i ^1 EUROPEAN AGRICULTUEE AND RURAL ECONOMY FROM PERSONAL OBSERVATION. HENRY COLMAN, HONOKARY MEMBER OF THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND, OF THE NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF FRANCE, AND OF THE NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES. " For, in all things whatever, the mind is the most valuable and the most important; and in this scale the whole of agriculture is in a natural and just order ; the beast is an informing principle to the plough and cart, the laborer is as reason to the beast, and the farmer is as a thinking and presiding principle to the laborer."' — Burke. YOL. I. X FOURTH EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS. BOSTON: PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & COMPANY. NEW YORK : CHARLES M. SAXTON. rillLADELPHIA : THOMAS, COWrERTinVAIT & CO. BALTIMORE: GUSHING U BROTHER. CHARLESTON, S. C: m'cARTEK & ALLEN. CINCINNATI : H. W. DERBY t CO. BUFFALO : G. H. DERBY k. CO. 1851. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by HENRY COLMAN, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. STEREOTYPEB AT THE BOSTON TYPE AND STI<'rEOTYPE FOUNDRY. WKIGHT AND HASTy S STEAM PllESS. / 3^6 INDEX, OR TABLE OF CONTENTS. VOL. I. FAOB. Names of Subscribers ix Preface to First Edition xxi Preface to Second Edition xxv FIRST REPORT. I. General Facts and Considerations 1 II. Particular Objects of Inquiry 4 III. Science and Agriculture 6 IV. English Agriculture 10 V. English Capital 13 VI. General Appearance of the Countr}' 16 VII. Hedges and Enclosures 18 VIII. Iron and Sunken Fences 20 IX. The English Parks 21 X. Ornamental Shrubs and Flowers 29 XI. Climate of England 31 XII. Agricultural Population 34 1. The Landlords ; Rents ; and Taxes 34 2. The Farmers 38 3. The Agricultural Laborers 39 Xin. Allotment System 73 SECOND REPORT. XIII. Allotment System, (continued.) 81 XIV. Quantity of Seed 109 XV. Steeping Seeds 114 XVI. Spade Husbandry 122 VOL. I. a ^d' IV INDEX. TAGE X Vll. Condition of the Laborers 133 XVIII. Progress of Agriculture, compared witli other Pursuits 144 XIX. Actual Improvements in English Agriculture 148 1. Draining, Irrigation, and Warping 148 2. Live Stock and Vegetables 150 3. Agricultural Implements 150 4. Application of Steam to Agriculture 151 5. Increased Production 159 6. Royal Agricultural Society 160 7. Agricultural Society of Scotland 16G XX. Relation of Landlord and Tenant 167 XXI. Game and the Game Laws 173 XXII. The Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland 175 XXIII. Model Farm, and Agricultural School 179 XXIV. Dublin Botanical Garden 18(5 THIRD REPORT. XXV. Agricultural Education 189 1. Glasnevin Agricultural School 19G 2. Templemoyle Agricultural School 203 3. Brookfield Agricultural School 210 4. Lame School 216 5. School at Ealing oig 6. Agricultural College at Cirencester 219 XXVI. General Views of Agricultural Education 220 XXVII. Influence of Knowledge upon Agriculture 223 XXVIIL Sciences to be taught 225 XXIX. Chemical Science 226 XXX. Analysis of Soils 228 Soils of Heaths 229 XXXL Natural Science 237 XXXII. Model Farm 239 XXXIII. Experimental Farm 240 XXXIV. Economical Arrangements at the Agricultural College 240 XXXV. Plan of an Agricultural Institution for tlie United States. ...244 XXXVI. Elevation of Agriculture as a Pursuit and a Profession 248 XXXVII. Rural Manners in England 251 XXXVIII. A Pencil Sketch 2.52 XXXIX. Life in the Country 256 fXDEX. V PAGE XL. Veterinary College 257 XLI. Museum of Economic Geology 263 XLII. Chemical Agricultural Association in Scotland 265 XLIII. Chemical Agricultural Lectures 267 XLIV. Employment of Agriculturists 268 XLV. Guano 270 FOURTH REPORT. XLVL XLVn. XLVIII. XLIX. L. LL LII. LIII. LIV. LV. LVI. General Considerations 285 Agriculture as a Commercial Pursuit. 294 Markets. Cattle Markets 297 Falkirk Tryst 29'J The Ballinasloe Fair 300 The Galway Fair 301 1. Temperance in Ireland 301 2. The Galway Women 302 Smithfield, London • 304 1. Forms of Business in Smithfield 306 2. Weights and Measures 307 3. Weight of Animals, Mode of ascertaining 308 4. Amount of Business 312 .5. Character and Quality of Stock 314 6. Smithfield by Night 317 7. Attempted Removal of the Market from the City 319 8. Chartered Rights 321 Grain Markets 323 Kinds of Bread. Maize, or Indian Corn 324 Grain Markets out of London 3"25 1. Forms of Business 326 2. Advantages and Convenience of such Markets in the United States 327 3. Modes of Selling 328 4. Multiplication of Markets in England 329 The Corn Exchange in Mark Lane, London 330 Corn Duties 330 1. Arguments for Protection 332 2. Arguments against Protection 333 3. Moral Views of the Question 334 4. Patriotism and Philanthropy 334 VI INDEX. LVII. 5. Proper Ends of National Policy 335 6. Bread regarded in a peculiar Liglit 330 7. Peculiar Condition of the English Laboring Population. . . .337 8. Excess of Population 3-39 Mode of adjusting Labor and Wages 34x 1. Experiment in Germany 342 2. Claims of Labor, and Duties of Wealth 343 3. Results of the German Experiment 345 4. Scotch Customs. A Digression 346 The Dead-Meat Markets 347 1. Slaughter-Houses in London 349 2. Customs of the Jews 351 3. Mode of slaughtering Animals 352 Vegetable and Fruit Markets 355 Market Gardens 373 Covent-Garden Market 378 1. Fruits and Vegetables 378 2. Flowers 380 LXII. General Markets 38:^ LVIIL LIX. LX. LXL FIFTH REPORT. LXIL General Markets, (continued.) 385 LXIIL General Remarks and Divisions of the Subject of English Farming 386 LXIV. The Soil 389 LXV. Theories of the Operation of the Soil 392 LXVL A Modern Discovery 398 LXVIL Soils of Great Britain 401 LXVIIL Classification of Soils 403 LXIX. Physical Properties of the Soil 404 1. Wetness of a Soil '. 404 2. Power to absorb Moisture in a Soil 405 3. Consistency and Friability of Soils 407 4. Temperature of Soils 408 LXX. Peaty Soil 410 LXXL Loamy Soils 412 LXXIL Humus, or Vegetable Mould 413 LXXIII. Peculiarities of Soil 41G LXXIV. Application of Chemistry to Agriculture 417 INDEX. vn « PAGE. LXXV. Theory of Agriculture 418 LXXVI. Actual Improvements 420 LXXVII. Ploughing 421 LXXVIII. The English Character. A Digression 422 LXXIX. The Perfection of Ploughing 423 LXXX. Ploughing Match at Saffron Walden 424 LXXXI, General Rules for Ploughing 427 1. Lapping in Plougliing 433 2. Ribbing, or Raftering 433 3. Laying in Beds, or Stitches 434 4. Lazy-Bed Cultivation 43G 5. Correct Ploughing 440 6. Trench-Ploughing 443 7. Subsoil-Ploughing. 448 8. Experiment in Subsoiling Heath Land 451 9. Subturf-Plough 454 10. Perfection of English Ploughing 454 11. Ploughing Matches 456 12. Horses used for Ploughing 459 LXXXn. A Digression.' 461 LXXXIIL Improved Machinery 462 1. Machinery lightens Labor. 462 2. Machinery increases Production 464 3. General Effects on Labor 466 LXXXIV. Moral Considerations 468 LXXXV. Harrowing 46f» LXXXVI. Scarifying, or Grubbing 47^ LXXXVII. General Remarks on the Use of Agricultural Machinery.. . .483 LXXXVIII. Particular Examples of Improvement 485 1. Tehidy 485 2. •Scobell's Farm 486 LXXXIX. Cornwall and the Land's End 491 Table of Calculations on Ploughing 492 a* Viii INDEX. STEEL ENGRAVINGS. The English Cart Horse Fronting title page to first volume. A Fii-st Prize Short-Horned Bull Frontispiece to Second Report. A West Highland Ox do Third Report A North Devon Steer do Fourth Report. An Aherdeenshire lolled Bull do Fifth Report. WOOD CUTS. FAOE. Side Supports for Posts 20 Fork Spade 122 Smith's Subsoil Plough 455 Rackheath Subsoil Plough 455 Subturf Plough 455 Double Furrow Plough 461 Gang of Light Seed Harrows 472 Heavy Iron Harrows 473 Biddell's Extirpating Harrow 475 Scarifier 479 Chisel Point and Wide Hoe, to Biddell's Scarifier. 480 Finlayson's Self-cleaning Harrow 481 Kirkwood's Grubber • 481 The Uley Cultivator 482 NAMES OF SUBSCUIBEES TO THE FIRST EDITION, Massachusetts Agri- cultural Society, New York State Ag- ricultural Society, Worcester County Agricultural So- ciety, Philadelphia Agri- cultural Society, American Institute, Essex County Agri- cultural Society, Massachusetts Hor- ticultural Society, Monroe County Ag- ricultural Society, Plymouth Agricul- tural Society, Berkshire County" Agricultural So- ciety, Hampshire, Hamp- den, and Franklin Ag. Society, Agricultural Society of Newcastle, Del- aware, Livingston County Agricultural So- ciety, Library of Congress, Rhode Island Socie- ty of Domestic Man. and Ag. Copies. I Boston, Mass. 100 I Albany, N.Y. 100 C Worcester, Mass. 40 I Philadelphia, Pa. 40 New York, N.Y. 40 I Essex Co., Mass. 25 Boston, Mass. 25 Rochester, N. Y. 25 Plymouth, Mass. 25 Pittsfield, Mass. 10 ' Northampton, Mass. 10 .Wilmington, Del. 10 * Geneseo, Living- ' stonCo.,N. Y^ 10 Washington, D. CIO > Providence, R. I. 5 John P. Cushing, Watertown, Mass. Hon. T. H. Perkins, Boston, Mass. Samuel Appleton, " Joshua Blake, Hon. Abbott Lawrence, " Daniel P. Parker, John Bryant, " William Appleton, " Henry Codman, " John A. Lowell, Hon. Nathan Appleton, " B. B. Mussey & Co. " 100 50 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 13 Robert G. Shaw, J. Breck & Co. E. B. Swett, Hon. William Sturgis, Hon. Jonathan Phillips, George B. Blake, James Jackson, M. D. John C. Warren, M. D. Hon. Josiah Quincy, Jr. Lucius M. Sargent, Israel Munson, Wm. Prescott, LL. D. Hon. Edmund Dwight, E. H. Robbins, Francis Skinner, Henry Oxnard, George C. Shattuck, M. D. Thomas B. Wales, Hon. P. C. Brooks, Hon. John Welles, Hon. David Sears, Hon. Samuel A. Eliot, George Parkman, M. D. Hon. Martin Brimmer, ) Mayor of Boston, 5 Francis G. Shaw, Samuel P. Shaw, Hon. John C. Gray, Jordan & Wiley, Saxton & Kelt, Frederic Tudor, James Munroe & Co. Isaac Winslow, J. H. Francis, W. D. Ticknor & Co. Benjamin Guild, Hon. Samuel Dorr, R. B. Forbes, George B. Emerson, William Almy, Benjamin T. Reed, John Parker, George Hayward, ISL D. John D. Williams, Thomas A. Dexter, William P. Mason, Sidney Bartlett, Boston, Mass. Copies. 12 11 10 10 10 NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. L. Downer, Jr. Joseph Balcli, Nathan Rice, Benjamin Loring, Caleb Eddy, Thomas AV. Phillips, Edward Brooks, Hon. Sam'l T. Armstrong, Ex-Lieut. Governor, Samuel Greele, AVilliara Worthington, J. AV. Paige, Andrew T. Hall, Benjamin Rich, Davis & Blake, Edward P^enouf, John S. Blake, Isaac P. Davis, Charles H. Mills, Frederic H. Bradleu, Rev. Samuel Barrett, J. M. Smith, Jeremiah Mason, LL. D. Jacob Bigelow, M. D. Benjamin Shurtleff, M. D Rev. Chandler Robbius, M. P. AVilder, AVilliam AV. Stone, AVllliam La^vrence, Hon. James M. Robbins Hon. AVilliam Jackson, Ebenezer AVight, Robert AVaterston, Ahiel Chandler, Edward Tuckerman, Charles Sprague, John Tappan, T. AV. AVard, Joseph AVhitney, John Pickering, LL. D. Henry AV. Dutton, James AA''entworth, Hon. AViUard Phillips, Samuel E. Sewall, P. O. Thacher, Benjamin Shurtleft", Jr. Ammi C. Lombard, Robert G. Shaw, Jr. G. H. Shaw, William Perkins, .lohn Tyler, Charles Barnard, Joel Nourse, AVilliam Shimmin, Prince Hawes, Augustus Aspinwall, Ebenezer Francis, Hon. B. F. Copeland, Isaac Danforth, AA'illiam P. AVinchester, J. P. Blanchard, H. I. Martin, M. D. Richard D. Harris, Samuel Henshaw, Joseph Southwick, Rev. John Pierpont, George Tyler Bigelow, Samuel Frothingham, Hon. Thomas Motley, Samuel May, Copies. Boston, Mass. 2 George Hallet, Boston, Mass. Samuel C. Gray, " Thaddeus Nichols, " N. G. Snelling, " Isaac Cook, " Charles P. Curtis, " George AV. Tyler, " Fitz Henry Homer, " Hon. Robert C. AVinthrop, " Hon. Rufus Choate, " Jonathan French, " David S. Greenough, '' A. Parris, " John Deane, " James L. Baker, " Rev. Hubbard AVinslow, •' C. M. Hovey & Co. Hon. Horace Mann, " Rev. Samuel K. Lothrop, '• Rev. Ezra S. Gannett, D. D. " Hon. John A. Bolles, " Hon. Charles F. Adams, " Prof. George Ticknor, " Charles T. Jackson, M. D. " Samuel Hooper, " Ozias Goodwin, '" Joseph AV. Revere, " AVm. F. Harnden, " AVm. J. Niles, Hon. Jeffrey Richardson, '•' AVendell Phillips, D. Prouty & Co. Rev. C. A. Bartol, Alfred A. Andrews, " Hon. John R. Adan, " AVilliam Stickney, " Hon. Albert Fearing, '■' Cheever Newhall, " George Newhall. " Francis C. Lowell, " Rev. John T. Sargent, '• Charles P. Crane, " Ebenezer Chadwick, " P. T. Jackson, " G. C. Trumbull, '• I. E. Tesehemacher, " George Browne, Henry L. Daggett, " AVilliam Foster, '•' J. G. Palfrey, LL. D., D. D. " Ellis Gray Loring, '•' Edmund Jackson, '■ James Boyd, " Samuel Cabot, " J. Baker, " John Pickens, '• Henry Gassett, '•' John Lamson, " Hon. Stephen Fairbanks, " Caleb Andrews, '•' James Hayward, " Rev. G. AV. Blagden, '• Thomas B. Curtis, " AV. T. Eustis, " Thomas Lee, " Rev. Fred. D. Huntington, " John Collamore, " Rev. Louis Dwight, " N. C. Keep, M. D. '• Charles McBurney, " Copies. NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. XI Copies John Haskins, Boston, Mass. Otis, Broadcrs, & Co. " Edward Chamberlain, " Richard Soule, Henry Burditt, William J ennison, " Miss Clara Crowninshield, " Henry Jaques, Mace Tisdale, Jr. " Charles C. Mead, " Wm. R. Deane, " C. P. Bosson, " Thomas Davis, Dr. A. B. Wheeler, '^ Joseph lasigi, " A. B. Weston, '' John G. Chandler, '^' Henry Rice, Hotchkiss & Co. " Chs. R. Bond & Co. " Jas. Ellison, " Hatch & Co. '' Z. Hosmer, " M. Field Fowler, "' John Preston, " Wm. A. Davis, " E. Haskett Derby, '' R. S. Denny, " Rev. J. I. T. Coolidge, " Chs. C. Parsons, " Walter Baker, " D. P. Simpson, " E. B. Chase, " C. M. Hovey, " Thomas Groom, " J. S. C. Greene, " David Paige, " J. H. Jenks, " F.J.Oliver, " S. G. Howe, M. D., South Boston, Mass. James Brown, Watertown, Mass. Wm. A. White, " Joseph Story, LL.D., Cambridge, Mass. Josiah Quincy, LL. D. ) « Pres. ot'Harv. Univ. J Rev. Andrews Norton, " William Pomeroy, " Prof. James Walker, D. D. " N. J. Wyeth, " O. S. Keith, " Prof. Jared Sparks, " Rev. R. M. Hodges, " J. E. Worcester, " Rev. Wm. Newell, " Charles C. Little, " Rev. Daniel Austin, " Hon. Theodore Lyman, Brookline, Mass. Benjamin Goddard, " John Howe, " Rev. John Pierce, D. D. " Moses Jones, " Samuel Philbrick, " John Havden, " Samuel NVeld, Roxbury, Mass. A. D. Williams, Jr. Rev. George Putnam, '■ Rev. Allen Putnam, " Hon. Sam'l H. Walley, Jr. " George R. Russell, West Roxbury, Mass. Joseph H. Billings, " Copies Francis Geo. Shaw, West Roxbury, Mass. Aaron D. Weld, " George Ripley, '" William Keith, John Parkinson, Rev. Theodore Parker, " John Prince, Jamaica Plains, Roxbury, Francis C. Head, " Gen. Wm. H. Sumner, " Charles W. Greene, " Stephen M. Weld, " John J. Low, M. W. Greene, " Benjamin D. Emerson, " John M. Fessenden, '^'^ F. E. Faxon, Isaac Parker, Waltham, Mass. Benj. Wellington, " Rev. George E. Ellis, Charlestown, Mass. Samuel Jaques, John Fenno, Chelsea, Mass. Hon. Jno. Quincy Adams, ) Quincy, Mass Ex-President of U. b. S ' Rev. Francis Cunningham, Milton, Mass. Joseph Rowe, " Danforth P. Wight, M. D., Dedham, Mass Rev. John White, Rev. Alvan Lamson, D. D. " George Richardson, Dorchester Mass. Increase S. Smith, " F. W. Macondray, " Joseph Peabody, Salem, Mass. Hon. S. C. Phillips, " Nathaniel West, " Hon. Nathaniel Silsbee, " Francis Peabody, " Hon. Leverett Saltonstall, " Wm. H. Neal, " Hon. D. L. Pickman, " Robert Stone, " John H. Silsbee, " Hon. D. A. White, " J. H. Ward, . Asahel Huntington, " ^ Wm. F. Gardner, " 2 Jno. Fisk Allen, " 2 Jno. C. Lee, 1 Amos Choate, " 1 D. A. Neal, " 1 John G. King, " 1 Oliver Hubbard, M. D. " 1 Benjamin Merrill, " 1 Wm. Deane, 1 Charles Saunders, " 1 David Merritt, "^ 1 John Jewett, .5 Erastus Ware, " 2 Nathaniel Frothingham, Jr." 1 J. Chadwick, 1 John Robinson, 1 J. S. Cabot, " 1 Jno. F. Andrew, " 1 Nathan Endicott, " 1 Hon. G. Barstow, " 1 Joseph S. Leavitt, " 1 E. Hersey Derby, " 1 Gideon Tucker, 1 D. & J. Pulsifer, " 1 A. & D. Lord, " 1 1 Benjamin F. Bro-ivne, " 10 5 5 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 Xll NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. • Taunton, Mass. Copies, Robert Brookhouse, Salem, Mass Rev. Charles W. Upham, " Frederic Howes, " Pickering Dodge, " George Choate, M. D. " Samuel Briggs, " Gen. Wm. Sutton, " Jos. G. Waters, " Hon. Stephen P. "Webb, " Charles A. Andrew, " Caleb Foote, " AVm. Ives, " John W. Pepper, " John G. Treadwell, M. D. " Joseph E. Sprague, " N. W. Neal, Michael Shepard, " James Chamberlain, " B. K. Churchill, " Henry Whipple, " Henry A. Breed, Lynn, Mass. Hon. Marcus Morton, Ex-Gov. of Mass. Hon. Edward Baylies, Wm. A. Crocker, Stephen Salisbury, Worcester, Mass. 2 S. B. Woodward,' M. D. " 2 Hon. Levi Lincoln, Ex- ? n -i Governor of Mass. ) Hon. John Davis, Ex- } u i Governor of Mass. ) Daniel Waldo, " 1 Joseph G. Kendall, " 1 Edwin Conant, " 1 John W. Lincoln, " 1 S. M. Burnside, " 1 William Lincoln, " 1 A. D. Foster, " 1 W. A. Wheeler, " 1 Isaac Davis, " 1 Charles Allen, " 1 Rejoice Newton, " 1 Hon. Pliny Merrick, " 1 L. A. Dowley, " 1 Hon. Thomas Kinnicutt, " 1 Emorv Washburn, " 1 H. S.'Wheateu, " 1 Oliver Dean, M. D., Framinghara, Mass. 1 Wm. A. Lander, Danvers, Mass. 2 Hon. Daniel P. King, " 2 Jno. W. Proctor, " 2 Benjamin Wheeler, " 1 Rev. Andrew Bigelow, " 1 Benjamin Goodridge, " 1 Charles Lawrence, North Danvers, Mass. 1 Enoch Silsby, Bradford, Mass. 1 Rev. Thomas B. Fox, Newburyport, Mass. 1 Edward Tappan, Jr. " 1 Jno. Porter, " 1 Micajah Lunt, " 1 Jeremiah Colman, " 1 Jno. Gray, Jr. " 1 David Wood, " 1 Hon. E. S. Rand, " 1 B. B. Titcomb, " 1 Daniel Adams, 3d, Newbury, Mass. 1 Moses Newell, West Newbury, l^Iass. 1 Wells Lathrop, South Hadley, Mass. 1 Hon. David Cummins, Springfield, Mass. 2 Hon. W. B. Calhoun, " 1 Copies Jas. W. Crooks, Springfield, Mass. Justin Ely, West Springfield, Mass. Hon. Benja. V. French, Braintree, Mass. Hon. James H. Duncan, Haverhill, Mass. Joseph Howe, Methuen, Mass. Hon. D.Webster, LL. D., Marshfield, Mass. Hon. Nath'l B. Borden, Fall River, Mass. A. Robeson, Jr. " Wm. R. Robeson, " John Flint, Andover, Mass. Joseph Kittredge, " Stephen Barker, " Jedediah H. Barker, " Samuel Farrar, " Hon. G. P. Osgood, J. J. Brown, " Geo. Hodges, North Andover, Mass. N. W. Hazen, South Andover, Mass. D. L. Child, Northampton, Mass. Hon. Joseph Lvman, " Rev. Rufus EUis, " Edward Clarke, " AVm. Clarke, " Wm. A. Hawlev, " Daniel Stebbins", M. D. " Hon. Isaac C. Bates, " Hon. George T. Davis, Greenfield, Mass. Hon. C. K. Grennell, " Alpheus F. Stone, M. D. Daniel Wells, " Wendell P. Davis, Henrv W. Clapp, David AVillard, " James Deane, M. D. " Rev. Samuel Mav, Leicester, Mass. W. B. Earle, J. L. Moffat, Newton, Mass. William Kenrick. " G. B. Slater, Webster, Mass. Hon. F. R. Gourgas, Weston, Mass. Hon. Benjamin fistabrook, Athol, Mass. Hon. Solomon Strong, Leominster, Mass. Hon. George B. Upton, Nantucket, Mass. George Wr Wright, " Henry Swift, " Barker Burnell, " John P. Webber, Jr. Beverly, Mass. Rev. C. T. Thayer, " Hon. Jesse Perkins, N. Bridgewater, Mass. Hon. H. W.Cushman, Bernardston, Mass. Horace Williams, Deerfield, Mass. Arthur W. Hoyt, " Theodore G. Huntington, Hadley, Mass. Col. David Wells, Shelburne, Mass. .James N. Bates, Barre, Mass. B. D. Whitney, Northboro' Mass. Gen. Josiah Newhall, Lynnfield, Mass. Hiram A. Morse, Holliston, Mass. Wm. B. Rodman, New Bedford, Mass. S. W. Rodman, " Benjamin Rodman, " George Randall, " Charles W. Morgan, " John Henry Clifford, " George Howland, Jr. " William P. Grinnell, " William Rotch, Jr. " William R. Rotch, " Edmund Gardiner, " William C. Whitridge, NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. Xlll Copieg William Hathaway, Jr., New Bedford, Matthew Luce, " J. H. W. Page, " John C. Haskell, " Thomas R. Robeson, " Frederic Robeson, " Joseph Ricketson, " Daniel Ricketson, " Abraham Shearman, Jr. " John W. Coggeshall, Samuel L. Dana, Lowell, Mass. John Avery, " Samuel Lawrence, " "William Spencer, " B. F. French, " Alexander Wright, " S. W. Stickney, " John Nesmith, " G. W. Larrabee, " John Clark, " Rev. H. A. Miles, " William Boott, " Daniel Bixby, " Amasa Farrier, Stoneham, Mass. John Abbott, Westford, Mass. H. C. Merriam, North Tewksbury, Mass. N. B. Robbins, Plymouth, Mass. Mrs. Susan Sedgwick, Stockbridge, Mass. Elias M. Stillwell, Lancaster, Mass. Paul Whitin, Whitinsville, Mass. John Page, Hardwick, Mass. S. B. AValcott, Hopkinton, Mass. Johnson Gardner, M. D. J ^^^f^s.^'^''''" ^ William Jenkins, Providence, R. I. 5 Alexander Duncan, " 3 Moses B. Ives, " 2 Rev. Samuel Osgood, Joseph Mauran, M. D. Samuel B. Wheaton, William H. Hoppin, Amory Chapin, Edward Walcott, Hartford Tingley, Robert H. Ives, Amasa Sprague, R. W. Greene, Rev. F. Wayland, D. D., Pres. of Brown Univ. Henry Anthony, John I. Stimpson, Benjamin W. Comstock, Stephen H. Smith, Hon. James Fenner, Gov. of Rhode Island Owen Mason, Matthew Watson, " Josiah Chapin, " Adam Anthony, North Providence, R. I Mark Antony De Wolfe, Bristol, R. I. Wm. Bradford De Wolfe, Jacob Dunncll, Pawtucket, R. I. James C. Rome, Woonsocket, R. I. Henrv Whitney, New Haven, Conn. Prof. 'B. Silliman, LL. D. " Charles Robinson, " Winthrop Atwill, " Prof. B. Silliman, Jr. " William K. Townsend, " d Copies. Hon. Wm. H. Boardman, N. Haven, Con. J. T. Norton, Farmington, Conn. Simeon Hart, " E. W. Carrington, " W. AVadsworth, " Timothy Cowlcs, " S. H. Huntington, Hartford, Conn. Horatio Alden, " A. M. Collins, " D. C. Collins, Charles F. Pond, " Hon. Jno. M. Niles, " E. W. Bull, George Tuttle, " T. C. Perkins, " Hon. J. Toucey, " Walter Mitchell, " S. G. Chaffee, " James Dixon, " Isaac Stuart, " George Brimlcy, " Solomon Porter, " Solomon Olmsted, East Hartford, Conn. Charles H. Olmsted, " S. E. Alden, Enfield, Conn. Henry Thompson, " Levi Durand, Derby, Conn. Charles A. Goodrich, Berlin, Conn. Norman Porter, " Chas. W. Rockwell, Norwich, Conn. Jacob W. Kinney, " Amos H. Hubbard, " William P. Green, " John A. Rockwell, " Ralph H. Avery, " E. B. Brown, Mystic, Conn. Joseph Griswold, Mystic Bridge, Conn. A. Woodward, M. D., FrankUn, Conn. H. A. Dyer, Brooklyn, Conn. Wm. G. Johnson, Uncasville, Conn. J. S. Halsey, Preston, Conn. Giles Taintor, Windham, Conn. Hon. C. F. Cleveland, P „ . n Ex. Gov. of Conn. ' ^arapton. Conn. Daniel Russell, Portland, Conn. Joseph Hall, " Joel Hall, 2d, E. AY. N. Starr, Middletown, Conn. Sam'l D. Hubbard, Alfred Hubbard, " Charles Hubbard, " Samuel Russell, " Joseph Hurlbut, New London, Conn. Chas. A Lewis, " Wm. P. Cleveland, " Wm. W. Billings, Lemuel Stoughton, East Windsor, Conn. Azel S. Bowe, •' Erastus Ellsworth, " Henry Watson, " Ralph R. Phelps, Manchester, Conn. E. Holcomb, Granby, Conn. D. W. Grant, Bloomfield, Conn. Fillcy, Hon. G. Merrick, S. Glastonbury, Conn. Daniel Packer, Packersville, Conn. Bethuel Phelps, Warehouse Pt., Conn. Alvah Morrell, " F. W. Wilcox, Salem, Conn. Lucian T. Pearson, CoUinsville, Conn. NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. Copies. Bangor Mercantile Li- ) j^ ^j_ j brary Association, ) ° ' E. C. Andrews, Portland, Me. 4 H. J. Little, " 2 .James Deering, " Joshua Richardson, " William Willis, " Neal Dow, " •John Otis, Hallowell, Me. Glazier, Masters, & Smith, " Hon. Rcuel Williams, Augusta, Me. Hon. Samuel M. Pond, Bucksport, Me. W. A. Hayes, South Berwick, Me. n. B. Allen, Belfast, Me. E. Seymour, Brattleboro', Vt. John H. Hopkins, Jr., Burlington, Vt. Rev. John Wheeler, D. D. Prof. Geo. W. Benedict, " E. T. Englesby, " H. B. Stacey, " N. B. Haswell, " Harry Bradley, " Hon.' Geo. P. Marsh, " Jno. N. Pomeroy, " Carlos Baxter, " Luther Loomis, " N. A. Tucker, " •David Read, " H. S. Morse, Shelburne, Vt. L. S. White, " S. Grout, Bellows Falls, Vt. Charles K. Field, Newfane, Vt. Hon. Wm. Jarvis, Weathersfield, Vt. Jos. P. Fairbanks, St. Johnsbury, Vt. George W. Palmer, Brandon, Vt. Hon. Levi Woodbury, Portsmouth, N. H. Hon. Ichabod Bartlett, '•' Samuel Lord, " John Rice, '■' Jno. N. Sherburne, " H. W. Peirce, " Rev. John Parkman, Dover, N. H. R. B. David, Amherst, N. H. Josiah H. Hobbs, Wakefield, N. H. Levi Bartlett, Warner, N. H. W. B. Walton, Schenectady, N. Y. Rev. John Williams, " Jona. Crane, " Prof. Alonzo Potter, D. D. " Prof. J. W. Jackson, " D. & C. H. Tomlinson, Alexander Walsh, Lansingburgh, N. Y. Maj. Gen. John I. Viele, " Alfred Clarke, East Springfield, N. Y. John B. James, Rhinebcck, N. Y. John H. Walsh, Newburgh, N. Y. Charles Downing, " A. J. Downing, '' H. D. Grove, Hoosick, N. Y. Anthony Van Bergen, Coxsackie, N. Y. Tunis J. Van Derveer, Amsterdam, N. Y. Willis Gaylord, Otisco, N. Y. D. D. Campbell, Rotterdam, N. Y. James R. Craig, Niskayuna, N. Y. J. Strachan, Waterford, N. Y. E. D. Windt, Fishkill, Landing, N. Y. Peter C. Dubois, " William S. Ver Planck, " John 15. Wakeman, Little Falls, N. Y. John Caldwell, Salisbury, N. Y. Copies. Dr. William Bristol, Utica, N. Y. E. AV. Teackle, " S. D. Childs, " Capt. William Mervine, " Edmund A. Wetmore, " Theodore P. Ballou, " Hamilton Spencer, " S. V. Aley, " John M. Sherwood, Auburn, N. Y. 5 John B. Dill, " 5 Hon. Wm. H. Seward, > „ o Ex-Gov. of New York, 5 ^ James C. Derby, " 1 E. Rhodes, Manlius, N. Y. 1 L. A. Morrell, Lansing, N. Y. 2 P. V. C. Miller, Shawangunk, N. Y. 1 W. A. S. North, Duanesburgh, N. Y. 1 L. W. Hall & Co., Syracuse, N. Y. 5 P. N. Rust, " 2 Rev. J. P. B. Storer, " 1 Russell Kniffen, Trenton, N. Y. 1 Elon Comstock, Rome, N. Y. 1 Benjamin P. Johnson, " 1 Benjamin N. Huntingdon," 1 Robert Sandford, Lenox, N. Y. 1 M. R. Patrick, Waterto^vn, N. Y. 1 Henry S. Randall, Cortlandville, N. Y, 1 George I. Pumpelly, Oswego, N. Y. 25 Hon- Gerrit V. J g^^^^^ p^^i^^ j^y^ 45 Wiiliam A. Sacket, " Samuel D. Tillman, " C. M. Crittenden, " A. S. & C. W. Dey, Thomas H. Swaby, " C. L. Hoskins, " William Arnett, " H. C. Silsby, " George B. Daniels, " Edward Myndun, " Thomas C. Magee, Tyre, N. Y. Jason Smith, " David Southwick, " J. W. Bacon, Waterloo, N. Y. Richard P. Hunt, " Aaron D. Lane, " J. Lisk, Junius, N. Y. John Carman, " Orrin Southwick, " William K. Strong, Fayette, N. Y. John Johnstone, " Henry Reeder, Varick, N. Y. John D. Cox, Romulus, N. Y. G. Dickerson, Covert, N. Y. Jeremiah Rappleye, " A. M. Farley, " Abraham Ditmus, " Anson Hopkins, " John L. Eastman, Lodi, N. Y. P. W. Severance, " John De Mott, " Arad Joy, Ovid, N. Y. A. B. Dunlap, •' William R. Schuyler, '*' Andrew Dunlap, Jr. " C. I. Sutton, " Henry Simpson, " Joseph Craven, " Hugh Chapman, " Daniel Scott, " NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. XV Copies. John I. Covert, Ovid, N. Y. 1 Henry M. Ward, Hochester, NY. 3 Samuel D. Forter, '' 3 L. B. LansTworthy, " 2 Matthew iBrown, M. D. " C. F. Grossman, " Henry I. Whitehouse, D. D. " fibenezer AVatts, '•' F. Whittlesey, " George F. Danforth, " E. Darwin Smith, " E. Poraeroy, " Graham H. Chapin, " Edward M. Moore, M. D. " E. G. Munn, M. D. " W. W. Alcott, " James H. Watts, " Nathaniel T. Rochester, " Henry E. Rochester, " Thomas H. Rochester, " William Pitkin, " Samuel Miller, " Silas O. Smith, " Ellwantrer & Barry, " Maltby "Strong, M. D. "_ Amos Sawyer, '•' Strong & Dawson, " John Hawks, " John A. Pitts, '•' M. B. Bateham, " Lewis Tliies, " Aristarchus Champion, " Josiah SnoWj " Alexander Kelsey, M. D. " John Allen, " Fletcher M. Haight, " M. F. Reynolds, " A. Gardiner, " I. F. Mack, Philander Davis, " Robert Wilson, " Moses Chapin, " Samuel G. Andrews, " E. F. Smith, " Hon. Thomas J. Patterson, " W. E. Lathrop, " John F. Bush, John Haywood, " Prof. Chester Dewey, " N. B. Northrop, " James AV. Sawyer, " John Rolph, M. D. " James Miller, " Darius Perrin, '"' Rev. Tryon Edwards, " Charles Hendrix, " David R Barton, " Jasper W. Gilbert, " Everard Peck, " Frederick F. Backus, M. D. " Elias Pond, " Isaac M. Hall & Co. " Horatio N. Fenn, M. D. " Frederick Starr, " L. A. Ward, " Stephen Atwater, " David Hoyt, " Leander Wetherell, " George Sheltou, " H. L. Stevens, " VOL. I. ff John Briggs; Rochester, N. Y. R. Haight, " Hon. Thomas Kempshall, " Joseph Hall, Charles R. Babbett, " Hiram Smith, " Lewis Brooks, " Abelard Reynolds, " Hiram Blanchard, " Reuben Sikes, " George Whitney, " Samuel B. Chase, " William W. Mumford, " W. A. Herrick, "^ John Fish, John Gifford, Aaron Errickson, " Allen Mason, " William Kidd, William Buell, " John B. Elwood, M. D. " Charles O. Shepard, " Francis Brown, " Thomas H. Hyatt, " William Gerry, " William Brewster, " School District No. 15, " William Law, " Lewis Denny, " Ephraim Moore, " Josiah W. Bissell, " William H. Cheney, " David Scoville, " Joseph Strong, " George A. Wilkins, " J. George Hodgkins, " Nathan B. Garnsey, " Hon. John Greig, Canandaigua, N. Hon. Francis Granger, " Henry Howard, " John Rankin, '"' Oliver Phelps, " Charles B. Meek, " John A. Granger, '" William R. Macao, " Henry K. Sanger, " Hon. Mark H. Sibley, " Thomas Hall, " Charles Shepard, " Francis W. Paul, " Thaddeus Chapin, " Walter Hubbell, " Alvah Worden, " Charles Seymour, " Isaac Pierson, " Thomas H. Johns, " Samuel H. Andi-ews, " Jos. Bull, " J. L. Stuart Menteath, " Alexander Murray, " William Burling, " Myron H. Clark, " Henry Howe, " Jared Wilson, " Robert Highani, " G. R. Parbutt, R. C. Pratts, " Oliver Culver. Brighton, N. Y. Daniel P. Bissell, Moscow, N. Y. S. B. Piper, Lewiston, N. Y. Copies. XVI NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. Copies. John S. Shuler, M. D., Lockport, N. Y, James D. Shuler, " Timothy Backus, " Wm. A.'Townsend, M.D. " F. N. Nelson, " T. T. Flagler, « Aaron Parsons, " Hon. AVashington Hunt, " A. A. Boyce, " S. Scovill, " Edward Hardy, " N. Dayton, " O. P. Hoag, " J. Kilbourn, " Hon. Joel McCollum, " Trumbull Gary, Batavia, N. Y. Chipman P. Turner, " H. M. Soper, " T. Fitch, " J. S. Ganson, " Junius A. Smith, " Frederick FoUett, " Albert Smith, " J. L. Brown, " Ambro.se Stevens, " E.iifus Robertson, " James D. Merrill, " Shubael Dunham, " Lucius A. Smith, " James Brisbane, " Samuel Heston, " Byron Densmore, Kendall, N. Y. Moses B. Gage, " H. AV. Bates, " N. Whitney, " Henry Higgins, " Benjamin Gariss, Jr., Bloomfield, N. Y. Ralph Wilcox, " Rev. Robert W. Hill, " Frederick F. Rice, " William H. Hall, Myron Adams, " B. C. Taft, West Bloomfield, N. Y. Jasper C. Peck, " John Dickson, " Joseph Hall, " O. Thompson, " William H. Olin, Philo Hamlin, East Bloomfield, N. Y. G. Collins, " Frederick A. Spalding, " Svlvanus Emmons, " M. S. Newton, Lima, N. Y. M. W. Brown, " Henry Grout, " William Arnold, Jr. " George W. Atwill, " Erastus Clark, " Ira Godfrey, " George E. King, " Alexander Martin, " Robert T. Leach, " Clitus Wolcott, Oakfield, N. Y. P. M. Smith, Le Roy, N. Y. Peter Snell, " John Lent, " William Sheldon, " A. B. Murphy, " J. H. Stanley, " Ebenezer !Mcad, " Copies. S. ^V. Olmsted, Le Roy, N. Y. Noah D. Hart, William W. Peck, Cyrus Brown, Pembroke, N. Y. William Cathcart, " Rawson Harmon, Jr., Wheatland, N. Y. John J. Blackmer, " Joseph Garlinghouse, Richmond, N. Y. Hiram Pitts, " J. C. Shelton, " Elias S. Gilbert, " Asa Nowlen, Avon, N. Y. Hon. Henry L. Young, " Luther Brigscs, Brockport, N. Y. Hon. E. B. Holmes, " Horace Wheeler, Honeoye Falls, N. Y. John A. Davis, " Stephen Barrett, " John Christopher, Gates, N. Y. Charles Godfrey, Geneva, N. Y. Rt. Rev. Wm. H. Delancey, " Robert C. Nicholas, " Jos. Fellows, " James Reese, " Gideon Lee, " Thomas D. Burrall, " Elisha Johnson, Hornby Lodge, N. Y. George W. Patterson, Westfield, N. Y. C. Robinson, Clarendon, N. Y. Charles Lee, Farmingham, N. Y. Isaac Colvin, Henrietta, N. Y. M. W. Kirby, West Henrietta Library, " William C. Cornell, James S. Wadsworth, Geneseo, N. Y. 10 W. W. Wadsworth, " 5 James Wadsworth, " 5 A. Ayrault, " 3 E. A. Le Roy, " 2 Thomas H. Newbold, " 2 Daniel H. Fitzhugh, ♦' George T. Olyphant " C. it. Bryan, " David Piftard, " H. A. Wilmerding, " William H. Spencer, " Samuel Fitzhugh, Mount Morris, N. Y, Lucius Southwick, " J. R. Murray, " William T. Cuvler, Cuylerville, N. Y. N. W. Gardner, Royalton, N. Y. Anson Packard, Bristol, N. Y. Lewis F. Allen, Black Rock, N. Y. N. K. Hall, Buffalo, N. Y. Hon. Millard Fillmore, '' A. & J. McArthur, " P. Whitney, Niagara Falls, N. Y. Luther Wilson, Wilson, N. Y. John Robinson, Palmyra, N. Y. Micah Brooks, Brooks Grove, N. Y. Hon. Asher Tyler, Ellicottville, N. Y Abiel Baldwin, Clarkson, N. Y. Owen Edmonston, Phelps, N. Y. E. Willnrd Frisbie, S. Hildreth, Carso Crane, " Elias Cost, " John Lapham, Farmington, N. Y. A. Oliver, Penn Yann, N. Y. Henry Welles, " NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. XVll Copies. S. S. Ellsworth, Penn Yan, N. Y. D. A. Ogden, " George A. Shepard, " H. P. Sartwell, " Abraham Wagener, " Alfred Brown, " Uri Judd, M. D. " Jonathan A. Hall, " Nelson Tunnicliff', " P. S. Oliver, S. R. Fish, L. E. Lapham, " John Hatmaker, Milo Centre, N. Y. A. B. Hull, Angelica, N. Y. George Fisher, Oswego, N. Y. George Dean, Westmoreland, N. Y". Henry Chamberlain, York, N. Y. David McDonald, " Edward Brown, " HoUowway Long, " G. O. J. Du Ilelle, M. D. " Paul Goddard, " John HoUowway, " John P. Root, " F. A. Gray, " Campbell Harris, " J. B. Harris, " James Gilmour, " Roswell Stocking, " Angus McBean, " Artemas Blake, " Reuben Lafever, Reading, N. Y. George Edwards, Bath, N. Y. J. C. Fuller, Skeneateles, N. Y. R. H. Foster, Lyons, N. Y. James Dunn, " John M. Holly, " A. L. Beaumont, " A. Hyde Call, Albion, N. Y. Asa Rowe, Sweden, N. Y. William D. Dickenson, Victor, N. Y. John B. French, " W. W. Marsh, George J. Jessup, Palmyra, N. Y. Stephen Hyde, " Jonathan Townsend, " Samuel E. Hudson, Newark, N. Y. Cyrus S. Bulton, " Daniel Kenyon, " John B. Crosby, Rush, N. Y. Joseph Sibley, West Rush, N. Y. Daniel H. Burtiss, Chili, N. Y. Elisha Whittlesey, Brooklyn, N. Y. Lcdyard Lincklaen, Cazenovia, N. Y. Hon. Leman Gibbs, Livonia, N. Y. Hon. J. Larrowe, Hammondsport, N. Y. Ralph Plumb, Buffalo, N. Y. Abner Bryant, " Albert H. Tracy, " Samuel Hecox, " I. A. Blossom, " Lewis Eaton, " John Craig, Middleport, N. Y. William R. Gwinn, Medina, N. Y. Silas M. Burroughs, *' John & George Kirby, " Orrin Scoville, " Hon. R. H Smith, Perry, N. Y. Josiah Andrews, " Mosely Stoddard, " Copies Hon. James McNair, Dansville, N. Y. 1 Moses S. Cole, Parma, N. Y. 1 John Sargent, Mendon, N. Y. 1 Joseph Cox, Scottsvillc, N. Y. 1 Isaac Cox, " 1 W. W. Wilcox, Irondequoit, N. Y. 1 Alexander A. Hooker, " 1 D. H. Buel, Benton Centre, N. Y. 1 Asa Foote, Middlesex, N. Y. 1 Ira Merrill, West Avon, N. Y. 1 Saxton & Miles, New York City, 60 Charles A. Stetson, " " 10 D. K. Minor, " 10 J. Prescott Hall, " 5 James G. King, " 5 James Lenox, " 5 I. F. Sheaf, " 5 R. B. Minturn, " 3 Rev. John O. Choules, " 2 S. Verplanck, " 2 Jonathan Goodhue, " 2 M. H. Grinnell, " 2 Robert B. Coleman, " 2 Rev. Joseph Penney, D. D. " George Bird, " H. M. Hayes, " L. N. Fowler, " William H. Aspinwall, " Pelatiah Perit, " Curtis Holmes, " Joseph G. Cogswell, " William Partridge, " David Felt, " William H. Gary, " William Emerson, " Lewis Tappan, " Orsamus Willard, " Rev. Henry W. Bellows, " Greely & McElrath, " Joshua Brookes, " Jacob Harvey, " C. M. Olcott, " A. A. Low, " T. A. Morison, " John Halsey, Jr. " H. T. Chapman, " Isaac H. Frothingham, " Charles G. Carleton, " Lyman Cobb, " J. Atkins, Jr. " Joshua Atkins, " George C. Thorburn, " G. M. Haywood, " Abraham Bell, " J. Smyth Rogers, " George D. H. Gillespie, '' J. C. Delano, " John Joygcr, " Charles Congdon, " Rollin Sanford, " Jeremiah Brown, " W. J. Cornell, " Isaac R. Cornell, " Charles Richmond, Jr. " N. D. Carlisle, " F. I. Betts, " William T. McCoun, " Daniel Stanton, " Jonathan Sturgis, " Charles M. Leupp, " xvin NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. Copies. Shepherd Knapp, Xew York City, Gilbert K. Lassee, " Henr)' Woods, " F. W. Guiteau, " E. D. Gillespie, " Wilev Lt Putnam, " J. S.Bartlett, " Luther Bradish, Ex- Lt. Gov. of N. Y Wm. H. Mosely, Castleton, Staten Island, 1 Nehcmiah Denton, Brooklyn, L. Island, 1 John A. King, Jamaica, Long Island, 1 E. P. Prentice, Albany, N. Y. 10 Henry O'Reilly, " 5 John Townscnd, " 5 A. Mclntyre, " 5 J. McDonald Mclntyre, " 5 Erastus Corning, " 5 Luther Tucker, " 5 Hon. Wm. C. Bouck, ) „ g Gov. of New York, ) Henry L. Webb . New Rochelle, N.Y.I John N. Wilder, " Caleb N. Bement, " Robert E. Temple, " A. French, Jr. " James M. French, " James Kidd, " Hon. D. D. Barnard, " James Hall, " H. Pumpelly, " Joel Rathbane, " A. E. Brown, " James Wilson, " Prof. E. Emmons, " Hon. J. Koons, " C. P. Williams, " J. P. Bcekman, M. D., Kinderhook, N. Y. 10 Martin Van Buren, Ex- ) Lindenwald, President of U. S. ) Kinderhook, Joel B. Nott, Guilderland, N. Y. Edward C. Delavan, Ballston Centre, N. Y. George Vail, Troy, N. Y. Hon." John Savage, Salem, N. Y. Ezra Nye, Clinton, N. J. Jas. Neilson, ]\L D., New Brunswick, N. J. Hon. John B. Avcrigg, Pyramus, N. J. J. W. Hayes, Newark, N. J. John S. Chambers, Trenton, N. J. Samuel R. Guramere, " Phil. Dickinson, " Richard S. Field, Princeton, N. J. S. A. Hamilton, Thomas Hancock, Burlington, N. J. Ira B. Underbill, " Bishop G. W. Doane, " Edward B. Grubb, " James Thorn, Bordentown, N. J. Josiah Tatum, Philadelphia, Pa. Jacob Snider, Jr. " Peter Hulme, " Richard Petci-s, " James Mease, M. D. " John Hare Powell, " AVilliam Morrison, '' A. Langdon Elwyn, M. D. •' Henry Zantzinger, " James Gowen, •' Algernon Sidney Roberts, ■' Thomas Nelson, " 30 Copies Aaron Clement, Philadelphia, Pa. E. L. Cary, " Owen Jones, " Charles Magargee, " George W. Carpenter, " S. Bradford, John Farnum, " George Blight, " Athena;um, " Pennsylvania Horti- } ,, cultural Society, 5 Frederic Brown, " Charles Cha.uncy, " Dr. George Uhler, " William G. Malin, " Charles Roberts, " Dr. Charles Noble, " Dr. J. Rhea Barton, " Samuel Bettle, " Stephen Colwell, " Adam Eckfeldt, " Charles Yarnall, " William E. Garrett, " P. A. & S. Small, York, Pa. John Evans, " Samuel Willis, " John Brillinger, " Samuel Wagner, " Henry Woods, Pittsburgh, Pa. John S. Haines, Germantown, Pa. David George, Radnor, Pa. Samuel Lippencott, Mauch Chunck, Pa. Daniel B. Smith, Haverford, Pa. Ebenezer J. Dickey, Chester Co., Pa. Pennock Passmore, Westtown, Pa. Wilson & Heald, Wilmington, Del. Benjamin Webb, " James AV. Thompson, M. D. " Samuel Canbv, " Edward Tatnall, " John Andrews, " James Webb, " John Jones, " Joseph Carr, < " Caleb Churchman, " Brvan Jackson, " J. "S. H. Boies, James T. Bird, " Henry Dupont, " Edward C. Hewes, " Anthony Bidderman, " C. J. Diipont, " Chauncy P. Holbomb, New Castle, Del. John B. Le Fever, " John W. Andrews, Stockford, Del. Edward T. Bcllah, Brandywine, Del. William S. Boulden, Newport, Del. Samuel Sands, Baltimore, Md. AVilliam C. Shaw, " J. Swan, '" Gideon B. Smith, M. D. " William Child, Henry Mankin, " William G. Thomas, " William C Wilson, " Ramsav McIIenrv, " Dr. R.Dorsev, W. Cary, Fork-Meeting Post Office, Md. George Patterson, Sykesville, Md. Isaac Webster, Golden Post Office, INId. NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. XIX Copies. B. D. MuUikin, Good Luck, Md. 1 Botts & Baldwin, Richmond, Va. 10 Hon. W. C. Rives, Bentivoglio, Va. 2 Thos. S. Pleasants, Bellona Arsenal, Va. Prof. Fred. Hall, M.D., Washington, D. C, Hon. Henry L. Ellsworth, " D. A. HaU, Rev. S. G. Bulfinch, " K. L. Ellsworth, " J. S. Skinner, " Hon. E. Whittlesey, " J. L. Page, " Darius Lapham, West Liberty, Ohio, Eli Nichols, Lloydsville, Ohio, Charles Anderson, Dayton, Ohio, Cyrus Holt, " Robert W. Steele, " .J. W. Smith, Maumee, Ohio, M. L. Sullivant, Columbus, Ohio, J. Sullivant, " .Julius Brace, Cincinnati, Ohio, H. Probosco, " Charles Duffield, " Charles Stetson, " E. Brij^ham, " Ely & Campbell, " Cincinnati Horticultural Society, J. M. Trimble, Hillsboro,' Ohio, Abraham Tappen, Unionville, Ohio, William M. Dawes, Alexandria, Ohio, Hon. John C. Calhoun ; pej^jieton, S. C Sec y of State of U. S. i ' Samuel G. Barker, Charleston, S. C. Sanford W. Barker, M. D. " Charles Alston, " Dr. Benjamin Huger, " C. Cotes, •' J. H. Hammond, Silverton, S. C. R. F. W. AUston, Georgetown, S. C. M. C. M. Hammond, Hamburg, S. C. George Cross, Charlotte, S. C. R. F. Davidson, " Dr. William R. Holt, Lexington, N. C. Hon. T. Spalding, Darien, Ga. James H. Couper, " Copies. Dr. William C. Daniell, Gainesville, Ga. Dr. Horatio Bowin, Clinton, Ga. Peter L. Clower, " Z. A. Philips, Mount Meigs, Ala. Charles Barrell, Montgomery, Ala. Peter A. Remsen, Mobile, Ala. Benjamin Whitfield, Tuscaloosa, Ala. Samuel D. J. Moore, " Rev. Basil Manly, D. D., ) „ Pres. of Univ. of Ala. ) Hon. H. W. Collier, " Charles M. Foster, " William D. Marrast, " Hon. J. J. Ormond, " James B. Wallace, " John McCormick, " James M. Crook, Alexandria, Ala. F. W. Siperlv, Delavan, W. T. J. S. Rockwell, Milwaukee, W. T. William H. Whiting, Bloomfield, W. T. William Woodbridge, Detroit, Mich. ^ J?r& cl^'^"^'' \ Constantine, Mich. Gen. Calvin Jones, Bolivar, Tenn. Benjamin Litton, Nashville, Tenn. M. Benjamin, Wilmington, 111. Dendy Sharwood, Ottawa, 111. J. H. Sherman, Carthage, 111. Cyrus Bryant, Princeton, 111. Thomas Affleck, Ingleside, Miss. Dr. M. W. Philips, Edwards Depot, Miss. James Brown, Livingston, Miss. Moses Liddell, Woodville, Miss. John R. Liddell, Trinity P. O., La. Dr. John Calderwood, Monroe, La. Branch Tanner, Cheneyville, La. James L. Peacock, Bel- ) „„„, nr,^t^^ r , grade Plantation, \ ^^" ^^°*°^' ^^• George Truit, Kinniconnick, Ky. F. Coolwine, Burlington, Iowa, Robert W. Williams, Tallahassee, Fa. Richard Mendenhall, Richmond, Ind. Beadle, M. D., St. Catharine's, U. C. . J ■r' ^ Woodhill, Water- Adam Ferguson, ^ ^^^^^^ ^ ^ W. Young, Halifax, N. S. Thomas G. Taylor, Pictou, N. S. !^ List of English Subscribers on the next page. h* XX NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. GREAT BRITAIN. Copies. Lady Noel Byron, Esher, 6 Sir Charles Morgan, Tredegar, Wales, .... 6 John Courage, Esq. Dulwich, 6 Earl of Hardwicke, Wimpole, 5 Sir George Cayley, London, 2 Sir John Easthope, M. P « 2 E. W. W. Pendarves, M. P Pendarves, Cornwall, ... 2 Henry Morton, Esq Chester Le Street, . . . Countess of Hardwicke, Wimpole, Lord Portman, London, Lord Ashburton, " Lord Hatherton, Teddesley, Rev. Dean of Westminster, Dr. Buckland, . London, Miss Montgomery, " Thomas Spencer, Esq Bransby, Lincolnshire, John Giblett, Esq Barnsbury Villas, London, R. J. Thompson, Esq Yorkshire, Jonas Webb, Esq. Babraham, Joseph Joy, Esq. Boston, Messrs. Drummond & Co Stirling, Scotland, . . . Messrs. Lawson & Co Edinburgh, " ... o PEEF ACE. I HAVE the honor of laying before the public my First Report on European Agriculture and Rural Economy. It is to a considerable degree, miscellaneous, and not so full of that practical information and detail which I design to give hereafter. I trust, however, it will not be found deficient in practical value. Many persons may think that I should particularly point out what is to be learnt from European agriculture ; but I understand it to be my province to give an honest account of what I see, premising that there is nothing to be seen from which something may not be learnt, and that it is for others, and not forme, to say what they will learn from that which is placed before them. Where we find ourselves inferior to others, it may be desirable to ascertain how we may reach the excellence to which they have attained ; and where tlie advantage is obviously upon our side, it may be a subject of honest congratulation. In cir- cumstances, even the most different, a sagacious mind Avill gather instruction from contrast as well as from analogy ; and the success of any man, in any trade, pursuit, manufacture, or art, is in itself a poAverful stimulus to others to exertion ; and, therefore, an instrument of excellence in any and in every other art or pursuit. I know no better Avay than to record my impressions of what comes under my notice in the field, which I have undertaken to explore, as faithfully as I can, and with as much detail as seems expedient ; and to do my best, that every one who reads my pages with candor, will not close the book without finding something agreeable and instructive, something for improvement in the impor- tant art to which my labors will be particularly devoted, and something to make him wiser, better, or happier. These latter are the proper ends of knowledge and of life; and this honest aim will in itself sanctify and elevate the humblest efforts. The objects of my inquiry are, of course, various and extensive, and embrace every thing connected with the cultivation of the earth, the improvements which are now going on in agriculture, and every branch of husbandry and rural and domestic economy. Among these topics will, of course, be comprehended — The Soils, and especially in their relation to different crops. Manures and their application. The Implements of Husbandry, and various Machines for facilitating ana abridging the labors of the Farm. The different great operations of Agriculture, such as Ploughing, Sowing, Cultivating and Cleaning, Harvesting and preparing the Crops for use or market, with the general application of the Produce of a Fann. XXll PREFACE. Draining and Irrigation. Enclosing and Fencing. Redeeming Moor and Heath Land. Warping and Diking. The Crops grown — the Grasses, the Cereal Grains, and Esculent Roots for the food of man or beast, and plants cultivated for clothing, building, and fuel. Live Stock of every description — Cattle, Horses, Sheep, Swine, Poultry ; and their different breeds and classes. The breeding, rearing, and fattening of Live Stock. The Dairy. The cultivation of Silk, Flax, Hemp, Hops, Madder, Woad, Mustard, Chic- cory, Olives, Grapes, Figs ; the production of Wool and Honey ; of Wine, Oil, and Sugar; and various other crops and products which may come under my notice, and the production and growth of which may be possible and useful in any part of the United States. Markets and Fairs ; Farming Accounts. Agricultural Labor ; wages, condition, and service. The Management of paiticular Fanns — arable, dairy, stock, and wool farms. Experimental Farms. Veterinary Establishments. Agricultural Societies, IMuseums, and Shows. Agricultural Schools, Education, and Literature. The Condition of the Rural Population. Rural Life — Morals, Manners, and Customs. These are among the topics which will claim my attention, and upon which, in the course of my tour, I hope to collect and to communicate much useful in- formation. The field, I am aware, is a wide one, and no unaided individual could, under any circumstances, give a full and entire view of these various subjects, so as to satisfy every inquiry ; but I will do what I can to glean that which is most valuable, and to direct to more full sources of information the inquiries of tliose to whom further information may be desirable. I do not know in what place, rather than iiere, I can better acknowledge the kindness and hospitality which I have received from gentlemen with whom it has been my happiness to become acquainted ; add to this the utmost readiness and courtesy in rendering every assistance in their power to my inquiries. The kindness is sensibly appreciated ; and these acknowledgments are due to many noblemen of tlie highest rank in the empire ; and to many gentlemen of more humble condition, who, if they have not the nobility of rank, have even a higher patent — one without which the most brilliant insignia of external distinction become dim — the nobility of intelligence, wisdom, and most active and exten- sive usefulness. I should bo glad here, if it were proper, to illuminate ray page with the names of many distinguished individuals, of whose courtesy and kind- ness the recollection will not fail, while any record remains legible on the tablet of my heart; but this would be contrary to a rule which, with me, has always been absolute in cases of this nature, lest I should be thought even to approach a violation of the confidence of social life. One may wound almost as much by public praise as by censure that delicacy of sentiment which, satisfied with doing good, shrinks from notoriety and ostentation. Nor would I in any PREFACE, XXlll way impair or hinder that frankness of communication and manners which con- stitutes the charm of social intercourse. This would be sure to be checked if we knew that a reporter for the public were constantly present ; and, if the hum- ble expression be allowed, it would hide itself in its burrow, as sure as it per- ceived that one of the feline or the canine race was always at the mouth of its hole waiting its coming out. My agricultural tour, therefore, must not be expected to have much of per- sonal and private narrative; though I am aware, that, from this very circum- stance, it may lack much of that interest which, with a large class of readers, it might otherwise possess. However strong, on these accounts, the temptation, I shall certainly not report many interesting conversations to which I have been a party ; nor describe the eminent or the more humble individuals to whom I have had the honor of an introduction ; nor, after the example of some tourists, tell of the private visits which I have made, and the charming families whose honored guest I have been ; nor speak of the " accomplished men, and the delightful women, and the beautiful daughters, and the promising sons," in the houses where, to use the only term by which true Englisli hospitality may be expressed, I have been domiciliated, and to do only justice to many of whom, and to a con- dition of society in the highest degree polished and improved, would not be for me an easy task, I say notliing of the impropriety of stealing for the public the likeness of a friend, without his consent, and witlaout allowing him to choose his position, his dress, or his painter; for, as an agriculturist, this is not the species of live stock which I came to examine, and in which those for whose benefit I travel would be most interested. Yet, while I shall scrupulously avoid all person- alities whatever of this description, I shall feel at perfect liberty to give, as far as I am able, a true picture of rural life in England, and of the condition and habits of the rural population ; and if, in doing this, I shall, in any ca e, be thought to go beyond the strict line of what may be called the practical and the useful in an agricultural tour, with the candid I shall find an apology in my aesire to alleviate the dulness of dry details, by occasional topics more light and imagi- native. It is not unreasonable for me to wish to attract to my pages, I hi pe for their benefit, a class of readers who would be certain to be repelled from e. mere skeleton, however accurately and beautifully all the bones were put together, and all the joints and articulations displayed ; but who would be delighted to con- template the same subject covered with flesji, instinct with life, radiant with health, and clothed in the habiliments of elegance and fashion. Every one knows the variety of tastes every where existing. He who caters for the public will be, of course, anxious that each guest at the table should find something which he likes. Though, perhaps, a large portion of mankind might be best satisfied with plain boiled and roast, and content to eat their dinner out of pewter plates, and from a plain and coarse oaken table without a cloth, such as I have seen at Haddon Hall, nearly two centuries old ; there are not a few who would prefer the refinements of modern life, a porcelain dish to a wooden tren- cher, a silver fork to the natural use of the ten digits, the French entrees to the more substantial covers ; and who, little as it may contribute to tlie actual sup- port of life, find as high a pleasure in the fittings-out of the banquet, its arrange- ments, neatness, order, beauty, and in the splendid pyramid of flowers which often crowns its centre, as in any mere gratification of the appetite. Under any circumstances it would be idle in me to presume to spread an elegant and splendid table for my guests ; but while I shall be anxious to furnish that which is substantial and nutritious, I shall be equally desirous that at least the dessert XXIV PREFACE. shall be made up of the best fruits which I can gather. Though I am not able to present them in vases of gold and silver, or of diamond glass, or Sevrds or porcelain china ; yet if the peaches and the strawberries should be seen blushing under a few of the leaves of tlieir own foliage, or if a simple bouquet of the flowers of the sweetbrier and violet, or a handful of the half-unfolded buds of the moss-rose, the queen of flowers, should be sought to relieve the monotony of the table, I hope that my taste will not be condemned, but will be regarded only as in conformity to the rule sanctioned by a high antiquity, that of mingling " the agreeable with the useful." There are other grounds upon which I claim the indulgence of my readers. We have often heard of the vexation of an artist, who is compelled to paint a picture to order ; and, willing or unwilling, well or ill, under the most brilliant spell of poetical excitement, or in an hour of the most sleepy or prosy dulness, he must work at it, and have it completed, and varnished, and framed, and sent home to be criticized, by a certain time. To a degree, similar objections lie to all forced intellectual labor ; and in many such cases, a powerfully excited desire to do well, and not to disappoint the wishes and expectations of kind friends, presents, in itself, no small hinderance to success, and, strange as it may seem, is sometimes the cause of failure. It must be obvious to any one what disadvantages I labor under in being obliged to give my reports before I have completed my tour. In this case, I yield of necessity to an impatience of curi- osity on the part of my friends, which I would neither condemn nor blame, but which certainly presents a strong claim upon their candor. 1 am painfully aware of the greatness of the undertaking, and the sacrifices which, at my time of life, it demands of me, and the difficulties in the case of meeting even my own wishes. But the object being exclusively a public object, and one in respect to the utility of which, however imperfectly accomplished, there can be no dissent, I look confidently for the aid and encouragement, so essential to my success, of the intelligent, disinterested, and public-spirited, among the friends of agricultural improvement. Such aid in any form will be gratefully appreciated. In whatever light I regard the subject of the unprovement of agriculture, my sense of its importance is continually strengthened. In its social, political, and moral bearings — in its connection with the subsistence of mankind, with their general comfort, and with the progress of civilization — no subject, purely sec- ular, more demands the attention of the political economist, the statesman, and the philanthropist. If the familiar experience of half a century in all the labors and details of practical husbandry, a considerable acquaintaince with the agri- culture of the United States, and an enthusiastic attachment to rural life and rural pursuits, give me any power to be useful in the advancement of this great cause, that power shall be exerted. I do not know to what object the short remainder of my life can be more rationally devoted. HENRY COLMAN. 2 Spring Gardens, Charing Cross, London, 1844. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION, I^' presenting a second edition of European Agriculture to tlie public, I take the opportunity to acknowledge gratefully the patronage of my subscribers, and the favorable appreciation of my labors by a liberal and enlightened community. I hope that tlie work will do some good by the information which it commu- nicates ; and I am happy in the assurance that it has already done, and will con- tinue to do, much good in calling the attention of the public to this great and important subject, this most essential interest of the community. Every, even the most humble, effort to enlighten the public mind on this subject, to interest, if I may so say, their affections in it, and to elevate and ennoble it in the public estimation, is so far a contribution to the oest interests of society. At the present time the world seems mad with the thirst for gold. The unex- pected discovery of a large deposit of this precious metal in California seems at once to have canied this passion up to the boiling point, and brilliant dreams of wealth acquired without toil, and gold to be gathered in handfuls at pleasure, seem to have startled many sober minds, and to have moved them from their propriety, and to be drawing them away from the calm pursuits of honest indus- try and tlie certain gains of habitual diligence and wholesome economy, into a race to be suddenly rich, in which the competition will be crowded, the dangers to health and life many and great, and, under the best circumstances, the results to possession, enjoyment, and morals altogether uncertain. I firmly believe that, with no more expense than it now demands to reach this golden paradise, with no more toil in tilling the earth, with entire security and peace of mind, and witli no danger to health or morals, many a young man might establish himself far nearer home in our beneficent country, on a small farm ; and, in the wholesome XXVI PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. pursuits of rural industry, would, in the end, become a far richer and happier man than nine out of ten of tliose who, under a burning sun, in a climate full of danger to life, among a population of the most heterogeneous character, and all burning with unmixed avarice, and entirely out of the protection of law, with the hardest toil, and amidst the most severe privations, seek for riches and happi- ness in the sands of San Francisco. JNIy work will be found in this edition considerably enlarged, and all pains have been taken to insure accuracy. There is some miscellaneous matter, but not wholly irrelevant to the subject ; and as it has been my constant aim to make it so, the work will, I trust, be found of an eminently practical character ; and as full and as exact details are given in regard to every agricultural operation or subject as the nature of the case seemed to demand. In regard to the plates of animals some distrust has been expressed as to their accuracy. This, in a measure, grows out of an incredulity as to the extraordi- nary improvements which the British farmers have made in this matter. I have only to say that the drawings have been made from life by some of the best artists which the country affords ; that every pains has been taken to render them coiTect likenesses ; that I have seen several of the animals of which cuts are given, and, as far as my judgment goes, know them to be exact ; and in respect to those cases in which T have not seen the originals, having seen many animals of the same breeds and families, have not a doubt of their accuracy. Boston, Mass. Feb. 1849. EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. PIUST REPORT. I.— GENERAL FACTS AND CONSIDERATIONS. Most of my friends are aware of the circumstances which have induced me to undertake an agricultural tour in Europe. The enterprise was suggested among some friends, at the show of the New York State Agricultural Society, in Albany, in September, 1842 ; and. upon proposals being issued for its accomplishment, the project met with so much favor as to warrant my sailing for England, in April, 1843. Ploughing the sea is somewhat different from ploughing the land ; but under an experienced pilot, and with favorable winds, we made a broad, a deep, and a comparatively straight furrow, throwing off continually floods of jewels from the mould-board ; and in the short space of seventeen days, completed the brilliant line, and unyoked the team in the harbor of Liv^erpool. Here, for the first time, I set foot in England, the green isle in the ocean, the sight of which had been so long the object of my desire ; the brilliant centre of so many youthful imaginations, the home of my fathers, and the advance-guard — if so it may be proper to speak — among the nations of the civilized world ia the march of human improvement, in learning and civilization, m science and the useful arts, and in all the elements of social greatness and prosperity. It would be impossible to describe my emotions on that occa- sion. If small things may be compared to great, then, if it were 1 2 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. not — as with the bold and adventurous Genoese — the discovery of a new and unknown country, yet it was to me an unexplored country; and it was, in truth, almost the first time I had realized the greatness of the enterprise upon which I had embarked. Some persons may smile at the application of such language to a mere agricultural tour. Things are great or small by com- parison ; and that work may be considered great to any one, which, in its proper performance, demands the exertion of all the talents which he may possess. I cannot but look upon an agri- cultural tour in Europe, in the present condition of the art and science, — for in both lights it has now come to be viewed, — as most important ; combining a variety of inquiries and observa- tions which would severely tax the highest powers that might be applied to this object. It is for me to assume only the hum- ble office of a pioneer in this great work ; and if I can be so happy as to render some essential service to my country, in facil- itating the labors of those who sliall come after me, in effecting a small clearing that others may more easily bring the field into a state of complete and productive cultivation, I shall be consoled under all the imperfections of my attempt with the conviction that I have not labored in vain. I cannot help feeling that there is a high responsibleness attached to my undertaking — a responsibleness not merely to the kindness of friends, on both sides of the water, who with an extraordinary liberality and good will have favored the enter- prise, but to the great cause itself of agricultural improvement ; that the information collected and given might be drawn from authentic sources, selected and combined with judgment, and presented in a condensed, compact, and practical form. A person who has had no experience in such a matter, who is not accustomed to such investigations, can form no just idea of the difficulties of accomplishing in this case what one would desire to do ; and of the impediments, and, I regret to add, in many cases the vexations and disappointments, which, in its prosecu- tion, he will be compelled to meet with. Before I left home, a friend — in many respects highly intelligent, and eminent for his sound judgment, and, withal, a liberal and devoted friend of an improved agriculture — said to me, "that there was nothing to be learned in England ; that he himself had travelled much in England, by post, and had occasionally alighted and talked wiUi GENERAL FACTS AND CONSIDEKATIONS. 3 laborers, whom he saw in the fields by the road-side, but he had learned uotliing from them." And another friend, whose emi- nent position in the community should have saved him from an immature judgment, expressed an opinion that " the climate of England was so different from the United States, and the cost of labor in England was so much less than in America, that the agricultural practice and experience of Great Britain could have no application to the United States." Now, entertaining as I do the high respect for these two gentlemen to Vviiich their intelli- gence and position in society entitle them, I have come, not without some reluctance, to an entirely opposite conclusion — a conclusion which my own observation, in the course of my progress, lias daily more and more confirmed. There is a great deal to be learned in England, which can scarcely be said to be known in the United States. There is a great deal of agricultural practice in England, which may with advantage be transplanted to America ; and although, as is most obvious, every agricultural operation must be modified by the climate of a country and various local circumstances, yet, in respect to many facts of a practical nature, the knowledge that under any circumstances a thing is practicable is often of great importance, as it excites to inquiries and experiments which may evolve many other valuable facts ; and inquiries and experiments will often suggest modes of operation by which even the diffi- culties of climate and situation may be counteracted or over- come. Plants and animals are often naturalized to localities very different and distant from their native homes. If the com- mon history of the plant be true, one of the most valuable and nutritious of esculent vegetables, the potato, is an example of a removal from a warm to a temperate, and even a cold climate : and of a conversion from a root very inferior in size and quality, to a vegetable most productive in its yield, universally relished, in the highest degree farinaceous and nutritious, and, under the best cultivation, perhaps yielding per acre as much food for man or beast as any other plant which could occupy the ground. Then, again, to suppose that a knowledge of the agriculture of a country is to be acquired by a transit through it on the box- seat of a coach, or in a railroad carriage, or by a casual conver- sation with laborers by the road-side, who, especially in England, .where labor is so much subdivided that the knowledge of a man 4 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. ia that condition of life seldom extends beyond the particular service to which he has been trained, is a jadgment of which, upon farther consideration, an enlarged mind would not be tena- cious. In respect to any other matter of importance, it would not be the most likely way of obtaining full and authentic infor- mation. Why should it be deemed so in respect to agriculture ? This art, in its improved condition, combines so many arts and such various subjects of inquiry and observation, that a close scrutiny and long-continued inquiry are as indispensable to a thorough knowledge of it as they are in respect to any of the branches of commerce or manufactures. After travelling many hundreds of miles over this rich and highly-cultivated country, and seeing many of the landlords, and tenants, and laborers, in their own domiciles and homesteads, in their stables and fields, and enjoying the most free communica- tions, I feel that I have, as it were, only begun to see what is to be seen, and to learn what is to be known, and that every step of my progress is developing new and valuable objects of inquiry and remark. II. — PARTICULAR OBJECTS OF INQUIRY. What should an agricultural tour embrace ? To this the proper answer is, Every thing connected with the cultivation of the earth, the production of food for man and beast, and the condition of those to whom agriculture is a business and profes- sion. In my preface I have enumerated generally the objects of inquiry. The various operations of husbandry, the implements by which these operations are carried on and facilitated, the plants cultivated, and the live stock produced and maintained, constitute the principal subjects to be observed and treated ; but the subdivisions into which these great topics spread themselves are very numerous, and it is as important to consider them in detail as in the gross. It may be expected by some persons that I should merely point out in what respects foreign differs from American agriculture ; or, otherwise, that I should only suggest for adoption in the United States such methods of culture as, in PARTICULAR OBJECTS OF INQUIRY. 5 my opinion, would constitute an improvement upon American agriculture. Tliis would be assuming too great a responsibility, and would display a confidence in my own judgment with which I would not willingly be chargeable. I design to give, as well as I am able, a full account of subjects which come under my immediate observation. I shall not hesitate to pronounce my opinion whenever I deem it proper so to do, because intelligent minds for whom I write will be no further influenced by it than as it appears reasonable ; but I shall, in all cases, endeavor so fully to state any matter in discussion, that they will have the materials before them for making up their own judgment, and with that I shall not any further willingly interfere. Even agri- culture, like every other subject not susceptible of mathematical demonstration, is not without its disputed and disputable points, into which, of course, something of the heat of passion may at times infuse itself. Political agriculture is full of such topics, and will be cautiously avoided by me so far as in any way it presents itself as matter of party contention. The different breeds of live stock, neat cattle, and sheep, have each their parti- sans ; often influenced solely by their own honest preferences and convictions, founded — as they at least persuade themselves — upon experience and observation ; and in some cases, it will not be denied, by private interests — a stimulus which is too sel- dom absent from most of the disputes and contentions in life. Now, if a man should pronounce a preference over all others for the short-horns, he must expect to be tossed by the long- horns ; if he sides with the Herefords, the Durhams will shake their heads at him ; and if he advocates, above all others, the claims of the polled Scotch, the Angus, or the Fife cattle, the West Highlanders will be down upon him with a ven- geance. So it is with the South Downs and the Leicesters. — meek, quiet, placable animals themselves, — who may be seen feeding peaceably together out of the same manger, and lying down without passion in the same pen ; but not so their owners and breeders. A spirit of rivalry pervades every department of life. Under due restraints and discipline, it is productive of the most useful results ; but it too often blinds the judgment, and becomes fierce and vindictive. We are not satisfied with the imdoubted good qualities of what belongs to ourselves ; but we resolve upon exposing the defects and faults, whether real or l * b EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. imaginary, of what belongs to our neighbors. It is not enough that our own children are handsome, good-tempered, clever, and accomplished ; but we insist upon it that those of our neighbors are ugly, morose, and ill-endowed. Perhaps agriculture presents a more limited field for any ill-natured emulation than almost any other department of life. Here men cannot conceal their discoveries and improvements. Here there cannot be long any monopoly of advantages. Here men perceive how rapidly and widely improvements and discoveries extend themselves. In the present condition of the world, for a man to pretend to keep any distinguished agricultural improvement to himself would be very much like his holding up his umbrella before the sun, so that it might not shine upon other people. All he can be sure of, in this case, is to keep himself in the dark. A liberal and intelli- gent mind perceives at once, that the light which his knowledge or improvements shed upon others, is always reflected back upon himself. III. — SCIENCE AND AGRICULTURE. It must be admitted, however, that although a good deal of selfishness and bigotry might remain, — for, alas! how can it be otherwise as long as human nature is human ? — there is a spirit of liberal inquiry abroad in respect to agriculture, blazing in llie valleys, and beaming from the hill tops, and every where diffus- ing an invigorating, a stirring, and a healthful radiance. One of the wisest of our race, who applied his heart, as he says, to un- derstand wisdom, has told us that there is nothing new under the sun ; what is, has been ; and the human mind is not likely to spring suddenly a mine of truth, which has never before been touched ; nor may it expect at once to accomplish the solution of recondite problems, which have baffled the most penetrating and puzzled the most sagacious minds. It would be the gross- est injustice to many men of the brightest powers, of profound investigation, and of most liberal and disinterested views, — who, though they have gone out, have left a brilliant track behind them, — to say that agricultural science has never before been SCIENCE AND AGRICULTURE. 7 prosecuted with zeal, intelligence, and in the spirit of true philosophy. I am not a believer in the immediate approach of an intellec- tual millennium ; nor can I persuade myself that philosophy has just been born into the world, and that all preceding ages were ages of comparative barbarism. It is true that the natural sciences are now prosecuted with singular advantages and suc- cess ; that, in a particular manner, chemistry has, in a measure, been created within the last half century ; and tliat it promises to render the most essential aid to agriculture. Excepting, how- ever, the stimulus which it has every where given to inquiry and observation, and the exact experiments which it is prompt- ing farmers — even in the humblest departments of agriculture — to make, it cannot as yet point to very many positive practical triumphs. Sanguine as I am, in common v/ith others, in its ap- pHcation to agriculture, ultimately and perhaps speedily yielding the most beneficial fruits, it has not yet even approached a solu- tion of many of the profound secrets of nature. Whether this triumpli is ever to be achieved by human sagacity ; whether, with our present faculties, we are capable of entering into these sacred mysteries, and of lifting up even a corner of the veil which Heaven has drawn over them, it would be idle to conjec- ture ; but they are, as yet, a sealed book to us. In the spirit of the Book of books, " Let us wait at Wisdom's gates, let us watch at the posts of her doors;" let us knock, humbly hoping that they may be opened to us. Those Avho have gone before us have done the same, and were favored with many largesses, which they have bequeathed to their children. Let us do them justice by gratefully acknowledging our debt to them ; and not wrap ourselves up, as we are very liable to do, in the vain con- ceit that they knew nothing, and tbat we know every thing. We talk about nniting science with agriculture, as if this were the first time of asking the banns, when we may be sure the marriage was consummated years and years ago. A science, technically speaking, is a particular branch of human knowledge, which has been systematized and drawn up in regular form ; its particular principles and rules defined, its department circum- scribed, and its peculiar vocabulary arbitrarily established. In this respect, chemistry, botany, and mechanics are sciences ; but science, in an enlarged sense, is the observation of nature — the accumulation and comparison of facts, and the deduction of 8 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. inferences from them, either for the acquisition of more knowl- edge, or for practical application and use. I venture to assert that, without any knowledge of the particular and technical terms of art, whose utility I am not disposed in the smallest degree to deny, wherever the mind is at work there is science ; and many men, who hardly know the letters of a book, are yet profound observers of nature, and may be denominated scientific agriculturists; because they are full of knowledge, which they are constantly applying to practice. Now, without any dispar- agement of former times, I think it must be admitted that the universal mind of the agricultural world was never so powerfully stirred as it is at this present time. We must do what we can to keep it awake, and to direct the application of its powers. "Practice with science," is the terse and comprehensive motto of the Royal Agricultural Society of England. Philosophy now comes down from her high places, and takes Labor by the hand, that they may walk together among the works of God, and, with an enlightened and commendable curiosity, " search into the causes of things." This is the highest office of the human understanding. Nature proceeds by fixed laws. She is not a confused jumble of things ; to-day one thing, and to-morrow another. All the relations of the different parts of nature are mutual and exact, and every thing moves on in a beautiful agreement with every other thing. The ancients were accustomed to speak of the music of the spheres ; this refers to the harmony which prevails throughout the universe, so that no discordant note is ever sounded. There is a reason for every thing ; there is a rule by which every thing is directed and controlled. It is not enough for us to say, " This is a mystery ; it is in vain for us to inquire ; " or, " Here is an arbitrary and miraculous power in nature which we can never understand." There may be many things beyond our comprehension ; there is nothing which should be beyond our inquiry. There is a wonderful power at work always in vegetation. The development and progress of vegetable life, the relations of the soil to the plant produced, the effects of light and air, and dew and rain, and frost and electricity, the nature of manures, their uses and their results, may all be considered as mysteries as yet, to a great degree, unresolved ; but from what we see in other parts of Nature, which have come under our observation, and where some portion of her laws has been fully SCIENCE AND AGRICULTURE. 9 revealed, an intelligent mind can have no doubt that all these things rest upon certain determinate principles, and are governed by laws as fixed as any which prevail in other parts of the system of nature. Whoever examines the minutest crystal, will find that in the same classes the laws -of aggregation are the same ; whoever examines any species of plants, perceives an exact sim- ilarity of formation and habit pervading whole classes and tribes. The established principles of gravitation and attraction, and above all that most wonderful discovery of chemical equivalents, all demonstrate the existence, throughout nature, of fixed laws and determinate forces, whose operation is univ^ersal and invaria- ble. There is every reason to believe that the laws of vegetable and animal life, and growth and nourishment and decay, are equally well established, and equally universal, and equally inva- riable. The ascertaining and discovery of any one of these laws is positive knowledge — is, properly speaking, science; and any mind, acute and observing, may, in the daily routine of humble life, become familiar with many of these great laws ; and read, at first-hand, on the illuminated pages of external nature, the most useful and the most sublime truths, though it has never been taught to read by the alphabet of science, nor been allowed admission into the schools of philosophy. It is said of one of the greatest of human intellects, a mind whose sublime discoveries constitute a divine revelation, second only to the written word, that he was led to the discovery of the great principle which binds worlds and systems in one harmoni- ous bond, by the falling of an apple. The cultivator of the earth has before him not merely the fall but the growth of the apple, which, from the germination of the seed to the maturity of the tree, from the opening of the blossom to the ripening of the fruit, is full of lessons of wisdom ; and, in every stage of its progress, reveals the power and the skill and tlie beneficence of that divine agent, who fills all in all. England presents at this time a more brilliant example, than any age or country has before witnessed, of the application, I will not say of science, for that would not comprehend the idea which I wish to express, but the application of mind to agriculture. The practice of agriculture, and the philosophy of agriculture, are matters of universal interest. Men of all grades and condi- tions are laboring in this great cause, and are asking for the how, and the loluj, and the xchcrefore. The brighter intellects are 10 EUROPEAN AGPaCULTURE, directing their talents to agricultural inquiries ; and the humblest in their humble, but not inefficient way, are seconding their efforts. So many miuds concentrating their rays upon the same point, they must be sure to illuminate it with an extraordinary brilliancy. Agriculture is now getting to be recognized as the command- ing interest of the state : so it must ever be as lying at the foundation of all others. Few persons are apprized of their obli- gations to agriculture ; and it is difficult to estimate the extent of these obligations. Every man's daily bread, his meat, his clothing, his shelter, his luxuries, all come from tlie earth. The foundation, or, as the French would say, the materiel of all com- merce and manufactures, is agricultiu'e ; and its moral influences are innumerable and most powerful. It will be found likewise, upon an observation of the different conditions of different nations or communities, that a laborious agriculture is, in a high degree, a conservator of good morals ; and that those countries are, upon the whole, and on this account, most blessed, not where the fruits of the earth are yielded spontaneously without care and without toil, but where its products come only as the reward of industry, and the powers of the mind, as well as the labor of the hand, are severely taxed in a struggle for the means of subsistence and comfort. Every one recognizes labor as the source of wealth. How few things have any value, which have not been either produced or modified by labor ! and in what department is labor so productive, so essential, and so important as in that of agriculture ? IV. — ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. I will not dwell longer upon these considerations, with which every intelligent mind must be impressed ; and which must, more or less, constantly present themselves to our notice in that field of observation which we have entered. I shall proceed to present some general views of the agriculture of England, and shall descend, in the course of my reports, to such details as may be deemed useful and practical. The condition of practical agriculture in Great Britain, as far ENGLISH AGRICULTURE.- ] 1 as I have had opportunity of observing it, must be pronounced highly improved. Many parts of tlie country present an order, exactness, and neatness of cultivation greatly to be admired; but a sky is seldom without clouds, and there are parts of England where the appearance is any thing but landable, and where there are few and very equivocal evidences of skill, industry, or thrift. We are often told m America, that England is only a large gar- den, in which aft, and skill, and labor, have smoothed all the rough places, filled up the hollow places, and brought every thing into a beautiful and systematic harmony, and into the highest degree of productiveness. This is not wholly true ; indeed, though there are many farms to be altogether admired for the degree of perfection to which their cultivation has been carried, yet there are not a few places where the indications of neglect, and indolence, and unskilfulness are but too apparent ; and where, in an obvious contest for victory between the cultivated plant and the weeds, the latter triumph from their superiority both in force and mmibers. I shall, however, most cheerfully admit that English farming, taken as a whole, is characterized by a neatness, exactness, thoroughness seldom seen in my own coun- try. An American, landing in Liverpool, is at once struck with the amount of labor every where expended ; tlie docks, and the public buildings, and the lofty and magnificent warehouses aston- ish him by the substantial and permanent character of their structure. The railways, likewise, with their deep excavations, their bridges of solid masonry, their splendid viaducts, tlieir immense tunnels, extending in some cases more than two miles in length, and their depots and station-houses, covering acres of ground, with their iron pillars and their roofs, also of iron, exhib- iting a sort of tracery or net-work of the strongest as well as most beautiful description, indicate a most profuse expenditure of labor, and are evidently made to endure. He is still more overpowered with amazement when, coming to London, he passes up or down the River Thames, and contemplates the sev- eral great bridges, among the most splendid objects which are to be seen in England, two of which are of iron and three of stone, spanning this great thoroughfare of commerce with their beauti- ful arches, and made as if, as far as human presumjjtion can go, they would bid defiance to the decay and ravages of time. If to this, he adds (as, indeed, how can he help doing it ?) a visit to the Thames Tunnel, — a secure; a dry, a brilliant, and even a 12 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. gay passage under the bed of the stream, where the tides of the ocean daily roll their waves, and the mighty barks of commerce and war float in all their majesty and pride over his head, exhib- iting the perfection of engineering, and a strength of construction and finish, which leaves not adoubtof its security and endurance, — he perceives an expense of labor which disdains all the lim- ited calculations of a young and comparatively poor country. He remarks a thoroughness of workmanship which is most admirable, and which indicates a boldness and bravery of enter- prise, taking into its calculations not merely years but centuries to come. We have, in America, a common saying in respect to many things which we undertake, that " this will do for the present," which does not seem to me to be known in England ; and we have a variety of cheap, insubstantial, slight-o'-hand ways of doing many things, sometimes vulgarly denominated "make-shifts to do," which we ascribe to what we call Yankee cleverness, of which certainly no signs are to be seen here. Agricultural operations and improvements are here in general conducted and finished in the most thorough and substantial manner. The walls enclosing many of the noblemen's parks in England, which comprehend hundreds, and, in some cases, thousands of acres, are brick walls, of ten and twelve feet in height, running for miles and miles. The walls round many of the farms in Scotland, called there "dikes," made of the stone of the coun- try, and laid in lime, and capped with flat stones resting vertically upon their edges, are finished pieces of masonry. The improve- ments at the Duke of Portland's, at Welbeck, Nottinghamshire, in his arrangements for draining and irrigating, at his pleasure, from three to five hundred acres of land, — without doubt one of the most skilful and magnificent agricultural improvements ever made, — are executed in the most finished and permanent manner; the embankments, the channels, the sluices, the dams, the gates, being constructed, in all cases where it would be most useful and proper, of stone or iron. These are only samples of the style in which things are done here. The important operations of em- banking and of draining, especially under the new system of draining and subsoiling, are executed most thoroughly. The farm houses and farm buildings are of brick or stone, and all calculated to endure. I cannot recommend, without considerable qualifications, these ENGLISH CAPITAL. 13 expensive ways of doing tilings to my own countrymen. We have not tlie means — the capital for accomplishing them ; but we might gather from them a usefal lesson ; for, in general, we err by an opposite extreme. We build too slightly — we do not execute our improvements thoroughly — we have little capital to expend, without which, of course, no substantial improvements can be effected ; and labor, with us, is with more difficulty ob- tained, with far more difficulty managed, and requires to be much more highly paid than here. I hope I shall be pardoned for adding, as my deliberate conviction, that we are too shy of in- vesting money in improvements of this nature, however secure, because they do not yield so large a percentage as many other investments somewhat more questionable in a moral view, and vastly more so in respect to the security which they offer. There are circumstances in the condition of things here, which certainly warrant a much more liberal expenditure in improve- ments than would be eligible with us. Here exist the right of primogeniture and the law of entail, so that an estate remains in the same family for centiu'ies; and a man is comparatively sure that the improvements which he makes will be enjoyed by his children's children. Things are entirely different with us — houses in our cities are continually changing hands, and are scarcely occupied by one life ; and in the country, even in staid New England, few estates are in the hands of the third or fourth generation in the direct line of descent. I shall not at all dis- cuss the comparative advantages, expediency, or propriety of one or the other system. I leave those inferences to others — my business is with the fact as it is; and, like short leases, it has an obvious tendency to hinder or discourage improvements of a substantial and permanent character, involving a large expense. v.— ENGLISH CAPITAL. Another marked distinction, already alluded to, between the condition of the proprietors of the soil here and with us, is in the amount of capital existing here. It is absolutely enormous, and almost distances the system of enumeration whick we are 2 14 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. taught at our common schools. Let me mention some facts which have been stated to me on credible authority ; and let me premise that a pound sterling is about equal to five dollars United States currency. Under a law of the present government, here, levying a tax upon every man's income when it exceeds one hundred and fifty pounds sterling a year, persons liable to taxa- tion are required to make a just return of their income under a heavy penalty. A confectioner, in London, returned, as his annual income, the sum of thirty thousand pounds sterling, or one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, or six times as much as the salary of the President of the United States ; which showed, at least, Ikuv skilful he was in compounding some of the sweets of life. A nobleman, it is said, has contracted with a master builder to erect for him, in London, four thousand — not forty — not four hundred — but four thousand honses of a good size for occupation. In some of the best parts of London, acres of land, vast squares, are occupied with large and elegant dwelling- houses, paying heavy rents, in long rows, blocks, and crescents, and all belonging to some single individual. One nobleman. whose magnificent estate was left to him by his father, encum- bered with a debt of some hundred tliousand pounds, by limit- ing, as it is termed here, his own annual expenditure to thirty thousand pounds, has well nigh extinguished this debt, and, in all human probability, will soon have his patrimonial estate free of encumbrance. The incomes of some of the rich men in the country, amount to twenty, twenty-five, fifty, one hundred thousand, two hundred thousand pounds sterling — even three hundred thousand pounds annually. It is very difficult for New England men even to conceive of such wealth. A farmer in Lincolnshire told me that the crop of wheat grown upon his farm one year was eighteen thousand bushels. The rent annu- ally paid by one farmer in Northumberland, or the Lothians, exceeded seven thousand pounds, or thirty-five thousand dollars. These facts, which have been stated to me by gentlemen in whose veracity I have entire confidence, and who certainly are incapable of attempting any "tricks upon travellers," show the enormous masses of wealth which are here accumulated. A gentleman of distinguished talents and fine classical attainments, and who adds to them a public spirit in agricultural improve- ment worthy of his education and his high standing in the community, has recently added to his property, by the purchase ENGLISH CAPITAL, 15 of lands, to the amount of two hundred thousand pounds ster- Hng, that is, a milhon of dollars ; and his estate, now in cul- tivation, and under his own personal inspection, and, with the exception of about four hundred acres lying in one body, amounts to six thousand acres. Another gentleman, of high rank, in respect to whom and to whose amiable family I have a constant struggle to restrain the open expression of my grateful sense of their kindness, and who — an example here not uncom- mon — to an extraordinary brilliancy of talent and an accom- plished education unites the most active spirit of agricultural improvement, has, though not all in his immediate occupation, yet all under his immediate supervision, a tract of more than twelve thousaud acres in a course of systematic cultivation or gradual improvement.* The income of a single nobleman, from his coal mines, exceeds one hundred thousand pounds sterling a year ; and I believe this is not the largest of the coal possessions. With such wealth as this, men may make what improvements they please, and attempt what experiments they may deem worth trying ; but should such imaginations ever visit a New Englaud or a United States farmer in his dreams, if iEsop's fable of the frog, who attempted to swell himself to the size of the ox, did not cure him, he might be deemed a fit subject for a lunatic asylum. There are other circumstances in the case which are to be added, and those are the cheapness of iron, the abundance of coal, and the admirable facility and skill with which the former material is wrought. Wood, and especially the soft woods, which are so much wrought among us, are here scarce and dear, and, there- fore, seldom used for building purposes ; bricks, and, in many parts of the country, good building stone, of the best quality, are abundant. Most of the cottages which I have seen have brick or stone floors, though many have only hardly-trodden clay and earth ; and the entries of the best houses are generally * 1 mention tliese examples — to which, from my own knowledge, I might add many others — in the form I do, for the purpose, by the way, of showing my American friends that agriculture here takes its proper rank among the liberal professions, and that not merely as a recreation, but as a business ; and in all its minute and practical details, it is not deemed incompatible witli tlie liighest distinctions of talent, education, and rank, but rather as a pursuit in which thoy all may most usefully and honorably lend their combined influence. 16 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. paved, and the staircases made of stone. A fence of iron, afford- ing a suflicient protection against cattle, is made here at a less expense than many wooden fences are made with us. VI. — GENERAL APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY. I may be allowed to put down marks of difference in the general appearance of the country, as compared with my own, as they strike my attention. I need not say that England is entirely devoid of a feature which strongly marks the newly- cleared parts of my own country, and that is the stumps of trees, which have been cut down, or the large, naked, and dead stand- ing skeletons of trees, which have been girdled, that the pioneer, in subduing the wilderness, might have a chance of getting bread for himself and his family, while he was endeavoring to tame the wildness of nature and to convert the forest into a fruitful field. England exhibits, of course, nothing of this, for the days of its youth have long since passed, and its agriculture reckons its pa- triarchal centuries. But there is another thing remarkable : the cultivated fields are entirely free from rocks and stones, excepting the limestone and flint pebbles in the chalk formations. In the clay soils and on the peaty moors, they, of course, are not to be looked tor ; but, where even they once existed, they have been entirely removed or buried, and there is nothing to interrupt or impede the progress of the plough. This is not so generally the case in my own country as is to be desired. It is, indeed, an afiair of very difficult accomplishment in many cases, where, in a granitic region for example, the stones are often within stepping distance of each other all over a farm, and where every fresh ploughing seems to turn up a fresh crop of stones. On the other hand, there are too many cases where, with equal ad- vantage to the purse as pleasure to the eye, such unsightly rub- bish might be removed or buried ; yet there are fields, within my own knowledge, where I may say, with confidence, the same piles of stones which were collected for removal, full half a century ago, retain their original position until this day ; the plough, whenever they are broken up, being always APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY. * 17 compelled, at no small expense of time and trouble, (as a sailor would say,) to give these heaps a good berth; and only going near enough to them to refresh and invigorate the roots of the briers and bramble bushes, by which they are usually ornamented, and which, to my taste, are quite as offensive in a farmer's field as the " mustachios and imperials " so often seen upon the monkey masque, which passes, by the mere indulgence and good humor of society, for a human face. Throughout those parts of England which I have seen, there are, as I have already remarked, an exactness, a finish, and a cleanness in the cultivation, which impress a stranger most agreeably, and de- serve the highest commendation. There are, occasionally, im- mense tracts of unenclosed commons, and heaths, and moors, where there is no cultivation, where nothing grows, and, in some cases, little can ever be made to grow ; or which, otherwise, are abandoned to the growth of furze or gorse for the protection of the game, and for the pleasures of the chase. These are called preserves, and are leased to sportsmen occasionally, or, rather, the right to kill game upon them is leased, at a rate which we should deem a high rent, even for purposes of cultivation. An eminent agriculturist has shown that, in England and Scotland, there are full 10,000,000 acres in heath or moor, all susceptible of being brought into productive cultivation. These lands, of course, remain as they are hj voluntary neglect or design. But I refer to the cultivated and improved lands ; and here there is every where a surprising neatness and finish — every thing is done, as it were, by line and measure ; the corners and the head lands are thoroughly cleaned, the open ditches are kept unobstructed, the crops are drilled in straight lines, and a newly- ploughed field resembles a plaited ruffle from the ironing board of a good housewife. Such exactness is exceedingly beautiful, and. though it may appear, at first, to consume a good deal of time, will be found, in the long rim, to be more economical than the slovenly way in which things are often done in many places, which I am reluctant to name. There is a pleasure afforded by such neatness which is very great, and which can be properly appreciated only by those who have been largely endowed by nature with the organ of order. 9 * 18 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. VII. — HEDGES AND ENCLOSURES. The green fences in England, by which the farms are sur- rounded and divided, are often a beautiful feature in the land- scape. Where they are complete, and neatly trimmed and formed, with here and there a single plant left to rise above the rest, which many deem more beautiful to the eye than a demo- cratic level, and when seen whitened with their blossoms in the spring, or blushing deeply with their fruit in autumn, they are exceedingly pleasing to the eye. In general, they are formed of the white thorn, and sometimes of the holly, and not unfre- quently of these two plants intermingled. But I must confess myself somewhat disappointed in the condition of the hedges throughout England. Of course there are many exceptions, and perhaps the cases to which I refer should be considered as exceptions to the general fact ; but in frequent instances they are greatly neglected. There are many vacancies in them ; they are not well trimmed ; they are intermingled Avith various weeds and rubbish ; and, instead of being confined to a width of four or six feet, they are often seen with their pernicious accompani- ments occupying niore than a rod in width. I inquired why this was permitted ; and why, when the rest of the face was so clear and bright, such dirt spots were allowed to remain : the answer was, "that they were left thus for the protection of the game, and that they made excellent covers for partridges and foxes."' When so much care and expense arc incurred in the protection of this kind of game, it is to be hoped that it may suggest always the higher duty of taking care of the human game, the hungry and ragged children, wliich in some parts of England arc as numerous, and growing up as wild, and many of them as little taught, as the rabbits in a warren. The enclosures in England are of various extent, from ten to twenty and fifty acres. There are some farms with scarcely a subdivision, and in these cases the stock are soiled. In parts of England, however, they resemble the divisions of New England farms, and are of various sizes, but generally small, and of all shapes, and often not exceeding four or five acres. It is reported of a farmer in Devonshire, that he lately cultivated one hundred acres of wheat in fifty different fields. There nuist have been HEDGES AND ENCLOSURES. 19 here a great waste of land and labor. One of the most compe- tent judges of agricultural improvement in England says, how- ever, that "his tenants never wish to have more than one ploughed field on a farm." The loss in land by too many fences, the loss of time in culti- vating in small fields instead of large, on account of the necessity of more frequent turnings, and ploughing the head lands by themselves, and the actual cost of making and of maintainitig the fences, not to add that these fences are a shelter for weeds, and a harbor for vermin, are serious considerations. The statement of an intelligent practical farmer in Staffordshire, on the highly- improved estate of Lord Hatherton, whom I had the pleasure of visiting with Mr. P. Pusey, M. P., as given to Mr. Pusey, is well worth recording. Speaking of the farm called the Yew-Tree Farm, he says, " The turnip field is sixty-five acres ; it was, two years back, at the time I entered upon the farm, in eight enclo- sures. I have taken up 1914 yards of fence, and intend divid- ing it into three fields ; it will take 800 yards of new fence. The field in which I was subsoiling is forty-two acres ; it was in six enclosures. I took up 1264 yards of fence ; if I divide this field, it will take 300 yards of new fence. The land Lord Hatherton mentioned on my Deanery Farm was originally in twenty-seven enclosures; ninety-one acres. I took up 4427 yards of fences ; it will now lie in five fields, and will take 1016 yards of new fence." "I cannot," he adds, "really say what land is gained by the different operations ; but some of the fences were from three to four yards or more wide, that the plough never touched ; my new fences are upon the level without ditches. In the whole of the old fences there was a great number of ash-trees, which are all stocked up, as well as a good part of the oak. only leaving a few for ornament and shelter. I think the greatest gain in land will be from getting rid of the trees." * This is the experience and opinion of a sound practical farmer, and is entitled to great weight. In some of the counties large enclosures prevail. In parts of Lincolnshire the enclosures embrace about fifty acres each ; and on the best managed farms which I saw, these fields were mostly laid either in parallelograms or squares. In the fens or redeemed lands of Lincolnshire, the * Journal of Royal Agricultural Society, vol. iv. part 9, p. 30G, note. 20 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. ditches around and through the land form sufficient and the only fences. In the county of Northumberland, and in the Lothians, the enclosures are very extensive, and, excepting on the outlines, no fences appear. The plough, in such case, when it starts, takes its course, and runs to the end of these long fields without interruption. Mr. Pusey, in Berkshire, on one of the best managed estates v/hich I have visited, has induced many of his tenants to take away the inner fences and leave the fields open. Sheep are, of course, never suffered to graze or roam at pleasure over these large fields, but are fed in enclosures formed of movable hurdles in different parts of the field, where their manure is required. Cattle never go at large upon them ; and the convenience of cultivating where the lands are thus open, to say nothing of the beauty of the appearance, in addition to other advantages already alluded to, is at once obvious and decisive. VIII.— IRON AND SUNKEN FENCES. I shall speak in this place of two kinds of fences which are common on gentlemen's seats, and one of which may be safely recommended to my own countrymen. The first is an iron fence, called here an invisible fence. This is made of stout iron wire, about one third of an inch in diameter, and consists of four or five bars or rods, with upright pieces of iron, about an inch and a quarter in width, and about one third of an inch in thick- ness, placed at about six feet distance from each other. Through these upright and flat pieces of iron the bars or rods are passed, and they serve to keep them secure. Every alternate one of these upright bars has a foot to it, and being sunk in the ground about a foot or more, serves as a post to keep the fence steady ; and occasionally these posts, if so they may be called, have side these, of course, increase the strength of they are not indispensable. These fences ^ on account of the abundance of iron and the facility with which it is wrought ; and being kept painted commonly of a green color, they do not appear until you approach supports, thus ; the fence, but are very cheap, _Z THE ENGLISH PARKS. 21 near them ; bat no animals attempt to pass them, and, when well taken care of, they are durable, and, it is obvious, may be easily removed from place to place. There is another kind of fence often formed, called a sunken fence ; or "ha! ha! " from its generally taking persons by sur- prise, as it does not appear until you reach it. A trench is dug as deep as it is required that the height of the wall shall be from the bottom of the trench ; one side of ihe trench is perpendicu- lar, and against this side the wall is erected ; the other side is made slanting at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and the slanting side is grassed, and may be mowed clear to the bottom, so that no land is lost ; but, in truth, a small amount is gained. The object is to conceal the fence, so that when placed round the grounds of a gentleman's house, the prospect of the lawn or field is not interrupted by an unsightly wall ; and the grounds within the enclosure tnay be cultivated or embellished in any way with shrubs, or flowers, or fruit, and yet the cattle feeding beyond it, whom no visible obstruction appears to keep at a distance, are efiectually excluded, as no animal attempts ever to leap such a fence. IX. — THE ENGLISH PARKS. I will take this occasion to speak of the extensive parks which are to be seen in many parts of the country, and which consti- tute a truly magnificent feature in English scenery. These are the open grounds, which surround the houses of the rich and noble in the country. By open, I do not mean entirely free from trees, because many of them are exceedingly well stocked with trees, sometimes standing single, at other times in clumps ; sometimes in belts, sometimes in rows, and squares, and circular plantations ; and more often scattered, as if they were carelessly thrown down broadcast. The ground under them is kept in grass, and depastured by cattle, sheep, and deer; and affords often the richest herbage. With some exceptions, a plough is never suffered to disturb these grounds ; and in the neighborhood of the house, which is generally placed in the centre of them, the portion which is separated from the rest, as I have observed. 22 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. by an invisible or sunken fence just now described, for the culti- vation of ornamental trees and shrubs, is kept so closely and evenly shorn, that to walk upon it seems more like treading upon velvet than upon grass. Nothing of the kind can be more beau- tiful ; and I never before knew the force of that striking expres- sion of the prince of poets, Milton, of '• walking on the smooth shaven lawn ; " for it seems to be cut with a razor rather than with a scythe ; and after a gentle shower it really appears as if the field had had its face washed, and its hair combed with a fine-tooth comb. It is brought to this perfection by being kept often mown ; and I have stood by with perfect admiration to see a svvarth mowed evenly and perfectly, where the grass to be cut was scarcely more than an inch high. These parks which I have described abound, as observed, with trees of extraordinary age and size. They are not like the trees of our original forests, growing up to a great height, and, on account of the crowded state of the neighborhood, throwing out few lateral branches ; but what they want in height, they gain in breadth ; and, if I may be excused for a hard word, in um- brageousness. I measured one in Lord Bagot's celebrated park in Staffordshire, and going round the outside of the branches, keeping within the droppings, the circuit was a hundred yards. The circumference of some of the celebrated oaks in the park of the Duke of Portland, which we measured together, when he did me the kindness to accompany me through his grounds, seem worthy of record. The Little Porter Oak measured 27 feet in circumference ; the Great Porter Oak is 29 feet in circumference; the Seven Sisters, 33 feet in circumference. The Great Porter Oak was of a very large diameter, 50 feet above the ground ; and the opening in the trunk of the Green Dale Oak was at one time large enough to admit the passage of a small carriage through it; by advancing years the space has become somewhat contracted. These indeed are noble trees, though it must be confessed that they were thrown quite into the shade by the magnificent Kentucky Buttonwood or Sycamore, of whose trunk I saw a complete section exhibited at Derby, measuring 25 feet in diameter and 75 feet in circumference. This was brought from the United States, and indeed might well be denominated the mammoth of the forest. In these ancient parks, oaks and beeches are the predominant trees, with occasional chestnuts and ashes. In very many cases THE ENGLISH PARKS. 23 I saw the beauty and force of that first line in the pastorals of Virgil, where he addresses Titynis as " playing upon his lute under the spreading shade of a heech-treey These trees are looked upon with great veneration ; in many cases, they are num- bered; in some, a label is affixed to them, giving their age; sometimes a stone monument is erected, saying when and by whom this forest or this clump was planted ; and commonly some record is kept of them as a part of the family history. I respect this trait in the character of the English, and I sympa- thize with them in their veneration for old trees. They are the growth often of centuries, and the monuments of years gone by. They were the companions of our fathers, who, it may be, were nourished by their fruit, and reposed under their shade. Perhaps they were planted by the very hands of those from whom we have descended ; and whose far-sighted and comprehensive beneficence embraced a distant posterity. How many revolu- tions and vicissitudes in the fortunes of men have they surveyed and survived ! They have been pelted by many a storm ; the hoarse and swift wind has often growled and whistled among their branches ; the lightnings and tempest have many a time bent their limbs and scathed their trunks. But they, like the good and the truly great in seasons of trial, have stood firm and retained their integrity. They have seen one generation of men treading upon the heels of another, and rapidly passing away ; wars have burst forth in volcanic explosions, and have gone out ■ revolutions have made their changes, and the wheel again returned to its starting point ; governments and princes have flourished and faded ; and the current of human destiny has flowed at their roots, bearing onwards to the traveller's bourn one family and one people after another ; but they still stand, green in their old age, as the mute yet eloquent historians of departed years. Why should we not look upon them with rev- erence ? I cannot quite enter into the enthusiasm of an excel- lent friend, who used to say that the cutting down of an old tree ought to be made a capital ofl'ence at law ; yet I deem it almost sacrilegious to destroy them, excepting where necessity demands it ; and I would always advise that an old tree, standing in a conspicuous station either for use or ornament, should be at least once more wintered and summered before the sentence of death, which may be passed upon it, is carried into execution. The trees in the park of the palace of Hampton Court are, 24 ETTROPEAN AGRICULTURE, many of them, the horse-chestnut and the lime, of great age and eminent beauty ; several straight lines of them forming, for a long distance, the approach to the palace. On a clear, bright day. at the season of their flowering, I passed through this mag- nificent avenue with inexpressible delight. I passed through them again late in the autumn, when the frost had marred their beauty, and the autumnal gales had stripped off their leaves ; but they were still venerable in the simple majesty of their gigantic and spreading forms. I could not help reflecting, with grateful emotion, on that beneficent Power, which shall presently breathe upon these apparently lifeless statues, and clothe them with the glittering foliage of spring, and the rich and splendid glories of summer. So be it with those of us who have got far on into the autumn, or stand shivering in the winter of life ! The extent of these parks, in many cases, filled me with sur- prise. They embrace hundreds, in some instances thousands, of acres ; * and you enter them by gates, where a porter's lodge is always to be found. After entering the park gate, I have rode sometimes several miles before reaching the house. They arc in general devoted to the pasturage of sheep, cattle, and deer. In the park at Chatsworth, the herd of deer exceeded sixteen hundred. These deer are kept at no inconsiderable expense, requiring abundant pasturage in summer, and hay and grain in winter. An English pasture is seldom or never ploughed. Many of them have been in grass beyond the memory of any one living. The turf becomes extremely close and hard ; and the feeding of sheep and cattle undoubtedly enriches the land, especially under the careful management of one eminent farmer, — and many more, doubtless, are like him, — on whose pasture grounds the manure of the cattle was daily collected and evenly spread. In speaking of the parks in the country, I surely ought not to pass in silence the magnificent parks of London, as truly mag- nificent they must be called, including St. James's Park, Green Park, Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, and Regent's Park. Kensington Gardens, exclusive of private gardens, within its enclosures contains 227 acres ; Hyde Park, 380 acres ; Green Park, connected with St. James's Park, 56 acres ; St. James's Park, 87 acres ; Regent's Park, 372 acres ; terraces and canals connected with Regent's Park, 80 acres — making a grand total * Windsor Great Park contains 3500 acres, and the Little Park 300 acres. THE ENGLISH PARKS. iio of 1202 acres. To these should be added the large, elegant, and Jiighly-embellished public squares in various parts of London, and even in the most crowded parts of the old city, which, in all, probably exceed 200 acres. These magnificent parks, it must be remembered, are in the midst of a populous town, including upwards of two millions of inhabitants, and are open to the public for exercise, health, and amusement. Tliey are, at the same time, to a degree stocked with sheep and cows. It is impossible to over-estimate the value to health of these open spaces, and the amount of recreation and rational enjoyment which they afford to this vast population. In each of the large parks — Kensington, Hyde Park, and St. James's — there are extensive bodies of water, artificial lakes, in some places adorned with elegant bridges, and in St. James's Park studded with pretty islands and shrubbery. Here large varieties of aquatic birds are kept, to the great amusement of the thousands of chil- dren, who coax them to the shore with crumbs of bread and cake, the birds being so tame as almost to feed out of their hands, and for the instruction of older heads. There is likewise an exceed- ingly beautiful and tasteful cottage, of Gothic architecture, at the end of the lake in St. James's Park, for the residence of the keeper of the birds. There are always to be found in some parts of the parks, or at the keepers' different lodges, some cows kept, where a glass of milk, unadulterated and fresh from the fountain, can be had for those persons who, for health or pleasure, seek the delicious beverage in its purity. The numbers and tameness of the birds in these pleasure-grounds is a beautiful circumstance, which it might be well to consider in some other quarters. Their safety and lives are held sacred ; and the birds gratefully, and, to a feeling heart, delightfully acknowledge this kindness by the most expressive confidence, alighting fearlessly in the path before you, as though they would invite you to cultivate their acquaintance. Man, in general, is a great savage, and a ferocious and insatiate animal of prey. He makes contimial war upon many of the animals below him, not for subsistence merely, but for pleasure. His conduct towards the brute creation shows, too often, how certain he is to abuse unlimited power, and con- veys a strong argument against despotic authority. Indeed, his war upon the birds merely as matter of sport, always makes me look upon him with a degree of shuddering, and feel that a man who can find his pleasure in the wanton destruction of little 3 26 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. birds, the most humble of all animals in their claims, the most delicate, innocent, and pure in all their tastes and habits, and comparatively useless for food, puts himself beyond the pale of humanity, and could scarcely, with safetj^-, be trusted with a child. It were worth considering always, how many of our pleasures are purchased at a most bitter expense of happiness and life to others ! Two or three days' coursing, manly and health- ful as the exercise on horseback undoubtedly is, and strongly exciting as the sport is, did not quite reconcile me to it ; and the wailings and shriekings of the atfrighted and dying hares, in the jaws of the hounds, sounded in my ears, for several days after- wards, like the cries of expiring children. I shall not be straying from my proper duty if I urge the beneficent example of London strongly upon my own country- men. In Boston, excepting the Common — containing about forty-five acres of ground, exceedingly beautiful in its location and improvements — and some few openings upon a very limited scale, there is a large and constantly increasing population crowded together in one dense mass, with narrow streets and confined alleys, and basement stories, doomed to a comparative privation of Heaven's freest and greatest blessings — light and air. A Botanical and Pleasure Garden has been laid out, and is main- tained by private subscription, accessible to subscribers or upon the payment of a light fee, which it is earnestly to be hoped, for the credit of this city, long distinguished by its liberality and public spirit, may receive every encouragement, so that its im- provements and advantages may be greatly extended. New York, with a population of three times the extent of Boston, is scarcely more favored, excepting in the width of its streets ; for, with the exception of those delightful grounds, the Battery, at the very extremity of the city, the open space in front of the City Hall, dignified, pa?' excellence, by the name of the Park, and the open grounds attached to St. John's Church, and the University, but not accessible to the public, the city has no provision of this kind for public recreation and health. As there is little room in the city proper which can now be obtained, she ought at once, at any expense, to secure the charming grounds at Hoboken, to be devoted forever and exclusively to these objects. Having already, with the most honorable enterprise, achieved one of the most extraordinary undertakings of the age, or indeed of any age, — that of bringing, by a capacious tunnel of forty miles in length, a THE ENGLISH PARKS. 