, however, the rain-fall in connec- tion with the evaporation of water from the earth's surface and from plants, we must not forget the depth of dew which is annually deposited, as well as the absorption of the invisible moisture of the air by some soils. The annual fall of dew at Man- chester was estimated by Dr. Dalton to amount to five inches ; and according to the trials of M. Schubler, during a night of twelve hours when the air is moist, 1,000 lbs. of a perfectly dry lbs. Quartz sand will gain ... 0 Calcareous sand .... 2 Loamy soil . . . . . 21 Clay loam 25 Pure agricultural clay ... 37 The moisture constantly found in the atmosphere at all seasons of the year is indeed, from its con- nection \vith the sustenance of plants, a very in- teresting branch of our enquiry. Its varying amount will be found in the subjoined table, which gives the mean weight of water, in grains, in a cubic foot of air, during every month in the year, at (I.) Greenwich, (II.) Aylesbury, (III.) Derby, (IV.) Liverpool, (V.) Helston (J. R.A. S., V xi., p. 25)— I. 11. III. IV. V. January 2-2 2-4 2-5 2-4 26 February 3-0 30 2-8 31 3-5 March . 2-9 3-0 3-0 30 3-2 April . 31 3-3 3-1 3-2 3'3 May . 3.9 4-6 4'5 4-1 4-3 June . 4-3 4-9 4-6 4-3 4-6 July . 4-8 5-2 6-2 4-8 5-2 August 4-5 4-8 4-9 4-4 5-0 September 4-2 4-2 4-6 4-4 4-7 October 3-8 6-9 3-9 3-7 4-0 November 30 2-8 3-1 31 3'4 December 3-1 30 3-1 30 3-7 THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 11 It \^iU also be useful, as well as interesting, to notice not only the ordinary mean amount of in- sensible vapour in the atmosphere, but the propor- tion needed to saturate a cubic foot of air. This will be found in the following table, which shows both these objects of agricultural meteorology, as they presented themselves in the year 1S47, and in the quarters ending June 30 and September 30, 1848, at difterent stations. In this the weight in grains is given : columns marked I. being the weight present, and columns II. the weight needed for complete saturation {Phil. Mag., vol. xxiii., p. 374; vol. x.xiv., pp. 192, 271)— 1848. In Quarters ending 1847. June 30. Sept. 30. I. II. I. II. I. IT. Helston . . . 4-1 OG 4-0 10 48 09 Exeter ... 3-5 1-1 37 1-4 40 09 Brighton . . 3-6 0-G 4-0 1-1 — — Southampton . — — 40 OO o'O 0 7 Uekfiekl . . 3G 1-1 39 1-7 45 IS Beckinston . 37 0-5 38 1-0 4-4 0*9 Greenwich Obs. 3-6 0-8 3 8 1-4 4-5 11 Avleshurv . . — — 3-8 1-5 4-4 12 Highfield, Not- tinghamshire 3-7 0-8 3-8 M 4-4 1-0 Liverpool . . 3-3 0-6 3-G 0-8 4-2 08 York ... — — _ _ _ — Whitehaven . 32 06 3-7 I'l 4-3 12 Durham . . 3 1 0 8 3-5 TO 4-1 M Newcastle . . — — 39 1-2 4 5 1-2 As I bad occasion to remark in another place (The Farmers' Almanac, 1852), closely connected with the influence of the rain-fall on the agriculture of a district, is the mean cloudiness of the chmate ; since it is evident that, all other things being the same, those districts which are the most clouded will need, to produce a given result of vegetable growth, less rain than where the sunshine is less impeded. Now in the years 1847 and 1848, at thirteen different English stations, the degrees of mean cloudiness (supposing complete cloudiness to be equal to 10) were thus recorded {Phil. Mag., vol. xxxii., p. 517 ; vol. xxxiii , pp. 194, 37-^ ; vol. xxxiv., pp. 192, 271) — 1848. Quarters ending Mar. June Sep. Dec. 1847. 31. 30. 30. 31. Helston ... 5-9 6-4 43 52 G'B Falmouth. . . — 7-3 5-6 6-3 7-4 Brighton ... 6 0 6-4 4-3 — — Beckingtou . . 49 7'1 5-4 5-8 6 3 Greenwich . . 6-8 80 5-9 6-4 6-9 Lewisham . . 4-9 — — — 6-5 Walworth . . 63 8-2 5-7 40 — Aylesbury . . — 7-5 58 66 6-8 Cambridge . . 6-9 — 6-4 — — Highfield House 6-1 7-5 6*2 6-3 6-7 Liverpool . . 5-7 6-3 5-9 6-7 7-0 Stonyhurst . . — 8-0 6-8 7-4 7-2 Durham ... — 6-4 6-0 58 61 Then, again, the nature of the prevalent winds, their degree of dryness or moisture, materially in- fluences the success of the husbandman's crops. This, however, will form the subject of a future paper. The farther we advance then in these researches, the more we study the ultimate connection which exists between the meteorology of a district and the crops which tenant it, the more interesting and practically instructive they become. It is idle to say that they tend to no practical result, for they lead to many (and it is probable that others will be discovered hereafter). They teach and serve to explain many a phenomenon in vegetation — they explain and promote the adoption of improved systems of cultivation. We may remember that the modern English agriculturist adopts systems of tillage — courses of cropping, which the genius of Jethro Tull long since, in a far less informed age, led him to unsuccessfully advocate; Tull, in fact, was perhaps the first English farmer who saw the vast amount of nutriment existing in the air — he was not, indeed, aware of what that food was com- posed ; the term gas was then hardly known; the word air in his time expressed all the ideas of his chemical contemporaries upon gases of all kinds. In spite of this want of chemical knowledge, Tull had somehow or other discovered the 'great fact that the atmosphere contained something which operated as the food of plants ; from this know- ledge proceeded his warm recommendation of the deep and fine tillage of the soil, and of planting crops in rows by the drill, and at wide intervals, so as to promote the circulation of the air. The whole history of the Tullian system of agriculture — of the difficulties it encountered, of the ridicule it met with, and the solemn arguments it had to answer — offers indeed an instructive and amusing commentary upon the very subject of this paper, viz., the connection of the meteorology of a district with the cultivation of its soils ; indeed, we may, in the course of these examinations and gather- ings, have more than one occasion to note how very injurious to the progress of our knowledge is a tendency to undervalue any discoveries, or any knowledge which appears contrary to the popular notions of the existing generation. 12 THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE, PREPARING LAND FOR A GREEN CROP. BY G. DUNCAN. To the farmer of the present day it is indispens- able to have a part of his land in green crop — that is to say, turnip, potatoes, carrot, mangold, beans in drill, and sometimes cabbages. One, or all of these plants are decidedly required in good far- ming, and where they are grown to perfection, the land must be in good condition, and clean and clear of weeds, else the green crop will suffer " high robbery." Where the soil is a dry friable loam, some farmers are in the practice now of cleaning their green crop land in the end of autumn by grubliing and harrowing, till the weeds are brought to the surface and destroyed. This plan does re- markably well .vheie it is practicable to do it, but in heavy loams and stift' clays it cannot be well followed out. On heavy land intended for green crop it should be made as clean as possible before either manure or seed for a crop is put into the land ; to accomplish this, put four horses to the plough for the stubble furrow in the end of au- tumn, and if the furrow can be turned over a foot or more deep, so much the better ; don't be afraid to turn up the subsoil, winter will temper that ; frost acts with more effect on subsoil than it does on surface that has been long exposed to the weather and under cultivation, and a green crop luxuriates in subsoil when it is well mixed through the old surface. Be it remembered that although four horses are employed in one plough, and half the ground gone over that would be done by two ploughs, yet there will be no loss by the end of spring in the forwardness of the work, because the spring ploughings will be comparatively light, as half the depth of furrow will be sufficient then, and two-thirds of the weeds are buried to rot, and trouble no more, at least what are generally called root-weeds, and the seeding or annual weeds will be easily dealt with on the fine mellow surface. It is no doubt evident to those well versed in far- ming, that where summer fallow is in disuse, there is no other crop in the rotation when the land can be cleaned effectually, but in the year that it is in green crop. It is yet a custom with many to de- pend on cleaning their land among the green crop while that crop is growing, instead of doing it be- fore the plants or the seeds are put into the ground at all ; this is a slovenly way, and the sooner that it is thrown out of fashion, the land and the farmer will be the sooner benefited. The practice was too long followed of giving the fauching, or autumn furrow, as shallow a furrow- slice as could be turned over, just covering the stub- ble and weeds, and no more, and having full inten- tion of ploughing 2 or 3 inches deeper in spring. Spring came, the bottom soil under the thin fur- row had got so hard and dry that two horses were not able to draw the plough at the required depth, and four horses to the one plough could not be spared at this season ; the consequencewas, aninch or two deeper than the autumn furrow was turned up ; then the surface presented a mixture of clods and weeds, that took a severe round of labour in rolling, grubbing, harrowing, &c., to make it ready for manure and seed, and after all not half cleaned. In early summer the weeds were doing battle against the sown plants, and appropriating for their own use half of the manure at least. The wonder is that so many farmers still go on in this defective way of managing their green crop ; certainly, they cannot expect to clean their land. No doubt that sometimes a very fair crop is raised, but still there is considerable loss in the long run. There are many well-managed farms where the land is comparatively clean at all times ; on such farms the land has little use for the deep four-horse furrow at the autumn ploughmg, as when the field presents a fine clean stubble and few perennial weeds. Allowing the weather to be good, and the land to be in a dry state, a good plan is to cart on the dung, and plough it in by the autumn furrow ; this way saves poaching the land in spring by carting on it, for the carting on stiff loam and clay soil should be avoided as much as possible, should they be at all rather wet. Some people may say. Why write about this, it is all knoivn already ? Allowing it is known and acted too, yet it is the exception, not the rule ; and moreover a good tale is no v/orse of being twice told, and I know it to be a prevailing notion with many far- mers that deep ploughing and turning subsoil up to the top is injurious : I own it is, in some cases, when followed by the cereals or white crop, but never to the green crop. When a gardener trenches his ground, we do not find him keeping the surface soil always uppermost ; he pays no respect to this ! he turns the subsoil uppermost without the least concern about its qualities ; his crops may be said to be all green ones, and the weather of one winter puts the subsoil all to rights for a superior crop in the following summer, and for years afterwards. THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 13 One grand point in the cultivation of land is to keep a proper equilibrium of the organic and inorganic portions of the soil, and it will be found that in almost all land that has been long under cultiva- tion, the organic constituents of the soil predomi- nate sometimes to such a degree as to give the land the term "worn out." To cure this, turn up a quan- tity of the subsoil, and this operation can be best performed in the end of autumn, or in the begin- ning of winter, and it is not of much consequence, although the land be rather wet at the time of this deep ploughing. In the final cleaning and work- ing the green crop land in spring, never allow a horse or an implement to go on it when it is too wet. Better to have men and horses idle in wet weather, and strive to do extra work on a fine day. Ayrshire, Nov. 12, 1852. DICK'S CHEESE PRESS This admirable press, made mostly of cast-iron, was lately exhibited at Geneva on the grounds of the New York State Agricultural Society by J. E. Holmes, of Holyoke, Mass., from which we have made the above figure. This press is remarkable alike for its ingenuity, simplicity, efficiency, and durability — and may be used for centuries without getting out of order. Figs. 1 and 2 show the manner in which the platform supporting the cheese is elevated by depressing the lever and weight. Fig. 1 exhibits the appearance with the lever a raised, and Fig. 2 the same borne down ; the sur- faces in contact merely rolling over each other, there is little or no friction. It is regulated by the screw operating in the upper bar. In order to try its strength, one of these machines was strained till l^it broke, when it was found that the pressure was equal to sixteen tons. Hence they are war- ranted to sustain a force of ten tons. We placed blocks of wood as large as a brick in the press, and found by the force of one hand on the lever that these blocks were flattened and the sides swollen out as if they were but bags of sand. The price of the press is 25 dollars, and it is doubtless the cheapest thing of the kind for large dairies. Fig. ?. rig. 1. 14 THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. EXPERIMENTS ON THE FATTENING QUALITIES OF THE HAMPSHIRE AND SUSSEX DOWNS. We have this day noticed Mr. Lawes' experi- ments on the fattening qualities of the Hampshire and Sussex downs, and given a very epitomised synopsis of the results of his experiments. It is the beginning of a series of interesting tests to show the mutton-producing power, in proportion to the food, consumed by the different varieties of sheep. Mr. Lawes has carried on his plans, and subjected the Cotswolds to the same course ; having, how- ever, originally intended them for a comparative trial with the New Oxfords ; but failing in this, he tried the fifty sheep alone, on different qualities of food, and subjected them to a comparison with the two kinds of downs he had before tried, as to their fattening adaptation. He commenced with the flock selected by Mr. Game, on the 24th of October, and fed them on turnips in the field until the 21st of November, when he put them on boards or rafters, and then fed on oil-cake, clover-chop, and as many swedes as they would eat. The same proportion of dry food was allotted to the Cotswolds iti proportion to their weight, which was llSs lbs. average per animal. The food at first given was 1 lb. per day each, of clover chaff, and the same of oil-cake — near the conclusion of the experiment the oil-cake was increased by one half. The average weight on the 1st of December was 119 lbs. 14 oz. ; but there was a difference between the greatest weighted animal 146 lbs., and the smallest 103 lbs., which showed how great a variation there may be in a lot pretty nearly equal in appearance. Mr. Vernon Harcourt showed what great differ- ences of produce would take place in the same field in various parts similarly treated, and Mr. Lawes' experiments show the same thing of the different animals. In the first month of the experiment after the weighing alluded to, the increase was in a margin from nil to 22 lbs., nor could previous weight or any other element account for the difference. The weekly average gain per head was 3 lbs. lOil oz. during the month. In the second month the extreme variations of increase were 1 lb. against 22 lbs. ; but it is very remarkable that it was neither the one which had been the greatest gainer the preceding month, which increased the most, nor vice versa. Though it comes out in the long run that the one which gained the most was that which reahzed the greatest amount at the end of the experiment. The aver- age gain in this month was less, being only 3 lbs. Spj oz. per Jiead per week. In the third month the greatest increase was again 22 lbs., and the smallest 3 lbs. ; and it is again remarkable that the one which gave the smallest increase in the second month was that which progressed the most in the next. The ave- rage gain fell, however, to 3 lbs. 6ioz. per week. In the fourth month the lowest increase was again 3 lbs,, and the highest 28 lbs., the latter being the same as stood highest in the second month. The average increase was 3 lbs. 5 oz. per head per week. Without pursuing the subject further, we may say that the final mean weight, without wool, was 174 lbs., the highest weight 2 1 4 lbs., and the lowest 147 lbs. The highest average per week, increase was, as we stated, the one before particularly re- ferred to, which averaged 4 lbs. 7 oz., the lowest 1 lb. 14 oz., an average of 3 lbs. 2i oz. The increase in twenty weeks per 100 lbs. of live weight took 259 lbs. 11 oz. of oil-cake, 219 lbs. 1 oz. of clover hay, and 3,608 lbs. of swedes. Now the comparison with the Downs of the two kinds before referred to is as follows ; — The lbs. oz. Cotswolds gained per week 3 2k Hampshire Downs „ 2 12 Sussex Downs „ 2 If But there was a difference in the food. The Cotswolds consumed more food — more of every kind than the Sussex Downs; and more, very slightly, of all but the clover-hay, than the Hamp- shires. But then they had a larger frame, and produced greater I'esults. Taking the 100 lbs. in- crease, for instance, as the test, as it ought to be, the result is in every way in favour of the Cots- wolds, as the following will show : — Cotswolds. Hampshires. Sussex, lbs. lbs, lbs. Oilcake 239| .. 294 .. 314 Clover Hay.. 219 .. 259 . . 304 Swedes 3601 .. 3941 .. 4086 The increase in weight per 100 lbs. was about 2 per cent, greater with the Cotswolds. The " balance-sheet," always so satisfactory, is not here of the same consequence as the experi- ment. It is not likely that when the animals are THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 16 so confined and often weighed, so raucli can be defined as to make profit a clearly guiding element. The cost of his sheep he makes £66 10s.; the quantity of purchased food consumed by oilcake and clover-hay, £29 6s. 5^d.— a total of £95 I6s. 5id. ; while the proceeds of the sale were £92 3s. 7H-, a small difference of £3 r2s. lOd. in the lot with the manure, for the risk, return for capital, land crop and Swedish turnips ; but they were sold at a "heavy" market, and thus may partly account for the loss. There is one curious fact in this and the pre- ceding experiment, which we cannot help noticing. Mr. Lawes observes that there is some general uniformity observable in the quantities of food in their fresh state, consumed by all the three kinds of animals, per 100 lbs. live weight weekly. "But when the quantities of the respective foods are calculated each to their contents of dry sub- stance, it is found that the total quantity con- sumed to a given weight of animal, within a specified time, is all but absolutely the same for the three breeds." Now this opens to our view a wide field of the most difficult and delicate investigation. Are all breeds to be considered so nearly similar that they take per 100 lbs. live weight nearly the same amount of dry food per week ? Of the three dissimilar kinds — at least, two of them — this seems to be correct. How far it is so of the other breeds, time only will de- cide. But is the farmer to say that they are there- fore all ahke to him ? No such thing. Take the Sussex Down, for instance : it consumed 9 or 10 ounces per week, per 100 lbs. weight more of clover- hay than the Cotswold ; but it consumes several less Swede turnips. Now in some locahties, and to some farmers, turnips are difficult, and clover- hay easy of attainment. Here a class of sheep is indicated, which, if this experiment is an invariable test, will answer his purpose. Besides, weight for weight calculated dry, vegetable matter differs in price very materially ; and as this is the real ques- tion with the farmer, may he not some day be able to apportion his kind of sheep to his description of food, and so make profit ? We hope so, or what will become of him r recommeud sowing' ia tillage or stubble laud, with a deep, boggy soil, which had beeu thorough-drained, aud at what time ? 4. Please say whether sugar beet would bear carriage to market, what may the average crop be per acre, aud average price per tea?" — 1. The Silesiau beet, the most esteemed varieties of which are the greeu-topped and the rose-coloured; 41b3. of seed will be ample for the statute acre. 2. Nitroge- nous manures, of any sort, though applicable to the production of large roots, is not applicable when sugar is the object— in short, the best mode of producing roots abounding in sugar is, to cultivate the crop after corn, 6r other crops which have been preceded by a manure crop, and not to apply the manure directly to the beet. 3, Beet is produced of fine quality in reclaimed bog, subject to the above management ; but the best soil for sugar beet is a deep, rich, alluvial one. The crop should be sown by the end of April or beginning of May ; and its cultivation is similar to that of mangel-wurzel in every parti- cular. 4. It bears carriage ; but its saccharine qualities are much injured by wounds or bruises. The weight of crop depends altogether upon the quantity of manure applied, and may be from 20 to 30 tons per Irish acre. Under like circum- stances it yields in roots about one-fourth less than mangel- wurzel. The manufacturers expect to get it at from 123. to 153. per ton. — Irish Farmers' Gazette. SUGAR BEET.— "W. F. B.," County Cork, asks— 1. What is the best seed to use, and what quantity would you recommend to the statute or English acre ? 2. As the per- centage of sugar depends much on the manure used, what cul- tivation would you consider most judicious? 3. Would you EXTRAORDINARY SALE OF COCHIN-CHINA FOWLS. — One of the most interesting sales we have ever witnessed came off under the able auspices of Mr. Strafford, auctioneer, at the Bazaar in Baker-street ; and we hope it is a prelude to something better, for with the growing feeling in favour of poultry, both as au amusement aud an important feature in our dome&tic economy, we must have a metropolitan show of poultry, aud no longer oblige their admirers to travel far into the country for au opportunity to compare their spe- cimens. We are led to the foregoing observations from noticing what has taken place at the above yard ui November last, in the sale of Mr. Sturgeon's Cochiu-China fowls, and again on Thursday and Friday in last week : there cannot be 8 second opinion but that the Bazaar is the best place for such an exhibition. At the sale of Mr. Sturgeon's splendid fowls, wet as the day was, the place was filled, and all were much delighted with the sight as a show, and a first-rate one too, as surprised that 170 almost faultless specimens could be pro- duced in one yard. Of the sale itself there seemed to be but one opinion — adrairalion of the fowls, and among the unini- tiated, surprise at the prices ; and certainly we must consider it one of the most e.xtraordinary sales that ever took place, and there must have been much confidence in the breeder, quality in the birds, and emulation amongst those in attendance, to have produced £609 for 170 chickens ! ! It ia true that Mr. Sturgeon's breed stands at present unrivalled ; but superior as his birds unquestionably are, an average of £3 lis. is what we were not prepared for. Amongst those present we noticed Lord Ducie, Mr. Wakeley, Sir Eneas M'Douald, Messrs. Punchard, Johnson, Gilbert, Steggal, Fletcher, Catlm, Ambler, Reynolds, &c. &e. A curious fact occurred at the sale of lot 12 ; when the hammer fell at £7, a foreign gentlemen present exclaimed, " Seven pounds — can that be for von hen /" The highest price was £12 10s., given by Mr. Hodginson for a cockerel by " Jerry," hatched the first week in April last. 16 THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. SIMPLE CHURNING MACHINE The above is an illustration of the old-fashioned pump churn, in every-day use throughout the country. The best description of pole is a young larch tree ; it may be large or small, according to the size of the churn, and the quantity of milk to be churned. The end of the pole is pinned fast to a stake, and a little further on, it must rest on some kind of support, no matter what, so that it is solid, to which it must be made fast, or held firmly by, as it is from this point the spring com- mences. The degree of elevation must altogether depend on circumstances, such as the height of the dairy ceiling, that of the churn, &c. ; but it will be perceived by the sketch that this can be readily effected. The dash should be affixed about two feet from the top of the pole, this part forming a lever to assist the force necessary to pull down the pole ; its own spring rises up the dash, and, once in motion, the least force keeps it going. Stakes may be put down outside the dairy window, through which the pole may come, and be set up or taken down in a few minutes. 'J'here is a great object gained by this simple contrivance — one person can do the whole of the churning, without stopping the dash for an instant. — Irish Farmers' Gazette. CHLORIDE OF LIME A PREVENTIVE OF SMUT IN WHEAT. By William E, Steele, M.B., Assistant Secretary to the Royal Dublin Society, &c., &c. An experiment, of which the following is a detailed account, with the view of determining the value of chlo- ride of lime as a dressing for wheat, was conducted in the Botanic Garden of the Royal Dublin Society, under my superintendence. In the spring of 1850, 41bs. of the finest and cleanest wheat-seed was procured, lib. of which was set apart without any preparation. The re- maining 31bs. I caused to be mixed with a large quan- tity of smut or bunt (Uredo caries), sufficient to colour the seed uniformly of a light brown colour, in order to infect the seed with the fungus. One pound of this in- fected seed I then steeped for hours in a saturated solu- tion of chloride of lime — common bleaching powder — and, in separating it from the solution, mixed it with some dry sand, in order to render it more easy to be sown. The third pound was steeped in a saturated so- lution of Glauber's salt ; and after two hours, it was taken out, and dried by sifting some quicklime over it — a dressing found by the French Commissioners who re- ported on this subject to be the best which they em- ployed. The fourth pound of seed (infected) was not subjected to any further treatment. These four parcels of seed, thus differently treated, were then sown in four separate plots of ground. No difference in the period of sprouting or germination of the seed was observed. But the result of the experiment, which was apparent while the crop was standing, is set forth in the annexed table. Plot No. 1, sown with lib. of clean undressed wheat-seed; No. 2, lib. of infected seed, steeped in solution of chloride of lime ; No. 3, lib. of infected seed steeped in solution of Glauber's salt, and dried with quicklime ; and No. 4, lib. of infected seed, un- dressed. One pound of the ears of the produce of each plot, cut close off, was counted, and the number of the sound and smutted ears recorded. In the same manner, the number of straws in one pound, deprived of the ears, was ascertained. The following are the numbers of each : Plot. 1 Number of Total No. of sound Ears Ears in lib in lib. weight. weight. Number of smutted Ears in lib. weight. Number of Straws in lib. weight. 1 2 3 4 336 1 336 364 362 632 ! 352 700 1 360 None. 2 320 "40 234 268 278 330 Among the numerous deductions which the foregoing estimation warrants, one is quite obvious — that the chloride of lime dressing is far more efficacious as a preventive of smut or bunt in wheat than the dressing so highly recommended by the French Commissioners, insuring not only the grain from the attacks of the fungus, but preventing the deterioration of the straw which this Uredo appears also to occasion. THE FARMERS MAGAZINE. 17 AGRICULTURAL BIOGRAPHY (Continued from page 499->) LXXXL— TuLL, 1731. Jethro Tullwas a gentleman of an ancient family in Yorkshire, which had been seated in the county of Oxford, and possessed a landed estate there. He was horn on the paternal property in that county, but not known at what precise date of time. He was educated at one of our universities, adopted the legal profession, became a member of Staple Inn, and was called to the bar in December, 1693, by the benchers of Gray's Inn, though generally said at the Temple in most accounts of his life. He made the tour of Europe, and was a keen observer of the soil, culture, and vegetable productions of the countries which he traversed. On his return to England he married, and settled on his paternal farm in Oxfordshire, where he began to introduce a number of agricultural expe- riments, among which he contracted a pulmonary affection, which sent him to Montpelier to seek a cure in the mild latitudes of Italy and the South of France. Here he attended most diligently to the culture of those countries— writing facts and drawing inferences with a very keen and ardent speculation. He returned to England with re- paired health but dilapidated fortune— part of the Oxford estate was sold before his departure, and he now settled with his family on a farm of his own, called "Prosperous Farm," near Hunger- ford, in Berkshire, where he adopted the firm resolution to perfect his fonner inexperimental undertakings. Mr. TuU had very early observed the chance practice of gardeners in planting beans in rows, and in Lombardy he saw leguminous crops hoed and cleaned of weeds by means of the seeds falling into the seams of wide ploughing, and rising in rows or drills, which had descended as practice from the ancient Romans. He conceived that all plants used for crops should be placed in rows, and hence came the theory of drilling the ground for being planted. Tuil had also noticed the great benefits of the soil being pulverized, or minutely severed in the particles ; he had read on the sub- ject, as the observation was as old as any records exist. On these two principles he set to work on his farm, and experienced the usual diflficulties that a;tcnd all new undertakings. The soil of the farm was not favourable to the drill cultivation ; the old implements were unsuitable and clumsy ; the workmen were awkward and unwilling, and, as usual, would break the new implements in order to continue the lazy working of the old ones. In the midst of these difficulties the expenses were much enhanced, and the usual condemnation was passed on the absurd attempt. But the utility became evident, and TuU was induced by the neighbouring gentlemen who saw its value, to publish his theory, which he did in 1731, in folio, price 6d., called " New horse-hoeing husbandry, or an essay on the principles of tillage and vegetation." This work was only a specimen, and was followed, in 1753, by " Horse-hoeing husbandry," folio, price 10s. It has lately undergone some alterations and additions, and was published by Mr. Cobbett in 1829. Tull died in January, 1 740, at his seat at Prosperous Farm, He had a son, John Tull, who proved an adventurous genius, being a good me- chanic, and had various success in different inven- tions. He first introduced into England the travelling by post-horses, for which he obtained a patent in 1737. He served in the army, resumed his schemes, and, not having capital to forward the undertakings, he was arrested for debt, and died in prison in 1764. His exit is often erroneously attributed to his father, who ended his days on the farm in Berkshire, as above stated. Jethro Tull commenced his system of husbandry by making the ridgelets of land three feet apart, and planting upon each ridge two rows of vege- tables in a nine inch distance. The wide intervals were wrought by the )iorse-hoe, and the narrow ones by the hand-tool. It does not appear that his ideas ever advanced beyond this conception, or that he had ever contemplated the uniform ridging of land over extensive fields. His construction of new implements would necessarily be imperfect, as all new ideas must be on almost any point, and hence the bad success of tl>at, and most similar undertakings, where many influences concur to present an opposition. Ardent temperaments are generally deficient in the solidity that is required for an efficient practice, and it needs much longer time than the life-term of one individual to bring into any degree of perfection the attempts of geniu'", however they may be plausible and easy of attach- ment. Tull succeeded as well as circumstances would allow— his means, time of life, nature of soil and climate, unmatured state of ideas, and the cus- tomary oppositions. He showed a grand principle, and left to others the development of its action. C 18 THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE, Our author derived the idea of sowing grains b}' machine from the rotary mechanism of an organ, which laid the foundation of all sowing imple- ments. His drilling of land produced every ridg- ing of ground that has been done, and his ideas of the pulverisation of soil superseding the use of manures have led to the continued practice of re- ducing land to the finest possible state. It re- quired more loamy soils than are found in South Britain, and a cooler climate, with more frequent rains and dews, to show the full value of Tull's conceptions on the drilling of green crops. Where he operated the main elements were against him, as is now evinced by the best modern practice. On the other hand, the drilhng of grains succeed well in dry climates ; but the placing of these vegetables in rows yet remains to be of doubtful value. Tull's practice died with him ; but his book got into the hands of Tweedside farmers, one of whom failed in his attempts to establish the system on an un- favourable soil, and the other succeeded on gravelly loams, and pushed a most unexampled success. The Norfolk two-horse plough led to the single drilling of land, and Tull's hoeing and scarifying of land by frequent movements of the soil have completed the modern system of green- crop cultivation. The name of Tull will ever descend to posterity as one of the greatest luminaries, if not the very greatest benefactor, that British agriculture has the pride to acknowledge. His example furnishes the vast advantages of educated men directing their attention to the cultivation of the soil, as they bring enlightened minds to bear upon its practice, and look at the object in a naked point of view, being divested of the dogmas and trammels of the craft with which the practitioners of routine are inexpugnably provided and entrenched. His sys- tem most completely revolutionised the whole practice of British agriculture— a proud pre- eminence certainly for any individual to attain. The full benefits have not yet been derived, for the clay lands remain to be subdued by the action of pulverization after the loamy soils and light lands have been exhausted by the application. Tull pushed his theory to the extreme of sup- posing that a very minute pulverization of the soil would supersede the use of manure, and that the process would enable the land to produce a con- tinued succession of crops in any kind of the suit- able plants, even of the same vegetable in the yearly growth. Experience has not yet sanctioned this result ; but if Tull failed to show this extreme use of pulverization in superseding the use of manures, he has amply succeeded in proving a comminuted condition of the soil to be very highly favourable to the action of every fertilizing sub- stance. It is an inherent quality of genius to make erratic strides ; and as the danger of mistakes is ever much greater than the means of avoiding them, a satisfaction must be entertained when the success bears any tangible degree with the failures. In Tull's case the ratio is large and the fall insigni- ficant. Amateurs in farming yet make pilgrimages of curiosity to the " Prosperous " farm of Jethro Tull, where the out-buildings remain in some part of the houses as they were used by the father of the drill husbandry. The dweUing-house is modernized, and the locahty is found in the parish of Shalborne, under the Coomb Hills, about four miles south of Hungerford. No stone or memorial of any kind marks the grave of Tull — it is even unknown where his mortal remains were laid. Such was the reward of a genius which was always genuine, and never went to bed. LXXXIL— Miller, 1731. Philip Miller, F.R.S., was gardener and bota- nical demonstrator to the Apothecaries' Company, at Chelsea, which office was held by his father, whom he succeeded in 1722. He was born in 1691, and died in 1771. Miller published largely on gardening and botany, and translated into Eng- lish from the French language, " The elements of agriculture," by Duhamel. No work of Miller's is written expressly on agriculture, but bearing a close relation to it ; his name is usually included in the lists of authors on rural subjects. His works are—" Gardener's and florist's dictionary; or, a complete system of horticulture," 2 vols., 8vo., 17'20. This work passed through six editions. " A method of raising some exotic seeds, hitherto reckoned impossible," appeared in the *" Philoso- phical Transactions" of 1724. " An account of bulbous roots " had a similar publication. " A catalogue of trees, shrubs, and flowers, which bear the open climate of England," 1730, folio, coloured plates. "A catalogue of the plants in the Botanic Garden at Chelsea," 1/30, 8vo. " The gardeners' calendar," 8vo., 1731. This work had much popularity, and passed through several edi- tions. " Figures of plants to illustrate his diction- ary," 2 vols., 1730. " The method of cultivating madder," 4to., 1732. "Elements of agriculture, from the French of Duhamel," 2 vols., 8vo., 1734. Besides several essays and letters on scientific subjects. LXXXIII.— Ellis, 1732. William Ellis was a farmer of Little Gaddesden, near Hemel Hempstead, in Hertfordshire, and evi- dently a person of intelligence. He travelled much both in this country and on the continent, and gave THE FARMER'-S MAGAZINE. 19 to the world the following works, as the over-flow- ings of his knowledge :— " Practical Farmer, or Hertfordshire Husbandman ; containing many improvements in husbandry," London, ir3'2, 8vo. •• Chiltern and Yale Farming explained," London, 1733, 8vo. "New Experiments in Husbandry," London,, 1736, 2 vols., Svo. "The Timber Tree Improved, or the best practical mothods of improv- ing different lands with proper timber," London, 1738, Svo. "The Modern Husbandman, or prac- tice of farming," London, 1744, Svo. " The Country Housewife's Family Companion, or profit- able directions for whatever relates to the manage- ment and good economy of the domestic concerns of a country life, according to the present practice of the country gentlemen, yeomen, and farmer's wives, in the counties of Hertford, Bucks, and other parts of England," London, 1758, Svo., price OS. "The Complete Planter and Cyderest, or a new method of planting cyder-apple and perry-pear trees, and the most approved ways of makin cy- der," London, 1757, Svo. " Ellis's Husbandry abridged and methodised," London, 1772, two vols. Svo., 10s. 6d. A sort of compound of the whole of Mr. Ellis's works on agriculture. " Chiltern and Vale Farming explained" forms an octavo volume of 400 pages ; and treats the crop- ping of sour clay lands, Avith the common grain and luguminous plants ; the natural and artificial grasses; ploughing in general; seeds; weeds; liquor for a corn steep ; horse-hoeing ; turnips, use and value ; manures in general. The wheel-plough, with two mould-boards, is figured and largely de- scribed ; and the author seems very fond of its sup- posed value. The management of the works is confused ; the planting of oak and fruit trees being introduced in the very middle of a book on arable lands. The grains are separately discussed in the management and value, and the following estimate is given of beans : — Rent of an acre of land in one year. . £0 i;2 0 Ploughing once, straining in the beans, and harrowing 0 7 6 Seed four bushels 0 8 0 Mowing and cocking an acre of them 0 5 0 Carrying four loads out of the field ... 