27 river of pure water into her city, and dispensing, Avith an unre- strained munificence, to those who cannot purchase it, this most important element, next to vital air, of human existence ; let her go on and make the other provision, to which I have referred, for the health and comfort of a population already great, and destined to increase with an unexampled rapidity beyond any bounds which the imagination would now even dare to prescribe. Philadelphia has set a better example than most other cities in this respect, in having laid out her streets of a capacious width, in having given to most of her houses yards or gardens of a good size, and in having formed, in different parts of the city, public squares of some extent, which are equally ornamental and useful. But she has done little compared with what she might have done ; and it is to be hoped that she will be prompted to add to a city, the most convenient and beautiful in the Union, some public gardens and pleasure-grounds, admission to which shall be freely offered to her inhabitants ; and more especially for the benefit of that class of them who can have no such indulgences but as the ofterings of public beneficence. Baltimore has noth- ing that deserves the name of a square or a pleasure-ground, unless we are to rank under that designation the beautiful enclo- sure which she has recently purchased for a cemetery ; a place, indeed, for a melancholy and instructive pleasure, but more properly devoted to silence and seclusion, and not at all of the character to which I refer. Lowell — destined to contain a large and laborious population, and of a character particularly demand- ing such places of recreation, with an unlimited extent of land at her disposal costing scarcely any thing, and with an invest- ment in her manufacturing establishments of ten or eleven mil- lions of dollars — has not a public square so large as a pocket- handkerchief. This omission has always impressed me with painful surprise. Knowing, as I do, the high character of the gentleman who founded and built this flourishing city, now grown to manhood almost in a day, I can ascribe such an omis- sion only to a want of consideration, and to the fact that the population has already extended far beyond any calculations which they could, with sobriety, have formed at its commence- ment. It is not too late to supply this omission, which interest, as well as philanthropy, most strongly dictates. Cleanliness, fresh air, and pure water, and the opportunity and the means of relaxation and innocent recreation, are almost as 28 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. essential to morals as to health. No one can doubt, in this respect, their direct and beneficial influence. The rich can take care of themselves, and can flee the sources of pestilence, and go after health and recreation where they are to be found. Not so with the poorer and humbler classes in society, to whose labor and service the rich owe all their wealth and many of their pleasures. Whoever goes into the low places in crowded cities, into the subterranean abodes where these wretched beings con- gregate like rabbits in a warren, or, rather, like swine in their sties, and enters into the melancholy statistics of mortality, in such cases will learn some measure of the sufl^'ering which is here endured. In London, and other places of a similar char- acter, the presence of the police and the officers of the peace, always in such places in strong force, will remind him that there is a connection not to be overlooked between condition and character, between destitution and crime, between outward filth and impurity of mind, neglect of person and neglect of morals. The most crowded parts of London are the most vicious parts ; and a new should not neglect the experience of an old country. A city without public squares and public gardens should provide them, and on a most liberal scale. In a pecuniary point of view, as rendering a residence in the city the more desirable, and so increasing the value of estates in it, I have no doubt that it would yield ample advantages and profits. But health and morals are not to be measured by any pecuniary standard ; and where wholesome water, and fresh air, and light, and sunshine, and cleanliness are concerned, no expense and cost are to be con- sidered as exorbitant. To talk about the value of land in such cases, and to place this in competition with health, comfort, and morals, is equally short-sighted and inhuman. The public parks and pleasure-grounds in London are highly ornamented with shrubs, plants, and flowers, and accessible to the public for exercise and recreation. In St. James's Park, and in some others, metallic labels are aflixed to the foreign plants and shrubs, with the botanical and tiie vulgar name of the plants upon them, and the class and the country to which they belong. This is a beautiful arrangement, and well deserving imitation ; furnishing instruction, as well as satisfaction ; inciting to the study of botany, and opening a sealed book to the unaided and curious student of nature. Every one knows the advantage of teaching by example ; and what an interest is given to the ORNAMENTAL SHRUBS AND FLOWERS. 29 objects, which the natural and visible world presents, by the associations which science throws around them. This practice, I found, prevailed in other public gardens and pleasure-grounds. It was the case in the beautiful and highly-cultivated botanical garden in the neighborhood of Liverpool, which, though created and supported by private subscriptions, and for scientific pur- poses, is yet free of access to the public one or more days in the week. The same is the case with the very tasteful garden in Sheffield, a romantic and charmiijg piece of ground, which, though on a small scale, combines many attractions ; and like- wise with the Arboretum at Derby, embracing, I think, about eleven acres, and formed into a garden and pleasure-ground for the public recreation. This last is the fruit of individual mu- nificence. Mr. Strutt, an eminent manufacturer at Derby, em- ployed Mr. Loudon — the late distinguished horticultural writer — to lay out, plant, and ornament these grounds, at an expense of ten thousand poimds sterling, or fifty thousand dollars ; and then, with eminent liberality, gave them to the city of Derby for the public use and enjoyment of its inhabitants. Tens of thousands of pounds expended in the erection of a Corinthian column, or a marble mausoleum, would not have formed so durable or extended a memorial of him ; and thousands upon thousands yet unborn, in the enjoyment of this beneficence, will invoke blessings upon his memory. X. — ORNAMENTAL SHRUBS AND FLOWERS. The cultivation of flowers and shrubs is a prominent feature in the landscape of England ; and a circumstance which has given no little gratification to my national pride, has been the profusion of American plants, azalias and kalmias, magnolias and rhododendrons, and a large variety of pines and firs, which are seen in the shrubberies and plantations and pleasure-grounds, both public and private. A very large establishment in London. is exclusively devoted to the sale of American plants ; and they are every where admired for the splendor of their foliage and the beauty of their flowers. Greenhouses and conservatories are 3* 30 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. almost universal in the country, where any thing like a garden exists; and the better class of houses are surrounded and adorned with a great variety of flowering shrubs and plants, presentitig, through the season, a charming succession of gay and brilliant ornaments. Even the laborer's humble cottage, ordinarily, I am compelled to admit, any thing but a picturesque object, will occasionally have its flowering shrubs adorning its door-way, and the ivy hanging its beautiful tresses over its window, forming, as it were, a mirror, set in a frame of the richest green. The vil- lage of Marr, in Yorkshire, not far from Doncaster, and the village of Edensor, in Derbyshire, near Chatsvvorth, and the village of Lord Brownlow, in Lincolnshire, the best built and by far the handsomest villages I have yet seen in England, to cottages of an excellent and tasteful construction, monuments of the liberality of their proprietors, add these beautiful rural embel- lishments of shrubs and flowers, and compel a reflecting mind to admit the moral influence of such arrangements upon the char- acter and manners of their inhabitants. Churches and ruins, likewise, are often seen spread over with the richest mantlings of ivy ; and, among many others, the venerable and magnificent remains of Hardwicke Hall, for example, are covered, I may say, in the season of its flowering, with a gorgeous robe of it, matting its sides with indescribable luxuriance, climbing its lofty battlements, and fringing its empty windoAvs and broken arches, as though Nature would make the pall of death exqui- sitely beautiful and splendid, that she might conceal the hideous- ness of decay, and shut from the sight of frail mortals these aff'ecting monuments of the vanity of human grandeur and pride. I have said and written a great deal to my countrymen about the cultivation of flowers, ornamental gardening, and rural em- bellishments ; and I would read them a homily on the subject every day of every remaining year of my life, if I thought it would have the effect which I desire, of inducing them to make this matter of particular attention and care. When any man asks me what is the use of shrubs and flowers, my first impulse always is, to look under his hat and see the length of his ears. I am heartily sick of measuring every thing by a standard of mere utility and profit; and as heartily do I pity the man who can see no good in life but in pecuniary gain, or in the mere animal indulgences of eating and drinking. The establishment of horticultural societies in Salem, Boston, CLIMATE OF ENGLAND. 31 Worcester, New Haven, New York, and Philadelphia, — and I speak of these societies in particular because I have attended the exhibitions of most of them, — has rendered an immense benefit to the country, not merely in the introduction of new and valuable fruits and vegetables, and in what they liave done to improve and perfect the cultivation of those long known among us, but in the improvement of the public taste, and the powerful stimu- lus they have given to the cultivation of flowers and the forma- tion of gardens and ornamental grounds throughout the country. Few countries in temperate latitudes are richer in the floral kingdom of nature, and the luxuriance of vegetable growth and the splendors of vegetable beauty, than the United States. Why should not flowers be cultivated ? Was the human eye, that wonder of wonders, that matchless organ of our physical constitution, that inexhaustible instrument of exalted and varied pleasures, made in vain ? Are the forms of beauty in the natu- ral world, infinitely multiplied as they are around us, made for any other purpose than to be enjoyed ? And what better means can we take to strengthen the domestic affections, of all others the most favorable to virtue, than to render our homes as beauti- ful and as attractive as possible ? Who does not see constantly the influence of external circumstances upon character as well as comfort ; and perceive how greatly order, exactness, and personal neatness contribute to form and strengthen the sense of moral exactness and propriety ? The horticultural establishments of England, their vegetable gardens, their flower gardens, their shrubberies and plantations, their greenhouses and conservatories, are upon the most exten- sive scale. XL — CLIMATE OF ENGLAND. Another marked difference in the agricultural condition of England and the northern portion of the United States, is in the climate. I cannot speak with any confidence of Scotland, but the climate of England must be pronounced highly temperate. It is favorable to the growth and the constant vigor and freshness of the grasses. It is not only temperate, but moist. The last 32 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. season may have been peculiar. I landed in Liverpool near the end of April ; and there was more or less rain for forty-six days in succession, until I became quite satisfied that an umbrella was as necessary as a hat. When the clear weather finally set in, we had two months, or more, of as fine weather for harvesting as I ever knew, with scarcely the intervention of a day's rain ; yet there was nothing of the parching heat of our summers, and I saw no land burnt up by drought. It is now December, and I have scarcely seen any ice, and not a flake of snow ; and there is no frost in the ground. Many persons speak of this as the usual temperature, and say that the cold weather does not com- mence until after Christmas. The dews appear to me very light, owing, as I suppose, to the mildness of the days ; and there have been none of those blowing clouds of dust with which our air is often charged, and which, with us, after long droughts, are very disagreeable. Of thunder and lightning this season I am unable to recall a single instance ; and at no time of the day has the heat been in the slightest degree oppressive.* Their insular situation exposes them to frequent and dense fogs, which interpose to prevent the earth being ever parched by drought ; and the rains to which they are subject keep the earth, where it is of a retentive character, much soaked with water, and preserve an almost perpetual greenness of vegetation. In many parts of England, the crops of turnips are never pulled until they are wanted for feeding in the course of the winter ; in other places, they require a very slight covering to protect them from the frost. In most cases, sheep do not require to be housed ; and in some cases, neat cattle get their chief living in the fields through a great part of the winter, though I cannot but regard this practice as very bad husbandry. Ploughing appears to be seldom interrupted for any length of time ; and wheat is sown * The annual average depth of rain in Eno^land is about two feet. In 1840, for instance, the depth at Aberdeen was 24.G27 inches ; at Empingham, 18.58 ; Epping, 20.767; Fahiiouth, 31.511; Gosport, 25.525 ; Greenwich, 18.24 ; York, 24.72 inches. That is perhaps not much below the average of the continent of Europe. Some portions of Western Europe, liowever, are exceedingly wet ; 123 inches have been noted to fall at Coimbra, in Portugal, in a year. The fall of rain is still greater in the West Indies. At St. Domingo, 120 inches ; at Cay- enne, 116 inches ; at Maranham, 277 inches. So tliat even under the equator, a sufficient supply of rain water can be obtained for tlie service of the inhabitants. — jparwier's Almanac. CLIMATE OB' ENGLAND. 33 from October to April. In parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and the states south, the farmers enjoy similar advan- tages of a mild temperature ; but north of these, the despotism of frost and snow commences, and holds undisputed sway for four months in the year. Yet, notwithstanding this, our seasons are quite long enougii for the perfect ripening of all the crops grown among us; and, with a little extra labor, even the valua- ble green crops, which here play so important a part in the feed- ing of stock and the enriching of the land, might, if deemed expedient, be raised and used among us. Of this, however, I shall speak hereafter. These remarks apply only to what has come under my own personal observation ; and I can be said to have seen, as yet, only a small part of England. The winter management of farms here is a matter of as much importance as the summer husbandry, and will claim my particular attention. The disposal of the produce, the fattening of animals, the breeds or kinds of live stock most likely to make a good return to the farmer, and the whole management of the manure yards, are subjects in relation to which much useful instruction is to be obtained. It would seem as though a country with so rough and severe a climate as New England, and with such long winters as prevail there, which, for more than a third part of the year, interrupt entirely all the out-door operations of husbandry, must be ex- ceedingly unfriendly to agriculture, compared with one v/here the winters are open and field-labor is practicable through the whole of the year. This is, indeed, the case ; yet there are some compensations for these privations and disadvantages, which in New England are duly appreciated, as the winter, when labor is to a great degree suspended, is the special season for the education of the young ; for reading and mental improvement, and for the most friendly and social intercourse. If these cir- cumstances may be thought to have no connection with agricul- ture, strictly so called, yet they are certainly to be considered in reference to the condition of the agricultural population ; and in every circumstance which renders their condition more comfort- able and happy, and, above all, which advances their intelli- gence, we may ordinarily look for a corresponding improvement in their cultivation and rural husbandry. A New England village resembles, to a great degree, a united and happy family, where perfect equality prevails ; where a friendly sympathy is every 34 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. Avhere active and strong ; and where all seem bound to con- tribute, according to their power, to the general welfare, comfort, and improvement. Society exists in the United States under circumstances so entirely different from those in which it is found here, that a comparison can hardly be instituted between them. The intercourse to which I have here referred, can scarcely be said to exist in England ; the general character of the laboring population being not many removes, as far as intellectual im- provement is concerned, above that of the other animals which cultivate their fields. In several respects, it must be admitted, the mild temperature of the English climate affords singular advantages. The winter season furnishes the best opportunity for draining and ditching ; the active operations of the farm being, in a degree, suspended, labor is obtained at a low rate ; and as a great portion of field v/ork, in England, is done by the piece instead of the day, the shortness of the days makes no difference of expense to the employer. XII. — AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. I have referred to some differences in the condition of society here, and in the United States, and those differences it may be well to understand. The agricultural population in England is divided into three classes — the landlord, the tenant farmer or occupier, and the laborer. 1. The Landlords ; Rents ; and Taxes. — The landlord is the owner of the soil. Most of the landlords are noblemen or gentlemen, and are looked up to with a deference and veneration, on account of their rank, with which those of us who have been educated in a condition of society where titles and ranks are unknown, find it difficult to sympathize. They own the land. Some few of them keep portions of their vast territories in their own occupation, and under their own management ; but, by most of them, their lands are leased in farms of diflerent sizes, seldom less than three or four hundred acres, and in many cases eight hundred, a thousand, and twelve hundred acres. The rent of land varies in different places ; in some being as lov.'- as five AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 35 shillings ; in others rising to almost as many pounds. Rents are in general paid in money. Sometimes they are valued in kind ; that is, the tenant engaging to pay so many bushels of wheat, or so many bushels of barley, or such amount of other products ; but in these cases, also, the landlord usually receives his rent in money according to the current prices of these articles. The rents are paid in semi-annual payments. The fair rent of land is sometimes estimated at a third of its products ; by some, a different rule is adopted, which is, after all the expenses of culti- vation and the usual assessments are deducted from the gross proceeds, that the balance remaining should be divided equally between the landlord and the tenant. In general, however, as far as my observation has extended, the rate of rent is not deter- mined by any particular rule, other than that which prevails in most commercial transactions, that each party makes the best bar- gain for himself that he is able. It is only just to add that in all the cases, without exception, which have come under my remark, there has seemed to me, on the part of the landlords, a fair measure of liberality ; the rents in general bearing a small proportion to the legal interest of the money at which the lands are valued, and for which they could be sold at once; lands costing £60 sterling, or 300 dollars per acre, being frequently let for 30s. or £2 ster- ling per acre, that is, less than eight or ten dollars per acre. We are not well satisfied in the United States with a return from our land under five or six per cent, on its cost ; but the landlords here seldom obtain more than two and a half per cent, or three per cent, on the price which the land would command, if brought into the market. The low rents which are obtained show the abundance of wealth, and ho\y greatly an investment in land is valued for its security; and the active competition for leases, which appears in almost every part of the country when farms are to be let, seems to imply that the rents are reasonable, and, more than that, liberal. As I shall not hesitate to put down my impressions of the country, of men and things, with the utmost frankness, avoiding all personalities, I must say that there has appeared to me on the part of the landowners, with many of whom, among the largest in the country, I have had the pleasure of becoming acquainted, the most marked liberality in the man- agement of their great estates, both in the terms and continuance of their leases, and in the aid rendered to their tenants in making improvements. The liberality and amount of the expenditures 36 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. indeed strike an American with astonishment. In the United States, and especially in the northern parts of it, where there is a constant struggle to live, where men have to contend with a severe climate and a stubborn soil, and where money is compara- tively scarce, the accumulations small, and the farms extremely limited, and where the first lesson taught to a child, even in his swaddling clothes, is a lesson of self-dependence, it is not surprising that men should be compelled with extreme care to husband their small means, and that a frugality, in itself highly commendable, should sometimes verge within the limits of mean- ness. This, indeed, is far better than that reckless expenditure, without regard to one's means, which we sometimes see, and which is almost sure to involve the individual who indulges in it in irretrievable debt and ruin. But there cannot be a doubt that in New England we often commit a great error in withhold- ing a reasonable expenditure in the improvement of our lands ; and that we are not sufliciently impressed with the obvious truth, that a proper expenditure of capital is as important to a success- ful and improved agriculture, as to the successful prosecution of any branch of manufactures, trade, or commerce. Leases may be annual, or at will, or for a term of years. When land is taken by the year, it is understood that the tenant has six months' notice of the intention of the landlord not to renew his lease, if such intention exist. The lands in England are bur- dened with taxes from which the United States are free. These, in many cases, amount to a sum equal to the rent of the land. The tithes, or tenth of every article produced, are not now taken in kind, but arc commuted and paid in money. The poor and parochial rates are often heavy ; tljese all are paid by the tenant, unless a special agreement is made to the contrary. Some persons are disposed to question the right of individuals to such extensive tracts of land, which, in many instances, they neither cultivate themselves, nor suffer others to cultivate, and which descend undiminished through successive generations in the same family. The legal or constitutional right is determined by statute ; upon the moral right, or the right founded upon prin- ciples of political justice, I am not disposed to enter, as this would lead me to discuss the foundations of all property — a sub- ject foreign from my purpose. The tithe system, as it exists here, strikes a foreign and unpractised eye as a singular feature in the condition of things. A tithe, or tenth part of the produce AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 37 of the land, according to the provisions of the Levitical law in respect to the Jewish priesthood, was taken for the support of the established religion ; and the priests and clergy of the differ- ent parishes were accustomed to levy it in kind, and to exact it to tiie extremity of every tenth portion of the honey made by bees in the farmer's hives, every tenth chicken in the good wife's poultry-yard, and every tenth egg laid by her fowls. In- deed, the monks, if reports be true, had always a remarkably keen appetite for honey, and poultry, and eggs. By one of the kings of England, the possessions of the church were seized and confiscated ; and the right of claiming tithes, in many parishes or districts, was given to his friends, reserving a very small por- tion for the support of the clergy. A great portion of the tithes are now, therefore, held by laymen ; and in some parishes, for example, where the tithes amount to several thousand pounds, the clergyman gets only as many hundreds ; and the tithes of any particular parish or place, or rather the right to enforce and receive them, is as much a matter of sale or traffic as the land itself It is not for me to quarrel with the institutions of a country of which I am neither citizen nor subject ; but it is obvious that every burden upon the land must, to a degree, operate to the prejudice of agriculture ; and the matter of levy- ing a tax originally intended exclusively for the support of religious institutions, after it has long since avowedly ceased to be applied in any form to that object, is an affair for those to consider who are especially affected by it. 1 have not deemed it necessary to inquire into the amount paid in this way, which varies considerably in different places ; but the amount stated to me by one farmer, the occupier of 250 acres of land, and whose . rent is £370, is at least £60 sterling (or 300 dollars) per year in parochial rates, including all but specific taxes. The poor-rates are in many cases extremely burdensome upon the land, the wages of the laborers being in general so limited as not to admit, but in rare cases, of their laying aside any of their earnings for old age, or seasons of sickness and calamity. The support of the poor formerly rested, in a great measure, upon the religious houses, which were very largely endowed with lands and posses- sions for this very object ; but when these houses were broken up and the property taken by the state, this burden was trans- ferred to the backs of the landholders or occupiers. The indi- vidual possessions of the landowners are sometimes enormous, 4 38 EUROPKAN AGRICULTURE. amounting in many cases to scores of thousands of acres, and in one instance within my knowledge, to seventy-five thousand acres ; and in another, I believe, to more than a million acres. 2. The Farmers. — Next come the farmers, who lease the land of the landowners. These men are not like farmers in the United States, who themselves labor in the field ; they rarely do any personal labor whatever. They are, in general, a substan- tial and well-informed body of men ; and many of them live in a style of elegance and fashion. Many of them are persons of considerable property, as indeed they must be in order to manage the farms which they undertake. The capital necessary to manage a stock or an arable farm must be always estimated at double or treble the amount of rent ; and, in general, cannot be set down at less than £10 sterling, or 50 dollars, per acre. The stock required for a grazing is, of course, much more than for an arable farm : but in no case can success be looked for without ample means of outlay. In no respect does the agriculture of England difter more from that of the United States, especially from that of the Northern States, than in regard to capital. Our farmers, in general, have little floating capital. They attempt to get along with the least possible expenditure. Under such circumstances, they operate to very great disadvantage. They can never wait for a market. They cannot bring out the capabilities of their farms; and the results of their farming are consequently limited and meagre. The difference between a new country contending, as it were, for existence, and an old country operat- ing with the accumulations of years and centuries, is most sensi- bly marked ; the expenses incurred on some farms in England solely for manures purchased, exceeding thousands of pounds sterling, and the cost merely of grass seeds, are perfectly surpris- ing to an American farmer ; yet experience has demonstrated that, in these cases, the most liberal outlay of capital is the most sure to be followed by successful results. The farmers in England, as far as I have had the pleasure to meet with them, are a well-informed set of men, especially on subjects connected with their particular pursuits. There, of course, is the variety among them which is to be found in other classes ; but their manners, without exception, are courteous and agreeable, their hospitality distinguished, and their housekeeping — and I speak with the authority of a connoisseur in these mat- ters — is admirable. Indeed, it has not yet been my misfortune AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 39 to meet, in England or Scotland, with a single instance of negli- gence in any private house which I have visited ; but, on the other hand, tlic most exemplary neatness. I cannot say as much of all the hotels or taverns in the country, many of which arc far inferior in all respects, and none of them superior in any, to our best hotels. There is one circumstance in English manners so much to the credit of their housekeeping, that I shall, for the best of reasons, venture to remind my American friends of it, although I fear that any reformation in the case is hopeless. In no private house which I have visited have I been smothered or offended with tobacco smoke ; and I have seen the offensive and useless habit of chewing tobacco since I came to England in but one solitary instance, and that was on the part of an American. At public dinners, the same reserve is not practised, and the atmosphere becomes as thick as a London fog. I will not inter- fere with any gentleman's private pleasures ; but I will lose no fair opportunity of protesting against a practice which has little to recommend it, and in respect to which I think we have good grounds to ask, What right has any man to indulge in any mere personal or selfish gratification, in-doors or without, at the expense of his neighbor's comfort ? I know very well the value to my own country, as a branch of agriculture, of the produc- tion of tobacco; but I cannot look upon its cultivation with much complacency. Nor does the exhausted condition of the soil, where tobacco has been some time cultivated, reconcile me to its culture. Indeed, how much were it to be wished that instead of the production of an article useless for subsistence and pernicious to health, there could be substituted the cultivation of plants for the food and comfort of millions now sufiering from the want of them ! 3. The Agricultural Laborers. — Next to the farmers come the laborers ; and these three classes preserve the lines of distinc- tion among them with as much caution and strictness, as they preserve the lines and boundaries of their estates. These dis- tinctions strike a visitor from the United States with much force; but, in England, they have been so long established — are so interwoven in the texture of society — and men arc, by education and habit, so trained in them, that their propriety or expediency is never matter of question. The nobleman will sometimes, as an act of courtesy and kindness, invite his tenant- farmer to his table ; but such a visit is never expected to be 40 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. returned. The farmer would under no circumstances invite the laborer to his table, or visit him as a friend or neighbor. I do not mean to imply that there is, on the part of the higher classes of society in England, any insolence or arrogance in their treat- ment of their inferiors. Free as my intercourse has been with the highest and the middle classes, I have seen no instance of this, nor any thing approaching it, but the contrary : and the best bred men in the country — the true gentlemen — are dis- tinguished by their courtesy and the absence of all ostentatious pretensions. While they naturally fall into the orbit, in which birth, education, and the political institutions of the country have accustomed them to revolve, the well-principled among them would, I am siu'e, be the last persons, by any assumptions, voluntarily to mortify one below them with a sense of his inferiority. The farm laborers are, I will not say in a degraded condition, for that would not, in any sense, apply to them, unless where, by their own bad habits, they may have degraded themselves ; but they are in a very low condition, and extremely ignorant and servile. They rarely, as with us, live in the house of their employers, but either in cottages on the farm or in a neighboring village. They are, usually, comfortably clad, in this respect contrasting most favorably with the mechanics and manufac- turers in the cities and large tov/ns; but they are, in general, very poorly fed. Their wages, compared with the wages of labor in the United States, are very low. The cash wages paid to them seldom equals the cash wages paid to laborers with us, and our laborers, in addition to their wages in money, have their board ; but the English laborers are obliged to subsist themselves, with an occasional allowance, in some instances, of beer, in hay- ing or harvesting. The division of labor among them is quite particular — a ploughman being always a ploughman, and almost inseparable from his horses ; a ditcher, a ditcher ; a shepherd, a shepherd only : the consequence of this is that what they do, they do extremely well. Their ploughing, sowing, drilling, and ditching or draining, are executed with an admirable neatness and exactness ; indeed, the lines of their work could not be more true and straight than they usually arc, if they were measured with a marked scale, inch by inch. They speak of ploughing and drilHng or ridging by the inch or the half inch ; and the width of the furrow slice, or the depth of the furrow, or the dis- AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 41 tances of the drills from each other, will be found to correspond, witli remarkable precision, to the measurement designed. But they appear totally destitute of invention, and have, evidently, little skill or ingenuity when called upon to apply themselves to a work different from that to which they have been accustomed. Their gait is very slow ; and they seem, to me, to grow old quite early. The former circumstance explained itself to me when I examined and lifted the shoes v/hich they are accustomed to wear, and which, when, in addition to being well charged with iron, they gather the usual amount of clay which adheres to them in heavy soils, furnish at least some reason why, like an Alexandrine verse, "they drag their slow length along." There are occasional instances of extraordinarily good management where they are enabled to accumulate small sums ; but in no case, under the best exertions, can they make, from the wages of labor, any thing like a provision for their old age and decay. They are little given to change situations, and many of them, both men and women, live and die in the same service. Several instances have come under my observation of thirty, thirty-five, and forty years' reputable service ; and many where persons, even upon the most limited means, have brought U]) largo families of children without any parochial assistance. Bnt, in this case, tiiey are all workers; the children are put to some sort of service as soon as they are able to drive the rooks from the corn, and no drones are suffered in the hive. I visited one laborer's cottage, to which I was carried by the farmer himself, vv'ho was desirous of showing me, as he said, one of the best examples, witiiia his knowledge, of that condition of life. The house, though very small, w^as extremely neat and tidy ; the Bible lay upon the shelf without an unbroken cobweb over its covers ; the dressers were covered with an unusual quantity of crockery, sullicient to furnish a table for a large party — a kind of accumulation which. I was told, was very common; and their pardonable vanity runs i'l this way, as, in higher conditions of life, we see the same j)assion exhibiting itself in the accumulation of family plate. The man and. woman were laborers, greatly esteemed for their good conduct, and had both of them been in the same service more than forty years. I asked them if, in the course of that time, they had not been able to lay by some small store of money ro make them comfortable in tiieir old age. I could not have 4* X. 42 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. surprised them more by any question which I could have pro- posed. They replied, that it had been a constant struggle for them to sustain themselves, but any surplus was beyond their reach. I cannot help thinking that the condition is a hard one in which incessant and faithful labor, for so many years, will not enable the frugal and industrious to make some small provision for the period of helplessness and decay, in a country where the accumulations of wealth in some hands, growing out of this same labor, are enormous. To the honor of several proprietors, the kindest provision is made for the decayed and superannuated. In some cases, the wages of the laborers are continued to the end of life ; and in some, as I saw with great pleasure, comfortable cottages are pro- vided for the old and infirm : they have their rent and fuel with- out charge, and a regular stipend as long as they live. This was the case at the seat of the late distinguished farmer, the Earl of Leicester, formerly Mr. Coke ; and likewise on the estates of the Duke of Devonshire, where even the old schoolmaster of the vil- lage is pensioned, and has a house and a liberal allowance pro- vided for him. Several other instances have come under my observation, where the superannuated and decayed laborers were kindly provided for and received a pension adequate to their comfortable support. This is as it should be. In every just community the rights of honest labor ought to be respected and secured. I confess it would be far better for them to be able to provide for themselves than to be dependent upon the precarious bounty either of individuals or the public; but I should be un- willing to overlook any act of justice or honor. It is obvious that the prospect of a supply from the bounty of the landlord can only apply to those who are in the direct employment of the landlord, and not to those who serve the tenant farmer, whose situation and permanency, where the lease of the farm is only for the year, are always, to a degree, doubtful. It cannot be denied that those who labor with us are alto- gether a superior class of men to the English laborers ; I refer, of course, to the natives of the country, A considerable portion of our labor is now performed by foreigners, who, when they unne sobriety and frugality with faithful industry, are sure of good treatment and success ; indeed, I have known several instances of laboring men, and some of them in my own employ- AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 43 ment, who, by good conduct, have supported themselves, and have accumulated, after a few years' service, their four and five hundred dollars and upwards, that is, their eighty and their hun- dred pounds — an acquisition which, in England, a laboring man would not dream of as the result of his labor, sooner than he would dream of receiving a pension of the same amount from the government. With us the laborer is vastly better paid than in England. With us the laborer always is, or always may be, the owner of the house in which he lives, and of as much land as he chooses to cultivate. Here the cottager is always a mere tenant, subject to the pleasure of his landlord ; and, though there are many cases where allotments of small portions of land are granted them for a garden spot, and for the obtaining of some small supplies for their families, yet there are many where no indulgence of this sort is allowed, not even so much as a cabbage yard. The laborer here is doomed to remain in the condition in which he is born — he cannot rise above it. The provision for the education of the children of the laborers is, in most parts of England, extremely limited and meagre. There are some national schools, and there are, in many places, schools estab- lished and supported by the liberality of the landlords, for the benefit of the laborers in their own villages, and on their own farms. Sunday schools are likewise kept up in all the parishes which I have visited; and I should be happy, if it were allowed me, to adorn my page with the names of some noble women, who, with a benevolence truly maternal, take a deep interest in these institutions, and generously support them, and, better than that, personally superintend them. These are bright examples. In one case, at a small country village, on a Sunday, 1 saw more than four hundred of these children, cleanly and plainly dressed, entering the parish church, and taking their seats together, be- having with the most exemplary propriety. When they lifted up their voices in the solemn chants of the church, and their gentle and shrill tones were heard above all the rest, I could not help lifting up my own heart to God in thanksgiving, that the highest truths of religion can be taken in by the humblest minds; that here was at work an instrument of their elevation, which no human power could forbid ; that here they were taught to recognize the dignity of their moral nature ; and that there is one place, where all earthly distinctions betray their insignifi- 44 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. cancc, and every human being may, on equal terms and with equal confidence, invoke a common and a universal Father. This school was entirely supported by and under the care of a noble woman, who, to the highest distinctions of rank, education, fashion, and fortune, adds the far higher attributes of a deep sense of religious duty, and an earnest desire to be useful. The Sunday schools do not, every where, confine themselves to religious instruction, but reading, writing, and the elements of arithmetic, are also taught, because, in many cases, the chil- dren of the poor are kept so constantly at labor as to have no other opportunity of getting this instruction. The education given them is of a very limited character, and does not extend beyond reading, writing, aiid the first principles of arithmetic, exclusive of religious instruction. The British and foreign schools, which are established by aid from the government — which measures its bounty by what may be raised by private subscription in any parish or village — require the catechism of the established church to be taught, and the attendance of the children at the church, under the penalty of exclusion from the school. The National School Society allows the attendance of the children at such church as the parents choose ; but the cate- chism of the established church, and no other, is allowed to be taught in their schools. The schools supported by the liberality of the dissenters are, comparatively, few ; and in most of these, without doubt, the same interest is active, and the same influ- ences are at work, to attach their children to tbe particular sect by whose patronage the school is established and sustained. I speak now of England. I am not yet able to speak of the con- dition of things in Scotland, although it is constantly boasted of that the education of the Scotch laborer is always provided for, and that the Scotch laborer, in point of instruction, is far superior to the English. This remains for me to see. The condition of the laborers in this country is a subject of such deep concern to the community, on the ground of pecu- niary profit as well as of philanthropy and justice, that I shall, in the course of my inquiries, revert again to it. I do not feel that as yet I am sufficiently well-informed to speak with much con- fidence on the subject ; but I shall not leave it without some further remarks. The common wages of farm labor vary, for men, from six shillings to twelve shillings per week ; but I think AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 45 a fair average would be eight to nine shillings sterling. A shil- ling may be reckoned at twenty-four cents, so that the monthly wages for a man may be put down at eight dollars and sixty- four cents. This is the whole, where labor is paid for in money, excepting, as a matter of kindness, the farmer generally brings the coals for his laborer. There are cases, too, in wliich the farmer stipulates to supply his wheat to the laborer at a fixed price, which is to be unaffected by any changes in the market. Six shillings, only, a week are reported to be paid in some places, but I have met with no case less than eight shillings and sixpence a week. It may bo interesting to sonic of ray readers to have a more particular account of the wages and condition of the labor- ers, and for that reason I will give some statements of their condition in that part of the country where wages are paid in kind. In the neighborhood of Haddingdon, in East Lothian, I vis- ited a laborer's cottage, being one in a range of six cottages, in a district of country highly cultivated and improved, and present- ing some of the finest examples of agricultural improvement which I have ever seen. The wife, a very tidy and civil woman, about forty years of age, v^'as at home ; her husband and daugh- ter laboring in the field. This was a very good specimen of a neat cottage, and its inmates had passed the greater part of their lives in it. It had no other floor but the hard ground ; and two beds were fixed in the wall, like sailors' berths on board ship. The shelves were covered with crockery ; and a Bible, and a few religious and other tracts lay upon the mantel-piece. A cake made of pea-flour and barley-flour was baking over the fire, of which I was asked to eat, but the taste of which did very little towards quickening my appetite. There was, besides the one in which I was, a small room for coal and lumber, where, in case of great emergency, a lodging might be made up. One of her neighbors in the same block, with no larger accom- modations, had eight children to provide for. Two grown-up daughters, with one smaller one, occupied one bed ; the parents, with one child, occupied the other ; the two grown-up sons slept in the lumber-room or coal-house. There is often much closer lodging than this. The husband of the woman, in whose cot- tage I was, was a ploughman, and likewise a bondager — a species 46 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. of service or contract which requires him to furnish a female laborer, at tenpence per day in ordinary Avork, and one shilling per day in harvest, whenever her services are required. If he has not a wife or daughter who will answer this purpose, he must keep a woman in his house to be always in readiness when required. His wages were — 18 bolls of oats, at 4 bushels per boll, ... 72 bushels. 2 bolls of peas, " "''... 8 •' 4i bolls of barley, " " " . . . 18 " and £1 for " lint " — or shirts. This payment of wages in kind, if the rate is fairly fixed, is certainly an equitable mode. Its effect upon the laborers, as in this case, as they themselves have grain to sell, is to make them the advocates of high prices, and, consequently, the friends of those restrictive measures by which foreign competition in the grain market is prevented. The employer likewise keeps a cow for the laborer ; or if he has no cow, an allowance is made to him of five or six pounds in money. He is likewise allowed 1000 square yards of ground for potatoes, which the farmer ploughs and manures for him ; but which he cultivates in extra hours. For the rent of his house he gives twenty-one days' work in harvest, if required ; but should it happen that only twelve or fourteen are required, it is accepted as an equivalent. For the woman's work he receives a fixed amount per day, whenever she is employed ; and for her six months' service in the year he pays her three pounds. For the other six months he pays her nothing more than her board and some clothes. The farmer brings his coals for him, which he purchases at a small sum, being small coals, here called pan-wood. The value of three shillings and sixpence in coals will serve him through seven weeks in winter. Seven loads (one-horse loads, I suppose) of coals are purchased at the quarries for three shillings and six- pence. The farmer's shoes cost him ten shillings, and one pair will last him eighteen months. His daughter's working shoes last her a year : this is exclusive of her Sunday's shoes. In most parts of Scotland, the women, in the summer season, wear only their natural sandals and hose, which have, indeed, the ad- vantages of being easily washed, and easily repaired ; but in this part of Scotland they form the exception of wearing shoes and AGUICULTUIIAL POPULATION. 47 Stockings the whole year. Their living consists of bread made of barley and peas, ineal or oaten porridge and milk, and pota- toes ; and they generally have a pig. They cannot, of course, lay up any money ; and she added, in her own pleasant dialect, that "the lassies have muckle sair work in harvest." They depend on the sale of their surplus grain for what little money they need. I will do justice to her modest merit, and say, to the shame of thousands rolling in unstinted luxury, that she spoke of her condition as comfortable, and expressed strongly and religiously her contentment. The wages paid in the county of Northumberland, where the Scotch system of farming is carried to a high degree of perfec- tion, is as follows, as given by several gentlemen, familiar with the subject, to the parliamentary committee : — FIRST EXAMPLE. 36 bushels of oats, 24 lbs. of wool, 24 " " barley. A cow's keep for a year. 12 " '• peas, Cottage and garden, 3 " " wheat, Coals carrying from the pit, 3 " '• rye. £4 in cash. 36 to 40 " potatoes. SECOND EXAMPLE. 10 bushels of wheat, 30 " " oats. 10 " " barley, 10 " '• rye, 10 '• " peas, A cow's keep for a year, 800 yds. of land for potatoes. Cottage and garden. Coals led, £3 10 s. in cash, 2 bushels of barley in lieu of hens. THIRD EXAMPLE. 36 bushels of oats, 24 '' '• barley, 12 " •' peas, 6 " " wheat, 1000 yds. of land for potatoes, A cow's keep, House and garden. Coals led, £5 in cash. 48 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. The following, whic.h is a specimen of the half-year's account between a large farmer and one of his laborers in a part of North- umberland, is worthy of observation: — Dr. to £. s. d. Jane Thompson, (the bondager,) 121^ days at lOd., .513 Catherine Thompson, (a child,) 24 harvest days at Is. 1 4 Do., 73 J days at 5d., 1 10 7 J Elizabeth Thompson, (a younger child,) 7^ days, ..019^ Isabella Thompson, (a dress-maker at other times,) ^ 35f days at Is., ) Do., 20 harvest days at 2s. 3d., . . . 2 5 Wife, 9 harvest days, 103 His old father, 52 days, 3 18 John Thompson's half-year's cash, 2 10 £19 6 8* This account, it will be seen, with the exception of the last item, does not include any portion of the laborer's own service, but that of his family only. The difference in the price of harvest work at different periods, as between one shilling and two shillings and threepence, is probably owing to labor becom- ing more scarce, on account of the general ripeness of the crop, or the hurrying state of the weather. The Scotch laborers seemed to me, from a very limited obser- vation, strongly attached to their employers. On one farm, where I had the pleasure of visiting, one of the laborers had been in the employment of the same family forty years, and another sixty ; to each of whom, although their labor now was of very little value, the farmer continued the same rate of wages, which they had in early life. This indeed would seem to be no more than just, that the honest laborer, whose life had been spent in the service of another man, should not be turned adrift in his old age ; but, alas ! how rare is justice ! Of the extraordinary frugality with which some persons in humble life live, even where prices are high, I may give an * Parliamentary Report on Employment of Women and Cliildren in Agri- culture. 1843. p. 297. AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 49 example, which came under my observation. In Arbroath, near the magnificent rnins of tlie ancient abbey of Arbroath, I heard the movements of a hand-loom, and I took the liberty, with due ceremony, of going in. A middle-aged Scotch woman, of pleas- ing appearance and neatly dressed, was weaving. I asked her how much she was able to earn. She replied that if she rose early, at five o'clock, and worked all day through the week, after paying for the use of the loom and the cost of winding her spools, her week's work would amount to four shillings. She received n© parish assistance. She paid three pounds sixteen shillings for the rent of her house. Her fuel cost her ninepence per week ; and out of the remainder — less than two shillings — she had to support and clothe herself and an aged mother, who was very infirm, and incapable of helping herself. What the support that either of the poor creatures could have under such circumstances must be left to conjecture. The woman spoke of her circumstances as being difficult, but she made no complaint, and presented an example of true Christian philosophy, which would have done honor to a superior education and the highest condition in life. In all parts of the country, women are more or less employed on the farms, and in some parts in large numbers ; I have fre- quently counted thirty, fifty, and many more in a field at a time, both in hoeing turnips and in harvesting. I have found them, likewise, engaged in various other services — in pulling weeds, in picking stones, in unloading and treading grain, in tending thresh- ing-machines, in digging potatoes and pulling and topping tur- nips, in tending cattle, in leading out dung, and in carrying lime- stone and coals. Indeed, there is hardly any menial service to which they are not accustomed ; and all notions of their sex seem out of the ciuestion whenever their labor is wanted or can be applied. The wages of women are commonly sixpence and eightpence, and they seldom exceed tenpence a day, excepting in harvest, when they are as high as a shilling. The hours of labor for the men are usually from six o'clock, A. M., to six. P. M., with an interval of an hour for breakfast and an hour for dinner. The women rarely come before eight o'clock, and quit labor at six, with the usual indulgence for dinner. Many of the laborers walk two and three miles to their work, and return at night. Their meals are taken in the fields, and in the most simple form. The dinner is often nothing more than bread. 5 50 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. In the season of harvest, immense numbers of Irish come over 10 assist in the labor, and this presents almost the only oppor- tunity which they have, in the course of the year, of earning a little money to pay the rent of their cabins and potato patches. Nothing can exceed the destitution and squalidness in which they are seen ; starved, ragged, and dirty beyond all description, with the tatters hanging about them like a few remaining feathers upon a plucked goose. At their first coming, they are compara- tively feeble and inefficient ; but after a week's comfortable feeding, they recover strength,, increasing some pounds in weight, and, if they are allowed to perform their work by the piece, they accomplish a great deal. I found in one case on two farms — which, though under two tenants, might be considered as a joint concern — more than four hundred laborers employed during the harvests, a large proportion of whom were women, but not exclusively Irish. The average wages paid the men in this case was one shilling sterling (or twenty-four cents) per day and their food, which was estimated at about ninepence (or about eighteen cents) per day. Their living consisted of oatmeal-porridge and a small quantity of sour milk or buttermilk for breakfast ; a pound of wheaten bread, and a pint and a half of beer at ditmer ; and at night, a supper resembling the breakfast, or twopence in money in-lieu of it. I was curious to know how so many people were lodged at night. In some cases, they throw themselves down under the stacks, or upon some straw in the sheds, or out-buildings of the farm ; but in the case to which I refer above, I was shown into the cattle- stalls and stables, the floors of which were littered with straw ; and here the men's coats, and the women's caps and bonnets, upon the walls, indicated that it was occupied by both parties promis- cuously. This was indeed the fact. Each person, as far as possible, was supplied with a blanket ; and these were the whole accommodations and the whole support. This was not a singular instance. I am unwilling to make any comments upon such facts as these. They speak for themselves. They are matters of general custom, and seemed to excite no attention. I do not refer to them as matter of reproach to the employers, who w^ere persons of respectable character and condition, and whose fami- lies were distinguished for their refinement. But it presents one among many instances in which habit and custom reconcile us to masy things which would otherwise offend us; and lead us AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 51 to view some practices, utterly unjustifiable in themselves, with a degree of complacency or indifference ; and as unalterable, because they have been so long established. I believe there is only one part of the United States where any thing resembling such a condition of things prevails, or would be permitted ; and there only among a class of beings whose claims to humanity seem not very well established in all minds, and whose degrada- tion, on account of their complexion, appears absolutely hopeless. Bat, even here, this indiscriminate consorting is not common ; nor would it be permitted by any respectable planter. This condition of things should certainly save this country from the reproach, if it be one, which some English tourists are disposed to attribute to American manners — that of treating the sex with too much courtesy and deference. I cannot bring myself, however, to view the subject with any lightness what- ever. My confident conviction is, that the virtue of a community depends on nothing more than on the character of the women. In proportion as they are improved, and treated with deference on account of their sex, the women are brought to respect them- selves, and the character of the men is directly improved ; char- acter itself becomes valuable to both parties. But in proportion as the condition of women is degraded, and they are considered and treated as mere animals, self-respect is not known among them ; character is of no value ; and the moral condition of such a class, or rather its improvement, is absolutely without hope. Nor is it without its pernicious influences, which must be too obvious to require to be pointed out, upon the classes in the com- munity above them. Much fault as some persons have been pleased to find with the deference paid to the sex in the United States, I should be very sorry to see it in the smallest measure abated. I do not believe, taken as a whole, there is a more virtuous population upon earth, than are the women of New England and the Middle States; and nowhere is there a greater decency and propriety of conversation and manners. I speak of these portions of the country in particnlar, because with them I am intimately acquainted, and have a right to speak with confi- dence ; but I have no reason to say that the same respectability of character does not prevail in other parts of the United States. I do not claim for my country any thing like an immaculate condition of society ; very far from it : but I do claim for them a highly-improved moral condition ; and have no hesitation in 52 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. saying, that in most of our country villages prostitution is un- known, and an illegitimate child is a comparatively rare occur- rence. I add with equal confidence, that under the influence of our free schools and universal education, and the disinterested and philanthropic exertions among all sects for the religious education of the young in Sunday schools, the beneficial and ameliorating results fully equal every reasonable expectation. This comes of the value of character, and the lessons early incul- cated upon them to respect themselves as women. I would, if possible, strengthen this sentiment ; and therefore would in no department of life render less prominent the distinctive barriers between the sexes, t In all my intercourse with society in the United States, and with opportunities as large as an}^ man of observing all classes among them in the various conditions of life, I have never known an instance of a woman going to a public bar for drink, or sitting down in a public bar-room with men, or alone, to regale herself. The ale-houses and gin-shops in England are as much accustomed by women as by men, and the results of such practices are exactly what might be expected — an extreme vulgarity of manners, and a large amount of drunkenness among the lower class of women. What, as a matter of course, comes with it need not be told ; but the records of the police courts leave no one at a loss. — ■" My observations in this case must be understood as applying solely to the lowest class : these constitute a very numerous por- tion. They apply likewise mainly to cities and large towns. In respect to the deportment of the middle and the highest classes — with whom my intercourse, through their kindness, has been familiar and extensive — nothing in manners or conver- sation can be farther removed from that which is vulgar or offensive ; and for propriety and the highest degree of refine- ment, nothing can be more exemplary and delightful. In districts strictly agricultural, the low rate of wages does not admit of much expenditure in this way ; and, if there are in- dulgences, they must be at home in the village ale-houses, and only occasional. For a considerable portion of the year, the farm laborers are not allowed any beer ; in the haying and harvesting, their allowance seldom exceeds one pint and a half, which, as it is small beer, cannot be considered excessive. I could not learn that any allowance of whisky or spirit is ever given them by their employers, or that it is ever carried by them X AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. Oo into the fields. The drinking, in this country, with the lower and laboring classes of people, seems, in a great degree, confined to the licensed houses, of which, certainly, there is nowhere any want. In passing through the village of Glossop, in Derby- shire, a modern and an exceedingly well-built village, in a dis- tance, I should judge, of less than three fourths of a mile, I counted, as I passed along on the box of the coach, thirty-five licensed retail shops, most of which were probably for the sale, among other things, of intoxicating liquors. Indeed, the number of licensed retailers in every village in England is quite remark- able, and would seem, in many cases, to include almost every fourth house. "^ I am not disposed to object to the employment of women in some kinds of agricultural labor. The employment of them in indiscriminate labor is liable to the most serious objections. Nothing can be more animating, and, in its way, more beau- tiful, than, on a fine, clear day, when the golden and waving har- vest is ready for the sickle, to see, as I have several times seen, a party of more than a hundred women and girls entering the field, cutting the grain, or binding it up after the reapers. In cultivating the turnips, they are likewise extremely expert. In tending and making hay, and in various other agricultural labors, they carry their end of the yoke even ; but in loading and lead- ing out dung, and especially, as I have seen them, in carrying broken limestone in baskets on their heads, to be put into the kilns, and in bearing heavy loads of coal from the pits, I have felt that their strength was unnaturally taxed, and that, at least in these cases, they were quite out of "woman's sphere." I confess, likewise, that my gallantry has often been severely tried, when I have seen them at the inns acting as ostlers, bring- ing out the horses and assisting in changing the coach team, while the coachman went into the inn to try the strength of the ale. ""^ As far as health is concerned, the out-door employment of women is altogether favorable. As far as virtue or moral purity is concerned, out-door employment in itself is not more objec- tionable than employment within doors. Indeed, from the inquiries which have been made into this matter, and the elabo- rate reports that have been given to the government, it does not appear that the agricultural districts, where the custom of out- door employment for women prevails, are more immoral than the 5* 54 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. manufacturing districts. But the natural effect of such employ- ment upon women is to render them negligent of their persons. and squalid and dirty in their appearance ; and with this neglect of person, they cease to be treated with ai>y deference by the other sex, and lose all respect for themselves. Personal neglect and uncleanliness are followed by their almost invariable con- comitants, mental and moral impurity and degradation. The working likewise promiscuously with men, which is done con- tinually, must expose them to rude jests, and to language and manners which, among the lower class of men, are too often grossly indecent and immoral. In all other respects, many kinds of out-door agricultural employment must be, and is, as it is admitted, favorable to health and vigor. The general health and vigor of sucii women, so many hours engaged in reasonable exer- cise in the open air, contrast most favorably with the effemi- ]iacy, debility, and early decay of those who are confined in heated and close manufactories, or in sedentary employments within doors. Nor, in point of moral conduct, as far as mere occupation is concerned, is there any reason to suppose that the agricultural classes would suffer in comparison with the manu- facturing classes, or with the host of young women in cities, employed in various trades and in-door occupations. We have few instances, in the free states, of ;)vomen being employed in field labor. The women in Wethersfield, Connecticut, have for years been accustomed to the cultivation of onions, doing every thing for the crop, excepting ploughing and manuring the land ; even to preparing it for the market. Tiicy certainly have suffered no evil, but, on the contrary, have derived much benefit, from the occupation. Nowhere, it is believed, can men, depend- ent upon their own exertions for support, find wives better able to manage their household affairs, more frugal, more industrious, or more tidy, than among the industrious young women of Weth- ersfield. It must seem strange to many persons if I also add, as I know I may with truth, that many of these young women are persons of good education, and to a degree, allowing for the retired condition of society in which they have been brought up, even of refined manners : so totally diflerent, indeed, are the conditions of the laboring classes in England and the United States. In truth, no comparison can properly be instituted be- tween them. Jn general, among the laboring classes in England, their low condition, their ignorance, and want of education, and AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 55 the almost absolute impossibility of rising above the estate in which they arc born, render them, to a great degree, reckless and improvident. Character becomes consequently of far less importance than it would otherwise be. There are wanting, consequently, the motives to tliat self-respect, which constitutes the highest security of virtue ; and under such a condition of things, it is not surprising to find a laxity of morals, which pro- duces swarms of illegitimate children. This is attended by the usual consequence — an absence, on the part of the pSrents, of that sense of obligation to support and provide for their oflspring, which is to be found in its purity and strength only in legal wedlock. There are two practices \in regard to agricultural labor, not universal, by any means, but prevailing in some parts of Eng- land and Scotland, which I may notice. The first is called the " gang system." In some places, owing to the size of farms being greatly extended., cottages being suffered to fall into decay and ruin, laborers have been congregated in villages, where have prevailed all the evils, physical and moral, which are naturally to be expected from a crowded population, shoved into small and inconvenient habitations, and subjected to innumerable privations. In this case, the farmer keeps in permanent and steady employment no more laborers than are absolutely required for the constant and uninter- rupted operations of the farm ; and relies upon the obtaining of a large number of hands, or a gang, as it is termed, whenever any great job is to be accomplished, that he may be enabled to eftect it at once and at the smallest expense. Under these circum- stances, he applies to a gang-master, as he is termed, who contracts for its execution, and through whom the poor laborers must find employment, if they find it at all ; and upon whose terms they must work, or get no work. The gang-master has them then completely in his power, taking care to provide well for himself in his own commissions, which must, of course, be deducted from the wages of the laborers, and subjecting them, at pleasure, to the most despotic and severe conditions. It is not optional with these poor creatures to say whether they will work or not. but whether they will work or die — they have no other resource — change their condition they cannot — contract separately for their labor they cannot, because the farmer confines his contracts to the gang-master ; and we may infer from the Reports of the 56 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. Commissioners, laid before the government, that the system is one of oppression, cruelty, and pkmder, and in every respect leading to gross immoralities. The distance to Avhich these laborers go is often as much as five or six miles, and this usually on foot, and to return at night. Children and girls are compelled to go these distances, and consequently must rise very early in the morning and reach home at a very late hour at night. Girls and boys and young men and women work indiscriminately together.* When the distance to which they go for work is ten miles, they are sent in carts. When the distances are great, they occasionally pass the night at the place of work, and then lodge in barns, or any where else, indiscriminately together. ^To_ talk of morals in such a ease i« idleJ One of the gang-masters, who has been an overseer seventeen years, gives it as his testi- mony, under oath, " that seventy out of a hundred of the girls become prostitutes," and the general account given of the opera- tions of the system shows an utter profligacy of mind in their general conversation and manners, when morals must follow of course. If they go in the morning and stay only a little while, on account of rain, or other good cause, they are paid nothing. The day is divided into quarters, but no smaller fractions of time are in any case allowed to them. Then the persons em- ployed are required, in many cases, to deal with the gang-master for the supplies they receive, in payment for their labor. The results of such a system are obvious. The work being taken by the piece, the gang-master presses them to their utmost strength. The fragments of days, in which work is done and not paid for to the laborers, are all to the benefit of the gang-master, who, in such case, gets a large amount of work done at no cost. These poor wretches, being unable to contract for themselves, or to get any work but through him, he of course determines the price of the labor, and, one may be sure, puts it down to the lowest point. But his advantages do not end here, for there is no doubt that he gets a high advance upon the goods which he requires them to purchase of him, and thus their wages are reduced still lower. No just or benevolent mind, it would seem, can look upon any such system in all its details, as given in the Commissioners' Report, but with a profound sense of its injus- tice, oppression, and immorality. One of the gang-masters says, " If they go to work two hours \ \ AGRICULTURAL POPULATION, 57 and a half, it is a quarter of a day. If they go a long walk, seven miles or so, and it comes on a wet day, there is the walk all for nothing. Children of the ages of four, five, and six, work in the gangs. They earn 9 d. a day, the big ones ; the small, 4d. ; children of seven years old, 3 d. a day." " It is the ruin of a girl," says a parent, one of the laborers, " to be in such a place as that." "My children's hands are so blistered," says another of the parents, '-pulling turnips, that I have been obliged to tie them up every night this winter. Pulling turnips blisters the hands very much — they are obliged to pull them up — they must not take turnip crones (a sort of fork) for fear of damaging the turnips." " The gangsman, or leader," says another witness, " pays the wages of all employed in the gang, and, of course, makes his profit entirely from their labor, as the farmer takes care that the gang system shall not cost him more than the common system of individual laborers. The leader's profit, as I have heard, is sometimes 15 s. per day. The assembling of twenty-five and thirty women and children and lads, of all ages and conditions and characters, together, has a most fatal eftect upon their morals and conduct." Another respectable and reverend witness says. " The gang is superintended by a lazy, idle fellow, of profligate manners and a dishonest character — such, at all events, are the characters of two in my own neighborhood." I will not dwell upon the evils of a management of this kind. It is obvious what a power such a man, the employer of these people, has over them ; and it is as easy to infer what is likely to be the character of young persons, more especially, placed under his control. When are men to be just ? and when are men, who live upon the hard labor of others, and who hold not merely their physical but their moral destiny in their hands, to feel their responsibleness as Christians and as men ? The most melancholy circumstance in the case is given in the testimony of one witness, a clergyman, who says, " that he fears the gang system will and must increase, especially upon large farms." It would not be unreasonable to fear that God would send blight and mildew upon fields where human life and virtue are thus sacrificed, and decency and morals thrown to the winds ; and where the crops are watered with the tears of these wretched victims of injustice and oppression. 58 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. There is another system of employment, which prevails in Northumberland and in some parts of Scotland, to which I have already alluded : this is called the bondage system, but it does not appear to me liable to the strong objections which the name would seem to imply. In this case, the laborer, when he con- tracts for his services, makes a condition that he will, as may be required, furnish a woman as an additional laborer ; and he receives so mnch per day for her labor, according to the number of days she may be employed. In such case, if he has not a wife or daughter to supply the place, he engages some young woman who lives in his family, and to whom he pays such a sum by the year as may be agreed upon, in money, clothing, or otherwise, and she lives in his family as one of the family for the whole year. There are few forms of servitude which are not liable to abuses, and the greater the state of dependence and weakness, so much increased is the liability to abuse ; but where the employer is a conscientious and just man, such a contract may be mutually advantageous. In parts of Scotland, what is called the Bothie system prevails, and the support of the laborers is a very summary process. The wages are paid in money or kind, as may be agreed upon ; and the laborers, if single men, are furnished with a room, fuel, and bedding ; with two pecks of oatmeal on Monday morning, and with a daily allowance of new or of sour milk — occasionally they may have beer and bread for dinner instead of the porridge. Nothing more, however, is done for them. They prepare their porridge for themselves in such way as they choose ; but this comprehends the whole of their living. It would not be true to say that this diet is insufficient for the support of a laboring man. as it must be admitted that few laborers exhibit firmer health, or more muscular vigor, or really perform more work, than many of these men. This mode of living would, however, I think, be a little too primitive for the New England taste, though on matters of taste we are told there is to be no dispute. Having myself visited a Scotch Bothie, I cannot, how mnch soever the economy of the arrangements may be praised, much commend the style of the housekeeping. Indeed, it is not difficult to infer that where young men at service are turned into a hovel together, and without any one to look after their lodging or prepare their meals, the style of living cannot have the advantages even of the AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 59 wigwam of a Nortli American savage ; for there, at least, there is a squaw to provide the food and look after the premises.* The wages of a Scotch laborer are about £12 sterling per year, and living as above ; and for a woman, as a field laborer, four shillings sterling per week, or about eighty-eight cents, out of which she provides for herself. The condition of labor forms, as is obvious, a most important element in the agriculture of a country. Human labor, indeed, seems far more essentially concerned in agriculture than in either commerce or manufactures. A few hands may manage a large ship, freighted with immense weaUh, and performing voyages which equal the circuit of the globe. A child may superintend a large number of spindles ; and a single power wheel sets in motion a vast and complicated machinery. Agriculture has already derived vast benefits from mechanical ingenuity, and may confidently anticipate from this source an immense extension of her power ; but there can be no question that she must, at least for a long time to come, continue mainly dependent upon human labor. The cost of labor, therefore, and the general support and condition of this labor, are alike interesting to the agriculturist and the philanthropist. In an old country like England, where labor is so abundant, it is to be expected that the rules of labor should be exact and stringent ; indeed, without this the management of a large farm would be impracticable. The women usually begin work at eight o'clock, and, resting an hour for dinner, they work until five, or, in a pressure of work, until six. The ploughman must feed and clean his horses at four o'clock in the morning, and at six o'clock the plough must be under way. At two o'clock, his horses are put up for the day, and he devotes himself until six o'clock to their cleansing and feeding, and to the care of his plough and harness; eight hours in the field, and the ploughing an acre of * Of the Bothie system, as it is called, or employment of unmarried men, living together in a bothie or hovel attached to the steading, it is hardly neces- sary to say, that a more effective means of demoralizing and brutalizing a peas- antry could not be devised than tliat of crowding together a parcel of young men, half of them perhaps strangers, Irish, or bad characters, in a hovel by them- selves, without even an attempt at moral superintendence. This is one of the worst evils that has attended the introduction of the large farm system. — //rti7ig"'5 Prize Essaij. 60 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. ground, being considered a full day's work. The other laborers begin labor at six o'clock in the moruing, and work until six in the afternoon, with the intermission of half an hour for breakfast and an hour for dinner. No laborer leaving his employment before the termination of his engagement, without good and sufficient reason, can recover any portion of his wages ; and no employer, without equal reason, can dismiss a laborer before the end of the term for which he is engaged. In general, however, laborers continue for years in the same employment, especially married men ; and it is extremely interesting, speaking well both for master and servant, to see men and women who have remained in the same service twenty, thirty, forty, and even fifty years, and their children coming forward to take their places. In such cases, they become, as it were, an integral part of the establish- ment, and both parties are equally benefited. In some parts of the country, as in Lincolnshire for example, twice a year, in the spring and autumn, are held, in some princi- pal market towns, statute fairs, vulgarly called " Statties," where young men and women wanting service assemble, and persons wanting laborers or servants go there to supply their wants. Such arrangements have certainly many advantages ; but they have also their evils, and the assembling of large numbers of men and women, in such cases, with, not unfrequently, the usual accompaniments of a Fair, are said to lead to much dissolute- ness and dissipation. This is to be expected. This arrange- ment serves to average the rate of wages, and must be to all parties a great saving of time. In the present condition of female labor in the United States, there could be none but the wortliless to offer themselves in this way ; but with respect to young men seeking employment, there would be great advan- tages in having a day and place fixed in some principal town, when and where persons wishing for employment might be found by persons wishing to employ them ; and such an " Ex- change " might be annually held to advantage. An arrange- ment of this kind has often recommended itself to my mind for its convenience, and I have, before this, urged its adoption. I have endeavored, with strict regard to truth, to state what I understand to be the condition of the agricultural population in this country. Further inquiries may serve to correct or modify my views on this subject. I am perfectly aware how difficult it AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 61 is for a foreigner to obtain a correct knowledge or to form a fair judgment of the customs and manners of any country which lie visits; and especially where his residence is limited, and his observations necessarily partial. Feeling no prejudices, and having no private interests or partialities in the case, other than those which are inseparable from an education in anotJier condi- tion in society, and under political institutions differing entirely from those which prevail here, I am desirous, above all things, to liold my mind open to the light of further and more exact inquiry. It does not need any long experience to learn that first impres- sions are not always the most correct ; and every intelligent and candid mind must allow that most men have some reasons which, to their minds, appear sufficient for what they do; that many customs which have prevailed for ages, however objection- able at first sight they may appear to us, have grown out of peculiar circumstances of time and place, which sanction their expediency at the time of their origin, if not the propriety of their continuance : and that, in respect to many acknowledged evils, it is far more easy to deplore the existence than to point out the remedy. While circumstances of this nature prompt to caution and forbearance in our judgments, they do not require us, at the expense of our moral sense, to regard these evils in any other than their true character, to palliate either their nature or extent, or to look upon them, under any circumstances, in utter despair of their removal or alleviation. Nor will they excuse any neglect of all proper and possible exertion to remedy an acknowledged evil. The condition of the laboring agricultural class is certainly, in many parts of England, exceedingly depressed ; and though in frequent instances it may be called comfortable, in few that I have seen can it be considered prosperous. Their labor is not extraordinarily severe ; they are by no means treated with un- kind ness, or, excepting through the misfortune of the ill temper of their employer, with severity ; they are decently clad, and there is a great amount of active benevolence every where at work to assist them, and to alleviate their distress in sickness and mis- fortune. But they are very poorly fed ; with many exceptions, they are wretchedly lodged ; their wages are inadequate to their comfortable support ; and their situation affords little or no 6 62 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. hope of improvement, — at least the power of making it better does not rest, where it should, with themselves. It is a painful, though not an unheard-of anomaly, that, in the midst of the greatest abundance of human food, immense num- bers of those by whose labor this food is produced are actually suffering and perishing from hunger ; that where ten millions of acres of improvable lands, capable of being made productive lands, lie uncultivated,* millions of hands, which might subdue, enrich, and beautify this waste, from necessity remain unem- ployed ; and that, in a country where the accumulations of wealth surpass the visions of Oriental splendor and magnificence, there exist, on the other hand, such contrasts of \vant, destitu- tion, privation, and misery, as would surpass belief and defy the power of the imagination, but for the support of incontrovertible and overwhelming evidence. Under the present institutions of the country, a perfect remedy is hopeless, and an alleviation of these evils is all which can be looked for. An entire revolution in the institutions of the country, in the forms of society, and in the condition of property, could only be effected by violence ; and the consequences of such a revolution it would be frightful to contemplate. But should a revolution occur, and the frame- work of society be broken up, and its elements be thrown into a state of chaotic confusion, what sagacity could predict the results, and what security is there that in any re-arrangement these evils would be rectified and the rights of labor any better protected? I say the rights of labor; for who, under any cir- cumstances, will presume to deny that they, by whose labor the earth is made to yield her fruits, and all accumulations of wealth are obtained, have not, indeed, in common justice, a perfect claim to a full share of the products of their own toil ? I care not what claims arbitrary and despotic power may set up ; nor by what laws and rules she may seek to appropriate to her own use or luxury much the largest portion of these products ; but I claim for the laborer an ample share of the fruits of his industry on the obvious grounds of natural right and justice, and the plainest principles of Christianity. I am not at all disposed to quarrel with any of the institutions of this great and enlightened country — great and enlightened, * Journal of Royal Agricultural Society, vol. iv. pt. ii. p. 308. AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 63 as a whole, beyond almost any precedent. I am not disposed, in any offensive form, to profess my own preferences for insti- tutions to which birth and education may have strongly attached me, founded as they are on the great principles of universal liberty as the birthright of every man, and of social equality as conformable to nature, and the only relation in which men can stand to their Creator, or under which they would dare to ap- proach him. But, to my mind, it is obvious that no great im- provement can take place in the character and condition of the' laboring population while they remain a distinct and servile class, without any power of rising above their condition. At present, the most imaginative and sanguine see no probability of their rising above their condition, of being any thing but laborers, or of belonging to any other than a servile and dependent class. The low stare of their wages absolutely forbids the accumula- tion of any property. They cannot own any of the soil which tliey cultivate. The houses which they occupy belong not to themselves, and they may at any time be turned out of them. They must ask leave to live, or they must take it by violence or plunder when they will not be suffered to live. Their only home is the grave. In a country where labor is superabundant, and the price of land places it utterly beyond the reach of those who have no means to purchase but from the scanty products of their own manual labor, the condition of the laborer is that of absolute dependence. In a condition of society where artificial ranks and classes exist, and where all the wealth and all the power are in the possession of the upper, or, as they are sometimes denom- inated, the favored classes, the barriers Avhich hem in the lowest class — without property, without power, without education, without even a home which they can call their own — are, of course, impassable. In a country where labor is scarce, where land is cheap and free, and where the advantages of a good edu- cation are offered gratuitously to all, where no arbitrary distinc- tions of rank exist, and every man, by the force of his own talents and character, may occupy that condition in society to which he chooses to aspire, it is obvious how different is the situation of the laboring portion. I believe it is impossible for a man who lives in a state of entire dependence upon others to have the spirit of a man ; and 64 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. who, ill looking out upon the beautiful and productive earth; where God has placed him, is compelled to feel that there is not a foot of soil which, under any circumstances, he can claim for himself; that there is not a tree nor a shelving rock by the road side, where he can shelter himself and gather under his wing the little ones whom God may have cast upon his care, but he is liable to be driven away at the will of another — at the caprice of avarice, selfishness, pride, or unbridled power ; that the use of his own hands and limbs is not his own ; that he cannot, but at the will of another, find a spot of ground where he can apply them ; and that even the gushings from the rock in the wilderness and the manna which descends from heaven are intercepted in their progress to him, and doled out too often in reluctant and scanty measure. This will not be pronounced an exaggerated or colored portrait of the condition of the agricultural laboring population of England. I suppose that, with the exception of some few rights of common, where some miserable mud-hut has been erected, and the pos- sessor has a kind of allowed claim during his life, few instances can be found of a laborer's owning, in fee simple, a cottage, or so much as a rood of land. I recollect, in passing through a part of Derbyshire, in a region which farms the contiguity of several large estates, the coachman, by whose side I was seated, said to me, that this was the Duke of Devonshire's village, and this the Duke of Rutland's, and this the Duke of Norfolk's, and so on : and I could not help asking myself, with some sinking of heart, Where is the people's own village ? In a part of Lincolnshire, an excellent landlord and friend, dis- tinguished for his integrity and philanthropy, was kind enough to take me to visit several of his cottages, that I might see, as he said, some of the best examples of this kind of life. It was on a Sunday evening. The houses were humble, but they were neat and comfortable. The inhabitants of one house which we entered were advanced in life, and alone ; for, although they had children, their children had been under the necessity, as soon as capable of service, of leaving home in search of a livelihood. The appearance of these people was altogether respectable, but there were two incidents, which, though very small in themselves, at least furnished matter for grave reflection. The landlord had given notice, a few days previously, to some of his cottagers to AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 65 quit, because, with a view to the small profit to be derived from their board, they had taken lodgers into their families, who were not agreeable to him. The old people whom I was visiting, though they had occupied the same place for perhaps more than thirty years, and felt themselves quite too far advanced to seek a new home, were suffering under the apprehension that they too might, in some way, have involuntarily incurred the land- lord's displeasure, and might be turned out of their homes like- wise ; and the woman said that her husband, through fear of such an event, " had had no sleep for several nights." In another house, which we visited, we found the woman of the house had just returned from attending the accouchement of a neighbor, the wife of a laboring man ; and she told us that when she an- lounced to the father the birth of twins, he received the intelli- gence with sadness, and replied, that " it would have been a kinder act if Heaven had been pleased to have taken them both away." Where honest and laborious people, in advanced age, feel constantly that they may be turned adrift, at the caprice of their landlord, from the home of their youth, and where a father regards the birth of a child as a curse, the benevolent mind sees evils in the condition, which it must lament if it cannot remedy, and which it must lament the more, in proportion, as all remedy seems hopeless. The landlord in this case, as I am persuaded, was incapable of committing, knowingly, any act of injustice or unkindness ; but it is obvious to what abuses such a power is liable, and to what evils a relation of such servile and abject dependence may subject one. In the present condition of society in England, no material alteration, however, is to be looked for in the position of the laboring classes. Their lot seems to be sealed, and they must remain in this condition of servility and dependence. They cannot rise above it. They are not slaves ; but they are not free. Liberty and independence, to them, are words without meaning. They have no chains upon their hands, but the iron enters into their souls. Their limbs may be unshackled, but *;heir spirits are bound. At the anniversary meeting of the Northamptonshire Agricul- tural Society, several aged and respectable laborers were called in and advanced to the upper table to receive the premiums for ^ood conduct, " which they had merited," in the terms of the 6* 66 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. report, '• by many years of faithful servitude.^^ I confess, as I said on the occasion to the noble president, tliis term sounded harshly to my ear, and the more, if it expressed their true con- dition. Go where they will, the same barriers impede their advance ; and if the ambition of wealth, or rank, or influence, of which they see such glittering examples continually passing before them, should ever dawn in their minds, it would kindle only to be extinguished under inexorable circumstances. There are persons who see in this condition no evil nor hard- ship. I am not about to expatiate upon its evils or hardships, if evils or hardships there be in it. If, in the present condition of society, pecuniary gain is to be the only worthy object of pursuit, and a pecuniary standard the only rule by which the goods of life are to be measured, and the human frame is to be regarded as only so much organized flesh and bone to be worked up at our pleasure into the means of wealth and luxury, then the improvement of the character and condition of the laboring classes is not a subject to attract the attention of the political economist, excepting so far as the perfection of the machine may conduce to the increased amount of the work to be accomplished by it. Bat, if a better rule is to prevail, and men are to feel their moral responsibility to each other, and the physical comfort of those by whose t(*il we live, and the moral improvement of tliose upon whom, as well as upon their more favored brethren, God has equally impressed his own moral image, are to be cared for, the condition of the laboring classes deserves the most serious attention and the most cordial interest of every man who has a spark of patriotism, public spirit, or philanthropy in his bosom. This attention is now given, in various parts of the country, by many persons of distinguished benevolence and active useful- ness, who know no higher pursuit, and find no richer pleasure, than in doing good. They are not willing, while they enjoy the loaf, to put their laborers ofl" with merely the under crust, and not always enough of that. The census of Great Britain reports the number of laborers employed in agriculture at 887,167, and these, with their fami- lies, compose a population of not less than 3,500,000, or one fifth of the whole population of the kingdom. The wages of labor, according to the reports of the committees of Parliament, vary, in diflerent counties, from 7s. sterling to 12s. per week; and the AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 67 rent of their cottages may be said to average about 1 s. 6 d. ster- ling per week, or £3 18 s. per year.* It may interest some of my American readers to learn the expense of some of the families of the cottagers, as they are given from authentic sources, as below : — •' H. Sopp, laborer, has a wife and four children ; earns 9 s. 6 d. a week ; spends 7 s. 2 d. in flour and yeast ; has been without tea, cheese, butter, soap, firing and candles, clothes and beer, for three months." '• Slements, laborer, has a wife and four children ; earns 1] s. 6d. per week ; spends 7 s. 3d. in flour and yeast." '• Pullen, laborer, has a wife and six children ; wages 11 s. d. ; flour and yeast, 9 s. 7 d." I shall quote, further, the actual expenses of a laboring man with a wife and six children, in March, 1841; and "this will afl"ord an average view of the manner of living of the agricultural population of the southern and midland counties of England." 6 gallons of flour, 8 s. Od. Yeast, 3 1 lb. of meat, and ^ lb. of suet, 8 1 lb. of butter, 10 1 lb. of cheese, 6 ^ lb. of candles, 3^ ^ lb. of soap, . 3J Potatoes, 10 Worsted, starch, cotton, and tape, .... 3 Total, .... 12 3 •' This leaves nothing for rent, clothing, education, or any other expenses, the only fund for defraying which consists of the extra earnings during harvest-time, a resource which, in many parts of England, is greatly limited by the periodical influx of Irish laborers. It is obvious, from a glance at this statement, that the bulk of agricultural laborers in the country are, at the best, just able to struggle on from hand to mouth, and that any suspension of employment, rise in the price of provisions, or * One shilling sterling may be reckoned at 24 cents 4 mills : when a sover eign, as now, is estimated at $4.88. 68 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. unforeseen casualty, must, of necessity, compel them to resort to charity, or to descend to a coarser diet, and exchange the habits of an English for those of an Irish peasant." * * The condition of living among the poor agricultural laborers may, perhaps, find some strong illustrations in the subjoined note, wliich is for those only to read who take an interest in so humble a subject: — " A poor man can seldom afford to purchase even the coarsest joint of mutton : but if he lives near a town, he can often get the shcap^s head and pluck for less tlian 1 s. G d.. indeed very frequently for a shilling ; and with these his wife can make up/our liot meals. These substantial and truly savory meals may be eaten with potatoes only, as bread is not necessary. " No instruction is necessary for the making of pies and puddings," (that is, because tlic laborer is never expected to have them,) " whether of fruit or meat ; but we may just remark that a. meat-puddhig (when a laborer can afford it) is one of the most substantial and savory dishes that can be brought to a hungry man's table; and if, instead of putting pie-crust over the meat, you cover it with mashed potatoes, and put it either into the oven or bake it by the side of the fire, it will answer quite as well as paste. In Cornwall, there is a common practice, among those cottagers who bake at home, of making little pasties for the din- ners of those who may be working at a distance in the fields. They will last the whole week, and are made of any kind of meat or fruit, rolled up in a paste made of flour and suet or lard. A couple of ounces of bacon, and i^ lb. of raw- potatoes, botli thinly sliced and slightly seasoned, will be found sufficient for the meal ; the pasty can be carried in tlie man's pocket, but it costs 4 d., as thus : — i lb. of flour, Id. Suet or lard, Id. Potatoes, Oi d. i lb. of bacon, 1| d. " Oatmeal is a frequent diet of the Scotch and Irish peasantry. The prepara- tion is simply to put a handful at a tune gradually into a pot of warm water, and a little salt, simmering it over the fire and keeping it stirred with the other hand, until it becomes as thick as a pudding ; or in about ten minutes time. It may tlien be eaten with a little treacle, or with a piece of butter put into the centre ; but the better way is to eat it with cold milk, taking a spoonful of the stirabout with a mouthful of the milk; for if boiled in milk, it is not near so good. Fine meal does not answer the purpose, and the coarse ground ' Scotch oatmeal ' is the best. Now, about half a pound of this, along with three pints of milk, will make a substantial and a very wholesome breakfast or supper for the family. It is indeed a hearty food ; and the cottager, who seeks to support his wife and chil- dren both frugally and healthfully, should never be without it. The price in London is 4 d. per quart, and the quart weighs nearly 1^ lb. ; so, supposing the milk to be bought at 1 d. tlie quart, three good meals can thus be got for 8i d. "Potatoes will ever be the peasant's standard vegetable; for, if of good mealy quality, they contnin more nutriment than any other root; and three or four AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 69 The following was given me as the wages paid on a farm 111 Lincolnshire, where the wages are more liberal than in pounds are equal in point of nourishment to a pound of the best wheaten bread, besides having the great advantage of betteffdling the stoinacJu "The liquor in which any meat is boiled should always be saved for the mak- ing of soup, and tJic bones even offish should also be preserved ;for although quite bare of meat, yet if stewed down for several hours, they will yield a species of brotli, which, along with peas or oatmeal, will make good soup. A lot of bones may always be got from the butchers' for twopence, and they are never scraped so clean as not to have some scraps of meat adhering to them. "This done, the bones are to be agaiii boiled in the same manner, but for a longer time, and the broth may be made tlie next day into a stew with rice. " Nor is this all ; for the bones, if again boiled for a still longer time, will once more yield a nourishing broth, which may be made into pea-soup ; and when thus done with ( ! ) " (for, alas ! every thing mortal has an end) " may either be sold to the crusher, or pounded by yourself, and used as manure for your garden." These directions are extracted from a Treatise, of which I do not question the utility, on Cottage Economy, published in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, and which certainly contains many valuable suggestions for the poor cottager. The perfect coolness and calm philosophy, however, with which the writer descants upon a single sheep's head and pluck making four savory din- ners for a family ; and a pasty made of any kind of meat or fruit rolled up in flour and lard, with a couple of ounces of bacon, and half a pound of raw pota- toes tliinly sliced, and slightly seasoned, carried in a man's pocket when lie goes to work a good distance from home, being ample for his dinner ; and upon pota- toes having the great advantage over bread of better filling the stomach ; and the advice respecting the cooking of the same bones again and again, three succes- sive days, make one tiiink, to use Burke's expression, " that the Norfolk Squares must have dined" before they could have attained this high degree of phi- losophy. The directions for eating the stirabout or oatmeal porridge seem likewise very kindly given to those who appear to have so little use for their mouths as hardly to know tlie way to tliem. " The better way is to eat it with cold milk, taking a spoonful of the stirabout with a mouthful of the milk." The contrasts constantly presenting themselves in human life are often strik- ing and instructive ; and it may not be without its moral use if, with the labor- er's " savory " viands, his sheep's head and pluck, his cold pasty, and his bones boiled three times over, together with the wholesome advice, given in the same treatise, " to pinch and screw tlie family even in tlie commonest necessaries," until he get a week's wages beforehand, that he may not run in debt, (query, what in tlie name of humanity does '■'■piiwhing and scrcwi7rg" mean in this case, unless it be to boil the bones again after they are pounded ?) we compare the bill of fare at the dinner given to the council of the Royal Agricultural Society, by tlie mayor in behalf of the city of Derby, at the late agricultural show, holden in July, 1843, in that hospitable town. This bill, as well it may bo, is printed on blue satin paper, in letters of gold, in keeping with the banquet 70 EUROPKAN AGRICULTURE. many places, and the farming of the highest order of excel- lence : — ROYAL HOTEL — DERBY The Mayor's Banquet to the. Royal Agricultural Council, July 11, 1843. Bill of Fare. FIRST COURSE. Three turbots and lobster sauce. Three salmon and shrimp do. Five dishes of filletted soles. Five dislies of trout. Ten tureens of turtle soup. Eiglit do. of gi-een pea do. Eight do. of soup Julian. SECOND COURSE. Four haunclies of venison. Four necks of do. Five couples of boiled chickens. Four hams. Three calves' heads, stewed. Four quarters of lamb. Four geese. Four veal fricandeau and ragout. Four pigeon pies. Two rumps of beef, stewed. Four savory pies. Five turkey poults. Five tongues. Three surloins of beef. Three legs of lamb, and gooseberry sauce. Lobster patties. Stewed kidneys. Sweetbreads. Mutton cutlets with tomatas. Veal tendons. Curried lobsters. Veal cutlets and mushrooms. Curried rabbits. Lamb cutlets and cucumber sauce. Eight leverets. Eight couples of ducks. Eight couples of roast chickens. Eight plumb puddings. Eighty dishes of Bakewell do. Eight do. of apricot do. Twenty do. of cheese cakes. Thirty do. of maids of honor. Cherry tarts, and currant do. Jellies, blanc manger. Rhenish cream, &c., &c. Ices, grapes, peaches, cherries. Nectarines, strawberries, raspberries, pines. Almonds and raisins. Candied fruits. Damson cheese, Tartarian cheese. Orange marmalade. Preserved ginger. Sponge cakes, pound cakes. Fruit, brandy, wine, biscuits, ginger cakes, &c., &c., &.c. Wines at pleasure. In these comparisons most certainly I mean no disrespect to any human being. I myself, with a large party, had the honor to sit down at the hospitable and ele- gant table of the Mayor of Derby, who, in company with many of tlie citizens of that ancient town, spared no effort to make the visits of their friends as agree- AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 71 The Foreman — Has a house and garden (about 3 roods) rent free ; He keeps three young men, for which he has £15 a year each, £45 ; He has 6 bushels of malt for each man, — 1 quarter do. for himself, — the best wheat at 48 s. per quarter, 'i — seconds do. at 32 s. " f — four pigs kept in the yard with his master's. I He feeds and kills his own bacon, i I and has £24 in cash, and two cows kept. ! The Shepherd — Has a house and garden (about 2 roods) rent free, — 2 quarters of wheat at 48 s. per quarter, — 2 bushels of malt, — a cow kept, and — £22 a year in money. Four laborers have the following yearly wages, from May-day to May-day : — 2s. 3d. per day, from May-day to Michaelmas, Is. 9 d. •' from Michaelmas to May-day, 2 s. 3d. per acre for grass and clover mowing, 7 s. " for corn cutting, 16 bushels of wheat, at 6 s. per bushel, 1 bushel of malt, without charge, 1 cow kept, do. able and comfortable as possible ; and certainly in this respect no persons could liave succeeded better. Nor am I disposed to find fault with the luxuries with which any gentleman or company are disposed to entertain their guests. But the contrast here presented between the condition of the producer and the con- sumer — between him whose toil creates the food and him who eats it — cannot fail to read a most important and instructive lesson. What its moral uses arc, I think, no fair and reflecting mind will be at a loss to perceive. I shall not. therefore, as in ^sop's fables, write the moral at the bottom, but I shall leave the whole to my reader, without note or comment ; feeling sure that if it leads to no serious reflections, there must be a melancholy obtuseness of intellect ; and if it stirs no pity and no humanity within him, there is reason to fear that all the springs are cut off, and the well is utterly dry. Such, alas ! are but too often, though not always, the melancholy effects of luxury and prosperity. 72 EtmOPEAN AGRICULTURE. Each laborer pays £4 4 s. for a house, and has about 3 roods of garden. Calculation of what each man receives. 90 days, at 2 s. 3d., £10 2 6 21 acres of grass and clover mowing, at 2 s. 3 d. . 2 7 3 18 " of corn cutting, at 7 s., 6 6 172 days, at 1 s. 9 d., 15 10 Cow keeping, 880 42 4 9 Deduct house-rent, 4 4 Net yearly wages, 38 9 " The English laborer," says an assistant poor-law commis- sioner, '• even if he has transcendent abilities, has scarcely any prospect of rising in the world, and becoming a small farmer. He commences his career as a weekly laborer, and the probabil- ity is, that, whatever may be his talents and industry, as a weekly laborer he will end his days." '•' This is the best side of the picture : what is the reverse ? If he has no chance of rising in the world, how many chances has he of falling ? If he is thrown out of employment ; if he has a large family of girls or yonng children ; if he yields to temptation, and becomes irregular in his habits ; what is to become of him ? The answer is obvious : for a time he will be assisted by casual charity, and struggle on against extreme privations ; but if the causes of distress continue, one or other of two things will be his final lot — he will either be enrolled among the 1,072,978 paupers receiving parish relief under the new poor law ; or he will be starved out of the coun- try into some large town, and absorbed in the floating population who tenant the cellars and lodging-houses, and live by the worst- paid description of manufacturing industry, or by thieving, pros- titution, and casual employment." * As I have before remarked, it is much more easy to point out and deplore an evil, than it is to suggest a remedy. A republican would say that the evil is fundamental, and grows out of a con- stitution of society establishing different ranks, the appropriation * Laingr's Prize Address. ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 73 of the land in a few hands, the high price of land, the depressing sense of dependence, and the hopelessness of competition and of all attempts to acquire influence, respect, or wealth, incidental to, and inseparable from, such a framework of society. Persons born to afliuence and distinction, and persons who have never felt their efforts checked or suppressed by a sense of a depend- ence which they cannot escape, can very imperfectly estimate the effect of these circumstances upon character. But whether desirable or not — and, in this matter, I would leave every man to the enjoyment of his own honest opinion — as all expectation of a change in the constitution of English society seems as vain as to expect to reduce the inequalities of the surface of the coun- try to a common level — it only remains to consider what alle- viations of the evils of the condition of the laboring classes can be successfully attempted. The inquiry is one which most deeply concerns religion and humanity. It is only just likewise to remark, — and I do it with the highest pleasure, — that the subject is now interesting innumerable benevolent persons in the highest ranks and in the middle conditions of life, to a degree perhaps never before known ; and that many of the brightest minds are now concentrating their energies upon its investigation and cure. It is with equal pleasure that I can say, that I have found among many of the landlords the most watchful attention to the welfare of their laborers, and every kind provision for them in sickness, decay, or misfortune. Alas ! that there are so many who do not come within the reach of this provision, and so many who refuse or neglect to make it. XIII. — ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. That which seems to be admitted on almost all hands to have operated to the most advantage, is what is termed the allotment system. In this case, the laborer hires of the landlord a small piece of land, — and it is generally limited to one quarter of an acre, and seldom exceeds half an acre, — for which he pays such a rent as may be agreed upon ; and he and his family cultivate it ^7 74 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. in their spare time, either before going to work or after having returned from their day's work. The manner in which this land shall be appropriated is generally determined or prescribed by the landlord ; though, in some cases, it remains optional with the laborer. These small lots of land, though generally leased at a moderate rent, — in some cases, as at the Duke of Devonshire's village of Edensor, at a rent merely nominal, — bring at the rate of from one pound to eight pounds an acre, though, in the latter case, the land generally lies contiguous to some large manufac- turing town, where the laborer finds an opportunity of disposing of many small products at a high price. In general, the land so taken, exclusive of some few garden vegetables for daily use, is applied to the growing of potatoes and wheat, and alternated with these two crops. The effect of these allotments upon the character of the occu- pant is quite remarkable. He becomes himself, for the time being, an owner of the soil ,• he has a feeling of independence which nothing else can give, and which at once exalts his char- acter. He is able to avail himself to advantage of the labor of his Avife and children, who in some cases perform most of the work on the ground in hours which would otherwise be wasted or misappropriated. His ground yields him a large supply of vegetables for his family, and enables him to keep and fatten a pig or two, and likewise some poultry, which very much conduce to his comfort, and that of his family. The cultivation of his ground likewise occupies hours which might otherwise be spent in the drinking-house, where nothing good is to be learned, and where the foundation of the ruin of many a laborer is laid ; and the ruin of his family follows generally, as matter of course. Besides these advantages from the allotment system, his youngest children are here early trained to habits of industry and care- fulness. The mere keeping of a pig in such cases is a matter of serious profit, and not of that only, but of pleasure ; and I have been so much struck with the remarks of one of the commissioners on this subject, that I transcribe them for the gratification of my readers : — " Of such a pig, the first product of allotment, garden or potato headland, it is the fashion among political economists to speak disrespectfully. Now, whatever might be the superior profit, to ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 76 the cottager, of saving the money which he spends on his pigs and buying his bacon in the market, tliis, as it never has been, and never will be so saved, we may dismiss. In the mean time, his pig, besides its usefulness, is also a real pleasure to him ; it is one of his principal interests in life ; he makes sacrifices to it ; he exercises self-control for its sake ; it prevents him living from hand to mouth, stupidly careless of the future. I am persuaded that a greater act of cruelty could hardly be perpetrated, than the discountenancing this practice, or rather amusement and enjoy- ment, among the poor." * So much for the moral effects of this simple matter of the poor man's keeping a pig, in which I perfectly agree with the writer, and honor the benevolence which discerns, even in these humble matters, a moral utility. It is difficult, to say, why, when the rich man finds his pleasure in his hunters, his dogs, his game, his menageries, and aviaries, the poor man should not have his pleasure in his pig ; an animal, indeed, not always of the most agreeable endowments, nor of very refined manners, but yet in temper and manner susceptible of a considerable improvement by education, and entitled to no small respect for his usefulness, since if his master feeds him when living, he returns the kindness, when dead, by feeding his master ; a merit which cannot be ascribed to some other domestic pets far more expensively cher- ished and caressed. Too much indeed cannot be said in favor of the allotment system, of its justice, its humanity, and its usefulness. Its influ- ence upon the happiness of the poor, and its moral tendencies — its tendency to prevent idleness and dissipation, and to produce sobriety, industry, and frugality, and especially to keep men at home, and attach them to their homes, most strongly recommend it. Many facts prove that the laborers in some instances pay full double the ordinary rent of the land, and find their account in it. In most cases, however, the lease of a farmer forbids his under-letting any portion of his land ; and allotments can only be granted under special agreement, or by the particular consent of the landlord. This is not always to be procured ; nor is it always without strong opposition from the farmers themselves. It will perhaps be asked, by some of my readers, why do I * Sir H. Doylo's Report on Employment of Women and Children, p. 295. 76 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. enter so fully into the condition of the rural population in Eng- land, when we have nothing which bears a resemblance to it in the United States. This latter is one of the very reasons why I do it; but I hope that others will present themselves, upon reflection, which will at least excuse, if not justify me. I may as well give some of those reasons in this place ; then, perhaps, I may be heard with more patience. I have promised my friends here, and in the United States, that they shall have my honest impressions of whatever comes under my observ'ation connected with agricultural and rural affairs, and the condition of the rural population. In the next place, I see in the list of my subscribers the names of many, who will take a much stronger interest in such views, than in details of crops, accounts of live stock, and the practical operations of husbandry, which I shall go into at large in the course of my reports ; certainly I am bound to consult, in some measure, their tastes. In the next place, we shall find in the management of small farms and small allotments, examples of successful culti- vation, which cannot be without their use and application to farming on a much more extended scale. Lastly, I cannot think it will be without its use to compare the condition of a laborer, where to him land, under the present condition of things, is unat- tainable, and labor superabundant, with a condition of labor where, as in the free states, every industrious man can have land of the most fertile and productive character almost at his pleasure, and where the price of land places it within reach of his labor ; where every man may have his home, and sit down quietly without tlie apprehension of removal ; where it is not a necessary study with him how often he may have meat, or how many days in the week he may have bread ; but where, with industry, sobriety, and frugality, he may always have more meat and more bread than he requires, and something for the poor and the stranger. I shall take the liberty here of inserting an account, sent me by a kind friend, of the working of the allotment system in a village within his neighborhood — I believe in Lincolnshire. It is an interesting and instructive account. His opinions respect- ing the size of farms must rest upon his own responsibility. I neither endorse nor deny them. On the subject of the size of farms I shall speak at large when my views have become matured by further observation. ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 77 " Scampton is the property of a gentleman (Sir George Cay- ley, Bart.) of liberal views and enlarged benevolence. One of his first movements, upon succeeding to the estate some thirty years ago, was to provide for the comfort of those who, under his superior tenants, were to be the immediate laborers upon his land. '' To fourteen cottages allotments of land were made. A field of sixteen acres was set apart as pasturage, that each cot- tager might keep a cow ; and another field of twenty-six acres was appropriated as mowing ground, that all might be provided with fodder for the winter. Each cottage had an acre of tillage land allotted to it in the field, and something like another half acre as garden ground, around its little homestead. " A cow club, or insurance, was established, to enable those cottagers who lost a cow by casualty, to replace her immedi- ately, and without loss of time. "In the spring of the year, the cows are valued by a compe- tent and disinterested person. Each cottager pays sixpence in the pound on the value of his cow. Cows above fourteen years of age are not insurable. If a cow dies within the year, the owner receives three fourths of her value. The dead cow is the property of the club. " Sixpence in the pound, annually, has actually covered, to three fourths of the value, all casualties upon a run of twenty years. " Under the inspection of a shrewd and spirited agent, the whole affair has worked to admiration, and been productive of peace and plenty amidst the little community whose happiness it was designed to promote. No burning of stacks here, because every man has one of his own. No invasion of the rights of property, because every man is a possessor of property, and anxious to guaranty his neighbor's rights, that he may hold his own in the better security. " The rent that each cottager pays is something less than £10 per annum. The produce that is yielded, much to the credit of the humble cultivators, is abundantly ample to cover the out- goings, and leaves a surplus that makes them comfortable. " The acre of tillage land is remarkably productive. It is divided into two allotments : half an acre is in wheat, the other half in potatoes ; alternating the crops, of course, every year. On this short rotation, the land has not suffered, hut actually 7# 78 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. increased infertility. For the last ten years, the crops of wheat have yielded twenty bushels to the half acre. The twenty years preceding, eighteen bushels was the average. Instances of twenty-seven bushels to the half acre have been known. The half acre of potatoes, with others grown in the garden, are usually fed to pigs, and instances have been known where the cottager has sold twenty pounds worth of pigs and well supplied his own family with bacon. It is common for them to sell from ten to twenty pounds worth of pigs, or pork, per annum, and still keep a good supply for family use. Some of the cottagers, who have been blessed with careful wives and good cows, have sent twelve pounds of butter, per week, to market, during all the flush of the feed. " It must be understood, that while the cottager's allotment of land is thus multiplying his comforts, he has a constant sup- ply of work, and current wages, from the neighboring farmers. His own farming is done after his master's day's work is com- pleted, with perchance a day now and then, as at seed-time and harvest. " Happy, comfortable, and superior in condition, as these cot- tagers appear, yet the system that makes them so has often been called in question. It has been observed, that the children of cottagers, thus happily situated, are not over anxious to go to service, and not over apt to keep their places when they do go. There appears a latent consciousness about them that the house of their parents is well supplied with bread and bacon. " Perhaps the evil, if it be one, has a deeper origin than at j&rst sight appears. May it not be traceable to our social system, the genius of which delights to keep property in large masses, under great proprietors ? These proprietors have a similar predi- lection for large divisions of their property — large farms, and men of large capital to work them. All this may be well — very well suited to the cast-iron consciences of the political economists; but it creates a chasm between the large farmer — the farmer of two hundred and fifty acres, with a capital of twenty-five hundred pounds, and the mere laboring cottager. The latter can never hope to pass so great a void. There are no intermediate resting-places. There are no farms of twenty, fifty, or a hundred acres, to which the successful and deserving cottager can be promoted. The steps of the ladder are out. ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 79 Having obtained the rare blessing of a cottage allotment, the language of his heart is, ' Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for in onr present condition we must die.' His highest ambition being achieved, and the family little more to hope for, it is not to be wondered at that some little laxity should be observable. Let the great landlords of the land supply a motive by a more natural division of their property — let them encourage the aspi- rations of the industrious cottagers by small farms in prospective, and larger beyond them, and the energies of onr peasantry will never be found to flag. But this is, perhaps, scarcely to be hoped for." I shall go still more largely into the subject of allotments, as presenting one of the first and most efficient means of bettering the condition of the agricultural laborer. My own convictions are strong on this point ; and they are sustained and strength- ened by the testimony of many men of large experience and shrewd observation. The laborer finds, in an allotment, a means of turning his spare hours to advantage, and in a mode of labor which, from its very character, being in the association of his wife and children., under his own control and management, and for his own immediate and personal benefit, becomes a pleasure instead of a toil. He finds in it the means of eking out his scanty wages ; of providing, to a degree, for an occasion of sickness, or other suspension of his employment and wages. He is enabled to bring from this source many rare comforts to his own frugal table; and has himself, if he is a man of feeling. — and why should he not be? — an opportunity of enjoying one of the richest of all pleasures, — that of making a small contribution to relieve an unfortunate or a sick neighbor. It presents a good school of industry for his children, under his own immediate inspection. It quickens his own intelligence in making agricul- tural experiments upon a small and useful scale, and rouses a spirit of wholesome emulation in his crops even with the master farmers. It removes him from strong temptations to gambling, low dissipation, and intemperance. It gives him an interest in the soil ; it attaches him to his home ; it involves him in all the risks of the public safety ; and makes him the friend of public peace and order. It gives him the spirit of a man, raising him above the sense of slavish dependence, and the dread of becom- ing a pensioner on public charity. In so doing, it at once exalts 80 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. him in the community ; induces a most wholesome self-respect ; inspires a just regard for the rights of property ; attaches him the, more strongly to his superior, who thus shows his willingness that he should walk erect instead of keeping him upon the ground Av^ith his foot upon his neck ; and presents innumerable, constant, and powerful motives to improvement and good con- duct. I wish it were in my power to convey to those, who have been born to affluence, rank, and authority, the force of these sentiments upon minds altogether differently circumstanced from themselves; but I know it would be difficult — I fear it might be impossible. A consciousness of absolute dependence, so ex- tremely difficult to be engrafted in the human mind, seems indispensable to teach us our duty either to man or God. That the whole of this subject has an important bearing in its economical and moral aspects upon my own country cannot, I think, be overlooked by a reflecting mind ; and, in the course of my reports, will, I trust, be made more fully apparent. '^ m ^ . EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. SECOND REPORT. XIII. — ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. (Continued.) My First Report was concluded with the important subject of allotments of land to laborers. This subject, without an explana- tion, would scarcely be understood by a majority of the farmers in the United States. The agricultural laborers, or, as they are here termed, the farm-servmits, are seldom or never owners of land. They receive their wages in money or produce, as I have already described ; and some of them, living in compact villages, have not even a small piece of ground for a garden, though, in many parts of the country, the cottages have small gardens at- tached to them. The unmarried laborers sometimes live in the houses of their employers ; but this is not now a general nor a frequent practice. The married laborers live in cottages on the estate, or in a neighboring village. It is obvious how great advantages a poor family in the country may derive from a small piece of land, and how much produce may be obtained from it for their support and comfort by the application of even a small amount of labor, which other- wise, without such opportunity of applying it, would be lost, oi- rather would not be exerted. Many persons, therefore, have leased to their laborers small portions of land, varying in size from a quarter of an acre, or even less, to an acre, and in some cases more than this, to be cultivated in such crops as the laborer may select, or as may be prescribed by the proprietor. One 82 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. condition is usually made absolute in these cases — that the land should be cultivated with a spade, and not with a plough. The results therefore become the more interesting. I shall give here an account of a successful attempt at the improvement of the condition of the poor rural laborers by allot- ments of land, cultivated by the spade, uniting with these allot- ments, at the same time, a provision for the education of the poor children by whose labor these grounds are cultivated. The accounts have a twofold value, in showing the practicableness of meeting the expenses of education by the labor of the pupils, and the increased and extraordinary product which may be ob- tained from land under the spade husbandry. " A friend to the more general diffusion of a sound education amongst the peasantry of the United Kingdom, who has long witnessed the success with which education may be, toithoiit cost, combined with instruction, in the best modes of cultivating the soil, begs to submit to those who are impressed with the impor- tance of the effort, the few following facts: — •' A landed proprietor has established what are termed ' Agricul- tural Schools,' upon the principle of uniting our present national with agricultural instruction, by making the labor of the little .scholars, while under tuition in the art of husbandry in the after- noon, to compensate the master, in the way of salary, for the instruction they receive from him, in the usual course of our national education m the morning. Schools have already been established upon this plan at the villages of East Dean and Wil- lingdon, and they are attended with the happiest results. The usual quantity of land required for the purpose does not exceed five acres ; and for this the master pays a rent, certainly equal to, and in most cases beyond, that of the adjoining land, occupied by farmers. In the case of the Willingdon school, there is an appropriate house, for which the master pays an additional rent. The only payment in money to the master is the usual penny a week from each scholar. '' Nor can any reasonable objection be made to this plan on the ground of so employing the boys in the afternoon. The girls in our national schools are taught, and for the same number of hours, to work with the needle, the use of which is not more important to them than that of Ihe spade and the hoe to the boys. ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 83 " As various questions will naturally suggest themselves to those who read this statement, the following answers, by the schoolmaster, to numerous inquiries already made, are inserted here : — *' Reply of the Master to Inquiries respecting this School. "'I have twenty scholars, to whom I teach reading, writing, and accounts, the Chiurch Catechism, Collects, and Psalmody on the national plan, with the approbation of the vicar, without any salary, for one penny per week from each boy, from nine to twelve o'clock ; and from two till five in the afternoon cultiva- ting the land. I have not lost one from dissatisfaction, but I am glad to say that they willingly assist me. " ' I am satisfied that I can keep two cows on the same quantity of ground, stall-fed, where I could keep but one if I allowed her to graze ; and grow more corn. " ' I have no grass land, and all the first winter my cows had only straw, turnips, and mangel-wurzel, till green food came on in the spring ; and now my hay is the clover I sowed with the grain crop last year. " ' I have experienced a great deal of good from the liquid manure from the two tanks, one from the cows and the other from the pigs. •' ' I have just killed a pig weighing twenty-nine stone seven pounds, and one before about the same Aveight, Avhich I have used in my family?". I have a wife and four children. " ' It is allowed that my oats are the best sample in the parish. 1 tied my oats in sheaves, and set them up the same as wheat, which saves a great deal of scattering : this is the general prac- tice in Cornwall and Scotland, and, I hear, in some parts of Kent, and is particularly useful for barley to malt. " ' I thrash my corn over the cow-house, as in Cornwall, Switzerland, &c., which keeps it perfectly dry, being thus kept from the damp ground. " * I am entirely supplied with water by the rain which falls on the house, preserved in a tank in the ground. " ' The quantity of land I rent is five acres, on the side of the South Downs, at £3 an acre ; this with £5 for my house, makes £20, which I have paid for the year ending Michael- 84 EUROPEAN AGRICULTUKE. mas last, though I might have taken off my crops, and hved rent-free ; but I preferred staying and teaching, though I have no salary ; and so, I think, would many others. " 'I have now three cows, a heifer, and a calf, standing oppo- site to each other, with a road between their mangers for feeding these stall-fed cattle, which have never needed a farrier ; and from skim milk I have made cheese like the Dutch cheese. " ' George Cruttenden. " ' WiLLiNGDON, near Eastbourne, Sussex, .^/?n7, 1842.' " ' At your request, I send the particulars of my produce last year, which I am perfectly satisfied with, leaving me a balance of £40 after every thing is paid, though the last was an unfavorable, dry summer. " ' I am likewise happy to say, the principal farmers of the pai'ish have taken into their employ six of my scholars, all under twelve years of age, into their service since Christmas, and two of them under nine ; and all, after leaving my day school, where they paid me one penny a week in addition to their work, have each paid me fourpence a Aveek out of their wages, for evening instruction ; and their master is now using the liquid manure the same as I do, which I have found most beneficial. " ' I have a wife and foiu: children, whom I support in a comfortable w^ay, and wish I could see many of my neigh- bors do the same ; but that is not the case. " ' G. Cruttenden. " ' WiLLixGDON School, Jlpril 14, 1843.' " A landed proprietor at Willingdon, seeing the success of this school, recommended the establishment of a similar school in the adjoining parish of East Dean, where, in the spring of 1842, five acres of land were let to John Harris, an infirm man, who, two years before, had been in the Eastbourne Union House, with his wife and seven children, where, at three shillings per head, they cost at the rate, yearly, of £70 4 s., which is equal to the rent of three hundred and fifty-one acres of sheep-walk : now he is supporting his family on only five acres, and, when recommended to give up his five acres, said, ' he had rather continue to pay rent, rates, tithes, and taxes, and teach without a salary, than have fourteen shillings a week without the land.' ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 85 " Harris, in the Union House, resembled a mouse in a granary devom'ing the fruits of labor ; but does not this same Harris, on his five acres, resemble the mouse in the fable, releasing the famishing lion? for by his rent he is helping to support the owner of the soil, by his rates the poor, by his tithes the church, and by his taxes the state, which surprises those who have long been accustomed to hear it is requisite to let land in large farms, for the supply of food for large towns. " But do not the higher rents paid for allotments of land by the spade than the plough, show that, after supporting the cultivators and their families, they send more to market per aci'e than the great farmers ? " It was the eagerness of laborers in Sussex to hire land, that suggested the possibility of some men to obtain as much as five acres, undertaking to teach reading, &c., three hours daily with- out a salary, without at all anticipating that twelve boys, aver- aging eight years of age, by their labor for three hours after noon, could well pay for their instruction in school before noon ; but a trial of upwards of three years has put this beyond doubt, as dozens o-f signatures in the visitors' book testify, of clergymen and members of both Houses of Parliament, not only of this neighborhood, but also from Ireland and Scotland, amongst whom was Mi^. Townshend Mainwaring, M. P. for Denbigh, who inspected these schools April 29th, 1843, and entered in the East Dean visitors' book, that he was much gratified by the complete success which appeared to attend the simple principle upon which the school was conducted. " And these self-sup])orting schools require much less superin- tendence than where the master has a fixed salary, because, if he neglected or misused the boys before noon, their parents are not likely to send them back to work for him after noon. "He is interested in cultivating the land well, as it is the only support of his family. " Landlords are interested in letting land to masters who pay high rents. " Rate-payers are interested in able-bodied men being enabled to maintain themselves. " Parents are interested in sending their children where they early learn to earn their livings in that state of life unto which it has pleased God to call them. 8 86 EUROPEAN A(;RICi;i/n:KK. " The farmers around, seeing the great produce from stall- feeding and liquid manure, are interested in taking additional hands into their service. '' The more food that is raised from the soil, the more there will be to exchange for clothing, and thus an increased home market be provided for our manufacturers ; ^vho, the more they earn, the more they have to lay out in meat, &c. "And to effect this, there is no deficiency in capital. There is no want of hands, as our Union Houses are overflowing with the able-bodied ; nor is there any want of land, as the heaths, commons, and grazing land, even round London, show." It is stated, likewise, — and it is a fact deserving of all remark, — *' that, during a course of twelve years, out of four hundred rents, only three rents have been deficient, though the tenants were taken without reference to character, and told the rent would not be demanded if not tendered ; but the desire of keep- ing the land has secured the annual payment, and only one, during the whole of that time, has been convicted of a misdemeanor." "In fifty parishes in one county in which there are above three thousand allotments, after the most careful inquiry, our agent heard only of one commitment to prison in 1840, and not even one in 1841, out of the whole three thousand families." The general condition on which allotments are granted being that they shall be cultivated by the spade, the extraordinary product obtained in this way deserves to be remarked. The statements to which I shall refer are drawn from the reports of a committee of Parliament, and seem, therefore, entitled to con- fidence. I have myself visited several allotment grounds in different parts of the country, and am quite satisfied that the results under this system of management are not overstated. On this subject I shall say more hereafter ; but it may not be out of place if I give here some examples which have been referred to. Jesse Piper, in Sussex, holds an allotment of four acres. He obtained, in 1842, forty-two bushels of wheat from three quarters of an acre of land ; ho had two hundred and fifty bushels of potatoes from three fourths of an acre ; he had ten bushels of barley from the other land, and kept two cows, and three and sometimes four pigs ; he considers that there might be an acre of grass, and the cows were kept entirely upon the produce of the four acres : a portion of this was not arable, as some trees ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 87 were growing upon it. A peculiarity in this man's management is, that he works one of his cows in his cart, and calculates that her labor saves him an expense of five pounds ; she is milked in the morning before she is put to work, and, although worked, she makes eight pounds of butter a week, besides furnishing some milk for the family. This is a sort of Robinson Crusoe management, which is well deserving of attention. It would not be easy to find a reason why the female of one class of ani- mals should be exempted from work, rather than of another ; and there is no ground to suppose that, with good feeding and carefid usage, moderate labor Avould be injurious to the health of an animal ; much more likely is it to be conducive to health, and even, in such case as this, to the more liberal secretions of milk. Other circumstances in this man's economy are worthy of ob- servation ; he saves all his liquid manure in a tank by his own house, and mixes with it a proportion of soot and salt ; he throws his land into heaps, and puts the liquid upon the heaps, and then spreads it abroad — "because," as he remarks, "his land is so near the chalk, that if he put his liquid manure upon the land, three foiurths of it would be wasted — it would go clean away, so as never to get it again ; but when put in a heap of mould it is retained." Produce of four Acres^ held by J. Piper, in 1842. £. s. d. 42 bushels of wheat, at 7 s. 6d. per bushel 15 15 250 do. potatoes, at 15 d. per do 15 12 6 Food for one cow, which gave 4 lbs. butter per week, at 1 s. per lb 10 The other cow do. do. do. do. .10 Food for three pigs, at 20 st. each, and at 3 s. 6d. per st. 10 10 £61 17 6 This example shows the extraordinary results of minute and exact cultivation, and the value of economy in husbanding with extreme care all the resources for manure. The cow is an ani- mal I have always looked upon with the greatest respect for her justice and her liberality ; in this case she pays for her board by her yield in milk and butter, and adds to it her labor, or, as is said in case of a free passage on board ship, " she works her 88 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. own passage ; " but the good creature's usefulness does not end here. When she has completed her round of beneficence, her benefactions do not close with her life ; her hoofs are made into glue ; her horns into combs ; her bones into knife-handles and cane-tops ; her hair worked up into plaster ; her skin into shoes ; and her meat into food. Who can wonder that the Hindoos always regarded her with a religious veneration ? The next instance presented by the Parliamentary Reports is that of J. Dumbrell. His allotment is six acres, and is managed by himself, his father, (seventy years old,) and a child of nine years old. " The soil is chalk, on a deep soil, in a valley." His stock consists of two cows and a heifer, and from two to three pigs. His succession of crops is thus described : " First, Italian rye grass, cut four times, watering it each time with liquid manure after cutting it ; then tares ; then clover ; then cabbage comes in, and mangel-wurzel ; and second cut clover, and sometimes three ; and that carries us all the summer through : then we begin upon the roots in winter, tmiiips and mangel-wiurzel, and straw." The following is the statement of his produce for 1840 : — £. s. d. From two cows in nine months and a half, from the 16th of Jan. to the 26th of Oct., made 400ilbs. of butter, which at 1 s. per lb 20 3 The cow, all the year stall-fed, yielding a third more than the other, which grazed half an acre ; and their two calves sold for 5 18 The skim milk, at 3 pints Id., or given to the pigs, is estimated at 10 On one quarter of an acre he grew 18 bushels of oats, which, at 4 s. per bushel, amounts to 3 12 On 88 poles («. e., a little more than half an acre) he grew 32 bushels of wheat, worth, at 8 s. per bushel, (which is equal to the consumption of himself, his wife, and three infant children,) 12 10 Besides pigs, potatoes, vegetables, and the butter to be expected to the end of the year, which may fairly be estimated on the whole of the land (including the foregoing, as I understand the account, which is rather imperfectly drawn up) at 60 ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 89 Out of this he paid — Rent, rates, tithes, and taxes of one acre, . £ I 7 Rent of one acre and a half, 7 Rent of half an acre of grass, . . .£2 10 Lodge in it, 1 00 Rates, tithes, and taxes, 15 £4 5 Hired labor, £2 Seed corn, 2 £4 Leaving . . . . £43 8 The two pounds paid for labor were paid for threshing. There are two other accounts of the same individual subjoined. Produce of three and one quarter Acres, in 1841. £. s. d. Wheat, 2 U bushels, at 8 s 8 12 Oats, 44 bushels, at 2 s. 9 d 610 Potatoes, 80 bushels, at 1 s 4 Two calves sold for 5 10 Butter, 423^ lbs., at Is 21 3 3 Milk sold, and given to the pigs, 10 £55 6 3 Produce of six and one quarter Acres, in 1842. £. s. d. Wheat, 40 bushels, at 6 s. 6 d 13 Oats, 93 bushels, at 2 s. 6 d 11 12 6 Peas, 22 bushels, at 4 s. 6 d 4 19 Potatoes, 150 bushels, at 1 s 7 10 Two calves, one fat and one suckled, 3 7 Butter, 290 lbs., at Is 14 10 Milk sold, and given to pigs, 800 £62 18 6 In 1842, he lost two cows by death, and the additional land was taken in bad condition. At the same time, he presented a sample of his wheat, on which were eighty-four stalks from one grain. There is another secret 8* 90 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. of this man's success — he had signed the temperance pledge; he is a tee-totaller, and drinks neither spirituous nor fermented Hquor. An inquiry was made of Mr. Dumbreh, " how it was possible to keep two cows, and maintain a family of five persons, on only three acres of land ; " to which this is his answer — " The state- ment you saw was very true ; half an acre of pasture, half an acre and eight rods in wheat, and one quarter of an acre in oats , the other part was green food for the cows, such as rye, tares, cabbages, clover, mangel-wurzel, turnips, and Italian rye-grass. But if you are surprised at my keeping two cows on this quantity of land, I must tell you that one crop a year will not do it : but my plan is to take second crops ; that is, rye is the first thing I cut green in the spring ; then I dig the land, and manure it with the liquid manure, as far as it will go ; then finish with rotten dung, and plant mangel-wurzel and turnips ; and the part that 1 manure with the liquid is always the best. The next thing I cut is winter barley and turnips, and plant some cabbages for winter : by this time I cut the grass and clover, which grows again in a short time, with a little of the liquid manure as soon as it is cut. Last summer I cut the Italian rye-grass and clover three times ; and this year I have nearly cut it twice already, and there were really two good crops of the Italian rye-grass, and I think there will be two more this summer, with a little manuring. My early cabbages I always let stand to grow again all the summer, and they bring a great deal of food. I plant again in November, and put the liquid manure to them as far as it will go ; but to the rest I use dung or ashes, which are not so good as the liquid, which any body may tell in the spring by looking at the bed of cabbages ; so I hope it now appears how the cows are maintained in winter as well as in summer. Dming last winter, I had no hay, only turnips, mangel-wurzel, and straw, and they did very well." I have already apprized my readers that my Reports must be, in a degree, desultory, from the necessity of giving them before the whole ground has been gone over. Compelled at once to begin the erection of my building, I must use such materials as I have ; and which, I fear, under such circumstances, may appear incongruous and ill-assorted to an eye accustomed to order and exact arrangement ; whereas, if every thing were at hand, I might ALLOTMt:NT SYSTEM. 91 better succeed in preserving the symmetry and adjusting the architectural proportions of the edifice. I shall therefore make no excuse for saying here something more of spade husbandry, and the extraordinary products of small pieces of land ; and it must be admitted that it is by no means disconnected with the subject of cottage allotments. The utmost productive capacity of an acre of land, in any crop, has not yet been fully determined. The amounts attained frequently surprise us ; but we have not yet got to the end of the line. One of the witnesses before the Parliamentary committee gives an account of a man who supported himself, and wife, and son, from two acres of land, for which he paid a rent for the two of £9 10 s. ; and in the course of seven years, he had saved enough from the produce of his two acres to purchase two acres of land, for which he paid about £30 to £40 per acre. He states, likewise, his own personal knowledge of six acres of land, which, under the spade cultivation, produced at the rate of fifty-two bushels of wheat to the acre. Another witness testifies that on the estate of Lord Howard, Barbot Hall, in Yorkshire, a rood of land was dug and planted Avith wheat by his lordship's direction, and twenty-eight bushels of wheat were obtained from this quarter of an acre, which would be at the extraordinary and unheard-of rate of one hundred and twelve bushels per acre. The authenticity, or rather accuracy, of such a statement as this may well be considered as questionable ; but I have the pleasure of presenting one, exhibiting a most extraordinary yield, on which full reliance may be placed. In visiting Horsham, (the last summer,) in the county of Sussex, my attention was strongly attracted by two small pieces of wheat in a garden by the road-side, exhibiting an extraordinary luxuriance ; and I have been able to obtain a detailed liistory of its culture and yield, through the politeness of C. S. Dickens, Esq., of Coolhurst, near Horsham. The seed of this wheat was brought from Australia, being the product of some wheat which had been sent there two or three years before. The quantity of land sown, in one of the pieces, was thirty-four square yards. The wheat was dropped in rows nine inches apart, and in holes six inches apart, and only one grain in a place. The number of corns planted was GS2, out of 92 ' EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. which 33 failed to germinate. The cultivator obtained four gallons of good wheat from the land, exclusive of several of the finest plants, which he saved. The usual number of stems from each seed was 18 to 20 ; a considerable number gave 30 to 35, and one was counted which had 40 full-sized stems, and three of a smaller size. The straw from the 34 yards weighed 72 pounds, which would be 284 trusses of 36 pounds to the acre. The -weight of the 682 corns planted was 17 di'achms. This being multiplied by 142, the land being the l-142d part of an acre, gave about 9]: pounds as seed for the acre ; consequently one bushel of wheat, at 63 pounds per bushel, would plant more than six acres. The produce of 4 gallons, multiplied, as above, by 142, gives the great quantity of 71 bushels, or 17 sacks 3 bushels, to the acre. The ground had borne potatoes the previous year, and had received no top-dressing, nor been in any way manured for the wheat. A sample of the wheat, which has been kindly sent to me, in the straw, and which 1 have de- posited in the museum of the Royal Agricultural Society, was six feet in height. These are remarkable facts. What has been done can be done. They forbid our resting satisfied with what has been accomplished ; and they encourage the hope that the productive powers of the soil are vastly greater than have yet been deter- mined. Onward ! is the watchword of the present day, in every department of science and art. Why should agriculture form an exception ? Away with the drones ! Do not let us mistake a fog-bank for land, nor think that we have reached the end of the voyage until our feet actually press the solid ground. The allotments referred to above I have myself had the satis- faction of inspecting, and add, with great pleasure, my humble testimony to the skill, industry, and good conduct, with which they are managed. Indeed, in many respects, I do not know where they can be exceeded. The establishments presented striking examples of the most exact economy. Three of the parties had been driven by their necessities into the workhouses, principally, however, owing to accidental injuries and sickness; but now, instead of being dependent upon public support, they were paying punctually a full rent for their land, and were pro- curing an honest and comfortable living from their own industry. Another of the families, presenting one of the most beautiful and ALLOTJIENT SYSTEM. 93 aiiecting examples of indefatigable industry, of severe economy, and of grateful and religious contentment, wliicli I have ever witnessed, said, with their eyes flooded witli tears, that they had been saved from the workhouse — a fate which many of the poor seem to dread almost as much as death itself — only by the kindness of their beneficent })roprietor in leasing them the land, and in furnishing them with tools and with cows to commence their operations. Besides supporting themselves and their child, they had also suppoited an aged father and mother ; and had nearly paid a debt of twenty pounds to the physician, incurred by a sickness of three years, of the man himself, before he had the allotment ; and the whole of which they were determined fully to discharge. They expressed themselves but too happy in being able to assist and succor their aged parents, who, in time of his illness, took the kindest care of them. In no condi- tion of life have I seen a brighter example, without any preten- sions and without ostentation, of some of the highest virtues which can adorn the human character. An inflexible rule with them was, not to incur even the smallest debt for any thing. The matter of medical relief must, of course, form an exception. This same man, living in a poor village, where it would seem that education was never more wanting, had proposed, after the plan of the others, to keep a school, and assist himself by the labor of the children ; but a principal farmer in the neighborhood, disconcerted by the extraordinary success of this humble family in sustaining themselves independent of his aid, had threatened his laborers, if they sent their children to this school, they should be dismissed from his employment, and so prevented it. It is to be hoped, for the honor of human nature, that examples of such sold brutality are rare. Three of these tenants have been kind enough to furnish me with their accounts of the products of the last year, (1843,) which will, I think, not be without interest to my readers. Mr. Crittenden has five acres of land, of which the following is the produce for the year 1843, He adds, in respect to it, " I have not put in the corn, roots, and hay, which the cows and pigs consume, as they answer to them in their milk and flesh." 94 KUROPEAN AGRICULTLJIE. " WiLLiNGDON, March 4, 1844. "The produce of my land, five acres, the last year, (1843,) being the quantity and the price : — £. s. d. 8 qt. 6 bu. of wheat, at 52 s. per qt 22 15 3 " " of oats, at 21s. per qt 3 3 1 " 6 " of barley, at 30 s. per qt 2 12 6 1 " '' of peas, at 34 s. per qt. ...... 1 14 120 bushels of potatoes, at 1 s. per bushel, ... 600 1 large hog sold for 4 15 1 small do 156 1 calf, sold young, 1 10 1 hog for self, 25 stone, 3 15 Butter and milk, 11 1 calf, reared for a cow, 2 10 1 young sow, 200 £63 Rent, 25 38 1 qt. of tail wheat, worth £2, which we eat, ... 200 Total, £40 0" I subjoin the letter with Avhich he has favored me : — " Sir, " I send you the rotation of cropping for six years, which I adopt myself; likewise the kinds and quantity which I sow, for two cows and a heifer, on my five acres. First, I sow about one and a half acres of wheat, which I drill in. about nine inches apart between di'ills, I sow two and a half bushels to the acre. Then I sow one acre with clover in the spring, — about three gallons of seed to the acre, — in order to cut for the cows green, and the rest for hay for the winter ; this is the best food that I can get. It may be cut three times. Second, one acre of either oats or barley that I drill in, as every thing drilled is so much best for the boys to work amongst, and likewise a saving of seed. Third, I sow about twenty rods of rye, and sixty rods of winter tares, in September, for the cows in the spring, and they will come off soon enough for potatoes or turnips ; after them, then it ALLOTMENT bYsTEM. 95 comes ill for wheat. I sow the ry(! and tares broadcast, as it should be thick on the ground. Fourtli, 1 sow the rest of the ground with swedes, turnips, mangel-wurzel, carrots, and pota- toes, for winter food ; the mangel-wurzel produces a great deal of food for the cows, if the leaves are taken off properly. " I leave a piece of ground for spring tares, to come in after the winter tares. I sow these in February. " This will keep two cows and a heifer all the year round, if tiiey are stall-fed. " Rotation of Crops First Division. Second Division. 1845. Wheat Rye and tares. —46. Clover Wheat. —47. Wheat Clover. —48. Turnips and mangel-wurzel. Wheat, —49. Oats or barley. . . . ] Turnips, mangel-wurzel, carrots, —50. Potatoes Oats or barley. l^hird Divisioii. Fourth Division. 1845. Oats or barley Wheat. —46. —47. Rye and tares Wheat Turnips, mangel-wurzel. Oats or barley. —48. Clover Potatoes. —49. Wheat Wheat. —50. Turnips, mangel-wurzel. ) carrots, > Clover. F\flh Division. Sixth Division. 1845. —46. —47. —48. —49. Spring tares and turnips. < Wheat Turnips, mangel, turnips. . Oats or barley Potatoes Mangel-wurzel, carrots, swedes, turnips. Oats or barley. Rye and tares. Wheat. Clover. —50. Wheat Wheat," The next account which I shall present is that of Mr. Dum- brell, at the village of .Tevington, Sussex county, who occupies 96 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. six acres and a quarter. The products of the years 1841 and 1842 are already given. The following is for 1843 : — Six Aci^es and a quarter, 1843. £. s. d. Two calves, 4 10 Peas, 3 bushels 3 gallons, at 4 s. 6 d 15 2 Wheat, 47^ bushels, 5 s. 6 d 13 1 3 Barley, 10 bushels, at 4 s 200 Tares, 6 bushels, at 4 s. 6 d 1 7 Oats, 66 bushels, at 2 s. 3 d 7 8 6 Butter, 3643 lbs., at lid 16 14 4| Potatoes, 200 bushels, at 1 s 10 Milk, sold, 800 Total, . . . £63 16 3i He adds, in his letter to me, " You may be surprised at my not making more from six acres and a quarter, than I did, in proportion, from three acres and a quarter ; but it is to be under- stood that, since my farm was made up to six acres and a quarter, the products, as the two last tables show, have not sold so well. and the last three acres, which were added to my farm, were very poor soil." I give next the report of last year's crop, which has been sent me by John Harris, as the products of the labors of himself and his scholars. He adopts the same system of spade husbandry, and the application of liquid manure to his crops. His allotment comprehends five acres only. One acre and twelve rods of wheat produced . . 53 bushels. Half an acre of oats, 61 " Thirty rods of barley. 13^ " Twenty rods of peas, 4^ " One acre of potatoes, 404 " Half an acre of turnips, 150 " Sixteen rods of carrots, 3J tons. Fifteen rods of mangeMvurzel, ....... 3 " The rest of his land was occupied with green food for his cows : such as cabbages, rye, clover, tares, &c. He kept two cows. He had from eight to twelve pigs all winter, and they ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 97 consumed all his potatoes, and his turnips, mangel-wiurzel, and carrots, were given to his cows. He fatted one hundred and twenty stone, or nine hundred and sixty pounds of pork, which he sold to the butcher. He sold six shotes, at three months old, for stores, and one pig for roasting ; and he sold also one sow in pig, for £2 12 s. He kept no account of the produce of his cows. Several things are remarkable in regard to these allotments and modes of management. In the first place, they are all culti- vated by the spade. Where labor is abundant, as in England. and the great difficulty is to know how to employ it with advan- tage, this might be attempted even upon a large scale. The expense of horses upon a farm is always a great consideration : and especially upon small farms, the expense of horses, compared with the amount of product, is very great, and absorbs a large proportion of the income. It is estimated by many intelligent farmers in England, that the horse-teams require for their main- tenance full one fourth of the produce of the soil. I propose presently to discuss this whole subject of brute labor upon a farm, and shall therefore go no farther at present than to add my conviction, that the expense of their horse-teams in England, the cost of their horses, which, after a certain age, is always a de- teriorating capital, the expense of theii' maintenance, shoeing, harness, &c. &c., constitute a most serious drawback to the pros- perity of English farmers, and that some little of this may be charged to the vanity of display, and the ambition of extraordi- nary size. Whatever it may be, on these allotments it is all saved ; the labor, Avith the exception of the working of the cow on one allotment, is all human. The second observation, which occurred to me, was the extra- ordinary pains taken in saving the manure. Nothing was wasted. The animals were stall-fed, and kept constantly in the stable, and a small brick or stone tank, well cemented Avith lime, was sunk near the cow stable, and near the pigstye, which received all the liquid manure ; and the contents of these tanks, on their becom- ing full, were pumped into a small cart, with a sprinkling-box attached to it, like that used for the watering of streets in cities, and distributed over the crops, always with the greatest advan- tage, and with effects immediately perceptible. The tanks in tliis case were quite small, because the stock was small, and 9 98 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. made, with little expense, of common stone laid in lime, and having a wooden cover for security on the top. They were well cemented within, and might be emptied by a pump, or dipped out with a bucket. An eminent farmer in Yorkshire has lately stated that he has, within the last ten years, made three tanks upon his farm, for the purj)0se of receiving the liquid manure. The first he made con- tained forty cubic yards of liquid, but he had enlarged it to one hundred and fifty yards, which was filled three times a year, by the produce of his farm. He is satisfied, from his experience, that thirty cubic yards of this liquid manure would cause it to pro- duce as heavy a crop as any other manure which could be applied to it. With the manure which flowed into the tank, he had manured twelve acres ; and this had produced heavy crops of grass, which he had mowed three times, and then there was an abundance, which he mowed late in the season and gave to his horses. This he had found to be the case upon land which had not been pastured for nine years, but always been mown. I shall not oflend any truly sensible person, if I add that the most careful provision is made for the saving of all the human excrements, by a movable tub placed under the seat of the water- closet, and concealed by a door, which is carefully emptied and cleansed daily, and thus saved from being offensive. This is always mixed with soil, and, in the experience of one of the farmers, cannot be safely applied to the land until it is a year old. Of the value of this source of manure, now, in many cases, much worse than thrown away, I shall subjoin some curious calcula- tions in a note, which my reader, being forewarned, may peruse or not, at his pleasure.* * The committee for buildingf a Lunatic Asylum, at Derby, proposed to Mr. Haywood, an agricultural chemist of much talent and experience, tlie inquiry as to the results which "the manure obtained from a given number of patients is capable of producing, in the growth of crops, supposing tlie entire drainage of the establishment to be applied to this use." To this Mr. Haywood replied in a very elaborate and scientific report, with a copy of which he favored me ; from which 1 shall quote a few paragraphs. "The great object of my inquiry is, to ascertain what quantity of arable land, in the present four-course system of cultivation, can be kept in a constant state of fertility by the application of all the excretions, botli liquid and solid, which are produced by a certain number of individuals, togetlier with the minor fertilizing substances which tlie pro|)er management of a large domestic establishment is capable of producing; also to give, as accurately, as possible, tlie extent of land ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 99 The third circumstance remarkable in the case was, that the cows are fed in the stalls, and never turned out. The principal food given them was clover, tares, or rye cut green ; the leaves of mangel-wurzel, and, in the winter, turnips, mangel-wurzel, carrots, (tec, and straw. The cows were in good condition, and though evidently not of a character to promise much milk, yet the health of the animals was perfect. They were not selected, which can be kept in the same state of fertility by the excrements of a certain number of horses, cows, and sheep. " The course I have adopted in this inquiry has been, in the first place, to ascertain the average quantity of food, both animal and vegetable, consumed by a certain number of individuals in a given time, and from a knowledge of the com- position of such food to deduce the composition of the excrements, and afterwards apply this to the composition of crops ; for it is now universally admitted that all those elementary constituents which enter into the composition of plants or animals, are primarily derived from tlie air or tlie soil, and that whatever be the quantity of elementary constituents taken in the food of an adult man, in a given time, the same quantity of these constituents will again be eliminated from his system by the lungs, skin, kidneys, and intestines, in the same time. If, therefore, we preserve tlie whole of the excretions made by an individual in a given time, we preserve tlie whole of tlie elements of the food he has consumed in that time, and, by applying these to land, sliould be able to produce again the same amount of food in the form of corn and potatoes, together with an extra quantity of vege- table matter, which, being consumed by a growing animal, would yield an equiva- lent amount of flesh ; and these changes would be continued ad infinitum. " It fortunately happens that those constituents of food which are eliminated by tlie lungs are derived solely from tlie atmosphere, and, as there is an inexhaustible supply of these in tlie atmosphere, no restoration of them to a soil is required. On the other hand, tliose eliminated by the kidneys and intestines, are derived exclusively from the soil, and, consequently, require restoring, in order to main- tain its fertility." # » * » *• # # " Thus we export from the fifty acres of wheat and barley, and the fifty acres of green crops, by one hundred young lambs, forty yearlings, four young cows, four calves, and two horses, the following quantity of those constituents of a soil which enter into the composition of plants : — Potash and soda, 780 lbs. Lime and magnesia, 948 " Phosphoric acid, 1549 " Sulphates and chlorides, 21 " Silica, 450 « Metallic oxides, 8 " Nitrogen, 2681 " "it will be seen from tlie tables of the constituents of food, tliat the ingredients contained in the liquid and solid excrements of one hundred individuals, and the 100 EUROPKAN AGRICULTUKE. but chance animals ; in one case, the yield had averaged seven pounds of butter each, per week ; in another case, nine pounds had been obtained, when another cow, which was grazed in the pasture, yielded a very inferior quantity. The cows stood in well-ventilated stalls, in one case upon a stone pavement, in another upon hard-trodden earth ; were well littered, and kept quite clean. The whole of the manure is saved in this way, and bones preserved from their food, exceed the above quantity in every substance except nitrogen and silica ; but the deficiency in these substances will be much more than compensated by the atmosphere in the former case, and by the soil in the latter ; so that I should not have the least hesitation in saying that the excre- ments of one hundred inmates of your Asylum, or any other, where the supply of food is similar to tlie above, would keep one hundred acres of land on the common four-course system of rotation in a constant state of fertility. It appears from the calculations I have made, that for every two hundred and fifty pounds of flesh produced, the elements of one acre of ground are extracted annually on the four- course system, and assimilated by the animals consuming it ; from which it follows, that for every additional two hundred and fifty pounds of flesh produced, above the quantity here given, the entire excretions of one man will be required. I liave purposely omitted the pigs in the above account, as they would live entirely on the grains from tlie breAvhouse and the refuse from the kitchen. " Should you think it feasible to grow a succession of wheat crops, witliout any intermission of green food, then the above quantity of ingredients would very well supply sixty acres. The object of growing crops of turnips, clover, &c., is to allow time for those constituents of white crops which exist in the soil, in an insoluble state, to become soluble by the action of the atmosphere in suflicient quantity to supply them. Were the whole of tliese added annually to a soil in the form of manure, no rest would be required, and a succession of white crops might thus be produced indefinitely. The cause of this not having been profita- bly accomplished hitliertb, is not so much from any difficulty which attends it, as from unwillingness on the part of the farmer, or his ignorance of the mode of proceeding. Had a portion of those liquid manures, which are suffered to run to waste, from every town and farm-yard in the kingdom, been used for this purpose, success would in all cases have attended the experiment; for these contain the Yti-]l elements, which are rendered soluble in every soil by the year's rest, and which, being assimilated by tiie plant, and afterwards removed in tlie grain, are allowed to run to tvastt in the following year." I cannot with entire confidence endorse Mr. Haywood's views, especially on the theory of vegetation, in respect to tlie cultivation of the same crops in succes- sion, on the same soil. It cannot be said to be yet determined whether a change of crop is rendered necessary by the abstraction of certain ingredients of tlie soil, which are again supplied to it by the influence of the atmosphere upon it when in a state of rest, or by the excretions of the crop, according to the notions of Decan- dolle, which are poisonous to a crop of tlie same kind coming in immediate succes- sion ; but the quotations which I have given from his paper show the workings of a laborious and inquisitive mind, upon a homely, and at the Same time an impor- tant subject. ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 101 the amount is much beyond what would be thought, where the experiment had not been made. There was another economical arrangement here, which attracted my attention. Two or three of the allotments, with their buildings, were on elevated land, where wells could not be sunk but at great expense, and a supply of water would be un- certain. In this case, tanks were formed about eight feet in diameter, by twelve in depth, into which the rain water from the roof of the house and the stable attached to the house was led ; and thus, as experience had proved, an ample supply of pure water was obtained for the use of the family and the stock, at a small expense. These tanks were surmounted with a cast-iron frame, which furnished a strong cover and a small windlass by which the water was drawn. These tanks were formed of stone found upon the place, laid in mortar, and carefully cemented by gray lime mortar. The cows were kept in a stable connected with the house, over which were the school-room and the threshing-floor. The grain, with the hay that was cut, of which there was very little, was stacked out of doors ; and the cows were fed, almost exclu- sively, in winter, upon turnips or mangel-wurzel and straw. T have no doubt a more liberal feeding would have been found profitable, but they were under the necessity of getting along with the most limited and simple resources. This management showed conclusively, in the fourth place, that, where the resources are all carefully husbanded, and the produce consumed upon the farm, the land is capable of keeping itself in condition. The grain which was grown here was mainly sold in order to pay the rent ; but the rest of the produce was used for the animals within doors and without. The crops were certainly good ; the wheat yielding about forty bushels per acre, and the potatoes from three to four hundred bushels. The clover was usually mowed three times in a season, and the first mowing was made into hay for winter resource ; the lucern was fed green, and was mowed five times. The success of the crop depended much, without doubt, upon the immediate application of the liquid manure. A rotation of crops is made absolute by the conditions of the lease, so that two white crops may not follow each other without the intervention of a green crop. The clover crop of Mr. Cruttenden had suffered a good deal from the 9# 102 EUKOPEAN AtiRKLLTL'IlJ:. wire-worm, which he attributed to keeping the crop two years on the ground. I do not know how far the supposition is well founded, but it deserves attention. A great problem, then, is here solved, if, to any intelligent minds, it has been matter of question, that, where the product is consumed upon a farm, it may be made to furnish an ample supply of the means not only for maintaining but improving its condition. I do not say that manures may not often be purchased to a great advantage ; and un- doubtedly a supply from other sources is indispensable where mucli of the produce is sold from the farm. I have no doubt, likewise, that even these small farmers would find their account in extend- ing their live stock, and purchasing oil-cake, which makes a most enriching manure, or other substances, for their consumption. A farmer in Lincolnshire, of whose successful management I shall presently give a full account, is of an opinion that his profits have regularly increased in proportion to the quantity of oil-cake which he has purchased for the consumption of his stock. There are, undoubtedly, many cases in which the application of mineral manures may be both useful and indispensable, and fully repay any reasonable outlay which may be required for their purchase. It is not certain that even these small farmers had availed them- selves of all the resources within their reach. Nor had either of them any advantage from the clearing out of ditches, from bog- mud, or from deposits of marl. Nor had either of them, that I could learn, made any experiments in turning in green crops with a view to enriching the soil. The experiments, therefore, must still be considered as imperfect, and yet conclusive as to the recuperative power of the soil from the economical use and application of the results of its own products. This teaches a lesson to large farmers of the highest importance ; for, while trade and commerce depend, to a considerable degree, upon large invest- ments and successful adventures, the success of agricultural operations depends most essentially upon the limitation of unpro- ductive expenses, and the most careful application and use of the products of the farm. In too many cases it happens, as Scott has described the farming operations of Triptolemus Yellowley, " the carles and the cart-avers make it all, and the carles and cart-avers eat it all." It was another beautiful circumstance in the case, that three of these individuals, who, with their families, were now subsisting ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 103 independently upon the fruits of their own labor, had been ten- ants of an alms-house, where their spirits were broken down, their children separated from them, husband and wife divided, and all power of mending their condition eflectually taken away. New life was imparted to them as soon as they were uncaged, and an opportunity afforded of obtaining from the prolific earth, by their own willing labor, that support which Heav(jn formed it to yield to well-directed industry. Separate from all moral con- siderations, instead of being a burden and an expense to the community, they now became themselves aids to bear these burdens and to share in these expenses. This was an immense gain ; and, regarded by a reflecting mind in all its various bear- ings upon the community and upon themselves, its value cannot be overstated. There was another circumstance in the case, to which I cannot help referring with peculiar pleasure ; and that is, the provision made by the labor of the boys for their own education. The education, it is true, is of a very limited description. It embraces only reading, Avriting, the first principles or rules of arithmetic, and instruction in the elements and formularies of the established religion. Even this was a great gain. To be taught even the use of their own minds, in the acquisition of knowledge, is a great gain ; to have even a few scattered rays of intellectual light poured into the darkened soul, may call into powerful exercise the desire of knowledge, which will impatiently search for the means of further gratification, and invent resources for itself. Its eff"ect must be to elevate a human being, from a mere senseless imple- ment or machine, into a consciousness of his own intellectual nature, and bring with it a degree of self-respect, which, in its humblest form, cannot but be favorable to good conduct and virtue. But the children found at these schools, in addition to mental instruction, that which many schools of a higher descrip- tion do not furnish. They were trained to habits of regular and useful industry, instructed in the arts of husbandry, and in the most intelligent and economical application of labor. To what better school could they be sent ? Under what better discipline could they be trained ? I can fully understand how much in this case, as in all others, must depend upon the character of the teacher ; and I can easily suppose that it may be necessary often, especially in a first attempt like this, to work with very imperfect V 104 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. instruments. But while every proper precaution is taken to secure a good moral character in the teacher, and all practicable guards are placed over his conduct by his success being made entirely dependent upon its correctness, a good deal, certainly, is done ; and better minds, and persons of higher qualifications, from the success of these experiments, may presently be induced to seek these situations, in a country where the means of subsist- ence and profitable employment are, from the redundance of the population, becoming every day more difficult. It is to be regretted that the farmers in general — perhaps it would be more just to say, that many farmers — look with very ill- humor upon the allotment system, and are opposed to granting land for these objects, even when their landlords desire it. I have found no instance of a landlord opposed to it, though I have found with them a prevalent disposition to limit the allotment to a very small size. I am not willing to impute motives where they are not avowed. I have seen too many instances of the highest and best minds acting under very partial and mistaken views, in a manner unworthy of them, to allow me to commit myself by any harsh judgment. The farmers, it is said, are prejudiced against allotments, because the crops obtained under this limited and minute cultivation throw their own inferior crops into the shade, or, by demonstrating what the land is capable of producing, may induce their landlords to raise their rents. It is alleged, further, that the farmers are not willing in any way to diminish the dependence of the laborers upon their favor, as it might give them the power of demanding a higher rate of wages. The farmers, in the next place, it is said, are not willing that their laborers should appear in the public markets as sellers of produce, which, if the competition was not to be regarded as affecting prices, yet it might inspire them with a hurtful sense of their own importance. I report here only the suggestions of others, and presume to hazard no judgment. The motives named are, alas ! but too consistent with the weakness and the too often unrestrained selfishness of human nature. Every man, certainly, has a fair right " to live ; " and the duty of every just man is " to let him live." ' Blessed will be the day, if come it ever should, when every man will learn that his own true prosperity is essentially concerned in the prosperity of his neighbor, and that no gratification on earth, to a good mind, is more delicious ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 105 than that which is reflected from the happiness of another, to which he has been himself instrumental. I hope my readers will not consider these reflections misplaced. ^ir~is"~evident that the farmers have no direct pecuniary interest in the success of their laborers, as far as that success might save them from be- coming a tax upon the public. y This tax, though always assessed by the farmers as guardians of the poor, is yet always paid by the landlord. It is collected from the farmer ; but the amount of rent which he pays for his land is always regulated by the amount of taxes by which the land is burdened. If any of the motives which have been assigned do prevail with the farmers, one can scarcely exaggerate the meanness and unworthiness of such motives, and can only desire that these persons may have juster views of what they owe to themselves, and to those whom the dispensations of Providence have made in a degree dependent upon their favor. I am sorry to add my strong conviction, that the education of the laboring classes is not viewed with favor by some who move in a higher condition of life ; at least that they consider it of doubtful value, and are desirous of keeping it within the most restricted limits. There are, indeed, many noble minds, who, properly appreciating its immense value, are willing to impart as liberally as they have themselves received, and heartily aid all efl"orts to extend its advantages to every individual in the com- munity ; but this feeling does not appear to me general. Every allowance is to be made for a condition of society where diff'erenl ranks are established ; where the lines of demarkation are main- tained with extreme pertinacity ; where there can be no high rank but as there is a low one ; and where, according to the depression of the one, the elevation of the other seems increased. Every approach, therefore, in this direction, is likely to be resisted : and this feeling of superiority pervades, with an almost equal intensity, every class in society, above the lowest, from the master of the household to the most menial beneath whom there is any lower depth. Education is the great leveller of all artificial distinctions, and may, therefore, well be looked upon with jealousy. There is wanting, likewise, that just appreciation of the value and benefits of universal education, which can hardly be looked for but among those who have lived in a community where its 106 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, facilities and advantages are enjoyed by every individual as freely as the sunshine and the rain. « While I am writing, a highly- respectable clergyman, not wanting in a benevolent regard for his fellow-men, has said to me that '' the most limited education is all that is wanted for these persons, as more would make them discontented with their condition; and if they can read their Bibles and prayer-books, it is quite sufficient ;'^" and this same re- mark I have heard several times from others,.^ I cannot say that I have not heard the education of the lower classes spoken of, by persons apparently respectable, in very harsh terms, and in terms with which I should be unwilling to stain my pages. I will only add that I deem such views entirely erroneous and unfounded. If, indeed, there are good reasons for the laborers being discontented with their conditiou, let the evils of it be remedied. But if it be a discontent arising from circumstances of hardship — if so they must be deemed — which no human power can remedy, education, besides furnishing in itself resources to mitigate these evils, will serve to give them more just views of human life, and to recon- cile them to a condition which the divine Providence has made inevitable. If education has a tendency to make persons discon- tented with their condition, is it not equally objectionable in respect to other classes in the community who find others above them ? and in truth, as far as my own observation goes, the rich and the elevated are quite as subject to discontent as the poor and restricted, from whom the luring baits of ambition and avarice are absolutely withheld. That condition of society is of all others most favorable to improvement, and to the development of the best elements of human nature, where every means of improvement is fnr- nished without restraint, and where men become the creators of their own fortune. The favorite maxim of the great French emperor was, "Let the career be open to talents." In New England, this great principle every where prevails ; and here, where the advantages of education are freely offered to all, and the highest conditions of influence and honor are equally acces- sible to all, it may be safely asserted that no evils have grown out of it, and that its moral and social influences have been the best which the most philanthropic could have desired. In New England, where, even among the most humble classes of society, the literary attainments are often respectable, there will be found ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 107 among those Ciasses the most devoted friends to public order, and the most stanch supporters of her social institutions. I trust I shall not be thought to speak with an undue enthusiasm in saying, that the time has now come when there should be recog- nized in every human form a moral and an immortal mind ; that the ore in this quarry should be brought out and polished ; and that the higher conditions of life will be themselves elevated, and the whole community advantaged, by all improvement of the lower classes. The subsoil plough is deemed the great discovery of modern agriculture ; and by bringing the lower strata up, and mingling them with the siuface soil, and exposing them to the same genial influences of sunshine and air, it will not be denied that the whole, without injury to any, has been rendered the more productive. The experiments of the public-spirited proprietor of these allot- ments have been perfectly successful in a pecuniary view. I have seen the accounts. The rents have been paid with punc- tuality. There has been no distress levied, and, among upwards of four hundred tenants, scarcely an instance of failure to pay. The rents demanded have been fully equal to those received for lands in the vicinity, of the same quality, held in large farms ; in- deed, they have exceeded them. At starting, she has found it necessary to assist her poor tenants in the purchase of tools and stock ; but these obligations are required to be liquidated. The allotments are held in the following amounts : — [n 4 rod pieces, 3 ; in 13 rod pieces, 1 ; in ^ acre, 13 ; u e a ii J II « 8 " " 9 " " 10 " u 12 " Total, 421 allotments. Amount of rent received, -£428 8 s. Sjd. This is without houses or barns, the rent of which is a separate charge. Of the occupants, the following are stated to be the number in the families supported from the land, with the exception of the small income from the instruction money. 5; " 16 5; " 20 75; " 24 8; " 30 6; " 40 71; " 60 1; S " 2; 75; 1 " 22; 2; 2 acres, 9 ; 5; 4 " 2; 08; 5 " 5; 2; 9 " 1. 108 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 4 acres, 4 persons in family ; 3 acres, 6 persons in family ; Q 'i Y " '' " 5 '■ 9 " " " 5 <£ J ii a a 5 " 6 " " " 39 persons ; 28 acres. I submit these facts to my American friends as exceedingly curious. With us the land is not locked up by patents, entail, or mortmain. With us land is every where attainable, and at prices which bring it within the reach of every industrious and frugal man. But it will, I think, be interesting to look at these humble instances of domestic economy ; and they must stimulate the most useful inquiry into the productive capacities of the land, Avhich seem as yet to be very imperfectly developed. We are, likewise, not without our poor in the United States ; and the vast influx of destitute emigrants is constantly augmenting the number. For idleness and profligacy there is no just claim upon public compassion ; but I am convinced that a considerable portion of the poor would be glad to earn their own living if they could be put in the way of doing it. Whatever contributes to this object confers a public benefit. It would be wrong for me to quit this topic without adding, that, since m.y First Report, I have visited portions of the country where, on the estates of some very large proprietors, (to one of whom the United States and Great Britain are under the highest obligations for adjusting their conflicting claims, and through whose beautiful grounds I rode eight continuous miles,) the cottages of the laborers were of the very best description ; and their establishments, both within and without doors, indicated the greatest neatness and comfort. Gardens for fruit, vegetables, and flowers, were attached to all of them ; and they were charming pictures of rural taste and embellishment. Many of these persons had likewise small allotments of land. The wages paid to the men were from 10 s. to 12 s. per week, and to the women 8 d. per day while at work. This, of course, however, with the ciurent expenses of living, did not allow them to accumulate any thing for sickness or old age. During the four weeks of harvest, by working by the piece, the laborer would sometimes earn more than 20 s. per week ; and the women and children, by gleaning the scattered heads of wheat after the field is cleared of the crop, or, as (QUANTITY OF SEKD. 109 it is here called, by lecsing, not infrequently collect four or five bushels of grain. I have met with instances, \vherc even more has been collected. Such are the fruits of the most exact frugality. XIV. — QUANTITY OF SEED. The quantity of seed proper to be sown has been a subject of much debate. There may be an excess : and an error may be committed by sowing too small a quantity. An intelligent farmer makes the following calculation of the advantage and saving which would come to the country, if, instead of sowing two and a half bushels of seed to the acre, it should be found, as he maintains from his own practice and experience, it is sufficient to sow one bushel to the acre. "Allowing," he says, "that, upon a fair calculation, 7,085,370 acres are annually sown in the kingdom, in wheat, at the rate, of two and a half bushels per acre, which is the ordinary allowance, there would be required 2,214,178 quarters (eight bushels per ([uarter) for seed. But to sow one bushel per acre, only 885,671 (quarters would be required ; so that the annual saving of seed would be 10,628,056 bushels, or 5,901,192 bushels more than the average importation of foreign corn the last fourteen years. Though I merely take the instance of wheat, T am at the same tniie proving what may be done with all other corn ; for the saving of seed, which I practise, is in equal proportions with all other kinds of grain, and with equal success." The testimony of this farmer is so important that I shall be excused for speaking more at large on this subject. This gentle- man has been a practical farmer of more than seven hundred acres of highly-rented, poor land ; and what he recommends, he says, he has long and successfully practised — that he grows crops much larger than the general average, and on soils of inferior description, and with less than the ordinary expenditure of labor and manm-e. 1 will allow him to speak for himself; and the results with him, and the account of the proportion of seed for an acre used at Horsham, in the experiment which I have detailed above, afford 10 110 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. the strongest reason, if for nothing else, for making further and more exact trials. The subject is clearly one of the first impor- tance. " The practice thronghout England is to sow two and a half and three bushels per acre, and the yield is seldom forty bushels, and more commonly only twenty bushels ; and one tenth, at least, of the crop grown, is consumed in seed. These facts, and the knowledge that a single grain of wheat planted where it has room to tiller out, will readily produce four hundred fold, and often very much more, have induced me, in the course of the last eleven years, to make a variety of experiments, the results of which have shown me, that, independent of the waste, a positive and serioiis injury is done to the crop from so mnch seed ; and the result is perfectly analogous to attempting to feed four animals upon a pasture sufficient only for one ; and, in consequence, I have gradually reduced my proportion of seed-wheat from three bushels per acre, which was my practice, down to about three pecks, which reduction I have accomplished to the evident im- provement of my crops. "My practice is to drill every thing, (clover seed alone ex- cepted;) to carefully horse-hoe, hand-hoe, and weed, so that the land may be kept perfectly free from weeds, and the soil between the rows may be stirred, and receive the benefit of fine tilth and cultivation, of which gardeners are sensible ; but by farmers this is lost sight of, or not sufficiently attended to. My rye and tares for green feeding are sown in rows at nine-inch intervals ; all my white corn at twelve inches ; my pulse at twenty-seven inches ; and my root crops, on the ridge, at twenty- seven inches. " My proportions of seed per acre are as follows : — Of rye, 1^ bushel ; Of oats, 8 pecks ; " tares, 1^ do. ; " barley, 7 do. ; " mangel-wurzel, 6 lbs. ; " wheat, 3 do. ; " swedes, 1 quart ; " peas, 8 do. ; " turnips, 1 do. ; " beans, 8 do." *• cabbages, 1 every three feet : After detailing his mode of cultivation, to which I shall here- after refer, he goes on to say, " I have frequently produced above QUANTITY OF SKKD. Ill five quarters (forty bushels) to the acre, and have grown above thirteen quarters of oats, (one hundred and four bushels,) and above eight of barley, (forty bushels.) Having shown the suc- cess, on an extensive scale, with thin sowing, I will explain why it is that three pecks of seed-wheat must be much nearer the correct quantity than ten or twelve pecks ; and that any surplus of seed beyond a bushel must be very injurious to the latter growth of the crop. The produce of one ear of tliick-sown wheat yields about forty grains, (I say thick-sown, for thin-sown yields very much more,) and, therefore, the produce of an acre (or twenty bushels, the ordinary average) must be, no matter how much has been sown, the growth of the ears from one fortieth, or two pecks of seed, (and that, too, is allowing only one ear to grow from each grain, and forty grains from an ear.) This being the fact, of what use are, I ask, or what becomes of, the remaining eight or ten pecks of seed, which are commonly sown? But, in allowing one ear only to grow from a grain of seed, and each ear to contain only forty grains, I am far from taking what in reality would be the produce ; for a single grain, having room, will throw up ten or twelve ears, and these ears will each contain from sixty to eighty grains ; and, supposing some of my small allowance to be lost or destroyed, the deficiency of plant is immediately met by the larger size of the ear, and by the tillering which is made, and the additional ears so produced, wherever room admits of the increase. "Among the many proofs I have had of the advantages from thin sowing, the following is a striking fact : In the autumn of 1840, I had to sow with wheat a field of eight acres, and I gave out seven bushels for the seed ; but owing to an error of the drill-man in setting the drill, when he had sown half the field, he found that he had not put on half the seed ; but that 1 might not discover, by the overplus, his error, he altered the drill, so as to sow the rest on the remainder of the field ; and in this way one half of the field had little more than two pecks to the acre, while the rest had nearly five pecks. I did not know of the error, and was surprised, in the winter, by finding part of the field so thin, and, had not the rest of the field looked much better, should have ploughed it up ; but at harvest the thinnest- sown half jiroved the best ; and I should never have known the error of sowing biu for this fact having induced the carter to point it out to me."' 112 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. "At first, no matter how much seed has been sown, nearly every grain vegetates and finds space to grow ; and in the early stages, when the air and soil are moist, and the plants small, there is food for all. But as the plants increase, a struggle for room and nourishment commences, which increases with their growth, and finally terminates by the destruction of the weaker by the stronger plants ; but not until after a contest, lasting up to harvest, which leaves the survivors stunted, and the soil ex- hausted by having had to support three plants instead of one ; and producing mischief, which is frequently the cause of blight, mildew, and the falling of the crop. '•It is to this I would principally ascribe the mildew, and blight, and falling, of the crop ; for so far my practice proves it, that, since I have taken to sow only a bushel of wheat per acre, — and I have done so now for some years, and on many hundreds of acres of wheat, — I have rarely found any portion afi"ected by any disease." * This is certainly strong and decisive testimony, and shows how deserving the subject is of the most exact and repeated experiments. Since the foregoing account of the Horsham experiment of the last season, I have received information of the result of a second experiment made this season by the same individual, Mr. AUman, nursery-man of Horsham, Sussex county. He has dug an acre of land with spade or fork, and dibbled it with the same kind of wheat which he sowed the previous year, and the crop is fast advancing to maturity. The amount of seed required for planting the acre, one grain in a hole, at the distance of nine by six inches, was a little more than one and a half gallon ; the seed was covered about two inches in depth ; the cost of digging the ground ten inches deep was 2i d. per rod ; the cost of planting or dibbling the seed was 10 s. per acre, and the expense of hoeing it was 7 s. per acre. No manure has been applied to the land this year ; but of the character of the soil I am not informed. I am assured that it promises to yield as well as it did the last season. A specimen which has been sent to me fully ripe, shows an equal growth both in the size of the stalk, which is more than five feet, and in the number of stems from a single seed. I shall presently have an exact * Hewitt Davis, on tliin sowing. QUANTITY OF SEED. 113 account of the result, which my readers will receive with great interest. The expense of dibbling by hand has been accurately kept, and, as above, in point of cost, would show a great saving in comparison with even the best machine. The increase from a single seed has been in some cases most extraordinary, and shows the prolificness — may I not properly say the unstinted beneficence ? — of nature. I have myself counted, from a single grain of wheat, ninety-five seed-bearing stems ; and I shall give the account of another experiment, the product of which I saw. A farmer, B. King, at Eastbourne, Sussex county, on the 22d July, 1841, planted three grains of wheat ; and one of them pro- duced a root with upwards of a hundred ears. One grain, the shoots of which were divided and transplanted tiDice, yielded, in 1842, three pounds twelve and three quarter ounces of clear grain ; and the third grain, the shoots of which were divided three times, yielded seven pounds fifteen ounces and a half. The whole product of roots from this grain was 173 ; of ears, 3272 ; of grains, 97,028, and the weight as above. Half an ounce of this wheat, carefully weighed, con- tained 382 grains. This was the product of one grain in one season, which, according to what Avas required for the Horsham experiment, would be sufficient, in the second year, to plant two thirds of an acre. Of course, it is not to be expected that such an operation as taking up and dividing the plants could be economi- cally practised to any great extent ; but it shows how very easily and soon the seed of any valuable variety may be obtained with a little pains-taking. Some of the most esteemed varieties of wheat have been procured from the selection of a single head, Avhich showed in the field an extraordinary predominance over its neighbors. This is understood to be the origin of the cele- brated Chevalier barley, which was propagated from a single ear, found by a gentleman of that name in his field, and carefully cultivated. By the methods adopted above, a single head of v/lieat might be made, in the second year, to furnish a supply for acres ; and the means of speedily introducing a new grain into a large district of country, might be transmitted thousands of miles in a letter. Such are the facilities of improvement which a beneficent Providence offers to those who are willing to use them. An experiment of a similar kind was made, some years ago, by a Mr. Miller, and reported in the Memoirs of the Bath Agricul- 10* 114 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. tural Society, in which the result of the cultivation of a single season was even much more extraordinary than the above ; but it is well known to the agricultural world, and need not be restated. XV. — STEEPING SEEDS. I may as .well here as any where recur to an experiment ex- hibited at the Dundee Show, of the effect of prepared steeps for seed. It excited great attention on that occasion. I visited the grounds of the gentleman who made the experiment ; and he has been kind enough to write me, on the subject, a letter, which 1 subjoin. "Seminaries, Dundee, 13th September, 1843. " Sir, " Since I had the pleasure of meeting you in Edinburgh, I have thought a good deal about the way in which I ought to proceed as to concealing for a time, or at once revealing, my method of preparing seeds, so as to produce superior crops of grain. I have at last determined that the better way is to make the process known to the heads of agricultural societies. " In accordance with this resolution, I have written to the Duke of Richmond, as president of both the National Agricultural Institutions of Great Britain, and to the president of the Royal Agricultural Improvement Society of Ireland, disclosing the processes which I have used ; and I now do the same to you, as agricultural commissioner from the United States. " I consider this plan better, in every respect, than sending prepared specimens of seeds, as the applications for these might soon become too numerous to be attended to. " The specimens of growing corn, which I exhibited at the show here, were the produce of seeds steeped in sulphate, nitrate, and iimriate of ammonia ; nitrates of soda and potass, and coin- binations of these. It was objected by some that the tallest specimens of oats were too rank, and would break down before coming to the ripened seed. I should by no means be afraid of such a result, as the stems were strong in proportion to their STEEPING SEEDS. 115 height ; but should there even be some reason in the objection, the result might be modified by a modification of the process. The tallest oats were prepared from sulphate of ammonia, and I am convinced, from experiment, that the addition of a por- tion, say one half, of sulphate of soda, or sulphate of potass, would so modify the growth as to make the stalks moderately high, and at the same time preserve the superior productiveness of the seed. " The barley, which, you may perhaps recollect, consisted of an average of ten stems from one seed, and thirty-foiur grains on each stem, was the produce of seeds steeped in nitrate of ammo- nia. I may mention that the best illustration of the comparative productiveness of prepared and unprepared seed was exhibited by the contrast of wheat, sown 5th July, which, by the 10th of August, the last day of the show, presented the following results : the prepared seeds had tillered into nine, ten, and eleven stems ; the unprepared into only tico, three, and /o«r; and both were from the same sample of seed, and sown in the same soil, side by side, " The various salts above specified were made by me from their carbonates, and were exactly neutralized. 1 then added from eight to twelve measures of water. The time of steeping varied from fifty to ninety-four hours, at a temperature of about 60° Fahrenheit. " Barley, I found, does not succeed with more than sixty hours' steeping. Rye-grass, and other cultivated grasses, may do very well with from sixteen to twenty hours ; but clovers will not do with more than eight or ten hours, for, being bilobate, the seeds are apt to burst in swelling. " On the 16th ultimo, I caused four cart-loads of earth, dug from about six feet under the surface, to be laid over tilly ground, and spread there, and in this virgin soil, totally destitute of any organic matter, I sowed seeds of oats and barley prepared in seven different ways; but, having to leave on the 31st, I could not form a correct estimate of the comparative progress of the seeds, as the season is far advanced, and vegetation slow ; but, if in health, I shall revisit the place in October, and shall then be able to judge better of the result. Along with the prepared seeds, 1 sowed also some unprepared, both in the virgin soil and in pure sand. They had all sprung 116 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. well when I left, 1 hope soon to have the pleasure of writing you again on the subject. Meantime, " I remain, sir, " Your most obedient servant, "J AS. Campbell. "Hknry Colman, Esq. London" There were exhibited, on tliis occasion, specimens of oats, barley, wheat, and rye-grass, raised from seed chemically pre- pared. Mr. Campbell adds in another letter as follows : — "It is now a considerable time since I began to imagine that, if the ultimate principles, of which the proximate constituents of most of the gramineous seeds are composed, could by any means be made so to enter the substance ot the seed, and at the same time not to injure its vitality, as thoroughly to imbue its texture with an excess of these principles, the end (viz., of superseding maniues) would be accomplished ; and it is by doing this to a certain extent that I am certain I have succeeded. " The specimens of oats prepared from sulphate of ammonia are magnificent, both as to height and strength, being six feet high, and having stems like small canes, and consisted of an average of ten stems from each seed, and 160 grains on each stem. The oats from muriate of ammonia v.'^ere vigorous and equally prolific, but not so tall ; and those from the nitrate of soda and potass were nearly equally prolific, but still less tall. Big^ or hear, from a preparation of nitrate of ammonia, like that in which the barley was steeped, had an average of eleven and a half stems from each seed, and seventy-two grains on each stem." Mr. Campbell states " that the ground in which his experiments had been made had received no mamue for eleven years, and in it there was little organic matter of any kind." It was in a yard, or old garden, next to his house ; but unless he had made an analysis of the soil in respect to the amount of organic matter contained in it, I should conclude that his judgment here was at fault. This circumstance, however, is of little consequence, since the experiments were comparative, and made in the same soil, and under the same circumstances. The plants had been principally removed from the ground Avhen I saw it ; and I had only to regret that the experiments, of which, from the apparent STEEPING SEKDS. 117 results, he could hardly, beforehand, have realized the impor- tance, had not been made with more scrupulous exactness. They are, however, sufficiently interesting and decisive to in- duce other experiments, in which the results may be more defined. Mr. Campbell's disinterested conduct in communicating them to the public does him the highest honor. Mr. Campbell has since sent the following communication to the Agricultural Society, as to the results of the unfinished experiments noticed in his former letter : — '^ The salts were neutralized by adding the carbonates until effervescence completely ceased ; and this was done that there might be no excess of acid." Mr. Campbell adds, with respect to his succeeding experiments, which he proposed to examine on the 12th of October, that they were completely successful, show- ing a decided contrast in favor of the prepared seeds. In the soil dug up from 6 or 8 feet under the surface, the prepared seed showed plants with seven and eight stems, while the unprepared had not more than three. The preparation of seeds by steeping is not a new process. The preparation of wheat, by soaking in brine or in a preparation of arsenic, has been recommended, and, so far as my own expe- rience and observation go, may be considered as a sure remedy against smut. The steeping of Indian corn in a solution of copperas and of saltpetre has likewise been supposed to stimu- late and promote its growth, though this is not so well established as might be desired. But a scientific attempt, like that of Mr. Campbell, to combine, upon chemical principles, the ingredients or salts deemed essential to the growth of the plant, and to fur- nish them by soaking the seed in them, is a rare, though not wholly an unknown attempt. Its partial success, in this case, affords strong encouragement to further experiments. The steep may be supposed to operate in two ways — either as a stimulant, to cause the seed to develop its powers of germination more rapidly and fully than it otherwise would do, and thus gather more of the nourishment which it needs from the soil or the atmosphere ; or as supplying that proportion of saline or inor- ganic matter which the plant requires. This is indeed very small, " though absolutely essential to the perfect condition of the seed, and to the healthy growth of the plant which springs from it." Tills is said to be, in wheat and barley, from Ih to 2 per cent, of 118 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. the whole weight ; and m oats it is said to be 3^ per cent., thougli much of this is in the husk of the oat. In being apphed at once to the seed in a form to enter and saturate the pores of the seed, it may be expected to be taken up by the small roots of the plant as soon as they are developed ; and its effects, therefore, must be immediate. But whatever may be the theory in the case, should Mr. Campbell's results be confirmed by further experiments, the fact will be obviously of great importance. From some pamphlets translated from the German by Pro- fessor Johnston, extracts from which have been published in the Edinburgh Journal of Agriculture, it seems that great dis- coveries have been made in Germany, in the steeping of seeds ; and, in the enthusiastic expectations of one of the discoverers, the application of manure may be dispensed with, and the rotation of crops on the same soil, in order to recruit the soil, will no longer be necessary. The confidence with which these experi- ments are given, and their results proclaimed, would seem to entitle them to attention. I shall here take leave to quote from a paper of Professor Johnston some of these statements. Franz Heinrich Bickes, of Castel, Mayence, has published An Account of the Discovery of a Method of cultivating the Soil without Manure. He says, " It is twelve years since the discovery was made. The experiments have been made at various seasons of the year, and the same crop has been repeated on the same soil without regard to the usual rotation. The cost is trifling, and the supply of the materials to be substituted for manure is inexhaustible. The testimonies in its favor are said to be from practical men ; and they assert that, from examples in the Imperial Garden in Vienna, in general the prepared seeds exhibited a very much stronger growth, were of a deeper green, had thicker stems, finer and fresher leaves, larger grain, and the grain was thinner skinned, and therefore contained more meal. " The hemp was of a much larger size, and had many side- shoots bearing seed. " The Indian corn had more ears. - " The buckwheat was upwards of three feet high, and full of seed. " Wheat, rye, barley, and oats, are thicker, and have more numerous stems, larger ears, and more grains in each. STEEPING SEEDS. 119 " The lucern was beyond all comparison stronger, had more shoots, and its roots were as thick again. " The disks of the sunflower were doubled in diameter ; the cabbage had larger heads, the cucumber larger fruit, while the unprepared seed yielded nothing." Other testimonials are added from persons of respectable stand- mg and condition. Other plants, besides those above mentioned, are said to have been equally benefited. One fourth only of the usual quantity of seed, of wheat and rye, was sown on a poor, unproductive clay ; and yet the product was greater than on the newest land of good quality, though aided by manure. " Ten or twelve potato plants gave, on an average, thirty large potatoes each, and had stems seven feet in height. '' Fifteen stalks of Indian corn had, on an average, five ears each, some having as many as eight or nine ears to a single plant. " The buckwheat was four and a half to five feet high ; the flax had four to five stems from each seed. The white clover was as large in the leaves and stems as the red clover usually is ; the red clover and lucern three feet high." The experiments of Mi-. Campbell induced many farmers to try the effects of steeps upon their seeds. One of the most ex- perienced and intelligent cultivators in Scotland informed me that his success had been partial. He had made numerous ex- periments, and in some instances with remarkable, in others with no effect. I am not yet in possession of the details, which I presently hope to obtain from him, and on which I shall greatly rely. As my Report is going through the press, I have been favored with a reply to a letter written to Mr. Campbell on this subject, which I annex. " The accounts which I have received from various quarters are conflicting, some exceedingly good, and others equally bad ; but this I have learned, that the greatest success has attended the experiments on a great variety of soils. " 1 believe — and this is also the opinion of many others — that, where failures have taken place, they are due either to misman- agement or to the drought of the season. The resuhs of my own experiments are highly favorable ; and I have a variety of specimens for the exhibition at Glasgow." He adds, " My nephew writes me as under." 120 EUROPKAN AGRICULTURE. " I hav3 just seen Sir John Ogilvie's overseer, and he states that the steeped oats sold by roup, yesterday, at Id. per pole more than those which were not steeped on the next rig." " N. B. The prepared seeds were sown much thinner than the unprepared, at least one quarter. "Cranch &- Co., (Newcastle-upon-Tyne,) 30th July, write, ' We have received some good accounts of the steeps.' "P. Bruce, (Hull,) 30th July, writes, 'I am glad to inform you that one or two parties tell me that they will buy the steep again, supposing that any falling off is attributable to the drought.' He has himself seen some that looks very well. "I may add that any that I have hitherto seen looks exceed- ingly well, better than the unprepared, although sown thinner." I cannot say that I am sanguine as to those extraordinary results to which, from the quotations which I have made, some persons look forward, when there will be no longer a necessity for a rotation of crops, and even the application of manure to the soil may be dispensed with. But I cannot help thinking that much remains to be achieved, and that much may be hoped for. We are not to be surprised that failures occur ; but one well- authenticated experiment, conducted in an exact manner, and in which the extraordinary results may be directly traced to the application, is sufficient to outweigh a hundred failures. The exhibition at Dundee, supposing Mr. Campbell's statements to be true, — and I know no reason to doubt, but, from his manly conduct, the best reason to believe them, — satisfied me that some- thing important had been effected. I rely little upon mere opinion and conjecture, even of parties above suspicion of dis- honesty. The mortification of failure, the desire of success, the ambition of notoriety, and especially any degree of personal or private interest, — all may serve to color the vision, to bias the judgment, and present grounds of hesitation, if not of distrust. With a full share of confidence in the virtue of men, I have been too often disappointed not to require the most ample evi- dence in all cases of moment. I was not a little amused in visit- mg, with several gentlemen, the farm of an excellent cultivator the last summer, that, when he showed us in his field of swedes, with an air of the most confident triumph, the surprisingly beneficial effects of a certain application upon some marked rows, every one of the party except himself was satisfied that STEEPING SEEDS. 131 the rows in question had no other distinction than that of ah- sohite inferiority to all the rest. It would have been as useless as it would have been uncivil to avow our convictions to him, for men are seldom convinced against their will, and assaults upon an unduly-excited organ of self-esteem, if they do not arouse combativeness, inflict only needless pain. In agricul- ture, being eminently a practical art, and as yet, I believe, claim- ing not a single theoretical principle as established, excepting as first deduced from long-continued practice, experiments are of the highest moment. The careless and slovenly manner in which they are commonly conducted, the haste with which men jump to their conclusions, the variety of circumstances which belong to every case of importance, and the imperfect manner in which these circmiistances are observed and detailed, are the just opprobrium of the agricultural profession. A most intelli- gent and agreeable friend, in speaking of the best modes of fattening poultry, and in expressing her distrust of some which were recommended, said that her venerable grandmother always fed and fattened her poultry in a very diflerent way. But upon being asked whether her grandmother's fowls were the best layers, brought up the most chickens, and produced the best poultry for the table of any to be found, she was compelled to answer that on this point she had no information. A learned naturalist, who, in many respects, was justly celebrated for his acquirements, was once asked why black-wooled sheep con- sumed more food than white, and proceeded gravely to give half a dozen philosophical reasons for it, without having once inquired whether the fact were so. It is strongly hoped, that, under an enlightened system of agri- cultural education, for which the auspices now are most encour- aging, and by the establishment of experimental farms, many important suggestions, in relation to agricultural practice, as yet only conjectural, may be determined, and much actual progress made in agricultural science, by the only infallible teacher — exact and enlightened experiment. 11 122 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. XVI. — SPADE HUSBANDRY. The spade husbandly, to which I have aheady referred, has been undertaken by several gentlemen, in England, on a some- what extended scale, for the purpose of giving employment to a numerous population in the vicinity of some large towns, suffer- ing for want of the means, or the opportunity, of earning a subsistence. In one case, the extent cultivated by the spade has been fifty acres ; in two other cases, over two hundred acres each ; and the crops produced have been the same as in other field cultivation with the plough ; such as turnips, cabbages, beets, potatoes, barley, clover, and artificial grasses, oats, beans, peas, tares, and wheat. The crops have been cultivated at not an unreasonable expense, and the yield has been fully remunerating. Oats have given at the rate of forty and fifty bushels per acre, and, indeed, very much more ; and wheat thirty, thirty-two, and forty bushels. The instrument found by experience best for use has been a three-pronged fork, fourteen inches in depth, and seven and a half inches in width. By this instrument the ground has been stirred to the full depth of the prongs of the fork, but only about nine or ten inches of the soil have been taken out and inverted.* The principle upon which this practice is recommended is the same with that of subsoil ploughing. The object desired is to loosen the substratum or under soil, so that, in the first place, all superfluous water may be drained ofl"; in the second place, that the soil may be brought into a finer tilth, and rendered more permeable to the roots of the plants, in order that they may find the easier access to the nourishment which they draw from the soil ; and in the next place, that it may become enlivened, if the * Mr. Cruttenden has contrived a fork witli a sharp blade of about vO/ an inch in width, which seemed an improvement on tlie common form, and which he deemed very useful. The annexed engraving exhibits the shape of the implement. The blade, like a spade, cuts off the roots with which it comes in contact, and the eartli, when lifled, becomes broken by falling through the open spaces between the prongs, com- bining the advantages both of a spade and a fork. m SPADE HUSBANDRY. 123 expression be allowable, and enriched by the admission of the air, by which all portions of it are thns visited, and gain from the atmosphere the elements of vegetation which it furnishes. Of the value of this circumstance no intelligent agriculturist can entertain a doubt. There is another advantage attending the spading of land. The tendency of drawing a plough through the land is to render the ground more liard at the bottom of the furrow, where the shoe or bottom of the plough presses upon it, and to make it consequently more impervious to the roots of the plant than it would otherwise be ; tliis is of course avoided in the spading of land. The sabsoiling of land is deemed of com- paratively little use, unless connected with a system of thorough drainage ; and this drainage would seem to be of equal impor- tance upon land cultivated with a spade. In Flanders, it is said that the cultivation by the spade pre- vails to a great extent, and is eminently successful. In the United States, where land is abundant and labor comparatively scarce, it would be idle to recommend to any great extent cultivation by the spade. Yet it would be curious to see what might be done in this way on a small scale. One of the most productive farms for its extent in New England, within my knowledge, — if farm it maybe called, — consists of seven acres, from which the farmer or cultivator sells annually to the amount of twenty-five hundred dollars, or five hundred pounds sterling. The industrious and frugal owner sustains his family in comfort and independence from this source only, and is actually growing rich. He resides within a few miles of a good market, and by his skill and industry he sometimes obtains five different crops in a season on the same land. The great question of the size of farms will come into discussion as I proceed ; but I cannot now enter upon it. Such examples of what may be called cottage economy, are not without instruction to those who hold and manage large possessions. In France, the farms are greatly sub- divided, and the holdings are very small. It is estimated by a statistical writer, whose authority is respected, that, among 1,243,200 of small proprietors in France, their possessions do not average over five acres apiece. Political economists strongly object to such small divisions of land, as unfavorable to the production of wealth, and not likely to lead to those improved 124 EUROPEAN AGRICULTLTRE. modes of agriculture, which would be pursued under a system of large proprietorship. There is undoubtedly a good deal of weight in the latter reason ; for implements and fixtures connected with an improved system of husbandry are themselves expensive, and few great and substantial improvements can be made without a consider- able outlay of capital. Such improvements likewise demand systematic arrangements, and often extensive combinations, in order to their being effected. I have known numerous instances where lands required draining, and indeed were comparatively worthless without it; but this draining could not be effected, from the obstinacy of a neighbor, through whose land only could the water be made to descend. In other cases, where fields were held in common, the same evil has been suffered from a refusal on the part of the owners of the several pieces to enclose the land, and to unite in accomplishing the common object. It cannot be doubted, likewise, that the minds of men are greatly affected by the nature of their employments ; and although there are many cases in which active and strong minds Avill rise above every barrier, and, in spite of the circumstances by which they are surrounded, will develop their native great- ness, yet the constant confinement of the mind to a narrow and very limited sphere of action, will not be without its effect upon all its operations. The successful management of a large farm, like the management of any other large concern, requires a great deal of inquiry, calculation, reflection, and knowledge ; and all this, from the necessity of the case, begets more inquiry, calculation, reflection, and knowledge. It is to minds only of this superior cast that we can look with confidence for enterprise and distinguished improvements. The effect of such small subdivisions of land as those of which I am writing, and those which are said to take place in France, upon the production of national wealth, is another question, and must be put in an exact form before it can be answered. If we could suppose all these small farms to be cultivated in the most improved and perfect manner, the gross produce would be greater than under any other system. This, however, is not to be ex- pected, and, for reasons already assigned, would hardly take place. In a pecimiary result, therefore, the subdivision of land into small farms is likely to fall much short of the product of the Sl'ADE HUSBANDRY. 125 land cultivated in large occupations. But in reference to a general competence, and a more equal and just distribution of the prod- ucts of the land, and in its moral effects upon the character of the laboring population, the system of small farms should doubtless be preferred.* If pecuniary gain alone must be the paramount object of consideration, and the prosperity of a country is to be measured -only by dollars and cents, or pounds, shillings, and pence, the cultivation of the land in large parcels would doubt- less best effect the purpose ; but if the true prosperity of a country is rather to be determined by the general comfort, im- provement, and personal independence, of its population, we can hardly doubt that arrangements which most nearly connect an individual's interest with his own exertions and character, and, if the expression be allowed, make him the creator of his own fortune, are those which arc most likely to effect these ends. The difference in the condition of an individual laboring always at the will of another, and having no other share in, or control over, the products of his labor, than that which he obtains from the willing consent, or wrings from the reluctant necessities, of his employer, and that of an independent freeholder in the soil, who has a personal stake in the products of his labor, who ap- plies this labor as he chooses, and has the absolute control of its results, can be best understood by those only who have seen mankind in these two different situations. There are two cases in which the spade husbandry might have an important application in the United States. The Eng- lish know nothing of, and can scarcely, as far as my own obser- vation goes, be made fully to understand, a condition of things, * " No one," says the Baron de Stac], " can compare the present state of France with that which prevailed in 1781), without being struck with the great increase of the national riches. Throughout all France, the greater number of laborers and farmers are at the same time proprietors. Nothing is more common than to see a day-laborer proprietor of a cottage, which serves as an asylum to his family ; :'.. garden, which feeds his children ; a little fielJ, which he cultivates at his leisure huzrs, and which enables him to sustain, with more chance of success, the terrible r-trnggle between laborious poverty and engrossing opulence."! •'In 1838, the number of separate properties taxed for the imput fonder, in France, amounted to the enormous number of 10,896,000. The population of landed proprietors, witli their families, is estimated at 20,000,000, or nearly two thirds of the total population. The average size of each property is about fom*- teen acres." \ t Quoted in Laing's Address. \ Porter's Progress of the Nation. 