0 6 0 Thrashing and cleaning thirty bushels of beans 0 5 0 Taxes and tythe 0 4 0 £2 7 Whereof received for 30 bushels of wheat £2 14 0 For straw and chaff 1 0 0 £3 14 0 PrdHt .. .. £1 (3 6 Oats yield a [.rolit of £1 lb.; and in the year 1732, quoted by the author, wheat cost 10s.9d.,and barley 3s. Od. on an acre. The artificial grasses are white and red clovers ; sainfoin, lucern, ryegrass, and cowgrass. The latter plant means the cowgrass, or Trifolium medicum of botany. The manures are well described ; but no new substance is added to former lists, only hoofs come very near to the know- ledge of bones. Of lime the author thinks that calcination sets free and enables to act a balsamic alkaline salt that is coagulated in the crude stone or chalk, and till the acid barren quality is evapo- rated by fire, the salts in them are of little or no signification to the land. Fire, fermentation, and putrefaction cure the dead quality and bring out the dormant powers. Lime is used in three ways— by mixing it with turf or mould, by being sown over the ground when pulverized, and over the ground with turnip seed, on a clover ley sometime previous to being ploughed. He thinks hot lime kills the small animals of the soil, and that it must benefit lands of every kind in'some degree. Chalk is reckoned an excellent alterative, and corrects every kind of acidity. "The Practical Farmer, or the Hertfordshire Hus- bandman," is of 223 pages of small octavo size. It has gone through five editions. It treats the mehorating of soils, the grains, grasses, cows, sheep, and suckling of calves ; pigeons and rab- bits ; forest trees ; manures, hops, foreign wheats ; comparison of different methods of farming. The author recommends horse-hoeing of peas and beans, and burnt clay as a manure, and seems fully aware of the vast benefit to light lands from consuming the turnips on the ground by sheep. Cows pay £4 a-year clear profit by suckling fat calves, or from butter and cheese, and last for ten years. The diseases are treated and cured. The author reckons sheep the most eligible of all ani- mals, and where they are not kept a farmer's des- tiny may easily be read. The rot is the great misfortune, and is caused by water, and grows. It is cured by salt and dry food. Fruit trees are not forgotten for the farmer's use, and the making of cyder anrf perry. Manures are mentioned, but not at much length, and hops are noticed ; the comparison of the farming of different counties ; states the practices of use, but does not enter into the merits of preference, "The Modern Husbandman" is an octavo of 21 chapters, which describe the sowing of grains, tur- nips, use of manures, wheel-carriages, and the arti- ficial grasses. This work came out periodically;, and was completed in 1744, in eight volumes, Svo., price £2 2s. It was subsequently abridged, aifti much reduced in price. The volume above quoted seems designed for the beginning of the year. C 2 20 THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. " The Timber Tree Improved" occiipiea 1 10 8vo. patreH, and is Ijound with other tracts into a volume of good size. The different trees of timl>er and fruit are separately considered, and the value duly estimated. The proper soil for each kind of vege- table is accurately ascertained, and the management discussed. "'New Experiments in Husbandry" for the month of April occupies 124 octavo pages, and is bound with the last mentioned work. It treats several processes of ploughing; the transcendent uses of the late-invented Hertfordshire douljle- ])lough; improvements of grain, grasses, manures, and trees ; prevention and cure of rotten sheep, also of the red-water and foot-rot; keeping of hogs, cows, and horses from diseases ; the bites of jockeys exposed ; of pickling pork, and the proper vessels to keep it in. The breeding of fowls, and new invented rowl. Letters and answers concern- ing husbandry, with other beneficial matters tending to the improvement of this most useful science. "A Complete System of Experienced Improve- ments made on sheep, grass lambs, and house lambs, or the country gentleman's, the grazier's, the sheep dealer's, and the shepherd's true guide in the most profitable management of these most serviceable creatures," is an octavo volume of 383 pages, showing how the best of sheep may bebied, how to preserve them from surfeits, scabs, wood- evil, white and red-water, the rot, and other dis- temjers. How to cure sheep when wounded or diseased, so that there may be no loss in that way. How to preserve sheep from hoving or surfeiting, and to promote their fattening. How to make ewes take the ram at any time of the year. How to secure lambs from being killed by foxes. How to convert fallen shee]) into profit. How to teach dogs for the shepherd's use. Many impositions exposed relative to sheep and lambs. The newest method of suckling house lambs in the highest i)erfection. The author reckons a lame shepherd and a lazy dog the best attendants on a Hock of sheep ; be- cause they drive the animals leisurely, give the due time for feeding in the places where the best living is found. This conclusion approaches the opinion that in enclosed countries which maintain heavy sheep, the shepherd should be without a dog, or the beast must be severely broken into discijjline. The kinds and qualities of dogs are described at engthj and the following verses on a dog con- clude the chapter : — The dog among the quadrupeds For sport and faithfulness exceeds All other beasts. He best attends His master's call, his horse defends ; And tho' he's driven away with spurns, With wagging tail he still returns. When you his excellence display, He's sensible of what you say. And in dumb show his thanks does pay. He swims where'er you take the ford. "Where'er you sail he goes on board. With you o'er rugged Alps he goes. And guards you through a crowd of foes. Still all the day he keeps in view, Nor is he in the dark less true. He loves not him that loves not you. Through all the windings of the wood He toils to make your pastime good — Runs down for you the nimble hare. And it, untore, in's mouth doth bear — Pursues all game through bush and brake, Not for himself, but for your sake. When you repose he couches by, Or bears his chain contentedly — Your houses, and your poultry guards. Drives thieves and foxes from your yards — In sleep secures your household store. He drives all treachery from your door. — He asks no dainty bit or cup Profuse to keep his spirits up; Content your dirty plate to lick, A crust to gnaw, or bone to pick. — Who would not such servants please ? Who would not love and harbour these I In this volume the author enlarges on the great value of turnips to the sheep farmer, and thinks it the most valuable plant yet known in agriculture. He describes well the drawing of the btst store sheep after harvest to be fattened on turnips, and calls the cultivator of ground an " afternoon far- mer," who does not grow large bi'eadths of tur- nips and rape for the use of the sheep flocks. The feeding of turnips by handling the animals on the ground, was as well done then as now, and is most correctly described. The folding of sheep on the summer culture of lands is much recommended, and to be done by the store flocks. The suckhng of fat lambs is amply described ; the artificial foods to be given in troughs, as meals, pollards, and powdered chalks— the diseases and cures are not neglected, and the volume concludes with a notice of wool and the shearing of sheep ; the value of skins, hoofs, and horns. As Bradley's work was the first publication on the animals of the farm, so this first work of Ellis's is the first book in the agricultural world on the subject of sheep, which it treats exclusively. It shows large knowledge of the subject in every de- tail, and a very useful mode of conveying the infor- mation. The works of Ellis are differently stated in every list of authors that has been compiled j no two catalogues give them a hke, and use the same titles or dates. Our list of the whole works by the author is taken from the "Bibliotheca Britannica," and the books noticed and described were found in the British Museum. It is curious that the last THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 21 mentioned work " on slieep" is not found in any but of Ellis's works, not even the " Bibliotlieca Britannica— our research found it in George the Fourth's library in the British Museum, It is pro- bably the most valuable of all the author's works. Ellis was not the author of any originality on the subject of agriculture, nor did he write any conception that merited that appellation. But he was a large promoter of the art both by precept and example, and consequently occupies a niche of no low standing in the temple of agricultural fame. LXXXIV.— RowE, 1734. Jabob Rowe, Esq., Gent., wrote, " All Sorts of Wheel- carriages Improved, with cuts," London, 1 734, 4to., i)rice 1 s. This essay occupies 38 quarto pages, and is illustrated with copperplates of wheels and axles. To cancel friction, the author says that the axle must revolve with the wheels, and the axis must not fouch any part of the bottom of the ma- chine during the turnings. He seems to have adopted the idea of low wheels of two feet in dia- meter, and without any cylindrical concavity, as is now used. LXXXV.— Phillips, 1735. Robert Phillips wrote " Dissertation concerning the Present State of the High-roads of England — especially those near London— wherein is proposed a new method of repairing and maintaining them." London, 8vo. This essay occupies 62 pages of small octavo, and is embellished with many cuts of the fTrmation of the centres of roads, sides, ditches. It was read before the Royal Society and much approved. The author recommends to screen the earth from gravels, and to make dry the beds of roads ; to make deep side ditches, and keep them in clear running order. LXXXVI.— Thomson, 1735. Weston states George Thomson to be the author of an account of a thrashing-machine invented at Dalkeith in Scotland, which in a minute gives ]3'20 strokes, as many as 33 men. It goes while a wa- ter-mill is grinding, but may be turned with wind or horse. Our research altogether failed to obtain any no- tice of this work, or even of the author, in any catalogue of books or lists of authors, except the above noticed by Weston, who ascribes to the same author " Short Method of Discovering the Virtues of Plants." It is known that the first idea of a thrashing-mill in Scotland conceived the notion of a number of flails, and that sometime elapsed be- fore the cylinder with scutchers and rollers found way into use, or even into an ideal existence; and curiositv would have been much gratified by a pe- rusal of this early notice of an implement in which Scotland can justly claim the whole originality. LXXXVII.— MooRR, 1735. John Moore wrote " Columbarium, or the pigeon-house, being an introduction to a natural his- tory of tame pigeons," London, 1735, 8vo. The essay occupies GO pages octavo, and gives an ac- count of the several species known in England, with the method of breeding them, their distem- pers and cures. The author had been an educated person, both from the language he employs and the practical directions on every point of detail. The pigeon-house is very correctly explained, the food for the animals, their usefulness, and the value of their dung. It is a valuable work of the kind. LXXXVIII.-Brackf.n, 1735. Henry Bracken, M.D., wrote several works on farming, which were esteemed, and passed through several editions. Weston ascribes to him " Gen- tleman and Farmer's Guide," 8vo., price Is. 6d. The books on farming are found in the British Museum, and are printed with the author's name in the " Bibhotheca Britannica— but no notice is made of Weston's " Farmers' Guide" which rests on his sole authority, LXXXIX.— Trowel, 1739. Samuel Trowel, gent., wrote "Treatise of Hus- bandry and Gardening," London, 1739, 8vo., and in German at Leipsig in 1750. It is a plain and practical method of improving all sorts of meadow, pasture, and arable land, &c., and making them produce greater crops of all kinds, and at much less than the present expence. Under the following heads ;— 1. Of wheat, rye, oats, barley, peas, beans, and all other sorts of grain. 2. Turnips, carrots, buck-wheat, clover, hemp, rape, flax, and coleseed, &c. 3. Weld or would, woad or wade, madder, saf- fron, &c. 4. Meadow, pasture grounds, and the different manner of feeding cattle, and making other improvements agreeable to the soil of the se- veral counties in Great Britain. 5. Hops, forest and fruit trees, vine and garden fruits of all sorts. G. All kinds of flowers, shrubs in general, and green -house plants. 7. A curious scheme of a farm, the annual ex- pense of it, and its produce. With many new, useful, and curious improve- ments never before published. The whole founded on many years' experience. The book is a thin octavo of 1G4 pages, in a 22 THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. well-arranged and concise order. No mention is jnaue of manures, except of an artificial mixture which has no name put to it, and a manure liquor 'or soaking grains to be sown. The author has not risen above joining with agriculture the description of fruits ; which continues the evidence that the fo- rest yielded the food of man before the grains were known, and therefore formed a long standing con- sideration. It required a time beyond the date of our notice to separate the herbs and fruits into special departments. Trowel may have been of the legal profession, as his work is dedicated to the Treasurer and Masters of the Inner Temple, to whom he had acted as steward. He shows himself to have been an edu- cated person, and had travelled much over the kingdom. The annual expence of a farm of 180 acres of arable land, and 20 acres of meadow and pasture, let at £100 per annum, is culculated to amount to £567 Is. 3d., and the produce to £910, earing for clear profit the sum of £342 18s. 9d. Five quarters per acre is stated as the produce of wheat, barley, oats, beans, and peas. Educated amateurs are more deficient in practical calculations than on theoretical conceptions. The former too often overturn the stability of the latter, and throw a discredit on the most plausible enter- tainments. Practice with all its dogmas is ever required to guide and sober down the flights of ideal Rtates of existence. XC— Murray, 1740. The " Bibliotheca Britannica" states that Sir Alexander Murray, of Stanhope, Bart., wrote ''True Interest of great Britain, Ireland, and our Plantations, or a ])roposal for making such a imion between Great Britain and Ireland, and all our plantations, as that abready made between Scot- land and England." To which is added "A New Method of Husbandry, by greater or lesser canals in Scotland ; also a letter and remonstrance to Lord Hardwicke, on the miserable state of Scotland," London, 1740, folio. This work is nowhere else noticed, either in a list of authors or of books, so that nothing can be known how, or by what means it was proposed to introduce a new husbandry by canals, or what were the very particular modes of proceeding. It is always pleasant to know the ideas of men, and when no result follows the inspiration must l)e allowed the consideration of reality. XCL— Blackwell, 1741. Alexander Blackwell, M.D., was a native of Aberdeenshire. He studied physic at Leyden, under Boerhaave, took the degree of M.D., practised as physician at Aberdeen, and afterwards in London ; but meeting with no success turned printer, and %vas bankrupt in 1738, About 1740 he went to Sweden, became projector, and laid a scheme before His Swedish Majesty for draining the fens and marshes. He was suspected of being concerned in a plot with Count Tesin, and was beheaded in August, 1 748. His wife EUzabeth was the author of a curious herbal. Blackwell wrote "A New Method of Improv- ing Cold, Wet, and Barren Lands, especially of Clayey Grounds," in 8vo. The book was printed in Swe- dish, at Stockholme in 174G, in 12 mo. This author is noticed, as has been now related, by Loudon in his Catalogue of British Authors on Agriculture, and also by Weston ; the " Bibliotheca Britannica" does not print his name, and the libra- ries of the British Museum do not possess the book. Both the last mentioned repositories contain the " Herbal," published by Mrs. Elizabeth Black- well, and totally omit the husband's name. The work of Blackwell may not have acquired any de- gree of notoriety. XCII.— Robinson, 1744. James Robinson is stated by the " Bibliotheca Britannica" to have written " Harlean Miscellany, seu coUectiorariorum tractatuura," London, 1744, 8vo. These consist of several articles on agricul- ture and botany. The names are not found in any other collection of writers or titles, and the work does not appear in any library. XCIII.— WiCKHAM, 1755. The " Bibliotheca Britannica" prints Moses Wickham, of Hatfield, in the county of Hertford, as the author of " The Utility and Advantages of Broad High Wheels demonstrated rationally and mathematically, so far as to be understood by the meanest capacity," London, 1755, Svo. No other notice occurs of this author, or the work on wheels, except by Weston. XCIV.— Lisle, 1756. Edward Lisle, Esq., of Crux Easton, in Hamp- shire, was the author of " Observations on Hus- bandry," 4to., price 18s. The work was published from the author's manuscript by his son Thomas Lisle, D.D., and a second edition followed in two volumes, Svo., price 10s. The book forms a quarto volume of 450 pages, and treats arable land ; ma- nure and manuring ; plough and cart tackle ; ploughing; harrowing; picking up stones; sow- ing ; rolling ; corn in general ; wheat, rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, beans, peas, vetches ; reaping and mowing; raking; carrying of corn; thrash- ing ; reeks ; granaries ; thatching ; malt and malt- ing ; hops; grazing; foddering; fatting of cattle; turnips ; grasses ; meadows ; pastures ; downs ; bulls and oxen, cows and calves ; diseases in cows and calves ; the dairy sheep and lambs ; of shear- ing sheep, of folding sheep, of feeding and fatting THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 23 sheep ; diseases in sheep and lambs ; horses, asses, and mules ; wood j fences ; orchard, and fruit gar- den; kitchen garden ; weeds ; water and watering ; workmen and work ; of the farm-yard ; hogs, poul- try, pigeons, bees; hay ; wool; hides; rise and fall of markets and their causes ; weather ; enemies to husbandry. Lisle's book has ever been very deservedly es- teemed— his enquiries had been very extensive, and the observations and deductions are acute and very honest. Turnips were well known to the author, and the broadcast raising of the crop of plants is most accurately described; the over cropping of lands after being limed, and pared, and burned, is well understood, and to be avoided. A complete body of husbandry is not pretended ; some things are slightly touched upon, and some others, as hemp and flax, are not mentioned at all — and many other useful observations might no doubt have been added ; for, as Mr. Lisle as observed, " the variety of the subject is never to be exhausted." Every day produces new inventions and improvements in agriculture — pei'fection is unattainable — and every candid tiller of the soil must acknowledge a defi- ciency in some particulars relating to his profes- sion. The author's son, who published the work, gave it to the world as he was able to copy the ma- nuscript, and hoped it would assist those who were already practitioners ; show them the opinions of others in doubtful and disputed cases, and the usages of distant counties of the kingdom ; encou- rage them to make trials— caution them against many errors, and often save them much labour and expence, by communicating experiments already made to their hands. He regrets that his father did not live to revise and put into form the obser- vations he had made, as they would have become much more acceptable to the public than could be done by his own professional ignorance. The ad- vertisement is dated from Burclere, Hants, Sept. 1st, 1756, Thomas Lisle. The book is embelUshed with a portrait of the author as a frontispiece, and is certainly a fine en- graving, showing the breast and face, in the loose mantle and large flowing wig of those days, in a style fitted for the bench of any judicial court. Lisle was a very superior person, and promoted the art of agriculture, though he did not originate any thing wholly new, or devise any better mode of executing the old performances. He collected the best ways, and put them forth to be imitated. XCV.— Sheldrake, 1756. Weston ascribes to Sheldrake, M.D., " A Treatise on Welch Farming," price Is. It appears that this author was a scientific surgeon of West- minster, and that the name and authorship extended from father to son. The professional works are printed in the " Bibliotheca Britannica," and are found in the British Museum -but no notice is any where made of the treatise on farming, which rests on the sole authority of Weston. XCVL-HiLi., 1757. Weston ascribes to John Hill, M.D., "A Com- plete Body of Husbandry," with copperplates, in foho, price £1 lis. Gd. This work is nowhere found in attachment with the name of Sir John Hill, who must be supposed to be the author men- tioned by Weston. He was born about the year 171C, and after serv- ing as an apothecary, failed in London in that pro- fession. From it he caught a rehsh for botany, and studied, and published on that natural science. He was much noticed and recommended, and wrote largely on diflTerent subjects, on natural history, essays, articles, novels, and romances. He had superior talents, but was not very happy in the application of them. It is unrecorded how he ar- rived at the honour of knighthood. In connection with our special purpose. Sir John Hill published " Eden, or a Complete Body of Gardening, GO plates coloured," London, folio, "The Gardener's New Calendar," with plates, London. " An Idea of a Botanical Garden in Eng- land," " The Sleep of Plants, and cause of motion in the sensitive plant explained." " The Gardener's Pocket-book, or country gentleman's recreation, being the kitchen, fruit, and flower garden dis- played. Hill died in 1775. The list of the works of this author occupy near- ly a column and half of the very small type of the ''Bibliotheca Britannica," but among them is not found the work on husbandry, and the libraries of the British Museum no not possess it. Here has been seen a large folio work of two volumes, with many plates of the date of our notice, and without any author's name attached, called "A Complete Body of Husbandry," To this book Weston may have fixed the name of Sir John Hill without any authority, and probably with some assumed suppo- sition that prevailed in his time. Subsequent quotations may have been copied from Weston, in the same way he forms our authority for the above notice. XCVIL— Claridge, 1757. This person published " The Country Calendar, or the Shepherd of Banbury's rules to know of the change of the weather." This work is in octavo, and occupies 64 pages of twenty-six chapters or divisions, each of which states a mark or sign of prognostication. The statements are said to be grounded on forty years' experience, and were much 24 THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. reputed at the time of publication. The following old sajnngs are used in the work itself; — Janiver freeze the pot by the fire. If the grass grows in Janiveer, It grows the worst for't all the year. The Welchman had rather see his dam on the bier. Than to see a fair Februeer. March wind and May sun Makes clothes white and maids dun. When April blows his horn. It's good both for hay and corn An April flood Carries away the frog and her brood. A cold May and a windy Makes a full barn and a findy. A May flood never did good. A swarm of bees in May Is worth a load of hay. But a swarm in July Is not worth a fly, &c„ &c. Our author inserts this name in compliance with other lists of authors, though the work is very trifling. Weston does not print it in his catalogue of authors, but the name appears in Loudon's list, and the book is found in the British Museum. XCVIII.