11* J 26 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. ill which every man of common intelligence, industry, frugality; and sobriety, the great and certain elements of success in almost every department of life, may become a freeholder, that is, the possessor in fee-simple of more or less land, according to his desires or wants. Here, in England, land is so dear as to be beyond almost the aspirations of men with small means ; still less is it within the reach of those, whose whole wealth consists in the labor of their own hands ; or it is held in large masses by men whose active capital corresponds with the extent of their possessions, and who, in such cases, would almost as soon sell their teeth as their land ; or it is locked np by the laws of pri- mogeniture and entail, so that even those who hold it have not always the power to alienate it. It has been said more than once to me, since the publication of my First Report, that it is no evil that a man, and any man, cannot own a house and land, and that the condition of a free- holder is not preferable to that of a tenant. Certainly this must depend, to a great degree, upon the conditions under which the tenancy is held. But, without pronouncing it an evil, and leaving every one to enjoy his own opinion of the case as it is, I deem it a great good where such a blessing as a home of one's own, and a small farm of one's own, subject to no other conditions than such as the common laws of the land extend over it for protection, is within the reach and the early attain- ment even of the humblest member of the community. Now, we have in New England, and in other parts of the country, a great many instances, in which men and their families, pursuing some handicraft or in-door trade, and professional men, with small incomes, are the owners of houses in the country, with a few acres of land attached, on which they are occupied in their hours of recreation, or at seasons when the calls of their trade or profession do not press too strongly upon them. While these small farms furnish a large proportion of the supplies which they and their families require from the garden or the field, they arc alike conducive to their physical, and, I add with equal confi- dence, to their moral health. To such persons the spade cul- tivation, and the minute and exact husbandry to which it leads, would be of great importance. Among the Romans, seven acres were regarded as an ample allowance for a family ; and it would be extremely desirable to know what are, in fact, the productive SPADE HUSBANDRY. 127 powers of an acre. As yet, I believe, they are very far from being ascertained ; but, in the course of my agricultural obser- vations, many cases have come under my notice, in which the products from a very few acres, cultivated with all the care and liberality which such cases admit of, have far surpassed those of farms many times as large. In one instance, which happens to be before me, the following was the result : — Three men were employed one week in digging an acre with a spade, at 9 s. per week, 27 s. The same amount of land, in ploughing three times, cost 7 s. per acre each ploughing, 21 Against the spade, ... 6 s. At harvest, however, the spaded land produced fifteen bushels of wheat more than that under the plough. Here, then, was a clear profit, at the current price of wheat at the time, of £ 4 19 s. per acre. Another example is given of a farmer in Essex, on a farm of one hundred and twenty acres. •' I have annually dug," he says, " from three to five acres, for the last five years. The soil I hav^e operated upon is light, with a substratum of gravel, sand, and tender loam. The expense of the forking is 2Jd. per rod = 33s. 4d. per acre; but I always dig under the furrow left by the plough, which adds one ploughing to the expense, viz., 8 s. By adopting this course, I do not bring up the inert subsoil until the second time of dig- ging. The influence of forking on the crops seems to be, that all root crops are much increased in quantity ; the cereal crops, which follow, are less injured by drought ; and the land becomes much more free from annual Aveeds, as Avell as from those winch are of a more permanent nature. I had recently a person with me who has made a series of very carefully-conducted experi- ments, in which digging has been contrasted with ploughing. He thinks the produce of the forked land was nearly double that of the ploughed." This farmer adds, " First, a man can dig a greater quantity of land, in a given time, with a fork than he can with a spade. My experience shows one sixth ; and it strikes me it must be so, because the pointed ends of a three-pronged fork can be more 128 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. easily pushed into a hard subsoil than the continuous end of a spade ; secondly, it does not bring up so much of the subsoil as the spade, but mixes the earth more, a great portion slipping through between the prongs ; thirdly, the bottom is left more uneven and broken by the fork, which I consider a great advan- tage. One great objection to the plough is, the smooth, glazed surface which it leaves below, and which presents a resistance to the delicate fibres of the plant. If it is correct that, in most instances, the present surface soil is nothing more than a portion of the subsoil improved by cultivation, it must be right to increase the quantity of corn-growing earth bj'' subjecting more subsoil to the same operation." "An instance is given of the spade husbandry of a farmer in Worcestershire, who has cultivated four acres of very stiff clay land, two acres of it for seventeen years, and two acres for twenty-seven years. He grows, annually, wheat and potatoes, with about one quarter of an acre of beans, the crop being shifted alternately from one division to the other. His mode of cultivation is as follows : As soon as the wheat is off, he ploughs his stubble-ground, raking up the stubble to litter his pigs ; he then digs it over with a fork, and plants on it potatoes in the following spring ; this crop being kept clean, the land needs no further preparation for wheat. He does most of the labor him- self; but he estimates it to amount to about £4 6s. per acre: his average produce has been rather more than forty bushels of wheat and twelve tons of potatoes per acre. The system he follows, as regards the cropping of the land, therefore, is evi- dently of the most trying description ; and this is not all, for he sells all his produce, even his straw, excepting a few potatoes and beans, which he consumes in annually feeding about thirty or forty score of bacon for his own consumption. He litters his pigs with the potato haulm and stubble ; and the manure from this source, and from his privy, with some clay out of his ditches, which he gets occasionally and burns, is all that he has to fertilize the land with. "Leaving out of consideration the small quantity of beans raised and bacon fed, valuing the wheat at 7 s. per bushel, and the rest of his produce at the price he obtains for it, we shall have something like the following accomit of his farming : — SPADE UUSBANDRY. 129 £. s. d. 24 tons of potatoesj at 50 s. per ton, 60 80 bushels of wheat, at 7s. per bushel, 28 ^ tons of straw, at 50 s. per ton, 5 93 Deduct from this, manual wages, at £4 6 s. 1^ d. per acre, 17 4 6 Seed potatoes for two acres, 25 bags of 180 lbs., at 4s., 5 4 bushels of seed wheat, at 7s. 6 d., . . 1 10 23 14 6 Leaves him, subject to rent and parochial payments, £69 5 6 "Thisfarmer than gives strong and unanswerable evidence in favor of the fork or spade husbandry. He adds that he has pur- sued this system of cultivation during the period of the last twenty-four years, with the exception of the first three years, when his neighbors ploughed his land for him for nothing ; that they are willing to do the same now, at any time, but he prefers going to the expense of digging it, to having it ploughed for nothing. ^^ * This is certainly an instructive example, and shows what may be done by very limited and small means. We have, in the United States, beyond a question, a large number of farmers, who, if they would cultivate, to the utmost of its capacity, a small extent of land, in the most thorough manner, would find themselves comparatively independent ; whereas, now, without capital, spending their deficient labor over a large surface, and doing nothing thoroughly, tliey lead a life of vexation, toil, and disappointment, without any compensating result. To these examples I add the subjoined experience of a Scotch farmer, who received a premium from the Agricultural Society for his skill and success. "In 1831, I determined to ascertain the difference of the expense and produce, between trenching land with the spade, and summer-fallowing with the plough in the usual way. I * These two instances are quoted by that able and industrious agricultural ■(vriter, Cuthbert W. Johnson, F. R. S., in Journal of Agriculture for January, 1844. 130 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. therefore trenched thirteen acres of my summer-fallow break, in the months of June and July. I found the soil about fourteen inches deep ; and I turned it completely over ; thereby putting up a clean, fresh soil in the room of the foul and exhausted mould, which I was careful to put at the bottom of the trench. This operation, I found, cost about £4 10 s. per Scotch acre, paying my laborers with Is. 6 d. per day. The rest of the field, con- sisting of nine acres, I wrought with the plough in the usual way, giving it six furrows, with the suitable harrowing : I manured the field in August : the trench got eight cart-loads per acre, the ] (loughed land sixteen : the field was sown in the middle of September : the whole turned out a bulky crop as to straw, particularly the trenched portion, which was very much lodged. On threshing them out, I found them to stand as under : — £. s. d. To two years' rent, at £2 10 s. per annum, .... 5 " expense of trenching, 4 10 " seed, 3 bushels, at 6 s. 9 d., 103 " 8 cart-loads of manure, at 4 s., 1 12 " expenses of cutting, threshing, and marketing, . . 1 10 Profit, 3 18 9 By trenched wheat per acre. 52 bushels, at 6 s. 9d. . £17 11 £. s. d. To two years' rent, at £2 10 s. per acre, 5 " 6 furrows and harrowing, at 10 s., 3 " seed, 3 bushels, at 6 s. 9 d., 1 3 " 16 cart-loads' manure, at 4 s., 3 4 " expenses of cutting, threshing, and marketing, . . 110 Profit, 093 By ploughed wheat per acre, 42 bushels, at 6 s. 9d. . £14 3 6 " I now saw that, though it might be profitable to trench over my fallow-break during the summer months, it was by no means making the most of the system, as the operation was not only more expensive, owing to the land being hard and dry during the summer, but that it was a useless waste of time to take a whole year to perform an operation that could as well be done in a few weeks, provided laborers could be had ; and as, in all agri- SPADE }IUSBANDRY. 131 cultural operations, losing time is losing money, — as the rent must be paid whether the land is carrying a crop or not ; so that in taking one year to fallow the land, and another to grow the crop, two years' rent must be charged against the crop, or at least there must be a rent charged against the rotation of crops for the year the land was fallowed. As I felt satisfied that, by trenching with the spade, the land would derive all the advantage of a summer fallowing, and avoid all the disadvantages attending it, I determined on trenching thirty-four acres of my fallow-break immediately on the crop being removed from the ground, and had it sown with wheat by the middle of November, 1832. I may here remark that I did not apply any manure, as I thought the former crop was injured by being too bulky. As it is now threshed out and disposed of, the crop per acre stands as follows : — £. s. d. To rent of land, per acre, 2 10 " expense of trenching, 400 " seed, 110 " cutting, threshing, and marketing, 1 10 Profit, 670 By average of the 34 acres, 44 bushels per acre, at ) r- -i ^ or, 7 s. per bushel, 5 " The advantages of trenching over summer-fallow are, in my opinion, very decided ; as it is not only cheaper, but, as far as I can yet judge, much more effectual. I am so satisfied of this, not only from the experiments above noticed, but from the apparent condition of the land after it has carried the crop, that I have, this autumn, cultivated about a hundred acres with the spade, and the crops at present are very promising." There are various cases in which the spade husbandry might be most usefully introduced. In New England, especially in Massachusetts, for the support of the poor, several towns have purchased farms, to be connected with their alms-houses and pauper establishments, where there is an opportunity of using to advantage the labor of those persons among the paupers, who are able to do any work, and who are thus made to contribute, in a healthful and unexceptionable occupation, to their OAvn support. This is an excellent arrangement, and the results have in many 132 EUKOPKAN AGRICULTURE. cases been highly successful. Here, in many cases, the land might be wholly cultivated with a spade, and the expense of a team be saved, which now oftentimes consumes a large portion of the products of a farm, especially where the farm is small, a full or complete team being as much required for the cultivation of a small as of a large farm. In reference to this subject, though it may not be deemed exactly in place, I may be allowed to remark that, as far as my observation extends, nothing of this sort is done in England ; no farm being ever connected with a pauper establishment, and only the smallest avails being had from the labor of the inmates Indeed, it is obviously judged best — a conclusion which 1 regard with great distrust — to prevent rather than employ llie labor of the paupers. At one of the Unions — for the poor-houses in England go by that name, being maintained and managed by several towns or parishes uniting together for this object — I saw a well-dressed and respectable-looking man employed in sweep- ing the walks, and trimming the grass-plats, in the front yard ; and, upon my inquiring whether this man were a pauper, I was answered in the negative, and informed that he was hired as a laborer in the establishment, because it was deemed bad policy to employ any of tlie paupers in any such work, lest the place should be rendered too comfortable and attractive. I said to myself, — and I hope not to give oflence in publishing my thoughts, — " The English certainly have their own ways of doing things." I am not, by any means, prepared to say, they are not the best that could be adopted. Indeed, we perhaps ought to think them the best, if we consider how much experience they have had, and how many means tiiey have possessed for making the most full experiments. But they are certainly, in this respect, very different from what prevail on the other side of the water. It is an extraordinary condition of things, when, in the midst of want and suffering, human labor must be thrown away, oj rather the exertion of it forbidden. CONDITION OF THE LABORERS. 133 XVII. — CONDITION OF THE LABORERS. I have no disposition to obtrude my opinion, in any form, so as to give offence. Indeed, it has ahvays seemed to me unreason- able in any case, or on any subject, that the honest opinions of any man should be the occasion of offence, as though we had the same control of our opinions as we have of our limbs ; as though we should have any other object, in any matter, but the attainment of truth ; and as if there were any way of attain- ing truth but by the utmost freedom of discussion ; and, above all, as though men should, under any circumstances, feel at liberty to exercise the same tyranny over the mind which physical force and political stratagem give them over the person. One cannot help seeing that wealth and prosperity are not always coincident ; that wealth is not therefore the infallible in- dex of prosperity. In many cases, — and perhaps it may only be rendered more striking from contrast, — the extraordinary accu- mulations of wealth on one side are followed by a corresponding depression on the other ; while the rich are made richer, in the same proportion the poor are made poorer. As wealth increases, avarice is more powerfully stimulated, and labor more severely taxed. In the richest communities, the price of labor is always the most depressed ; and with the increase of luxury the desire of indulgence is quickened with all classes : what might properly be termed luxuries and superfluities become absolute necessaries of life, and the expenses of living are proportionally increased to all. We may deplore such results, and deem it easy to suggest a remedy; but what remedy is of general or of practical applica- tion ? The more artificial the state of society becomes, the more difficult it becomes to provide the means of living ; and yet who would return to the state of nature, or abate one tittle in the actual refinements of life ? Communities are growing up among us upon the principles of perfect equality of rank, the equal combination of labor, and an entire community of goods ; and there are examples, where such communities, bound together by a strong religious tie, and subject to a most despotic govern- ment within themselves, have been maintained, and are still flourishing. But without this religious tie, or some strong 12 134 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. personal and pecuniary interest, and without an absolute head, does any sober man dream that such communities can be sus- tained, excepting within the narrowest limits ? or that such prin- ciples can be applied, to any great extent, to society at large, without an entire change in the whole structure of society, and, I may almost add, an entire renovation of human nature itself? Far be it from me, however, to suggest that the evils of society are without a remedy, or at least beyond alleviation. Our own country, under a free constitution of government, and with an almost unlimited extent of the most fertile territory, accessible upon the easiest terms, presents, perhaps, the most favorable condition, which has been known, for a security of the rights of labor, and the just fruition of its products ; but it would be a great injustice to infer that there are not to be found in England many generous and just persons, devoted to the maintenance of the rights, and the welfare and improvement, of the humble and laborious classes. There cannot be a doubt, that, in a noiseless and unobtrusive way, much is, and infinitely more can be, done for these objects ; and the aim of every good man, as far as he has any power, should be to diffuse, to the greatest extent possible, the means of subsistence and comfort to all, and to remove every impediment to the most equal distribu- tion of the products of labor among those whose labor in their production gives them certainly a fair claim upon these products. Now, whether it be by large farms or by small allotments, by plough or by spade husbandry, that mode of husbandry by which the largest amount of product, and at the least expense, can be drawn from the soil, and with the least injury to its pro- ductive powers, is to be preferred. This great point is not yet ascertained ; and its determination must necessarily be different in different places and conditions. But it is with England a question of tremendous importance, wdiat is to become of the vast accumulations of people, which arc continually increasing here at the rate of from seven hundred to a thousand per day. It is impossible to become accurately, though it may be slightly, acquainted with the condition of things in England, the actual suffering for a Avant of the means of subsistence, which prevails among large portions of the population, especially in some of the agricultural districts, and not to feel that there are powerful elements of disease at work in the social body, whose disastrous CONDITION OF THE LABORERS. 135 effects must presently be felt in all their violence. Men with families dependent upon their labor, earning not more than 7 s., and in some instances even less, per week, and oftentimes with only occasional employment at that rate, present objects of deep interest to a philanthropic mind. Men living themselves upon a single meal per day, and that potatoes only, for the sake of keeping a wife and children from absolute starvation, — and there is ample evidence that such cases exist, — present a sad spectacle. What are the remedies for such a condition of things, if remedies there are to be found, it is not within my province, in this case, to discuss. It is a hard lot, where the most severe and unremitted labor will not avail to procure a subsistence for one's self and family, and where, with immense tracts of uncultivated land, the opportunity even of exerting this labor, however cheerfully it might be rendered, is, for any cause whatever, refused or prevented.* The subject, it appears to me, — and perhaps wholly from my being unaccustomed to a condition of things in any degree re- sembling it, — is daily assuming a fearful aspect ; I do not mean of danger to the government, — for the government of the country seems never to have been stronger, — but fearful in its bearings upon the public peace, the public morals, the security of property, and the state of crime. I make no apology for touching upon it, because the experience of an old cannot be without its advan- tages to a new country, and the condition of labor is a subject which materially concerns every just government. Any hopes of a government being founded or administered upon strictly moral principles are contradicted by all past experience.! The * One can scarcely read, withoat a shudder, the following declaration of a celebrated economical writer : — " A man born into the world already possessed, if he has no assistance from his parents, upon whom he has a just demand, or from society for his labor, has no claim for the smallest portion of food, and no busmess where he was. At Nature's mighty board there was no cover for him ; she tells him to be gone." This passage, which appeared in the first edition of his great work, was after- wards suppressed, being, it is said, too strong for the temperature even of the rankest of the economical school. •f " To provide for us in our necessities is not in the power of government It would be a vain presumption in statesmen to think that they can do it. The people maintain them, and not they tlie people. It is in the power of government to prevent much evil ; it can do very little positive good in this, or perhaps in any thing else. It is not only so of the state and the statesman, but of all the classes 136 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. objects of almost all governments seem to be the security of life and property, the prevention of crimes which endanger life and property, and the aggrandizement of those in power. I do not know that more can be expected of them in the way of promoting good morals, excepting in the suppression of the direct instruments of vice, the support of religious institutions, and the provision for the education of the people. A citizen of the United States, from habit, if not from principle, at once resists and abjures any inter- ference whatever with his religion, whether considered as matter of Avorship, or faith, or feeling, because, under the government of his own country, with which he has every reason to be satisfied, all such interference is absolutely prohibited. All attempts at enforcing moral duties by legal enactments would be futile and hazardous, since, as it is with human rights, many of them are imperfect, so it is with human duties, many of them are so unde- fined that it would be difficult to prescribe them with any prac- ticable exactness ; and laws of this nature are necessarily of a negative character. They may forbid that which shall not be done ; but it is much more difficult to enjoin that which shall be done. They may determine by law that provision shall be made that no man actually perish of hunger in the streets ; but what degree of provision short of absolute starvation, how much relief, and how much comfort, he shall have, is a matter far more diffi- cult to be thus arranged. The provision for the education of the people is more clearly within the power and the duty of an enlightened government, on the ground, not simply of moral ob- ligation, but of improving the national industry, increasing, consequently, the national wealth, and of elevating generally the character of the people, and so advancing the general improvement, and promoting public happiness and order. and descriptions of tlie rich. They are the pensioners of tlie poor, and are main- tained by their superfluity. They are under an absohite, hereditary, and inde- feasible dependence on those who labor, and arc miscalled the poor. Nothmg can be so base and wicked as the political canting language, ' the laboring poorJ Let compassion be shown in action ; the more the better, according to every man's ability, but let there be no lamentation of their condition. It is no relief to their miserable circumstances ; it is only an insult to their miserable understandings. It arises from a total want of charity, or a total want of thought. Want of one kind was never relieved by want of any other kind. Patience, labor, sobriety, frugality, religion, should be recommended to them ; all the rest is downright fraud. It is horrible to call them ' the once happi/ laborers.' " — Edmund Bdrke. CONDITION OF TIIF. LABORERS. 137 But It is vain to look to any government for any thing like a paternal superintendence of its people. On a large scale it is not practicable. Those who govern can scarcely be expected, to have virtue, and disinterestedness, and Avisdom, sufficient for such a task ; and those who are governed would not willingly submit to their injunctions or regulations. Any compulsory influence would be unavailing. But, then, it is the duty of every just government to afford to every one of its subjects, as far as depends on itself, the means of subsistence ; and institutions or regulations, by which the right and opportunity for a man to exert his talents in a way not morally injurious to another, are taken away, or abridged, or in any degree interfered with, seem wholly wrong and unjust. It would be invidious in me, because perhaps out of place, to point out in any way how the institu- tions of this country so interfere, if interfere they do ; but, as I have said before, the condition of a large portion of the popula- tion, — I speak of those in the rural districts, — being prevented the opportunity of applying the labor by which they might secure not only a subsistence, but the comforts of life, forebodes nothing but evil, and may, with strong reason, engage the anxious inquiries of those who have any power in the case, either of alle- viation or remedy. The population is increasing throughout the kingdom with amazing rapidity ; and, strange as it may seem, the fact is beyond a doubt, that the increase is always greater among the wretched poor, whom extreme misery has made entirely reckless of con- sequences, than among that class whose circumstances are com- paratively comfortable, and who have learnt that their comfort can be secured only by a wholesome and wise providence. The complaint is universal and continual, that the population is too numerous ; but this does not prevent their increase. Few will be bold enough to hazard the question, Who is here who has not a right to be here ? nor, like a party of shipwrecked sailors in a boat, to propose the decision by lot, as to which of the party shall be thrown overboard. But the great question must be met — not, How are the surplus population to be got rid of? but. How shall they be sustained ? The insular character of Great Britain necessarily and absolutely limits its capacity of providing for its population from its own soil, although that capacity is yet far from being reached. Idleness begets idleness ; beggary produces and 12* 138 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. perpetuates beggary ; crime engenders crime. Sickness and neg- lect — a sad relief, alas ! to the benevolent mind — may do some- thing towards checking this rapid accinnulation ; for it is stated in the commissioners' returns, and has been asserted recently in the House of Peers, by a distinguished nobleman, that, in England and Scotland, fifty thousand individuals perish annually by disease, arising from the wretchedness of their habitations, owing to imperfect ventilation, and the want of sufficient drainage.* This, however, is a small number to be set against the annual increase. Emigration may somewhat alleviate the evil ; trans- portation contributes its small share. It is a curious fact, however, that disease seems scarcely to produce any sensible im- pression on the population, and that the losses occasioned by severe and wide-spread epidemics are rapidly filled up and obliterated. The effect of the extraordinary improvements al- ready made, and daily being made, in machinery, in the manu- facturing districts, is to diminish the amount of human labor employed, and throw more destitute hands into the labor market. What, then, under these circumstances, is to be done, is a question, to the great moment of which I have already alluded. It is not, in such a case, for men to wrap themselves up in their own selfishness and indifference, and say, " Let things take care of themselves." I was conversing with a friend on this subject, a gentleman of great intelligence, and not wanting in benevolence ; and his remark was, that an increase of production would do little for * This same nobleman, in discussing' tliis important subject, stated that, in ten years, a larger number perished, in England, from these causes, than the whule number of slaves emancipated in their colonies ; and for which Great Britain priid, by a noble exertion, twenty million pounds sterling, or nearly one hundred million of dollars. This is a curious fact, and every day's history of public beneficence presents analogous facts — cases in which thousands and millions are lavished upon objects, doubtless deserving of sympathy and kindness, thousands of miles distant from us, where the results are sometimes doubtful, and can never be known, but through tlie testimony of interested parties, while objects of mercy and kindness, whose claims are not less strong and urgent, and whose condition can be perfectly known, and where the results of our efforts may be watched and ascertained, perish in all their want, ignorance, wretchedness, and profligacy, at the very thresholds of our doors. Certainly, true charity, which extends its wide embrace to afflicted Iiumanity every where, will not C7ul at liome ; and it might often be as well for it to begin there. CONDITION OF THE LABORERS. 139 the lower classes, for they would get no more ; with the price of bread, their wages, if lower be possible, were likely to be re- duced ; the advantages of such increased products would, of course, go into the hands of the land-holders and farmers, or the large manufacturers and mill-owners ; and that, for his part, he saw no ultimate remedy but starvation ; that is, such an actual reduction of the means of living, that multitudes should gradu- ally perish from want, and so thin off the surplus population. He said this, too, with all the coolness and indifference with which he would speak of brushing off the flies from the dinner- table. '• Good God ! " I said within myself, " has it come to this, that familiarity with want and misery can render the heart of man capable of contemplating such a result with calmness, and that human life on earth should come to be deemed utterly worthless ? If there be any humanity, or any religion, left in the world, they must be roused to prevent such a catastrophe." Whatever anxiety, however, the prospect may excite in a benevolent mind, there is no room for despair. It is not consist- ent with the nature of my present undertaking, to discuss this subject, in its various bearings and aspects, in this place. If life and health are spared me, I shall do it in another form. The people do not so much demand charity, as work. They do not so much require to be supported, as to be allowed to support themselves. The remarkable experiment, already referred to, of Mrs. Gilbert, a sagacious and benevolent woman, at East- bourne, in Sussex county, who has four hundred tenants, on small allotments, and of whom not more than three have failed to pay their rent punctually, and who, on these small allotments, do, in many cases, all that is necessary, and in all, much for the support of their families, should command attention. There remains, as I have before stated, an immense amount of land, which might be cultivated and rendered productive. These considerations present the strongest inducements to an improved agriculture. More land should be brought into cultivation ; that which is cultivated should be better cultivated. The laborers should have every encouragement and opportunity to help them- selves. The interest of the farmers cannot be separated from that of the laborers ; the interests of one class from that of another. Embarked in the same vessel, they must succeed or suiTer, they must sink or swim, together. 140 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. I have been, again and again, told that a material change has taken place in the condition of the farm laborers, within the last fifty years, or even a much less time. The practice of forming large farms, by uniting small ones, has tended to remove the laborer farther from the intercourse and superintendence of his employer. Being engaged in large numbers, individual interest and character have been lost sight of ; and, cottages on the estates having been suffered to fall into decay, and not being renewed, the laborers have been driven into villages, with a great restric- tion of their comforts, and exposed to the temptations incident to such localities. The large establishments have lost that patri- archal character which used to belong to them ; men are em- ployed much more by the day, and the week, than by the year, as formerly ; and are used, and thrown aside, as occasion may require, like mere implements upon the farm. Those strong personal ties, so favorable in their influence upon the lower classes, and not without most valuable moral efl"ects upon the higher, have almost ceased to exist. It was a delightful circumstance, when, formerly, without any infringement of personal liberty, a laborer was considered as a fixture upon the place, and as having a sort of hereditary connection "with the family and the estate of his employer, v/hich only the most imperious reasons could dissolve ; so men and women lived in the same service twenty, thirty, fifty years, and often for the whole course of their natural lives ; their children and children's children were often born upon the homestead, and the interests of the master and the servants became identical. As they were paid, likewise, in kind, instead of money, they themselves, being, in a small way, sellers of produce, became personally interested in the state of the markets ; and ties of familiarity, long vicinity, and connection, mutual dependence, and a mutual stake in the results of their joint labor, served to connect them the more closely together. No one, under these circumstances, can doubt the advantages of such a relation on both sides. There are many cases, which have come under my observation, where a similar connection exists, though in a form very much qualified by modern manners, and where individuals and families have been in the same service for many long years, and the aged among them are provided for, by those in whose service their lives have been passed, in the kindest manner, after all power of useful or active labor has ceased CONDITION OF THE LABORERS. 141 and they are staggering under the heavy burdens of age and decay. I have ah-eady, in my First Report, referred to instances of this nature. But the system most prsvalent is perfectly heart- less : labor is considered merely as labor ; human muscles and sinews are regarded like the parts of any other implement ; and v/hen their power ceases, or their elasticity is destroyed, they are thrown aside, like worn-out machinery, into those melancholy receptacles of decay and poverty, which have, very properly, ceased to be called alms-houses, and which necessity, and not charity, provides. I cannot say that such sentiments are pecu- liar to England. They are, it is feared, becoming too common in the United States ; not merely in the departments of agricul- tural, and manufacturing, and mechanical labor, but likewise reaching the domestic and household relations, where least of all they should have obtruded themselves. This comes, in some measure, from that narrow and mean utilitarian philosophy, which stimulates avarice into a diseased action, and measures every good in life by a purely pecuniary standard. Whatever tends to divide these different classes, either in interest or feeling, is, to a degree, and ultimately, I fear, it must prove in an equal degree, injurious to both parties. Feelings of indifference, or contempt, or cruel disdain, on the one hand, are likely to be met with a sense of injury, a feeling of hate and revenge, on the other ; and one of the greatest curses with which Heaven could have visited mankind, would have been to have made them in any sense independent of each other. There are no circum- stances connected with the condition of society more to be regretted than such as separate different classes too strongly from each other, and create hostile or conflicting interests. A perfect equality of condition among men is a chimera ; and if, by any conceivable or possible arrangement, it could take place, the earth, in its rapid revolutions, would not pass the half of a degree, but it must be interrupted. But an equality of natural rights is a position which, if I may be allowed to speak /or one born and educated in a condition of society where it has been always acknowledged, would not be readily relinquished. Now, if there is any right which should be held sacred, next to that which every man has to his own person, it is the right of honest labor to an ample share of the products of that labor. The rights of the rich man to his possessions, honestly and honorably 142 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. acquired, are as just as those of the poorest man to the crust which feeds or the coarse garment which covers him ; but, in every condition of society, the rights of the rich and the poor are reciprocal, and their dependence mutual and absolute. If the poor are compelled, under the arbitrary institutions of society, — and I use the term arbitrary in no offensive sense, — more sensibly to feel their dependence, the upper classes in society, with that spu'it of justice and kindness which constitutes the highest grace of power, and wealth, and rank, should be prompt to show their sense of how much they owe even of all this poAver, and wealth, and rank, to the labors, and services, and fealty, of the poor ; and, without losing sight, as far as is consistent with the spirit of Christianity, of what is called their position in society, to endeavor to soften the severity of those distinctions, which, if they mark the elevation of their own condition, equally indicate the depressed condition of others. In that beautiful language, to which every serious mind will listen with pro- found reverence, " The eye must not say unto the hand, I have no need of thee, nor yet the head to the feet, I have no need of you ; " seeing that even those parts of the body which are least " comely," are as essential to the perfect and healthy organiza- tion of the machine, as those on which the Creator has im- pressed the highest attributes of grace, expression, and beauty, and must be equally nourished from the great central reservoir of life and strength, or the whole must suifer from weakness or decay. I do not mean to imply that there is any greater disregard of these principles than is to be expected in a condition of society so highly artificial as that which exists here, and where the accumulations of individual wealth, and of what, from its heredi- tary and inalienable character, may be termed class-property , are so enormous. I do not mean, as I have already said, to express any apprehension or alarm for the safety of the present institu- tions of England ; for, though the flood of population is rising with a continually accelerated force, and in almost a geometrical ratio, yet Avealth here is so strong, and poverty so powerless, and the safety of the Avhole is so essentially concerned in the mainte- nance of the integrity of its present form of society, and, above all, the experience of a neighboring nation, on the subject of revolution, is so admonitory and terrific, that almost every thing CONDITION OK TUL" LABORERS. 143 Will be endured before any violence is hazarded or permitted. Still it is obvious to every reflecting mind how important it is to the public peace and the security of property, that the rights of the laborious classes should be fully acknowledged, and main- tained in the spirit of kindness and equity, as well as of strict legal justice, and that every philanthropic effort should be stimulated and encouraged to protect and comfort them, and, more than that, by education, moral and intellectual, — for, with- out moral, intellectual too often proves a curse, — to elevate them in their social condition. Next to the satisfactions of an honest conscience, the highest of all earthly pleasures to a good man, is that of conferring happiness upon other,':.. I have seen, in Eng- land, with a gratification which it would be dilFici:».t to express, among persons of the most brilliant rank and the most com- manding influence, many instances of a conduct which deserved and secured all this felicity. Every where men are to be found feeling their high responsibleness, and, Avithout any offensive assumption of superiority, devoting all their energies to the pro- tection of the houseless, and to the comfort and improvement of those whom divine Providence has cast within the circle of their beneficence, and enjoying all that calm security which such conduct is sure to bring with it. I confess there has been no occasion in my life when I have been so much disposed to envy the possession of wealth and power. On the other hand, I dare say I shall only be compassionated for my simplicity, when I add that the high stone and brick walls, with wliich houses, and parks, and properties, are here often intrenched and fortified, so high that even the nimblest jail-bird would look at them with despair, and the fences every where bristling with iron spikes and broken glass, and the sullen gates opening "with discordant jar." and the ferocious watch-dogs, to say nothing of other mastiifs, often stationed by them, from whose terrific growl even the honest npplicant shrinks back with dread ; and then the signs which meet your eye constantly, "All vagrants and beggars for- bidden here," " All trespassers here will be prosecuted to the utmost rigor of the law," and " Steel man-traps set here," often bring a cold chill over me, and compel me to feel that property held under such cautions loses somewhat of its value. At the same time, it makes me estimate the more highly a condition of society where the road of acquisition is equally open to all, and 144 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. where property being more equally distributed, and in almost all cases the fruit of personal industry, its rights are more readily admitted, and its protection becomes matter of equal and uni- versal concern. I return now to speak of the present actual condition of agri- culture in England. I have dwelt largely, but I hope not too largely, upon miscellaneous and incidental considerations. I propose now to consider the actual condition and character of English agriculture ; the improvements which it has effected ; and those which remain to be devised. XVIII. — PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE, COMPARED WITH OTHER PURSUITS. I have already said that the agriculture of England — and here I include Scotland — is highly improved ; but I may say, I think, with confidence, and certainly without censoriousness, that it has not yet reached that degree of excellence to which it is capable of being carried. In parts of the country, not nmch has been done ; in the best cultivated districts, it would be presumptuous to say that the goal of perfection has been reached. Among the highest gifts with which Heaven has endued the human mind is a generous and insatiable ambition after excellence ; an avarice of improvement, if so it may be termed, which character- izes a great mind ; which knows in no case entire satisfaction ; which no sooner mounts one summit tlian it essays to climb a higher ; and which, if in any thing it should reach barriers that are absolutely impassable, would, like the celebrated hero of anti- quity, "weep that it had no more worlds to conquer." I am not willing to admit that this ambition, one of the noblest attri- butes of the human soul, can ever be stimulated to too great a degree. Cobbett, in his terse, energetic, but rather coarse manner, says that "he despises a man who is contented with his condi- tion ; " and in the sense in which he obviously designed to be understood, I quite agree with him, that no man should be satis- fied with good while better is attainable ; and that it would PISOGRKSS OF AGRICULTURE. 145 indeed be a sad condition of things, when the capacity, and still more the disposition, for improvement should cease. It is, and, as long as I can remember, it has been, common to decry the farmers, as a stupid, ignorant, plodding race, satisfied always to jog on in the steps of their fathers, and averse to any improvements, such as are going forward in other departments of industry. I think I may confidently deny the allegation ; and I regard the reproach with the disdain which it merits. My own observations, in England and the United States, lead me to the conclusion, that, after making every just allowance for the neces- sary difference of circumstances in the different cases, there is as much intelligence in regard to their art, and as strong a spirit of improvement, with the agricultural as with any class in the com- munity ; and, more than that, the improvements, which have been actually accomplished in the agricultural art, are in no respect inferior to those which have been effected in manufactures and commerce, or in the higher professions, — if so we submit to call them, which I confess I do with great reluctance, — medicine or law ; I would add theology, if I dared ; but I am afraid I should get into hot water. In medicine, if under that head we include surgery, one can- not go through the streets of London, and observe, at the shop- windows, the models of wooden legs, and artificial ears, and glass eyes, and mineral teeth, and the promise of a new nose, where the victim of misfortune has been deprived of his proboscis, without acknowledging that the triumphs of the svu'gical art are as brilliant as they are useful and humane. If one likewise should place any reliance upon the numberless patent medicines and nostrums which decorate the pages of the newspapers, he would be led to infer that the reign of disease was broken up, and the elixir of immortality at length discovered. But whoever looks into the medical reports, and observes the variety of systems and modes of practice which prevail, and which different col- leges of physicians seem to bring out as regularly, and in almost equal numbers, as the good housewife's hens bring out their broods in the spring, and especially reads the accounts of the various experiments, to which, for the benefit of science, their patients are unconsciously subjected, and by which, without the credit of inclination or consent, they are made, at their own personal ex- pense, suffering, and peril, to contribute to the most philanthropic 13 146 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. discoveries, — it cannot be claimed for medicine, that it is alto- gether abov^e the charge of empiricism, or that it has yet accom- plished all that is to be desired in lessening the number or alleviating the virulence of diseases, or in restoring human life, with any confidence, to even a tithe of that longevity, which is claimed for it in those patriarchal ages when apothecaries' shops, and medical schools, and degrees, do not appear to have been established. It is scarcely better with the law. One of the most distinguished legal gentlemen in England has lately stated, in his place in Parliament, that such is the condition of the criminal law, that even the most learned in the profession cannot, in many cases, determine whether he is, by particular actions, committing an offence or not. The records of the courts daily show that the most_ momentous decisions often turn upon points the most abstruse, and as yet absolutely unsettled ; that even the most learned judges on the bench disagree in matters both of law and equity, involving property and life ; and it seems but too often the test of legal eminence and skill to ascertain, not whether it be practicable to get " a camel,'' but whether the lawyer can get himself or his client, " through the eye of a needle," as being the most brilliant triumph of his art.* In tlieology, it cannot be said * In a recent trial, a brute in human shape, or rather a demoniac, — for brutes are not capable of actions so malicious, — was indicted for wounding, maiming, and injuring, a horse. Ho, it seems, in the furj' of his passion, had drawn out the tono^ue of the horse, and, by rubbing it against one of his teeth, had cut off four oi five inches of it, Avhich he threw at the horse's head. His counsel opposed the indictment, on the ground that there could, as defined by law, be no icounding but where some insirumcnl was used ; but the tooth was notvin instrument ; — there could be no nutiming but where some h'm& was injured ; but the tongue was not a limb ; — and that tliere was no injury, because, though the horse found some diffi- culty in eating his oats, he wa.s otherwise as useful for labor as before his tongue was cut off. On these grounds the prosecution failed, and the savage escaped. Under such an admmistration of justice, it would scarcely have been surprising, if the horse, had he not lost liis tongue, had himself spoken out; and it would have been only fair if lie had been allowed to bite off the ears of the lawyer, and of a magistrate who sanctioned such law. At a court of assizes which I attended, and wliere the criminal calendar was heavy, a young married woman, of decent and respectable appearance, having a husband and children, and against whose character, in other respects, nothing was alleged, was sentenced to ten days' solitary imprisonment, for having taken for her fire, on the estate of a countess, near which her cottage stood, a stick of wood, valued at threepence, from a tree that had been felled and partly cut up. If tlie tree had not been cut down, and she had taken a piece as large, the act PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE. 147 that much progress has been made in determinhig many ques- tions which have vexed men's minds for centuries. I confess, when I was in the Bodleian library, at Oxford, that immense repository of the labors of so many burning brains and aching liearts, with its five hundred thousand volumes, and considered that, beyond all question, more than three hundred thousand of its thick octavos and ponderous quartos and folios were commenta- ries upon the Scriptures, or discussions of disputed questions in theology, and yet, in respect to most of them, that we are still at sea, and no land in sight, I could not escape the conviction, that here, too, man is still in leading-strings, and has yet scarcely taken " the first steps of infancy." In respect to manufactures and commerce, if we compare the common operatives in either of these departments with those of the same class in agriculture, — the laborers in the mills, or the sailors on boardship, with the common laborers on the farm, — we shall find no great advantage, in intellectual progress, which the one has over the other ; but, again, if we compare the highest class of farmers with the highest class of merchants and manu- facturers, it will certainly be no disparagement to the latter classes to say that they are not in advance of the best-informed agriculturists ; and that agriculture is nov/ as much a matter of the mind, as much a matter of intellectual observation and in- v/ould have been a simple trespass, and she would have been mulcted in a fine only : as it was, however, it was a. felony or crime, and she was punished accord- ingly. I could easily imagine tlie amazement of the poor unfortunate creature at so subtile and philosophical a distinction. I must add, though it may seem out of place, that a criminal prosecution for an offence of this nature can have no other effect tlian to engender a bitter malignity on the part of the poor towards the powerful, and that the generally severe administration of penal justice upon the humble and defenceless, (not, I must confess, peculiar to England,) when the large flies so often break through tlie cobweb of the law, and escape by intrigue or in- flucnce> can have little effect in producing reformation ; and its main tendency must be to nourish, on the part of tlie lower classes, a deep resentment of tlie partiality, and an utter hatred of the power, to which they are subjected. A paternal administration of justice is not, of course, to be expected ; but what an infinite amount of guilt and Avretchedness would be saved, if the cij-cumstances of the guilty could be more mercifully considered ; especially if humanity and pub- lic justice could be more exerted in preventing rather than in punishing crime ; above all, if society itself, by its omissions or its institutions, were not, in too many cases, the tempter, the minister, and the pander to crime, as well as its terrible avenger! 148 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. quiry, as any one of the practical arts of life ; and at the present moment, it is occupying as much attention from the highest class of minds as any other of the business pursuits of life. I hope, viewed in this aspect, I shall not be thought to speak with undue warmth on this subject. I have, 1 am aware, already alluded to it ; but I am anxious to assert the dignity of a pursuit which I regard among the most honorable, as it is among the most innocent and useful, in life ; and I would, if possible, soften its aspect, and multiply its attractions, to a large class of persons, who have been accustomed to look upon it with indifference or disdain, but who would be sure to find in it, if ardently and intelligently pursued, health for the body, and peace and satisfac- tion — nay more, the strongest and most delightful interest — for the mind. XIX. — ACTUAL IMPROVEMENTS IN ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. But of what nature are the improvements which agriculture has actually made in Great Britain, which determine the present high condition of the art ? A stranger cannot, of course, from personal experience, compare her present condition with what it was ; yet the marks of progress are so obvious that the most transient observer recognizes them ; and many are now in the pro- cess of accomplishment, which fill him with delightful surprise. Many of these improvements are among the noblest triumphs of art, and mark, as strongly as in almost any other cases, the power of mind over matter, the subjugation of physical elements to an intellectual sovereign. 1. Draining, Irrigation, and Warping. — Much of what has been done is entirely out of sight ; whole fields, thousands and thousands of- acres of land, have been underdrained by pipes and channels, spreading themselves like beautiful net-work under the surface, taking ofi" all the surplus moisture, and converting cold, unfruitful, and unsightly morasses into productive and beautifid fields. It would be curious, if it were possible, to approximate ACTUAL IMPROVEMENTS IN ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. 149 ihe amount of this work which has been done ; but there are no means even of framing a reasonable conjecture. It undoubtedly embraces hundreds of thousands of acres, and much more is in progress, since, important and indispensable as moisture is to vegetation, nothing can be more prejudicial than a superabun- dance of water, and especially stagnant water. Of the different modes of draining I shall speak hereafter at large. It is a sub- ject of great importance and utility, and requires to be treated in the fullest and most exact manner. The next great improve- ment, that I have witnessed in England, is in the fen-country of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, where vast territories, embracing many thousands of acres, have been, it may almost be said, created, that is, redeemed from the sea, fortified by strong and extensive embankments, and now rendered as fertile and produc- tive as any lands which can be found upon the island. These lands, likewise, are kept drained by immense steam engines, which move with an untiring power, and accomplish this mighty work with ease. In other cases, in Lincolnshire, another process is going on, here denominated warping, by which, on the banks of the Humber, immense tracts are enclosed, the tide shut in, and compelled to leave its rich deposit, thus forming, likewise, the richest meadows. Still another process is in progress, by which the crooked course of a river is straightened, its channel deepened by its own new current, and rendered navigable, and, by the erection of artificial banks, the soil within them continu- ally raised, and hundreds of acres, where so recently the fish, at high water, sported with impunity, are rescued from the sea, and covered with thriving flocks of cattle and sheep. In Yorkshire, not only are various processes of redeeming and improving land going on, but the curious process of removing, by the aid of steam machinery, the rich deposit from the bed of a river, whose current has been diverted from its natural course ; and this de- posit, after being taken out, is laid, at not an inordinate expense, on a peat bog hitherto unproductive and worthless. By judi- cious management, it is spread on the land to the depth of eight inches, and the covering proceeds at the rate of five acres per day. In Nottinghamshire, a most splendid improvement has been effected in turning the course of a small river, so as at pleasure to irrigate several hundred acres of land, which were formerly poor and comparatively unproductive, but now yield the most 13* 150 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. abundant crops ; and in Staffordshire, the same results have been reached, not by a river, but by collecting the springs, and form- ing a grand reservoir, from which the water is carried over extensive fields, which are thus irrigated at pleasure. 2. Live Stock and Vegetables. — The next great feature m the improved husbandry of England is apparent in its live stock. I do not speak of it as seen at the cattle-shows of the different agricultural societies in the kingdom ; for here the ani- mals are all selected, or at a very great expense, and after a long time, fitted for the exhibition ; but I speak rather of them as they are seen in Smithfield market, every Monday, and at the other smaller markets and fairs in various parts of the country. Here are the cattle and sheep of several distinct breeds, and all of remarkable excellence of their kind ; I do not say perfect, — for that, in almost all cases, is assuming too much, — but leaving very little to be desired beyond what has been attained. Their con- dition and form, their symmetry, their fatness, are all admirable ; and each breed is seen retaining its distinct properties, and, what is most remarkable, showing how much can be done by human art and skill in improving the animal form and condition, and bringing it to a desired model. From Smithfield market, if he goes to Covent Garden market, in the infinite profusion and variety of fruits, and vegetables, and flowers, which are always to be found here, and in the perfection to which they are carried, and many of the finest fruits, in defi- ance of an uncongenial climate, he will find evidences of the same admirable skill and art which are displayed in other departments of rural industry. 3. Agricultural Implements. — The next evidences of the improvement of the agricultural art are to be seen in the extra- ordinary display of agricultural implements at the great shows. The exhibition at the meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society at Derby, in July, 1843, was so remarkable, that I shall be excused for giving a statement of the number, and many of the kinds, of the machines and implements there exhibited. Of Tilloge Implemejits, then, there were, — of ploughs, 148; harrows, 31 ; scarifiers, 2.'5 : clod-crushers, 7; rollers, 12; couch rakes, 4. ACTUAL IMPROVEMENTS IN ENGLISH AGRICULTUKE. 151 Of Drilling, Soioing, Manuring^ and Hoeing Machines. — Of drills and bessers, and seed-sowing barrows, some designed for sowing manure with the seed, there were 61 ; of dibblers, for putting in the seed, 4 ; of horse-hoes, adapted to the cultivation of drilled crops, 20. Of Harvesting Machines. — For hay-making, 4 ; horse- rakes, 7. Of Barn Machinery. — Horse engines, locomotive or station- ary, 7 ; steam engines for threshing or grinding, 6 ; threshing machines, 15 ; winnowing and cleaning machines, 20 ; crushing and splitting mills, 36 ; corn and meal mills, 20 ; chaff-cutters, 51; cake-crushers, for oil cake, 14; corn weighers and meas- ures, 2. Field, Fold, and Yard Machinery. — Of turnip-cutters, 12 ; root-graters and cider mill, 3 ; potato-washers, 2 ; steaming apparatus, 5 ; feeding apparatus and fodder preservers, various ; weighing machines for carts, cattle, &c., 4; fire and garden engines, 11; machines for stock yard, various; sundries, ma- chines for breaking stones, iron field gates, hurdles, trucks, fences, &c. &c. &c. Agricultural Carriages, Harness, and Gear. — Wagons and carts for market, for harvest, for manures, (solid and liquid,) for family use, &c. &c., 38; breaks for carriages of all kinds; sets of wheels, axles, &c. ; harnesses and horse-gear ; drain tiles, and implements for forming tiles, 9. Dairy Implements. — Churns, 8 ; cheese presses, 6 ; ciu-d mills, 4 ; miscellaneous and various implements, and tools and vessels for domestic and rural purposes. It cannot be expected that I should characterize these machines, and point out their various properties ; though this is what I pro- pose to do hereafter, in respect to such of them as seem to me most desirable to be introduced into my own country ; but the number and variety of them which have been produced, and the neatness and care with which they are made, evince great mechanical skill and knowledge, and show that here, as well as in other departments of industry, the mind has been at work, and has produced the natural fruits of intense and well-directed application. 4. Application of Steam to Agutculture. — There is, indeed, 152 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. one giant power, of comparatively modern invention, which, it is thought, has not been as successfully or extensively applied in agriculture as in some other departments of the arts. Every one knows, at once, that I refer to the power of steam, which seems, wherever introduced, to defy all competition ; and every day's ex- perience appears to demonstrate that its extent is yet hardly con- ceived, and its application only begun. The experiments, which have been made in the application of steam power to the movement of ploughs, have not, as far as I can learn, been attended with success. It will not be safe to assert that this cannot be done to advantage ; but certainly that is not the only application of steam to the purposes of agriculture, which is to be looked for. Indeed, besides the impossibility of an art, so intimately associ- ated as agriculture is with almost all the practical arts of life, escaping its share of the general advantages which the com- munity is enjoying from this mighty agent, it has already received many direct contributions from it. In the Lothians of Scotland, those beautifully cultivated grain districts, which, when seen in the season of their glory, with their green and their golden crops, so rich and delightful as to make the heart of an enthusiastic agriculturist beat as though he himself had a steam engine under his waistcoat, a steam engine is to be found on every principal farm, for threshing out all the grain, and for other economical purposes, to which, on a great farm, these engines are capable of being applied. The average size of these engines for threshing is from a six to an eight horse power, and the cost, which was formerly more than £ 120, or $ 600, is now greatly reduced. The advantage of steam, as a motive power, must be obvious. It is always available, at all seasons, and without reference to the weather. Its movements are uniform, whereas horse power is, to a degree, capricious and unsteady, and horses often suffer a great deal, both from too constant and long-continued pulls, and likewise from frequent stops and starts. The steam power never tires, and its operation may be continued to any length of time or quantity. These are all great advantages, especially when a farmer, from any sudden advance, wishes to bring his grain at once into the market. It is obvious, at the same time, what advantages he has in having his horses saved from the severe work of threshing, and fresh for other farm work. The saving of ACTUAL IMPUOVKMENTS IN KNGLISII AGRICULTURE. 153 a pair of horses, on a farm, is estimated at £100 per year, (very much more, indeed, than it would be with us;) and intelHgent farmers assert " that, with steam power, they save one fourth of the horse power on large farms." The usual quantity of grain threshed by a six horse steam power is at the rate of from thirty to forty bushels per hour ; though the quantity must vary Avith the condition of the grain and the straw. The average worlc of a threshing mill, driven by horse power, is 150 bushels per day, and by steam power may be reckoned at 250 bushels per day, which is certainly a great preponderance in favor of the steam power. The wear and de- terioration of the horses, and the expenses of keeping them, are most important considerations to a farmer. Indeed, so far as my observation goes, there is no single source of expense, none which abstracts so much from the profits of farming, and none of which the farmers in general are so little aware, as that of horse teams. In the great experiment, or rather improvement, going on at Hatfield Chase, in Yorkshire, of emptying the deserted bed of a river, and spreading this rich alluvion over a peat bog, the earth carts are moved on a temporary railway by a steam engine, and carried to their place of deposit, so that, as I have before re- marked, five acres can be covered in a day, eight inches deep ; and that which it would be perfectly in vain for any inferior power to have attempted, is accomplished with perfect ease by this willing but mighty agent. The fens in Lincolnshire, where the uncertain and capricious power of the wind was formerly depended on, and, of course, with little confidence and uncertain results, are now relieved, at pleasure, of their surplus water, by two steam engines, one of sixty and one of eighty horse power ; and the quantity of water removed, the time required, and the expense incurred for doing it, are all matters of exact calculation. The workmanship of these engines — for I have had the pleasure of visiting the spot — is extremely beautiful ; and the advantages of the whole arrangement can hardly be overstated. I can easily oelieve that the same machinery, on a small scale, may be applied m many other similar cases ; and a very intelligent and spirited farmer consulted me on the subject of his determination to erect a small steam engine, at his own expense, for the purpose of draining a part of his own premises. At the show at Derby, 154 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. there was exhibited a movable steam engine, intended to be carried to a farmer's premises as it might be wanted for furnish- ing a threshing power, and other purposes. I have not yet learnt how it succeeds ; but if success is not attained at a first attempt, it is ultimately certain. These machines are made of two, four, and six horse power. The cost of the two horse power is £80, or $ 400, and a three horse power, £110. This does not include the threshing machine. A fixed steam power must have many advantages over a movable steam machine. It is never safe to calculate upon doing a great many things with any single ma- chine. A self-directing machine would be a great discovery : but, short of man himself, we can hardly look for that, though it seems sometimes to be nearly approached. A great difficulty, in many cases, is, that the machinery must be trusted to the hands of the stupid, careless, and sometimes malignant. Such a power as this, on a large farm, may be applied to a great many uses ; and its advantages, in many cases, will be incalculable. The turning of a grindstone for sharpening scythes and axes, on a large farm, would save, in the United States, a great expense of labor and fatigue ; and its application to cut- ting roots, and chopping long fodder for stock, to breaking and crushing corn and oats, and to grinding grain into flour for the family, as well as for cattle, would be highly useful, especially in those parts of the country where water power is difficult to be procured. This is the case in all flat countries, and particularly on the prairies in the Western States. There, in many cases, coal abounds ; and there, if ever it may be expected, where miles almost may be run without occasion to turn the plough, steam may be applied for the purposes of draft. Agriculture owes, also, a considerable debt to steam, for the advantages it aff"ords in the construction of agricultural imple- ments, in respect to cheapness and uniformity. In cutting, saw- ing, and planing wood, in grinding and fashioning metals, steam power is applied to great advantage. In one, if not more, extensive establishment, for the manufacture of agricultural implements in New England, steam power is used, so as greatly to reduce the expensiveness of ploughs, and other articles, which are here made. The same thing is done in England ; and this application of this wonderful power is every day extending itself to a most extraordinary degree. I may well call it wonderful ; ACTUAL, IMPROVEMENTS IN ENGLISH AORICULTURE. 155 for who could have dreamt, on first seeing a tea-kettle boiling over the fire, that there were the simple elements of a power destined to exert a greater influence in the progress of the arts and sciences, and consequently over the whole condition of society, than any other known ; which was to rend rocks, and snap iron asunder, like bands of straw ; which was to ride securely and triumphantly over the mountain weaves of the sea; which was to drain floods and lakes, and lay open their fertile bottoms to the ploughshare ; which should compel the deep places of the earth to disgorge their mineral treasures ; and, disdaining time and space, plant distant countries, for all the practical purposes of commerce and friendship, of reciprocal supply and mutual im- provement, in the immediate neighborhood of each other ? This brings me to another great benefit which agriculture has derived from steam power, which I should do injustice to pass over. I was in Smithfield market a few weeks since, and, in conversation with a very intelligent salesman, — whom, let me say by the way, I shall never remember but with a grateful sense of his kindness, and a high respect for his character,* — he said to me, " We have the contributions of seven hundred miles brought to market to-day, and without the slightest injury to their condition. We have beasts and sheep here from Suther- land, and from the southern counties of England ; " and I be- lieve he might have added, from Ireland and from Belgium. Steam vessels and railroad cars bring them at once to the great places of sale. It was always calculated, by the drovers of cattle from Connecticut River to Brighton market, near Boston, — an * This gentleman, whose business, in the market, is of the most extensive and responsible character, presents an example so full of wholesome instruction, that I hope I shall be pardoned for enlivening my Report by a reference to it. He spends several days in tlie week in the most confused, noisy, and busy place in the world, faithful to the interests of his employers, and retires at niglit, a few miles from the city, to enjoy his cup brimful of domestic pleasures, at his own fireside, in a crowded circle, where mutual love reigns triumphant, where the table is covered witli the literary gems of the press, and the walls of his drawing-rooms are adorned with the splendid products of his own pencil, displaying t:iste and skill. So true it is that men, if tlioy will bo but true to their own intellectual and moral natures, need not be utter slaves to the drudgery of business ; and, if they will only look for them, may find, at the most moderate expense, within their own reach, in the hours of recreation, too often squandered or abused, sources of the richest and most elevated pleasures. 156 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, average distance of about one hundred miles, and which occu- pied a week in its performance, — that a beef animal so driven lost one hundred pounds in weight ; and then he usually came into market foot-sore, sunken, in a state of fever, and looking like the victim of cruelty, and the picture of misery and exhaustion. Where steam power is employed, a journey of excessive fatigue and labor, which formerly occupied seven days, scarcely occupies now as many hours, and the animals are transported without fatigue or labor, or loss of substance.* A farmer at Ware told me that the driving of a fat beast to Smithfield, about twenty-six miles, occupied, formerly, two days. The animal now goes by railroad in two hours, at a cost, I think, of not more than 2 s., and comes into the market fresh and sleek, like a new bonnet from the band-box. But there is another animal benefited besides the quadruped ; and that is the drover himself, who, instead of spending eight or ten days or more upon the road, at a great expense of money, and not a little increased hazard of morals every day lie is away from his fam- ily, finds his business now accomplished, and his money received, and himself returned to his home in three days. These are considerations of immense importance. f * I cannot say that they have not even some pleasure in the transit. This, perhaps, might be very well ascertained by an inquiry of the passengers in the third class cars, who, through the extraordinary disinterestedness of the railroad directors and corporations, are conveyed with the same advantages of the open air, the refreshing showers, and the full enjoyment of the rural scenery, and, in general, in the same affectionate aggregation, and in precisely the same circum- stances of position and comfort, in which tlie cattle are transported. f In a recent debate in Parliament, a member, otherwise of considerable clever- ness, in referring to the practice of the railroads in rendering the transits of second and third class trains less frequent, and much slower tlian first class trains, was pleased to say that " it was well enough ; for the time of the poorer classes was not of much consequence, and they might as well pass it in the cars as any where else." It would be difficult to say what, to any one but himself, is the va?ae of the time of a man who could make so heartless an assertion. The poor man's time and labor are his only capital. Enable him to do as much again in half the time employed, and you quadruple his power of serving the community, and supporting himself and family. As for tlie rich man, who made this declaration, I wish him nothing worse than to travel in a third class car attached to a .slow night freight train, so that, in one of the long tunnels between Liverpool and London, his pleas- ant imaginations might be rectified by sober facts, and himself have time for reflection and repentance. ACTUAL IMPROVEMENTS IN ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. 157 It will not do, then, to say that steam has done nothing for agriculture : perhaps no department of industry has been more essentially benefited. In its equalizing the value of landed estate throughout the country, it has conferred immense benefits. A farm, accessible to the great markets by steam conveyance, though two hundred miles from London, is now of equal value as if it were within twenty miles. The farmer near London may complain of this ; but it is proper for the community to remember how many more farms are at a distance from, than how many are near to, London ; and how little the interest of a few individuals is to be brought into consideration, compared with the interest of a large community, who are to have the advantages of the ex- tended competition. Singular as the result is, however, and contradictory as it may seem to all theories on the subject, it does not appear, in fact, that any parties are injured by the facili- ties given to the most distant to reach the market. In respect to all the great interests of society, which are in their nature fluctu- ating, or at all dependent on external circumstances, so many and such various elements are intermingled and combined, and so many new conditions present themselves, that the calcula- tions of political economists are constantly at fault ; and the results are deeply humbling to the pride of human sagacity. Into what a snarl of misery and confusion would every thing in this world be thrown, if man's providence were substituted for the divine providence ! and so it constantly proves that, just in pro- portion as men attempt to interfere with the divine arrange- ments, to control the great natural laws of Heaven, and to create a perfectly artificial mechanism for the government of society, they find their plans defeated ; and the certain result is any thing but unmixed or even general improvement. I remember, a few years since, it was confidently said, that, when the great Erie Canal of New York should be finished, by which the agricul- tural treasures of the Great West should find an easy transmis- sion to the Atlantic, farms in the neighborhood of New York city would become comparatively worthless. Yet, strange to say, they have much increased in value, and are now certain to hold their own. The vast increase of population throughout the country ; the great increase of population in the city of New York, occa- sioned, to a considerable degree, by the amount of business which this very canal has produced ; the multiplication of trades 14 158 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. of every variety, and the influx of wealth to \vhich it has con- tributed ; with wealth, the increase of luxury, and the demand for fruits and vegetables, — articles in their nature perishable, and demanding a rapid and certain conveyance, — with various other circumstances, have conspired to keep up the value of farms, and, indeed, to increase their value in the neighborhood of New York, and in every point from which, by these improved facili- ties of conveyance, this great mart has been rendered the more accessible. The poorest markets — those which are most poorly supplied — are in general those where the prices are lowest. Competition and abundance create, and, to a certain degree, quicken demand ; for the reason that they bring more customers, and create more wants. Peaches are now sent by steam conveyances from New Jersey to Boston, a distance of nearly three hundred miles ; and strawberries from Providence, nearly two hundred miles, to New York. What has been the effect ? To lessen price in a very small degree in any case, but in many cases not at all ; to increase the consumption greatly ; and to induce the farmers, directly in the neighborhood of Boston, to go themselves into the cultivation of peaches, to take immense pains to guard against the evils of an uncongenial climate, and to cultivate, as far as possible, fruits of the best quality. Some trades may be overdone ; they may be concerned only with articles not of necessity, but of mere fancy, and subject to the caprices of Avhim and fashion ; but in all those for which the demand is necessarily permanent, and in a state of general prosperity in a country, the increased demand, growing out of an increased consumption, will be always likely to aff'ord a remunerating price. But in any event, whatever tends to the improvement of the general condition of the com- munity is to be encouraged. It may often be attended with partial loss or temporary inconvenience ; yet, in all cases, imless conscience or morals are involved, individual benefit or advan- tage should yield to the public good. The farmer near a large town thinks himself injured by a railroad or canal which brings the farm of another man, a hundred miles distant, in competition with his own. Every one sees that the great public is to be benefited by the increased supply which is thus produced. Now, is there any good reason why the distant farmer should not come to the market by any facility which he may create or obtain, as ACTUAL IMPROVEMKNTS IN KNGLISH AGRICULTURE. 159 well as his neighbor, provided he does not hinder that neighbor from coming in the best way he can obtain, any more than there is why the distant farmer shonld be compelled to come on foot, and bring his load upon his back, instead of availing him- self of his horse or his carriage ? 5. Increased Production. — But in speaking of the ad- vanced and improved state of English agricnlture, there are, perhaps, stronger evidences of its jn'ogress than any to v/hich I have referred, in the increased jorodnctiveness of the iVuits of the earth, and in the increased popnlation which are sus- tained by them. In the ten years from 1801 to 1810, the average annual import of wheat into the kingdom was such as to allow, if divided among 17,442,911 souls, — the population of the kingdom at that time, — a small fraction over a peck for the annual consumption of each person. The average amount imported between 1811 and 1820, when the mean number of the population had advanced to 19,870,589, would have allowed each person not quite one gallon and a half for the yearly consumption. The average amount of importation for the five years from 1831 to 1835, when the mean number of consumers was over 25,000,000, if fairly divided, would have given to each person one gallon of wheat. Taking the three years 1833, 1834, 1835, the im- portation would have allowed only one pint and one fifth, or about fifteen ounces, of fine flour to each consumer.* This is certainly a very small amount, and demonstrates the immense agricultural resources of the country. It shows as strongly the improvements in cultivation, by which, under a fast- increasing population, the dependence on a foreign supply for bread is continually growing less. This can only arise from two causes, the bringing more land into cultivation, and a more im- proved cultivation. Both causes have probably operated to a degree, and of the latter the evidences are every where numer- ous and striking. I was asking a farmer in Berkshire county, England, — vener- able as an octogenarian, — whether he had seen any great im- * See an admirable work, full of information — Porter's Progress of the Nation, Vol. I. p. 147. 160 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. provements in agricultm-e ; to which, in spite of the prejudices which too often obscure or pervert the vision at so advanced a period of life, he replied, with perfect candor, "Immense im- provements ; ive knew nothing ; every thing is now better done ; the crops are far more various and more abundant ; the product of wheat has almost doubled ; the turnip cultivation has been created ; the implements are far better ; the live stock is beyond all comparison better ; every thing, every thing is better." The good old man had lived, like Simeon, in, indeed, a far hum- bler sense, to see the marked and strong tokens of the divine goodness in the progressive improvement of every thing around him ; and he proclaimed it with the glowing enthusiasm of youth, and showed the fire still burning under the snow. Happy old age, when, instead of a mind soured under the accu- mulated burdens and infirmities of advanced years, and covered with mossy prejudices, it benevolently acknowledges good wher- ever good is found ; progress wherever progress is made ; and, instead of growling at the degeneracy of the present times, and sighing over the fading reminiscences of what it deems the superiority of years which are passed, delights in the actual improvements of the present, and sees in them the foreshadow- ing of far greater improvements in the distant prospect, when the advances now made, great as they may actually be, and still greater as they seem in comparison with those of days gone by. will be found to be only the first lessons of childhood ! There is a good deal of this spirit or temper here, called by the gentle name, in England, of conservaiism ; but this man's mind was happily free from it. I have all reasonable respect for antiquity ; but, if the presumption may be pardoned, I beg leave to say, with Lord Bacon, I reckon that to be antiquity which is farthest from the beginning. The present times are, therefore, more ancient than those which have preceded them, and are to be reverenced as imbodying the accumulated wisdom and ex- perience of past ages. This spirit of improvement, now so rife and active, is the foundation of all intelligent hopes of further progress ; and I am happy in saying that in nothing is it more obvious than in agriculture, 6. Royal Agricultural Society. — In this progress the Royal Agricultural Society of England contributes its full share. ACTUAL IMPROVEMENTS IN ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. 161 This was established about 1837, and embraces a large array of the highest rank and talent in the kingdom, and a vast body of farmers, landlords, and others interested in agriculture. Its funds are large, arising from donations and an annual subscription of a guinea from each of its members ; but it has received no endowment from the government. Its objects comprehend every branch of husbandry and rm'al economy. It has a central office, or building, in Hanover Square, London, where the secretary of the society resides, and where the council of the society and other members hold weekly and monthly meetings, for the man- agement of the business of the society, and the discussion of agricultural subjects, and the reception of agricultural infor- mation. This conduces very much to the interest felt in the projects and operations of the society, and is the means of diffusing a great amount of valuable information. It has begun here the establishment of an agricultural library and museum, which presently must assume a considerable im- portance, and become curious and useful. The object of the library is to collect the most useful and valuable publications on subjects connected with agriculture, in all its various and kindred branches, including likewise geology, botany, agricultural chem- istry, engineering, and manufacturing, as far as they are con- nected with the making of agricultural implements, and the great agricultural operations of draining, embanking, irrigation, and other important farming processes. The object of its museum is to exhibit specimens of- agricultural productions, which are capable of preservation, seeds, plants, grasses, samples of wool, mineral manures, models and drawings of agricultural implements, and whatever, in any way, may conduce to the advancement of the science or practice of agriculture. It is obvious how very im- portant such an establishment must prove, by giving piTictical men an opportunity of inspecting, at their leisure, the most improved subjects of cultivation, the best grains, and the best grasses and vegetables, and, at the same time, the best tools and machines, with which to cultivate them. I have often urged the establishment of agricultural museums upon my countrymen, especially in the capitals of the states and of the United States, where the members of the different legislatures assemble. Com- ing, as they do, from different and distant parts of the country, they will be enabled to carry home information of the utmost 14* 162 EUROPEAN AGRICIJLTUKE. importance to the fanners, besides having their own knowledge advanced, and their own zeal quickened in this great cause. The commissioner of patents in Washington, distinguished by his indefatigable exertions for the advancement of agriculture, has already laid the foundation of such a collection, at the metropo- lis of the country, and in connection with his own department, where models of all patented agricultural machinery are always to be seen. It is to be hoped that the friends of an improved agriculture in the country will encourage and assist him in ex- tending his collection of valuable grains and seeds. There are few ways so little expensive, in which they may render so much service to the country. It would be desirable that the govern- ment should enjoin it upon the commanders of all their ships of war, visiting different parts of the globe, that they should collect and bring home such seeds and plants, and such models of im- plements, as would be likely to be of use. That universal vege- table, the potato, furnishing so much food to man and beast, and scarcely second to any in value, considering the multitudes whom it supplies, and the quantity of food it affords, is said to be an importation from South America, The cotton plant, a source of enormous wealth to the country, is likewise esteemed a foreign plant. Besides this, the Royal Agricultural Society issues a semi- yearly publication of valuable communications and papers, both on the science and practice of agriculture, which fall in its way, or are made to the society in reply to queries proposed for discus- sion and for information, upon which it offers premiums of a pecuniary or an honorary nature. The society, likewise, at some place in the country, easily accessible, hold an annual show or exhibition of animals, implements, and agricultural products, upon the best of which it awards premiums. This occupies, generally, four days. Tues- day is exclusively assigned to the several committees for the inspection of subjects of premium, in the way of implements and agricultural machinery, when no persons whatever, except- ing the committees and persons necessarily attendant vipon them, are admitted to the yard, so that they have a favorable opportu- nity of quiet inspection, uninterrupted by any interested or curi- ous parties ; Wednesday is devoted, in the same way, to the examination of the anini;il.s, and afterwards the yards are open ACTUAL IMPUOVEMENTS IN ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. 163 to the public upon payment of a reasonable entrance fee ; and on Fridays a public sale, at auction, is held of such animals, or imple- ments, as their owners are willing to dispose of in this way. The collection of people, on such occasions, from all parts of the coun- try, and, I may properly add, from all parts of the world, is im- mense. Two large public dinners are given on the occasion ; the one called the council dinner, on Wednesday, and the other, called the society^s dinner, on Thursday, when provision is made for fifteen hundred guests, in a pavilion erected for the purpose. These dinners are, in general, seasons of great hilarity, and pro- motive of sympathy in the great cause of agricultural improve- ment. If no other good comes of them to agriculture, they serve at least the purpose of consumption, and so quicken price and demand. On these occasions, the prizes are announced to the successful candidates ; and these premiums are given either in medals, plate, or money, and are received with no small degree of public and self-congratulation. The arrangements, in general, are made with great care. The animals are assorted in distinct classes, with separate committees for the examination of each class ; and the implements are placed according to their difierent designs and uses. It would be im- possible to convey an accurate or adequate impression of the number and variety of the animals affered, in such cases, for exhi- bition and premium. I have already given a list and the number of agricultural implements exhibited the last year at the Derby show ; but that conveys no idea of the ingenuity and skill evinced in their construction. One is led to conclude, from the inspection, that there is no operation or function, connected Avith human life and labor, for which mechanical labor does not attempt, and may not presently succeed in furnishing an instrument or machine. In many cases, a machine is any thing but a facility ; and not a few of the machines, both in their contrivance and the expensive and showy manner in which they are got up, evince pretty strongly the gauge which the contrivers and makers have taken of the understandings and pockets of the probable pur- chasers. They are seldom at a loss to put the pail under a full cow. In many respects, the arrangements are admirable, and well 164 EUROPEAN AGRICULTUKE. worthy of imitation.* Every possible efTort is made to secure an impartial decision among the competitors ; for besides that they are not suffered by their presence to influence the examiners, the examiners themselves are selected from among persons who are as far as possible disinterested, and not likely to be influenced. They are chosen, likewise, with a special reference, in their charac- ters and qualifications, to the nature of the subjects submitted ; * The terms on which the premiums for seed wheat are to be awarded are well Avorth tlie observation of other agricultural societies, and I therefore subjoin them. "SEED WHEAT. " I. Thirty Sovereigns, or a Piece of Plate of that value, will be given to tlie Exhibiter at the Meeting at Derby of the best 14 bushels of White Wheat, of the harvest of 1842, and grown by himself. " II. Thirty Sovereigns, or a Piece of Plate of tliat value, will be given to tlie Exhibiter at the Meeting at Derby of tlie best 14 bushels of Red Wheat, of the harvest of 1842, and grown by himself. " III. Twenty Sovereigns, or a Piece of Plate of that value, will be given to the Exhibiter at the Meeting at Derby of the best 14 bushels of Spring Wheat, of the harvest of 1842, and grown by himself. " Competitors are requested to send with their Wheat, specimens, fairly taken, of the same in the car, with the whole of the Straw, in a bundle not less than one foot in diameter, and with the roots attached. " [12 bushels of tlie Wheat will be sealed up by the Stewards, and one of the remainincr bushels of each variety will be exhibited as a sample to the public > the other being kept for comparison with the produce of tlie next year. At the General Meeting, in December, 1844, the Prizes will be awarded.] " The two best samples of each of these three classes of Wheat, without at that time distinguishing, in any of t'he cases, between the comparative merits of either sample, will be selected by the Judges, appointed for the meeting at Derby ; and will be sown, under the direction of the Society, (the Winter Wheals in the autumn of 1843, and the Spring Wheat not earlier than the 1st of March, 1844,) by four farmers, who will make their report, upon which the prizes will be awarded, provided there be sufficient merit in any of the samples. Ten Sovereigns will be given at the Meeting at Derby to each Exhibiter whose wheat has been selected for trial. " *»* ■^''> variety of wheat icliich has been selected for trial at any previous show shall he qualified to compete." The following arc the instructions to the Judges on other subjects: — " As the object of the Society in giving the prizes for neat cattle, sheep, and pio-s, is to promote improvement in breeding stock, tlie Judges, in making their award, are instructed not to take into their consideration the present value to the butcher of animals exhibited, but to decide according to their relative merits for the purpose of breeding." "In the Class for horses, the Judge.s, in awarding the prizes, are instructed, in addition to symmetry, to take activity nnd strength into their consideration." ACTUAL l>Il'ROVE.M.-;.Vr:- ! ,' KN'.JMSH AfiRICULTUEE. 165 and every pains is taken iii this way to secure the greatest apt- ness and talents. The name of the competitor is not given where It can be avoided, but only the number of tlie article presented. The rules of admission and competition are stringent and abso- lute, and no exceptions are, on any account, allowed. When, last year, a competitor attempted to introduce a machine out of sea- son, or in some way contrary to the published rules, and wrote to one of the agents of the society, that, if a silver key should be found necessary to its introduction, he begged him to use it, — this attempt at bribery was rejected with proper indignation by the society, and the individual concerned, though eminent as a machinist and a manufacturer, and offering every apology for his " indiscretion," was forever irrevocably excluded as a com- petitor for any of the premiums of the society. The society likewise offers premiums for essays, which are deemed deserving of such reward, upon any given subjects, and for reports on the agricultural condition and habits of different counties and districts. This has been the means of bringing out many valuable papers. Here, too, the decision is sought to be rendered as fair as possible ; for the name of the writer is not given with the essay, but under a separate and sealed envelope, which is not opened until the successful essay is announced ; and then the seal is broken, and the writer's name declared, in the presence of the society. The society likewise has a consulting chemist, a consulting engineer, a botanist, and a professor of the veterinary art, of whose services, in any desirable case, it avails itself. Some time since, it numbered on its lists more than 6500 members ; and has been, since that time, steadily on the increase. It is impossible to overrate the advantages which such a society brings with it to the agricultural community ; for, though it enrols among its mem- bers many gentlemen, who are mere amateurs in the profession, and take little interest, and have little knowledge of its practical details, yet, on the other hand, it combines, among the highest men in the kingdom, a very large amount of practical talent and skill — men of the most accurate observation, who carefully enter into the whole subject. There is another great and good influence, which it powerfully exerts, and which must not be overlooked. It gives a high respectability to the agricultural profession, and presents it as a pursuit, not. as has been too often said, for mere 166 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. dolts aiid clod-hoppers, but for minds of the highest order, and for men of all conditions, from the prince to the peasant ; for " the king himself is served by the field." The prizes are contended for with an ardor little short of that which displays itself in the contests of political life, and received with a high sense of their value. I have seen, at the tables of some of the highest noble- men in the land, the premiums of agricultural success, exhibited in some form of plate, with more triumph than they would dis- play in the brilliant badges of their rank. 7. Agricultural Society of Scotland. — The Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland is an institution of a similar description, and of a longer standing, than the Royal Society of England. It is richly endowed, and as powerfully patronized, and has long rendered itself illustrious by its Journal, published quarterly, in Edinburgh. This Journal, for the ability with which it is managed, and which has been displayed also in the prize essays of the Highland Society, which are always published in connection with the Journal, has certainly no superior. The Scotch have been long distinguished for their acuteness and excellent management ; and the evidences of the justness of their pretensions in these respects, were too obvious and numerous, on my transient visit to the southern portions of Scotland, to leave any doubt of their just claims to the highest reputation. The exhibition of the society at Dundee, the last autumn, was, in the character and condition of its animals, in no respect, in my judgment, inferior to that at Derby, though the Scotch cattle present different varieties from those which are fashionable and most esteemed in England. The short horns and the Leicesters of England would be, as a stock, very poorly adapted to the bleak hills and cold climate of Scotland ; while the hardiness and thrift of the Scotch cattle and sheep show how well suited they are to the homes where they are bred, and whence they are sent, in immense droves, in certain seasons of the year, to the southern portions of the country. The general management of the Scotcli Agricultural Society docs not essentially differ from that of the English Royal Agricultural Society. The general exhibition at Dundee passed oil raucli in the same style as at Derby, except- ing that I thought the Scotch drank their toasts with a little more heartiness than the English — a characteristic of the country- RELATION OF LANDLORD AND TENANT. 167 men of Burns. This is not the place for me to describe the differ- ent breeds of stock shown at either place, or the various imple- ments exhibited. This I propose to do in another part of my Reports, with all the particularity which my friends can desire. The stock shown at Dundee would bear a comparison with the best stock shown any where ; and the fact is too well known to need any confirmation of mine, that in point of intelligence and agri- cultural skill, and in point of success, — the best test of intelli- gence and skill, — the Scotch farmers yield the palm to none. XX. — RELATION OF LANDLORD AND TENANT. The holdings of many of the Scotch farmers are very large ; and their farms are generally held under leases of nineteen and twenty-one yeai's. One would be led to infer that the terms on which the landlords live with their tenants, in Scotland, must be honorable and just to both parties, since renewals are common : the same estates have been, in many instances, in the same fam- ilies for a century, and the expenses incurred, in some cases, by tenants, in the erection of permanent buildings and other fixtures, are very heavy ; showing the confidence of the tenant in his landlord. One farm was pointed out to me where the tenant had recently died, leaving only one child, an infant son. In this case, that the lease might be retained in the family, three of the neigh- boring farmers had agreed to take the whole management of the estate until the young man came of age. In such cases, there is very little diflference between a lease and a freehold in fee-simple. 1 carmot say, however, that the tenant is. raised above all depend- ence on his landlord, or that removals do not sometimes take place under circumstances of great hardship. In one case, which came under my knowledge, a farm had been withdrawn, or. rather, the renewal of the lease refused, though it had been in the occupation of the same family for many years, on the ground of political opposition and prejudice, the avowed opinions and votes of the tenant not coinciding with those of the landlord. It is easy to believe tliat this may often happen, though any 168 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. direct influence of t'his kind would be likely to meet the repro- bation of the public. In one case, in England, to my inquiries whether the tenant was not expected to vote with the landlord, the farmer replied that his own politics were opposed to the poli- tics of his landlord ; and that, when taking his lease, to his great regret, he had pledged himself to remain neutral, and withhold his vote — a course by which many overwise and prudent people think that they escape the responsibility of the duty, whereas, in truth, by so doing they virtually give a vote to their opponents. In another case, the reply of two very intelligent and substantial farmers was, that they were at liberty to vote as they pleased : but it was almost the only way in which they could show their respect to, and evince their sense of the kindness of, their land- lord, and they felt it therefore a duty of gratitude to vote with him. We are not beyond this influence even in our democratic communities. The voting by ballot may seem to give a perfect security ; but this is invaded or destroyed when the candidates of a party are publicly prescribed, and the votes given are in a printed form ; so difficult is it, under any circumstances, to main- tain a perfect freedom and independence, and in practical life to realize our ideal theories. But politics are not my province ; nor should I have thus far ventured upon them, but as connected with the important relation of tenant and landlord, in which I know my countrymen feel the strong interest of curiosity. I shall, perhaps, excite some surprise in stating my belief that the manner in which farms are held here, on hire for a year, or on lease for a term of years, rather than being owned by the occu- pants, is itself a powerful instrument or incentive to agricultural improvement. In the United States, where farms are owned by the occupant, the farmer seldom keeps any account, and it matters not much to him what is the result of the year's management. The effect of this is to render a man negligent and indifferent to success or loss. But when, at the end of every six months, the rent must be paid, it is not a matter of indifference whether his farming turns out Avell or ill ; for not only the labor employed is to be paid for, but the rent of the farm must be punctually dis- charged. This consequently compels him to make every exertion by which he may be assisted to meet his obligations. He finds no room for idleness or neglect ; and the continuance of his pos- session depends upon his good management and the punctual RELATION OF LANDLORD AND TENANT. 169 payment of the rent. This prompts to watchfulness, skill, ex- periment, and improvement ; and especially it gives to farming a commercial or mercantile character, and obliges the farmer to keep accounts, and so to learn the exact pecuniary result of his operations — a matter in which the farmers of the United States, as far as my observation goes, who are the owners of the farms which they occupy, are almost universally deficient. The strict responsibility to which the farmers are here held by their land- lords, is undoubtedly a material element in their success. At the same time, where the occupation is from year to year, and leases are refused on the part of the landlords, as is generally the case in England, — though in Scotland leases are almost universal, — the effect must be to prevent or discourage substantial improvements, as few persons will be inclined to make such improvements with an uncertainty of continuance. It is a fact, however, Avhich may create some surprise, that many farmers are unwilling to take leases when landlords would be willing to grant them. But this happens only when there is a perfect confidence on both sides ; the tenant has entire reliance upon the honor and liberality of the landlord, and the landlord is equally confident of the good con- duct and management of his tenant. An excellent landlord, in Lincolnshire, says he considers himself bound to continue his old tenants and their children in possession, in preference to any other tenant, as long as they choose to remain, unless some extraordinary contingency presents itself; and virtually admits on their part a property in the soil. The great length of time during which families, on his estates, have held their possessions from father to son, shows that he acts upon the most liberal prin- ciples ; and the condition of his tenants, and their great improve- ments, evince that his honorable conduct secures their entire confidence. It cannot be doubted, however, that the uncertainty of continuance, the absolute power of discharge on the part of the landlord, the risk of his caprice, and the possibility of a new one coming in possession, " who might not remember Joseph, but forget him," must have some effect in preventing or discouraging improvements. A farm which is well managed cannot change tenants without great inconvenience and evil on both sides. On several very large estates, which I have visited, the occupancy had been in the same families for a large portion of a century, and there seemed not the 15 170 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. slightest apprehension of any change on either side. A good tenant is evidently almost as important to his landlord as his con- tinuance on the estate can be to himself ; and where, under such circumstances, substantial and permanent improvements are to be made, the landlord himself bears a portion of the expense. In draining, for example, the landlord furnishes the tiles, and the farmer makes the drains and lays them. A skilful and intelligent farmer, worth having as a tenant, would hardly be found willing to take a farm for a year, without an expectation of a much longer continuance, and certainly would not, under such an oc- cupation, attempt any improvements but at the risk or expense of the landlord. In Scotland, where leases are, in general, for nineteen or twenty-one years, if the farmer has seven years of unexpended lease, he is expected to pay a third of the expense of any permanent fixtures or improvements; if fourteen years, he is expected to pay two thirds, and the landlord one ; if the whole term, the whole expenses are deemed properly chargeable to him. I confess, under the best circumstances, I should greatly prefer being an owner or freeholder, to being a tenant. There is an excessive caution which characterizes some shrewd calculators, who consider the value of a property diminished, where the lease is limited even to nine hundred and ninety-nine years ; but, with- out any sympathy with such persons, there is, at least, a gratifica- tion to a man's self-esteem, to feel that he is " the monarch of what he surveys," and that whatever improvements he makes upon his estate will enure to the lasting benefit of himself or his heirs. In a pecuniary view, however, it is really matter of in- difference whether the occupant pays a reasonable rent for the land as tenant, or, as the owner of it, loses the interest of the cap- ital invested in the purchase of the soil. There are few cases, as 1 have before observed, where the rents paid equal the legal interest of the money which the lands would command, if offered for sale. Certainly, as far as my observation goes, — and I have seen some- what both of landlords and tenants, — there prevails a disposition, and there are the strongest inducements, to cultivate a mutually- good understanding between the parties. There is, in general, no more reason to fear that landlords will be oppressive and unjust, than that tenants will bo wasteful, negligent, and fraudu- lent. Power is always a hazardous possession, and always lia- ble to abuse, and cannot, therefore, be too much guarded and RELATION OF LANDLORD AND TENANT. 171 limited in every condition of life. The abuses of power are not, liowever, peculiar to persons occupying a high condition in society, but are as often found among the lowest, who seem to iiave nothing else but the ability to injure and exert it most cruelly when they are most loudly claiming compassion for themselves, as the victims of injustice. I believe there is a great deal more abuse of power on the part of farmers towards their laborers, than on the part of landlords towards their tenants. The farmers can protect themselves ; the laborers, in general, are without power. Indeed, the more cultivated and improved is the education of a man, and the higher the condition which he occupies in society, the stronger are the inducements to a just and honorable conduct, not only in his enlarged mind, but in the increased value of character to such a man. In Ireland, the middle-man, who comes between the landlord and the poor ten- ants, who there are themselves laborers, and especially those middle-men who are themselves subletters of the soil, are always feared for their severity and oppression. How far a man's politi- cal independence is affected by his relation to his landlord, is another consideration. A man living under such a constitution of government as that of England, unless he is himself an office- seeker, or dependent upon the emoluments of public office, will not deem this of so much importance as many might consider it ; and if he makes up his judgment from the representation which the minority in a republican or elective government always give of the character and measures of the majority, he may be led to conclude that his chance of being protected in his rights, and secured in his person and property, is as good under an hereditary government, or one chosen for him by others, as under one in the choice of which he himself, with others, is permitted to give his suffrage. I would not be thought to undervalue political liberty : and, in my opinion, human wisdom has never devised a constitu- tion of government so just and so favorable to the happiness of its subjects as that of my own country. But I have been too often in the minority not to have learned that a majority com- posed of thousands may be as despotic as a single tyrant ; and I am not unaware that the position occupied by the governments of all civilized countries, is, at the present day, very different from what it was a century ago. As the reformation, under Luther, gave a blow to the doctrine of the infallibility of the 172 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. church, from which it can never recover, so the successful asser- tion of the right of revohition against oppression, in 1776, read a lesson to all arbitrary governments, which is not likely soon to be forgotten. Under any form of government, the great security for the subject is, that they who govern shall be equally affected by their own measures as they who are governed ; and in countries so free and enlightened as Great Britain and the United States, whoever may rule, no measures of extreme injustice or wrong are likely to be long endured. There is a force in public opinion which can scarcely be resisted, and which is more power- ful than any mere legal enactments. What is mainly to be desired is, that education should be so general in its extension, and so elevated and just in its character, that public opinion may be wisely formed, and be not only a commanding, but a safe and worthy guide. The form or conditions of lease, in England, somewhat difier in different places ; but the main terms are every where the same. Leases, generally, are drawn up in an exact form, and become sealed and legal instruments. The farm is entered upon in the spring, and the rent is made payable semi-annually. The mode of cultivation is generally prescribed by the landlord, from which the tenant is not at liberty to depart. Two white crops are seldom permitted to succeed each other without intervention upon the same land. The green produce is required to be fed upon the place ; and if hay or straw is sold, an equivalent quantity of ma- nure is required to be brought on. All substantial improvements are the subject of special agreement ; and the tenant is never allowed to cut down any tree or timber upon the place, or other- wise to commit any waste. Where a farm is to be quit, or entered upon by a new tenant, the going-out tenant is at liberty to come in to gather the crops which he himself has sown. There is a class of men, in England, of which we know nothing in the United States ; these are called land surveyors or valuers. These are generally persons of experience and judgment, who examhie the condition of the place, and estimate what would be a fair rent to be paid ; and by their opinion the parties are usually governed. Such a person is often employed to estimate the value of growing crops, where an allowance is to be made by the in- coming to the out-going tenant. This professional man, if well qualified for his office, may be highly useful ; and such a course GAfllE AND THE GAMK LAWS. 173 is likely to render the transaction more just than where it partakes more of an accidental or arbitrary character, where one party may be led by his caprice to demand too much, or be betrayed by his ignorance to obtain too little ; or the other party may be driven by his necessities, or led by a mistaken judgment of the capacities of the farm, to take it upon very hard terms. The taxes and tithes are usually paid by the tenant ; but their amount is always con- sidered in determining the rent, so that, properly speaking, they are paid by the landlord, and not by the tenant. The leasing of farms, in the- United States, is quite rare, and but in few cases is it ai-ranged by any established rule. In New England, in such cases, matters are conducted most loosely. Farms are frequently '■taken to the halves," which is understood to imply that the farmer returns half of all the produce grown to the owner ; but the landlord is almost entirely in the power of the farmer ; and, after the farmer has, as is but too common, applied to his own use about half the produce, he divides with the owner the half which remains. If the owner furnishes implements, the farmer returns them as good as he received them ; and, if he furnishes stock, as on a breeding or a dairy farm, the tenant pays the legal interest upon the cost, makes good the stock received when he quits the farm, which is generally settled by valuers or appraisers, and divides with his landlord one half the increase. Our prac- tices, in this matter, are various and unsettled ; and, as long as the hiring of farms continues with us to be so infrequent, — and it is likely to continue so while land remains as easy to be pur- chased as it now is, — no exact method will be introduced. XXI. — GAME AND THE GAME LAWS. The farmers in the United States are happily free from one evil which presses heavily upon the English farmers ; and that is, the nuisance of what is here called game, and the curse of the game laivs. Pheasants, partridges, grouse, hares, and rabbits, are here called game, and are protected, by the most severe law^s, for the benefit of sportsmen who either own or lease the territory on 15* 174 EUROPEAN AGIUCULTUnE. which they find them, and pay a tax to the government for the privilege of shooting or coursing. The hares and rabbits are ex- tremely destructive to the farmers' crops, and the complaints of them are universal. It is considered that five hares, or seven rabbits, consume as much as one sheep, besides a considerable amount of incidental damage ; and it is stated that there were sold, from one farm, in one year, for the benefit of the landlord, no less than two thousand hares and rabbits, which was a tax upon the farmer equal to the support of three hundred sheep. They do great damage to nuich of the produce which they do not consume, in biting the turnips and in trampling down the grain. A farmer is liable to imprisonment or transportation if he destroys them, even when committing havoc upon his crops. An allowance is imdoubtedly made, in some cases, though not in all, for these depredations and injuries. It is obvious, however, that, in most cases, an equivalent can hardly be made, not for the loss merely, but the immeasurable vexation, which they occasion. I entirely accord in the unanimous opinion of the farmers, whom I have met with, that, with the exception of feathered game, the game laws inflict a most serious injury upon the agricultural interest. Of their moral tendency this is not the place for me to speak; but the innumerable convictions for poaching — that is, entrapping or stealing game — with which the judicial calendars are filled, — and some trials for which charges I have attended, — and the several murders of gamekeepers which have occurred even within the last year, present a subject of serious consideration for those who know that one great preventive of crime is to remove the facilities and inducements to it, and that whoever, voluntarily, and without necessity, presents a temptation to crime, necessarily shares in its responsibility. It is a subject which never can be too strongly urged upon just and reflecting minds, how much the manners and pleasures of the upper, the educated, and the influ- ential classes, affect the morals of those beneath them. They inflict, oftentimes, an infinitely deeper injury than any injury to property can be. In the United States, though there are laws to protect from extinction races of birds and of fish, there are none which confer any exclusive privileges for the capture or destruc- tion of that which Heaven has made as free as water and air, though any man would be liable to a penalty if he injured his neighbor in pursuing it. THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETV" OF IRELAND. 175 XXII. — THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF IRELAND. The Royal Irish Agriciihural Society, for the general improve- ment of agriculture in Ireland, is of more recent origin than tlie English Royal Agricultural Society, and is established upon the same general plaiL It already embraces a large array of num- bers, combining men of the highest rank and wealth with others in more humble condition. It is intended to hold its annual shows in different parts of the country ; and it bestows large sums in premiums, — thirty sovereigns, or one hundred and fifty dollars, being the prize, for example, in the class of bulls, and other prizes of proportionate value for other objects. It has adopted one very wise provision : in the high prizes for the best live stock, it opens the competition to the whole kingdom, with- out restriction, so that specimens are brought from England and Scotland, of cattle, sheep, and swine ; and thus the Irish are enabled to see, and compare with them, what has been done by others, and in what respects they exceed or fall short of them. This presents the most powerful stimulus to excel ; whereas, if the competition were confined wholly to themselves, not know- ing what has been done by others, they might be satisfied with inferior attainments. At the agricultural show at Dublin, which I had the pleasure to attend, a- good many animals were exhibited from Scotland and England, which were of a superior character, and which gave the Irish farmers a favorable opportunity, not only of seeing the favorite kinds in the sister kingdoms, but the degree of perfection, to Avhich, by careful breeding and keeping, they had been carried. When I have recommended, as I have repeatedly done, the adoption of the same liberal practice among the county societies of Massachusetts, and with other societies in New York, I have always been met with tlie argument, that this would be sending the money paid in premiums out of the county, or out of the state, which is an objection unworthy of consideration; for of what consequence is the money, if we can get tlie improvement .•' The object of a society, in all its measures and premiums, should be the improvement of agriculture and husbandry. The distri- 176 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. bution of money is only an instrument to effect this end. B}^ what means that object is most sm-ely to be attained, is the only matter worth inquiry. Nothing is so likely to serve this end as seeing and ascertaining the degree of improvement to which the art has any where, at any time, or by any persons, been ad- vanced ; and how far, and how effectually, in our condition, we may adopt the same means of progress. There is, in my opin- ion, nothing less worthy of a liberal mind, nor less friendly to advancement in any thing valuable and useful, than a miserable self-conceit, which passes often under the name of patriotism, but which is a spurious metal, and a mere counterfeit of that noble virtue. To value a thing because it is American, or because it is English, or because it is Irish, without regard to its substantial qualities, is worthy only of a child ; and a mind bent upon im- provement, and capable of any great progress, rises above such mean prejudices ; values things according to their intrinsic merit ; acknowledges excellence wherever excellence exists, and seeks that which is good, wherever good is to be found. We should dismiss all pride in our own improvements when others have gone beyond us. The advances which others have made, b(^ they who they may, should only be with us an incentive to new exertions ; and so far from indulging the slightest regret that they have surpassed us, if we discover that to be the fact, let us rejoice in what has been accomplished, and regard all improve- ments, of every description, as so much gained for science or for art, for general comfort or advancement, and as the common property of human nature and the world. This is the truest and noblest patriotism, which heartily exults in every good conferred upon its own community, or its own country, and, in the spirit of an enlarged philanthropy, seeks for its universal extension. To a good mind, the good is not diminished by being the more widely diffused. No benevolent and just man can look upon poor, suffering Ire- land, a land full of brilliant minds and generous hearts, and whose eventful history is resplendent with a galaxy of the most noble sacrifices and services of patriotism and philanthropy, Avithout rejoicing in any good which comes to her, or offers itself in prospect. Her Agricultural Society promises to prove of the higliest benefit to a country, the soil of which is capable of a most productive cultivation, where labor presents itself in unlim- THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF IRELAND. 177 ited abundance, and where crowds, almost without number, of the wretched, the half-clothed, and the hungry, demand, in tones which would touch any heart not made of stone, an opportunity of satisfying their own wants by their own labor, and of obtain- ing from the willing earth that which a beneficent Providence has formed it to yield for the subsistence and comfort of his creatures. The exhibition at Dublin was, in various respects, creditable to the society. The collection of grasses and grains, dried speci- mens of which were exhibited by several nursery-men, were extremely beautiful, and highly instructive to the farmers. They were presented in a form which enabled them to compare Avith each other, and in some measure to determine, their relative qualities. Numerous specimens of flax, and of linen, and lawn which has been long a distinguished product of Ireland, likewise attracted deserved admiration. Specimens of soils, and mineral and artificial manures, and exemplifications of different modes of draining, and models of cottages and farm buildings, were also exhibited, and suggested improved and economical modes of construction. I saw, likewise, an American straw-cutting ma- chine, very slightly varied from the original, and which had been patented in Ireland, of which I could not complain, after many instances of similar plagiarism, which I had seen, in my own country, exhibited as rare specimens of Yankee ingenuity. Of the morality of such tricks, if so they are to be called, I leave my readers to judge ; but in other respects, from various things which have come under my notice, the account seems pretty fairly balanced between us. The exhibition of poultry attracted much attention, and, though an humble object, was not unworthy of observation. It was principally confined to geese, ducks, and dunghill fowls. The Malay and Java fowls, specimens of which are to be found in the United States, were very large, and appeared almost to have some affinity with the ostrich family. It was stated that, when dressed, they would weigh from eight to ten pounds, which is the size of a common turkey. The valuable race of Dorkings was shown in great numbers, as being highly approved : and likewise some crested Spanish birds, which were reputed most abundant layers — a property which, in my opinion, depends as much upon plenty of feed, and houses where a mild tempera- 178 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. ture is preserved, as upon any peculiarity of constitution. Of game-cocks I saw none. The inhuman sport, which once brought these animals into fashion, is, as far as I can learn, now not permitted nor known. The cause of humanity has certainly accomplished much in the abolition of the cruel games of cock- fighting, dog-fighting, bull-baiting, and bloody boxing-matches. The various military dresses, most brilliant and magnificent as they were in themselves, and which were seen plentifully sprinkled about the show-yard, and in the streets of Dublin, indi- cated, however, that there were other game-cocks in training, for purposes far more cruel and unchristian, whom, with their glitter- ing swords and bristling bayonets, I seldom pass without a shudder ; and to the necessity, if there be any, of whose profes- sion and employment, I can only desire as speedy and as effec- tual an end may be put. The fights of the lower orders of animals, for which they have been trained, and to which they have been spuiTcd on by the brutality of a higher order of ani- mals, assuming to be rational and moral, are, alas ! but a melan- choly counterpart of scenes which have covered human history all over with blood, and stained its pages with crimes of a demo- niacal malignity and revenge, vulgarly, and by a misnomer which, in a Christian country, makes one's heart ache, called heroism and glory. The native race of cows, principally from the county of Kerry, which were exhibited on the occasion, was quite re- markable. They are much smaller than any thing of the kind which I have ever seen, and can have little value out of the country where they are reared, and to whose scanty pastures and bleak hills they are said to be peculiarly adapted. They are generally black, kept at a very small expense, and ai'e said, for their size, to yield an extraordinary amount of milk. A bull of a year old of this stock, to which a prize of five sovereigns was awarded, was so diminutive, that I could, without difficulty, have lifted my leg over his back. The sight of this animal solved a problem in history which has always puzzled me. It is said of Milo, that, beginning with a calf, and carrying him upon his back every day, the increase of weight was so gradual, that the limit of his personal strength could not be determined, and he continued to lift him after he became an ox. If it were a Kerry ox, the otherwise intrinsic improbability of the story entirely ceases. This Kerry bull was little larger than a goat, and should MODEL FARM AND AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. 179 form a part of the retinue of Tom Thumb, that distinguished American production, who has excited the most extraordinary sensation in England. XXIII. — MODEL FARM AND AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. There is an estabhshment connected with the agriculture of Ireland, which is in the immediate neighborhood of Dublin, and which I have visited with the greatest pleasure, and that is a Model Farm and an Agricultural School. The national govern- ment have determined to appropriate seventy-five thousand pounds annually to the cause of education in Ireland, to be dis- tributed, in proportions corresponding to the subscriptions of mdividuals for the same objects, in parts of the country where education is most needed. It is considered, and with good reason, that the great want, among the people, is a want of knowledge in applying and using the means of subsistence within their reach ; that there is no indisposition on their part to labor ; that there is as yet an ample extent of uncultivated land capable of being redeemed and rendered productive ; and that a principal source of the wretchedness, and want, and starvation, which pre- vail in some parts of this country, often to a fearful extent, is attributable to the gross ignorance of the laboring classes of the best modes of agriculture and of rural economy. With this con- viction upon their minds, the commissioners have determined to connect with all their rural schools a course of teaching in scien- tific and practical agriculture, communicating a knowledge of the simple elements of agricultural chemistry ; of the best modes and operations of husbandry which have been adopted in any country ; of the nature, and character, and uses, of the vegetables and plants necessary or useful to man or beast ; of the improved kinds of live stock, and of the construction and use of the most improved and most approved farming implements and ma- chinery. With these views, it is their intention to train their schoolmasters, and to send out such men as are apt and qualified to teach these most useful branches. For this purpose the government have established this model farm, which was begun in 180 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 1838, and which lias ah'eady, in a greater or less measure, quali- fied and sent out seven hundred teachers. To my mind it seems destined to confer the most important benefits upon Ireland, and I may add upon the world, for so it happens under the benig- nant arrangements of the Divine Providence, the benefits of every good measure or effort for the improvement of mankind proceed, by a sort of reduplication, to an unlimited extent ; these teachers shall instruct their pupils, and these pupils become in their turn the teachers of others ; and the good seed, thus sown and widely scattered, go on yielding its constantly-increasing products, to an extent which no human imagination can measure. Three thousand schoolmasters are at this moment demanded for Ireland, and the government are determined to supply them. Happy is it for a country, and honorable to human nature, when, instead of schemes of avarice, and dreams of ambition, and visions of conquest, at the dreadful expense of the comfort, and liberty, and lives, of the powerless and unpro- tected, the attention of those who hold the destinies of their fellow-beings in their hands is turned to their improvement,, their elevation, their comfort, and their substantial welfare. The Model Farm and Agricultural School is at a place called Glasnevin, about three miles from Dublin, on a good soil. The situation is elevated and salubrious, embracing a wide extent of prospect of sea and land, of plain and mountain, of city and country, combining the busy haunts of men, and the highest im- provements of art and science, with Vv^hat is most picturesque and charming in rural scenery, presenting itself in its bold mountains and deep glens, in its beautiful plantations, its cultivated fields, and its wide and glittering expanse of ocean. The scenery in the neighborhood of Dublin, with its fertile valleys, and the mountains of Wicklow, of singularly grand and beautiful formation, bounding the prospect for a considerable extent, is among the richest which the eye can take in ; and at the going down of the sun in a fine summer evening, when the long ridge of the mountains seemed bordered with a fringe of golden fire, it carried my imagination back, with an emotion which those only who feel it can understand, to the most beautiful and pictu- resque parts of Yermont, in the neighborhood of Lake Champlain. I have a strong conviction of the powerful and beneficial influence of fine natural scenery, where there is a due measure MODEL FARM AND AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. ISl of the endowment of ideality, upon the intellectual and moral character ; and I would, if possible, surround a place of education with those objects in nature best suited to elevate and enlarge the mind, and stir the soul of man from its lowest depths. It is at the shrine of nature, in the temple pillared by the lofty moun- tains, and whose glowing arches are resplendent with inextin- guishable fires, that the human heart is most profoundly impressed with the unutterable grandeur of the great object of worship. It is in fields radiant with their golden harvests, and every where oifering, in their rich fruits and products, an unstinted compensa- tion to human toil, and the most liberal provision for human subsistence and comfort, and in pastures and groves animated with the expressive tokens of enjoyment, and vocal with the grateful hymns of ecstasy, among the animal creation, that man gathers up those evidences of the faithful, unceasing, and un- bounded goodness of the divine Providence, which most deeply touch, and often overwhelm, the heart. The Model Farm and School, at Glasnevin, has connected with it fifty-two English acres of land, the Avhole of which, with the exception of an acre occupied by the farm buildings, is under cultivation, and a perfect system of rotation of crops. The master of the school pays for this land a rent of five pounds per acre, and taxes and expenses carry the rent to eight pounds per acre. Twelve poor boys, or lads, live constantly with him, for whose education and board, besides their labor, he receives eight shillings sterling per week. They work, as well as I could understand, about six hours a day, and devote the rest of the time to study, or learning. The course of studies is not extensive, but embraces the most common and useful branches of education, such as arithmetic, geography, natural philosophy, and agriculture, in all its scientific and practical details. They have an agricultural examination, or lecture, every day. I had the gratification of listening to an examination of fourteen of these young men, brought out of the field from their labor ; and cheerfully admit that it was eminently successful, and in the highest degree cred- itable both to master and pupil. Besides these young men, who live on the farm, the young men in Dublin, at the normal school, who are preparing themselves for teachers of the national schools, are required to attend at the farm and assist in its labors a portion of the time, that they may become thoroughly ac- 16 182 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. quainted with scientific and practical agriculture in all its branches, and be able to teach it ; the government being deter- mined that it shall form an indispensable part of the school instruction throughout the island. The great objects, then, of the establishment, are to qualify these young men for teachers by a thorough and practical education in the science, so far as it has reached that character, and in the most improved methods and operations of agriculture. Besides this, it is intended to furnish an opportunity to the sons of men of wealth, who may be placed here as pupils, to acquire a practical knowledge of, and a familiar insight into, all the details of farming. This must prove of the highest importance to them in the management of their own estates. The superintendent was pleased to show me his accounts m detail, which evinced, as far as I could ascertain, a successful and profitable management ; but as there were several material elements to be taken into the calculation, I shall not speak with any confidence on this subject, without further information, which cannot now be had, but which I shall take pains to give in the fullest manner hereafter. As the crops were uncommonly fine, and the whole cultivation and management, as far as it appeared, excellent, I shall detail some few particulars in a cursory manner. The first object was to illustrate the best system of rotation of crops ; and three systems of alternate husbandry were going on ; one of a course of three crops, one of five, and one of nine ; and one especial object pursued in one department of the farm was to show the most eligible course of management of a single acre of land, so as to give an example of the best system of cottage husbandry for the poor man, who might have only a small allot- ment of land, and whose object would be to feed a cow and a pig, and to get what supplies he could for his family. Such lessons, it is obvious, must appear of the highest importance in Ireland, when we consider the condition of its peasantry, and cannot be without their advantages to every cultivator of land. Another object aimed at is to show that a farm is capable of being kept in condition from its own resources, and from the consumption of the principal part of the produce upon the land. No manure is ever purchased here ; and the manager professed to have an ample supply. Six years' trial, with crops of the MODEL FARM AND AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. 183 highest productiveness, and indicating no diminution, but rather an increase of yield, seems to have satisfactorily established this point. The provisions for saving all the manure, both liquid and solid, for managing the compost heap, and for increasing its quantity by the addition of every species of refuse that can be found, are complete. The stock consists of seventeen cows, one bull, six young stock, two horses, and one pony ; and they are all carefully stall-fed, in clean, well-littered, and well-ventilated stables, with ample space before and behind them, and turned out for recreation, in a yard, about two hours in a day. The manure heap is in the rear of the stables ; is always carefully made up, and kept well covered with soil, or sods, or weeds, so as to prevent evaporation, retain the effluvia, and increase the quan- tity. The liquid manure is collected, by spouts, from the stables, into a tank, from which it is, as often as convenient, pumped up, and thrown, by an engine pipe attached to the pump, over the heap ; and that portion of it which is not retained, but passes off, is caught again in another tank, and again returned upon the heap by the same process as before. The skilful manager of the farm prefers this method to that of applying the liquid manure directly from a sprinkling machine upon his fields. Either mode may have its peculiar advantages, which I shall not now discuss. The object of each is to save and to use the whole ; and I am determined, so important do I deem it, never to lose a fair oppor- tunity of reminding the farmers that the liquid manure of any animal, if properly saved and applied, is of equal value as the solid portions ; but in most places this is wholly lost. The manure for his crops he prefers to plough in in the autumn ; and the ex- traordinary crops of potatoes grown by him are powerful testimo- nies in favor of his management. His potatoes give an average yield of eighteen tons (gross weight) to an English acre, which, allowing fifty-six pounds to the bushel, would be seven hundred and twenty bushels. He has grown twenty-two tons to an English acre. Either of these quan- tities, in New England and in Old England, would be considered a magnificent crop. He plants his potatoes either in ridges thirty inches asunder, with the potatoes or sets eighteen inches apart in the drills, or else in what here is called the lazy-bed fashion, which is a common practice, but which, as it respects the labor required, is altogether misnamed. In this case, the land is dug 184 EUROPEAN ACniCULTURE. or ploughed, and thrown into beds of about three feet wide, first formed by ridging or back-furrowing with the plough, and after- wards covered with earth, thrown from a ditch between the beds about eighteen inches in width, and running between all the beds. After this bed is smoothed off, the potatoes are planted upon it, in rows, crosswise, at the distance of eighteen inches by thirty inches apart, and they are then covered with about four inches of earth taken out of the intermediate ditch with a spade. After the potatoes are fairly above ground, they have a second covering of four inches of earth, as before, and this comprehends the whole of their cidtivation in the lazy-hed fashion. When they are planted in drills or ridges, the space between the ridges is never suffered to be distiubed by a plough, but is simply dug with a spade, as it is an important object to avoid injuring the young fibrous roots of the plant, upon which the tubers are formed. The potatoes are kept, in this way, with an occasional applica- tion of the hand to the weeds, entirely clean ; and the luxuriance of their growth throughout a large field, as far as my observation goes, was never surpassed. By his management of his manure, sprinkling the heap with the liquid portions, and so keeping up, through the summer, a slight but constant fermentation, not only all the weeds thrown upon it are rotted, but the seeds of these weeds are effectually destroyed. He says the largest crop of potatoes which he ever produced was had in a field where the sets were placed over the whole field, at a distance of a yard each way from each other. He prefers always planting whole pota- toes, of a medium size, to cutting them. He showed me a portion of the field, which had been planted with cuttings of potatoes, sent him by a friend, of a new and valuable kind, and which he cut with a view to planting more land ; but the differ- ence in their appearance was most marked, and showed an inferiority of as one to three to those which were planted whole. Ten bushels of seed he considers suflicient for planting an acre. His turnips promised extremely well. I remarked to him that they were sown in the drills very thickly. He replied that he had never lost his crop by the fly, and he attributed his success to two circumstances — the first, to planting his seed two inches deep, by which means the roots of the plant became extended and strong before the plant showed itself above ground ; and the second, by sowing a large quantity of seed ; if the flies took a MODEL FARM AND AGKICULTURAL SCHOOL. 185 portion of the plants, he wonld probably have an ample sujDply left. He suiFcrs them to get somewhat advanced before they are thinned, and then is careful to select the healthiest and strongest plants to remain. I must not be supposed ever to endorse the opinions of another man, simply because I give them ; but certainly success is the best test of judgment and skill. How- ever interesting and ingenious a man's speculations may be, his practice is always worth vastly more than his theory. His crops of mangel-wurzel were magnificent ; and he gets a great deal of green feed for his cows, by plucking the under leaves ; though, if too severely stripped in the autumn, they are liable to be injured by the frosts. He sows tares and oats together for green feed for his stock. The oats serve to support the tares, and the mixture seems to be greatly relished by the animals. His great dependence for green feeding of his stock is upon the Italian rye-grass, a most valuable grass, which is very much commended wherever it is cultivated, and which, I hope, will be introduced into the United States. I saw a field of this on the farm, which had already been cut twice in the season, and was nearly ready for another cropping. In Manchester, the last autumn, I saw specimens of three cuttings of Italian rye-grass, all cut from the same field in the same season, the combined length of which was thirteen feet. This was a surprising growth, and indicated the remarkable luxuriance of the plant. His oats give an average yield of eighty bushels to an English acre ; and the oats chiefly preferred here are the Scotch potato and the Hopetoun oat. The weight of the potato oat per bushel is stated to be about forty-four pounds. I have known it in the United States, the first year of its cultivation, to weigh as much, but the second year not to weigh more than thirty-five, pounds per bushel. This must be owing to some error or defect in the cultivation ; for I can conceive of no natural hinderance, in many localities, to the most successful cultivation of this crop. He sows rye-grass with his oat crop, and gets a good cutting, after the oats are ofl", from the stubble. It might be thouglit that this is riding the horse " too hard ; " but, as the rye-grass does not ripen its seed in the case, the soil is not exhausted. The next season it gives a full yield. I shall hereafter extend the account of this admirable establishment, if any thing presents 16* 186 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. itself, upon further inquiry, desirable to be communicated. The institution is one of great importance, and will serve as a model for others j and several, in different parts of the country, through the public-spirited exertions of several gentlemen, who are large landholders, are in the process of being formed. I shall conclude the account with the production, the current year, (1844,) of six- teen and a half acres of land upon this farm, which the manager, in whose established character 1 have entire confidence, has been pleased to give me. In my experience, the yield has not been siirpassed. From these sixteen and one half English acres, he has fed entirely, from the 4th of April to the 18th of August, seventeen milch cows, one bull, six young stock, two horses, and one pony. Of one acre in vetches, he has used one half the crop ; the rest remains. Of one acre in cabbages, he has sold two thirds, and used one third ; the two thirds having brought him by the sale £13 sterling; and from the same sixteen and a half acres he has cut and cured, and has in stack, twenty-eight tons of well- made hay, from rye-grass. I took this statement down from his own mouth, with the stack of hay before me, the quantity of which was ascertained by cubic measurement, by a rule which is considered established and accurate. XXIV. — DUBLIN BOTANICAL GARDEN. In the neighborhood of Dublin is a Botanical Garden, compre- hending twenty-seven acres, enclosed by a high stone wall, with a beautiful rivulet running through it, with ample and elegant conservatories and greenhouses, and in the highest state of cul- tivation and embellishment. It is supported partly by private subscription, and partly by donations from the government. It is a beautiful retreat, and open to all persons two days in a week, with intelligent and courteous superintendents to show and ex- plain every thing. To my inquiry of the superintendent whether he suffered any injury from the visitors plucking the flowers, or breaking the plants, he replied, very little, if any ; none DUBLIN BOTANICAL GARDEN. 187 whatever from tlie highest classes ia society, and none whatever from the lowest classes, who visited it in great numbers ; and who, coming out of their damp cellars, and their confined streets, and their dark and offensive holes, and fastnesses, and common sewers, no doubt found in it, with their children, almost a transi- tion from earth to heaven ; and here breathed the perfumes of the divine beneficence, and contemplated, with a felicity which even princes might envy, the exuberant tokens of God's goodness in the flowers and fruits of the earth, radiant with a celestial beauty. There were other persons, whom he chose to denominate the vulgar rich, who were not so abstemious, and who required to be watched. It is to be hoped, as education advances, a higher tone of moral sentiment will prevail, and that every thing of taste or art, designed for general gratification, will be secure against injury or defacement, so that the odious notices and cautions, which are now so constantly seen in such places against depre- dation, may themselves be deemed a public insult, and the very idea of violating an honorable confidence, and abusing the public beneficence, may so trouble a man's conscience, that he shall desire to run away from himself. This garden and grounds, and its conservatories, are designed to furnish specimens of all the most valuable and curious native and exotic plants and fruits ; and, in addition to their present erections, the proprietory are now about to build a conservatory four hundred feet long, and seventy feet wide, with a height pro- portioned. The grounds are always open to the studious and scientific, and a course of botanical lectures is given, Avith the illustrations to be found here. Botany may here be studied to great advantage, as portions of the ground are allotted to the perfect arrangement of the plants, according to the classification and orders of Linnaeus, and in another part, according to the natural order ; and for the benefit of agricultural students and farmers, specimens are cultivated and neatly arranged of all the useful vegetables and grasses, with their botanical and their vulgar names affixed to them, with specimens likewise of the most pernicious weeds, that the farmer may see what to choose and what to avoid. The collection is already extensive, and is constantly becoming enlarged. It is difficult to overrate the value of such establishments, both for use and for pleasure, for their pecuniary, their intellectual, and 188 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. their moral benefit. While penning this account, I hear, with extreme regret, that the Botanical Garden in Boston, a city so eminent for its public spirit and beneficence, is to be strangled in its infancy, and abandoned ; and that the ground is likely to be appropriated to buildings, so that the rich prospect of the charm- ing environs of the city is to be shut out, and the fresh and salu- brious breezes from the verdant fields and hills of the surrounding country are to be debarred an entrance for the refreshment of the inhabitants of this busy and crowded mart ; and even the sight of the glorious western sky, which, with its gilded, and glowing, and gorgeous drapery, I have made, at evening, a pilgrimage, many hundreds of times, to contemplate and adore, is to be excluded by high walls of brick and stone. Should this be done ? and how can such an injury, if once committed, be repaired ? Surely they will forgive one of their own children, whom no distance of place and no length of absence can estrange from his honored and revered birthplace, in saying that even one half of the expense thrown away upon public dinners and parade, would secure to them permanent provisions for health, instruction, comfort, and delight, whose value no pecuniary standard can measure, and which can never be duly appreciated, but by those who have enjoyed and have then been deprived of them. 5^ V iil!l|il'«»nlP"*ii|M;vnil|!l|li:r EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. THIRD REPORT. XXV. — AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. My Second Report gave an account of the Agricultural School at Glasnevin, near Dublin, Ireland. I propose to add a notice of some other industrial schools, which I have had an opportunity of inspecting. The excellent establishment which I described, and three others, of a similar character, which I have visited, are in Ireland. Ireland, in this respect, has taken the lead of England and Scotland, where we might sooner have expected to find institutions of this nature. That in a country where the waves of political agitation have for years been tossing all over it like the sea in a storm, and where, certainly in large portions of it, there exist a degradation and state of destitution utterly beyond any power which I possess adequately to describe, — in many parts, a struggle for existence which seems, to an inexperienced spectator, absolutely desperate, — and, in some parts, a ferocity, growing not out of any innate malignity, but out of unfortunate social relations, (for which the remedy is not obvious,) scarcely to be paralleled even among cannibals, — in a condition of society where all the elements of social life appear in a state of violent conflict, — that in the midst of all this there should be growing up institutions of this character, even in advance of places blessed with peace, plenty, quiet, and the highest measure of social improvement which has yet been reached, is not a little remarkable. 190 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. But this beautiful and wretched country abounds with intelli- gent minds, glowing with the warmest philanthropy. They appear, indeed, like stars in a partially-clouded night, pouring, out of their own native fulness, rays of the purest splendor; struggling, as it were, continually, to penetrate the darkness which intercepts them ; and appearing to shed a brighter radiance as the mists and black clouds sweep along, and, occasionally breaking open, leave, though only for a time, a way for the transmission of their light. They may, sometimes, seem to serve no other purpose than to render the darkness visible ; but they inspire courage, and strengthen the hope of a wider diifu- sion, and the ultimate dawning of a full day. These men rightly conceive that education is to be one of the great means of elevating Ireland ; and that, an education of a practical character. In an education of a different character, Ireland is not wanting. Strange as it may seem, in some parts of Ireland, even the common people are familiar with the an- cient classics ; and the household deities of the heathen are en- shrined in their cabins among their own numberless saints. When in Killarney, in the vicinity of the lakes of that pic- turesque and romantic region, I took leave to inquire of the hotel- keeper into the state of education among the people. He im- mediately called in a ragged, dirty, barefooted boy, — for, indeed, very few of the common people in the rural districts of Ireland are in any other condition, — and told him " to bring his books and show the gentleman what he knew." This boy was only ten years old, and the son of a shoemaker. He brought in his Greek Testament, and in the Gospel of John, in which I pretty thoroughly examined him, he recited with perfect correctness. I then examined him in the declensions and conjugations of nouns, and adjectives, and verbs, in which he was equally expert and correct. I found, likewise, upon inquiry, that this was the general course of education at the school which he attended. The next day, a lad passed me, evidently on his way to school, with his books under his arm. I inquired his age, which he said was fifteen years, and then desired him to allow me to see a book which he had with him, which was Homer in Greek ; and he was studying the second book. To my inquiry if there were many in his class, he replied, yes ; and to my question whether he was destined for tlie priesthood, his answer was AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 191 in the negative. I learned that classical learning was by no means uncommon in Ireland, and among some even of the poorest of the people. Schools, likewise, of a more humble character, abound in Ireland, and benevolent efforts are making to extend and improve them. It would be wrong, however, to infer, from what I have stated above, that education in Ireland is every where of a high char- acter, or that it is universal. I might do wrong to say even that it is general, though it is certainly much more general than is usually supposed. Many parts of Ireland are wrapped in thick darkness, with its usual concomitant, the grossest superstition. Indeed, without impugning the prevalent religion of Ireland, a fair proportion of the ministers of which are indefatigable in their pastoral labors, and disinterestedly devoted to the welfare of their flocks, it will not be denied that it discourages the general or extended education of the people. I speak of what strikes me as facts in the case, and neither attribute nor insin- uate any unworthy motives. Nor would England, as far as my unpressions go, gain much by a comparison with Ireland in this respect. In England the higher classes are not without strong, and it may be conscientious prejudices against the education of the lower and laboring classes. The course of education, at the national schools in England which I have visited, — and they are not a few, — is certainly of a meagre and limited description, embracing no more than reading, spelling, writing, and the study of the Bible, the catechism and the creeds, with the com- mittal of hymns to memory. To my inquiry of a noble and enlightened woman, the benevolent patroness and supporter of a large school, and to whom, how much soever I might differ from her in opinion, it would be impossible to ascribe any want of kind regard for her dependants and beneficiaries, whether it would not be useful to teach these children some geography, and induce them to read some books of general knowledge, her reply was, that "she wanted none of the ologies, neither geol- ogy, mineralogy, nor chronology, taught in her school ; and that, in her opinion, it was quite enough of general knowledge for the children to know their prayers and the catechism ; and of geog- raphy, for them to be able to find their way from their house to their work, to the school, and to the church." If I had not met with repeated instances of the same avowed sentiments, and of 192 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. a practice conformed to them, I should hesitate in making any general inferences. As it is, however, having stated the case, I prefer to leave it to my readers to form their own conclusions. I could not help replying to this noble lady, that one of the ologies seemed to be pretty assiduously taught in the school, and that was theology ; for the catechism and creeds were inculcated with peremptory authority, and the Bible was the only reading book in the school. She admitted this, but an exception of this nature needed no apology. I could not help thinking that the course might have been enlarged, and other branches of instruction have been introduced to advantage ; that some good for religion itself might be gathered even from the simplest discoveries of geology, and the wonders, and uses, and splendors of the min- eral world ; that the great and settled truths of physiology, those which are directly practical in their character, might be of service both to the health of the body and the mind, and conse- quently to the moral health ; that a general knowledge of anatomy, both human and comparative, could scarcely be with- out its use ; and that it might be as serviceable, as it would be interesting, if children were taught to understand some of the marvels of their own structure, and led to see how this curious frame of their bodies is knit together and compacted by an all- powerful Architect ; and the still more wonderful capacities and faculties of their own minds, where " the inspiration of the Almighty has given them understanding," — and thus be led to reverence the Divinity, who has made their own souls the temples of his indwelling spirit. I could not think that it would be straying far from the best objects of education, if these children were early accustomed to see every object and operation in nature instinct with lessons of heavenly wisdom. I cannot think that any thing would be lost. Are we not bound to believe that much would be gained by every advance in knowledge of this kind; if children were taught daily to consider the flowers of the field, how they grow ; what causes the earth to yield its food for man and beast, and makes the dry seed spring up into a beautiful and fruitful plant, arrayed in a splendor surpassing that of Oriental luxury ; and who takes care of the birds of the air, who, though they have neither store- house nor barn, find their daily and hourly wants supplied by an invisible hand and a paternal and an inexhaustible bounty ? AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 193 Indeed, I have yet to learn that the acquisition of knowledge can ever be otherwise than favorable to virtue ; or that what- ever tends to enlarge and improve the mind does not, in an equal degree, tend to render character more valuable, moral obligations more autiioritative, and inspire and strengthen that self-respect which is among the most powerful instruments and securities of virtue. If I should be asked, now, What has all this to do with agri- culture ? I answer, Much every way. It will be found, with respect to agriculture. — what is true in reference to every other art, — that its proper exercise, and all the improvements which it has received, have been the effects of the application of mind to the subject ; in other Avords, of inquiry, observation, knowledge, and especially the results of intelligent experience. Who does not know the difference between a stupid and an intelligent laborer ; between a man scarcely raised above the brute animal which he drives, and a man whose faculties are all awake, and who is constantly upon the alert to discover and adopt the best mode of executing the task which he has undertaken ; between a beast altogether the creature of instinct, or a mere machine, moving only as it is impelled, and unable to correct its own errors, and a thinking, knowing, reasoning animal, always search- ing for the right way, making all his actions subservient to his judgment, and gathering continual accessions of power and facility of action from his own and the experience of others ? Every one will admit that the more intelligence, the more skill, the more knowledge, a man has, the better is he qualified, other things being equal, for the management of a farm. It holds equally true that the more intelligence, the more skill, the more knowledge, a laborer has, the better is he qualified to assist in that management, and to perform the part which belongs to him in the working of the whole machinery. I believe I may safely say, that a New England laborer ac- complishes in the same time much more than an English laborer ; and this circumstance, in respect to agriculture, and especially in some of the manufacturing and mechanic arts, which more demand the exercise of the mind than the ordi- nary operations of husbandry, is one among other circumstances which enable us to come in successful competition with the labor of Europe, so very inferior in its cost. I cannot say they 17 194 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. always execute their work as well. Certainly, in ploughing and draining, our operations are altogether inferior to what is done in England, where, in the perfection with which these matters are executed, nothing more seems to me either attainable or desira- ble. But this arises from several causes ; — the more we have to do compared with the number of hands we have to accomplish it ; the extent to which a system of division of labor is carried in England, so that particular individuals are accustomed to do only particular things, and consequently acquire a precision and facility of operation, which such exact attention and long-con- titiued practice are sure to give, attended with an almost utter distjualification for any other branches of labor. In many de- partments and operations of husbandry, this exactness is not necessary, though in many I am ready to admit its utility ; but in the amount of work which an American laborer will accom- plish in a given time, and in the facility with which he turns from one species of labor to another, he is far before an English laborer. This, I believe, is, in a great degree, owing to the dif- ference in their minds; the one being educated, the other uned- ucated ; the one being accustomed to depend upon himself, to inquire, to reflect, to observe, to experiment ; the other scarcely exercising his mind at all more than the cattle which he drives, and accustomed to move in the line, and that only, which has been marked out for him. I hold that education, in every con- dition of life, is a great good. It sometimes gives facilities for particular crimes, of which, otherwise, men would have been incapable ; but the viciousness of these men would have shown itself in some other form. It is in no sense attributable to their education. I believe, as much as I live, that every advance in the cultivation and improvement of the mind is an incentive and an auxiliary to good conduct ; and although an education purely intellectual falls far short of the beneficial influences which it might yield, when the moral sentiments are cultivated conjointly with the intellectual, yet am I perfectly assured, that every quickening or cultivation of the mental faculties, every thing which contributes, in any measure or degree, to raise man above a mere machine, or a mere animal, is so far positive good — positive good for his efficiency as a laborer, and for his happiness and moral well-being as a man. I am afraid I shall be thought to dwell too long on this subject ; but I have felt such a burning AGRICULTURAL EDUCATIONl 195 indignation when I have heard the cause of popular education spoken of disparagingly, by those who were reaping its richest fruits ; I have felt such a deep compassion for the very degraded condition, in this respect, of a large portion of the laboring pop- ulation of England ; I have seen with so much pain, on the part of some of those whose laps were overflowing with these rich- est blessings of Heaven, so strong a reluctance to communicate of their abundance to these benighted children of ignorance and want, in many cases, undoubtedly, springing from an honest dis- trust of their utility, — and, at the same time, I have felt my own heart swelling almost to bursting, with gratitude, for the privi- leges in this respect enjoyed by a large portion of my own countrymen, and the blessed fruits of which are every where seen among them in such rich abundance, — that I cannot refrain from speaking out ; and too happy should I be if my feeble voice could do any thing towards commanding that attention to the subject which its importance demands.* * That I do not express myself too strongly on this subject, may appear from the following remarks of a distinguished professor of agriculture, who is much employed in lecturing to the farmers about the country. They were made recently at a large agricultural meeting. " I put no stress on the spread of knowledge, whether here, in Scotland, in Ire- land, or elsewhere. I attach no importance to intellectual improvement amongst the agriculturists. I do not value that instruction which you saw those boys had received to-day, unless that knowledge furnishes you with the means of putting- more money into your pockets." And, indeed, is this all the value which this learned gentleman can see in edu- cation ? One cannot help feeling that it is greatly to be regretted that he him- self should have been put to so much trouble to acquire his own education, for an object in which it is not vmlikely, with all his success, many a thimble-rigger, or dog-meat-seller, would beat him. At the great meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland, in Dublin, the last year, a peer of the realm, of high rank, and who (so much better often- times are men than the principles which they profess) is esteemed withal a very just and kind landlord, was pleased, after strongly proclaiming his interest in the improvement of the condition of the peasantry and the laboring classes, " to beg of his hearers not to misunderstand him, nor to subject him to the imputation of a desire to raise these people out of their proper condition — the condition which Providence had assigned them." One would be glad to know, under such an interpretation of the designs of Providence, how any man should ever attempt tlie improvement of any body, or any thing ; and whetlier he himself could by any compulsory process be induced to exchange his marquisate for a dukedom. With great personal respect for both these gentlemen, wliose publicly-expressed 196 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 1. GLASNEVIN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. I promised in my former Report to give some further account of the school at Glasnevin ; and since that time the intelligent and obliging superintendent has been kind enough to furnish me with a copy of his farm accounts for two years, which I think must be interesting to my readers. It is obviously a great tj^uestion whether an institution of this character can be made to support itself; and this question is affirmatively and emphat- ically answered by the' result in this case. It is obviously highly desirable that education should be made as cheap as possible. I very well understand what often comes of making things cheap ; that when the price is reduced, the quality of the article is made to correspond. A milkman in New York once told me that he always accommodated his customers as to the price ; six and a quarter cents was the standard price for sound and pure milk ; but if his customers wished to have it at five or four cents, he took care always to put enough water with it to bring it to the standard price. This honest fellow, who was a shrewd Irishman, by the way, (an evidence that all the wooden nutmegs arc not made in New England,) was pleased also to tell me that, by straining water through some finely-ground Indian meal or flour, so as to color it, and adding to it a mere dash of skimmed milk, he was able then to aff'ord it at three cents a quart to those who could not give a higher price. Most certainly I cannot recommend, in this sense of the word, a cheap education : but if the advantages of a good, solid, and enlarged education can bo made universally acceptable ; if they can be purchased by that whicli most young persons have, and besides which many young men have nothing else which they can give. iipinions are certainly just objects of animadversion, I can only express the wish, that they both might be transported, at least for a while, to a land of free institu- tions, where education is universal, — and learn there, that education, from its high moral influences, may have otlier uses than tliat of putting money into men's pockets ; and that, wliere the road of advancement and promotion is freely and equally open to all, even the humblest in the community may ascend to a noble- ness of merit, and ciiaracter, and intellectual elevation, before which tlie tinsel splendor of coronets, and mitres, and maces, becomes dim, and they are seen in their proper character, as mere baubles for grown-up children. AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 197 — their own personal labor, — a great point will be gained ; and the price itself will be an eflicient instrument of their improvement. I believe this can be done ; that is, upon an adequate extent of land favorably situated, by an amount of labor which shall not interfere with their intellectual improvement, but, by conducing to their health, and by demonstrating the practical application of the principles and lessons which they are taught, will most efficiently further this improvement, the pupils themselves may be comfortably sustained, and their instruction paid for. The school at Glasnevin certainly has gone far towards establishing this point. If this is too much to be expected, and the fees for instruction are to be paid in money, yet it will be a great object gained, if the labor of the pupils provides for their sub- sistence, and pays a fair rent for the land. I subjoin the following extracts from the letters addressed to me by the intelligent manager of the establishment, Mr. Thomas Skilling. " I send you copies of my profit and loss account on the transactions of the farm during the last two years, ending the 31st March, 1844. The annual accounts and amount for the previous three years, from 1839, are somewhat similar, with this difference, that, notwithstanding the yearly reduction in the price of farm produce during the said time, there have been increased profits, from the increased products of the land, of course from high cultivation and fertility. The profits of last year would have been very considerable indeed, had I not suffered so much by the fatal disease among my cattle. This year I expect to realize a handsome sum, and you will recollect that these profits are exclusive of the keep of my house and family in all kinds of farm produce." " From what you will have seen and heard here, you will perceive that my system aims to show what land is capable of producing, when properly cultivated and managed ; the great- est quantity of produce from the same quantity and quality of land ; and the greatest amount of profitable human labor, as opposed to horse labor and expensive machinery. This T be- lieve to be the system suitable for this, or perhaps any part of the United Kingdom, where we have a numerous population within small bounds, and even this small space of land not one 17 # 198 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. third cultivated, nor one half of our people employed as they ought to be. The great evil of this country is Qiionopoly, and the most pernicious and extensive is the land monopoly. The masses here have no right, property, or interest, in the soil which they inhabit. They are the most wretched of slaves. What we want is a middle class of small landed proprietors — virtuous, educated, and industrious. These would be Britain's strength ; they are at present her weakness. I want the masses that are idle and starving, or driven into those sinks of vice, the large and crowded towns, spread over the face of the country, holding and cultivating their small farms, leading a comfortable, virtuous, and independent life. But our landlords say, ' The people are poor ; they have no capital ; they are ignorant ; they do not know how to cultivate and manage our land. We will not give it to them. We Avill keep it for grazing bullocks and sheep. They must look elsewhere for employment and sustenance.' It would be useless here to inquire, who makes these people poor and ignorant. We find the people as represented. This state of things we wish to remove, and take away all excuses on that head. We desire to educate them, and render them com- petent to manage the land." '* Account of the Agricultural Establishment at Glasnevin, Ireland. Dr. . . . Profit and Loss. 1843. £. s. d. March 31. To cows lost, 47 14 9 " seeds, 279 " smith's work, 4 9 " servants' meat and wages, .... 44 " laborers' wages, 2 19 10^ " coals for the year, 9 3 " turnpike " " 1 7 10 " general charges, 22 3 11 " year's rent, 257 7 8 " profits for the year, 120 16 8^ £512 10 6 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 199 Contra . . Cr. 1843. £. s. d. March 31. By bulls raised, 15 " heifers " 4 " pigs, 30 7 3 " oats, 66 18 7 " potatoes, 89 16 9J " vegetables, 33 1 4 " milk, 199 6 5^: " butter, 54 12 7^ " implements sold not required, . . 19 7 5 £512 10 6" " It will be perceived that there is a loss on cows in this year. This always happens, more or less. A large quantity of milk is required for the training establishment,* and when a cow goes nearly dry, she must be sold, and another in milk bought in her place, at a higher price than that at which the former is sold. We have it in contemplation to take another farm, of larger di- mensions, in addition to the present one, and of an inferior, and different quality of land, in order to show a specimen of the improvement and management of that kind of soil ; and in this case the loss on cattle will be obviated, as the second will be more adapted to the raising of young stock and sheep." " Dr. . . Profit and Loss. 1844. £. s. d. March 31. To cows lost, 114 10 " horses " 6 2 " general charges, 23 8 7^ " turnpike, 2 7 4^ " implements, 6 13 3 " carpenter's work, 8 " smith's work, 3 4 Amount carried over, , . £156 4 1 * This is the establishment of the Model School, where young men are trained as schoolmasters at the expense of the government. This place is supplied with milk and other things from the farm, by purchase. 200 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. '•Dr. . . Profit and Loss, . . (continued.) 1844. £. s. d. March 31. Amount brought over, . . 15G 4 1 To servants' meat and wages, ... 31 1 6 '•' laborers' wages, 5 19 11 J " coals for farm use, 2 10 " rent for the year, 257 7 8 " profits " " 49 4 7 £502 7 9 J Contra . . Cr. 1844. £. s. d. March 31. By bulls raised, 8 3 8 " heifers " 6 8 8 " potatoes, 89 16 32 " milk, 183 10 111 " butter, 32 5 2^ " pigs, 40 11 10 " seeds, 16 4 6 " vegetables, 90 8 10* '' grain, 34 17 9 £502 7 9* " The great loss on cattle, this season, principally arose in con- sequence of a fatal epidemic, which has prevailed in this neigh- borhood during the last two years, and carried off a number of mine." " Besides the real cash profits every year, there is a very important advantage gained from the farm, and which has not been taken into account : I mean, the keep of the family and servants in farm produce, — nine individuals, besides occasional visitors during the year, — in milk, butter, cheese, eggs, poultry, pork, bacon, potatoes, vegetables, &c. &c. This, at a fair computation, may be reckoned at from £80 to £90 more." " An addition is now being made to the buildings, to accom- modate a superior class of twelve pupils, who will pay a mod- erate annual sum for their board, lodging, and education." " You will understand that our farm was most injudiciously taken at an enormous rack-rent, double the sum that is paid for AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 201 much better land in our immediate neighborhood ; and when I agreed with the Board to manage it on my own account, and pay all rents, taxes, and other expenses, they agreed to supply me with a certain amount of labor ; viz., at the rate of five men in the year ; i. e. one ploughman and twelve pupils — the estimated work of twelve boys being equal to four men, or one man to three boys. This I find very near the mark. I would, however, prefer four steady, constant men, to the boys. The boys are difficult to manage ; very ignorant at first, and neglectful ; and, besides, they work only a part of the day, from ten until two o'clock, and from three until six in snmmer, and four in winter. This labor, at the present rates, would be equal to about £96, which, deducted from the profits of the year, leaves a remainder of about £24 ; add to which the keep of my family and ser- vants in farm produce, which, at a low estimate, amounts to £50, with the former makes in all £74 per annum of clear profit, after paying labor and all." " The accounts of servants' wages and labor which you see, have nothing to do with the pupils. That 1 pay extra, for ser- vants, cowman, and laborers, occasionally employed in harvest." ''My salary from the Board is merely for scientific and prac- tical instruction rendered to the National School masters and pupils, who are brought up in classes twice a year, (we have one hundred of them here at present. ) The profits of the farm are considered an equivalent for its superintendence. This is as much as any farmer gets." " I am happy to say that, since you were here, the commis- sioners have made a new arrangement with me, and a liberal one. They have raised my salary to two hundred pounds per year. They pay me for the loss I sustained in my cattle from the epidemic, the last and the present year. They agree to build and make accommodation for a superior class of pay pupils, and give me the benefit of that. They will also encourage me to increase the farm by degrees, according as manure, stock, and capital increase, and some other advantages, which I did not before possess." " I am paid eight shillings per week, for the board and wash- ing of the pupils, and this is very near what it costs me. If there is a small profit, it arises from my having tlie farm produce within my power, not having to purchase. They are in general 202 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. excellent feeders. They are at that thne of life, from seventeen to twenty years, when they require most food ; and at an employment of all others most likely to create an appetite." " The dietary is as follows : Every morning, except Sunday, each boy gets one pound of the best bread, and a pint of new milk, cold or hot according to choice ; and on Sunday morning they get coffee or tea, with bread and butter. For dinner, four days in the week, viz., Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Sat- urday, they get meat ; two days beef, and two days pork or bacon, three fourths of a pound, each, of good meat, not bone, with soup, and vegetables, and potatoes unlimited. Two days, viz., Mondays and Wednesdays, for dinner, one quarter pound of butter, with plenty of buttermilk and potatoes, and sometimes other vegetables, such as cabbages, &.c. One day, Friday, they get fish, with melted butter and potatoes unlimited. For supper, every day, oatmeal stirabout, well made, thick, and of the best meal, with a pint of new milk each ; sometimes they choose potatoes for supper, instead of stirabout. By this you will perceive that they are good feeders. I have always been an advocate for good feeding and good working. The one promotes the other. It will perhaps be in your recollection that the boys, during your visit, were the very picture of a sufficient dietary. I had almost forgotten to mention that, on stated occasions, such as Ea,ster, Christmas, Halloween, harvest- home, &c. &c., we give them an extra blow-out ; roast beef, plum pudding, &c. &c., with porter and punch for those who are not tee-totallers. The school was formerly under a different regimen ; and the doctrine then maintained was, ' Feed them too well here, and they will be discontented with inferior food when they get home.' My answer was this: 'Give them a taste for good feeding while here. Treat them as human beings, and as respectable members of society, and they will not relapse into their former wretched condition, but will work and exert themselves to obtain the comforts of life." I have laid these details before my readers under the persua- sion that they will be deemed both interesting and useful. It is not to be inferred, in any case, because I quote the opinions of another man, that therefore I make them my own. I do not know that it is necessary here, in giving this account, to add a dissertation upon the value of total abstinence ; though what my AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 203 friend here terms a " blow-out," at harvest-home, &c., must be a very gentle explosion, a mere flash in the pan, if we may infer any thing from what he calls, in the other case, a system of high feeding. I wonder what a Vermonter or a Connecticut River boy would think, to be cautioned against excess and indulgence over buttermilk and potatoes for dinner, and oatmeal stirabout, or hasty pudding, for supper ; and whether he would not be a little surprised to hear a dinner of roast beef and plum pudding spoken of only as a feast for state occasions, which he feels that he can command every week at his pleasure. I give it, however, as a picture of manners, which, while it conveys a useful lesson in the wholesome example of sobriety which it exhibits, may at the same time impart not an unseasonable admonition of an extravagance with which many of us are justly chargeable, and of which, accompanied as it too often is even by ungrateful complaints, we have good reason to be ashamed. I am neither an advocate for high nor for low feeding, but for that which is plain and sufficient. It is certainly a fault with some of our laboring people, that they expend, in the indulgences of the table, too much of their hard earnings ; and it might silence some of the repinings which are occasionally heard, even in the midst of comparative plenty, if they could see, as I have seen, the habitations of thousands and tens of thousands, where the sole and whole diet, for men, women, and children, three hundred and sixty-four days out of the three hundred and sixty-five, is potatoes and water, and by no means always enough of that. 2. TEMPLEMOYLE AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. The next agricultural school which I visited was that of Templemoyle, in the north of Ireland, and not very far from Londonderry. In point of situation, it is not easy to find a place more picturesque and beautiful. The soil, however, is of a hard and rather unfertile character, but not the less favorable for agricultural experiments. The farm consists of one hundred and seventy-two acres, and atfords opportunities for experiments in draining, in the effects of various manures, and the common operations of ploughing and cultivation, and especially in the adaptation of the crops, and the mode of culture, to the climate, soil, and situation. 204 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. The farm is under two different rotations of crops ; one part being under the five-course rotation, the other under what is deemed the four-shift. The five-course system of cropping is, First year ; oats after pasture : Second " turnips, potatoes, vetches, beans, or flax with manure : Third " wheat, barley, or oats, sown with clover and grasses : Fourth " clover for soiling, or hay : Fifth " pasture. The four-crop rotation is the same, with the exception of the fifth year in pasture. The department for in-door instruction consists of a head and an assistant teacher ; and the course of instruction embraces spelling, reading, grammar, writing, arithmetic, geography, book-keeping, as applicable both to commercial and agricultural accounts, geometry, algebra, trigonometry, with its application to heights and distances, imd land-surveying, together with the use of the water-level, the theodolite, and chain. The agricultural department is intrusted to an experienced and skilful farmer, a native of Scotland, who has under him an assistant, a gardener, and ploughman. Of the pupils, the one half are at their studies in the house, while the others are pursuing their agricultural instruction out of doors. This is the arrangement for the morning. In the afternoon, the arrangements are such that those in school in the morning are at work in the field in their turn. The garden and nursery are objects of study and practice, and the lessons received in the house, in surveying and mapping, are applied in the field. Oral instruction and lectures are given in their proper place and time. The buildings afford the necessary accommodations of school- rooms, dining-hall, and sleeping apartments, and they furnish accommodations for seventy-six pupils. So far as I observed, there was no provision whatever for luxury or indulgence, and the fittings up were of the plainest description. One of the regulations of the school requires the pupils to wash their hands and faces before business in the mornina:, on returning from AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 205 labor, and after dinner. I had my doubts whether some of the pupils, whom I saw. did it much oftener than this. On Sundays, tlie pupils are required to attend their respective places of worship, accompanied by their instructors or mon- itors ; and it is earnestly recommended to them to employ the remainder of the day in reading the AVord of God, and such other devotional exercises as their respective ministers may point out. This is a very commendable liberality, and rather remarkable in a country, — I speak of England as well as Ireland, — where the first principles of religious liberty are not universally under- stood, and where men of all parties seem quite as tenacious of their religious differences as of their moral duties. While no reasonable effort should be spared, in places of education, to instil and maintain in the youthful mind a profound and habitual sense of religious duty, nothing can be more unwarrantable than to take advantage of the influence which such places afford, to enforce the principles or peculiar practices of a sect or party. It may be interesting to learn the general regulations of the school, which the intelligent principal was kind enough to give me in a printed form. 1. As the great object is to make the boys practical farmers, one half of them will be at all times on the fann, where they will be employed in manual labor, and receive from the head farmer such instructions, reasons, and explanations, as will render the mode of proceeding, in all the various operations performed on the farm, sufficiently intelligible to them. Every pupil is to be made a ploughman, and taught, not only how to use, but how to settle the plough-irons for every soil and work, and to be instructed and made acquainted with the purpose and practical management of every other implement generally used. And all are to be kept closely to their work, either by the head farmer or his assistant, or, in their unavoidable absence, by the monitor placed in charge of them. 2. Their attention is to be drawn to stock of all kinds, and to the particular points which denote them to be good, bad, indif- ferent, hardy, delicate, good feeders, good milkers, &c. 3. At the proper season of the year, the attention of the boys is to be directed to the making and repairing of fences, that they 18 206 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. may know both how to make a new one, and, what is of great advantage, how to repair and make permanent those of many- years' standing.* 4. The head farmer will deliver evening lectures to the pupils on the theory and practice of agriculture, explaining his reasons for adopting any crop, or any particular rotation of crops, as well as the most suitable soil and the most approved modes of cultiva- ting for each ; the proper management and treatment of working, feeding, and dairy stock ; the most approved breeds, and their adaptation to different soils. He will point out the best method of reclaiming, draining, and improving land ; and will direct attention to the most recent inventions in agricultural imple- ments, detailing the respective merits of each. 5. After the boys have been taught to look at stock on a farm with a farmer's eye, the committee propose that they should in rotation attend the head farmer to fairs and markets, in order to learn how to buy and sell stock. At the same time> the com- mittee expect the head farmer will make his visits to fairs as few as possible, as his attention to the pupils of the establish- ment is always required, and he should therefore be as seldom as possible absent from Templemoyle. An annual examination of the school is held before the com- mittee and subscribers, and conducted by examiners totally independent of the school. The examination is attended by the leading gentlemen in the neighborhood, and many of these take a part in the examination, by either asking or suggesting ques- tions — a practice which is deserving of recommendation, as adapted to give additional value and dignity to the exam- ination. Such are some of the principal regulations of the school, which I have copied, that its management might be fully understood. Pupils, in order to be admitted, must be nominated by an annual subscriber, paying two pounds for the first pupil, and one * This, of course, applies principally to live fences, or hedges. It could at present have little pertinency to the United States, where certainly tliere is very little mystery in making the fences, and as little labor expended in keeping them in repair. AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 207 for each additional pupil. The school was established under the auspices of a society in 1827, and the whole number educated, since its foundation, is four hundred and ninety- seven. The terms for boarding, lodging, tuition, and washing, are ten pounds, or fifty dollars, a year, payable quarterly, in advance. It may be interesting to see the dietary of the school, which I subjoin : — Breakfast. Eleven ounces of oatmeal, made into stirabout , one pint of sweet milk. Dinner. Sundaj/. Three quarters of a pound of beef stewed with pepper and onions, or one half pound corned beef, with cabbage, and three and one half pounds potatoes. Monday. One half pomid pickled beef, three and one half pounds potatoes, and one pint of buttermilk. Tuesday. Broth made of one half pound of beef, with leeks, cabbage, and parsley, and three and a half pounds of potatoes. Wednesday. Two ounces of butter, eight ounces of oatmeal made into bread, three and a half pounds of potatoes, and one piut of sweet milk. Thursday. Half a pound of pickled beef, with cabbage or turnips, and three and a half pounds of potatoes. Friday. Two ounces of butter, eight ounces of wheatmeal made into bread, and one pint of sweet milk or fresh buttermilk ; three and a half pounds of potatoes. Saturday. Two ounces of butter, one pound of potatoes mashed, eight ounces of wheatmeal made into bread, two and a half pounds of potatoes, one pint of buttermilk. Supper. In summer, flummery made of one pound of oatmeal, and one pint of sweet milk. In winter, three and a half pounds of potatoes, and one pint of buttermilk or sweet milk. In lodging, the same system is strictly followed : the beds, bed-clothing, and all other necessary articles, being simple, though clean, and therefore within the reach of any industrious peasant. A proper degree of exercise is provided for by the distribution of hours into field and home occupation, so that each pupil is, in fine weather, half tlie day in the open air, as explained by the following table : — 208 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. ''Work and School Table, from the 20th March to the 23d September. Boys divided into two equal divisionSj A and B. Hours. M Work. At School. 5i. All rise. 6— S A, B. S— 9. Breakfast. 9—1 A, B. 1 — 2. Dinner and play. 2—6 B, A. 6—7. Play. 7 — 9. Prepare lessons for next day, 9. To bed. '* On Tuesday, B commences with work in the morning, and A with school, and so on, shifting upon alternate days." The establishment was purchased for a term of years, and the buildings erected by private subscription, of one hundred and thirty-two shares, at £25 each, and by the liberal donations of several useful societies and associations. The yearly expen- diture is nearly met by the pay of the pupils, and the produce of the farm, beyond what goes to the support of the pupils. The annual rent paid for the farm is put down at £80, which would be less than ten shillings per acre for the land, and, as in the case of the school at Glasnevin, no charge is made for interest on the stock invested. The copy of the accounts of the establishment, for 1841 to 1842, was given me by the superintendent, — some items from which will, I think, alford gratification to my readers. House, &c. Salaries and Servants^ Wa^es. £. s. d. Head master,. . . 50 Second master, . . 20 12 Head farmer, . . . 81 16 £. s. d. Matron, .... 20 Gardener, .... 17 Servants, .... 17 5 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION'. 209 Provisions. Groceries, ... 17 10 Beef, 122 4 lU Candles and soap; 16 10 Hi Potatoes, ... 46 4 6 £. s. d. £. s. d. Fish, 5 17 11 Salt, 17 6^ Wine and beer for examination, ..476 The reason for the salarj'' of the farmer being so much larger than that of the masters, is because, I presume, he provides for himself, whereas they live with the pupils. The charge for groceries is remarkable for its small amount. With us, the ex- pense of tea, coffee, sugar, &c., is considerable, even in the hum- blest families. I begrudge no man any of the comforts of life ; but it is obvious that these must be classed among luxuries, contributing nothing to our strength and subsistence. In this case, it seems well worthy of reflection, how much is to be gained by a rigid economy, and how wise is the example of self- denial, when, by cutting off the superfluities of mere personal indulgence, we secure the endiu-ing and inestimable treasures of the mind. The farm and garden seemed very well managed, and in good order. Various experiments were being made, in the vicinity of each other, upon difi'erent manures ; but the results are not yet so fully obtained as to afford grounds for confident practice. The nitrates of soda and of potash upon grass, at the rate of about one hundred weight to an English acre, gave a considerable in- crease of grass over land which Avas not manured, but not suffi- cient to pay the expense of the application. Whether the efiects of the application will last more than a year, remains to be de- termined. The second crop showed no benefit. Fifty-two difi'erent varieties of wheat have been experimented upon by the pupils, besides several varieties of barley and oats. Specimens of the various products, prepared in a form to be par- tially compared with each other, were exhibited at the annual examination. These are certainly most useful lessons for the pupils. The practice of thorough-draining and subsoiling has been fully tested upon the farm ; and it is stated that, on the land thus treated, the crops have been augmented full one third, besides the increased facility given to the cultivation of the land and the harvesting of the crops. 18* 210 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. The frugality and excellent economy manifest in all the ar- rangements at Templemoyle, are much to be commended. " They discourage the admission to the school of lads from Eng- land, especially because the diet has not been usually found as well adapted to English as to Irish habits." In my opinion, it is much to the credit of the Irish to be satisfied and contented with a meagre diet. To a large portion of the Irish peasantry, it must be a paradise to get even a sufficiency of food to keep their waistbands from a most melancholy collapse. This institution has already done much good. In 1843, about sixteen years after its commencement, it was ascertained that most of the young men who had received its benefits were settled in respectable and useful conditions of life. But, according to the present course of studies, the food for the mind is almost as simple and restricted as that for the body. The studies pursued should be greatly extended ; and as the principal expenses are already incurred, and the fixtures, both for the school and the farm, are to a great degree complete, the ad- ditional cost for providing instruction, more especially in various branches of natural science, would not be large. 3. BROOKFIELD AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. This establishment, about twelve miles from Belfast, which I had also the pleasure of visiting, is an eleemosynary establish- ment, supported by the voluntary subscriptions of the religious society of Friends. It seems that many of this society, in Ireland, from one cause or another, had fallen into poverty and habits of neglect ; and their children, many of whom had become orphans, were growing up without the advantage of religious habits, and without that kind superintendence which this remarkable society is accustomed to exercise over those who are connected with it. They took pity upon these stray sheep, which were wandering as it were at large and unprovided for : and, with a spirit of charity, guided by the soundest judgment and wisdom, they determined to gather as many of them to- gether as their means would enable them to support, and, besides giving them a substantial and useful undertaking, to train them in habits of honest and useful labor, intending to make the products of that labor, as far as practicable, conducive AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 211 to their support. They accordingly purchased the lease of a farm of twenty-four acres ; and having erected and fitted up the necessary buildings, they prepared for fifty children ; and the number of forty was soon found. The age at Avhich children are admitted is between eleven and thirteen. On account of the condition of the funds, some have been admitted at an earlier age, for whom the friends who placed them there were willing to pay the full cost. In sex they are about equally divided. The establishment is under the direction of a man and his wife, who act as master and matron, and one schoolmaster, with a female assistant, who manage the literary department. The branches taught are "reading, writing, arithmetic, English grammar, geography, the catechism, and Scripture history." The oldest boys are taught likewise geometry and surveying. The children, with the exception of one ploughman, perform all the work on the farm and in the house ; and the great object is to qualify them for useful labor and domestic service by a thorough knowledge of husbandry and house-work. An ad- dition, since the first purchase, has been made to the land, so that the whole is now nearly fifty acres. " The boys have levelled about three hundred and forty-two perches of old ditches, which intersected the land, and have thus thrown nearly the whole of the farm into one field, portioned out into suitable sections for a regular four-course rotation of crops. They have also completed four hundred and eighty-eight perches of underground drain filled with stones. The drains are at the distance of from six to eight ^rards apart, according to circumstances ; and in this way it is proposed to go gradually over the farm, as time and opportunity permit." The average cost of supporting a child at this institution is as under : — £. s. d. Provisions, 5 19 IJ Clothing, 18 61 Salaries, 100 Other expenses, . 14 2 £9 1 10 Deducting the profits on the farm, leaves the average cost of a pupil at . . £6 6 9 212 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. The expenditure for the year in the family I shall give beioW; as it may be useful to compare it with some similar establish- ments in the United States. Expenditure of the Brookfield Agricultural School, for the Year ending 31sf of Third Month, 1844. £. s. d. Butcher's meat, (purchased,) .... 15 8 Potatoes, meal, groceries, &c., (pur- chased,) 66 7 9 81 15 9 Milk, 10,227 quarts, (supplied by farm,) 63 18 4^ Potatoes, 1,150 bushels, .do. . . 42 10 Vegetables, do. . . 6 Fowls and eggs, . . . do. . . 2 18 3 Oatmeal, do. . . 31 13 Wheatmeal, do. . . 9 13 8 Pigs, &c do. . . 23 10 9 Fuel, 13 17 2 Clothing, 40 17 7 Salaries, 44 Medicine, 519 Furniture, for wear and tear, . . . 10 19 Stationery and printing, 16 1 10 Contingencies, 7 3 8 180 4 Qh 138 1 £400 9^ I add likewise the Farm Account, for the year ending 31st March, 1844, with which the superintendent was kind enough to favor me. The result is encouraging, and the good done is certain. The present superintendents and teachers are father and mother, son and daughter, of the same family ; and their subsistence is included in the charges against the school. AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 213 ^^ Farm Account for one Year, ending 31st of TIdrd Month, 1844. Dr. £. s. d. To stock, 31st of 3d Month, 1843, 131 2 3 " rent and taxes, 50 2 6 " cattle, 46 4 10 '' seeds for sowing, 809 " smith's work and repairs, 8 7 6 ■' utensils, 11 19 ^' farm contingencies, 24 2 6 '• profit on farm, 121 2 4^ £401 1 8^ Cr. ■■ By produce sold, viz. — " wheat, 15 cwt. qr. 24 lbs. ... 7 9 7 " turnips, &c 18 " fowls and eggs, 12 2 '' potatoes, 0118 - cattle, 13 18 24 9 5 By produce supplied to house : — " wheat, 25 cwt. qrs. 4 lbs. . . .12 10 2 '' oats, 6 tons, 11 cwt 43 5 6 " potatoes, 1,250 bushels, .... 62 10 '' pork, 20 11 3 •' vegetables, 6 " fowls and eggs, 2 18 3 '• milk, 10,227 quarts, at Ud. . . . 63 18 4* ^ " 211 13 6J By stock : — '• hay and straw, 8 " oats, £6 : 3:6; potatoes, £1:8. . 7 11 6 " manure, 20 " cattle, 84 " utensils, 30 7 •' seed in the ground, 9 6 3 " turnips, 4 10 " fowls, 140 Value of boys' labor on the farm, £35." 164 18 9 £401 1 8.^ 214 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. The farming was plain and creditable, the crops good and improving. The strictest economy, as it should be, was studied in every department. The cattle were all soiled — that is, fed in the stalls, as the limits of the fami did not admit of grazing. As an exact account was kept of the milk obtained from the cows, I was curious to ascertain the average amount yielded by each cow. Many circumstances, in such cases, which it is difficult to estimate, ought to be taken into the account ; such as the precise number of cows in milk through the year, the length of time any of them may have gone dry, and the number of calves raised. Leaving these matters entirely out of the calcula- tion, the yield was equal to five quarts of milk per day to a cow, for the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year. This is more than an average yield. What is called the Irish cow, the native cow of the country, is a very valuable dairy animal, and of a good character for grazing, but is, I am sorry to say, fast disappearing under the introduction of what are deemed im- proved breeds, but which may not be better adapted to the wants and condition of the country. There is no charge in these accounts for what the superin- tendent at Glasnevin pleasantly calls a "blow-out" at harvest- home and other festivals; and no £4 7s. 7d. for "wine and beer " at the examination, as at Templemoyle, — an omission, in a place of education, which will be looked upon with indulgence by at least one man in Ireland, who bears an infinitely higher title than "very reverend," — I mean the very excellent Father Mat- thew. I am certain I should be doing a great injustice if my allusions, in this case, implied any immoral excess either in the teachers or pupils of these institutions. There is no ground, within my knowledge, for any such inferences ; but the influ- ences of every kind, which bear upon the minds and habits of the young in places of education, are of the highest moment in regard to their Avelfarc. The vinous " blow-outs " which occa- sionally occur at the anniversaries of some of our own literary institutions might, I think, be very safely dispensed with. But I leave the subject with wiser heads, and with men whose deep interest in the welfare of the young, and in the cause of good morals in the community, cannot be doubted, whatever may be their opinions of the doctrine of total abstinence. Few can have failed to observe that, if a person, who attempts AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 215 blindfolded to make his way across a room to a particular point, at first setting out tm*ns his feet but very slightly from the direct line, he finds himself, quite unconsciously, brought up at a very difterent corner from that at which he aimed. In a distance not great, I have seen persons, in this way, without their knowing it, completely turned round, and pursuing an opposite direction from that which they intended. I hope my readers will pardon this homely illustration of a point of infinite moment to the young ; I mean, that of setting out right — what the French call " taking the first step." A misdirection, a slight aberration in the beginning, an indulgence in itself wholly venial, may carry them on blindfolded, and consequently without a consciousness of their error, and so Avithout the disposition to correct their mistakes, until they find themselves at a result wholly unde- signed, and as deeply as possible to be deplored. I thought extremely well of this Brookfield School as a chari- table institution. The course of literary education \vas indeed very limited ; but how valuable was the training of these chil- dren to habits of industry ! I think they might add to this in- stitution, with great advantage, some of the useful mechanical trades, — such as tailoring, shoemaking, carpentering, and black- smithing ; and, for the girls, spinning and weaving ; knitting and plain sewing they are of course taught. The mere giving of money to the poor is the cheapest of all charities, and in its expediency always the most doubtful. But to give these poor, neglected outcasts a useful education ; to put into their hands,, beyond the power of its being wrested from them, the means of getting an honest livelihood, and of being useful to the commu- nity ; to give them, during the exposed period of childhood and youth, a comfortable home, and make them know that they have friends who feel the deepest interest in their character and good conduct ; is a benefaction of the highest order, — as credit- able to those who bestow as it is useful to those who receive it. "To seek and to save those who were lost " and perishing, was a mission of the divine mercy, which angels came from their celestial spheres to celebrate. How highly is man honored when he is permitted, in his humble measure, to imitate the beneficence of HeaveiuL^ When one looks here, daily and , hourly, upon the thousands and millions, in Ireland, England, "O and Scotland, of unprotected, uncared-for, squalid, neglected, ^ 216 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. half-clad, half-fed, reckless, miserable, suffering children and young persons, growing up in this country of established churches and institutions called Christian, of arts the most pol- ished, of learning the most cultivated, and of a wealth and lux- ury transcending even the wildest dreams of avarice ; and reads in the ever-turning page their certain history, their sure progress from the cradle to the street, from the street to crimes so enor- mous, so extraordinary, as to make one's head grow dizzy at the recital, and one's hair stand on end with fright ; and from these crimes to the prison, and from the prison to the transport-ship or to the gallows ; the benevolent heart is ready to burst with grateful joy to see any green spot in the desert, to perceive even one brand plucked from the burning, even one unconscious or struggling victim rescued from the descending and overwhelming current. 4. LARNE SCHOOL. My next excursion was to the Agricultural School at Larne, where I had the pleasure of witnessing the examination of a class of boys in agricultural chemistry and in practical agricul- ture. This is not, properly speaking, an agricultural school, but a national school, where the common branches of education are taught ; and there is connected with it a department or class of agricultural study, and a small piece of land, which the boys cultivate, and on which, in the way of experiment, the prin- ciples of agriculture, and its general practice, are, within a very limited extent, illustrated and tested. The examination was eminently successful, and creditable alike to the teacher and the pupils. It was from this establishment that a detachment of five pupils was sent for examination to the great meeting of the Agricultural Society of Scotland the last autumn, where their attainments created a great sensation, and produced an impression, on the subject of the importance of agricultural education, which is likely to lead to the adoption of some uni- versal system on the subject. I shall transcribe the account given of the occasion : " Five boys from the school at Larne were introduced to the meeting, headed by their teacher. They seemed to belong to the better class of peasantry, being clad in homely garbs ; and they appeared AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 217 to be from twelve to fifteen years of age. They were examined, ill the first instance, by the inspector of schools, in grammar, geography, and arithmetic ; and scarcely a single question did they fail to answer correctly. They were then examined, by an agricultural professor, in the scientific branches, and by two practical farmers in the practical departments of agriculture. Their acquaintance with these was alike delightful and astonish- ing. They detailed the chemical constitution of the soil and the effect of manures, the land best fitted for green crops, the different kinds of grain, the dairy, and the system of rotation of crops. Many of these answers required considerable exercise of reflection ; and as previous concert between themselves and the gentlemen who examined them was out of the question, their acquirements seemed to take the meeting by surprise ; at the same time they afforded it the utmost satisfaction, as evincing how much could be done by a proper system of training." I confess the establishment at Larne aftorded me, in this respect, very high gratification. The agricultural studies are not made compulsory, but voluntary ; and one hour per day is devoted to agricultural labor. The Board of Education in Ireland have now under their control three thousand teachers ; and it is proposed, wherever it may be deemed useful, to make agriculture a standard branch of common-school education. They already have seven agricultural training establishments ; and it is in contemplation to have twenty-five, with which it is proposed shall be connected small model farms, so that every where, besides furnishing this most valuable instruction to the pupils of the schools, the farmers in the vicinity may be excited and instructed to improve their cultivation. Thus diffusive is the nature of all beneficence. A good deed, like a stone thrown into the water, is sure to agitate the whole mass. Its strongest efiects will be felt where the blow is given ; but the concentric circles are seen extending themselves on every side, and reach much farther than the eye can follow them. In the moral as well as physical world, the condition of mutual attraction and dependence is universal and indissoluble. We have reason to hope that no good seed is ever sown in vain, but will sooner or later germinate and yield its proper fruits. These establishments do certainly the highest honor and credit to the intelligence and philanthropy of Ireland, and their 19 218 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. beneficent effects must presently be seen in alleviating the indescribable amount of wretchedness under which this beau- tiful country and fine-spirited people have been so long crushed to the earth — a wretchedness which, to be understood, must be seen. 5. SCHOOL AT EALING. An establishment of a somewhat similar character exists in England, perhaps many more than one, which I regret that accident merely has prevented my visiting. I refer to the school at Ealing, near London, and I believe there are others, supported by a noble woman, full of benevolence, Lady Noel Byron. At this school, three hours a day are devoted to labor on the farm ; and in addition to instruction in cultivating the soil, the boys are taught to perform all the other operations necessary upon it, such as carpenter work, bricklaying, glazing, &c. Each of the boys has a small plot of ground for his own cultivation, from which he derives a certain profit; and some of them had a pound or two in the Savings Bank at the end of the year. Such is the success of this institution, that there are now fifty applicants wishing to be received on the farm as boarders. The principal objection suggested against the devotion of a portion of the day to agricultural labor at a place of education, is, that it would interfere with the progress of their studies. It is extraordinary to find intelligent minds overlooking the inti- mate relation between physical and intellectual health. There can be no doubt that a man will perform more intellectual labor, who devotes a portion, and not a small portion, of every day to healthful physical exertion, than the man who, neglecting such exertion, abandons himself in his study exclusively to his books. I am quite aware that many occupations, of a mechanical or a commercial nature, may so exclusively occupy the mind as to unfit it for scientific pursuits ; but agricultural labors, quiet in their nature, and carried on in the open air, when pursued with moderation, so far from fatiguing, refresh and invigorate the mind, and prepare it for the more successful application to pursuits exclusively intellectual. The laboratory of nature, open always to the laboring farmer, is itself a school of philosophy to the intelligent, reflecting, and inquiring mind, and presents con- AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION, 219 tinually topics of the most healthful, useful, and elevating character. 6. AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE AT CIRENCESTER. In England, it is now proposed to establish a seminary exclu- sively agricultural in its character. The preliminary steps have been taken, and the foundation laid for an agricultural college. A considerable sum of money has been subscribed, a farm of about five hundred acres has been taken, and the accommoda- tions for about two hundred pupils arc in a course of preparation. It has been felt as a serious want that, while every other pro- fession — law, physic, and divinity — has its exclusive means and institutions for education, and the army and the navy have their schools, — agriculture, the most important and extensive of all the arts, and without which it Avould be difficult to say where would be the sinews of war or the means of commerce, or what use there would be either for law, physic, or theology, should have no place for the teaching of those arts and sciences, and for the making of those experiments, on which its success so mainly depends. The plans are not fully matured, nor the course of instruction prescribed ; but the scientific qualifications of some, and the practical character of others of the gentlemen concerned in its establishment, and standing as its sponsors, warrant the best eftorts for its success. The farm is taken at a moderate rent, through the liberality of its noble proprietor ; and it is hoped that, aided by the resources of the farm, the expense of a pupil for boarding and tuition may not exceed twenty-five or thirty pounds a year — that is, one hundred and twenty-five, or one hundred and fifty dollars. Twenty thousand pounds, or one hundred thousand dollars, were deemed the necessary capital with which to begin the establishment ; and, to the great honor of England, there are few objects of determined public utility, for which, from its abundant resources and public spirit, ample funds may not be obtained. This is a sort of joint stock com- pany, in shares of twenty-five, or thirty pounds each, in which the subscribers will have, as is right, the preference in recom- mending pupils to the foundation. 220 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. XXVI. — GENERAL VIEWS OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. These details must all be useful to my own countrymen, among whom the subject of agricultural schools has been much discussed, and where a distinct proposition is already before the public for the establishment of an institution of this nature. Under these circumstances, I shall be excused if I extend my remarks on this subject. I shall do this with unfeigned diffi- dence, and especially from my ignorance of the various estab- lishments for agricultural education upon the Continent. These are often referred to as examples of success, and some of them I hope to have an opportunity of inspecting. It is quite certain that the course of education pursued at most colleges and universities is quite unsuited to qualify men for the common business and pursuits of life. Indeed, it would seem, in many cases, to operate as a positive disqualification ; and men who may have distinguished themselves at our univer- sities for their classical and scholastic attainments, are often thrown upon society as helpless and as incompetent to provide for themselves, or to serve the community, as children. We have small encouragement at present, I confess, to look for any thing better. The system of education at our colleges and universities has undergone little substantial alteration for a century ; and what is called classical learning, and the subtleties and puerilities of scholastic divinity, occupy as much attention as formerly, and hold a place in these ancient seats of learning so high in the estimation of those to whom the management of these places is intrusted, that there is little hope of dislodging them. I am no enemy to classical acquirements, as a matter of elegant orna- ment and taste, as a source of delightful recreation, and as an essential element in a complete education. But to give them a preference in any way to learning more useful, substantial, and practical, is not to estimate things according to their real im- portance. The time and expense devoted to them might be given to studies infinitely more valuable. As to the time occu- pied in studying what is called divinity, I am not far from the opinion that the world would be no loser if every commentary AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 221 upon the Scriptures, and every treatise upon the controversial subjects of religion, since the days of the apostles, were extin- guished forever, and men were sent to the New Testament, and to the simple teachings of the Divine Master, only, to learn their duty, and the only elements of true happiness and moral improve- ment. A college, therefore, of the practical arts, and of those sciences which directly bear upon practice, must be greatly desired by that portion of the community whose education must be to them a means of subsistence, and who have little time to cultivate the arts but with a view to apply them at once to the purposes of practical life. It must be admitted, likewise, that many of these arts and sciences are, properly speaking, the creations of modern times, and could not be expected to find their place in schemes of edu- cation formed in a remote period. Chemistry, mineralogy, geol- ogy, and electricity, are all of modern date. There are those living, who may be said to have assisted at their birth, and have rocked the cradle of their infancy. All these are intimately connected with the practical arts, and especially with the ad- vancement of the great art of agriculture j and we may confi- dently look for the most important benefits to agriculture from the study and application of these sciences. Botany, likewise. and the nature, habits, and uses of plants ; comparative anatomy and physiology, the study of which may prove so useful in the improvement of the breeds of domestic animals, and in the treat- ment of the diseases and injuries to which they are liable ; the art of measuring superficies and solids, an art so constantly in demand in practical agriculture ; mechanics, and the construc- tion of farming implements and buildings ; hydraulics, a science so important in draining, irrigation, and the general management of water, and the uses of steam, that wonderful agent, which seems destined to exert a more powerful influence over the affairs and common business of the world than any or than all other agents besides ; the principles of engineering, in the con- struction of roads and embankments ; — all these are matters to be learned and studied, as furnishing direct uses and aid in the practice of agriculture, and bearing immediately upon its ad- vancement. These considerations demonstrate the importance of an institution, where such branches may be taught under the 19* 222 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. advantages of competent teachers, and means and apparatus adapted to their iUustration. A competent knowledge of these branches should be consid- ered as almost indispensable in those persons who would under- take the cultivation of a farm, or the management of large landed estates, either for themselves or others. It may be said that the style of farming in the United States is so wholly different from that in Great Britain, that, from the necessities of the one, we can make no inferences as to the wants of the other. I know that we have no class of land stewards, or persons employed for the management of the estates of other men ; that our farms are comparatively small ; and that a class of tenant-farmers is scarcely known among us. It appears to me, however, that it is quite as important that a man should be able himself to manage his own farm well, as that another man should be qualified to manage it for him ; and that farms of a moderate size, where the farmers depend upon their returns for their support, have need of the greater appliances to render them productive, and furnish, upon the whole, a better opportunity for a successful agriculture, and for an agriculture of a highly experimental and improved character, than farms of a very large size, where the attention must be greatly divided, and the management — the mere daily routine of operations — requires the most incessant and absorbing care. But there are considerations, of a more general character, which deserve attention. No one will pretend that agriculture, even in the more improved form in which it is any where to be found, has as yet approximated the perfection of the art. The perfection of the art of agriculture is that in which the largest amount of product is obtained at the least expense of labor and manure, and with the least exhaustion to the land. Indeed, there is reason to hope that we may presently reach a system of cultivation in which, though the crops may be large, the land itself shall not only not be exhausted, but be in a course of con- tinual amelioration. I know well there must be a limit ; but that limit no one can yet define. We know already that crops with large leaves, and therefore large powers of absorption, are com- monly improving crops ; and we know equally well that the grov;th of a forest upon land, so far from exhausting, is, in fact, INFLUENCE OF KNOWLEDGE UPON AGRICULTURE. 223 an improver of tlie soil. There is every reason to hope, there- fore, that such a system of husbandry may presently be found, when, without any extraneous aid. and trom the resources of the farm itself, the largest crops may be obtained, and the powers of production extended. The system of nature every where, if man performs his duty, is a system of amelioration, and not of deterioration ; it is every where a system of recuperative com- pensations, if man does not controvert or pervert its laws. That our crops, for example, arc not what they might be, is universally admitted. Within the last few years, crops of many kinds have increased immensely. A few years since, fifty bushels of Indian corn, to an acre, was deemed a large crop. One hundred have been frequently produced. Thirty bushels of wheat has heretofore been deemed more than an ordinary yield. Fifty is now not uncommon. I have known sixty, and nearly seventy, to have been grown, and, over a large farm, the crop to have averaged fifty-six bushels. Thirty tons of carrots per acre is the ordinary crop of a farmer within my knowledge ; and I have on my table before me the authenticated statement of eighty-eight tons of mangel-wurzel to the acre. I am willing to admit that these are rare instances. Some of them may be considered as single instances ; but it is obvious that one well-established case is as good as a thouoand in demonstrating the practicability of that which is claimed to have been done. XXVII. — INFLUENCE OF KNOAVLEDGE UPON AGRICULTURE. Here, then, there is an opportunity for the highest degree of intelligence, as applicable to the improvement of agriculture ; for who can doubt that these extraordinary results are the const;- quence of that intelligence and enlightened skill, which are equally the instruments of success in every other art. But it seems idle to argue this point. All the improvements which have been made in agriculture are as much the resitlt of the application of mind and of knowledge to the subject, as any of 224 EUllOPEAN AGRICULTLTKE. the improvements made in manufactnres or the mechanic arts, Accident has produced nothing. The dull, plodding laborer originates nothing, any more than the beast which he drives. The present advanced state of agriculture as a practical art, all the improvements which have been effected in it, are due to the highly-intelligent minds, the men of science, of learning, of observation, of skill, who have applied their attention, and have devoted their time, talents, and fortunes, to it. The pioneer in the improved agriculture of the United States was Jared Eliot, of Connecticut — an educated clergyman, whose essays have a permanent value, and may be read with advantage even at the present day. The author of the New England Farmer's Dictionary, a most valuable book, published half a century since, and which has rendered an immense service to agriculture, was the Rev. Samuel Deane, of Maine. John Lowell, who contributed far more than any other individual to the improvement of agriculture in the United States, was an accomplished lawyer, a man of science and of taste, and as much distinguished for his intellectual rank and attainments as he was eminent for the highest virtues which could adorn his character as a man. Aaron Dexter, the beloved physician, an eminent chemist in the very imperfect state of the science, a man whose name was a synonyme for kindness, and to whose memory I shall be pardoned for here recording the humble tribute of my most grateful affection and respect, was an eminent friend and pro- moter of agricultural improvement. Fessenden, Buel, and Gay- lord, were all men of highly-cultivated minds, stored with scientific lore, distinguished for their zeal in the cause of an enlightened agriculture, and honored with the power, which they used with so much zeal and efficiency, of conferring immense benefits upon the agricultural community. While even this Report is in progress, the grave has closed over the remains of a devoted friend to agricultural improvement in Mas- sachusetts — a man of the highest order of intellect, of a mind rich in various knowledge, and of profound legal attainments ; and for his personal worth, his public spirit, and private virtues, surpassed by none in his claims upon the affection and respect of his friends and fellow-citizens.* On the English side of the » William Prescott, Esq., LL. D. SCIENCES TO BE TAUGHT. 