-HoME, 1757. Francis Home, M.D., was Professor of Materia Medica in the University of Edinburgh. He wrote " The Principles of Agriculture and Vegeta- tion," being a prize essay, written for a society in Edinburgh, established for the encouragement of arts and manufactures. The book is a thin octavo of 179 pages, divided into five parts of sectional portions. The plan of the whole is subjoined, as it is the first regular attempt to put agriculture on scientific grounds. Part 1. Sect. 1 . Causes of the slow progress of agriculture connection of chemistry with it, and divi- sion of the subject. *2. Of different soils. 3. Of the rich black soil. 4. Of the clay soil. 5. Of the sandy soil. G. Of the chalky soil. 7. Of till. 8. Of the mossy soil. Part 2. 1. The natural method of providing vegeta- ble food. 2. Of manures, or the artificial method of providing vegetable food. 3. Of marl. 4. Of unburnt calcareous bodies, and quick- lime. 5. Of vegetables in an entire and in a corrupt- ed state, and of dung-hills. G. Of manures from burning vegetables. 7. Of animal manures. Part 3. 1. The effect of different substances with regard to vegetation. 2. Of the food of vegetables. Part 4. 1 . Of opening and pulverizing the 2. Eflects of the atmosphere. 3. Change of species. 4. Of ploughing. 5. Of composts. G. Of vegetation. Part 5. 1. Of weeds. 2. Of a wet soil. 3. Of rains. 4. Of poultry seeds. 5. Of diseases of plants. G. Plan for the further improvement of agri- culture. The knowledge of this book is of a high order, and conveyed in language that shows the educated scholar. The time now appeared when any single subject was not being clogged with extraneous matters, which most completely bewilder the wri- ters of early times, and buried the subject almost beyond being at all discovered. But in this work the intended subject is never dropped, nor any irre- levant matter introduced. The sections are short, pithy, and concise, and the work is not exceeded by any similar pubhcation of the present day. In order to promote agriculture the author proposes a larger spirit of experiment making over the country, to be communicated in the results by means of the appointed channels. Agriculture must proceed upon facts and experience— reason has not much to do with it, but chance and design have the chief influence. The author adopts the common opinion of the action of quick-lime, that it dissolves animal and vegetable substances, and converts them into mucilaginous matters. He very judiciously advises lime and farm- yard dung to be applied to the land at the same time, but not in mixture. Home's book must have been a valuable produc- tion at that early time, and is such at any time. XCIX— Maxwell, 1757. Robert Maxwell, of Arkland, wrote "The Prac- tical Husbandman, being a collection of miscella- neous papers on husbandry, &c., dedicated to the Right Hon. William Pitt, Esq." Much information is conveyed in the letters of enquiry, and the an- THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 25 swers thereto, by the leading improvers in Scotland, I the Rotherham plough, as constructed by Lummis, where the spirit began to move about this time, the first maker of that implement. The beam is The volume contains 43'2 pages, and there is figured ' straight and the handles short. ON THE ADVANTAGES OF PORTABLE FARM BUILDINGS, SUGGESTKD AS A RRMRDV, IN SOMK DEGREK, FOR THE SCARCITY OF FARM LABOURERS. BY BARUGH ALMACK. 1. On the 24th of July, 1852, a friend wrote for my opinion as to the best plan for a complete set of new farm buildings ; and, as I had reason to suppose that they were to be erected on a farm not yet enclosed, or in any manner fettered by roads or other artificial works, it seemed that, as these would be unusual circumstances, the more caution was necessary to begin in a right mannei", because if the best plan was not adopted there would not be the usual and unanswerable excuse of old buildings being in the way. 2. It seemed obvious that, as the general fault of old plans was that they did not leave space for adopting all subsequent imjjrovements, it would be desirable to discover, if possible, some new plan that would expand and adapt itself to circumstances, so as to admit of future improvements, as well as include all those known when the buildings were first erected. 3. Each building should be, not only the right thing in itself, so far as knowledge in such matters has advanced, but also so contrived, if possible, that it may be, on each occasion for using it, in the very best place on the farm for economising labour, and whatever else is valuable, so as to obtain the largest value in produce at the smallest cost. 4. Knowing that some of the best plans hitherto produced have obvious faults of position, when I tried by this economical t»6t, and believing it to be | almost impossible to fix a whole set of buildings j so as to prevent the chance of this being i)roved by experience, or by improvements in the mode of car- rying out agricultural operations, I was forced to i the conclusion that to make the buildings portable, ; or reraoveable from one i)art of a farm to another, j would be one of the most likely means, if not the j only means, whereby to correct errors of jiosition, ' and to give room for expanding or contracting the , general plan as circumstances might prove to be necessary. 5. I have known cases in which it was clearly proved that some of the best farm machinery was worse than useless (leaving the cost of the machi- nery itself out of the question), because more extra : expense was incurred by bringing the farm produce to and taking it from the machinery than the value I of the work done by the use of the machinery ; but if this machinery had been " portable," it could have been applied with decided advantage. G. Thus it appears that the word portable ex- presses a very important quality ; and as Mr. Thompson, one of our Implement Stewards, has very properly intimated a wish to diminish the use of the word " impossible," perhaps I may be allowed to suggest that it is very desirable to draw general attention to the importance of the word " portable," as without it I do not see how we can have the right buildings and the right implements in the best places for general use. 7. If necessary, every building on a farm might be made so as to be " portable ;" therefore, the chief question will be — AYhat is likely to prove beneficial under the circumstances of any particular case ? And to decide that question, all the circum- stances of the farm must not only be known, but have due consideration, as what might pay in some situations would not in others. 8. It may be said, with truth, that portable farm buildings would be more generally beneficial in the colonies, or in other countries where the land is at present unenclosed and in its natural state ; but the same remark would api)ly more or less to almost every other agricultural improvement, and particularly to all such as relate to railways, tram- ways, trucks, carriages, and modes of conveyance generally; but as some of the inhabitants of other countries are likely to adopt real improvements whether we do or not, that is a reason why we should apply them so far as they are likely to be beneficial under our circumstances, but no further. 9. In a case where all was to commence, that is, where there were no roads, fences, gates, jjonds, nor buildings, it might, but / do not say it ahcays loould, be desirable to have a'l the buildings move- able. 10. Where the reverse of all this was the case, and the farms were also small and compact, pro- bably there would generally be so much less neces- sity for moveable buildings. 11. Where the farms were large, and the land scattered, or far from the present building", it 26 THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. might be good economy to have new and portable buildings for the outlying fields. 12. In no case should present buildings be pulled down hastily, especially if they are in good repair, and likely to cost little by remaining where they are. 13. In short, I wish it to be clearly understood that I do not advocate rash and costly changes, or any changes that after due consideration are not likely to be profitable. 14. When new buildings are intended, I would suggest for consideration whether any of the new buildings, or any portion of each building, should be made so as to be " portable." 15. The Crystal Palace of 1851 was a practical proof that in some cases it may be well to make parts of a building in some degree moveable, so as to make the materials useful for different purposes. 16. If any one doubts the value of having farm buildings moveable, let him bear in mind what a saving of labour there would be, in some cases, by having portable cattle-boxes,. &c., to take to one end of the farm, instead of bringi ng the turnips and straw, &c., from that end of the farm, and then taking them back again as manure. 17. Unnecessary labour causes other labour that would not otherwise be necessary ; for instance, unnecessary carting on roads causes labour in re- pairing them. 18. By avoiding the first error, and consuming the produce, or part of it, near to where it was grown, the number of operations saved would vary according to circumstances, so I will not attempt to enumerate them ; but in some cases the saving in the cost of labour, and in the quality of the corn by harvesting it more rapidly, might be equal to the whole rent of the land. 19. It may be said that, to do this, the cattle and their " boxes," &c., would want a labourer to look after them ; and " where would he Hve?" 20. My answer is — Why should not he live in a portable cottage close by his work, if that would pay the landowner and occupier the best as a means of enabling them to cultivate the land ? 21. When 1,000 men can live in a portable Ijuililing at sea, surely a labourer, and his wife if necessary, may be provided with a portable resi- dence on land that would contain more comforts and conveniences than they are accustomed to. 22. If horses had portable stables close by their work, they would lose less time in going to and from it, therefore they would be able to do more real and necessary work in the same time. 23. They could be comfortable in the stable close by, when not wanted on the land, and what is more, they could be making the best manure by eating a green-crop of lucern, tares, or whatever else was most likely to be profitable to grow close by, and the manure so made would be close by where it was wanted. 24. Besides all the numerous advantages which might be derived from having healthy horses in portable stables, it should be borne in mind that, if illness attacked any of them, it would be very im- portant to be able to move the sick stable and horses from the rest. 25. This last consideration would apply more or less to all sorts of stock ; and although I have only gone into some details respecting cattle and horses, those who reflect on the subject will generally agree that in some cases portable buildings would be desirable for every kind of stock that is common on Enghsh farms. 20. I have no doubt it is quite practicable to make every necessary farm building moveable, and in many cases I am quite certain that it would pay well to make part of them portable, especially now that there is a probability of an increasing scarcity of farm labourers— which proves how important it is to employ such as there are on labour that is really necessary and profitable. 27. It always was important, and it is now be- coming quite essential, that time and labour should be applied to their best purposes; therefore the manager of a large farm should act somewhat like a skilful player at chess, who makes no false moves either to or from any part of his board. 28. When the produce of the farm is unneces- sarily carted a considerable distance to the build- ings, so as to incur the otherwise imnecessary trouble of bringing manure a great distance to supply its j)lace, the first was surely a false move. 29. The move, although clearly a bad one, is yet very common on some farms. 30. The remedy, to a certain extent, may be ob- tained by giving due importance to the word "portable." 31. If "portable" farm buildings saved tiie labour of men, they would also save the work of about twice as many horses ; and thus the question becomes one of great importance to the community at large as well as to individuals. 32. These thoughts occurred to me within a day or two of receiving the letter referred to above, but until very recently I have not felt at liberty to draw general attention to them. 33. I am not aware that any one has previously suggested the trial of " portable" farm buildings, and I am prepared to receive the usual proportion of ridicule as a proposer of a new plan j but I wish to submit it to the fair consiileration of all persons who take an interest in ;^uch subjects, and I am THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 27 more particularly desirous of drawing the attention capital and skill, and a means of being useful to of agricultural implement makers to the idea that, others to an almost unlimited extent, if some farm buildings, such as cattle boxes, were 34. Perhaps it is scarcely necessary to state that made '* portable," they would afford to them an- there are several modes by which farm buildings other source of profitable employment for their could be made " portable." ON MANURING CROPS Perhaps there are few phases of agricultural skill which require more judgment, or which are more difficult to manage, than the application of sound and known principles to specific cases. Many a man knows the great outlines of the soundest prin- ciples of farming, but is quite at a loss when and where, or how to apply them in detail. "Within a certain range he may have a vast mass of selection, and he may be unable to determine what course of cropping, what manure, or what mode of cultivation to adopt, so as to pay the best for the present, and act the most successfully for the future. To ascertain this is always a very important matter in the agri- culturists' opinion, and much gain or loss may take place through a very slight deviation from what may be the proper and practical course. We are always most ready to assist with our ad- vice any party who, being supplied well with dis- crimination himself, furnishes us with facts on which to give him an opinion, based on practice as well as on scientific research : and as a specimen we copy a letter we have lately received from the sister island— just a case in point with the one we have supposed. The writer has given us the his- tory of the cropping of his land, and some informa- tion of the nature of the soil and subsoil; and it will be seen that a very scourging system of crop- ping had been previously adopted, and that the soil itself is not very first-rate. Two questions arise : which will be the most successful mode of securing lasting fertility ? and which will ensure the most pro- fitable return in the time intervening ? They are both important questions. Castle Garden, Durrow, Ireland, November 8th, 1852. — I have got a field of 6 acres, with a southern aspect, very strong stiff soil (such as in this country is termed good vsrheat land), and a yellow clay bottom. It had been for five years in grass, up to the harvest of 1849, when it was ploughed in setts, well coated with good short dung (which I procured cheap from a person living near, for it is too great a distance to think of drawing dung there from my farm-yard), wheat harrowed In, and the furrows shovelled. From this I cut an ex- cellent crop of wheat in the harvest of 1850. I again sowed wheat on the following year, and had a good crop in the harvest of 1851 ; and on last year I sowed oats which were a fair crop. I am now ploughing the oaten stubble, and am anxious to let out the field, and would wish to manure it before so doing, but such a chance of obtaining dung as I met before may never occur again : I must try lime or guano. The cost of G cwt. of guano, which is the complement I propose, per acre would be, at lis. per cwt., £3 Gs. Lime would stand me in exactly the same amount. If I lime, I shall have to summer fallow, take a crop of wheat, and let out with a spring crop the year following (for grass seeds never take in a winter crop in this land). By this means my field is a year idle, and I am relying on a wheat crop to pay two years' rent — a very doubtful thing these times. I would prefer to sow a crop of turnips next spring, applying 6 cwt. of guano per acre, and let out with a spring crop the year following, if I thought the land would be in good heart to do so ; for some assure me that guano is of no avail after the turnip crop — that it gives but the turnips, and is of no use to the spring crop or grass. Others, again, assert that 6 cwt. of guano is as good for all purposes as any dung ; and that, by giving that complement per acre, I will have my land in good heart to let out, with an oat crop the spring after I remove the turnips, and that the grass after will be good also. As I have never tried guano, you will much oblige me by giving me your opinion on this subject, with such advice as you think fit under the circumstances. — McIvoR. The question Mr. Mclvor wants solving is this : Which is preferable — to give a good coat of lime, with a summer fallow, and sow wheat ? or a good dressing of guano, and sow turnips ? the one in- volving two years' operations, the other only one, and all having an eye to present pay and to future condition. Now we must bear in mind that the soil has been three times corn cropped ; all has gone oft" except one dressing of manure. For cora it is manifestly impoverished ; and what, under the circumstances, will lime do for the soil? The fallow will clean it ; for it must, after three corn crops, be somewhat foul; the summer action of sun and air and water will disintegrate some of the inorganic materials locked up in the particles of granitic rock which the clay drift may be most likely to contain ; and the addition of lime will supply a quantity more of mineral matter, and tend to render active the vegetable matter which may be inert in the soil. But is it likely there may be much of this? We think not. There can be no very great quantity beyond the roots of the corn crops, and possibly the stubble, and this will not be anything but easily dissolved and active. Hence lime appears hardly what the soil requires under 28 THE FARMER'S MAGAZLXE. the circumstances : we should not expect from its application any large produce of wheat— and yet a large produce ought to he ohtained, to pay for the labour, outlay, and deferred letting. Take the other alternative. The preparation for turnips would also clear the soil of weeds, while the after-hoeings would complete that operation. Then the guano would supply all the elements of a vigorous crop of turnips. It would do more : it would be questionable to us if 6 cwt. per acre is not an over- dose at one time, even to this very ex- hausted land. But the Irish acre may be here intended, though not expressed ; so that the 6 acres may be 10 statute acres, and the application of 3G cwt. of guano less than 4 cwt. per acre. If it is not so, it were best to apply 4 to the turnips, and 2 to the following crop of oats. Now the ' guano will supply all the elements the soil wants, and more — will supply them in a state fit for imme- diate assimilation. Hence we quite prefer the guano application. It is a delusion to imagine that a dressing of nearly four cwt. of guano per acre can be carried off by any one crop, much less a crop of turnips. The experiment made by the Duke of Somerset to test the comparative durability of guano and lime, both mixed with equal quantities of pond mud, and spread ovei' three years, with but one application, was most decisive, and is a case in point for our correspondent : only it applied to grass, a circum- stance not material as far as the general principle of duration is concerned. On lot No. 1 he applied six cubic yards of mud, mixed with 1 \ hogsheads of lime, in 1847. The produce was — 1847.. 