225 Atlantic, Tull, the author of the improved husbandry : Young, the eminent agricuUurist, who kindled so great a zeal, and dif- fused so great a mass of information, among his countrymen ; and Sinclair, as great a benefactor to improved agriculture as England has known, — were all men of liberal education and distinguished scientific attainments. Von Thaer, on the Conti- nent, himself a host in agricultural skill and science, was bred to a learned profession. If I were at liberty to violate a rule which I have made absolute, I might refer to many living examples, on both sides of the water, of men of the finest genius, the most accomplished education, and rare scientific attainments, who have rendered, and are daily rendering, the highest benefits to practical agriculture, and which without their aid and enterprise would never be realized. It is, then, with agriculture as with every other valuable art ; — its success and improvement must depend mainly upon the education of those who pursue it, and all hope of its progress must rest upon the science, in the most extended sense of that term, which is brought to bear upon it. XXVIII. — SCIENCES TO BE TAUGHT. The Agricultural College at Cirencester proposes a specific education in agriculture, and the cultivation of those sciences which bear directly upon it. Botany, not as a mere catalogue of names and classes of vegetable productions, but as embracing the whole subject of vegetable physiology and the artificial improvement of plants, must of course be highly useful to a farmer. The cultivation of fruit and forest trees is necessarily included in it. The science of mechanics, so useful in the con- struction and improvement of agricultural implements, must be of constant and valuable application in the management of a farm. 226 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. XXIX. — CHEMICAL SCIENCE. But what seems mainly to be relied on, in this case, is chem- ical knowledge ; and the high value of this knowledge it is at least safe to presmne. Confident, however, as some persons seem to be in the discoveries already made, still it must be acknowledged that the application of these discoveries to prac- tical agriculture has been hitherto so limited, imperfect, and doubtful, that we are compelled to consider ourselves as yet only in the infancy of the science. I do not mean in the smallest measure to undervalue the science ; nor to disparage what has already been done ; nor to discourage the sanguine hopes which some entertain for the future ; but in the present state of agricultural chemistry, the extreme confidence of some persons may be at least pronounced premature. The application of sulphuric acid to bones seems as yet to be the only well- established case of the application of chemical science to the improvement of practical agriculture upon scientific principles ; and this certainly atfords strong grounds to hope for much more. The operations of gypsum are still an insoluble mystery, and the explanations which have been given of its effects do not appear to be confirmed by facts. The application of lime to the soil, and its particular advantages and uses, are still among the vexed questions of agriculture. Its beneficial mechanical effects are often obvious, but its chemical operation is not so well defined. A farmer as eminent as Scotland produces, Avho has for a long series of years used lime most bountifully upon his farm, told me he remained entirely at a loss to determine whether it was of any service or not. The same uncertainty of explanation is applicable to various manures, in regard to their mode of opera- tion and their precise chemical effects. I do not hold this as a reason for rejecting the aid of chemistry, but only as a ground for moderating a too sanguine confidence in its power. As it offers certainly the most probable means of solving many of the secrets of nature's operations, and as in many of the mechanical arts its triumphs are complete, there are the strongest reasons for pressing our inquiries by means of it, and for the best hopes CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 227 of as much success as, in the present condition of the human mind, we have any right to expect. The great vahie of chemical science is deemed to consist in its facility and power of analysis ; but in this respect it seems to have advanced but little farther, excepting in changing the terms, than the ancient doctrine that all matter was resolvable' into four elements — earth, air, fire, and water. The composi- tion of albumen, fibrin, caseine, and gluten, and of each of them, is represented, by chemical analysis, as precisely the same in the nature and quantity of their original elements ; as, for example, they consist of carbon, 48 ; hydrogen, 36 ; nitrogen, 6 ; oxygen, 15 ; — but to our senses, and in their uses, they are obviously altogether different. Now, chemistry explains the difficulty, — if explanation it can be called, — by stating that the difference in these substances arises from a different mechanical arrangement of the atoms or particles of which they are composed ; but until chemistry can explain how this arrangement differs in the respec- tive cases — until it can take the original elements, and compound or arrange them at its pleasure, so as to produce their different forms or substances — the explanation is certainly very far from complete. It is, indeed, not certain that even these four great principles — the existence of which is so well established and defined — are themselves ultimate elements ; but admitting the fact, their precise nature is wholly unexplained, in the present state of human knowledge. Newton, in revealing the operation of a principle of gravitation, and in explaining its wonderful laws, has yet thrown no light upon the nature of the force itself; and, in dissecting the beautiful composition of light into its seven primary elements, has yet not advanced one hair's breadth in defining what light itself is. I know it is now the habit to believe that every thing in nature may be resolved into chemical or electrical agency, the laws of which are determined and explicable, and to discard all notions of what is termed the vital agency. I cannot myself doubt that every thing in nature is governed by determinate and general laws ; laws, in respect to whose existence and operation science has already made very great advances, and, for aught that can be 'foreseen, may pres- ently completely understand them ; but as yet the goal is far from being reached ; and human reason, with all its illumination, 228 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. and in the hour of its loftiest pride, must abase itself in the dust, in the presence of that Omniscience before which all human wisdom seems little more than ignorance and folly. Until Science will explain to me by what force I move my muscles at my pleasure, what mind is, what matter is, what knowledge itself is, and what are the records of memory, — or even afford me some means of conjecture, — I may be permitted to demur to her loud notes of triumph, and to feel that there are still many depths which the line of our philosophy has not yet reached, and innumerable simple processes in nature, of daily occurrence, which are utterly beyond our explanation. That there is at work, in all animal and vegetable life, a vital agency, who can entertain a doubt ? I do not know that it is not resolv- able into the principles of chemical solution and affinity, or into electrical or galvanic agency ; but the assumption, in the present state of science, would be, I think, premature, without stronger grounds on which to rest it. XXX. — ANALYSIS OF SOILS. In the chemical analysis of soils, likewise, upon which so much stress is laid, there are difficulties, in the practical applica- tion of our knowledge, sufficiently discouraging. The complaint has been constantly and very emphatically made, that the analyses of former chemists, such as Davy, Chaptal, and others, were all too general, and therefore of little or no practical value. It may bo said of modern analyses, that they startle one by their precision and minuteness. I shall be excused, I hope, if I endeavor to lessen somewhat the dryness and dulncss of these discussions, to my readers, by a matter of fact, certainly not without its interest to me, and which may bear some analogy to the case before us. Some years since, when suffering under a severe illness for several months, I was sometimes amused, as far as it was possible for me, under such circumstances, to be amused, by the great, and I had almost ANALYSIS OF SOILS. 229 saidj endless variety of articles which entered into the prescrip- tions of my medical advisers in the customary form of grains, scruples, drams, and mixtures. So much of this article was for this specific purpose, and so much of that for another. This was to qualify that ; that was to qualify this. This was to prevent such an article doing too much, and that was to prevent its doing too little. One was to operate upon the bile, another upon the blood ; one upon the respiration, and another upon the digestion. And all this was to be going on, and to be accom- plished, at the same time. I confess I was often in the situation, in respect to my physician, of the wondering pupils of Gold- smith's village schoolmaster, and marvelled " that one small head could carry all he knew." I had, at least, the consolation in the case of feeling that, as the surgeons often pleasantly term it, when amputating a limb, or operating for the extraction of the stone, I was furnishing at least a beautiful experiment in the way of medical science ; and it must be said to the credit of my physician, whose kindness amidst all this I never can forget, that, although his philosophy and his scientific ardor carried him to the most extreme tests, and he might be said to have sus- pended me over a precipice by a twine string, confident that, if I dropped, it would at least prove that common twine was not strong enough in such cases, — a most important fact to be ascertained, — I was not quite used up, but was, after a while, enabled to show myself erect again, a perfect monument of the triumph of his skill. Let us now open at random upon some of the analyses given us in the work of the most distinguished chemist of the day, and inquire who has skill to prescribe for cases so complicated in their nature, or in any event what prescription would suit the case, but one as multiform and mixed as those of my own physician. SOILS OF HEATHS. " 1. Soil of a heath converted into arable land in the vicinity of Brunswick. It is naturally sterile, but produces good crops when manured with lime, marl, cow-dung, or the ashes of the heaths which grow upon it." [It would be difficult, I think, to 20 230 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. find many soils, where the climate did not forbid it, which would not produce good crops under such treatment.] " Silica, and coarse silicious sand, 71.504 Alumina, 0.780 Protoxide, and peroxide of iron, principally com- bined with humus, 0.420 Peroxide of manganese, idem, 0.220 Lime, idem, 0.134 Magnesia, idem, 0.032 Potash and soda, principally as silicates, .... 0.058 Phosphoric acid, principally as phosphate of iron, . 0.115 Sulphuric acid, (in gypsum,) 0.018 Chlorine, (in common salt,) 0.014 Humus soluble in alkalies, 9.820 Humus with vegetable remains, ....... 14,975 Resinous matters, 1.910 100.000 " Ashes of the soil of the heath before being converted into arable land : — " Silica, with silicious sand, 92.641 Alumina, 1.352 Oxides of iron and manganese, 2.324 Lime in combination with sulphuric and phosphoric acids, 0.929 Magnesia combined with sulphuric acid, .... 0.283 Potash and soda, (principally as sulphates and phosphates,) 0.564 Phosphoric acid, combined with lime, .... 0.250 Sulphuric acid, with potash, soda, and lime, . . . 1.620 Chlorine in common salt, 0.037 100.000 " 2. Surface soil of a fine-grained loam, from the vicinity of Brunswick. It is remarkable from the circumstance that not a single year passes in which corn [wheat] plants are cultivated upon it, without the stem of the plants being attacked by rust. ANALYSIS OF SOILS. 231 Even the grain is covered with a yellow rust, and is much shrunk. One hundred parts of the soil contain — " Silica and fine silicious sand, 87.859 Alumina, 2.652 Peroxide of iron, Avith a large proportion of prot- oxide 5.132 Protoxide and peroxide of manganese, .... 0.840 Lime, principally combined with silica, .... 1.459 Magnesia, idem^ 0.280 Potash and soda, idem, 0.090 Phosphoric acid in combination with iron, . . . 0.505 Sulphuric acid in combination with lime, . . . 0.068 Chlorine in common salt, 0.006 Humus, 1.109 100.000." This analysis must surely be sufficiently close and severe to satisfy even the most fastidious ; for here even six hundred thousandth parts of a particular ingredient in the soil, that is, of chlorine in common salt, were ascertained. " This soil," it is remarked, " does not suffer from want of drain- age ; it is well exposed to the sun ; it is in an elevated situation, and in a good state of cultivation. In order to ascertain whether the rust was due to the constituents of the soil, (phosphate of iron?) or to certain fortuitous circumstances unconnected with their operation, a portion of the land was removed to another locality, and made into an artificial soil of fifteen inches in depth. Then this barley and wheat were sown ; but it was found, as in the former case, that the plants were attacked by rust, whilst barley growing on the land surrounding this soil was not at all affected by the disease. From this experiment it follows that certain constituents in the soil favor the develop- ment of rust." But this inference does not appear to me to follow of course. We cannot deny that the rust may have been, in this case, the result of some noxious ingredients in the soil ; this appears highly probable. But rust is often the result of influences mainly atmospheric. The fact that the barley grown on soil in the neighborhood of the removed soil was unaffected by rust, 232 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. while that on the removed soil was affected, is not conclusive. It is believed that plants are subject to rust only in particular stages of their growth. Now, on the supposition that the rust in this case was the effect of atmospheric influences, it is im- portant to know whether the barley (for the wheat is not com- pared with any other wheat) growing on the removed soil, and that growing in its vicinity, w^ere precisely contemporaneous in their growth, or in the degree of ripeness, or approach to ripe- ness, which they had attained. Further, it appears that the learned analyst was not himself able to say to what particular mgredient in the soil the rust was owing, nor what manure, if any, was used ; and manure always seriously affects the plant to which it is applied. " 3. Soil of a heath which had been brought into cultivation in the vicinity of Brunswick. The analysis was made before any crops had been grown upon it. Corn plants [wheat] were first reared upon the new soil, but were found to be attacked by rust, even on those parts which had been manured respectively with lime, marl, potash, Avood-ashes, bone-dust, ashes of the heath plant, common salt, and ammonia. One hundred parts contain — " Silica with coarse silicious sand, 51.337 Alumina, 0.528 Protoxide and peroxide of iron, in combination with phosphoric and humic acids, 0.398 Protoxide and peroxide of manganese, 0.005 Lime in combination with humus, 0.230 Magnesia, idem, 0.040 Potash and soda, 0.010 Phosphoric acid, 0.066 Sulphuric acid, 0.022 Chlorine, 0.014 Humus soluble in alkalies, 13.210 Resinous matters, 2.040 Coal of humus and water, 32.100 100.000.^' Here it will be seen we come again to fractions as minute as hundred thousandths. " The next analysis represents this soil after being bm-nt. ANALYSIS OF SOILS. 233 One hundred parts by weight of the soil left, after ignition, only fifty parts. One hundred parts of these ashes consisted of — Silica and silicious sand, 95.204 Alumina, 1.640 Peroxide of iron, 1.344 Peroxide of manganese, 0.080 Lime in combination with sulphuric acid, . . . 0.544 Magnesia combined with silica, 0.465 Potash and soda, 0.052 Phosphoric acid, (principally as phosphate of iron,) 0.330 Sulphm-ic acid, 0.322 Chlorine, 0.019 100.000 " By comparing this analysis with the one which has preceded It, an increase in certain of the constituents is observed, partic- ularly with respect to the sulphuric acid, potash, soda, magnesia, oxide of iron, manganese, and alumina. From this it follows, that the humus, or, in other words, the vegetable remains, must have contained a quantity of these substances confined within it m such a manner that they were not exhibited by analysis." Here it seems, then, admitted, that the most minute chemical analysis, even to hundred thousandths, failed to detect all the latent elements of which the soil was composed. " Oats and barley were sown on this land the second year after being reclaimed, and both suffered much from rust, although different parts of the soil were manured with marl, lime, and peat-ashes, whilst other portions were left without manure. In the first year, all the different parts of the field produced pota- toes ; but they succeeded best in those parts which had been manured with peat-ashes, lime, and marl. In the second year, oats, mixed with a little barley, were sown upon the soil ; and the straw was found to be strongest on the parts treated with peat-ashes, lime, and marl." [I have never known this to fail to be the case on any soil.] "Red clover was sown in the third year ; and it appeared in best condition on those portions of the soil manured with marl and lime. Upon the divisions of the field which had been left without manure, as well as on those 20* 234 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. manured with bone-dust, potash, ammonia, and common salt, the clover scarcely appeared above ground." [Here, though so much stress is laid upon the infinitesimally minute divisions of the soil, we are left entirely at a loss as to the quantities or forms in which these applications were made.] "The divisions of the field, which had been manured in the first year with peat- ashes, ammonia, and ashes of wood, were sown with buck-wheat after the removal of the first crop of clover. The buck-wheat succeeded very well on all the divisions, yet a marked difference was perceptible in favor of the portion treated with ammonia. These experiments show us, that a dressing of lime did not com- pletely remove from the soil its tendency to impart rust to the plants grown upon it." [But if the lime partially corrected the evil, is there not reason to infer that the error was in not putting lime enough upon it, and that more would have completely re- moved it ?] " Nevertheless," the writer adds, " it is highly prob- able that, as soon as the protoxide of iron became converted into the peroxide by exposure to the atmosphere, lime would possess more power in decomposing the phosphate of iron." I shall cite only one more example in this case. '' 4. Subsoil of a loamy soil in the vicinity of Brunswick. It is remarkable that sainfoin cannot be cultivated upon it more than two or three years in succession. The portion analyzed was taken from a depth of five feet. One hundred parts con- tained — " Silica, with very fine silicious sand, .... 90.035 Alumina, 1.976 Peroxide of iron, 4.700 Protoxide of iron, 1.115 Protoxide and peroxide of manganese, 0.240 Lime, 0.022 Magnesia, 0.115 Potash and soda, 0.300 Phosphoric acid combined with iron, 0.098 Sulphuric acid, (the greatest part in combination with protoxide of iron,) „ . . 1.399 Chlorine, a trace. 100.000 ANALYSIS OF SOILS. 235 '•' Now; the results of the analysis give a sufficient account of the failure of the sainfoin." [But it seems it can be cultivated upon it two or three years hi succession.] " The soil contains one per cent, of sulphate of the protoxide of iron, (green vitriol of commerce,) a salt which exerts a poisonous action upon plants. Lime is not present in quantity sufficient to decompose this salt. Hence it is that sainfoin will not thrive in this soil, nor indeed lucern, or any other of the plants with deep roots. The evil cannot be obviated by any method sufficiently economical for the farmer, because the soil cannot be mixed with lime at a depth of five or six feet." [It requires some courage for a man even to think of such a thing.] " For many years, experiments have been made in vain, in order to adopt this soil for sainfoin and lucern, and much expense incurred, which would all have been saved, had tlie soil been previously analyzed. This ex- ample affords a most convincing proof of the importance of chemical knowledge to an agriculturist." * Now, I think the strong impression which will be upon every practical man's mind, in looking at these analyses, will be, the utter impossibility of meeting the cases, and of adapting the cul- tivation and manuring with any very exact reference to the chemical condition of the soil ; that is, of prescribing for the patient. I admit that the application of chemical analyses or tests to the soil may be of very great importance in detecting the existence of any substance, as in the latter case for example, which is poisonous to vegetation ; though even here, the exist- ence of the evil itself, and the remedy, are left somewhat in uncertainty. I believe it may be of great utility in determining the general and predominant characteristics of a soil ; but with great respect for science, and for the labors of those men who, by their distinguished attainments, have conferred the highest benefits upon the community, I can come to no other conclusion than that any expectation of adapting our cultivation, upon any extended scale, to these minute diversities of soil, is illusory ; and that the most illustrious chemist living may be challenged in vain to prescribe any practicable culture adapted to meet, with * These examples of analyses of soils are by Sprengel, and taken from Liebig's Aoricultural Chemistry, from the chapter on the Chemical Constituents of Soils, p. 208, 3d American edition. 236 EUROPEAN AGRICLLTLRE, any degree of exactness, the cases given, or to recognize in his applications or prescriptions, with any peculiar success, the minute diversities of composition which are here presented. But suppose the application made, and even in the simplest form ; what sagacity is acute enough to follow it in all its opera- tions upon the elements, either simple or compounded, with which it comes in contact ? or what skill can command the external circumstances of heat or cold, of drought or moisture, which must at the time affect its operation ? No human skill has as yet been able to compound a soil, and say. This shall be more fruitful than any other. The habits and nature of different plants require different conditions both of soil and of culture. The Royal Agricultural Society of England has recently made a liberal grant to aid in the chemical analysis of the dif- ferent vegetable productions, under the direction of one of the most able chemists of the age : and a good deal of valuable information will undoubtedly be derived from this source. The chemical analysis of different manures has been carried on with eminent zeal and intelligence, and is constantly going on, to the great benefit, without question, of agricultural science ; but the extraordinary confidence which some persons indulge in the results of chemical science, in respect to agriculture, seems to me a little too sanguine, and the practical application of this knowl- edge by no means so easy as has been supposed. I am quite aware that this may appear like a digression j but, in considering the subject of agricultural education, it was natural to advert to that which seems now to be more prominent in the minds of agriculturists than almost any thing else — the advan- tages which agriculture is to derive from chemical science, and the consequent importance of making it the prominent subject of instruction. Our expectations in this matter should be in some degree moderated by a remark of Liebig's : in speaking of the analysis of soils, and after having given several examples, " It is unnecessary," he says, " to describe the modus operandi used in the analysis of these soils ; for this kind of research will never be made by farmers, who must apply to the professional chemists, if they wish for information in regard to the composi- tion of their soils." The science of chemistry has indeed now become of that enlarged character, and is occupied in such pro- found and difficult investigations and discoveries, that excellence NATURAL SCIENCE. 237 111 it can scarcely be looked for but with those persona \rho, to eminent talents of research, and an extraordinary enthusiasm in the pursuit, devote their time almost exclusively to this object. A general knowledge of its principles and discoveries, and a facility in making some experiments in it, are all, perhaps, that can be expected to be given in the education at an agricultural college j but it is desirable and most requisite, even for this object, that the institution, in a competent instructor, and all the necessary apparatus, should furnish the means of accom- plishing it in the best manner, and to the greatest advantage This undoubtedly will be done. XXXI. — NATURAL SCIENCE. Every possible facility should be provided for the study of ev- ery branch of natural history, for every branch of natural history may be made subservient to agricultural improvement. There is, in my opinion, nothing which so invigorates and strengthens the mind as earnest and deep inquiries into nature, the study of natural facts, the observation of natural phenomena. There is no knowledge, especially to persons residing in the country, which affords so many practicable uses and such varied and important application. The man who studies books exclusively is always liable to be the slave of other men's opinions ; and his mind, losing by such restraints its native elasticity, never travels out of its prescribed limits. The man who goes himself to the original sources of knowledge, and draws water out of the very wells of life, acquires a force of inquiry, maintains a healthful freshness of mind, which grow strong continually by what they feed upon, multiply for themselves the sources of knowledge, turn every object and occurrence which they meet with into an in- strument of instruction, and find the world and nature no longer a dull, desolate, inanimate chamber, but its walls all over radiant with lessons of wisdom, and every object with which it is crowded vocal with the teachings of a divine spirit. 238 • EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. I do not overrate the value of natural science to the agricul- turist, the resident in the country. For him it is the proper study for use, for ability, for recreation, and for ornament. There is yet much to be done in agriculture. I believe that the quantity of the products of the earth from the same extent of surface may in most cases be quadrupled, and that the number of its productions for the sustenance of man and beast may be multiplied far beyond any present calculation. If we may argue from Avhat has been done to what may be done, the perfection of agriculture is yet very distant, and vast improvements remain to be made. But this can only be effected by bringing vigorous and enlightened minds to bear upon the subject ; and the natural sciences are those which of all others best prepare and strengthen the mind for such investigations. The best education which can be given to any man is not that which merely communi- cates knowledge, but that which enables and induces a man to acquire knowledge for himself. This is what the study of the natural sciences particularly prompt and compel a man to do. These studies, pursued especially in the country, where Nature in such a variety of aspects is continually offering herself for ex- amination, give a vigor and activity of mind which particularly qualify men for practical objects and pursuits. We are to look, then, to educated men, to men of active and cultivated minds, to men accustomed to study, inquiry, reflection, observation, and experiment, for any great improvement yet to be made in agriculture. These are the men who have always been the pioneers in human progress, and these men are still to lead the onward march. A school, therefore, which trains such minds, not for literary leisure, but for the active and business pursuits of life, must be regarded as one of the most valuable in- stitutions in the community. No branch of art or business will be found to afford greater scope for the application of such an education than agriculture. MODEL FARM, 239 XXXII. — MODEL FARM. To the departments which may be called literary and scientific, the Agricultural College at Cirencester proposes to add those which are strictly practical, by connecting with the institution a farm of five hundred acres. Practical experience is of the high- est importance in every practical art. If it be true, that no man can be a thorough sailor who has not served before the mast, and who is not familiar with every rope in the ship, it may be as truly said, that no one should consider himself fnlly competent to the management of a farm, who is not thoroughly acquainted with every operation to be performed on a farm ; and, though he may not always be able to execute it himself, he should know how it is to be done, and be able to determine when it is properly executed. A model farm is intended to illustrate, as far as the nature of tlie soil and climate admit, the best practices in husbandry ; to show the management of a farm in the details and in the whole ; to teach the arts of ploughing, sowing, harrowing, cultivating, reaping, harvesting, stacking, threshing, and preparing the products for market ; to explain the management and treatment of all live stock on the place, whether designed for food or labor, for fattening or working, for beef, mutton, pork, wool, or dairy produce ; to teach the whole duty of a shepherd or grazier, and the whole management of the stall and the dairy. These are the objects proposed ; and it is intended that the labor of the farm shall be performed by the pupils, and its products go towards the support of the institution, so as to reduce the expenses of education. All this is well, and may be made eminently useful to the pupils. 240 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. XXXIII. — EXPERIMENTAL FARM. It is further intended, besides presenting a model farm, that it shall likewise, in a measure, serve the purpose of an experi- mental farm. Besides presenting an example of the best man- agement, and the performance of all the customary operations of a farm in the best and most approved manner, it is designed to afford an opportunity of experimenting in various forms upon manures, seeds, plants, cultivation, and the feeding and fattening of animals, and upon every feasible subject, where practical information and exact results are important to be ascertained. XXXIV. — ECONOMICAL ARRANGEMENTS AT THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. Such, as I understand, are the outlines of the plan for agri- cultural education designed to be pursued at the College at Cirencester. Its objects are not to teach its pupils how to labor, but to qualify a class of persons for the management of their own, or the estates of others. The farmers here are not, as with us, workers on their own estates ; they are the managers or superintendents of the work ; but it is obviously of the highest importance that they should understand how every branch of husbandry should be conducted. For the common laborer here, in the present arrangements of society, I see no hope of his ever rising above that condition in which he is born. There are some extraordinary exceptions ; but they are very rare. Besides the impediments which lie in the way from his entire poverty, and the extreme difficulty of his ever acquiring more than six feet of the soil, and that six feet below the surface, and after all power of active improvement of it has ceased, any attempt to alter his condition in this respect, it is to be feared, as I think I have already shown, would be discouraged, certainly not aided, ECONOMICAL ARRANGEMENTS AT AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 241 by those above him. I do not know that it is necessary for me to discuss the question whether such a condition of society is preferable to one in which the laborer is first to be served from the produce of his own toil ; in which every man, by honest industry, may become the sovereign owner of the acres which he tills, and while he labors he may proudly feel that he is laboring for himself, and not for another. I shall leave all this to the dispassionate judgment of my reader, content even that it should be ascribed to the misfortune of birth, or the perverse prejudices of education, that I immeasurably prefer a condition of society, where the rights of all men are, as far as possible, held equal ; where no monopoly of wealth, or education, or rank, or power, limits or impedes the progress even of the humblest members of the community ; and where, in a free and equal competition, without injury to his neighbor, every man, for him- self and those dependent upon him, becomes the creator of his own fortunes. No human institution is perfect. Every effort will doubtless be made to adapt the institution at Cirencester to its proper and valuable ends. It is obvious that some practical difficulties will present themselves, which it will require great skill to overcome. The distinctions of rank, which prevail in England, and form a part of its constitution, are as rigorously observed at places of education as in any other departments of society, and are marked there by differences of dress and of privilege. Will these dis- tinctions prevail here ? If they prevail here, will they not prove inconvenient in respect to the labors of the farm ? or is the institution in no respect intended for the education of persons of rank? I am curious to know how this is to be arranged. Many noblemen in England, of the highest rank, are among the most intelligent practical agriculturists in the kingdom. Will they not desire all the advantages of the institution for their sons ? and will they consent to forego all the distinctions and priv- ileges of their rank for the sake of the education ? After all, the difficulty may be purely imaginary ; for I confess, in my simplicity, educated as I had been in the plain democratic or republican habits of New Eiigland, nothing surprised me more than the perfect readiness, with which, in every case, the claims of rank are acknowledged, and in most cases even the pride and pleasure with which this deference is paid, and their rights 21 242 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. admitted, on the part of the inferior classes. So far from looking upon this as most of my countrymen are disposed to regard it, and as I should regard it in my own country, as a mark of extreme servility, in a country where such distinctions are established by law, and make a part of the government, it seems to me as much to the credit of their good sense, as it is conducive to their good manners, to conform to them. In any institution of this kind, in my own country, no such difficulties can arise ; and it might seem idle for me to allude to them, were it not that an occasional, and I hope not unseasonable, illustra- tion of the manners of England will interest the curiosity of a large portion of my readers. In the next place, it seems to be designed, and certainly it is very desirable, that the farm shall be managed by the labor of the pupils ; and it is proposed that the proceeds of the farm should go towards the payment of the rent, and the reduction of other expenses of the establishment. This is, in my opinion, as it should be ; and, with the exception of one or two more experienced laborers, who, in their particular departments of ploughing, Sec, should be competent to act as instructors of the pupils, and with a few ser\^ants, (and they should be very few, f(ir servants, in almost all places of education, are commonly a great evil, and the best of all training for the young is that which compels them, in a great degree, for all personal services at least, to depend upon themselves,) the whole labor of the farm should be performed by the pupils. This would be, of all others, the most effectual way of making them acquainted with the subject, and the only way, indeed, in which they can become thoroughly acquainted with many of the operations on a farm. I am curious to know how this labor is to be had ; Y/hether it is to be voluntary or l^y compulsion ; and how, among two hundred pupils, it is to be apportioned and equalized. If made voluntary, it certainly will not be equally rendered : some will not work at all ; and preferences for some kinds of work, and distaste for others, which of course must be expected to exist, will be found inconvenient. If the labor is made com- pulsory, the enforcing of it will not be easy; and it would be difficult to find the young men, likely to resort to such a place of education, disposed to submit to any arbitrary exactions of this nature. How far it is practicable to make it mercenary, and ECONOMICAL ARRANGEMENTS AT AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 243 to reward it by wages, or by a share of the products of such labor, is a subject which will require much consideration ; but this mode seems to present the only alternative. The large number of students — two hundred — to be pro- vided for, seems to me to present another serious difficulty in the case. If any thing like a military discipline could be introduced among them, two thousand might be managed as easily as two hundred. As far as concerns their literary or scholastic improve- ment, the number presents no impediment in the way of their instruction by lectures or recitations ; but when with this is to be combined the management of the farm by the personal labor of the pupils, a number so large, or indeed half that number, must be found exceedingly difficult of management. At the Glasnevin school, the boys are regular apprentices to the farmer, and their work for certain hours of the day is compulsory. The schoolmasters, who come to the farm for instruction, come merely as spectators, and put their hands to the work, or not, as they please. The whole establishment, if indeed it were four times as large as it is, would not, under these circumstances, be beyond the personal superintendence of a single efficient man- ager. At Templemoyle, the number is limited to seventy, the farm is much more extensive than at Glasnevin, and the labor for half the day is compulsory. As the pupils are almost entirely drawn from the poorest classes, and are persons who must depend for their success in life Avholly upon their own efforts, they require no other stimulus to exertion. At Ciren- cester, the pupils may be divided into two classes — those who work, and are allowed in some form a compensation for their labor ; and those who are not required or expected to labor, and pay an extra price for the exemption. Such an arrangement would have many disadvantages, and would be ill adapted to the condition of society in the United States. The number of two hundred seems to me quite too large, and unmanageable with any view to the advantageous application of tlieir labor, if that labor is to be voluntary. In Scotland, the practical part of farming is learned by young men going to reside one or two years, or for a suitable length of time, with an intelligent and experienced farmer. In such case, the fee paid is about one hundred pounds, or five hundred dollars, a year ; and for this the apprentice is received into the family, 244 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. and provided lor at the farmer's table, and every operation on the farm is witnessed by him, and explained to him by the farmer. In such cases, labor with the pupil is wholly optional. Where the farmer is well-skilled and communicative, and the pupil capable and interested in the pnrsuit, few arrangements are to be preferred — this upon the supposition, however, that ni other respects, and previously to his commencing his appren- ticeship, he is well grounded in practical science. The three things of which I have spoken ought to be viewed separately ; but I fear, from the manner in which I have treated them, they may appear somewhat confused to my reader's mind. XXXV. — PLAN OF AN AGRICULTURAL INSTITUTION. First, then, in every system of agricultural education, there should be an institution for the thorough indoctrination of the pupil in natural science, and in mechanical philosophy, so far as it can be made to bear upon agriculture. I have already treated fully of what, on this topic, should be taught in an insti- tution of this nature. Secondly, there should be a model farm, which should be accessible to the pupils, and where they might see an example of the best management, and the best practices in husbandry. It is obvious, however, that a single farm can present, excepting on a small scale, only a single kind of farming ; and that it would be hardly possible to fmd a single locality presenting any considerable, or very instructive specimen of the diiferent kinds of farming, such as arable, grazing, stock-breeding, stall-feeding, sheep-raising, and dairying. But the particular and careful observation even of one kind of well-conducted farming would qualify a pupil for understanding and receiving information on every other, whenever it came in his way, or wherever it might be attainable. Stall-feeding is intimately connected and often associated with arable farming, and dairying with grazing. TIto management of live stock, whether for work, for fatting, or for dairying, might, in a small degree, be exemplified on every well- PLAN OF AN AGUICULTURAL INSTITUTION. 245 managed farm. Such an appendage as this to a school of prac- tical instruction, where the pupils might see and have explained to them the very best modes of husbandry, must be of the highest benefit. To these should be added an experimental farm. This need not be extensive, and it might be connected with the model farm ; indeed, the model farm might itself be, to a degree, an experimental farm. It may be said that the pre- miums offered by agricultural societies, for various experiments in husbandry, are sufficient to meet the public wants in this case. I admit that they have in this way rendered immense benefits to the public ; but there are still wanted various trials and tests of soils, manures, grasses, plants, implements, modes of cultivation, modes of feeding, breeding, dairying, — and on the effects of temperature, moisture, heat, frost, light, and electricity, — which common farmers can scarcely be expected to undertake, or, if undertaken, to follow out with that exactness which is most desirable, in order to render the results of such experiments worthy of confidence, and lessons for general application. Connected with the whole should be most extensive gardens, — first, for purposes of botanical instruction, giving the pupils an opportunity of becoming acquainted with all the principal plants, grasses, forest-trees, fruit-trees, and weeds, which enter into their cultivation, to the advantage or injury of the farmer : and next, for making them thoroughly acquainted (a knowl- edge highly important to them) with the cultivation of all the varieties of vegetables and fruits which may be required for use, profit, or luxury. Such is the basis on which I should be glad to see an institu- tion for agricultural education rising up in every one of the United States, where the condition of society renders it expe- dient, and the population is dense enough to sustain it. The expensive plan on which it is proposed here to establish and conduct such institutions, would be quite unsuited to the state of manners and the condition of things in the United States. In their economical arrangements, Ireland has set. us an excellent example. With us, they might be made in a great measure self-supporting. The plan proposed for such an institution, some few years since, by the late lamented Judge Buel, who had the subject much at heart, involved an expenditure of one 21* 24b EUROPKAN AORICLLTURE. hundred thousand doUars, and might be said to have been crushed by its own weight. Let us suppose that it were proposed to estabUsh such an institution in the western part of New York. Certainly no location could, in respect to the external circumstances of soil, climate, access, society, and markets, be more favorable. A tarm of five hundred acres might be taken, on favorable terms, on a long lease. I would under no circumstances suffer the number of pupils to exceed one hundred, and perhaps it might be expedient to restrict the number much more. Some good- sized hall or building would be requisite for public meetings, lectures, or recitation-rooms, and for a museum, library, and chemical laboratory ; but I would erect no college building for the residence of the pupils. They should either lodge in the neighborhood, with such farmers as would be willing to receive them, or other persons who might be disposed to provide for them ; or otherwise, I would erect several farm-houses on the place, sufficient to supply the needful accommodations ; but in no case should more than fifteen or twenty be lodged in one place ; and, whether on the farm or not, the lodging-houses for the pupils should be under the constant inspection or regulation of the governors or instructors of the institution. One or two instructors should be employed constantly for teaching the main branches of education, and a competent farmer should be em- ployed to manage the agricultural department, and to give the necessary practical instruction. Beyond this, no resident instruct- ors would be required, — but regular and full courses of lectures and experiments in geology, mineralogy, botany, comparative anatomy, the veterinary art, and chemistry, by competent pro- lessors of these sciences, who might be employed for these objects annually, without the necessity and expense of constant residence, — as is now frequently done at our medical schools. In this way, the best talents in the community might be com- manded, and at a reasonable expense. I would require, in the next place, that the pupils should be placed in a condition of perfect equality, and that a certain amount of labor should be made compulsory on all, at such a rate of wages as should be deemed just, according to the ability of the pupil, and the nature of the work done. An account PLAN OF AN AGHICUCTURAI. INSTITUTION. 247 should be kept for every pupil, and another by every pupil, of the labor performed by him, which should be passed to his credit. The farm account should be kept with faithful exact- ness, and be always open to the inspection of the pupils ; and after the deduction of the rent, and the necessary burdens and expenses, and some small amount kept as a reserve or accumulat- ing fund for the benefit of the institution, the remainder should be divided among the pupils according to the labor performed. Their board and lodging should be settled for by themselves, without any interference on the part of tlie directors of the insti- tution, beyond keeping the charges within a stipulated price ; and the keepers of the boarding-houses should be required to purchase, at reasonable rates, from the farm, whatever supplies they might require, which the farm would yield. A tax should be levied upon the students for the payment of all the instructors and lecturers, and the use of the library, and chemical and phil- osophical appai'atus ; and likewise to meet any extraordinary experiments made upon the farm, with a view to the instruction of the school. Whether it would be advisable for every pupil to have an allotment for himself, either for the purpose of experiment, or for the profit, and in aid of his subsistence, would be worth considering ; remembering always how important it is to give to every man an immediate interest in the result of his labors. Such, in my opinion, is a plan for agricultural education which demands no great advance, and involves no risk. But the project is even much more feasible than I have already stated. Why, for example, should not such an institution be connected with the college at Williamstown, or Amherst, in Massachusetts, or with Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, or Burlington College in Vermont, or the college at Hartford in Connecticut, or Geneva in New York, where all the facilities for scientific instruction are at hand, residences for the students attainable, and suitable farms to be had, either on purchase, or lease, at very reasonable rates ? I throw out these liints to my countrymen, not with a view of dictating to their superior judg- ment, but to show that an institution for a practical and scientific education in agriculture may, without any hazardous expend- iture, or any large investment, be made almost immediately attainable, and under every practicable advantage. 248 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. A professorship in agriculture is attached to the university in Edinburgh, and the chair filled by an eminent professor, Mr. Low, who has rendered the most useful public services, in the publication of his treatise on agriculture, which is said to contain the substance of his lectures at this institution. He has likewise established an extensive agricultural museum, contain- ing specimens of agricultural productions, and models of the various implements used in improved husbandry. The term required to complete such a course of education, might be matter of after consideration ; but I would advise, in every case, that the residence should be absolute, the rules exact and stringent, and the annual or occasional examinations as severe as at the military school at West Point, so that an equal proficiency might be secured. XXXVI. — ELEVATION OF AGRICULTURE AS A PURSUIT AND A PROFESSION. Where it is practicable, I would make the education of a liigh and extended character ; and, besides the art of measuring, and surveying, and mapping land, I would have the arts of sketching, and drawing, and landscape gardening, taught in the institution. The pursuit of agriculture is almost universally considered as merely a profession of commerce or trade, the farmer looking wholly to its pecuniary results. In a trading community, pecuniary considerations are always liable to control the judg- ment, and predominate over every other consideration. Where the means are limited, and the farm must be cultivated as the only source of subsistence, pecuniary returns must, of course, be the main object. Where, as in England, the cultivator is not the owner of the soil, but an annual rent must be paid, and he is liable, as in most cases, to be compelled to quit his occupancy at the pleasure or the caprice of his landlord, farming must be conducted merely as matter of business, and there is no induce- ment to pursue the profession as matter of taste or sentiment. In many cases in my own country, it must, of necessity, be ELEVATION OV AGRICULTURE AS A PURSUIT. 249 followed wholly as a means of support and of profit, and in some cases as a struggle for life. But there are innumerable other cases, in which men have the power, under the most favorable circumstances, and I am most anxious they should have likewise the disposition, to devote themselves to it as an elegant and liberal profession, worthy of a mind gifted even with the finest taste, and enriched by the highest cultivation. The United States present not many examples of very great wealth, at least when estimated by the standard of wealth which prevails in England, where, indeed, are to be found individual accumulations which distance all the dreams of Oriental magnificence. But, on the other hand, no country upon the globe, and no condition of things since the establishment of society, ever presented more favorable oppor- tunities than the United States for any one, by active and wholesome industry, and a proper frugality, to acquire a com- petence, and that respectable independence, in which, with a full supply for the necessities of life, and an abundant provision for its comforts, there will be found within reach as many of the elegances, and ornaments, and luxuries of life, as a well-disci- plined and healthful state of mind can require. I have seen too frequently such beautiful examples in our country villages, and scattered over several parts of a land in many respects favored by Heaven above every other, not to be deeply impressed with a condition of life which, where its blessings are properly and gratefully appreciated, seems to leave little more on earth for a rational and reflecting, a benevolent and truly religious mind to ask. Happy is it where its waters are not poisoned by an insatiate avarice, nor disturbed and thrown into confusion by ambition of political office or distinction, or a feverish thirst for notoriety and excitement ; but in a quiet, yet not stagnant repose, they reflect every where the tokens of that divine goodness, which seems in such examples to have poured out its richest earthly treasures. Now, I am anxious that agriculture should occupy that place among the liberal professions, to which it can be raised, and to which, from its importance, it is entitled. But this can only be done by improving the education of farmers as a class, — by multiplying, through the means of a most liberal and extended education, the charms of the country, and the subjects of interest which would be constantly more and more developed 250 EUROPEAN ACRICULTUKE. to a cultivated and inquisitive mind ; and by showing that its successful pursuit, either as matter of business or recreation, where a moderate fortune is possessed or a moderate profes- sional income is secured, is not incompatible with the highest improvement of taste, and even a vigorous and successful pursuit of learning ; and that, where so pursued, under favorable circum- stances, it affords as fair a chance of rational enjoyment and quiet usefulness as any situation which the most lucrative trade, or the most successful political ambition, or even the highest pro- fessional eminence, can command. But I fear, how much soever I may satisfy the sober and reflecting minds on this point, my opinions and persuasions will scarcely be heard, and far- less heeded, in that rush for wealth, for office, and for notoriety, which, like a torrent sweeping over the country, carries every movable object in its course. It seems, however, not less my duty to record my strong convic- tions, which the experience of a life not short has served only to confirm. I see in my own country every where profl'ered to an honest industry, a wise frugality, and a wholesome self- government, the most ample rewards : I see a wide extent of rich and beautiful territory waiting the improving hand of skill and labor, to be had in many cases almost for asking, with every man free to choose where he will pitch his tent, not only with- out injury, but to the advantage of his neighbor : I see the means of education, of competence, and of substantial inde- pendence, held out to all who will avail themselves of them. In the midst of all this, I see thousands and thousands of young men, blest with education and fortunes adequate to supply all reasonable wants in the country, rushing into cities, exhausting their small means in the extravagances and dissipations of fash- ionable life ; crowding all the professions to repletion ; pressing on, with vexation and disappointment heaped upon vexation and disappointment, into all the avenues of political office and dis- tinction, and into all the bitter strifes of political controversy ; forcing their way into the pursuits of trade without talents for their prosecution, and almost sure to involve themselves in bank- ruptcy and ruin ; and, in one form and another, dragging on through life without satisfaction to themselves and without usefulness to others, and too often a ruinous burden upon those whom it is now their turn to succor and relieve. I cannot, RURAL MANNERS IN ENGLAND. 251 therefore, help wishing that the pursuits of agriculture might be made attractive to such persons ; and that, with education, and that moderate fortune which would give them the command of the best advantages of rural life, they might find in it, as far as rational happiness and humble usefulness are concerned, that philosopher's stone which in other places they are almost sure to search for in vain. XXXVII. — RURAL MANNERS IN ENGLAND. England presents many such examples. The true English gentleman, living, remote from the din of cities, and abstracted from the turmoil of political life, upon his own acres ; managing his own estate ; seeking the best means for its improvement, and superintending, under his own personal inspection, their applica- tion ; doing what good he can to all around him ; making those dependent upon him comfortable and contented ; giving labor, counsel, encouragement, and all needful aid, to his poor neigh- bors, and causing them, and their wives, and their children, to look up to him as a friend and a parent, to whose kindness their good conduct is always a certain claim ; Avhom when the eye sees, it sparkles with grateful joy, and when the ear hears his footsteps, the sounds go like melody to the heart ; who is in his neighborhood the avowed and unostentatious supporter of good morals, temperance, education, peace, and religion ; and in whose house you find an open-hearted hospitality, and abundant re- sources for imiocent gratification, and for the improvement of the mind, with a perfect gentleness of manners, and unaffected piety presiding over the whole ; — I say, such a man — and it has been my happiness to find many examples — need envy no one save the possessor of more power, and a wider sphere, of doing good ; and need not covet the brightest triumphs of political ambition, nor the splendors and luxuries of royal courts. Whatever contributes, then, in any way, to elevate the agri- cultural profession, to raise it, from a mere servile or mercenary labor, to the dignity of a liberal profession, and to commend it 252 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. not merely for its profit and usefulness, but as a delightful resource and recreation for a cultivated mind, will certainly find favor with those who form rational views of life, who wish well to the cause of good morals, and would multiply and strengthen the safeguards of human virtue. The class of individuals whom I have described — and I assure my readers I have drawn from real life, and deal in no fictions — find often their own eiibrts seconded and aided by those whose encouragement and sympathy always give new life and vigor to their exertions, and new pleasure to their pleasures, — I mean their own wives and children; and the farming operations, in all their history and details, and all their expe- diency and fitness, are as much matter of familiar and interested discussion at the fireside, as, in many other circles, the most recent novel, the change in fashion, or the latest triumph of party. Indeed, I have seen, in many cases, the wives and the daughters — and these, too, often persons of the highest rank and refinement — as well acquainted with every field and crop, their management and their yield, and with every implement and animal on the place, as the farmer himself; and I always put it down to the credit of their good sense. XXXVIII. — A PENCIL SKETCH. I must claim the indulgence of my readers, if I give them an account of a visit in the country so instructive, so bright, so cheerful, that nothing but the absolute breaking-up of the mind can ever obliterate its record, or dispel the bright vision from my imagination. I know my fair readers — for with some such I am assured my humble Reports are kindly honored — will feel an interest in it ; and if I have any unfair readers, I beg them at once to turn over the page. But mind, I shall utter no name, and point to no place ; and if I did not know that the example was not altogether singular, and therefore would not be detected, I should not relate it. I know very well, as soon as I return to my native land, if Heaven has that happiness yet in store for A PENCIL SKETCH. 253 me, a dozen of my charming friends, — God bless them ! — with their bright eyes, and their gentle entreaties, will be pressing me for a disclosure ; but I tell them beforehand, I am panoplied in a stern philosophy, and shall remain immovable. I had no sooner, then, entered the house, where my visit had been expected, than I was met with an uiiaftected cordiality which at once made me at home. In the midst of gilded halls and hosts of liveried servants, of dazzling lamps, and glittering mirrors, redoubling the highest triumphs of art and taste : in the midst of books, and statues, and pictures, and all the elegances and refinements of luxury ; in the midst of titles, and dignities, and ranks, allied to regal grandeur, — there was one object which transcended and eclipsed them all, and showed how much the nobility of character surpassed the nobility of rank, the beauty of refined and simple manners all the adornments of art, and the scintillations of the soul, beaming from the eyes, the purest gems that ever glittered in a princely diadem. In person, in education and improvement, in quickness of perception, in facility and elegance of expression, in accomplishments and taste, in a frankness and gentleness of manners tempered by a modesty which courted confidence and inspired respect, and in a high moral tone and sentiment, which, like a bright halo, seemed to encircle the whole person, — I confess the fictions of poetry became substantial, and the heau ideal of my youthful imagina- tion was realized. But who was the person I have described ? A mere statue, to adorn a gallery of sculpture ? a bird of paradise, to be kept in a glass case ? a mere doll, with painted cheeks, to be dressed and undressed with childish fondness? a mere human toy, to lan- guish over a romance, or to figure in a quadrille ? Far other- wise : she was a woman in all the noble attributes which should dignify that name ; a wife, a mother, a housekeeper, a farmer, a gardener, a dairy-woman, a kind neighbor, a benefactor to the poor, a Christian woman, " full of good works, and alms-deeds which she did." In the morning, I first met her at prayers ; for, to the honor of England, there is scarcely a family, among the hundreds whose hospitality I have shared, where the duties of the day are not preceded by the services of family worship ; and the master and the servant, the parent and the child, the teacher and the 22 254 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. taught, the friend and the stranger, come together to recognize and strengthen the sense of their common equahty m the presence of their common Father, and to acknowledge their equal dependence upon his care and mercy. She was then kind enough to tell me, after her morning arrangements, she claimed me for the day. She first showed me her children, whom, like the Roman mother, she deemed her brightest jewels, and arranged their studies and occupations for the day. She then took me two or three miles on foot to visit a sick neighbor, and, while performing this act of kindness, left me to visit some of the cottages upon the estate, whose inmates I found loud in the praises of her kindness and benefactions. Our next excursion was to see some of the finest, and largest, and most aged trees in the park, the size of which was truly magnificent ; and I sym- pathized in the veneration which she expressed for them, which was like that with which one recalls tlie illustrious memory of a remote progenitor. Our next visit \vas to the greenhouses and the gardens ; and she explained to me the mode adopted there of managing the most delicate plants, and of cultivating, in the most economical and successful manner, the fruits of a warmer region. From the garden we proceeded to the cultivated fields ; and she informed me of the system of husbandry pursued on the estate, the rotation of crops, the management and application of manures, the amount of seed sown, the ordinary yield, and the appropriation of the produce, with a perspicuous detail of the expenses and results. She then undertook to show me the yards and offices, the byres, the feeding-stalls, the plans for saving, and increasing, and managing, the manure, the cattle for feeding, for breeding, for raising, the milking stock, the piggery, the poultry-yard, the stables, the harness-rooms, the implement- rooms, the dairy. She explained to me the process of making the difierent kinds of cheese, and the general management of the milk, and the mode of feeding the stock ; and then, conducting me into the bailiffs house, she exhibited to me the Farm Jour- nal, and the whole systematic mode of keeping the accounts and making the returns, with which she seemed as familiar as if they were the accounts of her own wardrobe. This did not finish our grand tour ; for, on my return, she admitted me into her boudoir, and showed me the secrets of her own admirable house- wifery, in the exact accounts which she kept of every thing A PENCIL SKKTUII. 255 connected with the dairy and the market, the table, the drawing- room, and the servants' haU. All this was done with a sini- phcity and a frankness which showed an absence of all con- sciousness of any extraordinary merit in her own department, and which evidently sprang solely from a kind desire to gratify a curiosity on my part, which, I hope, under such circumstances, was not unreasonable. A short hour after this brouglit us into another relation ; for the dinner-bell summoned us, and this same lady was found presiding over a brilHant circle of the highest rank and fashion, with an ease, elegance, wit, intelligence, and good-humor, with a kind attention to every one's wants, and an unaffected concern for every one's comfort, which would lead one to suppose that this was her only and her peculiar sphere. Now, I will not say how many mud-puddles we had waded through, and how many dung-heaps we had crossed, and what places we explored, and how every farming topic was discussed; but I will say, that she pursued her object without any of that fastidiousness and affected delicacy which pass with some persons for refinement, but which in many cases indicate a weak if not a corrupt mind. The mind which is occupied with concerns and subjects that are worthy to occupy it, thinks very little of accessories which are of no importance. I will say, to the credit of Englishwomen, — I speak, of course, of the upper classes, — that it seems impossible that there should exist a more delicate sense of propriety than is found universally among them ; and yet you will ])erceive at once that their good sense teaches them that true delicacy is mucli more an element of the mind, in the person who speaks or observes, than an attribute of the subject which is spoken about or observed. A friend told me that Canova assured him that, in modelling the wonderful statue of the Three Graces, from real life, he was never at any time conscious of an improper emotion or thought ; and if any man can look at this splendid production, this affecting imbodi- ment of a genius almost creative and divine, with any other emotion than that of the most profound and respectful admira- tion, he may well tremble for the utter corruption, within him, of thai moral nature Avhich God designed should elevate him above the brute creation. Now, I do not say that the lady to whom I have referred was herself the manager of the f\\rm ; that rested entirely wMth her 256 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. husband ; but I have intended simply to show how grateful and gratifying to him must have been the Uvely interest and sym- pathy which she took in concerns which necessarily so much engaged his time and attention ; and how the country could be divested of that dulness and ennui, so often complained of as inseparable from it, when a cordial and practical interest is taken in the concerns which necessarily belong to rural life. I meant also to show — as this and many other examples which have come under my observation emphatically do show — that an interest in, and a familiarity with, even the most humble occu- pations of agricultural life, are not inconsistent with the highest refinements of taste, the most improved cultivation of the mind, the practice of the polite accomplishments, and a grace, and elegance, and dignity of manners, unsurpassed in the highest circles of society. XXXIX. — LIFE IN THE COUNTRY. To live in the country, and enjoy all its pleasures, we should love the country. To love the country is to take an interest in all that belongs to the country — its occupations, its sports, its culture, and its improvements, its fields and its forests, its trees and rocks, its valleys and hills, its lakes and rivers ; to gather the flocks around us, and feed them from our own hands ; to make the birds our friends, and call them all by their names ; to wear a chaplet of roses as if it were a princely diadem ; to rove over the verdant fields with a higher pleasure than we should tread the carpeted halls of regal courts ; to inhale the fresh air of the morning as if it were the sweet breath of infancy ; to brush the dew from the glittering fields as if our path were strewed with diamonds ; to hold converse with the trees of the forest, in their youth and in their decay, as if they could tell us the history of their own times, and as if the gnarled baric of the aged among them were all written over with the record of by- gone days, of those who planted tliem, and those who early gathered their fruits ; to find hope and joy bursting like a flood upon our liearts, as the darting rays of light gently break upon VLTKRINARY COLLEGE. 257 the eastern horizon ; to see the descending sun robing himself in burnished clouds, as if these were the gathering glories of the divine throne ; to find in the clear evening of winter our chamber studded with countless gems of living light ; to feel that " we are never less alone than when alone ; " to make even the stillness and solitude of the country eloquent ; and above all, in the beauty of every object which presents itself to our senses, and in the unbought provision which sustains, and comforts, and fills with joy, the countless multitudes of living existences which people the land, the water, the air, every where to repletion, to see the radiant tokens of an infinite and inexhaustible benefi- cence, as they roll by us and around us in one ceaseless flood ; and in a clear and bright day of summer, to stand out in the midst of this resplendent creation, circled by an horizon which continually retreats from our advances, holding its distance undiminished, and with the broad and deep blue arches of heaven over us, whose depths no human imagination can fathom ; to perceive this glorious temple all instinct with the presence of the Divinity, and to feel, amidst all this, the brain growing dizzy with wonder, and the heart swelling with an adoration and a iioly joy, absolutely incapable of utterance ; — this it is to love the country, and to make it. not the homo of the person only, but of the soul. XL. — VETERINARY COLLEGE. I must not quit the subject of agricultural education v/ithout adverting to some other institutions of great importance. The first of these is the Veterinary College, near London. I believe there is one of a similar character near Edinburgh ; but that I have not visited. The object of this institution was to qualify persons, by the study of comparative anatomy and physiology, and by oppor- tunities for witnessing hospital practice and investigating the symptoms and phenomena of disease in the lower animals, to practise veterinary surgery and medicine ; and to do what can be done, by skill and science, for the relief of the sufljerings and 22* ' 258 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. the cure of the maladies of quadrupeds of all kinds — horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, &c. For this purpose, a number of gentlemen associated, and, by a subscription for life of twenty guineas each, or an annual payment of two guineas, laid the foundation of this excellent and humane establishment. An extensive plot of ground, about three miles from the centre of London, was obtained, and the necessary buildings — consisting of stables and loose boxes; long piazzas for the purpose of giving the patients exercise in bad weather under cover ; a room for lectures and dissections, and for a museum of anatomical preparations : and specimens of diseased organization, and a forge for shoeing, together with apartments for the resident professor, and for the accommodation of the servants of the establishment — have been erected ; and already nearly or quite a thousand pupils have received diplomas or certificates of their qualifications for practice, and have gone to the business of their profession in dilTerent parts of the kingdom, in the army, and in foreign countries. Subscribers to the establishment have the privilege of sending their horses, or diseased animals, to the institution, without any other expense than the actual cost of their food ; but no animal can be admitted which is not the property of either an annual or a permanent subscriber. The horses of subscribers are sometimes prescribed for at their own stables, when it is inconvenient to send them, provided tire medicines are compounded at the college. In case the disease of an animal is pronounced des- perate, the owner, upon paying the expenses already incurred, may surrender him to the college ; and if, by any treatment which they may see fit to adopt, the animal is recovered, the owner may have him again by paying the additional expenses since his surrender, or he will be considered the property of the college. Horses likewise may be shod at the forge of the college at the customary charges. Subscribers likewise, at a distance, have the privilege of procuring any medicines or drugs, which may be required, compounded at the college, and fur- nished at the actual cost. A principal and an adjunct professor of veterinary science and practice, men eminent for their knowledge and skill, preside over the institution, and give regular courses of lectures and examina- tions ; and the number of patients in the infirmary is generally VETERINARY COLLEGE. 259 such as to afford the students an opportunity of seemg a consid- erable variety of practice, especially among horses, to which hitherto the practice has been mainly confined. Besides this, through the liberality of the professors of the Medical College, the students at the Veterinary Institution have an opportunity of attending the medical and anatomical lectures gratuitously at these institutions ; and, to guard, as far as possible, against ignorance and incompetency, no student can receive the diploma or recommendation of the institution to practise, until he has passed a regular and thorough examination, and has been found qualified for the duty. This is a most excellent institution. In an economical view, it is highly important ; for the amount of property in live stock is every where very great ; and here, where, as in several estab- lishments kept by a single individual, there are twenty and thirty, and sometimes forty horses for hunting, and in other cases as many more for racing, — and where, as in several cases within my knowledge, packs of dogs, of very great original cost, are kept at an expense of from fifteen hundred to two thousand pounds, or from seven thousand to ten thousand dollars, a year, and in many cases more than that, — it is easy to see what a large amount of property is at stake, and to what care it is entitled. I have been at one or two establishments where the horses in the stables, exclusive of horses for farm work, amount- ed to sixty or eighty. The large number of cavalry horses belonging to the army render the services of a veterinary sur- geon, in such establishments, of indispensable importance. Surgery, as an art, has been carried to great perfection ; and in some circumstances hardly any thing more seems wanting than actually to breathe into some of the artificial anatomical prepara- tions the Promethean fire, and set the circulations in motion. Medicine, indeed, presents but few infallible remedies, but some- thing has been done ; and if comparatively little has been accom- plished by physic, yet much has been done by a curative treat- ment and regimen. I am aware that it is quite customary to say of many novel, and certainly very gentle modes of treatment, of recent date, that the patients are cured by the imagination ; and this is as agreeable a mode of cure as bloodletting, or powerful doses of calomel and jalap, or the exciting operation of Spanish flies. It is obvious, however, that, until we make 260 EUROPEAN AGPaCULTURE. much further progress in phrenological science, we can do little by apphcations to the imaginations of horses or dogs. But, whatever imperfection attaches itself to medical science, some- thing at least may be gained from it ; and it certainly presents the only practicable and probable means of learning the nature of disease, and combating its power. At any rate, medical science, and a thorough medical education, seem to aflbrd the t)nly substantial secmity against the evils of empiricism or quackery ; and, to say nothing of experiments upon the human organism, I have myself seen, under the pretence of remedy or cure, such horrible cruelties practised upon dumb animals, as have filled me with indignation, and have made me indulge the inhuman wish of changing places with the operator — of putting him in the position of his unhappy patient, and of being allowed to try some of his prescriptions upon himself. If they answered, well ; but, in many cases. I think he would soon be past answer- ing at all. The public have reason to congratulate themselves that medical practice is now every where assuming the character of prevention rather than of cure ; and that the truly respectable part of the profession, drojipmg that profoimd air of mystery with which they formerly were accustomed to wrap themselves up, and which made one tremble in their presence almost as much as in the presence of the original professor of the black art. now prefer the more simple to the more artificial practice. They seem to be fast learning that Nature, like others of the sex, may be persuaded, but not forced; may be kindly led, but woe be to the man who attempts to drive her ; and that, in truth, the great object of medicine is, not to give health, but to remove disease ; to clean and adjust the machinery, and then it will go right of itself, barring accidents, as long as it is intended to go at all. 1 have already spoken of tlie importance of the veterinary art in an economical view. A frightful disease has for some time prevailed among the cattle in England, Ireland, and the Con- tinent. I met with one farmer who assured me that he had lost by it, in one season, ninety-seven cattle, and he feared his whole herd might perish with it, for he could find no remedy. Now. there is no hope of any remedy but from the investigations of medical skill and science. We want men, therefore, who by education are ipialified for, and willing to devote themselves to. the VETERINARY COLLEGE. 261 inquiry into the causes and means of prevention of such direful calamities. The epidemic still prevails in England and on the Continent ; and application has been made to the government to check the importation of foreign cattle, lest they should assist in the spread of the disease. Indeed, numbers of cattle are almost every week, as I have reason to believe, brought to Smithfield in such a state of disease as to be fit for no other purpose — and for this they are actually bought — but to make sausages for the poor Londoners. I hardly dare say that this is not to be complained of; but when one sees the extreme and indescribable misery and destitution of many of these poor wretches, apparently irremediable and hopeless, one almost hesitates, in sad desperation, to lament a mode of disposing of them after the Napoleon example of the treatment of his sick prisoners at Jaffa. I almost tremble while I write upon such a subject as this. It is indispensable to see, in order to believe. I have had the painful, I hope not improper, curiosity to penetrate many of these subterranean hiding-places and dens of misery ; and it is my sober conviction that the human imagi- nation cannot exaggerate the physical suffering, and, too com- monly consequent upon that, the moral degradation in which many thousands, in this glorious and prosperous country, di'ag out their wretched existence. But I advocate the establishment of veterinary institutions, and the cultivation of veterinary med- icine, on the broad ground of humanity ; and I hope many such institutions will grow up in America, and that speedily. It is remarkable that, in the disease of one of our domestic animals, medical science has discovered the only effectual preventive for one of the most dreadful scourges which, in the form of disease, ever afflicted mankind. I refer, of course, to vaccination. But these animals have bones to ache, and nerves to feel, as well as ourselves. They furnish our support ; they perform our labors ; they promote our pleasures ; they are patient, enduring, and indefatigable, in our service. Has not God cast them upon our care, and put them under our protection ? What a respon- sibility ! Shall it be said that those who have no voice to speak for themselves, shall find no one to speak for them ? What if they have no moral nature ? Then they have not the vices of animals of a superior class, who, dishonoring, perverting, and outraging, that moral nati.re, degrade themselves far below the 262 EUROPEAN AGRICULTUKE. class of beings guided only by instinctive impulses. It is said of the great emperor, that his heart was never more touched, if heart indeed he had, than on a certain occasion, when, three days after a sanguinary battle, when human victims were immo- lated to his dreadful ambition by thousands, riding over a field thickly strewed with the dying and the dead, he found a faithful dog lying by the side and licking the bleeding wounds of his dying master. The noble dog of St. Bernard, dragging the perishing traveller from the snow-drift to the hospitable convent, for warmth and comfort, and the poor spaniel dying with slow starvation upon the grave of his master, and refusing to be led away or to be comforted, are pictures of heroism and fidelity worthy of a place at the side of that of Regulus, deaf to the entreaties of his family, taking leave of the senate on his return to fulfil his pledge, or that of the Grecian daughter nourishing her father in prison. Humanity calls upon us to alleviate suff'ering, wherever suf- fering exists. I wish that veterinary instruction was connected with all our medical schools, and made an indispensable branch of study. We try all kinds of experiments upon these helpless animals for the benefit of science, and science should do some- thing to repay the debt, by attempting, in every practicable form, to alleviate the sufferings of the race. In the country, a medical practitioner, who would add veterinary skill and practice to his other services, would confer immense benefits. It is lamentable that, by a false standard of moral duty, such an office should be thought degrading. In many cases, it might subject him to painful and thankless services ; but the life of every benevolent physician is full of such services, and he has only to thank God that he has the power of doing so much good, often at so little cost. So far from such a practice being degrading, the physician who would be willing to render such services would be worthy of double honor ; for tlie more humble, the meaner, the more friendless the sufferer, proportionately is the glory of the kindness enhanced. There is no reason, however, why such services should be gratuitous, and in many situations it would form a profitable branch of practice. MUSEUM OF ECONOMIC GKOLOGY. 263 XLL — MUSEUM OF ECONOMIC GEOLOGY. This is a most valuable establishment, in the centre of Lon- don. Its whole object is utility, and principally in rendering geological discoveries subservient to the promotion of the useful and ornamental arts. It is a most singular, but a well-estab- lished fact, that the mineral treasures dug from the mines, in the islands of Great Britain, amount to the enormous sum of twenty million pounds sterling per year, or one hundred million of dollars, — of which eight million pounds, or forty million of dol- lars, are of iron, and nine million pounds, or forty-five million of dollars, of coal. It is easy to see what a vast interest is at stake in these matters. In another form, I hope to be able to give some account of a visit which I made to one of these immense excavations, where I descended, by a ladder, seven hundred feet, and then groped my way through various crevices, and chambers, and shafts, a distance of perhaps two miles under ground. I am disposed to think it would be misplaced in an agricultural report, where I am afraid my friends will already find too many things out of place. I can only, in this matter, throw myself upon the indulgence of my readers, and remind them of the variety of tastes and appetites which I am compelled to consult. If, in spite of all this, a bill of indictment should be brought against me for making my Reports too miscellaneous, I shall at once allow a plea of guilty to be recorded, and throw myself upon the mercy of the court. I am indeed, in this way, an old ofl'ender, and I cannot express the gratitude which I feel for the mercy I have so often experienced. The Museum of Economic Geology, though not founded principally for the benefit of agricultural science, is yet made subsidiary to this object. The geological structure of any por- tion of the earth's surface seems intimately related to the nature of the soil which rests upon it; so that, from knowing the structure of the rocky substratum of a country, you can infer strongly its fertility or its infertility, or the adaptation of its soil to various crops. The general opinion is, that all soils are formed from the crumbling or detrition of rocks, mixed with some vegetable or organic matter. This is the received theory. 264 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. but it is not without its difficulties. I have no disposition to controvert it, for a man who battles with the stones is quite sure to have the worst of it. The original form of the earth is wrapped in impenetrable obscurity. Science is doing every thing she can to unfold the leaves of this wonderful book ; but where they have been most successfully separated and ex- pounded, they are found so scratched, and torn, and blurred all over, that the letters are with extreme difficulty made legible. We soon learn that it was a much earlier specimen of printing than has been generally supposed, and some of it in a language that is lost. It does not appear to me more certain that the rocks were first formed, and then portions of them reduced to such a fine state of comminution as to form soils, than that the earth was originally in a state of fine atoms, and then, by the operation of fire, and water, and pressure from within and with- out, amidst violent terrene convulsions, rocks were formed, and the various strata arranged. It would seem not improbable that, from the earliest period of the reduction of its temperature to a degree that vegetable life could exist upon it, vegetable life appeared ; and by successive convulsions this vegetable life itself became overwhelmed, and was transformed into those immense beds of fossil deposits which occupy so large a portion of the surface, or upper portion, of the globe. How afterwards such vast deposits of earth took place over these beds of vege- table remains, can be explained only by some immense and utterly inexplicable convulsion and disruption of portions of the earth. It is admitted that the character of the soil often bears a direct relation to the rocks which it overlays, and evidently a considerable portion of it is formed from the detritus of these subjacent rocks ; but the vast amount of drift or diluvium scat- tered over the earth's surface, and often at immense distances from places where, upon the common theory, it is supposed to have been formed, shows that the geological indications above referred to are not infallible. The Museum of Economic Geology is intended to exhibit specimens of various soils from the different localities in the country, with illustrations, as far as they can be obtained, of their peculiar adaptation to agricultural purposes ; and connected with the museum is a chemical laboratory for the analysis of soils which may have already been obtained, or which may be CHEMICAL AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION IN SCOTLAND. 265 brought by farmers or laud-owners for that purpose. The museum is open to the gratuitous inspection of the pubhc, and is clearly the germ of an institution of great magnitude and importance. The establishment is at present under the manage- ment of Mr. Richard Phillips, F. R. S., a man deservedly emi- nent for his skill in chemistry and natural science, to whose indefatigable kindness I should do great injustice to my own grateful feelings if I did not here record my deep sense of obli- gation. XLII. — CHEMICAL AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION IN SCOTLAND. The farmers in Scotland, certainly inferior to none in agri- cultural enterprise, intelligence, and skill, and demonstrating this by a husbandry most exact and productive, have associated themselves together for the encouragement of the application of chemistry to the improvement of agriculture. Proprietors of land pay a yearly subscription of one pound or upwards to the association, and tenants ten shillings. This sum entitles each of them to two analyses a year at a certain fixed low rate. All above that number are charged half more. The analyst is required to give only such analysis as will answer the desired purpose. Agricultural societies, by a yearly payment of five pounds to the association, are entitled to one lecture from the agricultural professor ; for ten pounds, to two lectures, and so on ; and the travelling expenses of the lecturer are likewise to be paid by those who employ him. The society, more than a year since, proceeded to appoint, at a liberal salary, Mr. F. W. S. Johnston, an agricultural lecturer and chemist, to the office of chemist and lecturer to the associa- tion ; and a chemical laboratory and depository are established and in full operation at Edinburgh. Mr. Johnston is well known to the agricultural community by his valuable works on agricul- tural chemistry, some of which have been reprinted in the United States, and in both countries have had a very extended circula- tion. The success of the association, it is reported, has been 23 266 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. such as to satisfy the original subscribers of its utiHty. It has led, through the lectures of the professor, to the establishment of several agricultural periodicals, and has throughout Scotland infused new spirit into the veins of the agricultural body, and quickened its pulse. One of the most substantial benefits as yet resulting from it has been the analytical examination of ninety difierent specimens of guano imported into Scotland ; and that to secure the farmers from impositions, which, in cases before this, have not been infrequent. After the remarks which I have made in a former part of my Report, it certainly is only just that I should subjoin the analysis made at this place of two soils from Renfrewshire, with the results of the application prescribed for them. " Organic matter, . , . . . Salts soluble in water ; sulphates, Oxide of iron, Manganese, Alumina, Magnesia, Phosphoric acids, .... Silicious matter and clay, . I. Per cent. 12.05 1.23 5.73 0.19 4.69 trace. trace. 74.67 98.56 II. Per cent. 10.43 0.75 10.78 0.24 2.87 trace. trace. 73.21 98.28 " But a mere trace of magnesia and phosphoric acid was found in cither of these soils. It was therefore recommended to add to both of them the magnesia in the state of sulphate, and the phosphoric acid as bone-earth. The effect has been most won- derful and striking." — The letter with which I have been favored adds, "None of the analyses I have given are very elaborate, but they are sufficiently so for practical purposes, and they do not confuse or mystify the farmer with hard names." I had the pleasure of visiting this institution, and there was certainly no want of the indications of industry. I have only to regret that my friend's account of his two patients above is so short and imperfect. I should be glad to have been able to inform my readers what was the exact condition of the patients before taking the prescription, and their particular state of health after it. CHEMICAL AGRICULTURAL LECTURES. 267 XLIII. — CHEMICAL AGRICULTURAL LECTURES. During the last vviutcr, a course of ten lectures, illustrated by numerous experiments, was given by Professor Brande, F. R. S., well known in the scientific world, oji the chemistry of agri- culture, at the rooms of the Royal Institution, — which, through his politeness, I had the pleasure of attending. They might be considered as almost wholly scientific, and were exceedingly interesting and instructive. Mr. Brande spoke of himself as having been a pupil or associate of the distinguished Sir Humphry Davy, who lectured on the same subjects in this same institution, and who may be said to have taken the first step in the great movement, which is now so widely felt, of the applica- tion of science, properly so called, to agriculture. Professor Brande's lectures were numerously attended, by ladies as well as gentlemen. Several of the ladies were always busy in taking notes of the lectures. I felt the highest respect for them on this account ; and if I had been, as is said among the clergy, " a candidate for settlement," with my strong pred- ilections for agricultural pursuits, I might have been tempted to inquire about some of them, whose high and capacious foreheads gave a noble indication of what was within, whether they also were in the transition state. Certainly here, as well as any where, I may claim for an American woman the honor of pre- senting from her own pen an excellent translation, from the French, of Chaptal's Agricultural Chemistry, to the American public. Her name is modestly withheld from the title-page, and therefore I have no right to give it. I shall give below a syllabus of Professor Brande's lectures on these occasions, because I so strongly wish the example should be followed in my own country. 1st. Lecture. The Soil. — Its components ; whence derived. — Inorganic Constituents of the Soil. Silica ; alumina ; lime ; magnesia ; oxide of iron ; alkalies ; phosphorus ; sulphur ; salts ; water ; decay of rocks ; sand ; clay ; marl ; chalk ; other simple soils. — Organic Constituents. Humus or humic acid ; their influences and uses. Absorptive power in regard to air, water, 268 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. and gases. Radiating and receptive powers in respect to solai* rays. Various physical conditions of the soil. II. The Atmosphere. — Its composition ; invariable and va- riable constituents. Influence of the moisture, carbonic acid, and ammonia, of the atmosphere. III. The Vegetable. — Its Ultimate Constituents, and their sources ; carbon ; oxygen ; hydrogen ; nitrogen. The sources and importance of the so-called inorganic constituents of the vegetable ; acids ; alkalies ; oxides ; salts. — Proximate Con- stituents of the vegetable ; sap ; wood ; starch ; sugar ; gum. Their metamorphoses ; gluten ; albumen ; fibrine ; caseine ; legumine ; proteine ; resins ; oils ; acids ; alkalies ; fermentation ; eremacausis ; putrefaction. IV. Functions and Growth of Vegetables. — Germination ; general organization of vegetables ; roots ; trunk ; branches ; leaves ; flowers ; buds ; functions of the roots and of the leaves. V. Principles of the Improvement of Soils. — Mechanical, as influencing texture ; chemical, as influencing composition manures, of inorganic, organic, and mixed origin. Draining ; ploughing ; burning ; irrigation ; green crops ; interchange of crops ; fallows. I make no apology for giving to my readers this instructive syllabus in full. It is said of Queen Elizabeth that, being asked by one of her maids of honor for a book to read, she gave her an English dictionary. The lady presently returned it to her majesty with many thanks, and stated '' that she had been much interested in the perusal." There was more wisdom in this reply than at first appears. To say nothing of its conve- nience, yet I have often found a copious index, or a well-digested table of contents, an interesting and instructive portion of a book. XLIV. — EMPLOYMENT OF AGRICULTURISTS. In the technical sense of the term, agriculturist means a teacher of agriculture. Under the excellent management of EMPLOYMENT OF AGRICLLTLRI3T3. 269 William Blacker, Esq., on the estate of Lord Gosford, in the county of Armagh, Ireland, an experienced and intelligent man. well skilled in communicating his ideas, is employed to visit the tenants on the property, to advise them in regard to the manage- ment and cultivation of their small farms, and to encourage them by some small premiums, and by reporting their condition and success to the principal manager. The occupations in these cases are very small, often not exceeding three, four, and six acres. As I understood Mr. Blacker, he has the care of twenty- five hundred tenants on the property of this nobleman. This lumiber, I confess, seems very extraordinary ; but the subdi- visions on the place are quite small and numerous. I shall, on another occasion, give a particular account of Mr. Blacker's excellent management of small farms, because it is full of useful instruction, and does the highest honor to his judgment, perse- verance, and benevolence. At present, I speak only of the employment of an agriculturist, which has been attended with the best effects. This person lives on the estate, and has a small amount of land in the neighborhood of his own house, which he is expected to keep in the best possible order, accord- ing to the system which he lays down for others, — so that he is called upon to teach by example as well as precept. The same arrangement has been made, at the suggestion of Mr. Blacker, on the farm of Lady Bassett, near Camborne, in Cornwall, which I had the pleasure to visit. Here, too, it works well. The farmers in Cornwall hold larger farms than in Armagh, and therefore have a higher idea of their own impor- tance. They were at first very jealous of the direct approaches of the agriculturist to advise and instruct them. But by a little addi'ess, and by especially avoiding any thing like dogmatism or self-conceit, and by a frank manner convincing the farmers that he was disinterestedly seeking their good, his success is becom- ing remarkable, and he is every day gaining upon their 'esteem and confidence. A horse, loose in a pasture, can rarely be caught if you approach him swinging the bridle, the emblem of his subjugation, before his eyes ; but if you go to him shaking only the measure of oats before him, and concealing the bridle under your coat, you can generally take him without difficulty, I am no advocate for treachery under any form ; but where the object aimed at is unexceptionable and excellent, I see no occa- 23* 270 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. sion lor unnecessarily alarming the prejudices of those whom wc wish to serve, or for awakening resistance by command, when we can easily enforce acquiescence by persuasion. That the plan is sure to work well where the class of tenants, as in Armagh, are very small tenants, and ignorant withal, is quite plain ; but farmers on a large scale would be likely to reject any direct interference. Yet these men often need instruction. The knowledge of improvements, in some cases, extends itself by slow degrees : oral instruction, coupled with familiar illustrations, is always more interesting than books ; and the employment of an agricultural missionary, of unobtrusive and kind manners, and perfectly competent to impart instruction, to visit a district of country, that he might point out errors and defects of cultivation, and explain the best modes of husbandry adapted to the climate and locality, would prove a most power- ful means of awakening attention to the subject, of reforming errors, and introducing desirable and substantial improvements. XLV. — GUANO. Having now completed what I designed to say upon the pro- vision for agricultural education in Great Britain, I shall beg the indulgence of my readers in reverting to a topic of a different character, and which, in a more methodical arrangement, would have had a place in a different part of my work. A strong and impatient desire has been expressed that I should give what information I possess on the subject of the recently-introduced and most extraordinary manure called giiann : and I therefore speak of it in this place. I do not deem it necessary to go into the history of a sub- stance which has been made so familiar by the public discus- sions which have taken place in relation to it. That it is an animal deposit, is well established. It is the excrement of sea- birds accustomed to frequent certain islands in the Pacific Ocean and other places in the tropical latitudes. Its use as a manure is not new in those covuitries where it has been found. In Peru, GUANO. 271 the birds who caused the deposit were protected by severe laws, and the value of the manure was fully understood. The amount of the accumulations, considering the nature of the deposit, is immense, being represented, by travellers, as from three to seven hundred feet in depth. The number of birds is stated to be almost beyond calculation ; and any person who will take the trouble to read, in that delightful book, Wilson's Ornithology, the accounts of the roosting-places of the passenger-pigeon in some of the Western States of America, will readily confide in well-authenticated accounts of the number of these birds, which would otherwise be deemed egregious exaggerations. To the gentlemen in England who are fond of w'hat is termed a battue, a voyage to the Pacific to shoot the guano birds would afford excellent sport ; and if in such case they would bring back loads of this valuable manure, it might not prove an unprofitable enter- prise, and they would perform a double work of conciliation to the farmers. Their accounts of one or two days' shooting, or knocking down the birds with the butt-ends of their guns, would be read here with the greatest avidity, and eclipse all their former exploits of Ivilling hundreds of game in a single day where the beaters were employed to drive them directly under the muzzles of their guns, and where occasionally they are obliged to knock dov/n a poacher instead of a penguin. These deposits are made in a climate where, for a considerable part of the year, little rain falls, and where the intense heat of the sun forms such a crust over the deposit, that it becomes almost insoluble. Supposing a deposit to be made of two inches a year, for three thousand years, this would give a depth of five hundred feet ; and therefore the report of (he depth of these deposits, though surprising, is by no means intrinsically incred- ible. The extraordinary cftect of this manure is another remark- able circumstance. The dung of the domestic pigeon or fowl is among the strongest used, but it is not so powerful as guano. In the excrements of birds, the solid and liquid portions are combined. This is one secret of their strength. In the case of the guano birds, their food is wholly fish, and not, as with our domestic birds, mainly farinaceous ; and therefore it abounds in nitrogen, and in bony substances, or phosphates. The secret of the extraordinary success of this manure is not yet solved, however nearly a solution may have been approx- 272 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. imated. This is evident from the fact that, after the most exact and minute analysis of this manure, conducted with all the skill and science which can be brought to bear upon it, no one has been able to form an artificial guano with any degree of its efficacy. Chemistry determines with wonderful accuracy its inorganic properties ; but fifty per cent, of it is organic matter, and this being dissipated or lost in the process of analysis, noth- ing is known of it but its absolute quantity. Every common farmer knows that horse manure, cow manure, hog manure, sheep manure, are all specifically different, and their effects and uses are different ; and I believe this depends not more upon a difference in their inorganic elements, than upon some specific effects of their organic elements ; and though horses, and cows, and sheep, should be fed upon precisely the same food, their excrementitious matter would be specifically different, and the effects upon vegetation different. I pretend not to say in what this difference consists ; this, chemistry has not yet reached, though I can but hope the goal will presently be attained. I am not therefore entirely satisfied with any account which chemistry has given of guano, so far as its operation is concerned. It has done much, and is clearly able to determine the different specific values of different samples. This is of great importance to the farmer, and not less so to the honest dealer. But the specific qualities of this extraordinary manure, as proved by its effects, are, I presume to believe, with all possible respect for science, yet to be discovered. I know the consequences of ques- tioning the infallibility of the pope, but I am no Catholic. One, indeed, may well speak of its effects as extraordinary, from what I myself have seen. In Scotland, last autumn, two shrubs were shown to me, sweet-briers, growing in front of a two-story house, and trained upon its sides ; one at one, the other at the other end. The soil in which they grew, the aspect, and other circumstances, were the same. One, in the season, had grown six or seven feet ; the other, nearly thirty feet ! It had actually climbed to the roof of the house, and turned and hung down, reaching half the distance down from the roof to the ground. I judged this could not have been less than thirty feet. This had been repeatedly watered with liquid guano, by the hands of its fair cultivator ; for this was another experiment by a lady, (which I hope my American friends will GUANO. 273 bear in mind.) The otlier had received no special care or manuring. This charming woman, surrounded by her lovely children, was equally engaged in teaching the young idea as the sweet-brier how to shoot, and they too showed the beautiful results of devoted and assiduous culture. I have seen the extraordinary effects of the application of guano all over the country, and I have met with very few instances of disappointment. I have been favored with a great many reports of its application ; but my readers will, I think, be better satisfied with general results than with a long list of par- ticular examples. When I speak of its extraordinary effects, I yet do not con- sider them as so surprising as the effects of gypsum in many parts of the United States, whose operation, I venture to say, remains wholly unexplained. I do not, of course, mean to imply that one can be substituted for the other. The effects of half a bushel of finely-powdered gypsum, scattered over an acre of land, in some places, in increasing the crop of grass, and in respect to some other crops, is amazing ; yet in all England, I have not been able to find a single well-attested example of its being applied with any benefit whatever. The appliiiation of guano has been made, in England and Scotland, to all kinds of plants, and in some instances with great success ; indeed with rarely a failure. It has been used for turnips, barley, wheat, oats, grass, garden vegetables, onions, asparagus, potatoes, flowers, and trees. I have seen its application in all these cases, excepting asparagus and trees ; but the testimony which certifies its success in these cases is unquestionable. Comparisons made between guano and other manures, are not quite satisfactory in respect to quantities, because it is obviously very difficult to institute any instructive comparison between so many pounds of guano, and so many loads of manure ; manure is so various in its nature, quality, bulk, &.C. ; but it will be quite easy to compare the two in respect to the ease or difficulty of their transportation, and of their application to the plant or soil. Comparisons, likewise, in respect to the cost of different applications, as made here, would be of little use in the United States, as prices of manure and of labor are totally different : and the one can afford no rule for the 274 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. Other. In this matter, the farmers of the United States must judge for themselves. The quantity which it is deemed best to apply varies from two hundred weight to four hundred weight, or five hundred weight. Frequent cases have occurred of the application of five hundred weight and eight hundred weight, to a statute acre, with great advantage. Cases are on record of twenty-nine and thirty hundred weight being applied to grass-land with a great, but not, most certainly, a remunerating increase of crop. I met one farm- er in Lincolnshire, who thought more than one hundred weight applied to turnips was unnecessary ; but the almost universal testimony is in favor of three hundred weight. A bushel of sifted guano weighs from fifty-two to fifty-four pounds. In regard to the mode of application, it is well settled that it should seldom be applied alone. To garden vegetables, or greenhouse plants, it may be applied in a state of solution in water. In field cultivation, it may be applied by being mixed with four or six times its quantity of dry earth or mould. In this way, it may be sown broadcast over the field, and then lightly harrowed or turned in ; or it may be sown first in the same drill where the seed is to be dropped ; great care must be taken, however, that it does not come in contact with the seed, or it will destroy its vegetative powers. It is desirable that it should be covered as soon as may be after being sown. The best farmers give a caution against mixing it with lime, or bones, or wood-ashes, as these substances, coming in contact with it, will drive off its ammonia. Where a portion of barn manure has been applied in conjunc- tion with guano, the mixture has been found much more effica- cious than the manure when applied alone. In an application which I saw, guano gave seven tons of turnips increase to an acre over an artificial manure which had been much praised, and was applied at the same time. A good mode of preparing it for application is to mix it with fine earth, on the headlands of the field where it is to be used, forming it, with the earth, into alternate layers, in the proportion of earth to the guano of three to one ; and after it has remained two or three days, thoroughly incorporating them together by turning over the heap. GUANO. 275 With potatoes, it should be placed in the drill or hole, but not in contact with the set or seed ; and for Indian corn — a case in which I have had no experience — it would seem advisable to adopt a similar method. The experiments of Mr. John Dudgeon have been given to the public at large. As I had the pleasure of visiting his farm, one of the best-managed in the kingdom, and saw some of the experiments going on, I feel at liberty to give them, and it may be interesting to my readers to have them in his own words. " The following results, communicated by John Dudgeon, Esq., of Spylaw, to the Highland and Agricultural Society, in April, 1843, show, first, the relative produce of turnips from guano applied at the rate of three hundred weight, four hundred weight, and five hundred weight, per acre, in competition with the produce from the farm-yard manure, applied at the rate of eighteen yards per acre ; secondly, the trial of hone-dust with coal-ashes against guano alone, and guano mixed with a portion of sulphate of soda; thirdly, the trial of guano alone against bone-dust alone. " ' The first experiment was in a field lying upon a slope, with a southern exposure, the soil consisting of a good loam upon a retentive sub-soil ; the upper part of the field, for about a fourth of its length, gradually becoming shallower in soil, and resting upon a hard muirland pan, so that the value of the lower portion of the field, as compared with the upper, may be esti- mated as three to one. This field has been but imperfectly drained. It was dunged in the usual Avay, immediately before sowing, with well-prepared farm-yard manure, at the rate of about eighteen cubic yards to the acre, with the exception of that portion to which guano was applied. Two ordinary drills for the latter were selected at random, and the guano distributed in them by the hand, without any mixture, at the rate of three hundred weight per acre. Leaving an interval of three drills, which were manured like the rest of the field, two other drills were treated with guano, at the rate of four hundred weight per acre ; and finally, with a similar space intervening, two drills with guano at the rate of fully more than five hundred weight per acre. No difference appeared in the turnips (which were the variety named Dale's hybrid) previous to singling or thinning the plants with the hoe ; after that, however, the superiority of 276 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. the drills with the guano became manifest, and continued to increase with the growth of the turnips, particularly in those drills which received the greatest quantity, till the whole were carted off in October, when the produce (topped and rooted) of the whole six drills were weighed, each two as differing in the quantity of guano applied, compared with two drills immediately adjoining, on which the farm-yard manure had been used. The following was the result : — Kinds of Manure. Quantities applied. Produce per Acre. Two drills Avith GUANO, . . 5 cwt. per acre, . 25 cwt. 5 St .'< a c dung, . . 18 yds. a a . 18 J u 11 a li GUANO, . . 4 cwt. u u . 22 6 " a u a dung, . . IS yds. '■'■ a . 19 7 " u u i'. GUANO, . 3 cwt. u u . 20 6 '^ ii a a dung, . . 18 yds. (.', (.', . . 19 2 '• '• ' In the second experiment, a comparative trial was made between guano and hone-d,ust mixed with coal-ashes. The ashes were sifted, and intimately mixed with the bones, some days before being applied, in the proportion of sixteen bushels of bones and eight of ashes, per acre. The quantity of guano applied was at the rate of three hundred weight per acre upon four drills, two and two together, at an interval of eight drills manured with bones and ashes. Then, at a similar interval, followed two drills, operated upon with guano together with sulphate of soda, (Glauber salts,) at the rate of four hundred weight per acre — being the only instance, in the course of these experiments, in which any foreign substance was used with the guano. The turnips were drawn about the end of November ; and on a comparison of the weight of the crop on two of the four drills done with guano alone, with the produce of the average of four drills, nearly immediately adjoining, manured with hone-dust and ashes, the result stood thus (the plants being topped and rooted) : — Manures. Produce per Acre. GuANo, alone, 23 cwt. 2 st. Guano and sulphate of soda, 23 " " Bone-dust, 19 " 2 " GUANO. 277 " ' In the third experiment, guano was used against hone-dust alone, applied, as is usual in that district, at the rate of sixteen bushels per acre. The guano was used at the rate of two hun- dred weight only per acre. The drills manured with the latter showed a very early superiority, and were ready for the hoe fully eight days earlier than the rest of the field. This more vigorous growth they maintained throughout : and when the turnips (the white stone globe variety) were weighed, on the 22d March, after standing throughout the winter, the result was as follows (the roots and tops being in this instance retained) : — "' Two drills guano, 31 cwt. 4 st. Two " bone-dust, 24 cwt. 7 st.' " " The following table, extracted from the Scotsman, is the result of an experiment on a field which had, till the present crop, been in grass from time immemorial. The soil was a dry, friable loam. The turnips were sown on the 20th of May, and hfted and weighed on the 27th of November, 1843. Kinds and Q,tian.titie3 of Manures used per Acre. Price of Manure per Acre. Weight of Turnips without Roots or Tops. Weight of Roots and Tops. Weight of rotten Turnips, Weight of total Product per Acre. Gdano, 5 cwts Farm dung, 12 carts, . Bones, 26.^ bushels, . Rape-dust, 12 cwts. . £ s. 2 15 3 12 3 3 3 T. C. lb. 29 17 13 25 7 8 25 12.i 12 22 19i 22 T. C. lb. 6 12i 11 6 15 6 5 1| 14 5 9 T. C. 1 13 2 12 14 2 84 T. C. lb. 38 2| 13 34 14 27 31 8.^ 20 30 17A 0.' Guano has been applied to winter wheat, both in drills and broadcast, and with signal success. It has been applied, like- Avise, with great success, to grass and pasture land, as the follow- ing statement will show : — " On an eight-acre field, sown with three hundred weight of guano, and three bushels of Italian rye-grass per acre, on the 29th of April, cut on the 3d of August, the produce weighed, when cut, eighteen tons, and when dry and ready for stack, four tons, per acre. Much of this crop was upwards of five feet long. So rapid was the growth, that, fifty hours after cutting, it had again sprung up to the height of three and one eighth inches. With such grass, and such manure, so easily convertible into liquid, I see no reason to doubt that the cottager, with his five roods of land, could supply his house with vegetables, and cow with winter and summer food, thereby providing for his family an almost entire subsistence." 24 278 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. It has been questioned whether its eftects will be permanent. I can only answer, that I have seen its obviously beneficial effects three years after its application upon grass. How much longer its efficacy may be expected to continue, experience only can determine. Several kinds of guano have been brought into Great Britain ; but the great distinction is between that from the Island of Ichaboe, on the coast of Africa, and that from the islands in the Pacific. The former seems entirely deficient in uric acid, and consequently lacks what is deemed a valuable element in vege- tation. The comparative value of the two in public estimation, and in the opinion of a distinguished chemist, is supposed to be as four to five. The supply from Ichaboe is said to be ex- hausted, the enormous quantity of five to six hundred thousand tons having been taken, as is stated, from that single island. I should do wrong to say that guano is always successful. There were many complaints this year of its failure, attributed to the excessive droughts which prevailed at the beginning of the season. A farmer likewise, in Cambridgeshire, communi- cates to the Royal Agricultural Society, in their last journal, his failure in two successive applications of it to crops of barley. In neither instance does any advantage appear to have been gained. He attributes this to something in the nature or character of the soil ; but this, without further trials, must be set down as wholly conjectural. It is quite proper, likewise, that I should urge upon the farm- ers of the United States, that, however auspicious and brilliant may be the promises which guano holds out to them, they must not overlook the resources for enriching their own lands within their own reach. The following statement will strengthen this advice. Philip Pusey, Esq., M. P., than whom, I believe, wherever his character for intelligent, accurate, and philosophical observation is known, it will be universally admitted, there is no higher agricultural authority in England, informed me that, the last season, he carted to the headlands of one of his fields a quantity of loam, mixed with coal-ashes and rubbish, and, having formed it into a bed, heaped upon it a quantity of barn manure, from the drippings of which the loam, &c., became completely satu- rated. Upon the application of this to the land for a crop of GUANO. 