353 lbs. 1848 337 ,, 18.i9 538 „ Total in three years. . 1,228 ,, To No. 2 he applied 6 cubic yards of mud, with 90 lbs. of Peruvian guano, in the same year. The result was — 1847 930 lbs. 1848 550 ,, 1849 725 ,, Total in three years. . 2,205 ,, or upwards of ninety per cent, advantage. But it was not only that he had more gross pro- duce by nearly double— he had more every year ; and the third year of the guano application had nearly 50 per cent, more produce than the third, the most favourable year for the application of lime. We well know from ample experience that the guano will manifest ample symptoms of advantage, at least for three, but generally for four crops after the apphcation. When it is appUed to a green crop the case is by far the strongest. Sprengel well says, as a deduction from one of his experiments with a soil — " phosphoric acid is the first substance which will require to be sup- plied ;" and if we supply potash and soda along with it and ammonia, " it will be long before we need to add any more hme." The guano supplies all these materials, and hence we think there can be no doubt that whether pre- sent advantage or future condition of the soil is considered, Mr. Mclvor must make turnips on his soil, and apply the Peruvian guano. INSECTS NJURIOUS TO THE INTERESTING The following report of a highly interesting lecture, delivered to the Armagh Natural History Society, by Professor Allman, will be found well worthy the attention of our farming friends : — The professor first pointed out the distinctive characters of insects — he showed that they all be- longed to the great articulate sulj-kingdom ; that they were provided with antennae or feelers, had exactly six legs, and were mostly furnished with wings ; they breathed by a most elaborate network of curious tubes, which pervaded every portion of their bodies ; and that they underwent a metamor- phosis. This metamorphosis is a most striking feature in the economy of insects, and may be easily observed in the moth or butterfly. The pa- rent insect will be seen to deposit her eggs on the plant most suited to afford food to the young pro- geny ; after a variable time these eggs are hatched, CROPS OF AGRICULTURISTS. TO FARMERS. and there proceeds from each a voracious worm or caterpillar. This is called the larva. It imme- diately begins to eat voraciously and to grow so rapidly as soon to become too large for its distended and overstrained skin, which finally is unable to contain the corpulent body of its owner, and split- ting along the back, frees the larva from its restraint ; but a new and more capacious skin has been formed beneath the old one, and the larva loses no time in returning to its occupation of eating and growing, till it again becomes too large for its skin, and the old process of moult has to be renewed, and this is generally repeated several times during the lifetime of the larva. After continuing for some time in the condition of larva, it all at once ceases to eat, casts it skin for the last time, and changes into a pupa or chrysalis, which, in the case selected by the professor for illustration, is an oval body. THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 29 clothed in a hard dry shell, without any mouth, and totally deprived of the i)owcr of locomotion. In this state, plunged apparently in a deep sleep, the insect may remain for an indefinite period. At length, however, the destined moment has arrived, for which all that had jireviously taken place is only a preparation ; the walls of the chrysalis are rent asunder, and there issues forth not a crawling and voracious larva, with an organization chaining it to the ground, but a bright and joyous being, whose empire is the sunbeam and the air, with rapture in all its motions, and hues of beauty on its wings. This is the perfect insect : it lives through a few summer months, deposits its eggs and dies ; and from these eggs proceed another progeny, destined to repeat the wondrous cycle of changes. From the general view thus taken of the struc- ture and metamorphosis of insects, the professor next proceeded to descril)e the various insects in- jurious to the crops of agriculturists, and the best remedies for arresting their ravages. Those upon which he more particularly dwelt were the turnip- fly, the black caterpillar, the wireworm, aphides, and the wheat-midge. FIRST. — THE TURNIP-FLY. This is a little beetle which hops away on being approached, and may easily be known by the thickened thighs of its hind legs, which ai*e so constructed, in order to give room for the powerful muscles, by means of which it is enabled to leap to a distance when alarmed. It is called haltica by naturalists, and there are two species of it which attack the turnip crop : the more common one is known by a pair of yellow bands which run down along the length of its back. The other species is destitute of these bands— both appear to be equally destructive. The professor then proceeded to detail the habits of the turnip-fly. He showed that the parent beetle laid her eggs on the under side of the turnip leaf, chiefly during the summer, and after the leaf had arrived at its rough and fully developed state; that the little larvre which were hatched from the eggs burrowed into the pulp in the interior of the leaf, and fed on this substance, to the great injury of the leaf. He, however, showed that it was not at this period that the farmer had anything to fear from the turnip-fly, because the turnips were now in their rough leaf, and so strong as to suffer the attacks of the haltica with almost entire exception from injurj- ; the larva, however, goes through its various stages and changes— first into a pupa, and then into the perfect beetle. Towards the approach of winter the beetle conceals itself beneath the loose bark of trees, and under stones and fallen leaves, and in otlier situations where it may rest secure from the ajiproaching winter. It then hy- bernates, or falls into a winter sleep ; but, on the return of spring, millions of these insects issue from their hiding places, ready the moment the young turnips are above ground with their two little smooth leaves, to fall on them and devour them. It is at this period, therefore, that the far- mer has to dread them ; and all his efforts must now be directed to arresting the destruction threat- ened by them to his crop. The next point considered was the proper means to be employed against the attacks of the turnip- fly. It was shown that, as it was only during the time when the turnips were in their smooth leaves that any harm was to be apprehended, the great object of the farmer should be to force the young plants as rapidly as possible out of the smooth into the rough leaf. This is mainly to be effected by having the land properly prepared — in such a condition, in fact, as experience proves is best adapted to the promotion of a vigorous and healthy vegetation — the employment of hand ma- nure, as guano, put in with the seed, has been found very eflfective in promoting this vigorous growth ; and a most important rule is to sow thickly, and to have all the seed of the same age. By adopt- ing these precautions a luxuriant and healthy vege- tation will be sure to take place, and the young plant will be forced beyond all injury from the flj-. Lime and soot have been used, but with doubtful effect- Drawing a freshly tarred board over the field has been practised ; the fly being disturbed by the board will leap up and stiek to the tar, and in this way multitudes of them have been destroyed ; but the grand reliance of the farmer must be on thick sowing, and having his land in the best pos- sible condition. If these precautions are not neglected, the farmer need seldom dread the attacks of the turnip-fly. SECOND— THE BLACK CATERPILLAR. Fortunately the visits of the black caterpillar are "few and far between ;" otherwise, so great are its destructive powers, that the cultivation of the tur- nip in these islands would probably have to be al- together abandoned. It first appeared in England in 17o6, and since then the turnip crops have had frequent visits from it. In 1835 one of the most destructive attacks of this insect on record appears to have occurred. In many cases scarcely a vestige of green remained in the principal turnip counties in England^the crop was altogether a failure. The agent in all this terrible destruction is the larva of a four-winged fly, called Atharia spinarum by na- turalists. Thislarvaisof ablack colour, and about an inch in length. The parent fly deposits her eggs 30 THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. on the edges of the turnip leaf; from these eggs the young caterpillar comes forth, at first vejy small, but it grows rapidly, and becomes more and more destructive every day. Unhke the hal- tica, or turnip-fly, it is not alone the young smooth leaves of the plant that fall a victim to its attacksj but the leaves of the full-grown plant. The black caterpillar has not yet visited Ireland ; but when we bear in mind that the cultivation of the turnip to any extent in this country has been comparatively recent, we shall find an explanation of the hitherto impunity, and ought to be prepared against a future attack. As to the remedies, several have been proposed, such as quick-lime, soot, passing a heavy roller over the field in the evening or night — each of these methods has been partially successful ; but the grand reliance must be on hand-picking, or the use of ducks and poultry. A few children may, in a short time, collect t)0 or 100,000 cater- pillars ; and ducks, driven into the infected fields, have been found to save all the turnips committed to their care. THIRD — THK AVI RE WORM. The wireworm, unlike the insects already de- scribed, does not confine its ravages to a single kind of crop, but almost every crop, either of the field or of the garden, may become its victims. It is a cyhndrical worm, of a yellowish colour, marked by very distinct rings, and covered with a hardi horny skin. It is not a perfect insect, but the larva of a beetle called Elater. It lives for five years in the state of larva, becoming more and more de- structive all that time, and then changes to an inac- tive pupa, from which the perfect beetle finally emerges. The perfect beetle, or elater, is quite harmless. Numerous remedies have been proposed against the wireworm. The use of the roller is by some strongly recommended : also, the folding of oxen and sheep in the infected fields. Several chemical applications have also been used, such as lime, soot, and common salt. A curious discovery has been recently made on this subject, namely, that certain plants have the power of expelling the wireworm. These plants are woad and white mus- tard ; and it is found that if a crop of either of these plants be taken from a field infested with the wireworm, this pest will be completely expelled, and the field may be sown with the ordinary crops the following year. Hand-picking is an obvious and most useful mode, and the farmer should be warned to protect rooks, which, though they do a little hann in eating up some of his corn, or root- ing out a potato or two, do infinitely more good in destroying Avireworms and other injurious insects. FOURTH— APHIDES. These will attack almost every plant; but the species which the farmer has most to be on his guard against are those which infest his crops of turnips, peas, and beans. An attempt had been made a few years ago to explain the potato disease by refer- ring it to the attacks of a species of aphis, called Aphis vastator; but this attempt has quite failed, and Professor Allman stated his belief that no valid explanation had ever yet been offered, and that we are just as much in the dark as ever concerning the cause of this utterly inexplicable aflfection. The aphis which attacks the turnips is of a green colour, and is called Aphis rapae. The infected leaves are obseiTed to be curled up and distorted, and the insects may be found in multitudes, shel- tering in the folds, towards the end of summer and in autumn. The aphis which attacks the bean crops is of a sooty black ; it is called Aphis fab.T ; it shows itself first on the tender uppermost shoots of the plant. The aphides multiply to an enormous extent; a single insect may be in one year the progenitor of 100,000,000,000,000,000 of young ones. The only remedy on which we can rely against the different species of aphis is the removal of the infected leaves ; as soon as ever they show them- selves they should be carefully carried away and burned. FIFTH — THE WHEAT MIDGE. A short time before the proper period of ripen- ing, several ears in a field of wheat may be seen to present a yellow and prematurely ripened appear- ance ; on examining these ears, there will be found in each a multitude of little yellow worms lying between the husk and the young grain ; they eat up the pollen, and thus prevent the grain ever coming to maturity. The destruction thus caused sometimes amounts to a third of the entire crop. Tliese worms are the larvae of a small two-winged fly called Cecidomya tritici, which deposits her eggs in the position where the little larvas are sub- sequently formed. It is by no means easy to suggest a remedy against the wheat midge, and perhaps all that can be done is to take care that the pup?R, which are sometimes found in thousands among the corn, in barns, should be separated from the corn and destroyed; this may be easily effected by a Avire- gauze sieve placed beneath the Avinnowing machine. The insects now described are all injurious to the farmer. The professor next went on to point out certain insects, which, instead of being inju- rious to the farmer, Avere his friends ; for they Avere destined by the Creator to keep the others Avithin bounds. These friendly insects chiefly THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. belong to the tribe of Ichneumons. The ichneu- mons deposit their eggs in the bodies of the destructive insects, and the latter thus fall victims to them. The beautiful little beetle called the Ladybird, or, as designated by naturahsts, Cocci- nella, should also be carefully ])rotected by the farmer, for its lar\'a commits great devastation among the destructive aphides, on which it feeds. Another beautiful insect, called the Lace-wing, or Chrysopus, has a larvae equally destructive to the aphides, and should be taken under the special care of the farmer. Drawings were exhibited of the useful, as well as of the injurious insects, so as to enable the farmer to become acquainted with their difl'erences, and, by not mistaking one for the other» do harm instead of good in his attempts to save his crops. The i)rofessor then concluded by showing how rich a field for observation was possessed by the farmer, and by impressing on him the importance of omitting no opportunity of turning his facihties of observation to the welfare of himself and of his fellow-men. The diagrams and pictorial illustrations were remarkably apposite to the lecture, which was heard with marked interest, and hailed with fre- quent applause by an assembly constituted of the ^lite of the citizens of Armagh. THE CULTIVATION OF WHEAT. We can remember the time when the excitement of obtaining new varieties of wlieat was as great as the railway mania, the South-sea bubble, or the still more ridiculous rage for Dutch tulip-roots. New varieties were advertised day after day at prices of the most um-easouable kind, while the puffing proprietors, trusting to the mania and the acknoAvledgcd gulla- bihty of John Bull, attributed to their wares quahties the most inconsistent both with themselves and with truth. Wc remember as the acme, a friend who had caught the mania sent for a teu-shilUng parcel of a new variety of great promise, and he obtained twenty- five grams of a most coarse-grained, unpromising kind, costing nearly sixpence per grain — a price per bushel and per acre which we will not take the pains to calculate, as it would only gratify curiosity; but at harvest time, the sample from which so mucli was promised turned out a miserable specimen ; no extraordinary production, but a sort of coarse Sardi- nian variety, doubtless imported, and much injured in quahty by being re-sown in this country. And yet we beheve all this did good. Not that any great amount of absolute good was effected by the introduction of new varieties, but the fact was ascertained that the mere change of seed did good. Those who had never changed a seed — never removed it from a high to a low, a strong to a light, a wet to a dry vicinity, and vice versa, got new varieties from Sussex, from Kent, from Norfolk, from Gloucester- shire, and from Scotland, for all new khids were rapidly sought up, even if they had to be found at the antipodes, and were there either approved or not. ;Most failed. But next year, either from this break of the habit, or from necessity in selling off the kind newly imported, a change of seed of the old kind became a matter no longer of choice. And a good deal was discovered, too, of elasticity and adaptation in the various kinds of newly-introduced wheat to peculiarities of soil and climate, The wheat in general is unsuited to a light, porous soil. It cannot bear oxygen in any large quantity to its roots. It requires, as a rule, a tenacious soil ; and to get wheat to grow at all successfidly on a light soil, it had to be " daubed in," or there was but Httlc chance of suc- cessful cultivation. The Spalding wheat can bear the oxygen in a much larger degree than the older cultivated varieties; and lience take a light soil, and sow Spalding and creepmg in the same field, and you will find six to eight bushels per acre on such soils more on the one than the other. Again, where spring-sowing of wheat is an object, it is often either too late a season in the month of May, or the frost sets in too early in October to admit of its being fairly rnaturcd. Here the April wheat will answer the purpose. It requires to be sovm in that month to answer at all. These, however, are special cases, and arc by no means in favour of any great inducement to try any variety not usually grown in a district. When an old variety is moderately successful, it is far best to be satisfied with sowing the same kind, only changing the locaUty, and, if possible, the kind of soil. Mr. Pawlet, of Beeston, has made some experi- ments on several kinds of wheat, with a view to test their productiveness, and some other experiments also on other points connected with then- cultivation. The latter are of more consequence, we think, than the former. As indicating care and experimental skill, they deserve recording. The trial was made on a poor gravelly loam after clover ley. The three w/iUe wheats gave the following results : Imperial white. ... 37 bush, per acre. Couscns' unrivalled 34 bush. 2 pks. 1 gal. per acre. Kent brown chaff. . 27 bush. 3 pks, 1 gal. do. As showing the first kind to be the most remune- rative, it sold for 46s. per quarter, and the second only 44s. ; and it produced more money per acre than either of the dther by upwards of a guinea. 32 THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. His red wheat trials, made the same day, the whole being sown on the 20th of October, at the rate of 7 pecks per acre, gave the following results : — Defiance 48 bush. 1 gal. per acre. Golden drop 41 bush. 1 gal. do. Golden goody .... 42 bush. 3 pks. 1 gal. per acre. Spalding 41 bush. 1 pk. do. Here, again, is a marked difference in tlie produce per acre. A small area in an experimental piece is of very little value — it absolutely indicates nothing, for the same field, as Sir A'eruon Harcourt shows, will vary in a very considerable degree. The price obtained for the whole was the same, and the maximum difi'erence was o3s. per acre ! In another trial between Browick and Sandon's, two red Mdicats, the one gave 47 bushels and 1 gallon per acre, the other 44 bushels and 3 pecks ; and both kinds sold for the same price, showing a dif- ference of some lis. per acre. Now these trials would have been more satisfactory if we had known thai any of these kinds had been tried against the kinds ordinarily cultivated in the district, for it is not surprising that a difference as great and even greater would take place between kinds all new to the locality. We quite imagine that if it had been a light gravel instead of a loam, the difference would have been just reversed, and the Spalding turned out far more than any other variety, but have been likely to sell for a less sum per bushel. We do not think much can be made out by any extensive adoption of new varieties, nor would we venture to go to any length in drawing a conclusion from the experience of one year, or on one soil. The peculiar season of 1S51-2 is not by any means to be taken as a test of the general qualities of the diffe- rent kinds of wheats ; and if it were, any experiments at Biggleswade w^ould go no further, with any degree of safety, than to speak in favour of the kind to the locality, even if it were substantiated by next year's trial. " Thougli the wheat plant has been cultivated for nearly six times two centuries, the whole of the phases of its cultivation are by no means fully understood. In patriarchal times we are informed of one who sowed wheat and obtained in the same year "an hundred fold." One half that quantity, nay, one quarter, may now be said to be a large re- turn. If two bushels of seed be sown and fifty bushels reaped the one is by no means a plentiful seeding nor the other an inferior crop ; indeed we may say it is far more seldom arrived at than ex- ceeded. The discussions on thick and thin seeding have now pretty fully disappeared. Thin seeding for the North of England and for Scotland has been thoroughly exploded ; but the questions relating to the different kinds of sowing, the modes and cir- cumstances of it, are by no means settled. So long ago as 1850 Mr. Pawlett, of Beeston, near Biggleswade, made some experiments on the hoeing of wheat. He had a portion of land sown with Hessingland wheat on white clover ley, pretty free from weeds, hand-hoed thoroughly, and the remainder left alone. The result, which was care- fully marked at harvest time, was as follows : — Bushels, recks. Wiieat hoed produced 30 2 per acre. Wheat unhocd „ 28 1 ,, In 1851, for the present year, he repeated the ex- periment. He sowed a piece of land after red clover. The result was very much in the same direction as in the preceding year ; but we are sorry he has not given the full advantage of his experiment by stating precisely the kind of soil as to calibre and tenacity. It was as follows : — Bushels. Pecks. Wheat well liocd with hand.. 42 0 per acre. Wheat uuhoed 44 3 ,, Making a ditference in the one case of nine pecks per acre, and this year of two bushels and three pecks . Now, how could this be accounted for ? It seems to set at naught all our previous notions of things. It ignores Jethro Tull and Garrett's horse-hoe— it shows hoeing wheat, in fact, to be absolutely injurious. But let it be well understood : the land was free from weeds ; there was no ad- vantage in this respect in the first instance, and this it may be said is a strong reason why it did no good to the land ; but how it came to be in- jurious is another question not so easily solved. It does not seem to be due to season ; for though there was a difference in degree, it was certainly injurious in both cases, and no two seasons are so thoroughly similar as to completely overturn twice over the ordmary and real nature of the operation. We are obliged to conjecture as to the reason, and we must conjecture only from the fact before mentioned, viz., that we are unacquainted with the nature of the soil — that it must have been some very open and light soil, and that the stirring of it where it did no good only tended to open the land, and so to render the access of oxygen more easy, of which, as we have said, the root of the wheat plant has a direct impatience. We have no means of getting at the nature of his soil. In a previous experiment he calls it a " gravelly soil," in another a " gravelly loam;" but neither of these quite comes up to our notion of that kind of soil which might be supposed to be injured by opening to the freer access of the air. We have enough evidence, however, to perceive that it was not much benefited by great consoh- dation, a state of things which we think must have THE FyVRMER'S magazine. been the case had the soil been of a very open cha- racter. 'I'he same experimenter had two plots se- lected, which he drilled with white Lainmas wheat on a clover ley, one part lightly rolled, and the other rolled three times over with a very heavy roller. The result at harvest was as follows — Wheat heavily rolled, 38 bush. 2 pecks per acre. "Wheat lightly rolled, 38 bush. 1 peck „ The expense of this operation was very conside- rable, and the result not at all more than a mere variation of the productive quality of one part of a field over another side by side of it would occasion. But these facts open out no little of the (juestion how necessary it is to go to first princi[)les, and to begin all our pre-conceived notions with experi- ments de novo as to the modes and principles of wheat sowing. AVhile on the subject of experi- ments in wheat sowing, on hoeing, and collateral subjects, we cannot help recording Mr. Pawlett's experiments in 1850 as illustrating the diiference beUveen drilling and hand-cast sowing. It turned { out, indeed, in favour of drilling, but not to any ! very great degree, taken with the fact of natural i difterences which will take i)lacein any field between j one i)art and another. 'The drilled corn gave a re- j turn of 34 bushels and 3 pecks per acre, and the I broadcast gave 33 bushels and 3 peck?. ! We think, notwithstanding the many points of i difiiculty which invariably present themselves in i wheat cultivation, that a drill depositing the seed '■ deeply, and care being taken, if possible, to sow in damp season, and to secure mechanical consolida- tion, is the most advantageous system for the bulk of soils. And this not so much for any other rea- ■ son as for the irregularity of seeding which often attends hand sowing, how well soever it may be ex- ecuted— as for the uniformity of depth and the me- chanical compression of the soil when sowing takes place in a damp state of the soil. THE EFFECTS OF THE NEW GOLD FIELDS ON AGRICULTURE. Wii have hitherto argued that the gold of Aus- tralia and California, even if the present large sup- ply should continue for fifty years, is not likely to afl'ect prices to a greater extent for the nineteenth century than they were affected by the sui)plies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — namely, from 20 to 30 per cent., that advance being spread over the whole period. Let us now assume a revolution in prices equal to that of the sixteenth century. This— though we admit the difficulty of obtaining anything approach- ing to accurate data— we estimate at 300 per cent. Let us consider what the effects of such an advance would be on the agricultural as well as other pro- ducing classes, and also on the consuming classes. Let us suppose the advance to be sudden : so that everybody on waking some fine morning should find everything v.^hich they had to dispose of worth three times as much money as when they turned into their beds the night before. What glorious times those would be for the farmers!— wheat up to 1203., barley 60s., and oats 50s. per qr. ; beef and mutton Is. 6d., and butter 2s. 6d. to 3s. the l)ound. What merry faces we should see at market tables ! Come, neighbours, let us drink to the continuance of these golden limes, in another bottle at the wine-di inking George, in another tumbler at the punch-drinking Lion, in another pint at the ale-drinking Chequers. How joyous all the country tradesmen v/ould be to find theix stock of goods tripled in value! How cheerful the commercial travellers would be, as they ran from ordinary to ordinary — plenty of orders, money abundant, " clients" cashing up to the day, no bad debts, no bankruptcies, no compositions of half-a-crown in the pound ! The war of classes would be at an end. The farmers, and the shop- keepers, and the commercial men who represent the manufacturing interest, would take their extra potations together to the continuance of such pros- perity. These feelings, however, would soon subside — sooner than the fumes of the liquor with which they were celebrated. They would subside as soon as the farmers began to buy groceries and clothing; end the grocers, tailors, shoemakers, and haberdashers began to pay their butcher and baker. The farmers and shopkeepers would find them- selves in precisely the relative same position as be- fore the advance took place. In exchanging their respective commodities with one another they would give the same quantity of one which they gave for the quantity of another which was its equivalent before the rise took place. Of the counters called "money," which serve as the medium of exchange, and measure the comparative value of the respective commodities, each would receive a greater number; but the difference which he received with one hand as a seller, he would jmy with the other as a buyer ; and at the year's end all would wonder how, with money so abundant, and with such high prices, they were none the richer. Then they would begin to learn the difl'erence between value and price. The value of a tiling we have already explained to be its power of purchasing other commodities. Its price is its power of purchasing money. The value of some commodities may, from various D 84 THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. causes, be raised or lowered with respect to otlieis, but the value of all cannot be raised. If the value of corn rises with respect to groceries and clothes, groceries and clothes must be reduced in value with respect to corn, and vice versa. On the other hand, money, from its abundance, may be so reduced in value, that a larger quantity of it must be given in exchange for every other commodity ; prices will then rise. A general rise of prices there may be, and has been. A general rise of values there can never be. We will suppose that the wages of la- bour rise in the same proportion as the prices of food, clothing, and other necessaries. We will also suppose an Act of Parliament to be passed enacting that, in consequence of the revolution in the value of money, three pounds sterling .-^hall be paid in discharge of all existing rents, debts, mortgages, and annuities, where the contract was to pay one pound, and that the same enactment shall be ex- tended to all existing taxes. It is very evident that under such circumstances all classes would be in the same position, as if no revolution in prices had taken place. Now this is, the point ultimately at- tained during a gradual rise of prices, whenever the advance is complete and prices become sta- tionary. While the advance is in progress some gain at the expense of others— producers gain at the expense of consumers. The greater portion of every community are both producers and con- sumers. They who consume as much as they pro- duce will be none the richer : they who consume more than they produce will grow poorer : they who produce more than they consume will grow richer. Producers will gain by the increased jirice of the raw material which takes place during the course of manufacture ; since this increase will be added to the ordinary profits of their business. Producers will gain as employers of labour at the expense of the labourer whose wages generally lag behind the advance in the necessaries of life. Such, at least, has been the case hitherto; but in the pre- sent instance there appears every i)rospect of the tables being turned, by the rage for emigration to the new gold fields. There appears unequivocal symptoms that, from this cause, we shall have two masters in search of one man, instead of two men, as heretofore, in search of one master. The la- bourer will thus be enabled to command wages not only pi-oportioned to the increased price of all he consumes, but even in advance of it. Producers gain also at the expense of those who are depen- dent on fixed money incomes. Debtors gain at the expense of creditors. The greater portion of the producing classes are debtors under fixed money engagements — carrying on their business, in part, with borrowed capital. Besides borrowed capital the farmer is a debtor for a fixed annual sum, as rent. During an advance of price, arising from the depreciation of money, these obligations can be dis- charged by the sale of a smaller quantity of pro- duce than was contemplated by the debtor and creditor at the time the debt was contracted. This, however, only afifects existing contracts. Capitalists, in making fresh loans, will demand a higher rate of interest; and as a period of advancing prices is always a period of speculation, capital will be in demand, and they will be able to make their own terms. With high prices, too, a larger capital is required to carry on the same amount of busi- ness, and there will be as much necessity for bor- rowed capital in the farmers' business as before. He who required to borrow £1,000 to take a farm of a given size, must borrow £3,000 if prices are tripled. The farmer who holds under a corn rent will find his rent rising with the rising price of pro- duce. The yearly tenant can have his rent raised on half a year's notice. The leasehold tenant will be liable, when his lease ex- pires, to an advance proportioned to the increased price of produce. Tithes, poor-rates, and other charges on the land will increase with increasing prices, though, in consequence of the tithe com- mutation, the titheowner will not reap the full be- nefit of it for seven years. But the burthen of the national debt, we are told, will be lightened by a reduction in the value of money, because the interest will be paid with a smaller amount of produce. Let us look at this a little closer. The public taxes are raised for two purposes— to pro- vide for the expenditure of the nation in its quality of a consumer, and to pay the interest on a debt incurred in past times. That proportion which it pays as a debtor may be called twenty-nine mil- lions ; while that which it pays as a consumer, for the support of the civil and military establishments, is about twenty-five miUions. As you diminish the former by an alteration in the value of money, you increase the latter. The agricultural share of the difference will be but trifling; and great suffer- ing will be inflicted on a numerous class little able to meet the change. Out of 280,869 holders of funded property, 256,858 receive dividends of less than £100 a year, whilst of these 236,653 are under £50 a j^ear. It must be conceded to those who consider an expanding currency a blessing, that industry is stimulated by a period of rising prices. At such a time the manufacturer gains, as we have al- ready said, by the increase which takes place in the price of the raw material during the course of manufacture ; and he thus adds the advantages of the speculator to the ordinary profit of his business. It is the same with the stock of goods in the ware- THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 35 houses of the merchant and sho^jkeeper. All pro- ducers, therefore, are eager to maintain an increased supply of goods, and all dealers to get into stock. The reverse takes place during a season of declining prices. The stimulus thus given to production is, how- ever, of a very evanescent character. It lasts only vvhile the diminution in the value of money is 111 progress. When prices again become stationary, it ceases ; and if we reflect on the privations which rising prices impose on the numerous class of small annuitants, from this diminished command over the necessaries of life, and over the comforts to which they have been accustomed ; and if we take into account the misery inflicted on the still- more numerous labouring class by the advance of prices preceding an increase of wages, we can scarcely doubt that the advantages of such a state of things are more than counterbalanced by their disadvantages. It appears to be the very essence of a standard or measure of value that it should be invariable. That immunity from sudden fluctuations in quan- tity which has been imposed by the laws of nature on the distribution of gold and silver in the earth has been the cause of their universal adoption as the best medium of exchange. Why should it be more desirable to have a variable pound sterling than a variable pound weight or an expanding inch ? Each of these would furnish a new way of paying old debts quite as efficacious as a sovereign diminishing year by year in value. These points are well worthy of consideration by the advocates of an expanding currency, whether metallic or non- metallic. If we appeal to experience, we shall find that during no period of our history were complaints of distress louder among all classes in England than while the great monetary revolution of the six- teenth century v/as in progress. Great as was that change, it took place so gradually that the advance of prices was scarcely perceptible, except by com- paring periods of from ten to twenty years with one another. It was attributed to every cause but the right ; and the grand object of the legislation of that age was to counteract the mysterious in- fluence which produced it, and to cause artificial cheapness by laws against enclosures, sheep-walks, regraters, and forestallers, and by penal enactments against those farmers " who, of their greedy and covetous minds, killed their calves as veal, instead of rearing them to be beeves." Passing by the in- vectives of Latimer against such delinquents, and against step-lords and rent-raiaers, all con- cluding with the celebrated climax in his sermon b-fore the House of Lords, " Verily, my masters, if things continue at this rate, I fear tli:it ere lung wc shall be constrained to pay for a pigge a pound." Leaving this, let us turn to a small book printed in 1581, under the title of " A Briefe Discourse touching the Coramonwealthe of this Realme of England, by W. S." — which was republished about the middle of the last century, as the work of Shakspeare, but there is conclusive evidence that he could not have been the author. This little volume consists of a dialogue between the repre- sentatives of the different classes of society as they existed at that time— a knight, or large landowner ; a husbandman, his tenant; a shopkeeper in a large country town, dignified with the name of a mer- chant ; a capper, or manufacturer of hats ; and a doctor of divinity. Each of these descants on the grievances of his own class, caused by the exces- sive " dearth" of all articles, both of home growth and imported from foreign parts ; and that, not- withstanding abundance of everything. Our agri- cultural friends will perhaps be surprised to find that a period when prices were continually advanc- ing, till they were tripled at least, was a time of agricultural distress. " These inclosures," says the farmer, " doe undoe us all ; for they make us pay dearer for our land that we occupy, and cause that we can have no land, in manner for our money, to put to tyllage, all to be taken up in pasture ; and where threescore persons or upwards had their livings, now one man with his cattle has all; which is not the least cause of former uprores ; for by these inclosures many doe lack lyvings, and are idle; moreover all things are so dear, that by their day wages they are not able to hve." The capper and the merchant— the Manchester men of those days— confirm their statements about the effects of this dearth on the labourers whom they employ. They describe most of the towns of England as going to decay, and join the tenant farmer in at- tacking the landlords. The knight stands by his order, and defends them in a way which completes the picture of agricultural distress, by representing the sufferings of the owner as well as the occupier of land under prices increasing threefold. " Since ye have plenty of all things, of corn and cattel (as yee say), then it should not seem this dearth should belong of these inclosures ; for it is not for scarce- ness of corn that yee have this dearth ; for (thanked be God) corne is good cheap, and so hath been these many years past. Then it cannot be the oc- casion of the dearth of cattel, for inclosure is the thing that nourisheth most of any other ; yet I confess there is a wonderful dearth of all things ; and that doe I, and all men of my sorte, feel most grief in, which have no way to sell, nor occupation to lyve by, but only our lands. For you all, with other artiliccrs, may save yourselves meetly well; D 2 36 THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. for as much as you, as all thinj^s are dearer, do aryse in the price of your wares and occupations accordingly." The farmer retorts that the land- lords raised their rents, and took farms and pas- tures into their own hands, which used formerly to yield a living to ])oor men like him. The merchant and capper confirm the charge, which the latter clenches with the declaration that it was '" never merry with poor craftsmen since gentlemen turned graziers." The knight admits the fact, but justifies it on the score of necessity. Landlords being, he says, the chief sufferers by the high prices they must either reduce their establishments or raise their rents. He paints in dismal colours the hardshi])s endured by many of the gentry who have departed out of the country of late ; driven to give up their households, or