279 turnips, by the side of the same crop manured with three hun- dred weight of guanOj the advantage was very greatly in favor of the former. Mr. James Smith, of Deanston, states that a friend of his ma- nured three acres ; the first with fifteen tons of stable-dung, cost £4; tjie second acre with three hundred weight of guano, cost £1, 6s. ; the third acre with eight tons of hquid manure, cost 2 s. 6d. ; and the crop on the last was far the best. Dr. Playfair was kind enough to communicate to me this statement. In an admirable lecture, delivered by the last-named active and intelligent friend of an improved agriculture, at the meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society, that gentleman saw fit to state that one pound of urine contained materials for producing one pound of wheat ; and that the effete matter which runs into the Thames, annually, from the city of London, amounts to 1,095,000,000 pounds in one year, and contains nitrogen sufficient to produce 1,600,000,000 pounds of wheat, 1,800,000,000 pounds of barley ; and, calculating this waste at a moderate value, for agricultu- ral purposes, London suffers a loss of £1,000,000 sterling, or 5,000,000 dollars per year. These curious statistics wall, I know, give no off"ence to any sensible person ; and they may suggest considerations of the very highest moment to the rising cities of the United States, where the sanatary and economical arrangements are not com- pleted, and in many cases not begun. They especially enforce upon every individual farmer the duty of examining and hus- banding, with a miserly frugality, all the resources of his own farm, even the- most inconsiderable and humble. They have, I may be allowed to say, a far higher use by leading the reflecting and serious mind to admire and adore the never-ending circles of the divine beneficence ; the mixed and wonderful compensa- tions and mutual subserviences which pervade the whole system of nature ; and, above all, that constant miracle of miracles, going on continually in the vegetable world, by which the most worth- less and the most offensive substances are returned again to bless the animal creation, in those substantial products by which life is sustained, and comfort every where diff'used, in fruits most delicious to the senses, and in plants, and flowers, which, in 280 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. their variety, and beauty, and wonderful glory and splendor, infinitely surpass the highest triumphs of human art and luxury. I think proper here to subjoin several analyses of guano with which I have been favored by a most accurate chemist, Mr. E. F. Teschemacher, to whose unremitted kindness, in various forms, I am most deeply obliged. Indeed, when I think of the debts which I have incurred, in this way, and which have been forced upon me, on this side of the water, I fear nothing is left for me but to take advantage of the act of general bankruptcy, with the mortification of feeling, from the number of my cred- itors, how very small a dividend can be made. " Dear Sir : '* I have taken the first moment I had to spare, to fulfil my promise of giving you some details relative to guanoes — espe- cially the analyses of the various kinds imported within the last eighteen months into this country, which have come under my cognizance. The analyses were performed by me during the course of my business, and are so arranged that a comparison may be easily made between them. Upon comparing these analyses with those of other analysts, I find them generally to agree in all their essential characters. " No. 1. Peruviati. " 100 parts consist of 9 parts of ammonia, combined with phosphoric, carbonic, uric, and organic acids, form- ing, of Ammoniacal salts, . . .40 Animal organic matter, . 6J Sulphate and muriate of potash and soda, . . .11^ Phosphate of lime and magnesia, 29^ Sand, 1 Water, lU 100 " The Peruvian contains 11^ parts of uric acid. " No. 2. Bolivian. "100 parts contain 10^ parts ammonia, combined as in No. 1, forming, of Ammoniacal salts, ... 36 Animal organic matter, . 5 Sulphate and muriate of potash and soda, . . . 15^ Phosphate of lime and magnesia, 27| Sand, U Water, _1£ 100 " The Bolivian contains 3 per cent, of uric acid. GUANO. 281 " The uric acid is considered to furnish the crops with additional ammonia, which, after application, is given out by degrees. ''No. 3. Chilian. "100 parts containing 3 parts ammonia, combined with phosphoric, oxahc, carbonic, humic, and organic acids, forming, of Ammoniacal salts, . . . 12J Animal organic matter, . 2^ Sulphate and muriate of potash and soda, . . .7^ Phosphate of lime and mag- nesia, and oxalate lime, . 53 Sand, 2 Water, ...... ._22J 100 " This guano contains no uric acid. '•'No. 4. Ichaboe Guano. " 100 parts containing 7J parts ammonia, combined with phosphoric, oxalic, carbonic, and humic acids, forming, of Ammoniacal salts, . . . 26J Animal organic matter, . 7^ Sulphate and muriate of potash, and phosphate potash, 10 Phosphate lime, and mag- nesia, and oxalate lime, 30 Sand, 1 Water, 25 100 " Contains no uric acid. 24* "No. 5. Angra de Pequena. "100 parts contain 5 parts am- monia, combined as in No. 4, forming, of Ammoniacal salts, ... 20 Animal organic matter, . . 5 Sulphate and muriate of potash, and phosphate potash, 11 Phosphate of lime and mag- nesia, and oxalate lime, . 32 Sand, 2 Water, _30 100 "No uric acid. "No. 6. Possession Islatid. " Very like that from Angra de Pequena, but very lumpy. " No uric acid. "No. 7. Pedestal Point. " 100 parts contain 4^ parts am- monia, combined as in No. 4, forming, of Ammoniacal salts, . . .14 Animal organic matter, . 6 Sulphate and muriate of potash, and phosphate potash, 6i Phosphate of lime and mag- nesia, and oxalate lime, 37 Sand, 7 Water, • 29J - 100 " No uric acid. 282 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. ^^ No. 8. Bird Islands ; Algoa Bay. " 100 parts contain 2^ parts ammonia, combined as in No. 4, forming, of Ammoniacal salts, lOJ Animal organic matter, 8^ Sulphate and muriate of potash, 2J Phosphate of lime and magnesia, (no oxalate lime,) ... 62 Sand, li Water, 15 Too "No. 8 contains no uric acid. " No. 1 to 3 are South American guanoes. "No. 4 to 8 are African guanoes. " I have examined guano from other localities, but as I do not know those localities, I have omitted them in the list. ^^ Guano Testing. " 1. A small portion, about 100 grains, mixed and rubbed with 10 parts of chalk to 1 part of quick-lime, should give out a strong smell of ammonia ; and on holding over the mixture a glass rod moistened with muriatic acid, a dense white vapor should be given off. If this effect does not take place, the guano will contain very little ammoniacal salts. " 2. 100 grains guano, heated to redness in a Hessian crucible, should leave a white ash. This white ash should be nearly soluble in dilute muriatic acid. The residue should not exceed 10 grains ; in good guano, the residue would be only 1 or 2 grains. " The quantity of white ash will vary from 30 to 60 per cent., according to the nature of the guano. "Yom's truly, " E. F. Teschemacher. " No. 2 Park Terrace, Highbury, 24 January, 1845." GUANO. 283 I add to these some analyses forwarded to me from the Edin- burgh Agricultural Chemical Association, by my esteemed friend, Mr. John P. Norton. Two Guanoes from Ichaboe. No. I. Water, 20.46 Organic matter and ammoniacal salts, . 44.96 Sulphate of soda and potash, with common salt, Phosphates of lime and magnesia. Carbonate of lime, Silicious matter, 2.15 3 per cent, free ammonia in No. I. 4.49 27.31 0.07 99.44 " These are fair samples of the Ichaboe guanoes, defect is too much water. No. II. 18 00 52.60 4.89 19.22 4.83 99.54 Their only '^TiDO South American Guanoes. Water and free ammonia, .... Organic matter and ammoniacal salts. Sulphate and muriate of soda, . . . Phosphate of lime, and a little phos- phate of magnesia, Carbonates of lime and magnesia, Insoluble silicious matter, .... Peruvian. Bolivian . 3.14 . . 5.34 . 63.52 . . 58.00 . 5.02 . . 6.37 22.20 . . 25.27 . 4.96 . . 3.95 . 1.16 . . 1.07 100.00 100.00. " These are both most excellent guanoes. The small proportion of water is remarkable, and the large quantity of organic matter and ammoniacal salts. This first, and then the phosphates, are the criteria of value. Carbonate of lime, sulphate and muriate of soda, «fcc., are valuable manures, but may be bought lower than £6 or £8 per ton. ^84 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. ^^ Artificial Guano, {Potter'' s.) Water, 14.55 Organic matter, 17.32 Salts soluble in water, consisting of common salt and gypsum, with a small quantity of potash and am- moniacal salts, 40.43 Phosphate and carbonate of lime, 11.61 Coarse sand, with bits of gypsum, 16.06 99.97 " This, therefore, contains 30 per cent, of water and sand. One by the same maker, previously examined, had about 30 per cent, of sand alone." The following is from a chemist of the highest scientific character. Dr. Ure : — " Reserving, for the present, the more particular analyses, the following may be offered as the average result of those I have made of genuine guano, in reference to its agricultural value : — " Azotized organic matter, including urate of ammonia, and capable of aifording from 8 to 17 per cent, of ammonia by slow decomposition in the soil, . . .50.0 Water, 11.0 Phosphate of lime, 25.0 Ammonia, phosphate of magnesia, phosphate of ammo- nia, and oxalate of ammonia, containing from 4 to 9 per cent, of ammonia, 13.0 Silicious matter from the crops of the birds, .... 1.0 100.0." K'^ EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. FOURTH REPORT. XLVI.— GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. The great incentive to all agricultural improvement is profit. The man who is satisfied with a bare subsistence will do little towards making his condition better. It is one of the prominent blessings of civilization, that it multiplies human wants and desires to such a degree as to call out all the powers of the body and mind to supply them. In proportion as civilization is advanced, human wants increase. From necessities we proceed to indulgences, from indulgences to luxuries ; until what were at first indulgences and luxuries become themselves transformed into necessities. Out of these spring other indulgences and other luxuries, which go on by a sort of reduplication or spon- taneous generation, to which as yet no limits have been reached, and we have reason to think that none are very near. When one class or species fails, or passes away, others come into its place, like sprouts springing from the living stump of a tree which has been cut down ; or like the countless plants which come up where a single plant has been suffered to ripen and to shed its seed. Besides this efiect of use or indulgence in increasing, and in giving an insatiableness to, human wants, there is an original and native element of the human mind, which the phrenologists designate as acquisitiveness, or a desire to obtain. This, when joined with secretiveness, becomes a desire to keep or to accumu- 286 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. late as well as to obtain, which, though liable to abuse, yet, like all other original tendencies of our nature, is designed for good. This operates as a continual stimulus to exertion, and rouses energies, and awakens an ambition, and strengthens and pro- duces a perseverance and tenacity of purpose, which, in the creation and accumulation of wealth, lie at the foundation of most of the great improvements of society, and again in its turn creates a power or instrument of influence, which itself com- mands thousands of minds, and thousands of hands, to unite with an energy similar to its own in the accomplishment of its own objects. All this does good ; prevents the waters of society from be- coming stagnant and unwholesome, and keeps them in a state of continued and healthful agitation. If human wants, having a sort of polypus vitality, are constantly increased by being sup- plied, it is no less true that the powers of the human mind and body are always increased and strengthened by being properly exerted. As the mind becomes enlightened and expanded, it is tempted to extend its dominion over matter and over other minds. In the spirit of an ambition never knowing enough, it goes out ''conquering and to conquer.-' It invades other dominions of nature, and makes ev^ery where the elements of the material world subservient to its purposes. It is said that an Indian, when, on a certain occasion, he was brought from the solitude and destitution of his forest-home into a busy manufacturing town, and saw windmills with their sails inflated by the air, and water-wheels driven by the running stream, and steam-engines impelled by an agent of which before he had scarcely conceived, and the furnaces where, by the appli- cations of fire, the iron-stones were made to flow in liquid streams, and to take the forms which the workman's pleasure dictated, exclaimed, in his amazement, that the white man made every thing work for him — the fire, the air, the water. Nothing could have been more natural than his surprise. Thus it is that human genius devotes itself to science ; and every step in science imparts a disposition and capacity to advance farther. It invents language and signs, that it may transfix, and hold fast, thoughts, and facts, and discoveries, for further use. It employs the powers of nature to increase, and multiply, and strengthen, other powers, and thus is constantly extending its sovereignty over mind and GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 287 matter, and assuming more and more to itself, in its humble capacities, the character of a creator. Thus it is that the fruitful powers of nature are called forth ; the means of animal life and subsistence extended ; the productions of the earth increased, di- versified, and improved. Under an improved cultivation, ten men find ample and luxurious support, where, before, one would have starved. New vegetables and new fruits are brought into existence and use, or others rendered more abundant ; and with the increase of vegetable, the increase of animal life is immeas- urably extended. Thus it is that new forms of comfort, luxury, and ornament appear with corresponding wants on the part of those who are to enjoy them ; new means of subsistence are supplied ; new forms of habitation are demanded ; new articles of clothing are provided. All the wonders of art spring up ; the multiplied embellishments of refined life present themselves ; and the progress of society is in all respects advanced and con- tinually advancing. All this grows out of that original element of the human mind to which I early alluded, — acquisitiveness, the desire of gain, or advance, or betterment, or profit, — which thus stimulates men to the continual improvement of their condition. But all this, we are told by some men, springs from selfishness, and they de- nounce it as criminal. Their denunciations are without reason, and they make no just discrimination between the difi'erent con- ditions of a principle which in its original nature is wholesome and useful, and becomes wrong and pernicious only by its ex- travagance and abuse. What would man be without any regard to his own interest ? It is an instinctive impulse which prompts us to take care of our lives. Self-preservation is the first law of our nature. But the same law implies the most diligent care of our health, and all that varied and extended provision for health and comfort, necessary to the continuance of life, and to its continuance under circumstances most favorable to its activity, usefulness, and reasonable enjoyment. But who is to take care of us, if we do not take care of ourselves ? If every man, instead of providing for his own wants, gave himself up to the care of his neighbor it is not easy to see that any advantage would be gained by it. Every one would find tliat, besides multiplied inconveniences, the provision for himself would bo far less complete and satis- 288 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. factory than when under his own immediate superintendence and control. The evils of selfishness do not lie in a man's appropriating to himself that to which he has a just claim, and which he may enjoy without injury to his neighbor, but in the appropriation of that to which he has no fair title, and which he cannot so appropriate without injury to his neighbor, and with- out an invasion of the just rights of other men. That meanness of selfishness, which some men exhibit, and which seeks the exclusive enjoyment of whatever it can accumulate, irrespective of the comfort, and at the expense of the toil, of others, — that dog- in-the-manger selfishness, which accumulates without imparting, and seems to experience its highest zest in contrasting its own fulness with the destitution and misery of others, — is as odious as it is criminal. On the other hand, that rational regard to one's own interest which prompts a man continually to take the best possible care of his body and mind ; to secure his health, that his physical activity and vigor may be increased, and to cultivate and improve his mind, that it may resemble, in its fruitfulness, a well-tilled and enriched field ; to increase likewise his estate, and embellish and adorn it ; and to accumulate wealth that he may multiply the sources of good to others, stimulate others to exer- tion, and lead to those generous improvements which wealth is capable of producing, and to which it may be beneficially applied, — this is a sentiment, which, so far from being to be con- demned, is to be commended and cherished as the great instru- ment and spring, as much of social and public, as of personal and individual good. Improvement of every kind lies in action. The happiness which never satiates or wearies is to be found in the conscious- ness of progress. Who that has experienced a dead calm at sea, — not a breath of wind to ruffle the waves, the vessel tossing from one side to the other like a cork upon the water, the rigging shaking, the sails flapping, the crew idle and listless, no progress reported, and the whole company wearied, impatient, despond- ing, ill-humored, — and compares this with a brisk gale blowing, — every rope straightened, every sail spread and filled, the planks of the ship creaking as it were with intense exertion, the masts bending almost to breaking under their burden, the crew awake, the passengers all animated with hope and delighted with the certainty of progress, and the noble sliip, with her priceless cargo GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 289 of human life and fortune, moving like a thing of life over the billows, and, as she ploughs her proud path through, as it were, a flood of liquid silver, throwing the glittering and brilliant tresses of jewels from her neck, — who has had this experience, and will not feel how little to be desired, either for the body or the mind, for health or enjoyment, for the animal or the moral man, is a state of inanity and sluggish repose ? The poets — those ethereal beings, who deal in fiction, and whose imagination becomes a sort of ignis fatuus, a " Will-of-the- wisp," leading them they know not where — love to descant upon the Golden Ages or the Paradisiacal state, when men, without care for food or clothing, had nothing to do, but, under a calm sky and a soft air, to lie down on banks of fragrant flowers, by the side of gurgling streams, under the shade of spreading aro- matic trees, and. let the richest fruits fall into their laps, and listen to the ^olian strains of the winds whispering among the branches, and the melodious songs of birds of the gayest plu- mage fluttering around them, and abandon themselves to the charms of a purely animal and sensual existence. But what reflecting man would desire such a life as this for himself, and would not feel an intolerable restlessness, and especially a morti- fying consciousness that it falls, one may almost say, infinitely below the capacities of his nature and the purposes of his being ? I cannot look out of my window, where I am now writing, in Trafalgar Square at Charing Cross, without seeing a world of in- describable life, and bustle, and activity. The night in London is seldom longer than from half past two o'clock until four o'clock in the morning, when the flood-gates begin gently to open, and gradually the rushing torrent of life pours through in a turbid and boisterous flood. After the waters begin to move with force, there is perhaps not a minute in the day when more than a thou- sand, or rather thousands, of people cannot be counted from my window. Here are carriages without number, from the splendid chariot with its noble horses, its gorgeous equipage, its liveried servants, and its precious cargo of figured porcelain, down to the humble gig, the dray-horse, the wheelbarrow, and the donkey-cart with its precious load of garbage or of dog's-meat. Here are shops without number, replete with all the most exquisite produc- tions of science, genius, art, and mechanical contrivance, and full of buyers and sellers. Here are crowds of men, women, and chil- 2.5 290 KUllOPEAN AGRICULTURE. dren, passing and repassing, sauntering, walking, running, and jostling each other, waiting upon and being waited upon, enter- taining and being entertained, carrying and being carried, labor- ing and enjoying. Here are caravansaries for the travellers, banks for merchants, monuments to heroes and princes, schools of science, galleries of art, and temples to God, adorned Avith the finest embellishments of architectural skill, and lifting their beautiful spires to the skies, as if, from the glittering vane upon tliG top, they would emulate the brilliancy of a fixed star, and as if, like the star which stood over the sacred spot of a divine nativity, they would present Heaven's brilliant emblem of mercy to encourage man's faith and piety. Here, too, are foun- tains of water throwing up their liquid treasures over their heads, and coming down in constant showers of brilliants. Here are men, and the busy and exciting concerns of men, under all the varying aspects of human life and activity. Here are the mag- nificent triumphs of human art and skill ; here are the fruits of centuries of toil and labor ; and here is one continued intensity of action, as if it were the very heart of the great world beating with violent emotion. But none of this, properly speaking, is mechanical ; it is all intellectual ; it is all under the dominion of mind to excite, to urge, to direct, to control it. There is a far mightier power at work within than appears Avithout. If you could take off the roof of some of these moving tabernacles ; if vou could see what is there lying beneath, the burning thoughts, the anxious desires, the resolute purposes, the beating affections, and the fiery passions, which are there at work, and as it were mingling in one common flame, you would indeed see objects more curious and wonderful, an exhibition far more extraordinary, than any thing ever before presented to your senses, or even to your imagination. But what is the secret spring, the great power-wheel which sets all these things in motion, which excites and quickens all tliis activity ? It is acquisition, the desire to acquire subsistence, pleasure, profit, wealth, or power. Would it be better that all this should cease, and society become a mere stagnant pool ? Would it be better that all the necessity of labor should be taken away, and men should hav'8 no other destiny than to repose in quiet, with all their wants supplied, and all their senses gratified ; and that down couches slioul'J be spread round these gushing fountains, and instead of GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 291 water they should send forth the delicious juices of the grape, — though perhaps, to suit the English taste, it should be ale or beer, or what is vulgarly called " half and half," for that is the Englishman's nectar, — and that men should have only to drink it in at pleasure, or, in common parlance, to enjoy themselves? 1 think not. I believe Heaven could send no greater curse than to exempt mankind from all necessity of labor. If we look at the condition of the inhabitants of tropical coun- tries, where the richest fruits of the earth grow spontaneously, where clothing and shelter are scarcely required, and where men are exempted from the necessity of labor, we shall find them sunk in sensuality, abandoned to animal indulgences, and in intellectual and moral condition at the lowest scale. If we com- pare them with the inhabitants of temperate regions, the dis- parity will be seen to be great, but vastly in favor of the latter. The intellect is sharpened, as well as the muscular vigor in- creased, in proportion to the difficulties with which it has to struggle, and the labor by which it is taxed, provided that la- bor is not excessive and unnatural. Though there may be a severity of toil wholly discouraging, and difficulties which are perfectly hopeless and insurmountable, — which cases we must of course except, — yet, in point of actual enjoyment, there cannot be a doubt on which side the advantage lies ; and that the neces- sity of exertion, and every wholesome stimulus to useful and honest labor, is a blessing from Heaven. The condition of the Irish peasantry likewise strongly illus- trates and confirms these truths. Nothing can exceed the destitution and wretchedness in which millions of these people live. I have been into many of their cabins, and have seen the habitations of thousands and thousands of these miserable people ; and, in regard to external accommodations, I can scarcely think that there is upon earth a lower condition of human existence. Certainly the wigwam of an American savage may often be regarded with envy for its comforts, compared with many an Irish cabin. I have been into those which were mere holes dug into the side of a peat bog, and have put my hand upon the wet and velvety walls, that I might be certain my senses did not deceive me. In these caves, covered with sticks, and straw, and sods ; without chimney, window, or lloor ; with a fire of turf slowly burning upon the ground and filling the place 292 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. with smoke ; without bed, table, chair, or plate, or knife, or fork ; with, indeed, no article of furniture save a kettle in which to boil their potatoes, and a basket in which to take them up ; with no other seat but a bit of dried turf or peat, and no bed to lie down upon but a flock of straw, which was frequently shared in common by the children and the pig, — I have found a crowded family, with rags for clothing that scarcely hid their nakedness, living from one year's end to the other upon potatoes and water, and never more than once a year tasting either bread or meat. This is not the place for me to enter into the political con- siderations connected with this condition of things in a country which, in respect to its climate and soil, and resources for useful industry, and means not only of comfortable subsistence to a population quadruple of that which exists there, but in means of abundance and wealth, is eminently favored of Heaven. But I refer to the example of Ireland to show that where persons can remain satisfied under privation and extreme penury ; where they are content to live upon the meanest fare, and to occupy habitations scarcely fit for the shelter of the lowest of the brute creation ; where, with only a mud-cabin and a potato patch, without even money enough to pay the wedding-fee, (for this is made out by the contributions of friends on the occasion,) they are willing to take upon themselves the responsibilities of marriage, and become the founders of families to be born only to inherit a similar destitution and wretchedness, it is difficult to find motives to rouse them to exertion and industry. Until a revolution can be effected in their feelings, and a set of wants created within them, any strong hopes of the improvement of their condition seem idle. The wants of men, then, are the great incentives to exertion ; and the stimulus of profit, the desire of gain and of accumulation, is that wliich induces enterprise and eftort, which excites inquiry and leads to knowledge, which prompts to labor, and thus urges men on to new acquisitions and continual progress. We may appeal to higher motives than self-interest, where there are minds capable of appreciating a higher class of motives ; but it is absurd to consider inferior motives as wrong, where better cannot be had ; and self-interest and the desire of gain are not only innocent, but commendable, where we do not seek gain or pursue our own interests to the injury and loss of others. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 293 I fear I may be thought to have gone out of my way by such a preface as this ; yet I hope I may have the indulgence of my readers for an honest endeavor to enliven a subject of dry details with matter which, though it may seem distant from, is certainly not irrelevant to my purpose. I have not always found it a hinderance, though it may appear like an interruption, in making a tour of business, sometimes to dismount, and, throwing the reins over the neck of my horse, that he too might regale himself by the roadside, lie down on a green bank, under a quiet shade, by some sparkling stream, and abandon myself for a while to the charming thoughts which then come fluttering round the mind, like fireflies upon a meadow in a quiet evening of summer ; or at other times to leap the fence, and rush into the fields or the neighboring forest, and return with a handful of golden grain, or a bouquet of wild flowers gathered fresh from the bosom of nature, and showing the exuberant bounty of Heaven, or the triumphs of artificial culture. I could then mount my horse, refreshed by the indulgence, and pursue my journey with new speed, with senses more alive to the beauties of the country through which I was passing, and with a more grateful sense of the goodness of the great Author of nature, who, by this varied mixture, by alternations of light and shade, of labor and rest, of toil and indulgence, and by an endless succession and diversity of objects, makes life, which would be otherwise deplorably monotonous and tedious, not merely agreeable, but delightful. 1 should be happy, in my humble way, in any degree to ac- complish so desirable a purpose in respect to my kind readers, and render the journey which we have undertaken to travel together as pleasant as I could wish to make it useful and instructive. Some men, very much addicted to great refinements in casuistry, and especially in respect to the motives of human actions, would condemn every motive, but such as are purely disinterested, as criminal. I agree with them that the highest of human actions must have its origin in the highest and purest of all motives ; but I cannot deny the innocence, and, more than that, the positive virtue and worth of many actions and pursuits, that are prompted by motives which some persons would designate as inferior, but which, nevertheless, have their origin in our own nature and constitution. Self-interest, profit, 25* 294 EUROPKAN AGRICULTUKE. accumulation, are all of them reasonable and commendable objects, when they do not lead us to invade or infringe upon the rights of others, and when our accumulations are used foi useful ends. I am anxious to vindicate the profession of agriculture from every aspersion which may be cast upon it, and to contribute my mite to place it in that rank, in the scale of human pursuits, which it may justly claim for itself. I may say, with Bacon, "that it has the divine sanction," for in the beginning God placed man upon the earth to cultivate and make it fruitful. I may claim for it, further, that it is an innocent pursuit ; that it can do no injury to any one ; and that it invades no man's just rights, and prejudices no man's safety, health, peace, or reason- able enjoyment. I will add to this, that it is a beneficent employment. Whoever cultivates the earth, and covers it with rich and golden crops, renders it more beautiful ; whoever causes the earth to yield its fruits, increases the means of human com- fort and subsistence ; and in proportion as this cultivation is improved and skilful, and by such improvement, and such skill, the products of the earth are many times increased, so the means of human subsistence and comfort, and of subsistence and com- fort to a very large portion of the brute creation, are correspond- ingly extended. I will make no invidious comparisons between agriculture and other professions and pursuits of life ; but certainly none is more innocent, more honest, more useful, or more rational. That happens, in respect to agriculture, which does not equally appear in many professions, that its improvements cannot be monopo- lized ; they are of necessity exposed. Emulation or compe- tition, so often productive of the worst results in many pursuits of life, in the improvement of agriculture can produce nothing but good. XLVII. — AGRICULTURE AS A COMMERCIAL PURSUIT. Men, then, may lawfully pursue agriculture under the stimulus of profit. In many cases, the ^ains of one man arc made at the expense or loss of another. The celebrated Madame Roland AGRICULTURE AS A COMMERCIAL. PURSUIT. 295 used to say " she was always sorry to hear that a man iiad made a good bargain, because she knew, in that case, that some person must have made a poor one." It is not so in agriculture. The more a man increases his wealth by increasing the products ol" the earth by a skilful cultivation, so much the more is the whole community benefited, excepting only where human laws inter- pose to intercept the widest possible diffusion of the bounties of Heaven. Agriculture, in order to excellence, requires as much the stimulus of profit as any other pursuit in life. In England and Scotland, it has had that stimulus. It has had governmental protection and indulgence, the propriety and justice of which are questionable with many men of distinguished wisdom, observa- tion, and patriotism, and the expediency of which is capricious, being dependent upon circumstances ever liable to fluctuation and change. The protection which it has received has been in laws prohibiting, under heavy duties, the importation of agricul- tural produce from foreign countries, and affording relief from various forms of specific taxation, to which other professions or conditions are subjected. The horses, dogs, servants, and carriages, of all other classes of the community here are taxed ; but those of the farmer are exempted from taxation. In the tax upon income, the farmer's income is fairly assumed from the rent which he pays; but in levying tlie assessment, only half his rent is reckoned, so that a farmer paying in fact £400 rent, would be considered, for the purpose of taxation, as paying only £200. In some respects, it must be confessed that what is called " pro- tection " is of a suicidal character. A duty is laid, for example, upon imported clover-seed, whereas the amount produced in the country, or likely to be produced under all the encouragement which its cultivation receives, bears a very small proportion to the amount used by the farmers, and used in fact by no other persons ; so that the duty paid upon this article is a heavy tax upon the many farmers, for the exchisive benefit of the few. Great complaint is likewise made, by the farmers, of the intro- duction of fat cattle from abroad, which come into injurious com- petition with their own stock, and of the admission of foreign salted provisions. At the same time, the very provision upon which these cattle might, if imported lean, be fatted at home, is prohibited. The Indian corn from the United States can be 296 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. admitted only by the payment of a duty which is ahnost pro- hibitory. It cannot be grown in England, though, under some extraordinary circumstances in accidental localities, it has occa- sionally ripened. If, instead of importing fat cattle from the Continent, to supply their markets, they would import lean cattle, and at the same time import Indian corn under a low or nominal duty, to fatten them with, (and it would be difficult to find a substance which, in proportion to its cost, is more nutritious,) it is obvious that, besides the profit upon the labor of fattening these cattle, they would have the great advantages of their manure — certainly a most serious consideration.* Agriculture in England appears altogether as a commercial pursuit. Where heavy amounts of rent are to be periodically and punctually paid, men are compelled to look carefully at their expenditures, purchases, and contracts, and their pecuniary results. It is by no means so with us in the United States, where most farmers are their own landlords and the owners of the estates on which they live, and where, if their sales from their farms are sufficient to meet the expenses of labor, the light taxes of the government, and those supplies for their families which the farm itself does not yield, they feel themselves at least secure, if they are not satisfied. I design presently to give some example of the manner in which farm accounts are kept here by the most careful farmers, and which show all the exact- ness of mercantile transactions. Indeed, it must be so, or they would become involved in inextricable confusion, which would surely terminate in bankruptcy and ruin. I know farmers here who pay their two hundred, four hundred, six hundred, and one thousand pounds' rent ; I have been credibly informed of a farmer in Scotland, or on the borders of Scotland and England, * The alteration of the tariff, allowing the admission of fat cattle, and foreign cheese, Sic, under a reduced duty, does not appear, at present, to have produced so great results as was expected, whatever may be the case hereafter. The report made to Parliament this present session, (1845,) returns, as imported into tlic country from abroad the last year, of cattle, 2,241, (which, if we suppose ihcm to average 800 pounds per head, would give only about three fourtJis of a pound of meat to each individual ;) of sheep, 1,0G3, (which, at 80 pounds per head, — a large average, — would give half an ounce of nmtton to each individual ;) of cheese, 11,000 tons, (which would give about one pound per individual.] At the same time, the minister in Parliament states that, during tlic last year, the population of the kingdom has increased by 380,000! ! MARKETS. CATTLE MARKETS. 297 whose annual rent, at one time, was seven thousand pounds, or thirty-five thousand dollars; and it is quite obvious how disas- trous must be the consequences, if such properties are managed otherwise than with the most scrupulous commercial exactness. It cannot be denied that our habits in this respect are alto- gether different from what they should be ; that perhaps a majority of our farmers keep no accounts whatever, and many who keep accounts exhibit only imperfect and slovenly examples. It is said, — and it is certainly much to his honor, — that a distin- guished individual here, possessing immense estates, but who had become somewhat perplexed, not to say embarrassed, in his pecuniary affairs, and whose education had not been, in this matter, of a character to enable him to manage his affairs to advantage, employed an accurate accountant in his house for some time, for the sole purpose of learning from him the science of book-keeping by double entry. With a natural love of order, and a firm resolution, having acquired this knowledge, he was soon enabled to bring order out of confusion, and rescue himself from embarrassment, and its attendant and inevitable mortifica- tions. Such an example as this is certainly worth recording. Many farmers, more systematic than others, keep not only an account of cost and expenditure, and the amount of sales and profits, in the form of a cash account, but likewise a regular account with every field and every crop, and I had almost said with every animal, taking, as every careful trader or merchant will do, a yearly account of stock at a fair valuation. Every thing is accounted for ; not so much as a quart of milk is used in the family, but it is charged at the current price. I should be doing great injustice not to say that I know many examples of such carefulness in my own country. Besides the great satisfac- tion springing from this exactness, the sense of security and in- tegrity, which it brings with it, is invaluable. XLVIII. — MARKETS. CATTLE MARKETS. The English farmers have great advantages in their markets and exchanges ; and in this matter, to a certain extent, we ought 298 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. to follow them. I do not say these markets are an unmixed good ; but the benefits arising from them, I am convinced, greatly preponderate over the evils ; and, taking advantage of the long experience of others, some of these evils we may either remedy or avoid. It would prove highly beneficial to our farmers if they could have certain established markets for the sale of their produce when it is ready for sale ; if prices could be fairly adjusted and equalized ; and especially if the markets could be for cash ; and that credit, in all cases excepting for very short periods, could be abolished. It would be equally useful to them to know where they could buy as well as where they could sell ; for they often want lean or store stock for fatten- ing, a change of seed for sowing, horses for farm service, young stock for grazing, and cows for dairy use. With the exception of three or four of our large towns, — as Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, — we have no established cattle market in the country ; and markets such as Brighton near Boston, and the Bull's Head near New York, are almost exclu- sively for the sale of fat cattle, sheep, and swine. Our farmers sell, as they can, to agents or purchasers travelling through the country, and buy as they can, and where, by chance, after taking, in many cases, long and expensive journeys, they may find the stock which they need. In frequent cases, stock, both cattle and swine, are driven through the country and sold to those who wish to purchase, as accident may direct. A wool fair or market, is not, within my knowledge, held in the country ; nor a corn or grain market.* In the purchase of wool, agents scour the country, and in general the farmers are quite at their mercy. In respect to grain, the farmer carries his wheat, or other grain, to the miller or the trader, and must make the best bargain that he can. In such case, in the first place, there is no competition ; and no possibility of calculating the quantities on hand for sale ; and no mode of fixing any general or equal price ; and, indeed, no * Howard Street, in Baltimore, affords the only place in the United States resembling an exclusive market for the sale of grain or flour; and this is only attended by individual purchasers, and is not a meeting of farmers, grain-dealers, and millers, coming together on particular days in the week, and at a particular hour in the day, to exhibit samples, to collect and impart infonnation respecting the grain prospects of tlie year, to discuss prices, and to afford to all parties the advantages of comparison and competition. FALKIRK TRYST. 299 certainty to the farmer of finding any market at all. These evils might be remedied, and a change effected, to the great advantage of buyers and sellers, by the adoption of the system of weekly or periodical markets, which prevails throughout England and Scotland. Here are wool fairs, for the sale of wool, of which samples are exhibited; and corn and grain markets, where wheat, barley, oats, rye, beans, and peas, sam- ples of which are exhibited, are sold ; and markets for the sale of fat cattle, and markets for the sale of lean cattle, and markets for the sale of horses, and markets for the sale of sheep and lambs, and markets for the sale of cheese and butter ; these markets sometimes uniting several objects, or otherwise limited to some single object. I have attended several of these markets, and some general account of them may have an interest with my readers. XLIX. — FALKIRK TRYST. The largest cattle market in the kingdom, uniting sheep and cattle, takes place three times a year, — on the second Tuesday in August, September, and October, — at Falkirk in Scotland, about equidistant from Edinburgh and Glasgow. This is called the Falkirk Tryst, and is held on an extensive plain about three or four miles from the town. Here are congregated a vast number of horses, cattle, and sheep, and of buyers and sellers. It was estimated, when I was there, that the number of cattle then on the ground exceeded fifty thousand head, and of sheep seventy thousand ; and the banker informed me that the money em- ployed in the negotiation would exceed £300,000, or one million and a half of dollars. The cattle and sheep exhibited at this tryst are almost altogether of the Scotch breeds, and many come from the remote Highlands. They are purchased to be distributed, in the neighborhood and the southern provinces, for wintering, or for fatting for the winter and spring markets. Besides cattle and sheep, a large number of horses are brought for sale at the same time ; as many as three thousand horses are 300 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. sometimes offered for sale, and the field presents the appearance of a grand military display ; indeed, I have seldom seen a sight more imposing. For a week or more before the tryst, the roads leading to Falkirk will be fomid crowded with successive droves of cattle and sheep, proceeding to this central point : and it is extremely curious, on the field, to see with what skill and care the different parties and herds are kept together by them- selves. In this matter, the shepherds are greatly assisted by their dogs, who appear endowed with a sagacity almost human, and almost to know every individual belonging to their charge. They are sure, with an inflexible pertinacity, to follow and bring back a deserter to the flock. Purchasers come in great numbers from various parts of the kingdom. Some cattle are bought to be re-sold at other and smaller markets. The larger number are bought in order to be fed or fatted on the arable farms at the south. Cattle which have thus been driven from the extreme north are afterwards to be found even in Cornwall, at the Land's End. The sales in these cases are, of course, for cash. Bankers are always present, or near at hand, to facilitate the transactions. Here, at a distance little less than four hundred miles from Lon- don, bankers go down from London, carrying their funds with them, and occupying, during the time of the market, (which con- tinues at least four days, ) a temporary stand or office in the field. L. — THE BALLINASLOE FAIR. At Ballinasloe, in Ireland, a similar fair is held ; though here the fair is usually confined to the sale of sheep, and they some- times number as many as eighty thousand sheep. A very large fair is held in the southern portions of Scotland, for the sale of lambs, where the collection is immense. THE GALWAY FAIR. 301 LI. — THE GALWAY FAIR. A very large fair is held at Galway, Ireland, in the county of Galway, called the Fair of Rose Mount, at which I was present. This was chiefly for the sale of ponies, or horses of a small breed, with some few cattle. On this occasion, the collection of people was surprisingly great ; and I could then well understand what was intended by the public meetings in Ireland, called " monster meetings," in respect to which, until I saw this collection of people, I had always supposed the account of the numbers assembled had been much exaggerated. There were here, on this occasion, some cattle and sheep ; but there were, also, four thousand ponies, the catching of which, for examination or sale, as they had, in general, neither bridle nor halter, was sufficiently amusing, and I was about to add, sufficiently Irish. The fair was held on the sea-shore, where the receding tide left a large bed of mud. The ponies, when required to be caught, were surrounded and driven into this mud ; and here, in a very ignoble way, they were secured, though it was not always without some difficulty they were extracted after being caught. 1. Temperance in Ireland. — There were two circum- stances connected with this fair at Rose Mount, a reference to which, though not having an immediate connection with the principal object of my Reports, yet having a direct bearing upon rural manners and customs, may not be considered wholly out of place. Here, as well as at the fair at Donnybrook, where im- mense numbers of people were congregated, I could observe most distinctly the beneficent effects of that powerful reformatory movement, which, under the ministry of a good man, worthy of the name of an apostle, has effected a glorious moral triumph throughout Ireland, such as the pages of history scarcely record. I cannot say that at either place there was no drinking and no quarrelling ; but there was comparatively little ; and knowing, from report and from the natural excitableness of the Irish tem- per, what had been usual on such occasions, I could not but feel how much had been accomplished, when a foreigner might truly say, of such vast and mixed assemblages, they were quiet, orderly, and kind ; and a well-behaved man, disposed to keep his elbows 26 H02 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. to his own sides, might feel an almost equal security as he would feel in church. 2. The Galway Women. — There was another circumstance, perfectly unique in its character, to which I shall be pardoned for alluding. There was another species of live stock exhibited at the fair, which I cannot say is never seen at such places, but which does not always present itself under the same frank cir- cumstances. The kind nobleman who accompanied me, and who, like many others, noble and simple, whom it has been my good fortune to meet with on this side of the water, left no effort unessayed for my gratification, after looking at the various objects of the fair, asked me, at last, " if I would like to see the girls." I confess my natural diffidence at once took the alarm ; and my imagination cast a few furtive glances over the sea at some precious objects I had left behind. However, upon a voyage of curiosity, why should I not see what was to be seen ? and, confident that my good friend could have no sinister design, I gave him an affirmative reply. Upon inquiring of one of the trustees, or masters of the fair, " if the girls had come," we were informed they would be there at twelve o'clock. At twelve o'clock we went, as directed, to a part of the ground higher than the rest of the field, where we found from sixty to a hundred young women, well dressed, with good looks and good manners, and presenting a spectacle quite worth any civil man's looking at, and in which, I can assure my readers, tliere was nothing to offend any civil or modest man's feelings. These were the marriageable girls of the country, who had come to show them- selves, on the occasion, to the young men and others who wanted wives ; and this was the plain and simple custom of the fair. I am free to say that I saw in the custom no very great impropriety. It certainly did not imply that, though they were ready to be had, any body could have them. It was not a Circassian slave-market, where the richest purchaser could make his selection. They were in no sense of the term on sale ; nor did they abandon their own right of choice ; but that which is done constantly in more refined society, under various covers and pretences, — at theatres, balls, and public exhibitions; I will say nothing about churches, — was done by these humble and unpretending people in this straightforward manner. Between THE CJALWAY FAIll, 303 the noble duchess, who presents a long train of daughters, rus- tling in silk, and glittering with diamonds, at the queen's draw- ing-room, or the ladies of rank and fashion, who appear at public places with all the beauty and splendor of dress and ornament which wealth, and taste, and art, and skill, can supply, meaning nothing else but " Admire me ! " and these honest Gal way nymphs with their fair complexions and their bright eyes, with their white frilled caps, and their red cloaks and petticoats, — for this is the picturesque costume of that part of the country, — all willing to endow some good man with the richest of all the gifts of Heaven, a good and faithful wife, I can see no essential dif- ference. " Let not ambition mock their uselbl toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure." I hope I shall bo excused, if I say something more of these Galway women. I never saw a more handsome race of people. 1 have always been a great admirer of beauty — natural beauty, personal beauty, mental beauty, moral beauty. For what did the Creator make things so beautiful as they are made, but to be admired? For what has he endowed man with an exquisite .sense of beauty, but that he may cultivate it, and find in it a source of pleasure and delight ? As I have grown older, this sense of beauty — and I deem it a great blessing from Heaven — has become more acute ; and every day of my life, the world and nature, nature and art, the animal, the vegeto,ble, and the mineral creation, the heavens and the earth, the fields and flowers, men, women, and children, wit, genius, learning, moral purity and moral loveliness, deeds of humanity, fortitude, patience, heroism, disinterestedness, have seemed to me continually more and more beautiful, as, at the setting of the sun, man looks out upon a Avorld made richer and more glorious by his lingering radiance, and skies lit up with an unwonted gorgeousness and splendor. But the human countenance seems in many cases to concentrate all of physical, of intellectual, and of moral beauty, which can be combined in one bright point. Why should it not, therefore, be admired ? In the commingled beams of kindness and good- humor brightening up the whole face, like heat-lightning in summer on the western sky ; or in the flashes of genius sparkling in the eyes with a splendor which the fires of no diamond can rival : or in the whole soul of intelligence, and noble thoughts, 304 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. and heroic resolution, and strong and lofty passion glowing in the countenance, — there is a manifestation of creative power, of divine skill, unrivalled in any spot or portion of the works of God. The extraordinary personal beauty of these Galway women was not mere imagination on my part, nor the result of any undue susceptibility. I said to the coachman, as we passed through this part of the country, that I never saw a handsomer people. " That," said he, " travellers always remark ; " and when I left the country, in casting my eye over a recent book of Travels in Ireland, I found the author's impressions corre- sponded with my own. Tradition says that a colony of Milesians formerly settled in this part of the country, and that the remains of this race, or the offspring of the intermixture of them with the native tribes, present these results. This is a remarkable fact, and not without its bearing upon one great branch of agricultural improvement. LII. — SMITHFIELD, LONDON. The great market for cattle, in England, perhaps the greatest in the world, is at Smithfield, in London. This market is prin- cipally for fat cattle and sheep, and for cows. It is held weekly, in the centre, and in one of the most crowded parts, of this great metropolis. Monday is the day of general sale for fat cattle and sheep ; Tuesday for hay and straw ; Thursday is again a day of sale for hay and straw ; and Friday for cattle, sheep, swine, and particularly for the sale of milch cows, and at 2 o'clock for scrub horses and asses. This day is not so large a market as Monday, and embraces the cattle that were left over on the Monday's market. The market opens at daylight, at all seasons of the year, and closes at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, at which time every thing, sold or unsold, must be removed. The sheep and swine are enclosed in pens, railed in with wood, and containing seldom more than fifteen sheep in a pen. The cattle, as far as the smithfip:lu, London. 305 accommodations will admit, are tied, by the horns or neck, to long railings, which extend on the outside of the market-place, and likewise down the centre of the area. Between the rows of animals tied to these rails and facing each other, there is a passage-way ; and there are, likewise, open spaces behind them and between them, so as to enable the purchasers to see the stock. In respect to the supernumerary animals, or those for which, for want of room, no tying-place is to be had, they are often driven into small circles, and, by a great deal of severity and cruelty, they are made, after being dreadfully beaten over the head and eyes, to stand with their heads turned in towards the centre of the circle. The poor animals, finding themselves in so novel a situation, stunned with a din and noise which no language can describe, and exhausted by fatigue and terror, are often glad to be let alone, and to remain quiet in situations, into which they may be forced, which would otherwise be scarcely endurable. Man is almost sure to be a tyrant, when possessed with absolute power ; and there is good reason to believe that he will have a heavy account to settle hereafter with the brute animals which he has most cruelly abused.* It is obvious that it would be difficult to make any exact assortment, or classification, of the animals in the case, according '0 their different breeds. The sheep are placed in one part of the market. The cattle occupy another. The cows, and calves, and swine, occupy other separate positions. But no classification of the beasts into the different breeds of Short-Horns, Herefords,. Devons, or West Highlanders, or Scots, is attempted, although,, from the fact that individual farmers generally limit themselves to one species of stock, the contributions of different individuals, standing by themselves, present a sort of classification ; and so give a better opportunity to an intelligent observer to compare the different breeds with each other. * It is said tliat much of the cruelty, which was formerly practised in these cases 13 now prevented by the influence of the Animal's Friend Society, an association quite numerous, whose exclusive object is to prevent cruelty to dumb beasts, and tiius to protect those who are unable to protect themselves. They have numerous agents, and prosecute, without fear or favor, every case of inhumanity, — for it is a great misnomer to call such cases brutality, — which comes under their notice, de- serving censure or punishment. It is, undoubtedly, greatly owing to their exer- tions, that the odious practices of cock-fighting and dog-fighting are now not prac- tised ; or, if practised, conducted in the most secret manner. 26* 306 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 1. Forms of Business in Smithfield. — It is not here, as it is with us, that a drover goes through the country collecting, on his route, cattle from the different farmers, as he may chance to find them ; but usually the farmer himself sends them to Smithfield, where they are put for sale into the hands of an accredited agent, whose commission for sale is established and understood. This commission is not a percentage upon the amount of sale, but so much per head. These, of course, are persons well known, and whose shrewdness and skill are undoubted. In the most extensive transactions of buying and selling, no paper is passed ; but the price of the stock on sale being inquired, if the bargain is struck, the buyer and seller merely touch each other's hand, and there is no retraction. It is highly creditable to the commercial charac- ter of the country, and to the general integrity which prevails among the persons concerned in this great market, that, as I am informed by an individual familiar for years with the most ex- tensive transactions in this place, a failure to fulfil these engage- ments, though no paper is passed between the parties, is of very rare occurrence. In the sale of sheep and cattle, the business is always trans- acted through an accredited and established salesman, who has his regular commissions upon every animal sold. The sales are always for cash, unless the salesman himself chooses to assume the responsibility of giving credit, and there are always banking houses in the vicinity to render the usual facilities for business. The customary commission for the sale of an ox of any value is four shillings, or about ninety-six cents ; of a sheep eight pence or sixteen cents. The city receives a toll, upon every beast exposed to sale in Smithfield, of one penny per head, and upon sheep at the rate of one shilling or twenty-four cents per score. The value of the services of an intelligent, experienced, arid honest salesman, is very great to the farmer, and much beyond the compensation ordinarily demanded. He is familiar with the state of the market, with the supply to be expected, with the prices generally taken, and with the characters of the persons with whom he has to deal, who know him as well. The farmer, going into the market to sell his cattle for himself, is liable to various impositions, of the extraordinary ingenuity and coolness of which, many experiments will not be necessary to SMITHFIELD, LONDON. 307 convince him. It might happen, that, instead of returning home with bank notes and sovereigns in his pocket, he might, like Moses in the Vicar of Wakefield, bring back only a quantity of green spectacles. The state of the market, the current demand, the supply to be expected, together with the state of the dead-meat market, and what supplies of meat already killed are to be expected, are all matters to be taken into calculation. These are all inquired into, and well known to a thoroughly intelligent and expe- rienced salesman, but are very imperfectly understood by any other persons than those who make it their constant business to become acquainted with them. The division of labor is carried to a great extent in all the business pursuits of this great country, and, while it seems unfriendly to that general tact with which persons among us apply themselves to a great variety and diversity of pursuits, must obviously contribute to a high degree of skill or improvement in the particular art or profession where it is applied. 2. Weights and Measures. — Animals in Smithfield are almost always sold on the hoof; yet an estimate is formed of their weight, and the price given is calculated upon the number of pounds the animal is computed to yield after being slaughtered. The gross hundred weight of one hundred and twelve pounds is still used in England ; but the calculations are generally made in stones of eight pounds. By an act of Parliament, the stone of fourteen pounds is required to be adopted in the reckoning in the market ; but custom in this, as in many other cases, defies the authority of the government, and eight pounds continue to be reckoned as the Smithfield stone. The different measures and weights used in different parts of the kingdom are extremely inconvenient, and sadly perplexing to a stranger. The English, the Scotch, and the Irish acre are each different from each other. Grain is, in different places, sold by the bushel, by the quarter, by the comb, by the boll, and by the load ; and a load is in some places four, in others three bushels. A Scotch pint is two English quarts. In Covent Garden market, two pottles of strawberries, containing little more than a pint each, are called a gallon. Potatoes are some- times sold by weight, and sometimes by the barrel ; in some 308 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. places by the stone of fourteen pounds, in some by the stone of sixteen pounds. A dozen of eggs is in some places fifteen. 1 may perhaps be asked, if this is not in Ireland ; but I shall not j;ay, excepting to add, as far as my experience goes, fifteen to a dozen would be a very proper index of Irish hospitality and kindness. In one market, in Yorkshire, a pound of butter is twenty ounces avoirdupois ; in Staffordshire, eighteen ounces. In Norwich, butter is sold by the pint ; in Cambridge, it is literally sold by the yard, being made into rolls of a certain size, and measured off in feet and inches. In one of our hot days in July, with the glass at 95°, our market-men. at this rate, would have little difficulty in giving full measure. I have already alluded to the force of custom. It has many advantages, but why should it stand in the way of improvement? The preva- lence of an unmeaning or a useless custom has nothing to recommend it. Yet I believe I shall be doing no injustice to the English, — the last thing certainly which I should wish to do to a people whom I so highly respect and love, — - if I Avere to say, many of them greatly prefer antiquity to utility, and will hold on to an ancient custom with the pertinacity of a drowning man, though its meaning has entirely ceased, and its observance is on every account inconvenient and burdensome. With such persons, all argument on the subject of improvement is idle ; the concep- tion has never yet dawned upon them. Such a varying standard of weight, or measure, or value, venders many statements quite unintelligible to a stranger or one ignorant of local customs, and comparisons and calculations all but impossible. 3. Weight of Animals, Mode of ascertaining. — The weight of an animal in Smithfield is reckoned by the weight of the four quarters. The hide, rough tallow, and offal, are not taken into the account. There are rules given by which to determine the weight of animals, when slaughtered, by external measurement of them when alive. The salesmen in Smithfield do not rely upon these rules, but estimate the weight of cattle by the eye ; and mere judgment, founded upon long practice, evinces most extraordinary approaches to exactness, seldom vary- ing but few pounds. The rules, however, to which I refer, have a value to persons who are not accustomed to estimate by the SMITHFIELD, LONDON. 301* eye ; and a series of tables have been constructed upon these rules, which, if they could be relied upon, would be of consid- erable use in private practice.* The girth of the ox (for it does not apply to cows as well as to oxen, as their shape is much less regular) is to be taken directly behind the shoulder, and the length is to be measured from the front of the shoulder-bone to the end of the bone on the rump, where a line dropping down at right angles with the line on the back would just clear the thigh, or buttock. Then, according to a rule given me by Lord Spencer, " Reduce the feet into inches ; multiply the girth by the length, and that product by the fraction .001944, which will give the weight in pounds ; " or, in another form, as the rule is quoted by Mr. Hillyard, " Estimating the weight of a cubic inch of meat at 171 grains, then girth 7 feet 6 inches, and length 5 feet 4 inches, gives 41,235x^*5 cubic inches, which, multiplied by 171, gives 7,051,328 grains, equal to 125 stones, 7 pounds, of 8 pounds to the stone." Another mode of estimat- ing the weight of cattle is to ascertain their live weight upon a platform balance, common enough in the United States. Then, according to some authorities, every 112 pounds live weight will produce 72 pounds of beef; but a coarse, large-boned ox will not produce so much. Another way is to deduct one third of the live weight, which is commonly deemed a fair allowance ; and also, if the beast is not quite fat, from 2J to 5 per cent, in addition. Another able authority states, " that the proportion which the dead weight bears to the live weight of animals was reckoned at one half the live weight ; but subsequent experi- ments in the more improved breed of animals show that this is much too small a proportion, it being more correctly represented by the fractional quantity .605, the weight of the animal being assumed as 1. This would be about three fifths for the dead weight. The gross weight of the animal being then multiplied by .605, will give the result in the same denomination in which the gross weight is given." It is obvious, however, that such rules can be little more than an approximation to exactness, since the circumstances under which the animal is weighed, * These tables are to be found at large in Mr. Hillyard's useful and sensible book, entitled " Practical Farming and Grazing," a fourth edition of which ap- peared in London in 1844. 310 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. whether upon a full or an empty stomach, must essentially affect the result. It will be interesting, I am persuaded, to many of my readers, if I give an account of the weights of some of the most remarkable animals which, within a few years past, have been exhibited at the show of the Smithfield Club, which takes place annually in December ; and the account, besides giving the weight of the animals, will show, at the same time, how nearly the weight calculated by rule, and the weight estimated by the judgment of experienced men, corresponded with the actual weight, ascertained upon the animals' being slaughtered. 1 STONE OF EIGHT POUNDS YEAR. GIRTH. LENGTH Computed Estimated Butcher's Ft. ' In. Ft. " in. Weight. Weight. Weight. Lord Spencer's Durham ox, . . . 1828 9. 2 6. 211 210 210 The Scotch heifer, 1830 7. 8 5. 7 138 140 138 Mr. Townsend's Durham heifer. 1833 8. 3 5. 9 164 175 176i Mr. Baker's Durham ox, 1833 8. 9i 6. 195 205 206^ Mr. Buckley's Hereford ox, . . . 1833 1^ 11 5. 5 143 150 144 Lord Spencer's Durham ox, . . . 1834 9. 7 6. 1 236 240 236 Lord Oxford's Hereford ox, . . . 1834 9. 4 5. 10 214 222 Mr. Hilly ard's do. heifer, . 1834 8. 7 5. 7 175 184 192 Lord Brownlow's do. do. . . 18.34 8. 5. 9 155 164 Marquis of Exeter's do. do. . . 1835 7. 11 5. 134 138 im Lord Spencer's do. do. . . 1835 7. 8 5. 3 130 138 Lord Spencer's Durham ox, . . . 1835 9. 2 6. 211 218 210 Lord Spencer's do. do. . . . 1836 9. 2 G. 1 215 222 218 Marquis of Tavistock's do. do. 1836 8. 10 5. 8 187 196 Lord Leicester's Devon ox, . . . 1837 8. 1 5. 2 142 145 152 Mr. Giblet's one year old Devon, 1837 8. 4 5. 5 158 162 166.4 Mr. Baker's heifer, 1837 7. 11 5. 6 148 152 152.3 Mr. Hillyard's I>evon ox, .... ia38 8. 1 5. 2 142 142 139.6 Marquis of Exeter's Durham ox, 1841 8. 9 5. 9 185 185 185 Duke of Bedford's Hereford ox. 1841 8. 9 5. 9 185 185 180 The practice at Brighton, Massachusetts, is to sell the animal at a certain rate per pound, or per hundred pounds. The animal is then slaughtered, and the return of his weight made to the owner or drover. The owner or drover does not see his animal killed or weighed. The market takes place on Monday, but he is commonly detained until Thursday, before the weight of the animal is ascertained, and he receives his pay. This, besides its expense, is on every account a serious evil. It cannot be denied, likewise, that the temptations to a fraudulent return of the SMITHFIELD, LONDON. 311 weight are very strong, and that much dissatisfaction, very often without question groundless, frequently arises. It is surprising how near to exactness the judgment of an inteUigent and experienced man approaches ; but as this method is Uable to the objection of a man's being judge in his own case, it would seem very desirable that some less exceptionable method should be adopted. I can think of no one more eligible than that of ascertaining the live weight on a platform balance, and then adopting some general rule as to the allowance to be made for the difference between the live and the dead weight. A rate of discount or allowance, founded upon repeated and exact experi- ments, would be equally fair for both parties. The adoption of such a rule would be of the greatest service in enabling the drover or owner to close his business in one day, and would, in general, be much more satisfactory to the farmer, who sends his cattle to market, and is not always without his suspicions of an imperfect return. I offer these suggestions with great diffidence, especially when I read, in a letter addressed to me by a practical man, " that there is no mathematical rule upon which he places any reliance ; that he has often been invited to test the correct- ness of measuring beasts, and also to determine their dead, from ascertaining their live weight, but has found that no confidence can be placed upon such rules." He adds, "that after handling beasts to ascertain their fatness, the mind, by practice, is in- tuitively impressed with about the weight of the four quarters, exclusive of any offal ; and that experienced men can tell the weight of beasts, on an average, within three stone of eight pounds, and of sheep within two pounds." I believe all this ; and it presents a beautiful example of what the mind is capable of, and of what it may be brought to under careful training and long practice. We certainly know that the mind is a very good clock, and measures the time with wonderful exactness, both sleeping and waking. I have been often struck with the extra- ordinary precision with which the poor blind horses, which move the ferry-boat between Troy and the Albany side of the river, measure the distance Avhich they have come, and after making a pause just before they touch the opposite shore, seem to know exactly how many more strokes or turns to give to the paddles, in order to reach it. I hope I shall not offend the pride of any of my readers, by this comparison of the brute with the human 312 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. mind. Man is very apt to think himself the only knowing animal upon the earth ; and I have no doubt that some of the lower animals have the same self-conceit. It is interesting to see reason and moral sentiment, the noblest gift of Heaven, any where diffused, and even in the most humble forms. Such indi- cations strengthen the claims which all sentient beings have upon our kindness and respect ; and several of the lower animals — if any being is to be considered inferior who accomplishes the {rue purposes of his creation — read many striking moral lessons to mankind. The character of a salesman in Smithfield Market, for judg- ment and integrity, is of immense importance to him. He is forbidden by law to purchase on his own account ; and it is clearly most important that his priv^ate interest should not con- flict with that of his employer. But it is easy to see the futility of all laws to make men honest, where evasions in a variety of forms are so practicable. Personal character, and a healthful state of public opinion, form, in such cases, the great security. 4. Amount of Business. — The amount of business transacted in Smithfield is enormous. It is estimated at not less than £100,000, or half a million of dollars, every week. The Smith- field Market is certainly one of the great sights of London. The returns of the market on the Christmas week of 1844, when I was present, gave 5000 beasts and 47,000 sheep. This was considered the largest market ever remembered ; and the extraordinary quantity of stock was doubtless, in some measure, to be attributed to the severe drought of the preceding summer, and the consequent scarcity of fodder, which compelled the farmers to lessen their stock. The largest return of stock ascertained for any year, between the years 1821 and 1842, was in the year 1838, and was. Of cattle, 183,362 Of sheep, 1,403,400 In the year 1830, there were sold in Smithfield, Beasts, 159,907 Sheep, 1,287,071 Pigs, 254,672 Calves, 22,500 SMITHFIELB, LONDON. 313 In the year 1842, Of cattle, 175,347 Of sheep, 1,468,960 The supplies since that have not diminished. But this by no means comprehends the whole supply of provision to London, as immense amounts of slaughtered meat are brought constantly to the dead market, from distant parts of the kingdom, by the innumerable steam conveyances, which have so much increased the facilities of access to the metropolis. We need scarcely be surprised at any distance from which it may be brought, since I have seen Leicester or Southdown mutton, killed and dressed in England, for sale in the market at Boston. In spite of the doctrines of restricted or free trade, the benevolent mind cannot help rejoicing in a facility of intercourse, which renders the mutual interchange of the respective adv^antages and blessings of ditFerent countries and climates so convenient, and thus does away forever with all that fear of want or famine which, in former times, so often followed any extraordinary contingency of the seasons. The quantity of meat, and that principally mutton, brought from six different ports in Scotland to London, was ascertained, in one case, to be about 2364 tons in six months ; besides a very large amount of live stock. It has probably greatly increased with the opening of every new means of conveyance. The friend to whom I am indebted for much of the above information, in regard to Smithfield, states the average weekly sale of beasts in Smithfield at about 3000, and of sheep, about 30,000 ; of calves, about 300 ; of pigs, about 500. At the dead market, about 3000 sheep are sold weekly. Of the live stock, the beasts average from £15 to £18 per head, and sheep 30 shillings. A pound in this case may be most conveniently reckoned at five dollars, and a shilling, therefore, at a quarter of a dollar. The average age of beasts sold in Smithfield is from two to three years, and of sheep from fifteen months to two years. It is not to be supposed that these returns by any means embrace all the beasts slaughtered, or the meat consumed in the metropolis and its vicinity ; for great numbers are sold before they reach the market, and are therefore not reported. Vast amounts, like- wise, are imported from Ireland ; and the cotters of this fertile 27 314 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. but wretched country, where a large portion of the inhabitants are, for a considerable part of the year, upon the borders of starvation, are obliged to see their only pig — the companion and pet of their children — and their only calf or steer, sent off to other markets to fill other mouths. Smithfield, though much the largest, is only one of the markets of the country ; but the immense supplies which are here furnished must give some idea of the improvement and degree of perfection of the agricul- ture of a country from which they are drawn. The poultry markets, and the markets for game, are also most extensive. The fish markets in London seem to me unsur- passed for their excellence, and certainly embrace a great variety of the very best kinds. These, of course, furnish their full proportion of the supplies of London. 5. Character and Q,uality of Stock. — The quality of the cattle exhibited in Smithfield market, of sheep in particular, is extraordinary for its fatness. The show of the Smithfield Club, which is held in December, under the patronage of some of the first noblemen in the kingdom, may very properly be denom- inated a show of monstrosities in the way of fatness. They are moving elephantine masses of flesh, and if, as according to modern chemical philosophy, all fat is the result of disease, they are far from being attractive to any but the grossest epicure- No advantage can come from rearing animals to such an inor- dinate degree of fatness, save in the matter of showing what the art of man can accomplish in respect to the animal economy, and also that of testing the nutritious and fattening qualities of different kinds of food. In respect to the weight of the animals in Smithfield, an indi- vidual familiar with the subject, and in whom I have great con- fidence, states that the beasts from two to three years old will average from 85 to 100 stone of 8 pounds, or from 680 to 800 pounds, when dressed — that is, the four quarters. Others place it not higher than 82 stone, or 6.56 pounds ; of calves, 150 pounds ; of pigs, 100 pounds ; of sheep, 90 pounds. Calves are seldom sent to market under six or eight weeks old ; and large hogs are never seen in the market. If we may rely upon ancient authorities, within a century past the weight of animals in Smithfield Market has nearly doubled ; perhaps more than SMITHFIELD, LONDON. 315 doubled. It is said that, in 1710, tiic average weight of beasts was 370 pounds ; of calves, 50 pounds ; of sheep and lambs, 28 pounds. This increase of size is probably attributable in the main to two great causes, which deserve serious consideration. The first is, the improvement of the breeds of cattle. A person has only to go into Smithfield Market to remark the perfection to which the art of breeding has been carried, and the distinct- ness of the lines by which the different breeds are separated from each other. Three great points seem to have been gained. The first is, great size and weight have been attained ; the second is, the tendency to fatten, and to keep in fat condition, has been greatly cultivated ; the third is, that the animal arrives early at maturity. All these are most important points ; the last certainly not least ; for if an animal can be brought to the same size and weight, without doubling the expense, at eighteen months old, that he could formerly be made to reach not sooner than at three years of age, the quick returns, so essential in all commercial transactions, are secured, and as the expenses are lessened, the profits are greatly increased. Nothing strikes one Avith more surprise than to see what, in the improvement of the appearance and constitution of the stock, intelligence, skill, and perseverance can effect. I may here with propriety quote what my friend, before referred to, says in relation to the quality of the stock in Smithfield. " I fear many of our breeds of beasts and sheep are becoming worse than they were, from an exces- sive attention to neatness and symmetry of form, so that bulk and quantity of good flesh have been too much overlooked. Our Hereford beasts are much inferior to what they were ; also other breeds of beasts ; and particularly some breeds of sheep. Some persons are so very particular about purity of blood, that they often run into great error ; their stock losing flesh, constitu- tion, and size. This is particularly observable in Leicester sheep. So wedded are some persons to this breed, and to what they call purity of blood, that their sheep keep dwindling into very insignificant stock. I am satisfied that we cannot go on breeding in and in, without losing size, quality, and worth." I give these opinions of a very practical man, as familiar with the Smithfield Market as any man in England, without endorsing them, and leave them to speak for themselves. The second great cause of the improvement of the stock in 316 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. Smithfield Market is, the improvement of the husbandry of tlie country, particularly by the introduction of what is called the alternate husbandry, and the cultivation of green crops. The cultivation of turnips and swedes is comparatively modern ; and perhaps no single circumstance has effected so great an improve- ment in the agricultural condition of the country. Formerly, cattle were fatted, if fatted at all, upon grass and hay, and these of inferior kinds ; the store stock were wintered upon straw, and came to the spring in such a condition that the greater part of the summer was required, in order to recover what they had lost in the winter. Now, the introduction of the artificial grasses, clover, and rye-grass, the growing of vetches, rape, turnips, swedes, carrots, and mangel-win-zel, and the use of oil-cake, have multiplied in an extraordinary manner the re- sources of the farmer ; and the practice of folding his sheep, and stall-feeding his fatting beasts, give him a command of feed, and, if I may so say, such a control over the season, that the results are most remarkable in the supply of the market, at all times of the year, with animals of the finest description. I may be inquired of, what 1 think of the English meats. The fatness of the beef and mutton is most remarkable. I have seen single beasts in the United States as fat as any I have seen here ; but these are comparatively rare exceptions ; and here the general character of the beasts and sheep is, in this respect, most striking. It would, however, I fear, be hopeless to attempt to persuade an Englishman of that which is my honest conviction — that our meats are sweeter to the taste than those which I have eaten here. Our poultry is incomparably better. An English- man will be likely to set this down as mere prejudice, which possibly it may be, for who can escape such prejudices, or be fully conscious of them when they exist ? — but I believe it is not prejudice, but Indian corn, (the grain upon which our animals are fatted,) which gives to their meat a peculiar sweetness, which is not produced by other feed. Our beef animals are not killed until from five to seven years old, and our sheep seldom until three years old. Here sheep are killed at about fifteen months, and beasts at two years and upwards. The flesh of these young animals is wanting in that consistency which more age would give, though an extreme on the other side, and the hard-working of our oxen until eight and ten years old, is liable to give a SMITHFIELD, LONDON. 317 toughness to the meat, which would not be found if fatted at an earher, though not a very early, period. If price is to be taken as a correct index of quality, then it will be found that the beef of the small West Highland cattle, and the mutton of the Welsh sheep, are decidedly superior to any other, the prices which they command being always higher than others. The smaller size, and the better intermixture of lean and fat meat which they present, render them, more convenient for family dishes, and more attractive than those immense rumps of beef, and saddles dnd legs of mutton, covered with an inordinate thickness of fat, which, by their grossness, repel any but the most inveterate epicure — the animal who seems to live only to eat. My conviction is, that there is no agricultural improvement in England so great and striking as that which has been effected in their live stock : I refer particularly to its size, aptitude to fatten, early maturity, symmetry, and beauty. Of the milking and dairy properties of their stock, I shall speak hereafter. I must include, likewise, in my commendation, their horses — work- ing, carriage, pleasure, and race horses. It could scarcely be expected to be otherwise. The highest degree of skill has been concentrated upon these objects ; and this skill has been stim- ulated by premiums of the most honorable and liberal character, and by expenditures absolutely enormous. The splendid and magnificent premiums of gold and silver plate for successful competition, which one sees on the tables and sideboards of the fortunate winners all over the country, and which are exhibited with an honest pride, while they display the highest triumphs of artistical skill and taste, serve only to fan the flame which they enkindle, and to quicken an ambition, which never can be quiet while a more distant point remains to be attained. How happy would it be for the world, if human ambition were always directed to objects so innocent and commendable ; to purposes which benefit, instead of those which curse, the world ; to the triumphs of genius, industry, and science, over the elements of nature, instead of the bloody conquests of power, avarice, and despotism, over human comfort, liberty, and life ! 6. Smithfield by Night. — Smithfield by night, and in a dark night, presents a most extraordinary scene, which, though I have witnessed it, it would be very difficult for me adequately 27* 318 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. to describe. A large proportion of the stock arrive in the neighborhood of London either on Saturday or early on Sunday, where they are fed in the fields, or the extensive lairs prepared for their reception. These lairs, especially Laycock's at Isling- ton, are well worth a visit, being composed of open yards and most extensive sheds, covering fourteen acres of ground, fur- nished with watering troughs and mangers, and divided into different compartments. Here the farmer or drover is supplied with hay or straw for his stock, not by the day or night, but by the truss, the hay which is sold in London being always put up and tied in bundles of 56 pounds each — certainly an excellent arrangement, which, while it prevents all temptations to waste, requires a purchaser to pay only for that which he has. The cattle here get a little rest and refreshment in these stalls after their long journeys ; and here they are visited by the salesmen preparatory to their appearance in the market on Monday. It would not be surprising, likewise, and not altogether unlike some occurrences on the other side of the water, if some pur- chasers, with an acquisitiveness not disturbed by religious scruples, should occasionally make their way there and an- ticipate the bargains of the ensuing day.* About midnight the different detachments, almost treading upon the heels of each other, begin to make their way to the place of rendezvous through the winding streets of this wilderness of houses, and enter the great market-place by different and opposite avenues, and, like hostile parties, often meet each other in the very centre. Then comes the conflict : the driving of so many thousand of sheep into their several pens ; the assorting and tying up, or arran- ging, so many thousand of cattle, driven into a state of terror and frenzy by the men and dogs ; the struggles of the different owners or drovers to keep their own and prevent their intermingling with others ; the occasional leaping the barriers, and the escape of some straggler, who is to be brought back by violence ; the sounds of the heavy blows over the heads, and horns, and sides, of the poor crazed animals ; the shrieks of the men ; the yelling and barking of hundreds of dogs, who look after the sheep and * I will say, however, by the way, and as an act of simple justice, that London, OS well as every other part of England which I have visited, is remarkable for its eober and decorous observance of the Lord's Dav, SMITHFIELD, LONDON. 319 cattle with a ferocity perfectly terrific, and a sagacity almost human ; the bellowing of the cattle, and the bleating of the calves ; forming, if the expression is allowable, a concert of dis- cordant sounds utterly indescribable and hideous ; and in the midst of all this confusion, the darting about of hundreds of torches, carried in the hand by men looking for their cattle and sheep, and seeking to identify their marks, — all together present an exhibition for which it certainly would be difficult to find a parallel, and sufficiently gratifying to the lovers of the pic- turesque in human affairs. The calves and pigs enter the market in a more aristocratic style, in carriages and vans, with the regular attendance of out-riders and footmen ; but in spite of this luxury, after the example of some of their betters, these indulgences do not appear to lessen or quiet all their complaints, and they add their portion to the general harmony. Their owners are quite wise to carry, instead of attempting to drive, them ; for I think no human power would be sufficient to drive and assort a herd of pigs, coming into a scene of this description. When the day dawns, however, every thing is found in order ; all the different parties at their respective posts ; and the immense business is transacted with a despatch, an efficiency, and precision, Avhich are quite remarkable. 7. Attempted Removal of the Market from the City. — It certainly is not a little surprising that a market of this descrip- tion should be held in the midst of such a city as this. Its name implies that, in former times, it was held in the outskirts of the town ; but that time must have long since passed away, and the " field," so called, is now surrounded with miles of houses in every direction, and in the very centre of a most densely-packed popu- lation. It would seem, at first sight, that the obvious and innu- merable discomforts of such an arrangement, and the danger to human person and life from driving so many beasts through the crowded streets, were sufficient reasons for transferring the whole business to a more retired and convenient situation in the neigh- borhood of London. A wealthy individual by the name of Perkins, under the influence of the best of motives, made an attempt to do this, and erected an establishment for a market at Islington, about two miles from the centre of London, which is well worth looking at for the completeness and excellence of its 320 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. arrangements. The cost of the establishment is said to have been £ 100,000, or half a million of dollars. It forms a hollow square, and embraces a space of more than twenty acres, com pletely enclosed by high brick walls, which form the backs of deep sheds, slated, and open in front, furnished with mangers and with water troughs supplied from two very large tanks in the centre of the yard, which are kept constantly filled by machinery from wells sunk in the neighborhood. The sheds are capable of accommodating 4000 beasts ; and here they might remain from day to day until sold, without inconvenience. In the centre of this immense quadrangle are four extensive squares, all neatly paved with flat stones, and divided into several compartments, railed in with neat iron railings, and capable of accommodating 40,000 sheep. Other pens are constructed for calves, pigs, and other animals usually brought to market ; and all are arranged in the most simple and convenient method, with ample passages furnishing easy access to every part of the enclosure. Besides these, there are convenient and ample offices for all the various clerks, salesmen, bankers, «fcc., connected with the business ; and it was designed to erect commodious hotels for the acommoda- tion of persons attending the market, and extensive slaughter- houses for the killing of the cattle, directly in the neighborhood. The whole space is entered under a handsome archway ; and for its particular purposes, it would be difficult to conceive of any thing more commodious or better arranged. In spite of all these obvious advantages, the market could not be removed from Smithfield. The persons in the neighborhood of the old market whose business and profits were intimately connected with it, opposed its removal. There was fear of a rival market being got up on the other side of the city. The city would lose the tolls, which are now received at Smithfield, and which, in the course of the year, make up no inconsiderable revenue. The meat, if the animals were slaughtered out of thd town, would, of necessity, have to be conveyed to the city in carts, whereas, now, much of it is killed directly in the neigh- borhood of the market. These and many other reasons were urged, but, perhaps, would not have availed, excepting for the fact that Smithfield was discovered to be a chartered market, for the sale of cattle ; and the twelve judges of the high courts decided, upon consultation, that this charter could not be SMITHFIELD, LONDON. 321 abrogated ; and even ni spite of an act of Parliament, which was obtained in the case, this great pubhc nuisance must be continued. 8. Chartered Rights. — When the vast amounts of property, which are here locked up, by the disposal of generations long since departed, for the most frivolous, useless, and obsolete pur- poses, and under the most absurd tenures, are considered, and that even public and acknowledged nuisances cannot be abated, while maintained under the plea of chartered rights, it is quite well worth considering whether this doctrine does not admit of some qualifications, which would render its operation less bur- densome and offensive. Many cases, which are constantly occurring, would do much towards reconciling one to an occa- sional and general revolution, under which, freed from the rusty fetters of ancient prejudices, superstitions, follies, and crimes, society might take a new start, and avail itself of the improved experience and enlightenment of modern times. The right of a man to dispose of property, after his death, other than that which is the direct fruit of his own skill and industry, is, in my mind, quite questionable on moral and economical, however well estab- lished it may be upon legal grounds ; and I hope I shall not give offence by an opinion, however erroneous, yet very honestly held, that no man, under any circumstances, has a right to appropriate property to any object which the state may not annul when that object becomes either pernicious or useless ; above all, that no man, under any circumstances, has any right in the soil, which is not entirely at the disposal of the state, always premising that the state make adequate compensation for individual cases of hardship or injury, and for any substantial improvement, which may have been effected in the property by the labor or skill, or at the personal expense, of the occupier. Let us suppose, for example, that Smithfield had been, by some ancient charter, appropriated exclusively for public executions, — as it was indeed the melancholy site of the martyrdom of Rogers, and other heroic victims to bigotry, — and that the government determined that executions should cease to be public, or should take place- in the prison-yard ; or, what is infinitely to be desired, that, under the mild influences of Christianity, the punishment of death should be abolished ; must this field therefore forever remain 322 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. useless and unoccupied? The English, as I have before had occasion to remark, — and I do it certainly as far as possible removed from any spirit of censoriousness or ill-humor, — are excessively conservative. Their judges still swelter under their full-bottomed wigs ; and their courtiers and civilians, in the midst of crowds of gentle ladies, wear swords on state occasions, when there is reason to think that some of them, if called upon to draw and defend themselves, would scarcely know which end to seize upon. I am not for indiscriminate changes ; but I go for universal improvement, wherever the improvement to be made is obvious, decided, practicable, and remunerative. If otherwise, what is the value of experience and of education ? and how idle It is to talk of the progress of society ! Even in this matter of chartered rights, the government, with an inconsistency not un- common, does not hesitate to take private property for public uses, and to invade the property even of charitable trusts for the passage of railroads, which, whatever may be said of their public uses, can scarcely be considered in any other light than as private corporations. I should be glad to know what business has a dead man with the affairs of the living ; and what has a man to do with the earth after he has left it? He has had his day, and is of no further use in it, excepting in the good example which he may have left behind him. Indeed, as Goldsmith remarks, he takes care to rob it of what little he might return for its benefit, by ordering himself to be buried six feet below the surface. The earth belongs exclusively to those who occupy it. It seems to me to behoove us much more to take care for the good of those who are to come after us, and may be essentially affected by what we do, than for the wills of those who have gone before us — whom what we do, or are, cannot affect at all ; and who themselves, if they were now living, would see, in a change of circumstances, the absurdity, or use lessness, or inconvenience, or hardship, of the arrangements which they propose, and be among the foremost to condemn and alter them. If public faith requires that the wills of those who have departed should be observed, it should take care that the objects for which those wills provide should be in them- selves just, reasonable, and useful, as long as that provision may continue ; but the locking up of land i7i pcrpetuum, for private or public uses, seems of very questionable right and expediency. GRAIN MARKETS. 323 It is quite obvious that 1 am no lawyer ; and I give my opinions with the more freedom, knowing that they will not be quoted as authority.* Besides Smithfield, markets for the sale of live stock, botn lean and fatted, are held in various parts of the country. These being held in determined places, and at established and well- known times, the farmers and others have always an opportunity of disposing of cattle, for which they wish to find purchasers, and of obtaining such as they require for keep or fattening. LIII. — GRAIN MARKETS. Next to the cattle markets, in England, the grain markets deserve attention. They perhaps should have a higher place, as the value of the grain crop of the country must very much exceed that of its live stock. The amount of grain produced in * I might get upon forbidden ground if I ventured to speak of chartered opin- ions, and of the variety of artificial and stringent contrivances to regulate what men shall think in all times to come. I have my own notions on tliese subjects, witli which I shall not trouble my readers, further than to say that I hold mental slavery as the most ignominious of all kinds of bondage, and thank God, every day of my life, that attempts to inthral the mind are, in the end, as idle as to attempt to chain the wind, convinced as I am that all hopes of human improve- ment, and the moral advancement of society, must depend upon the utterly free, unrestricted, and independent inquiries of the human mind after what is good, and useful, and true. I trust I shall be pardoned these reflections, which otherwise might seem inop- portune, when it is considered that, in some respects, Smithfield is classical and consecrated ground. I think it was one of the Oxford martyrs, who said to his heroic companion at the stake, that " they should kindle such a fire that day in England, as he trusted in God would never be extinguished." Such were tlie fires kindled in Smithfield, which, as they were reflected from the surrounding objects, showed the grim, and hideous, and bloody features of bigotry and intol- erance, in all their deformity and hatefulness, and still send up their light to Heaven, as the signal of that liberty of judgment, opinion, and conscience, which constitutes the glory of the human mind, and which every true man should claim, at any and every peril, as his independent and inalienable birthright. 324 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. England is immense, as is quite evident from the great popula- tion which is fed. Kinds of Bread. Maize, or Indian Corn, — In Scotland, a considerable portion of the bread is made of oatmeal. In Ireland, a large portion of the poorer classes live upon potatoes ; and many scarcely taste bread from one year's end to another. In some parts of the country, meal from pease, and barley meal, are mixed with a portion of wheat meal, and used for bread. But the vast majority of the people use wheat bread exclusively. There is very little or no rye consumed for bread. Indeed, I have not known it used in a single instance. The poor are ex- tremely tenacious of the kind of bread which they eat ; and I have seen, in more instances than a few, where the farmer was under an obligation to supply his laborers with wheat at a certain rate, and was using wheat of an inferior quality for his own table, and sending the best to market, the laborer insisted upon that of the best quality, though he might have had an inferior quality at less than the stipulated price. I certainly do not deny their right to do this ; and I begrudge the poor none of their small round of comforts and luxuries. I M'ish they whose toil, under the blessing of Heaven, produces the bread, may never want an ample supply, and that of the finest kind. As a general rule, likewise, I believe it sound economy to use the best of every thing. But I refer to this fact, as showing to a degree, in my opinion, the hopelessness of introducing our Indian corn as bread for the English poor — a scheme which many persons have advo- cated on both sides of the water, as reciprocally advantageous to both countries. They will not eat it. If the rich should adopt it as a luxury, (and, if they understood its proper use, they would with reason deem it so, ) their example or estimation of it might have its usual effect ; but to commend it to the exclusive use of the poorer classes as a cheap kind of bread, acknowledged inferior, though it were as sweet as the ancient manna, would be met with that pride of resentment, which any thing short of absolute starvation would scarcely be able to overcome. With Arthur Young, I deem Indian corn, or maize, as among the best and most useful crops ever yielded by the earth. Nothing within my knowledge is grown at so little comparative expense. GRAIN MARKETS OUT OF LONDON. 325 Nothing furnishes by the acre more nutritious food for man or beast. Nothing, as grain or grass, is capable of more varied and useful application. No plant cultivated returns more to the land, in manure, by way of compensation for what it takes from ii. The dampness of the English climate, the deficiency of sunshine, and in general the coldness and heaviness of the English soil, forbid its production here.* If it were introduced here without duty, with a view to fatting swine and cattle, there would be, in my belief, a clear gain, on the part of the farmers, of the manure. I am not conscious of any interested views to bias my judgment in this matter ; for, besides an absence of all commercial interests, from which my pursuits in life are entirely foreign, I think there is reason to believe that, if its admission into England were free, the supplies of this article from the shores of the Mediterranean would nearly preclude the competition of the United States. LIV. — GRAIN MARKETS OUT OF LONDON. Grain markets are established in all the principal towns of the country, and are generally held weekly. In almost every town where a regular market is held, there is held a corn market, * In some few cases, where the locality and the season have been peculiarly favorable, the earliest kinds have ripened ; but it cannot be depended on, and any attempt to cultivate it on an extensive scale would doubtless prove a failure. I am not certain that it may not succeed as a green crop for fodder. If so, it would be found that no crop would yield more, or more nutritious feed for stock ; or make more milk, beef, or mutton ; or furnish a better feed for horses. It is confidently stated, upon authority which I cannot doubt, that it has yielded, in New England, at the rate of tliirty-nine tons of green feed to an acre ; and some persons have assumed that double this quantity can be grown. A distinguished agricultural friend here is now making the experiment of growing it for green feed. We must wait for the result. I imported the seed for him ; but the various expenses attending it almost forbid a repetition. The unfortunate man, who has to run tlie gantlet tlirough salesmen, and freighting agents, and commission agents, and wharf agents, and carriers, and above all custom-houses, finds liimself, at the end, much in the situation of the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho ; but without even a kind Samaritan to pity his destitution, or assuage [lis wounds, 28 326 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. althougli the grain market is always distinct from the general market, sometimes in the same place but at a different hour, but, in most cases, on the same day but in a different place. All grain here goes under the general denomination of corn. In a great many towns, large and elegant halls are erected for what is called the Corn Exchange, where the farmers, millers, corn- factors, and grain-merchants, assemble for this particular object exclusively. In Some cases, these buildings have considerable pretensions to architectural elegance ; and many of them larger pretensions to utility and convenience, as there are connected with them extensive rooms and chambers for the storage of grain. 1. Forms of Business. — The general standard of measure is a quarter, which consists of eight imperial bushels, though still, in some markets, the reckoning is by loads of three bushels. The markets are of two kinds, one by sample — the grain to be delivered on a future day ; the others are in some parts of the country called pitch markets, where the grain is brought into the market, and sold and delivered at the same time. In these market-houses, the factors, or sellers of grain, have their respec- tive stands, with the necessary appurtenances of counting desk and writing implements, and with the various samples of grain exhibited in boxes or bags before them. In some markets, I have found many of the factors and farmers bringing their sam- ples of grain, in small bags, in their hands and pockets. In most cases, the markets are opened and closed at fixed hours, and this is notified by the ringing of a bell, to which there is universal submission. Such habits of punctuality, in the transaction of business, are of the highest importance ; and should there be occasion, I beg leave strongly to commend them to my own countrymen. The rules of commercial transactions cannot, in my opinion, be too stringent and absolute ; yet certainly nothing is more loose and slovenly than the ordinary modes of transacting business in my own country ; and the necessary consequence is, a great want of punctuality, and that dreadful curse of the com- munity, angry and interminable litigation. A fixed time to begin and to close the market quickens both buyer and seller ; but hoAV often have I seen, especially in the country, men wast- ing the whole day, and chaffering, hour after hour, with all the GRAIN MAKKETS OUT OF LONDON. 327 necessary amount of trickery and prevarication, about that which might be much better determined in fifteen minutes ! 2. Advantages and Convenience or such Markets in the United States. — The convenience of these markets, scattered all over the country, is very great. They would be very useful with us, and I think cannot be too soon established, especially in our grain-growing districts, such, for example, as Western New York. The farmers in this part of the country would certainly derive great advantages from regular and quick sales, and from the extended competition to which such established markets would certainly lead. Once a week, however, in the same district, would be too often, as they would be likely to take the farmers too much from home ; and at the breaking up of the winter, when the state of the roads renders travelling difficult, or during the busiest season of summer, it might be advisable to suspend them. In any event, the hour of opening and of closing them should be fixed and absolute. Mutual agreement might determine this ; and the custom, once established, would be as imperative as any laws on the subject. If it should be asked how these markets might be established, I think the agricultural societies in the different counties could easily arrange the matter ; and that it would be a very useful object of their attention. I would advise, further, that a grain market, and a cattle market, should be always a cash market ; and that all giving or taking credit in such cases should be considered disgraceful both to buyer and seller, and entirely out of the question. If bread should not be paid for in cash, what should be ? I am afraid my advice may be deemed a work of supererogation, but it is well intended; and whoever contributes in any way to limit (I am sensible the abolition is hopeless) that system of private credit and long accounts, which prevails to so great an extent all over the country, does a public benefaction. With honest men who mean to pay their debts, nothing, in the end, is ever gained by it ; and the frequency with which a man's own integrity is undermined by it is not the least of its evils. I am strongly of the opinion that it would be better for the community if there were no laws for the recovery of debts, excepting cases involving fraud either in the act or the representation ; and all such in- stances should be punished as other crimes. The value of 328 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. integrity would then be better appreciated ; economy in the modes of living would prevail much more ; and industry and frugality would be greatly stimulated. 3. Modes of Selling. — The sale by sample seems, on many accounts, more eligible than by bringing the whole quantity at once to the market. The sample, in such cases, is divided between buyer and seller, for there should be a guarantee of fair dealing on both sides, as, in case of a fall in price, the purchaser might substitute a better sample than that which he had received, and in this way evade his engagement. In all cases, the selling by sample is liable, however, to objections of this kind, and more especially as the seller himself is likely to separate from a small sample what might injure its appearance ; and a small sample is always likely to be cleaner, and appear better, than a large quantity. One cannot say of wheat what the shopkeepers say of their silks and calicoes, " They appear better in the piece than the pattern." While it is very desirable, in all commercial transactions, to avoid, as much as possible, occasions of misunderstanding, much must, after all, be left to personal integrity, and that sense of honor and right which commercial men would find it for their interest to guard with as much tenacity as they would their lives. But alas ! if com- mercial transactions were so exact and explicit as to be incapable of misconstruction or evasion, and men were always under the influence of a strict principle of integrity and justice, what would become of the lawyers, the paid moral police and the strict guardians of justice always on one side ? Many of them woidd make very good farmers, — a transmutation from which, in some cases, the community might suffer no inconvenience. Where grain is sold in quantity, or by the load, and delivered at the time of sale, these occasions of misunderstanding are avoided, and the whole business is concluded at once. The farmer leaves his corn and takes home his money ; and any anxiety respecting the rise or fall of the market, and the fulfil- ment of the engagement, coupled as it may be with the usual contingencies of the future, is prevented. But the farmer or seller is placed somewhat at the mercy of the buyer, when, as the close of the market approaches, he finds himself with a load of grain, which he must either sell, or carry back, or store, if it GRAIN MARKETS OUT OF LONDON. 329 be practicable, at considerable trouble and expense. In large markets, however, where the sellers are numerous, and compe- tition is in proportion, the prices become soon settled by common consent ; and the seller may calculate, if he does not, through timidity or greediness, overstay his time, upon getting the current price, if the quality of his grain justifies it. " The tide, if taken at the flood," to borrow the simile of a great authority, "leads on to fortune ; " but with those who neglect the opportunity, the ebbing tide often leaves the vessel stranded, high and dry upon the shore. 4. Multiplication of Markets in England. — There are circumstances of difference, in the condition of things here, and in the United States, which it may not be uninteresting to remark upon, as a special reason why the grain markets prevail all over the country. Here there is an immense population to be fed, scattered every where ; and there are many more, in pro- portion to the whole number, who are buyers of bread than with us. The manufacturing villages are crowded with a population who are to be fed by other hands than their own. The villages and small towns are full of tradespeople, mechanics, and profes- sional men, who are to be supplied with bread. The laboring agricultural population, too, are buyers of bread. With us, every farmer raises his own bread, and feeds his laborers in his own house. With us, there are comparatively few married laborers employed at all, and of those, there are scarcely any who have not small farms of their own, on which they raise their own bread, and commonly much more. Here the laboring popula- tion, excepting in the case of some small allotments, grow no bread for themselves ; and the expense of fuel is so great, like- wise, that they depend upon public bakers, rather than bake their own bread. In consequence of this, markets are held at all the principal towns, where the millers and bakers supply them- selves. Purchases are made, likewise, in these markets, for the supply of London, where the facility of carriage allows its being sent. 28* 330 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. LV.— THE CORN EXCHANGE IN MARK LANE, LONDON. The supply of London itself is an immense affair. The or- dinary population of this mammoth city is estimated at about 1,800,000; and during the session of Parliament, in what is technically called " the season," when the legislature may be said to be in full blast, all the places of public amusement opened, and the court in the plenitude of its luxuries, it is supposed that the population of London does not fall much short of 2,500,000. Nothing impresses a reflecting mind with more force, than the consideration how such vast numbers of people, all of whom are consumers, are to be fed. Yet they are fed, and the cases of want and starvation do not arise from any deficiency in the supply of bread, of which there seems always enough and to spare. " The total importation of corn and grain of all kinds into London averages, at the present time, about 28,000,000 bushels annually, besides about 50,000 tons of flour and meal — the weight being at least 530,000 tons." The Corn Exchange, in Mark Lane, is the great place of trade in corn and flour, and in all kinds of grain and pulse. There are two spacious buildings adjoining each other for the transaction of business and the exhibition of samples, and the market is holden three times a week, — on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, — Monday being the principal market-day. The business done here is immense in home-grown and in foreign grain. LVL — CORN DUTIES. Grain is not admitted into England from foreign ports, Canada excepted, free of duty, excepting when the price reaches its maximum. The highest duty, of 20 shillings per quarter, is paid when the price is 50 shillings per quarter, and the scale of duties is a descending scale, in certain determinate proportions, CORN DUTIES. 