to keep either a chamber in London, or to wait on the court un- called, with a :nan or lackey after them, when they were formerly wont to keep a score of clean men in their houses, and twenty or twenty-four other per- sons besides, every day in the v/cek. ITc declares that "such of ns as still do abide in the country cannot, with two hundred a-year, keep that we might have done with two hundred marks sixteen years ago." Since they could not raise the rent of their lands which were let on lease, they were forced to keep in their own hands such as fell in, or to purchase some farm of other men's lands, and to .store it with sheep and cattle. The clergy- man being appealed to, as to the cause of tliis dearth, seeing all things were so i)lentiful, wisely lays it down as a " thing to be mused upon, whether if the husbandman were forced to abate the 'prices of his stuff, this dearth would be amended : if he should be commanded, for instance, to sell his wheat at 8d. the bushel, rye at 6d., barley at 4d., his pig and goose at 4d., his hen at id., and his wool at a mark a todd, the landlord to return to his old rent, would goods, in that case, from beyond seas be brought as good and cheap after the same rate ? A man would think yes; for example, if they now sell a yard of velvet for 20s. or 228., and jiay that for a todd of wool, were it not as good for them to sell the velve: for a mark a yard, so they had a todd of wool for a mark ?" He then discourses very amiably on the subject of money, and resolves the origin of the increased prices to the alteration in its value ; and accounts for the preference given to sliecp farming over tillage, by the higher com- ])arative price of wool than of corn, which he traces to the freedom of export permitted to the former, while tlie export of the latter was too much re- stricted ; and then argues that by giving equal liberty to both, the balance would be preserved, notwithstanding inclosures, since the farmer would chang from corn to sheep, and from sheep to corn, as he found one or the other the niosi; pro- fitable. This is a hint well worth the consideration of the farmer at the ])resent day, when the value of wheat is so low compared with that of other descri))tions of agricultural produce, and when sheep and dairying do not involve the necessity for permanent pasture. The chief moral, however, which we would draw from the preceding dialogue is, that California and Australia, should they cause as great a revolution in prices cs marked the sixteenth century — of which there is no probability — will furnish no remedy either to the owners or the occupiers of land for agricultural distress. The farmers have been led by their political friends in pursuit of too many Will-o'-the-Wisps already; let them not be de- luded into the pursuit of any more. Let them re- gard present prices as permanent, and not give a farthing more of money rent for land which they may be about to take than its present value. Let tliem not cease — we do not say to ask — but to de- mand l)o]d]y, from their landlords, a reduction of existmg rents proportionate to present prices, for they arejustly entitled to it. Will California and Australia continue to yield gold at the present rate for the next fifty years ? is a question which must be discussed on geological principles. It depends in a great measure on the fact, whether the gold is found there under conditions different from those of other gold fields which have been exhausted more or less com])letely, in proportion to the time during which they have been worked, or the num- bers em])loyed upon them. The large quantity of gold derived in a short time from the new gold fields, where we admit that the auriferous deposits exceed the average richness, have led many to assert that the observations of our best geologists, respecting the state in which gold is found, and its general scarcity, have been falsified by facts. They who make this assertion forget the numbers and ener- gies of those engaged in gathering the golden harvest. They evidently know nothing of the rocks in which gold is found, either in California or Australia. They belong ta that class who dis- dain to study natural facts, and who veil their ignorance under the specious name of being practical. They belong to a body who think that not gold alone, but coal, and every other useful mineral and metal, instead of being limited to cer- tain rocks, may be looked for with success any- where and everywhere. In the matter of coal, this belief has led many landowners and farmers into expensive trials, which have cost collectively hundreds of thousands of jiounds, in situations where the slightest knowledge of the elements of geology would have prevented this absurd waste of THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 37 money. But our present object is gold. We >e the amount of evil from mismanaging it. Hence was good ploughing among the Israelites a very ticklish and dexterous affair. The ploughman needed to exercise many of the same attentions which are requisite in Britain. He required, also, to conduct his operations with sj)ecial reference to the equal distribution of the rain and irrigation waters ; and he was all the more bound to make regular depths, and breadths, and parallels in the furrow, that his work was final, and could not, like that of a British ploughman, be modified or amended by subsequent operations. He required, in particular, to i)lough strictly in line, to keep firm hold of the handle, to lean forward to the beam, and to look keenly and constantly on the coulter, in order that every part of every furrow might be straight and rmiform. Whoever did otherwise was no fit ploughman in the land of Israel, and might, by his slovenliness or his errors, do tenfold more mischief than all his labour was worth. How beautiful, then, was our Lord's allusion, and how forcibly must it have struck the mind of every Jew — " No man, having j)ut his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God !" The tilling of the ground was the type of all the routine duty of re- ligion : the " peculiar people," the nation of agri- culturists, whose code of agrarian law came to them from the Most High, were the type of the Christian Church ; and " the promised land," which they held by direct tenure from Heaven, and which was maintained in equal distribution among all their families by a jubilee institution, was a type of the Christian dispensation, or reign of the gospel, or " kingdom of God." And, as no man was a pro- fitable or proper member of the Hebrew common- wealth who did not take earnestly to the plough, and work it dexterously, so no man is a worthy or true subject of the Christian economy, who does not go into its duties with all his heart, and make them the earnest aim and end of his existence. Ploughing out of line— a thing which was certain to be done when any man " put his hand to the plough, and looked back" — was in such bad re- pute, even among the Romans, that the Latin ex- pression for it (delirarc) came eventually to signify to dote, or rave, and, in fact, is the etymon of our own word delirious. The Roman ploughs, in the time of Christ, had accjuired much variety, and become well adapted to the peculiarities of Italian tillage, and were pro- bably not unknown to the Jews. Cato mentions two— the Romanicum, proper for stiff soil, and the Campanicum, proper for light soil. Varro de- 46 THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. scribes one, with seemingly two moukl-boaids, which was used for turning in seed. Pliny speaks of adjusting or modifying one plough-frame to different uses, Palladius mentions a simple plough and an eared one, and says that the latter was em- l)loyed on low flat land for laying up sown corn on a higher furrow, in order that it might not be in- jured by stagnant water in winter. " It is i)roba- ble," said the Rev. Adam Dickson, in his work on the " Husbandry of the Ancients," in 17S8, " that I shall be considered as very partial to the ancients, if I do not allow that the moderns excel them in the construction of their j^loughs. We are not, indeed, so well acquainted with the construction of the ancient ploughs as to make a just comparison. I shall only observe that, from the few passages in the rustic author's concerning them, it appears that the ancients had all the different kinds of ploughs that we have at present in Europe, though perhaps not so exactly constructed. They had ploughs without mould-boards, and ploughs with mould- boards ; they had ploughs without coulters, and ploughs with coulters ; they had ploughs without wheels, and ploughs with wheels ; they had broad- pointed shares, and narrow-pointed shares ; they even had, what I ha\'e not as yet met with amongst the moderns, shares not only with sharp sides and points, but also with high raised cutting tops. Were we well acquainted with the constructions of all these, perhaps it would be found that the im- provements made by the moderns in this article are not so great as many persons are apt to ima- gine." These *' ancient" ploughs were ancient only in comparison with our times, and were modern in comparison with the times of the early Israelites. All were Roman ; and they contrast as strongly to the simple ploughs of the Israelites as the entire circle of the Roman agriculture contrasts to the en- tire circle of the Israelitish agriculture. Yet the kind and conditions of the tillage by them, as well as the kind and conditions of that done by the Israehtish ploughs, are possibly essential to a full illustration of some of the agricultural allusions of the New Testament. They were fitted for stubborn work, and went through it sternly, and yet sometimes failed to maintain fertility, and had to be aided, or superseded, after a very few years, by the process of burning. Hence, perhaps, the statement, " The earth which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned." The Roman ploughs too, though so various in character and complex in structure, owed no mean degree of their power to the selec- tion and preparation of the materials out of which they were made. Virgil's well-known recipe for manufacturing them illustrates the niceties of their fabrication, and suggests how very much skill and artificership were ])robab]y employed in making the very simplest of the ancient ploughs : — Form'd for the crooked plough, by force subdued. Bend the tough elm, yet green amid the wood ; Beyond eight feet in length the beam extend. With double back the pointed s^hare defend. Double the eai'th-boards that the glebe divide, And cast the furrow'd ridge on either side ; But light the polish'd yoke of linden bough. And light the beechen staff that turns the plough ; These long suspend where smoke their strength explores. And seasons into use, and binds their pores." Any account of the intrinsic qualities or domes- ticated habits of the animals of the farm, does not properly belong to a notice of the work of til- lage. Yet we must remark on the fact that the only beasts of draught used by the Israelites were bullocks and ses. This startles many Britons, and appears to some of them ludicrous, and to others contemptible. But, even at the present hour, and amid the entirely altered circumstances of European agriculture, horses are not everywhere the best draught animals. Many a consideration, in many a place, makes oxen preferable — such as their cheapness, their permanency of price, their comparative freedom from disease, their available- ness for the shambles, the perfectness of their adaptation to rural life, their freedom from every association of pomp and war, the simplicity of their harness, the graminivorousness of their appetite, and the abundance of pasturage or forage ; and these considerations, together with some ideas of typical accordance with the prefigurative ordinances of the Mosaic religion, gave most decisive verdict in fa- vour of the Israelitish bullocks. Some of the same reasons, or similar ones, were scarcely less in favour of the asses. Both the bullocks, and the asses too, particularly the latter, were of far finer kinds than ours — less affected by the climate, more do- cile in disposition, and far better suited to the yoke. But there were then no heavy draught-horses hke ours : and such horses as could be had resembled the modern Arabs and barbs, and snorted and pawed for war. The same benignity and wisdom which pervaded all the beautiful peculiar system of the Hebrew commonwealth, and adapted every law and observance to the peaceful, rural, religious circumstances of the people, is clearly ajjparent in the farm-field use of the bullock and the ass, and in the rigid prohibition of the horse. The bullock and the ass were of such different size, and power, and disposition, that they could not profitably pull together in one team ; and the divine law looked so closely to the interests of every man who might be inadvertent to this as to say, THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 47 " Thou shalt not plough with a IjiiUock and an ass together." Bullocks were subject to impulses of fury, and asses to fits of stubbornnoss, though in a much less degree than with us, and they greatly complicated the ploughman's labours by their occa- sional unsteadiness. But any very turbulent bul- lock was made easily manageable by means of a hook of iron in his nostril, or a ling of rope on his lip, with an attached cord to check or jerk it, and to make it i)lay on his respiration. Hence the metajjhor in the divine denunciation against Sen- nacherib, '• Because they rage against me, and thy tumult is come up unto mine ears ; therefore I will put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou earnest." A long stafi" or pole, too, was carried by the ploughman, or suspended on the plough, for goading the cattle, and this terminated in a sharp iron spike, and was capable of being used in war as a spear. Hence do we read that " Shamgar, the sou of Anath, slew of the Philistines aix hundred men with an ox-goad, and also delivered Israel." POTATO DISEASE The Legislature of Massachusetts^ in the year 1S51, oflered a prize of 10,000 d. to any one who should satisfy the Governor and Council that, by a test of at least five successive years, he had disco- vered a sure remedy for the potato rot. Several communications have been received on the subject, which are pubUshed by the authority of the legis- lature, of which we publish the following summary by the Hon. Amasa Walker, Secretary of State : — Although these communications may not furnish any perfect cure or preventive of the potato disease, yet they agree in so many important points, and offer so many valuable hints, relating to the nature, cultivation, preservation, and improvement of the potato, that they cannot fail to be of great public utility. The similarity of views expressed by the most intelligenced writers, relating to the nature, cultivation, disease, and cure of the potato, is truly remarkable, and we think auspicious. Among the ])rincipal points, relating to which there is a gene- ral concurrence, are the following : — Soundness and Vitality of the Seed. — Renewing the seed from the ball of healtliy vigorous plants every few years, even resorting to the native place in South America, and taking the seed from the wild potato, is considered important. When pota- toes are to be raised from the tuber, sound, healthy, whole potatoes are i-ecommended for planting. Cut- ting potatoes is decidedly condemned. Anything which impairs the vitality of the seed increases the liability to disease. Quality or kind of Soil — A dry, light, loose, warm soil is considered necessary to the soundness and health of the vegetable, as well as to its rich- ness and flavour, the latter depending Cjuite as much on tlie quality of soil as on the variety of seed. A wet, heavy, compact soil, directly pro- motes the disorder. Far up on the side of a moun- tain or hill is a favourable location for the growth of the potato ; and new land contains more of the qualities requisite for its nourishment and health than old or worn out soils. Influence of Atmosphere. — Potatoes should be as little exposed to the air as conveniently may be. Their natural place is under ground. By too much exposure they become poisoned, and turn green. Some recommend depositing them for the wnter in holes under ground in a dry soil ; or if kept in a cellar, to preserve them dry, in small quantities, in sand ; and to keep them cool. Keeping large quantities in a body in the cellar is by some sup- posed to promote heat and putrefaction. Planting in the fall is recommended by some, as potatoes left in the field over winter are observed to come forward earlier in the spring, to grow more vigor- ously, to get ripe earlier and before the blighting rains of August, and to be more sound, fair, and healthy. Manures. — All antijiutrescents, such as lime, wood-ashes, pulverized charcoal, plaster, salt, ni- trogen, &c., are believed to contribute directly to the health of the potato, as well as to add to its richness and flavour ; and, of course, to prevent putrefaction and disease Of other manures, well rotted compost is preferred. Stable manure is too strong and heating, and produces ill-flavoured, un- healthy potatoes, and is decidedly condemned. Disease, Contarjion, Old Acje, and Death. — These are common to vegetables as well as to animals. All are liable to disease, some more, some less, according to circumstances, predisposing causes, and preventive means. Some vegetable diseases are believed to be contagious. The pre- sent disease is thought by many to be of that class. One field of potatoes is liable to take the disorder from another field. Potatoes are predisposed to disease by bad cultivation, old age, bad soil, bad manures, sudden changes of weather, warm rains, &c. Ravages of Insects, Fungi, Syc. — The best writers consider the ravages of insects as at most but a predisposing cause, rendering the potato more liable to disease by enfeebling the plant. By many writers insects are considered as remotely affecting j the potato ; by others, as having no effect at all. ' The fungus on ])otatoes is not the cause of the rot. j It finds the potato, previously diseased, a fit sub- j ject for its operation. j The general conclusions to which the facts pre- ! sented in these various communications seem to ! lead us, are — i 1 . That the disease has a striking resemblance to the cholera, and probal)ly exists in the atmosphere. 2. That it is doubtful whether any specific cure has been, or ever will be, discovered ; but 48 THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 3. As in cholera, certain j)revenlives are well ascertained, by the application of which the liabilities to disease maybe greatly lessened. 4. That by obtaining the soundest seed, by planting in the most favourable soils, and by using the most suitable manures, we may have a good degree of confidence in the successful cultivation of this useful vegetable. 5. That we may expect that, like the cholera, the potato rot will become less and less formidable from year to jear, and eventually subside into a mild and manageable ejjidemic, if that term may be used in such a connexion. The several points on which tliere is an unanimity of opinion are worthy the especial attention of far- mers. By a careful selection of seed, and locality, and particular reference to the kind of manure used, very much of this disease may be avoided. If facts like the above, well substantiated by experiments in all sections of the country, could be presented to the entire mass of farmers, and they would govern their modes of culture by rules so established, we cannot well estimate the increase which would re- sult in a single year in a crop so extensively culti- vated as the potato. THE CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS OF WOOL.-INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF THE LATE INCESSANT RAINS ON THE HEALTH OF SHEEP. Wool is one of the best paying articles of the jjresent day which the farmer has to dispose of, and it is more than probable that this may be the case for some years to come, as it cannot be in- creased but by a slow and gradual ]irocess ; and the mere time which is necessary to do this may be considerable ; for there are checks, whenever life is concerned, which always jirevent illimitable extension of individual species. Under these cir- cumstances, it cannot be unimportant for us to reflect a little u])on the natural character of the material suljmitted for consideration. Wool chemically consists of 98 parts of organic matter, including suljjhur, which is chiefly driven ofl'by burning, and 2 per cent, of ash. The organic part is composed of the following elements : — Carbon 50.65 Hydrogen 7.03 Nitrogen 17.71 Sulphur combined with oxygen .... 24.61 100 Van Laer made the ash to contain : Soluble chlorides and sulphates 0.51 Oxide of iron 0.39 I'hospliute and suljiliatc of lime, jdios- phatc of magnesia, and silica 0.20 1.1 Now, though there is .some difierence between this and the average per-centage of ash found in the generality of wools, yet it is abundantly sig- nificant of the fact that a vast quantitij of sulphur is necessarrj to the formation ofvwol — the sulphur, first of all, which unites with the oxygen in the organic portion ; that which unites with the lime, and other alkalies of the ash, making the whole a considerable amount — not less, perhaps, than six per cent., if not a greater proportion. Hair, which nearly resembles wool in its chemical com- position, contains five per cent, besides the sulphate of the ash. Hence, assuming an acre of land to carry ten sheep the year round, including turnips, and these to produce 80 lbs. of wool, they will an- nually withdraw from the soil 4.8 per cent, of sul- j)hur. Bui, taking the whole at five per cent, only of the fleece, at least five millions of pounds of sulphur are taken from the soil of Great Britain. These united with oxygen in the shape of sulphuric acid, v/il! be equal to S,300,000lbs. of that material. So much for the chemical constituents of wool, showing that it absorbs nitrogen and sulphur from the soil, as well as phosphorus ; and therefore those who expect to obtain a projjcr quantity of wool from their soil — in other words, must give that animal the power to secrete this from the food on which it feeds — should take care to supply it. Let this be deficient, and an immediate deterioration in quantity or quality of the wool or hair will take place, llie same precisely haj)pens when the lambs absorb the vivifying material in the shape of the milk they extract. And, indeed, all ewes which have nourished lambs are more or less deficient. The wool is nature's covering of the skin. The hair of the hot climate, of which the sheep was most probably an early denizen, is by colder climate, con- verted into a substance softer, more curly, and better suited to resist the cold, being a slow conductor of heat. Mandeprives the sheep of this coveringat a sea- son when the animal can well spare it, and converts it into clothing for himself ; while the sheep in summer, by the growth of its wool, has provided for it another coat against the chills of the succeed- ing winter. The wool, like the hair of a human being, is not at all unlike a plant. Grown in a re- ceptacle for it, to which nourishment is conveyed by a great number of vessels, and so supplied with the means of support. In its progess from its roots to the surface it passes through that which is abundant in all healthy animals, especially al)out the breast and shoulders, but really covering the entire animal in the finest wool-producing breeds : THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 49 this is an alkaline material, composed of the car- bonates of potash principallj', and mixed with a little animal oil. Hence it is a real soap ; and this is one of the elements of sheep-washing — assisting any stream of soft water to cleanse the dirtiest fleece, if it only be not stained, which even soap will sometimes not remove. The use of this, either in the animal economy or in the formation of the wool, is not yet decidedly understood, but probably it is one of the means by which it is lubricated, kept from matting or felt- ing, and preserved in a soft and pliable as well as fine condition. AVe see this somewhat exemplified in the fact of those sheep which have the largest amount of yolk — the Merinos— having the finest wool; and also those animals which have suffered from fever, or other similar diseases, and where the yolk is thus dried vip, the fleece will become a perfect felt, called cotting. Furthermore, the soils on which sheep feed, should have plenty of alkaline materials. How far the specific potash may be necessary we will not pre- tend to say. The animals may in their economy have the power of substituting one alkah for an- other, as we are persuaded plants have, between some alkalies — hme, for instance, and magnesia, and probably potash and soda. But more extensive analyses of wool ought to be made ; and we would suggest it to be a very proper subject to investigate by the Royal Agricultural Society of England and the [Highland and Agricultural Society of Scot- land, by their chemists, Professors Way and Anderson. The flockmaster should always consider the ob- ject of his operations. He has to produce both wool and mutton. Wool alone will not pay, and possibly mutton-producing will not. The re- muneration is to be sought between the efForts of the two put together. But the breeder must be- ware lest either be altogether sacrificed to the other. Wool has certainly given way to mutton in general estimation and practice ; and the time is probably come when a little reverse of this ought to take place. Whenever, if it should arise, that the luxu- rious habits of the people of this country will make fine wool pay, irrespective of mutton, the Merinos will become the breed in general cultivation. The incessant rains which have fallen during the last six weeks have had a serious effect upon sheep fed on turnips, and we hardly remember a season when the skill of the farmer has been more required to keep them in health, not to say in a fattening condition. The sheep is an animal which cannot bear ex- posure to wet. To know this, it is only necessary to see the caution and care with which they select a clean place when walking, and how it requires ab- solute force to induce them to step into wet or into dirt. But on the fleece the rain has by far the most injurious influence. The yolk, consisting of ole- aginous and alkaline mixtures, washes out, and thus the vital energies arc to be set at work to re- place this loss, in lieu of growing fat and muscle ; while the fleece, instead of being a cold-repeller, is literally a " wet blanket," and thus converted into a source of evaporation and waste of animal heat. The wonder therefore ceases to be whether they can thrive and fatten when on turnips, but whether their vital powers are sufficient to over- come this terrible tax upon the nature of their con- stitution. Nor is this all. The sheep, though a close biter, is a clean animal ; but in the condition in which the soil and turnips have been for the last few weeks, a clean bite has been impossible, and many sheep have suffered and died from irritation and inflammatory action, if not from inflammation of the bowels. Now the only remedy for this is one which most light-land farmers are utterly incapable of putting into practice : that is, taking off the sheep from the arable land altogether, and carting turnips to the grass, so as to keep the feet free from dirt as much as possible, and the animal as clean as circum- stances will admit of. But the hght-land farmer wants consolidation and treading as well as the droppings on the soil, or all other crops must be sacrificed, and hence he must more or less run the risk of loss or damage to his stock ; and it is a serious question for consideration what he can do to counteract the effects of such unfavourable weather. Mr. Mechi would suggest, doubtless, board feed- ing, and in such a season as this might have some- thing to boast of, which, however, would not be likely to apply in any other. Lord Bathurst would claim a vast superioiity for his stall-feeding of sheep under these circumstances ; and it may be safely granted that shelter from wet is an impor- tant consideration ; but these cannot be put into practice with any degree of advantage to the flock- master in general. The farmer's first object is clearly to keep the animals alive— this is a question antecedent to all profit. There can be no doubt but the shcing of the turnips and feeding in troughs is one of the best modes of clean and so far healthy feeding. It not only saves labour in mastication and search for their food, but preserves it free from the aroma of the exudations of the skin and the fsecal matter of the animal, and may be expected to be far more free from sand than those which are trodden upon SQ THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. and fouled both by the feet and what falls from the animals. Another precaution is to afford a drier bed. This is not very easy. To erect temporary sheds for large flocks of sheep is out of the question, and to recommend it would be utterly useless; but it is easy to take a few cart-loads of material per day. Straw being a bad conductor of heat will retain much of it in the animals' systems, which the damp earth uncovered will often absorb ; while, sup- plied dry day after day, it will absorb the moisture from their woolly backs, and tend much to pre- serve them in health. Another excellent addition is the daily supply of a small quantity of fine dry sweet hay. The bene- ficial effects of this on the system of the animals, es- pecially the stomach, consist in affording the bitter principle, and so supplying the means of healthy action in the animals' internal assimilative organs. Upon the same principle salt is a valuable addi- tion. It is a question whether salt at all assists the animal to fatten : but as the question is how shall they live, and not how rapidly they b\\^\\ fatten, it becomes an imperative condiment. Some may die after all ; but it is a precaution by no means unwise to adopt, in relation to the trying effects of the atmosphere. There are, doubtless, cases where the salt is found to have no beneficial tendency, especially when added to the food. This is not what we intend. The rock salt, if covered over by a slight roof to protect it from the dropping rain, is by no means a bad mode of affording this material ; and it has at least this recommendation, that the ani- mals can take or reject it as they choose, and thus have that supply which nature instinctively de- mands. In a state of wildness the Angola, or wild sheep, excavates the earth to a considerable depth to obtain it ; as does the antelope, who visits the salt springs to search for it, and to feed on its sahne herbage. The North American animals are kept in a state of domestication almost exclusively by the use of salt, for they will be tamed by a supply of that material more than by all other processes together. Moreover, in very wet weather the sheep may be temporarily removed from the arable land alto- gether, and have afforded to them a night's comfort on the old grass. This will at least invigorate them, and enable them the better to resist the evil influ- ences of such a season as the present. Possibly the half corrujjt state of some of the turnips will but assist the injurious effects of the rain ; and we know of no mode so likely to obviate that injury also, as the supply ad libitum of a quantity of salt. LONDON FARMER'S CLUB THE ECONOMY OF FARMING. The usual monthly meeting took place on Tuesday, Dec. 10, at the Club Rooms, Bridge-street, Blackfriars— Mr. W. Bemiett in the chair. Subject for discussion, " The Economy of Farming." The Chairman, in opening the proceedings, said the subject they were about to enter upon derived additional importance from the fact that farmers were now thrown upon their own resources (Hear, hear). In such a state of things it was most important that they should obtain as much information as possible, and he had no doubt the question would be discussed with that calm- ness and propriety which had always characterized their proceedings. Mr. Baker, of Writtle, then rose to introduce the subject. He said :— The economy of farming consists of the well-ordering and arraiigiug the prcceedings of farm management, or, in other words, the doing everything at the proper time and in the proper manner; the carrying out every proceeding and opera- tion with the strictest economy to ensure snecess ; and the adopting and applying every new discovery that will affect the better management of the farm, and will conduce to the greatest return at the least risk and outlay. The farmer who cultivates to obtain a livehhood and profit by his occupation, ought to combine intelligence, activity, and perseverance. On his practical experience will his success he based. His intel- ligence will enable him to select and apply experiments in fairaing with caution and sagacity. With these qualifications and a love of his profession, aided by the assistance of suffi- cient capital, he will hardly fail of snecess. But as the first power of a machine puts the whole machinery in motion, so it must ever be with the farmer who undertakes the carrying out of the details of agriculture. Upon the amount of power will depend the velocity ; upon the velocity will depend the amount of labour executed ; and upon the execution of that labour in a judicious and able manner, will depend the result — this, however, upon the supposition that all other things are equal. But the farmer has a peculiar material to work upon. "What is applied to-day is realized months or years in advance. The effect of climate, weather, and casualties of seasons may acce- lerate or thwart his endeavours to such an extent as either to elevate him to prosperity or thrust liim into adversity. Hence it frequently hapf ens that two persons of similar habits and experience finish their career with very different results. And although it does fo'low that in proportion as we apply our talents so will be the increase, "God helps them that help themselves" is frequently quoted, or in the words of Tusser — " Man does his best, God gives the rest," — yet the cultivator of the soil ought never to forget that it is man who sows, but God who giveth the increase. Without THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 51 his blessing it is vain to " rise up early, or to late talic rest." The winged messengers of destruction frequently overtake him when he fcudly anticipates that his hopes arc ahout to be rea- lized : blight and mildew, fire and hail, murrain and disease, follow in such quick succession, that when, fond man, he thinks his prospect brightening, " a frost, a chilling frost o'crtakes him, and nips them iu the bud." It will, therefore, net be out of place at this portion of my address to allude to the neces- sity of guarding against such visitations as one point of eco- nomy deserving especial notice, to say nothing of accident. The blast from heaven or the brand of the incendiary may in one short hour reduce a farmer from opulence to beggary ; the destruction from hail and tempest may destroy the harvest of whole districts ; and the murrain and pleuro pneumonia among cattle, the rot and small-pox among sheep, or the nifluenza or furr among horses, may sweep away the whole or part of either description of live stock. And yet, with all this casualty and chance, how few avail themselves of the present oppor- tunities of insurance ! Tiie various insurance offices established for that purpose testify, and it is notorious that all those es- tablished and open for the insurance of horses, cattle, and sLeep, hardly obtain encouragement, although the rates of premium are really low ; and iu those who have all their ca- pital embarked iu such " frail merchandize, " it is almost madness to run the risk for a single moment, seeing how much their future position and happiness depend upon the venture. Now, here, I hope, I shall be pardoned if I make a slight digression from that which applies to the economy of farramg, to that which comprises the economy of life. Perhaps there is no other class of men, except those who carry on their occu- pation upon the wide sea, who are really so dependent upon fortune as the farmer. To-day he may be in possession of considerable capital, embarked or floating in the concern in which he is, to all appearance, safely engaged ; to-morrow, or in a few years at furthest, all his hopes nioy be destroyed, all hia capital exhausted, and himself and family reduced to beggary or the union-house. Where will then be found the helping hand? Charity, let it be recollected, is cold ; and with 8ham.e I say it, farmers are not exempt from finding it cold. I have reason to know that powerful, bat vain appeals are frequently made, through the medium of the press, to the feel- ings of the public, in behalf of farmers who have fallen into decay. In a recent instance, when a farmer who was aged had broken a limb, having too a blind daughter, and a wife and children, all dependent upon him, was sold up for arrears of rent and tythe, and became positively destitute of a shilling, a public appeal was made ; and, although, the most respectable references were given as to the character of the family,and the ap- plication of the funds, the subscriptions were onlyfive innumber, consisting of three half-sovereigns and two half-crowns. Ought such things to be, in a highly civilized country, that a class so extensive in numbers, so great in influence, and I had almost said so powerful in wealth, have no barrier interposed betwixt the utmost prosperity or the most abject poverty, when by a small annual contribution from each, such results as I have de- scribed might be prevented ? Two classes of insurers might be accepted, and two rates of remuneration fixed, to provide against the case of adversity overtaking them or their families, and, without entering into detail, I may say that by the ap- plication of £1 per annum from each individual all that is re- quired might b3 ensured. It will be recollected that some time since a subscription was raised for the purpose of pre- senting a testimcnial of the esteem of the farming classes towards the Duke of Eichmond, and which that nobleman with the utmost generosity recommended the farmers to apply towards the establishment of a fund for the purposes I have alluded to. Will the farmers of England, after such a noble example, suffer themselves still to be pointed at as the most heedless and helpless class in existence, especially when their own comfort and happiness is at stake? So far I have been speaking upon the economy of farming with regard to the well ordering of those things that will ensure the farmer, to a certain extent, against risk and loss. I will now, so far as the limits allowed me will admit, enter upon such points as have been, and are still to a certain extent, mooted points in con- nection with farming ; and in the outset I leg to be under- stood that I shall treat every subject upon the principles of tenant farming. The point to be considered is, how the farmer may produce the largest return proportionate to the outlay and risk. This is the very germ of the question ; although many persons look upon the whole affair as an experiment, and will argue that in proportion to the outlay will be the return. I deny the proposition in toto. I say that in proportion as the outlay iijudicwiisly made will be the return; bearing in mind that in proportion as we endeavour to extract a greater amount of produce from the soil, does the expense become increased, and the risk greater. Nature has set her limits up to a certain point : she may be led, but she can rarely be forced. To produce root crops a soil can scarcely be too rich. To produce grain crops the case may be otherwise, as it is only necessary to produce the crop of such strength that an excess of straw will not endanger success. Upon this disposition of management much depends, and in it really consists the economy of farming. The true object is to pro- duce equally good crops upon every field ; and unless this be partially attained, but little profit will be found to result in the end. How frequently do we observe upon large farms that whilst one moiety of the crops yields a fair profit, the othermoiety does not meet the expenses incurred in production? This is the point to be obviated, and the first endeavour of the cul- tivator should be to raise the poorest portion of the occupation to a level with the richest, rather than to throw additional ex- penditure upon the latter to the entire neglect of the former. Draining is now considered the first operation necessary upon land requiring it. Every one admits its necessity and utility at the same time. Every one weighs the expensiveness of carrying out the c peratiou. In some districts landlords undertake the draining wholly or in part themselves, and treat the cost as an investment ; and, indeed, this is the only mode by which it can be carried out most beneficially to both landlord and tenant ; for, unless the latter is guarded by a lease, or a provisional agreement to repay him the investment he has made, in proportion as it may be unexhausted at the termination of his occupancy, it will be too much to expect that he will apply it in such a manner as to become beneficial to the extent it deserves. Much has been said about perma- nent draining. I believe that no such description of draining has ever been, or ever will be, discovered. Such are the con- tingencies to which the best systems of drainage are exposed, that, however carefully the operation may be performed upon most desciiptiona of soil, a few years will terminate their utility cither altogether or in part. The elfeet of roots of trees, of various descriptions of vegetables, of several species of plants, (;f tie brfsk?ge