331 until the price reaches 80 shillings per quarter, when it is ad- mitted free of duty. In consequence of these regulations, large amounts of foreign grain are stored in warehouses, waiting for admission, when, by the variations of the market, tlie duties are at the lowest. The amount of duty payable on the introduction of foreign wheat being regulated by the current price of wheat, it becomes obviously of the highest consequence to determine what is the current price of wheat, since this price has no reference to the cost of the wheat, and, as is plain, the price may vary in different parts of the kingdom. With a view to deter- mine this, returns are received weekly, at one of the government offices in London, from the different counties in England and Wales, comprising reports of the sales in two hundred and ninety-two market-towns, designated by law, upon which the price is averaged, and by this the duty is regulated for six weeks at a time ; the current price, with the duty payable, being an- nounced in the public papers, by authority of the government. This variation of the duties is called the " sliding scale," and has been the cause of much warm political controversy. The whole subject of restrictive duties is now constantly before the public mind; and while it will not be denied that there are interested partisans on both sides, who have only some private and personal ends in view, it can as little be doubted that there is a fair proportion, on both sides, of men of intelligence, lienor, and integrity, who, in the measures which they advocate, are governed wholly by their convictions of what is due to great and valuable interests, concerned in the question, and of what they deem best for the country. I know how difficult it is to acknowledge this ; how easy it is to impute corrupt motives to even the purest minds ; and how our own views may be affected by circumstances, of whose influence we are not aware, but which are certain seriously to bias our judgment. Men who think that the corn laws should be abrogated, and those who think that they should be maintained, may be equally honest and equally patriotic ; but nothing can be more disgraceful and un- worthy of an intelligent and honorable mind than that bigotry and intolerance, which would stifle inquiry on any subject of public interest ; which would prevent the free utterance of an honest judgment, and impute sinister intentions or interests for any difference of opinion. It is to be regretted that examples of this 332 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. intolerance, both in respect to politics and religion, are not wanting on both sides of the water. One is almost discouraged to per- ceive, in many cases, that the only advance made upon the intol- erant and ferocious spirit of the dark ages, is the immunity from personal violence and suffering. Men are not now, for their religious or political convictions, burned at the stake ; but to a sensitive mind, a penalty scarcely less bitter is often adminis- tered, in the opprobrium which follows the profession of unpop- ular opinions. The tiger, though muzzled, still growls, and beats the bars of his cage with his tail, showing what he would do if he could. It is a singular and instructive fact, that formerly it was the great aim of the municipal and the national govern- Tient to keep down the price of bread, but that the present policy of the government is to keep it up. Two centuries and 1. half ago, the city itself provided large stores of grain, imported Q-om the Continent, and even established and maintained several public ovens, in order to prevent a scarcity of Avheat, and to save the poor from suffering by a high price, consequent upon a defi- cient supply. The several livery companies of London were required by law to have several thousand quarters of grain always on hand, for the same object. It contrasts strongly with such provisions, that, a few years ago, two thousand quarters of wheat, that is, sixteen thousand bushels, were thrown into the river, because the owners would not pay the duties or keep it longer, subject to expenses of storage and port charges. Whether the policy of the present day is an improvement upon the wisdom and good government of former times, 1 shall leave to the calm judgment of my readers ; but such a fact as that detailed above, occurring where so many thousands are constantly suffering, and many dying by slow degrees, from a deficiency of food, can hardly fail to bring a cold chill over a man of common sensibility, though he be cased in the triple brass of the most orthodox school of political economy, and seems such a resentment and defiance of the goodness of Heaven, that one can scarcely trust himself to speak of it. 1. Arguments for Protection. — The protectionists, who are opposed to the introduction of foreign grain, maintain that a free competition in their own market by supplies from abroad would so reduce the price of grain as to render its cultivation not CORN DUTIKS. 333 merely profitless, but ruinous ; and that the result would be to throw much land out of cultivation, and consequently deprive the laborer of his present resources ; and though the price of bread were reduced, yet such would be the scarcity of employ- ment, and the reduction of his wages, that he would be without the means of paying even a reduced price, 2. Arguments against Protection. — The opponents of restrictions in the introduction of foreign grain maintain, on the other hand, that, from the necessities of the case, the land will continue to be cultivated ; that the introduction of foreign grahi will induce the farmer to cultivate more land, to introduce im- provements in cultivation, to bring into a productive condition much land which is now waste and profitless, and thus increas- ing the amount of his crops by a more skilful cultivation, this excess will be very much more than an equivalent for any diminution of price. The saving of the expenses of transporta- tion, incident to the importation of grain from abroad, must be considered, in its very nature, as virtually a considerable protec- tion to the English farmer. I do not deem it necessary further to discuss this great ques- tion. It does not appear probable to me that, even if the ports were thrown open, much larger amounts would come in than what are now brought ; and one eifect is certain — that of increas- ing the price of wheat in the exporting countries. If more wheat is cultivated in foreign countries for exportation, then it must be obtained from territories more distant than those from which it is now brought, and the expense of transportation would be proportionately increased. The production of wheat would be in no case, as many persons seem to imagine, without limit. The United States have vast markets growing up among themselves for the consumption of their surplus products ; and in a free trade, the wheat from the United States must come into severe competition with the continental wheats. Every one must see that the financial bearings of the question are quite complicated ; and under such a change in the policy of the country as the abrogation of all duties or restrictions, many new circumstances would spring up to affect the results, little thought of by even the shrewdest calculators. How limited is human prescience ! and what countless and complex influences are con- 334 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. tinually intermingling themselves in the affairs of nations, as well as of individuals, which defy equally man's sagacity to understand, and his power to control ! 3. Moral Views of the (Question. — Having stated, with what impartiality I am able, the principal commercial and financial arguments in the case, on both sides, I feel that there are views of this subject, of a moral character, to which I may without impropriety refer. The question is considered by many as a great question of humanity, which I shall endeavor to look at in the light of a calm philosophy, if I may make any preten- sions — and I am certain they must be of the most humble char- acter — to such a lofty gift. I hope my readers, even among the parties most deeply interested, will approach it in the same spirit. I believe, from my personal knowledge of many of them, that there is as ample a share of real benevolence for the poor, among the advocates of the corn laws, as among their opponents ; and men of this high character will listen with patience and with eagerness to any discussions of the subject which may serve to correct wrong impressions, if wrong impressions exist, or to make the path of duty more plain, if at present it is in any degree mis- understood or overshadowed. 4. Patriotism and Philanthropy. — It may be supposed that, as the citizen of a comparatively young and growing country, anxious to extend its profitable commercial relations in all directions, and spurred on with an eager and breathless avarice, — stimulated, by an enterprise ev^ery where left free to be exerted, and by natural and social advantages of an extraordinary character, to enrich itself by the wide disposal of the products of its industry and its virgin soil, — I should be most anxious for the admission of these products into England under the most favor- able circumstances, and should be the strenuous advocate of free trade, certainly on the English side of the water, which is about as far as any man's impartiality may be expected to go. I plead guilty to a strong attachment to my own country, and a most ardent desire for her prosperity ; neither of which senti- ments has suffered the slightest abatement by my protracted absence, and my familiarity with other countries and other institutions. But I am not conscious of any interested views CORN DUTIES. 335 which should unduly bias my judgment in this case ; and I will assert, in all the strength of the most heartfelt conviction, that I regard patriotism as a very mean virtue compared with philan- thropy, and that the mere interests of trade are to be trampled under foot with scorn and disdain whenever they conflict with the interests of humanity. I know very well that they are oftentimes coincident. Some time ago, in the United States, at a public celebration, where I am aware that sentiments occa- sionally get a little colored by the wine in Avhich they are drank, a distinguished public character gave, as a toast, " Oui country ! " which would have been very well had he stopped there, and I should have had no objection to emptying my glass, if that had been necessary to sanction it ; but when he added, '•' Our country, right or wrong ! " I regarded the sentiment with inexpressible detestation, to which the wine, if I had drank it, would only have added intensity. Some apology may be made for him as a military man ; for what has a military man to do with right or wrong ? His duty is only to obey orders ; and, as a facetious divine said in another case, he has neither the trouble nor expense of keeping a conscience. 5. Proper Ends of National Policy. — When, under the blessing of Heaven, will mankind cease to estimate the pros- perity of. individuals or nations by a mere pecuniary standard ? When will they learn that the true glory of a nation is the glory of justice and humanity, and that the only legitimate and worthy objects of a good government are, — not the mere accu- mulation of wealth, the triumphs of military ambition, the exten- sion of territory, the multiplication of pageants and of luxuries, the intrenching of power already too arbitrary and despotic in its exactions, the higher elevation of ranks already too high for sympathy with the wants, and sufferings, and privations, of the depressed and low, — but the far nobler purposes of giving to all the opportunity and the means of exerting an honest industry, and an ample share, and a perfect security in the enjoyment, of the fruits of that industry ; allowing no individual to be above the reach of that law which inflicts its penalties upon the most humble and down-trodden, and sufli"eriiig no person to pine in obscurity, uncared for and unpitied ; but, in the exercise of an t.'xact and impartial justice, seeking to protect the defenceless, to 336 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. succor the oppressed, to raise the fallen ; by a wise education, and a paternal care, to inspire even the lowliest with the enno- bling consciousness of his own moral and immortal nature ; and, in the spirit of true Christianity, to regard all men as one family, and to seek to impart to every man, without stint or abatement, his full share of all the advantages and all the goods which God, when he made men for each other, and endowed them with human sympathies, designed that they should find in the social state ? — When, indeed, are these celestial visions of philan- thropy to be realized ? when is the bleeding victim to be plucked from the jaws of an unrelenting avarice ? when is the imprisoned bird to be let free to breathe the clear air of heaven, and pour out his songs of ecstasy upon the floating breeze ? when is hu- manity — in too many cases oppressed, degraded, plundered — to be allowed to stand erect in the conscious dignity of freedom and of manhood ? 6. Bread regarded in a peculiar Light. — In civilized states, bread has always been considered in a different light from almost any thing else, and has been the subject of special regu- lations. For many years, speculators in grain were looked upon with peculiar suspicion and odium, and were the subjects of par- ticular legal restrictions. They were considered as the creators of scarcity, by their hoarding up large stores of corn ; whereas, in fact, it was through their providence that these times of suffering were anticipated and mitigated, or avoided. They are not disin- terested, but are as useful and important as any class of persons, employed as agents in any branch of trade. They are most use- ful in enabling the grower of grain to dispose of it to the best ad- vantage ; and it would be difficult to say how a large community could be supplied without them ; as if, for example, London itself were left to the precarious supply of individual farmers. They perform, indeed, a most essential and important service, and are entitled to a fair remuneration. The indispensable impor- tance of a character for fair dealing, and the competition to which they are exposed, are securities against that compensation being excessive. As speculators in grain were regarded with peculiar vigilance, so were bakers, and so arc they still, held to a strict responsibility, and the weight of their loaves subjected to an assize. In Turkey, a baker giving light weight is nailed by the CORN DUTIES. 337 ear to his shop door — a most awkward position, certainly, to be placed in, and sufficiently admonitory. The corn laws are regarded by some persons with a sentiment of similar distrust or dislike. They are considered as a tax upon the bread of the poor, or a reduction of the size of their loaf, to which they ought not to be subjected. The effect of the duty upon corn is obviously to increase the price of bread, as the abrogation of the duty would be to lessen its price, or otherwise it would be of no importance whatever. In two respects, bread differs from other articles which man wants or desires. In the first place, its supply is indispensable to human subsistence ; in the second place, though to a degree the product of human industry, its production is not controllable at human pleasure. Of other articles, in regard to which man's only province is to work up the raw materials, he may manufacture a large or small quantity, at his will. In respect to bread, man can only sow the seed, and then wait with humble hope for that blessing, "which shall give the increase." These circum- stances have undoubtedly had their influence on the exertions Vv'hich have been made every where to prevent a monopoly of bread, and to keep it, as far as possible, within the reach of the most destitute. 7. Peculiar Condition" of the English laboring Popula- tion. — But there are circumstances, connected with the condi- tion of English society, which give peculiar severity to these laws. A large portion of the laboring population depend wholly upon their labor from day to day, for a supply. If wages were paid in kind, the price of bread would not so much affect the laborer. If wages rose or fell with the price of bread, the case would be different from v.iiat it is. But this is not the case ; labor is superabundant ; the competition for employment is severe ; and constant employment difficult to be procured. Land, for the purpose of growing bread for themselves, is a matter wholly beyond the reach of the greater part of the labor- ing population. They might as well think of getting posses- sions in the moon. The soil is locked up in comparatively few hands. It is stated confidently that, from the year 1775 to the year 1815, the number of landed proprietors in England was reduced from 240.000 to 30,000, and that the process of absorp- 20 338 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. tion has been continually going on from that to the present time. Labor here, then, is wholly dependent upon capital. Emigra- tion, from the insular character of the country, is extremely dif- ficult, and not as in the United States, where a man has only to take his axe upon his shoulder, and find for himself a home. Though the price of bread, therefore, should increase, the rate of wages would not be affected ; the laborer would get no more : and, from the advance in the price of that which is indispen- sable to his subsistence, his wages would virtually become of less value, though the nominal amount remained the same. Add to this, that the increase of the population of Great Britain is going on at a rapid rate, the increase for the last year, as stated upon the highest authority, being no less than 380,000. These considerations, as connected with this subject, cannot fail to have their weight upon reflecting and benevolent minds. Whether any restraint, therefore, should be put upon the supply of food to the people, is a matter which I submit to the opinion of those whom it concerns. If " property has its rights, it has also its duties," and those of a most responsible character. The condition of the laborer is sutficiently striking. His labor creates the product, but this product passes immediately into other hands ; sometimes into the hands of those whose skill, and care, and enterprise, com- bined with his labor, did their full share in the creation of this product, but often into the hands of persons who produce nothing, and live only to consume and to enjoy. He must be satisfied if a very small portion of it is returned to him by way of compensation for his toil ; but it would seem at first blush a hard case, if even a portion of this must be abstracted in its progress to him, or otherwise he will not be allowed the oppor- tunity of laboring at all. Our horses and oxen are well fed and cared for, in proportion to the labor which they are com- pelled to perform. What should we say of the man who refused tiiem this ? But alas for the poor men ! I have seen hundreds and hundreds of the laborers, who, after a most scanty breakfast, in the midst of their labors, sometimes severe and always unre- mitting, had nothing for their dinner but a bit of dry bread and a draught of water, and who would return at night, when the toil of the day was over, to a supper as scanty. Even the in- ferior butter is not suffered to reach them, but is mixed with tar CORN DUTIES. 339 at the custom-house, that it may be destroyed as human food. What an extraordinary fact this is ! In one of the great brew- eries in London, where, I think, forty of the magnificent London horses are kept, they are worked but six years, and are then sent into the country to enjoy rest and comfort the remainder of their lives. What an enviable condition is this compared with that of many of the human laborers, in a country enriched by their toil, and flooded with a wealth unknown before in the history of the world. I should do the greatest wrong if I did not say, however, that there are many bright examples of a justice and humanity towards those by whose toil they live, of the noblest character — a conduct which is sure to be followed by its appropriate reward ; and that the evils are deplored by many more, who have not the sagacity to discern, nor the power to apply, a remedy. But the condition which I have described is but too common, and must aff"ord a most instructive lesson to the laboring portion of the people of the United States. 8. Excess or Population. — The constant complaint here is, that there are too many people. This is an extraordinary complaint, while there are several millions of acres of productive lands lying waste and uncultivated. But what is " the preven- tive check " ? Poverty and hunger are not found effectual. It is an extraordinary remedy adopted at Manchester, where, accord- ing to the returns, seventy-six out of every hundred of the children born die before the usual age of weaning, a large pro- portion of whom are dosed out of existence by the excessive use of opiates. Such a mode of disposing of a surplus population is certainly as little to be commended as Defoe's Skoj-t Method tvith the Dissenters^ advising to hang them all ! A valued friend of mine, a celibate, and so likely to continue, whose great passion is statistical science, very gravely asserts, that if men and women would not marry until they were twenty-seven years old, there would be no surplus population. The only reply to be made to such practical theories, is in the words of the old proverb, " When the sky falls, we shall catch larks ; " and it would not be surprising to find such a man as gravely recom- mending the old method of catching birds, by putting salt upon their tails. I was one day, in London, importuned for charity, by a healthy-looking woman with a young infant upon her arms ; 340 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. and it is not at all uncommon to find them with two, often, no doubt, hired for the occasion. "Why," said I, "do you beg? Why do you not work?" "Because," said she, "I can get no employment." " But," said I, " if you have no means of sup- porting them, why do you have children ? " " Sir," said she, with a simplicity which was irresistible, " Providence sends them." It would have been much more true had she said, improvidence ; but it was evident she was no adept in the Malthusian school. Children, then, will be born into the world. The improvement of the lower classes by education, the general elevation of the standard of living, the increase of what may be termed the artificial wants of life, and the influence of the higher class of religious and moral considerations, giving a deeper con- viction of responsibility, and rendering the domestic aff"ections more elevated, and the social interests and the parental relations more sacred, as far as they can be brought to bear upon the mind, are among the only certain remedies for this improvi- dence. These considerations, however, can only be expected to have their proper influence where the mind is in some measure prepared for them by a rational and virtuous education. But it is in no case a sufficient reason for subjecting the poorer classes to any new hardship or privation, to say that there are too many people ; because there are other questions, which inevitably arise in the case, to which a reply might not be very easy ; — namely, Who is here who has no right to be here ? and. Whose duty is it to retire ? or. Who should be put out ? I do not say that society is bound to support gratuitously any man, other than such as by the providence of God are made incapable of providing for them- selves. Here the obligation is imperative. I hold the obliga- tion on society to be equally imperative to afford to every man, as far as possible, the opportunity, by his own honest labor, of providing for himself and those whom the divine Providence has cast upon his care. Now, wherever the appropriation of the soil, or the institutions of society, are such as to deprive a man of this power, or to prevent him the opportunity of its exertion where otherwise he would use it, it would seem, without the most cogent reasons, a measure of great severity to live upon his labor, and to take even from the small pittance which enables him to render that labor ; to see him reduced to the borders of starvation, and then to demand a piece of his last crust. I do MODE OF ADJUSTING LABOR AND WAGES. 341 not speak of motives in this case at all, but only of what seems to some minds to be the tendency or character of certain meas- ures. I do not believe there is any prevalent want of compassion among the strongest advocates of restriction, or any disposition to drive the laborers to the wall. Indeed, I shall utter only my honest conviction, founded upon the closest personal observation, that the laborers of England have no warmer friend than in the public-spirited nobleman * who has taken the lead in the pro- 'tection societies; and this likewise applies, as I well know, to many associated with him. No man in England is surrounded with more contented and attached laborers. But we cannot all see the same subject in the same light ; and while nothing is easier or more congenial to a mean temper, nothing is more foreign from a generous and honorable mind, than the imputa- tion of mean or unworthy motives to those whose opinions or measures differ from our own. I have spoken thus at large, and given, as well as I am able, the opinions prevalent with different persons on the great subject of the corn laws — first, because it is intimately connected with the agricultural condition of England ; and next, because I know the strong interest which is taken in the subject in the United States. It certainly is not for us to complain of the restrictive laws of England. I give no opinion as to the policy or impolicy of such restrictions on either side ; but, while we barricade our own doors, we cannot, with a very good grace, require of others to leave theirs open. LVII. — MODE OF ADJUSTING LABOR AND WAGES. Every circumstance, which tends to widen the distinction or separation between the rich and the poor, the employer and the employed, and to create opposing interests between them, is alike unfriendly to both parties. The rich and the poor, the employer and the employed, are equally essential to each other. * The Duke of Richmond, president of the Agricultural Protection Society. 29* 342 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, Formerly, the laborer lived in the family of the employer, and sat at the same table. This custom is now almost entirely done away with ; and laborers, instead of being members of the same family, live wholly by themselves. It used to be much more the custom than now to pay the laborers in kind ; and then the laborer had a special interest in the crop, and high prices were quite as much for his advantage as for that of his master. This practice still prevails to a degree in Scotland, but nowhere, that I have found, in England. Under present arrangements, however, where wages are paid in money, the two interests, as in all other cases of commercial trading, become distinct, and, I may add, opposed to each other. What one receives, lessens, of course, the gains of the other. The employer gives as little as possible ; and where labor is abundant, and competition severe, it is obvious he has the laborer very much at his mercy. The laborer, on the other hand, will not be likely to return any more than the strictest interpretation of his obligation requires. This may be the occasion of a matter to which I have before alluded — that, in my opinion, an English laborer does not accomplish nearly so much in the same time as an American laborer. I speak of cases in which the American is working for himself, the Englishman for another. In cases where work is taken by the piece or job, as in harvest for example, there seems to be no want of application or success, on the part of the English laborer. Philanthropic minds are now every where anxiously at work devising means or schemes for the benefit of the laborers, and to mitigate the evils of their condition, which otherwise are likely to be increased rather than diminished, as the population increases. In Austrian Poland, where the peasants are them- selves occupiers of land, the landlord or proprietor of the soil claims from them a certain number of days' work, each week, exclusively for himself ; but no such arrangement would be pos- sible in England ; nor would it obviate the difficulty to which I have referred. i. Experiment in Germany. — A German baron, with whom I have the pleasure of a friendly acquaintance, has given me an outline of his arrangement with his laborers, which, as far as it is practicable, deserves much consideration, as, according to his MODE OF ADJUSTING LABOR AND WAGES. 343 own account, it secures their industry, fidelity, and contentment. No human arrangements are perfect, and no luiman laws caii be framed which the ingenuity of men will not contrive to evade ; but as there appears in this plan every motive to good faith, good faith on both sides would seem to be all that is necessary to its successful operation. First, from the products of the place, the customary rent is paid, and the wages of the labor employed. The surplus remaining is then divided into five equal parts. Two of these parts are claimed by the proprietor for his skill, intelligence, and care, in the superintendence and management of the property ; one part is retained as an insurance upon that part of the property which is liable to loss or destruction ; one part is devoted to actual improvements upon the place ; and one is divided among the laborers themselves, according to the rate of wages which they receive for their work. Whether these proportions are properly adjusted or not, I shall leave to the judgment of my readers. It is obvious that any others might be adopted which should be deemed more just. It is certainly an approach to an equitable arrangement ; and my friend assures me that it works well. He says, he leaves his estate at any time with a perfect confidence that his interests will be cared for and protected, and that there will be no waste of time, and no squandering of property, and no neglect of duty. Success is, in proportion, as much the interest of the laborers as of the proprietor. 2. Claims of Labor, and Duties of Wealth. — This has al- ways impressed my mind as only an equitable adjustment, and must be equally as soothing to a good man's conscience as to a poor man's stomach. Contradicted, as I have often, and severely reproached, as I have sometimes, been for the assertion, I never- theless maintain as my sober conviction, that in all business where success depends on labor, — whether it be in the case of manufacturing industry, in agricultural labor, or in the toils and hardships of a seafaring life, — the person who does the work, who endures the hardships, who encounters the exposures, has the first claim upon the proceeds, and should come in for an equitable share of the profits. I admit that there is much labor and anxiety in mental application, and in the active enterprise and care on the part of the manager of such concerns, which are 344 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. often as severe as any bodily toil, and which deserve to be fully compensated. In general, this enterprise is perfectly competent, however, to take care of its own interests, and seldom fails to provide for itself. But it is said, these people take no risks ; they are sure, in any event, of their stipulated wages ; they have no right to any more. I know they have no legal right. But I do not understand that they take no risks. There is always a risk of losing their wages, which is something ; but in all em- ployments there is a risk of health, and in many a constant exposiu-e to disease, to accidents of various kinds, to loss of sight, or loss of limbs, or loss of life. There are many trades and professions where health is almost certain to be impaired, and life to be prematurely cut off. There are peculiar dangers in mines, among complicated machinery, in unhealthy climates, on the open seas, and on the ice-bound atid rock-bound shores, bristled with pointed clilfs and ruffled with foaming waves. I know very well the great rules of trade, as they are called — " Buy as cheaply as you can ; sell as dearly as you can ; get yoiu* labor performed for the least possible wages ; and accumulate, accumulate, accumulate, as your great end and aim." This men call Christianity ; I think, to give it such a name is a libel upon a religion which teaches us to do justly and to love mercy, and which enjoins it upon us, as the highest law of social duty, to do to others as we would that others should do to us. I admit that, if men could enter into a perfectly free and equal competition, unmixed self-interest, though an inferior, might yet not be so objectionable a rule as in other circumstances ; but how seldom is the competition equal between capital and labor, wealth and poverty, skill and ignorance ; and especially in a country like England, where wealth is enormous ; labor supera- .bundant ; the professions, and trades, and occupations crowded to repletion ; the lower classes extremely ignorant and dependent ; and the population increasing with a rapidity perfectly astound- ing. I complain of no man's wealth, if that wealth be the fruit of honest industry and enterprise. I envy no man's power, if that power be justly acquired. But I do envy — with no desire, however, to pluck a single jewel from his crown — that man's honor and felicity, and equally his wisdom and goodness, who, m the possession of ample power, whether of wealth, or learning, or talents, finds his highest honor in being just, and his purest iMOUi-: Ob' ADJUSTING LABOR AND WAGES, 345 happiness ia using this power ni doing good ; in succoring those who need succor ; in helping those who are trying to help themselves ; in encouraging and stimulating self-respect, and a virtuous ambition to make their condition better, even in the most humble ; in proving himself the friend of the friendless ; in protecting and rewarding industry, sobriety, and frugality, not in a niggardly, but a generous manner ; in sharing some liberal measure of his abundance with those by whose labor, under the blessing of Heaven, this abundance has been created ; and in sending light, and comfort, and plenty, into the cottages and hearts of those who have sowed his fields, and brought on their toil-worn shoulders the fruits of their cultivation to his stores. The golden harvests of such a man in every wave reflect Heaven's purest sunshine ; his dew-bespangled fields glitter with a radiance brighter than ever shone in a regal diadem ; and the happiness and joy, which he sends into the homes and hearts of others, return in gushing streams to flood his own home and his own heart. I know my poor words will find a warm response in many a kind bosom, and, by Heaven's blessing, may throw a spark into that smoking flax, which too much of what is called prosperity may not yet have quenched. There are many such hearts ; but in general we see " who gets the lion's share." To reason with avarice, is well nigh desperate. If it were an iceberg, we might hope that, under the rays of a clear sun, it might be made to trickle ; but it is a mass of granite, which, like the monu- mental column in Trafalgar Square, stands wholly unmoved by the forlorn and pitiable objects of destitution and wretchedness, whom I have often seen, in a winter's day, sunning themselves at its base ; and remains alike impervious to heat or cold, to calm or storm, to summer's fires or winter's frosts. 3. Results of the German Experiment. — The friend, to whom I have referred, has three hundred laborers in his employ- ment. He says, the system works well ; and that every year's experience gives him stronger confidence in its justice and advantages. First, his work is done ; secondly, it is done in the best manner in which his laborers are able to execute it, because it is the interest of all that it should be done, and well done. The laborers have a system of rules and fines among 346 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. themselves, always subject to his approbation, and, after once approved, always rigidly enforced. They inquire, of their own accord, into the best methods of doing what is to be done ; they point out mistakes which have been committed, and improve- ments which may be made, subject always to his judgment. If men are found unskilful or incompetent in the particular branch of duty assigned them, he is advised of it, and persons more suitable are selected by their judgment who best understand the capacities of their fellow-laborers for the work. They are held jointly responsible for any injury to the property, unless the offending person is found. An individual guilty of any neglect of duty, or any improper conduct, or any violation of the estab- lished rules, is mulcted in a pecuniary fine. The names of the offenders are always announced at the close of the year ; and these fines go towards a general entertainment and festivity. The proprietor himself hears all complaints, and a laborer, whose bad habits are judged incorrigible, is discharged. I have been somewhat amused by his telling me that the great evil which he has to contend with is the use of tobacco. Smoking upon his premises he absolutely forbids, for three good reasons — first, the danger of fire ; secondly, for the time which it occupies, and the lazy habits which it induces ; and thirdly, because he deems its effects upon the stomach extremely per- nicious to health, and incapacitating men in a degree for labor. In other words, he \aews it as a poison. So do I. I wish it was as quick and fatal in its operation as arsenic, or prussic acid, always premising, however, that those who now use it in any form should be fully and reasonably forewarned. 4. Scotch Customs — a Digression. — My readers will, I hope, be indulgent to my infirmity, which has been, even in this country, sometimes put to a severe test. In Scotland, for example, they take snuff with a spoon. A small silver spoon, or one made of bone, is filled from the horn, and then thrust up the nose. To complete the refinement, there is also a small brush to clean the upper lip, and edges of the nostrils. The reader may judge of my sensations when the spoon and the horn were both actually offered to me in church. There may, however, in this case be some claims to indulgence, for in one of the Scotch meetings which I attended, the extempore prayer was actually THE DEAD-MEAT MARKETS. 347 one hour, and the sermon which followed, two hours in length ; both, I admit, excellent in their way. But then, although the argument and the doctrine were sufiiciently stimulating to a stranger, yet veterans accustomed to such engagements might get to sleep, from pure exhaustion, under the discharges even of musketry and cannon, and might require extraordinary appli- cations to keep their sensibility alive. I will say, however, in justice to the Scotch, that I never witnessed more decorum, and more wakeful attention, in time of service, than in the Scotch meetings ; and they bore these inflictions or penances, as less serious minds would consider them, with a philosophic submis- sion, worthy of the pillar saints in the dark ages. While speaking of the manners of the rural population, I may allude to another practice prevailing in some of the rural districts in Scotland, which some persons in the rural districts in the United States may feel an interest in knowing. I attended worship, in Scotland, in a most quiet and delightful district of country, and among green fields cultivated with the highest skill, and loaded with the richest crops, where, when the first regular service was through, and all done, after an interval of about ten minutes, during which the minister never left his pulpit, nor the congregation their seats, the minister began and went through another whole service, and gave a second sermon on a different subject, as long as the former. This finished for the day, and, as I was informed, was so arranged that the farmers, and farmers' wives and daughters, who lived at some distance, might get home in season to milk their cows, and tend their cattle. I had likewise a slight impression come over my mind, that they meant to have their money's worth of instruction, and did not choose to let their spiritual laborer off with half a day's work for full wages. It required, however, a healthy intellectual digestion to dispose of two full meals at once. LVIIL — THE DEAD-MEAT MARKETS. Besides the cattle and grain markets, there are other markets, to which I have already alluded, connected with agriculture, 348 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. which are sometmies called by the startling designation, the dead markets, by which is only intended markets for the sale of slaughtered animals, beef, mutton, pork, lamb, veal, &c. &c., and which in London are quite worth a visit. The largest of these, in this great metropolis, are Newgate and Leadenhall Markets ; and it is a curious fact, that the former occupies a building (the magnificent entrance of which still remains, with its high and ornamented archway, and its aisles, with the old columns, form the meat-stalls) which was formerly a literary institution, or college. Instead of food for the mind, it now furnishes food for the body ; and instead of the purveyors of intel- lectual provisions, — poetry, philosophy, eloquence, and science, — here stand the purveyors of mutton, pork, and beef — a very ig- noble office, and a very humiliating descent, as some refined and sensitive persons would deem it : but alas ! what would become of science, philosophy, eloquence, or even poetry itself, without mutton, pork, and beef? The philosophical Edward Search, in his most admirable work, " The Light of Nature," says, " that he has found a draught of Daffy's Elixir, on getting up in the morning, a powerful means of grace, dispelling doubts and despondencies, and strengthening and brightening his faith ; " and though, through a foolish pride, we may be disposed to deny or not to recognize our relations in humble life, as citizens some- times "cut" their country cousins when they meet them in town, yet the stomach and understanding are near neighbors, and the one absolutely dependent on the other. What nature hath joined no man can put asunder. The markets in London display their meats to considerable advantage ; and besides the great markets, meat shops prevail all over the town, and are found in some of the best streets intermingled with other kinds of shops of the most splendid description. Even Bond Street, the very emporium of fashion, elegance, and taste, has its meat shops, where whole carcasses of mutton are suspended before the doors in long rows, as, under the bloody code of former years, prisoners at the close of the sessions used to be suspended at the Old Bailey, — except in this case in an inverse order, the heads of the sheep being down- wards, as mutton-heads are- apt to get inverted. A fine lady, in passing from one milliner's or jeweller's shop to another, must take very good care, lest, instead of encountering a fine beau, to THE DEAD-MEAT MARKETS. 3'49 which she might not object, she encounters a fine quarter ot beef, or a fine sheep, which certainly, if taste only were con- suked, she would prefer to meet in another form and place. The incongruity is at first offensive to a stranger, and seems in very bad taste ; but an amateur finds some compensation in the beauty of the objects thus exhibited. I do not mean the ladies, of whom possibly I may speak in another place, but the meats. Mutton is always the prevailing meat, for this seems to be the favorite dish on English tables. It is a remarkable fact, that mutton is the prevalent dish at the public schools and colleges. At the Blue Coat School in London, for example, it is the sole meat for the eight hundred boys, four or five days out of seven. The same is the case, I am told, at Eton ; and this not, as I sup- posed, from its comparative cheapness, but from experience, and the opinion of medical men, that it is the most Avholesome diet, and least likely to interfere with intellectual application and health. The Southdown and the Leicester sheep are generally pre- ferred, though the small Welsh mutton, for its exquisite flavor, is most esteemed ; and the fatness of the beef, and mutton, and lamb, is every where most striking. Indeed, in the English markets, lean meat is hardly to be seen. If it is sold, it is certainly seldom displayed. The meat-shops are eminently clean ; this, indeed, is the universal characteristic of the English people above the lowest classes, who in London are eminently dirty. The salesmen, however, with their blue woollen frocks and aprons, in tidyness of appearance would hardly bear a comparison with the salesmen and women in the Philadelphia markets, with their white linen frocks and aprons. Indeed, in this respect, Philadelphia, as far as my observation goes, stands preeminent. Cleanliness, it is often said, and with a good deal of reason, is next to godli- ness. I confess to this creed. I think it should be inculcated as a religious duty, and for its' useful moral influences. The sect of Friends regard it as such ; and it is doubtless much owing to their influence and example, that Philadelphia is so prover- bially neal. Many of the English butchers and salesmen arc distinguished for their intelligence, and the great extent of their concerns. 1. Slaughter-Houses in London. — I have already said that a great deal of the meat which is exposed for sale in London is 30 350 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. killed in the country, and at some seasons of the year brought even from remote parts of Scotland. But I shall perhaps surprise some of my readers by informing them that London is full of slaughtering-houses. The police of London is so exemplary, and many of these places are kept with such perfect neatness, that even the nearest neighbors are not apprized of their exist- ence.* This fact may be recommended to the attention of the butchers in the vicinity of Boston, and some other of our large towns. Their neighbors certainly will join in this recommenda- tion, for most of these slaughtering establishments are an intol- erable nuisance. In some of the best streets in London, where the meat-shops are found, will be found behind these shops the slaughter-houses, where this meat is killed. You will some- times see cattle and sheep brought in by the front door of very respectable looking houses, (for the yards of the houses are oth- erwise inaccessible,) like acquaintances of the family. Back of these shops, I have been introduced into elegantly furnished drawing-rooms, and did not discover that the slaughtering estab- lishment was immediately adjoining, until I looked out of the window. There is not the slightest odor perceptible, to offend the senses. The animals come out in a very different form from what they go in. The blood goes at once into the common sewers, and the offal is carefully removed. In the neighborhood of the * One great means of the extraordinary cleanliness of London is, that noBwine are ever allowed to be kept in it. The lower class of Irish, who migrate to Lon- don in vast numbers, (for where, indeed, do not these laborious creatures migrate ?) are thus obliged to abandon the tender familiarities of their early years, v/hich have " grown with their growth, and strengtliened witli their strength." As the ruling passion, however, is always strong, and the Irish heart, even in tlie hum- blest condition, is distinguished by warm affections, they contrive, as some of the gentlemen of the health commission have informed me, many times in a very adroit manner to evade the law, and the pig and the donkey are often regularly installed lodgers in their rooms, and free sharers at their humble board. It is said that when tlie terror of the Asiatic cholera prevailed, and a health com- mittee visited the premises of the poorer classes in Edinburgh, with a view to remove the incitements of disease, they found in one of the upper chambers of one of the very high-storied houses of that city, inhabited by an Irish family, a large hog among the children. Upon inquiry how he could have been got up there, the owner replied witli genuine Hibernian simplicity, " Plaze yer honor, he was never got up here at all at all ; but he was barn here." I do not know why an Irishman should not be attached to his pig, as well as a nobleman to his dog. In substantial usefulness, the pig would not suffer by the comparison. I cannot say as much of his moral developments. THE DEAD-MEAT MARKETS. 351 great markets, however, the slaughter-houses are in cellars under ground, and arc not managed with equal neatness. It requires some courage to enter these places. In the extensive market at White Chapel, the slaughtering establishments are above ground in the rear of the stalls, and the gutters of the streets literally flow with blood. 2. Customs of the Jews. — The market at White Chapel is in the immediate neighborhood of the quarter of the city where most of the Jews reside. The Jews will never eat or buy any meat, which is not killed by some one of their community deputed or appointed for that express purpose. He comes at the time fixed and kills the animal ; and after the meat is dressed, if he finds upon it the slightest blemish or indication of disease, the meat is condemned, and no Jew will buy it, though the Christians betray no scruples of this sort.* If the meat is found perfectly sound and healthy, a clasp or token is put upon the leg, and the Jews are at liberty to purchase it. Any person who has the curiosity to go into the Jews' quarter, and see how they live, behold the filth of their streets, the wretchedness of their habitations, remark a squalidness which no description can exaggerate, and inhale the odors of which the place is redolent, which seem to be the very compound of * The subjoined note is of a nature scarcely to be read by any person of a very sensitive and delicate mind. I advise such persons, therefore, by all means to pass it over. I give it in self-defence, and to show that I do not intend to make statements without authority. In my Third Report, page 261, 1 said that " numbers of cattle are almost every week, as I have reason to believe, brought to Smithfield in such a state of disease as to be fit for no other purpose — and for this they are actually bought — but to make sausages for the poor Londoners." This statement a kind and intelligent friend complained of as unwarrantable, and not well founded. The form of ex- pression might, I admit, have been better chosen ; but the reason I had to believe the fact, was the direct assertion of some respectable salesmen in Smitlifield Market, who spoke of the practice as undoubted. This was particularly appli- cable to tlie time when an epidemic prevailed among the cattle. 1 do not believe any city officer would permit or connive at it, if known ; but cases of a strongly suspicious character are yet established with so much difficulty by what would be deemed legal evidence, that parties notoriously criminal often escape with im- punity. But the following statement, given under oath to Dr. Playfair and Sir Henry de la Beclie, of the Health of Towns Commission, during their inquiry into the 352 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. coiTuplion and pestilence, and of all that is odious and disgust- ing, will feel no little surprise at their particularity and fastidious- ness in regard to their meats. But these are among the incon- sistencies and anomalies of human nature, which are to be found among persons in almost every condition. The same inconsist- ency is seen, for example, among the lower class of Irishwomen in their own country, however humble in condition, with whom it seems to be the ruling, and an indomitable passion, to have a clean and handsome cap, though in most other respects one would be half inclined to think they were laboring under a species of hydrophobia. You will see them, the head surmounted with an elegant frilled cap, emulating the whiteness of the drifted snow, while the lower parts of the person, in a state of nudity, (for the drapery of the statue of an Irishwoman seldom extends below the knee,) though, as pieces of sculpture, exhibiting originally the highest artistical skill, are yet so rough, and torn, and begrimed and stuccoed with mud and dirt, that you can hardly believe that both ends belong to the same person, and that the head has not by some awkward mistake got upon the wrong shoulders. 3. Mode of slaughtering Animals. — I have felt it a duty of humanity to inquire into the mode of slaughtering animals, state of Bristol, may serve to clear up some of my friend's doubts on tlie subject. Report on Lancashire, p. 30. " Have you resided some time in this house .- " " Yes, for several j-ears." " What occupation does your neighbor pursue?" "He kills pigs, which he gets over from Ireland. Often the pigs, in coming over in tlie packet, die, and I have seen as many as tJiirty dead pigs at a time brought into the yard. They are thrown into the shed there until there is time to cut them up ; and by that time I have seen the maggots fairly dropping out of them. Then they are cut up, and, I believe, are made into salt bacon, or sold for sausages." « » * * " Have you not complained of tliis nuisance ? " " Yes, we have ; but we were told it was of no use complaining, for doctors agreed that these smells were very healthy. Besides, the owner of the yard is a very good neighbor, and tries to keep things as clean as he can ; but his occupation beats him in that." What can go beyond this ? Bat why, it may be asked, refer to such cases ? Because, in order to correct an abuse, and to guard against it, tliat abuse should be exposed. Nor is it without a melancholy instruction, to see to Avhat extremes avarice will hurry its votaries ; nor without a moral use, to hold up the perpetra- tors of such wickedness towards the poor and ignorant to the execration which they deserve. THE DEAD-MEAT MARKETS. 353 with a view to discover if there be any way of lessening the suffering necessarily inflicted. When it is considered that from thirty to forty thousand animals, poultry and game not included, are put to death weekly, for the supply of the city of London alone, it becomes a grave question of humanity whether any, and if any, what amount, of the physical suffering necessarily incident to such operations, can be saved. " The poor beetle, that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies." The moral influences of the employment, in this case, are cer- tainly deserving of consideration. The notions of former times were such, that a butcher was not allowed to sit as juror in a trial of life and death. I cannot sympathize in these prejudices ; but any practice, which tends in any degree to render us indif^ ferent to the infliction of pain, even in the case of a dumb animal, — any practice bordering upon cruelty, — cannot be with- out its pernicious effects upon the temper and character of persons accustomed to it. It may seem to some persons a ridiculous squeamishness, but I confess that I never see cooked animals brought upon table as near as possible in the form of life, whether it be game or any thing else, without a painful disgust, which I find it impossible to overcome. It is a mysterious law of nature that animals should feed upon each other ; and cer- tainly, as we cannot doubt, like all the laws of nature, a benefi- cent law ; but it is the ferocity of a tiger, and not becoming a man, which delights to regale itself with the warm blood of his victim ; and though I am no Bramin, I wish always that the food which I eat should be as far as possible separated from aF. associations of life. Sheep are slaughtered by thrusting a straight knife through the neck, between its bone and the windpipe, " severing the carotid artery and jugular vein on both sides," by which they bleed freely, and life soon becomes extinct. They are kept fasting twenty-four hours before death, as it is said that, if killed upon a fall stomach, the meat is not so agreeable to the taste, and sooner passes into a putrid state. Sheep are placed here upon a cradle or stool, to be killed, as with us. I am not very well able to describe the mode of cutting up and dressing, fur- ther than to say, that it exhibits a remarkable neatness ; that the 30* 354 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. meat, as far as I can observe, is never blown ; and that the car- cass is not, as with us, sht down by the back-bone, and so divided into four quarters ; but a piece nearly square is cut from the loins, termed here a saddle of mutton, which is esteemed a more choice part for roasting than the leg, and is always a favorite dish upon an elegant table. The butchers, or cooks, have likewise a habit, not certainly general with us, but much to be commended — that of separating the joints before the meat is cooked, which greatly alleviates the difficulty of carving. The mode of slaughtering cattle differs from that of slaughter- ing sheep. Some gentlemen, a few years ago, interested them- selves much on this subject, on the sole ground of humanity, and experiments were made of killing the animal, by driving a sharp instrument directly into the spinal cord, back of the horns ; but, although the animal fell instantly, yet the convulsions continued much longer than when he was killed by being stunned, by the former method, and it was reasonably inferred that the suffer- ing, therefore, was much greater. This is said to be the mode adopted in the great slaughtering establishments in the neighbor- hood of Paris, " where a sharp-pointed chisel is driven, with a smart stroke, between the second and third vertebras of the spine ; insensibility immediately ensues, and the blood is let out by opening the blood-vessels of the neck." Besides the objection made above to this mode of slaughtering, it is said the animal does not bleed so freely and entirely as when stunned on the forehead, as by the former method. The present mode of killing is by bringing, by means of a ring on the floor and a rope passed roimd the foot of the horns, the ox's head to the ground ; and he is then struck on the forehead, not, as with us, by an axe with a flat head, but with a similar instrument, with a pointed end, two or three inches long, of the size of the small finger, this point being hollow, and with sharp edges, — and this is driven directly into the upper forehead. The animal falls at once : this point is immediately extracted, and a wooden pin, of about the same diameter, is driven into the wound, and forced into the brain or spinal marrow, and the animal dies at once. I am not certain, that tliis is an improvement upon the mode of killing which pre- vails with us ; though the killing of an ox, with us, requires great adroitness and great strength ; otherwise, the blows require to be repeated, and much suffering is inflicted, which, it would seem, VEGETABLE AND FRUIT MARKETS. 355 might be avoided. The English method might be tried ; and if it has any advantages to the sufferer or the executioner, I cannot doubt it would be adopted. Calves, as I have observed, are not killed under six or eight weeks old, and they are bled daily for a week before they are slaughtered. I do not know that this is a very painful operation, but very little seems to be gained by it. They are killed, as with us, by cutting the throats across. The manner, however, in which they are often conveyed through the streets, piled into a cart, lengthwise, by dozens, with their heads hanging down as they are jolted over the pavements, is perfectly shocking to humanity, and deserves the interference of the benevolent society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. It is sufficiently humiliating to feel, that in nothing does man more need watch- ing and restraint, than in his treatment of the helpless and defenceless. It is a subject certainly worthy of concern. It is no affecta- tion of sensibility, though by some it may be deemed a morbid sensibility, to say, that the subject is a painful one. The pas- sion which one sometimes sees excited in the killing of animals, and the utter callousness and indifference with which some persons go about it, to whom the work is familiar, are very far from being agreeable features, either in temper or conduct. The sight and smell of blood excite an instinctive horror even among the inferior animals ; and any man, who contributes, in anyway, to alleviate pain and suffering, even among the lowest of sensi- tive existences, and to prevent cruelty, more especially to the dumb and defenceless, need not feel that he has lived wholly in vain. LIX. — VEGETABLE AND FRUIT MARKETS. England may with reason boast of the fineness of her fruits, especially as, in this matter, she has to contend with the adverse influences of temperature and climate. The country abounds in greenhouses, hothouses, conservatories, and forcing-beds. All the appliances of art, and the highest measure of horticultural skill, are exerted to counteract the unfavorable circumstances 356 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. under which theh cultivation is carried on; to protect plants whose frail nature requires protection ; and by every possible means to stimulate and bring to perfection those plants and fruits which seem to demand the same assiduous and parental care as the young of the animal creation.* Few of the country houses belonging to persons whose means allow of such indulgences, are without forcing-beds, green- houses, and conservatories. Many persons, whose means are restricted, with a high refinement of taste, sacrificing the com- mon pleasures of a frivolous and inferior character, prefer this far higher class of enjoyments and luxuries. In these green- houses and conservatories, the gayest flowers, the most precious exotic plants, and the richest fruits, are cultivated. Many of these conservatories, filled with the choicest varieties of flowering * I wish we knew more of veg-etable life. Indeed, what branch of science is there, of which we have not reason to wish we knew more .' The microscope, under those modern improvements which have increased its power, and conse- quently extended the field of its triumphs in a most astonishing degree, is con- stantly bringing- new wonders to light ; disclosing the curious and complex structure of the vegetable world ; and enabling us to watch in some plants, in their wonderful frame-work, the rapid circulation of the streams of life. Such discoveries almost make us feel that the man who would wantonly pluck a lily from its stem, and scatter its leaves to the winds, or would trample a damask rose upon the ground, offers an offence to conscious life, and casts an indignity upon some of the mo-^t beautiful expressions of the divine skill and beneficence. I have recently had the pleasure of looking through as powerful an instrument, of this kind, as human art has perhaps as yet been able to produce. Leaves, woods of different kinds, and different insects, were presented upon tlie field of vision, and exhibited a structure so various, complicated, and exquisitely finished, that one seemed endued with a new sense, and almost born into a new world. I often hear it said that divine revelation is complete and full, and that wc must look for nothing more. It may be so with a written Avord ; though I know of no right which any human mind has to limit the dispensations of Infinite Wisdom ; and with tlie most reverential gratitude for what has been given, I confess tliere are many more things, tlian have been revealed, which my impa- tient curiosity is tliirstmg to know. But the revelations of Uie natural world seem only just now begun. The telescope and the microscope are unfolding many a book hitherto closed and sealed, and pouring a flood of light upon fields of wonders which have not before been brought Avitliin the reach of human vision, and disclosing objects, fonns, structures, contrivances, modes of being, of activity, of life, and of enjoyment, which force upon the mind a sense of the Creator's skill, goodness, and power, absolutely oppressive, and awaken a feeling of reverence and adoration wholly incapable of utterance. We may presently come to understand the organization, for respiration and digestion, of the vegetable 33 we do of the animal world ; and one is scarcely less mysterious than the other. VEGETABLE AND FRUIT MARKETS. 357 shrubs and plants, are at the side of, and immediately accessible to, the drawing-rooms of the houses, furnishing, besides the most beautiful objects of sight, an attractive recreation and delight to the female members of the household, and a refreshing retreat from the dissipations of society, or the harassing cares of do- mestic life.* The hothouse or greenhouse productions of England (such as pine-apples and grapes, the natives of climates of a higher temperature) are not surpassed by any which I have ever tasted. The pines, or pine-a^pples, appear to me in size quite equal, and in * In one of the most beautiful paiis of England, endeared to me by the hospi- talities of friends whose kindness I cannot too highly appreciate, I found even a right reverend bishop, a man eminent for his intellectual powers and his lit- erary attainments, entering, with all the enthusiasm of Bacon, into the cultivation of his garden, as " one of Uie purest of human delights." He was then considered as among tlie warmest patrons of a religious party, wliose eminent piety no one questions, who have, at least for a while, converted the Established Churcli into the church militant, bi'oken up tlie dead calm in which it had for years reposed, and lashed its waves into a tempestuous foam. When I visited him, he was anxious to show the friend who accompanied me, and myself, his rosary, as he termed it, where, in a separate and extensive enclosure, he was cultivating a great variety of roses, with something of tlie enthusiasm which is said to have characterized the cultivation of tulips some years gone by. I could not resist the inclination to tell him, witliout any intentional discourtesy, that he had been for some time suspected of certain heresies, but I hardly supposed matters had gone so far with him that he would openly show his friends his rosaiy. He was then in the midst of a religious war, if it be not an abuse of language to call any sort of war, or any angry contest whatever, " religious," and in tlie very heat of tlie fight I could not avoid thinking, at the same time, what a refreshment to the soul, as well as to the body, must it be thus to retire from the field of theological controversy, bristling with points of angry dispute, like the bayonets of an opposing column on a field of battle, to the charming quiet and delightful occupa- tions of rural life. Soothing it must have been, to cease for a while a well-nigh hopeless struggle for a perfect unity of opinion, form, and faith, to contemplate the infinite and harmonious variety whicli pervades creation, and reflect, at the same time, what an abatement of utility and enjoyment it would have been, had God comprehended all this infinite diversity in one, and made all animals of one form, all vegetables of the same kind, and all flowers of the same color and fra- grance. Though I was far from being willing to censure this venerable man for anxiously and devoutly turning to the east, when he recited the articles of his creed, if he deemed it important so to do, I could not help thinking that he must sometimes turn his face to the west, to offer his evening sacrifice, when, standing upon the thrcsliold of his door, he saw before him the wide-spread ocean glitter- ing with matchless splendor, and the setting sun bathing in a flood of glory, and throwing his slanting beams over, a landscape as diversified and as beautiful as, within my observation, the pencil of nature has delineated. 358 EUROPEAN AGRICULTUKE. flavor superior, to any which I have seen brought directly from their own native region, — for the reason, perhaps, that the latter, as is understood, are gathered in a green state, and are left to ripen on the passage, usually crowded in bulk in the hold of a vessel. The grapes are magnificent in size, and delicious in taste. I cannot say that there are no native grapes, and none growing in the open air ; but I do not recollect meeting with any. It seems to me to be the humidity of the climate of England, rather than its low temperature, which prevents the ripening of many fruits and plants, which can be grown in an equally high latitude on the western continent. It remains to be seen what will be the result of that remarkable system of drainage, which is here pros- ecuted in different parts of the country with great spirit and resolution, and which bids fair, as so"on as any such great opera- tion can be expected to be effected, to become general, if not universal. Its sanatary effects upon the human, as well as the brute animal, are said to be already in some places determined. The smaller fruits — such as strawberries, raspberries, gooseber- ries, and currants — are cultivated with great success. Of a kind of strawberries, called the Alpine Pine, and more properly the Elton Pine, the size is most remarkable, ten of them, as I saw in the market of Dundee, where they are cultivated in perfection, actually Aveighing a pound avoirdupois. I saw others as large at the horticultural exhibitions, called by a different name ; but those were forced in pots in greenhouses. The gooseberries which I have seen on private tables, and in the markets, are of a very extraordinary size, the purple varieties being preferred. I cannot learn that they are as much subject, as in New England, to a species of mildew, or bluish mould, which soon becomes black, and ruins the fruit. Here they are always cultivated upon a single stem, in the form of a small tree, kept trimmed high, and entirely clear of all rubbish or weeds at the bottom. The disease, or blight, to which I refer, is not un- known here, but it is not common ; and the fruit is grown in the highest perfection. This disease may come from an unhealthy condition of the soil, or the application of improper manure ; but the general and most probable conclusion is, that it is atmos- pherical. It has appeared to me, that the climate of England, where they have far less sunshine, and much more dampness, than in the Northern United States, does not produce mould in the VEGETABLE AND FRUIT MARKETS. 359 houses upon plate, furniture, and books, so soon as it does with us, and provisions, both raw and cooked, appear " to keep sweet " longer. I do not undertake to give any scientific reason for this ; but it seems probable, that it arises from a more even tempera- ture, and the absence of that intense heat which, with us, often follows rain and dampness. The black ciUTant is almost as much cultivated as the red and white, and quite commonly eaten. Raspberries are cultivated ; but I have seen none to be comj)ared with the fine kinds common in the United States. Blackberries T have not seen cultivated. I have met with them in the south- ern parts of England, but ripening so late in the season that they have no richness of flavor.* Of plums there are several kinds : damsons are common ; the Orleans plum, the large egg-plum, resembling what I think is called, with us, Bolmar's Washington, are the most esteemed ; but they are not abundant, and 1 cannot say that those which I have seen are equal to those seen in the best markets of the United States, and especially, of all other places, at Albany, in New York, where this fruit is found in a degree of perfection and abundance which I have seen nowhere else. Cherries are * I am quite aware of the old proverb, " tliat there should be no dispute about matters of taste," and tliat it is perliaps quite too late iii the season ivitli myself, for me to discuss these matters. I remember very well when a half-grown, green, hard, sour apple, was as much relished by me as now a delicious Muscat grape ; but, alas ! " tlie times change, and we change with them." I will not complain. To complain would be ungrateful. There are tastes for all ages, as there are fruits and flowers for all seasons. I thanlv God every day of my life for the beau- tiful world in which he has placed me ; but I would not wish to be always young, any more than I would desire to be always old. I cannot say that I ever sighed for a perpetual summer ; for nature every where abounds in compensations. I ex- changed the bright, sunshiny days of my own country for the foggy and humid climate, and the cloudy and weeping skies, of England, Avliere sometimes I have scarcely seen the moon and stars for a month, and where, when the sun shows himself, one seems to recognize an acquaintance of former times. But what of that ? Habit and use reconcile us to various and ever-changing circumstances. I have become amphibious, like a true Englishman, and take a good wetting quite naturally. The moderate temperature of the climate has become agi'ee- able ; and even the cloudy skies seem better for my eyes than the bright ana dazzling snows of New England, in the" clear days of winter. Age itself, if it has not the vivacity of youth, and is sometimes oppressed with the consciousness of having not even half accomplished our duties and desires, brings with it many delicious treasures of memory, which, like good wine, lose nothing of tJieir sweet- ness by tiuie ; and hopes, which we would not exchange for all the pleasures of the whole of life's brightest summer, are daily approximating their fruition. 360 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, plenty in the market, and in great perfection ; the Tartarian, the bigarreau, and the large black-heart and mazard, predominate. Peaches, nectarines, and apricots, are seen occasionally at pri- vate tables ; and in great perfection, though in very small quan- tities, at the great market, and at some of the splendid fruit shops in London. Peaches are grown in favorable situations on open walls, but in general under glass, and early in the season are forced by an artificial climate. They are brought to great per- fection in appearance, and command, when first they appear in the market, two guineas, or about ten dollars and a half per dozen, as pine-apples cultivated here, at some times of the year, bring a guinea or thirty shillings sterling apiece, — that is, from five and a quarter to seven and a half dollars each ! One, in such cases, ceases to have any solicitude to know where the peaches or the pines come from, but is curious to learn where the guineas come from. To most of us, hoM'ever, unindoctrinated in the financial contrivances and complex labor- saving machinery of society, this inquiry seems hopeless, and generally ends in the conviction that wealth is very unequally distributed in this world, without any possibility of devising any practicable scheme for a more even and impartial adjustment. Suppose we could at once level all the waves of the sea, and produce a dead calm, and a perfectly even surface ; still it would seem that, while the drops on the top are glittering and radiating in the sunshine, a vast proportion of the drops must be underneath, or near the bottom, sustaining those at the top. The only hope in such case is that, in the continual fluctuations of the whole mass, amid the conflicts of under-currents and upper-currents, the spon- taneous eff"ervescence, and the turbulence of winds and storms, the lowest may often be brought to the surface, and the uppermost de- scend, and this continual change of place and position may give to all, in the long run, an equal chance.* This analogy, perhaps, * It is by no means tlie case, I am aM'are, that tlie low position is always to be commiserated. The place of humble obscurity is, in general at least, the place of safety, and is quiet and peaceful, while the surface is swept and disturbed by the violence of every storm. There is a measure of selfishness and narrowness in the conception of a charming poet, which is not to be approved, when, in the tones of pity and complaint, he says, — "Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air ; " as if the beauties of nature were made only for man's eyes, and as if the hum- VEGETABLE AND FRUIT MARKETS. 361 can scarcely be said to apply to a country, where the masses of wealth are the accumulations of centuries, and are fortified and hedged in by the strong iron fences and the bristling chevaux-de- frise of laws of entail and rights of primogeniture. It may serve better to illustrate a condition of society like that in the United States, where the paths of competition in the various departments of life are equally open to all — the condition of the laws and the habits of the country favor the more equal distribu- tion of wealth, and seem to forbid any extraordinary perma- nency to any large accumulations. Which condition is to be preferred, my reader must determine for himself The luxury in which the higher and wealthier classes in Eng- land live is, probably, unequalled in any country, and is, per- haps, not surpassed in the history of Roman grandeur or Oriental magnificence. They expend, whether willing or unwilling, with a profusion which it is difficult for those of us brought up in the school of restricted and humble means to understand ; and in respect to true liberality, there is probably the same diversity of disposition and character to be found as among those, who, instead of dispensing guineas, are obliged to keep their reckoning in pence and farthings. I do not forget that excessive wealth, as well as extreme penury, have each their peculiar moral dangers. But the liberal expenditures of the rich, even upon many articles of pure luxury, are a great public benefit. Certainly, no immoral indulgence is ever to be justified or excused. I do not say that it is the best appropriation of the money ; that point I shall not now discuss ; but certainly the person, who gives his two guineas for his dozen of peaches, encourages industry, rewards horticul- tural skill, stimulates improvement, excites a wholesome compe- tition, and would, surely, be doing much worse with them if he kept them parsimoniously and uselessly hoarded in his coffers. The apples, in England, are in general inferior, excepting for cooking purposes. The superiority of our Newton pippin is every where admitted and proclaimed. Of other of our fine ap- ples, — such as the golden russet, the Baldwin, the blue pearmain, and many others, — I have seen none, though it is not to be confi- blest flower did not perform its proper part in purifying the air, the great element of life to all animated existence, and regale many a sentient being by its fra- grance, and feed myriads upon its leaves, and yield to many a busy insect the precious honev from its expanded bosom. 31 362 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. dently inferred, from that circumstance, that none are imported. Large quantities of apples are sent from the United States to England, and sold to advantage.* The English have not yet learned the value of apples as food for stock. Many of the farmers in the United States, after repeated trials, both for fatting swine, for neat stock, and even for milch cows, rate them in value in the proportion of three bushels of apples as equal to two of potatoes. There are many parts of England, where apples might be cultivated to advantage for this very purpose, where the finest kinds might not ripen, but where the inferior sorts would be likely to yield abundantly. There are many hedgerows where they would grow to advan- tage ; and they certainly might be substituted, without loss to beauty, and with a clear gain to utility, for many thorn-trees, ash-trees, and others, which now stand in the parks and open grounds of the country. Of pears I have seen several good kinds, but none comparable to the Seckle or the Bartlett. This, however, may be mere matter of personal taste. Melons are grown only under glass, and by artificial heat. The English walnut grows abundantly, and is used both dried and for pickling ; and chestnuts are plen- tiful. The common shagbark, or hickory nut, I have not met with, though it is sometimes imported. Filberts are cultivated in the county of Kent for the market, on a gravelly soil, where they are raised on small bushes, or trees with one stem, and suf- fered to grow not more than five or six feet high. They grow together on the same ground with hops, and pear or apple-trees ; and the proportionate number of each to an acre, is stated at 800 hills of hops, 200 filberts, and 40 apple or pear-trees. " The * Small adventures sent in this way, as presents from friends to friends, are often so badly packed at home, and so adroitly unpacked on the passajje, and withal, are taxed with such a variety of charges in the transit, that one is com- pelled, from bitter experience, to give up a much greater pleasure than tliat of eating tlie fine fruit — the pleasure of enabling one's friends to eat it. The Chris- tians, as we arc called, have, at least many of them, very little honesty, and, one would be half inclined to think, live upon a system of piracy, or privateering, or reprisals, among tlicmselvcs. The Turks have more ; for all travellers assert that what is intrusted to their keeping, under a pledge of fidelity, is sure to be held sacred. The violator of such a trust, upon conviction, would be likely to find himself a head shorter. But then the Christians have a great deal more, and a truer, faith ; and after all, common honesty is a very homely virtue, which any body can practise if he would. VEGETABLE AND FRUIT MAKKETS. 363 hops are said to last twelve years, the filberts thirty, and after that, the apples and pears require the whole ground." The vegetables grown for table use are many of them in appearance of the finest kinds. The potatoes grown in England are in general of a superior quality, though I think them inferior to the potatoes grown in Nova Scotia. In Nova Scotia, they have not only the advantage of a climate as cool as that of England, but likewise of a virgin soil, which circumstances seem particularly favorable both to the growtli and the quality of the potato ; and nothing of the kind, which I have ever eaten, is equal to a fine Nova Scotia potato. In our old soils, sur- charged with manure, the potatoes are always inferior in quality. In Ireland, deemed of all other countries the adopted home of the potato, I was seldom able to find one that was even eatable. This arose, however, not from the quality of the root, but from the mode of cooking — the Irish always desiring, to use their own expression, -'to have a stone in the middle ; " so that the aim of the cook was only to boil, or rather scald, the outside of the potato, and leave the inside as hard as when it went into the pot. The advantage of this, as gravely stated to me, was that they were longer in digestion, and therefore gave more support. This may be sound philosophy in Ireland, where the stomachs of the poor find an equal difficulty in getting, as they do in keeping what they get. It would be inhuman to treat the extreme destitution of these poor wretches with any levity ; but I found this mode of cooking prevailing also at the tables of the rich and noble ; and after seeing such an abuse of one of the most useful and nutritious plants which come out of the earth, I was half inclined to advise them to try a few granite pebbles of a size to pass through a McAdam ring, and see whether they would not serve the digestive organs still longer. It was a curiosity to me in London, likewise, to see them selling in the market, by the quart, the small, not half-grown, not quarter- grown potatoes, not even so large as cherries, and many not larger than peas ; and these were bought up as luxuries. I should quite as soon think of sitting down to a dish of boiled bullets, or duck-shot ; and I should suppose with almost equal chance of nourishment. If it were such potatoes only, at which Cobbett launched his anathemas, one would not be surprised at his indignation. 364 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. It is a very great point to bring the earliest potatoes into the market, and I have seen them offered in Covent Garden Market as early as March. Indeed, by a method which I will presently explain, there would be little difficulty in having them at the coming in of the new year. In Penzance, in Cornwall, at the very south of England, where there are some parcels of most excellent soil, and great skill in its cultivation, where the winter is open and the climate very mild, and where, for this purpose, land is let at twenty pounds, or one hundred dollars per acre, large supplies of early vegetables, potatoes especially, are raised for the London markets. In this case, they are sprouted under and upon warm horse-dung, or under glass ; and are planted as early as February, and carefully attended, pains being taken to select the earliest kinds. The mode of sprouting them in this case is similar to that adopted by the excellent and spirited cul- tivators at West Cambridge, near Boston, where the sets are started, under a bed of fresh horse-dung, on the sunny and pro- tected side of a hill. I will here quote the directions of the celebrated Mr. Knight, president of the Horticultural Society, for raising early potatoes : which, it is obvious, can be applicable only to our mild and south- ern latitudes, where the winters are open. " Drills may be formed in a warm and sheltered situation, and in the direction of north and south, during any of the winter months, two feet apart, and seven or eight inches deep. Stable- dung, half decomposed, should be laid in the drills, and com- bined with the earth four inches downwards, and covered with some of the mould which had been thrown out in forming the drills, by the rake, to within four inches of the surface. The sets uncut arc then to be placed, with the crown-eye uppermost, in the centre of the furrow, four inches from each other, and to be covered with only an inch of mould at first, and afterwards with an occasional quantity of sifted ashes, until the plants are so vigorous and advanced as to require the usual earthing, of which, however, very little is necessary." Mr. Knight also used leaves as a lining at the side of the drills, in the early periods, to preserve as much warmth as possible, and better to guard against the effects of frost. The soil in tbis case should be light and dry, and not tenacious of water. It is recommended by some gardeners, early in the season, to lay the sets upon a floor in a VEGETABLE AND FRUIT MARKETS. 365 warm room, and occasionally sprinkle them with water, which will cause them to germinate. As soon as they have sprouted, cover them with some finely-sifted mould ; and the sets will be ready for transplanting at the earliest period. Another mode of obtaining early potatoes, not neio potatoes, which is, I am told, sometimes practised, is to plant potatoes only so early in the season, as that they shall be about half- grown at the usual time of taking them up. These may be taken up in the autumn, and replaced in earth ; and early in the succeeding spring they may be sold as new potatoes. I should be sorry, by any account of the deceptions and tricks practised in this old country, to be in any degree instrumental in corrupting the simplicity and true-heartedness of any of my own countrymen, who, good souls, may possibly never have heard of any such thing as trick or deception ! but excepting the lie in this case, the potatoes would be quite as good as the half-grown, waxy, new potatoes usually brought to market.* Potatoes are sold in the market by weight, fourteen pounds constituting a stone weight ; in Ireland, a stone of potatoes weighs sixteen pounds. In Ireland, the crop is measured by barrels, and an acre of ground is stated to have yielded so many barrels. Then the Irish acre differs very much from the English statute acre, being, I think, the former compared with the latter, as 196 to 121, or nearly 5 to 3, A barrel of potatoes in Ireland may contain five, or only three bushels, and the weight of the bushel of potatoes is not determined, though customarily esti- mated at 56 pounds. Few beans are cultivated for the table, excepting the Windsor bean, which is a coarse vegetable ; and a small bean, used like our string beans, and called the French bean. Our Lima bean, and other rich pole-beans, I have not met with. Peas are abundant in market, are brought in early, and continued late, and are of several different kinds, the Charl- ton pea (so called from the town where the earliest peas are * Nor, if they should be tempted to practise any such fraud, will I go so far as to recommend them, by way of encouragement or consolation, to read the chapter on Lying, in Paley's Moral Philosophy ; nor, above all, that celebrated treatise of the same exquisite master in casuistry, that perfect anodyne for weak consciences, the Letter on Subscription, in whicii he shows, with admirable skill, in how many different ways an honest man may subscribe the thirty-nine articles of the church without believing one of them. 31* 366 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. grown) being preferred as an early pea. In order to bring peas to early maturity, or rather to a state for sale, a ridge of land or high furrow is thrown np in a direction from east to west, and the peas are planted on the south side of this ridge at tlie bot- tom of the furrow. In this way the young plants are protected from the cold winds on one side, and enjoy the warm rays of the sun reflected on the other. This is a simple and excellent arrangement, especially in a climate where we may say, with some truth, that a handful of sunshine is worth much more than its weight in gold. Carrots and turnips are of the finest quality, and always sold in bunches. The orange carrot seems preferred for the table ; the Belgian white for stock. Onions are generally eaten small. They are planted early in the autumn, and gathered in July and August. Spinach, endive, cresses, lettuces, are always in the maricet, either forced or grown in the open ground. Blood- beets I have scarcely seen, either in the markets or on table, unless pickled in vinegar. The fine egg-plant, so common in the New York and Philadelphia markets, does not appear to be known here. That most luscious vegetable, the sweet potato, of course cannot be grown. I have once seen some for sale at a shop window, and, thinking I would indulge in a reminiscence of home, I found, on weighing, at the price asked, a single potato would be Is. &d. or 37^ cents. Of course it ended in inquiry ; and I was obliged to be satisfied with other forms of remem- brance. Of squashes, they can scarcely be said to have any. They have a very inferior kind, which they dignify with the name of vegetable marrow; but of our fine crook-neck and Canada squashes, or our autumnal vegetable marrow, nothing is seen, and their excellence cannot be appreciated without being tasted. Of our delicious green Indian corn, of course they have none. Cucumbers are always in the market. In the early part of the season, they are forced ; in the latter part of the season, they grow out of doors. Every possible pains is taken to protect their plants, as may be seen by the hundreds of hand- glass frames and bass mattings which are to be found in every extensive vegetable garden. There are four species of plants, or edible vegetables, in which, it must be admitted, the English markets cannot be surpassed, at least in the size of their products. They are asparagus. VEGETABLE AND FRUIT MARKETS. 367 rhubarb, cauliflowers, and cabbages. The asparagus and rhubarb are gigantic, the rhubarb more especially, which is often brought to market three and foiu- feet in length, and of the size of a woman's arm — some women of course excepted. The early asparagus is forced under glass ; the later is forced in the open ground by all the appliances of manure. The quantity of rhubarb consumed is enormous, for it comes not in baskets, but piled up in four-horse wagons in bulk. The asparagus shows the want of sun, and appears as if grown in a cellar, the mere head of the early kinds being the only part eatable. I think Cobbett somewhere says, that " the English do not know how to eat asparagus, for they always begin at the white end." I have not myself observed among them any remarkable deficiency of gastronomical science ; but certainly, in this case, they have not far to go to find a white end. Sea-kale or Scotch kale is very much eaten early in the season. It is blanched under cover, and is a delicious vegetable, that is, for those whose taste agrees with mine. The Jerusalem artichoke seems a favorite vege- table with most persons.* One of the principal vegetables found in the market, and this at all seasons, is cauliflower ; and it is certainly grown here in perfection. They are sown, for the next year's use, some time in August, in hotbeds, and are transplanted into the open ground in February. They, of course, before being transplanted, are cul- tivated under glass, and for some time after they require protec- tion. They are a frequent, and almost an invariable dish at well-furnished tables. Cabbages likewise are brought into the market with a profusion absolutely astounding, which itself * In this case I am in the minority. I have not studied under Mrs. Brings, or Dr. Kitchener, or I would inform my readers how tliey are cooked. Under mod- ern refinements, meats, and vegetables, and fruits, come to table as much dis- guised, as were men and women at tlie late bal-costume of tlie queen, when nothing nearer than engages or attaches knew each other, — and that, cither by magnetic clairvoyance or previous arrangement ; and it is said, (I do not vouch for its truth,) some nobleman addressed his valet as " my lord ; " and some gentlemen, like the Smitlifiold drovers in penning their cattle at night, as I have described, had to look carefully for some private mark, to be sure that they had got their own wives to carry home with tliem. I would not insinuate that tlie English wives, exem- plary as tliey are for their fidelity, were not as anxious to be found, as tlicir hus- bands were to find them. Sometimes I agree in a remark, often quoted by per- sons who are not veiy abstemious in the use of strong language, that " Heaven sends us meats, but" T had rather not say who " sends us cooks.^ 368 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. shows how much they are eaten. One would be disposed to consider them as the favorite vegetable of the English. The early ones of course are forced in hotbeds and transplanted ; and a constant succession is kept up. I have sometimes seen in the market, at one time, very early in the morning, many large four-horse wagon-loads of cabbages, lettuces, and rhubarb, all distinct, and piled up in the most beautiful manner, with a pre- cision which is admirable ; and when I have had the curiosity to inquire how many heads of cabbage were on a single load, the answer has been, two hundred and twenty-five dozen. The celery brought into market is, like the rhubarb, gigantic. The solid-stalked is greatly preferred. It is finely blanched. It is not so agreeable for eating as a smaller-sized plant, but it shows the perfection of cultivation. The celery, like the rhubarb and the lettuce, is brought into market in the neatest manner. Nothing is tumbled into the carts, or thrown out upon the ground topsy-turvy, or indiscriminately. Even the heads of lettuce are every one of them tied with a string of bass matting ; and when presented in the stalls, the various articles are arranged with great care — I may add, with taste, and a view to effect. In looking down from the high bridge, in Edinburgh, upon the vegetable and fruit market below, and observing the arrangement of the different articles in the stalls, the intermingling of the white cauliflowers with the purple cabbages, the orange carrots, the yellow turnips, and the red beets, and other articles of various hues, like the colors in a Turkey carpet, the eff'ect is really picturesque and beautiful. I have gazed at them repeat- edly with much pleasure. The same remarks apply to the arrangements in the London markets. I know some will say. What is the use of all this ? I have just given the answer. It gave me, and it gives others, pleasure. That is reason enough, if there were no other. I think in this respect we have a good deal to learn. There is a natural concord or harmony among all the senses, and the stomach seems better satisfied when that which enters it gives pleasure to the eye. Suppose that our fine rare-ripe peaches were a dingy black, instead of presenting, as they now do, a sample of that most lovely and perfect inter- mingling of colors to be found in nature — such as the soft blend- ing of red and white in the leaf of the damask rose, or, in a still more radiant form, on the cheek of virgin beauty and innocence; VEGETABLE AND FRUIT MARKETS. 369 I think in such case we should cat them v/ith a far inferior rehsh. Grapes of the very finest description are produced in England, but wholly, as I have already remarked, by artificial culture. This, of course, places them beyond the reach of the great mass of the people ; but they are always found on the tables of the wealthy and noble. In the stalls of Covent Garden Market, they present themselves in such a rich and luscious display, as to tempt a visitor to break at least one of the commandments ; and, if it were not for the plate glass, which protects them, it might be, another also. This interposition is certainly humane, as a violation of the latter commandment referred to, under the lynx- eyed system of espionage necessarily practised here, might place one in an awkward position. The violation of the command- ment of not coveting what we cannot possess, must be settled in another court. I can only hope that human weakness will be considered ; for, in passing from one part of London to the other, and among the shops crowded with the splendid productions ol" nature, refined and embellished by the highest art and skill, with all the means of sensual gratification, with every thing to min- ister to luxurious indulgence, to feed the animal appetite, and the often more hungry intellect, and to delight and gratify the fastidious and cultivated taste, it requires a most rigid self-control, so far as our desires are concerned, to keep the peace, from day to day, with one's own conscience. One of the best gardeners in England has given me some instructions on the management of grapes, which some of my readers may be glad to receive : — " With regard to the best way to manage the vine, when fruiting, I invariably stop the shoot one eye above the bunch ; and it is the practice of the best gardeners in England. I gen- erally leave one shoot not stopped without fruit, and to fruit next season, and cut the shoots out that have borne fruit this year. On the short-spur system, every shoot is stopped an eye above the bunch, except the top one, and then it must be managed like the rest ; all the lateral shoots must be stopped one eye above another, until they cease groAving, as, the more leaves you get, the fruit will swell larger." I should add more on the cultivation of this delicious fruit, but I know it is very well understood in the United States, ^70 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. where the best grapes grown are not, within my knowledge, surpassed for size, abundance, and flavor. So, at least, I thought them before I left home ; but in my long exile, in order to keep down a dreadful homesickness that sometimes makes sleep almost as much a stranger to my pillow as though it was stuffed with McAdam's angular stones, I try to think, like the fox in the fable, that the American grapes are sour. But I cannot do it. Affections, which no time nor distance can quench or abate, defy every such idle effort ; and memory returns, with all its sensibilities quickened, and all its delicious colorings heightened and embellished, to triumph over the impotence of the reso- lution. There is another article abounding in the markets here, which, though by no means unknown in the markets of the United States, is not common ; and therefore, from the same intelligent gardener, I shall give the best account I could obtain of the mode of cultivating them. I mean, mushrooms. There are few exten- sive gardens without a mushroom-house, which is a dark room fitted up with shelves, and with the means of producing the desired temperature. " The cultivation of mushrooms in the winter months, in order to have a daily supply, requires a house for the purpose. The house at Welbeck is divided into four tiers of shelves, three shelves in each tier. The shelves are ten inches deep, [that is, a sort of boxes, like the berths on board ship. — H. C] " The first three shelves are generally filled about the begin- ning of September, as the field mushrooms begin to go out then. The material used to fill tlie shelves is pure horse-dung drop- pings, without any straw. It is suffered to ferment a little before being put in, and beaten quite hard with a wooden mallet. As soon as the heat decreases to 65° by the thermometer, or ascer- tained by a piece of wood thrust in, to see that the burning heat is gone off, the bed may be spawned, by opening holes two inches deep in the dung, and putting in bits of spawn about the size of a walnut, nine inches each way, all over the bed. It is then covered with two or three inches of good fresh loam from a pasture field. If a little road-scrapings is added to the loam, it helps to bind it, which is important, as a great deal of the success of the crop depends on the soil and dung being incorporated into one solid mass, not liable to crack, or get too dry. The soil VEGETABLE AND FRUIT MARKETS. 371 must be beaten with the mallet, like the dung, quite smooth and hard all over. In eight days after spawning, the bed will be covered with a whitish substance, which shows that the spawn is running all through it, and that the heat is right. " Mushrooms generally appear in six weeks after making the bed, if the temperature of the house is kept from 55° to 60°. They are very impatient of too much water ; and water is required to be put on them only with a fine watering-pot rose ; and that when the bed gets dry ; and it should be always of the same temperature as the house, or it chills all the young ones, and the crop never lasts so long. If hot-water pipes are used to heat the house, there is no occasion for watering. We generally make fresh beds every month, to keep up a succession all through the year, excepting the months they come naturally in the open fields. " Mushrooms may be grown in winter in a dark cellar, where there is no artificial heat, by covering the top of the ridges, or box, with good dry hay, at least ten inches thick. They will not come in so quickly as in a house kept at a steady temper- ature, but will keep in bearing a great deal longer, so that one good bed will last all through. As a good deal of the success of growing mushrooms depends on the goodness of the spawn, it is necessary to get it from some respectable niu-serymen, who gen- erally sell it in the shape of bricks. Its quality may easily be ascertained, if good, by breaking it, and seeing it full of white threads, and the smell is exactly like a mushroom. If it smells musty, it has lost its vegetative powers. It will keep good for a year or two, if kept dry, and out of the power of frost. The best is made in London about Battersea, where many cows and horses are pastured in the fields. The old droppings are taken from the surface where the natural mushrooms grow, and mixed with fresh horse-dung, and cut into the shape of bricks. There is always good spawn in the old beds, which may be preserved to put into new ones." I have gone thus fully into this, as it may appear to some, unimportant subject, because, as a vegetable, this plant is es- teemed a great delicacy ; and next, because of the great quan- tities of ketchup which are used, and which may be manufac- tured in the country, and of which mushrooms are the principal material. 372 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. Pines, or pine-apples, are, as I have remarked, cultivated to a large extent, and with the greatest success, in the hot-houses of the affluent, where fire heat is employed ; but in Cambridge- shire I found them cultivated, with great success, in common hotbeds. The beds were formed in the usual way ; and in order to keep up the heat, or renew it when it declined, addi- tional supplies of fresh stable manure were applied, from time to time, to the sides of the bed. The plants were healthy, and fruited well ; and so far as the quality of the fruit goes to ap- prove the mode of growing, I will say, on my own knowledge, better need not be desired. I have one remark to make in regard to English vegetables and fruits, that will not, I hope, be deemed ill-humored, — which is, that, though cultivated with extraordinary skill, with the exceptio'ns I have above named, they are tasteless, and without that fine relish which one would like to find. I think it is Voltaire who says " that the only ripe fruit to be found in Eng- land is a baked apple." I cannot accede to a censure so sweep- ing ; but it is plain that their fruits and vegetables want ripeness and flavor. This may arise partly from a deficiency of heat from the sun, and partly from the excessive forcing of their vegetables, in the vicinity of large markets, by unlimited quan- tities of manure. I know how difficult it must be to make an Englishman believe this statement ; for under the national peculiarity of a large endowment of self-esteem, which their Anglo-Saxon descendants over the water seem to have inherited, (and sometimes, I think, with a considerable enlargement of the organ, from long cultivation,) a genuine Englishman thinks that nothing out of his own country can possibly be so good as what is to be found in it. Now, in intellectual fruits, and the products of art and science, I will not dispute their preeminence — only hoping that, while they are reposing upon their laurels, a young and ambitious rival, in a fair and generous competition, may be up with them as soon as possible, and distance them, if he can. But climates and sunshine are not under human control ; and the fact which I have stated is in my mind established, and not the result of mere prejudice, of which, on any subject, if I were conscious of it, I should be ashamed. MARKET GARDENS. LX. — MARKET GARDENS. 373 My remarks above have chiefly referred to the supply of vegetables in London. There are large markets in all the prin- cipal towns ; but it is difficult to conceive the amount required for the supply of this mammoth city, with its two million hungry mouths, not one of whom, scarcely, in any direct form, produces a single mouthful for himself. The extent of the vegetable gardens in the neighborhood of this great city is enormous, and the multiplied facilities of con- veyance make even remote places, now, in many articles the suppliers of London. Fifty years ago, it was calculated that there were two thousand acres cultivated by the spade, and eight thousand by the spade and plough conjointly. The extent of cultivation must, of course, be at present much greater. It is said of one individual that he had eighty acres in asparagus, and of another that he had sixty, and that the forming of the beds was estimated at £100 per acre. This undoubtedly was utider the old system of growing asparagus, when the soil was to be taken out to a depth of some feet, and a bed of stones placed at the bottom, and other expensive arrangements. Now, asparagus is grown almost as easily as carrots or celery, it only requiring to be first grown in a nursery or seed bed, and then transplanted in the bottom of deep furrows or trenches, made two feet dis- tance from each other, well bedded with manure, and the bed itself kept constantly clean, and annually covered with a loading of manure in the autumn, which must be dug in with a fork in the spring. This, in three years from the seed, gives as good and abundant a plant as under the old method of trenching and bottoming with stones, and laying a foot of manure on the stones. The amount of vegetables sent by some individual salesmen is enormous. The principal market-days are three times in a week, but Saturday is the principal day ; and it is confidently stated — though in relating it I fear that some persons may think the credulity of their too-confiding countryman has been })rac- tised upon — that a single grower has been known to send, in one day, more tlian nineteen hundred bushels of peas in the pod, and seven or eight loads of cabbages, averaging eighteen hundred cabbages each ; and at another season, from the same farm, four- 32 374 EUROPEAN AGlllCULTURE. teen or fifteen hundred baskets of sprouts will be sent in one day, and in the course of the year from five to six thousand tons of potatoes. In his account of the agriculture of Middlesex, Middleton says, that in 1795, in the height of the fruit season, each acre of the gardens cultivated in small fruits gave employ- ment to thirty-five persons, among whom were many women, who were employed in carrying the fruit to market on their heads ; and that the gathering of a crop of peas required forty persons for every ten acres. The account given of the sum of money received from the produce of a single acre is quite worthy of remark, it being the statement of a market-gardener. Radishes, £10; cauliflower, £60; cabbages, £30; celery, first crop, £50 ; second crop, £40 ; endive, £30, — making a total of £220, or 1100 dollars, for the gross produce of an acre in twelve months.* Besides the market which London presents for the disposal of the products of these immense gardens, it is to be remembered that labor may be procured at an hour's notice, at any season and for any term, and at a low rate of wages. The farmer or gar- dener is therefore saved the burden of keeping up an expensive establishment for any longer time than their services are needed; with this addition, that he makes no provision whatever, at any time, for housing or feeding them. Any person, who has had the management of a large farm in the United States, knows quite well, that the sum of all its difficulties is in the feeding * What some persons may deem the intrinsic improbability of such accounts, will disappear, when one considers that, in London, every thing, and any thing, may be sold, and may find purchasers, excepting only, I believe, children. These are to be given away; for it is a sober truth, that in the streets of London I have been repeatedly offered the present of children, and that from the breast too, tliough none the better for thnt, if I would take them. Whether it is, by a sort of natural phrenological skill, they discover my philoprogenitiveness to be large, or from a destitution, the bitterness of which extinguishes the maternal affections, or from a profligacy even more bitter, and more deeply to be deplored, (in too many cases tlie pitiable consequence of this destitution,) this is not the place for me to con- sider. But it is for my own countrymen to consider, with the deepest religious o-ratitude, the difference between a condition of things in which children are felt to be a burden, and almost a curse, and that in which a healthy and perfect child may be looked upon always as a choice blessing from Heaven ; and the more hungry mouths, and sparkling eyes, gather round the well-filled board of the humblest cottager, morning, noon, and night, so much the more, m fact, are the means of supply increased, and the parental heart filled to overflowing with joy and love MARKET GARDENS. 375 and managemetit of the human machinery. In the next place, here there is no want of capital with persons who undertake such occupations ; and it is applied with liberality wherever there is a chance of using it to projfit. This is a great consid- eration, wherever capital may be safely and advantageously applied to land. We often hear the counsel given to cultivate a little land well, rather than a large extent of land imperfectly. In the main, this is sound advice on the score of profit. But in agriculture, viewed as a commercial transaction, the profits will correspond with the amount of capital invested or employed. Large returns are to be expected only from cultivating a large extent of land ; or, in other words, pursuing agriculture as a man, who would command success, pursues any other branch of trade, by devoting his time, talents, and zeal to it, and applying all the means within his reach to its advancement. "While " Little boats should keep near shore, Vessels larjje may venture more." The man who, as above, can cultivate one acre of ground with such eminent success, may cultivate one hundred with similar profit, provided he can give to it the same requisite attention, provided a sufficiency of labor and manure are equally attainable, and provided, likewise, the market is equally sure and favorable for the disposal of his products. Whether capital can in any particular case be profitably applied to agriculture, must depend upon a great variety of local and temporary circum- stances. It is so with commerce, and with most other branches of business. No human power or skill can control the vicissi- tudes of the climate and the weather; but the contingencies on which the success of agriculture depends are perhaps not so great as those on which the success of mercantile transactions depends. It is idle to expect reward without labor, fruit with- out seed, profit without risk, success without eftort, — unless in those games of mere chance, of which sober men will beware, and in which there are always vastly more losers than winners, and many more blanks than prizes. The great want with most of our farmers is clearly want of capital, to apply to the land in labor, or manure, or in the way of permanent improvements of drainage and irrigation, which change at once the whole face of a country. The main elements of success in agriculture are the same as in any other profession, — skill, judgment, application, 376 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. industry, and capital, either in the form of education, money, oi credit ; the risks are not greater : the road to a reasonable com petence, which is all to which a good mind should anxiously aspire, is as certain as is common in human affairs ; extraordi nary success — which I do not say it is criminal to desire, but even lawful to aim at — is not unfrequently attainable: but, what is better than all, the gains of agriculture, where the labor by which those gains are secured is honorably and justly providec for, and its products disposed of without any betrayal of con- science, are so unalloyed, so untainted by corruption, so clearly in themselves not the occasions of privation, but the very in- struments of good to others, that one reposes on them with entire and grateful complacency, and their value to the winner is more than quadrupled. My friends, I know, will pardon my en- thusiasm, which, like a half-smothered fire, is continually bursting out in this way. If it sometimes sheds a flickering light by its blaze, it never burns to destroy ; and if, in respect to that noble pursuit which Heaven first ordained for man, it awakens in any pure and honest minds, not crazed with speculation nor hardened and corrupted by the too common tricks of trade, any gentle vibrations of sympathy, I shall feel that my two mites have found their way into the great treasury of public good. The eminent success of the market-gardeners near London depends on several circumstances in their management, which I will point out. In the first place, the land is thoroughly drained, so as not only to cut off the springs which might render the wetness of the land permanent, but likewise to carry off speedily the rain which falls. In the next place, the land is completely trenched, to the depth of from two to three feet, with the spade. This serves two purposes ; first, to assist in the drainage by giving a free passage into the principal conduits of the rain as it comes down ; and next, to enable the roots of the plants freely to extend themselves in search of food. In trenching, it is necessary to keep the top soil at the top, and not to bring the lower stratum to the surface, or to suffer a large portion of the cold earth to be mingled with the rich mould. This requires some little calcula- tion. The soil of the first trench made across the field must be completely thrown out ; and so likewise the top soil of the second trench. The bottom soil of the second trenching is then to be thrown into the vacant space of the first, and the top soil MARKET GARDENS. 377 of the third line upon that. Things will then come rightly into their places, the bottom soil being always thrown upon the bot- tom, the top soil upon the top, while at the end of the piece trenched, that which was first thrown out must be brought and replaced. The third point particularly attended to, is ample manuring. For this object they have always plentiful stores on iiand, to be applied as may be desired ; the old hotbeds, when broken up, furnishing large quantities in that decomposed state, in which only is its application safe in respect to many kinds of plants. Manure is sometimes applied in a solid and sometimes in a liquid form. Sometimes, when the ground is dug, the manure is dug in with it ; sometimes it is laid on the surface ; sometimes it is used with every successive crop, at other times with the first crop only : but all these are matters directly dependent upon experi- ence and practice, and which it would be impossible, in such a report as this, particularly to define. Manure, in its coarsest state, is seldom applied to garden vegetables ; and it is found expedient, in respect to liquid manures, to apply them in a diluted and mixed form. The next point aimed at, is to avoid the immediate repe- tition of the same crop on the same ground ; for, though manure may be had in abundance, yet the second and third crops gradu- ally become deteriorated. Chemistry has not yet determined with precision how this evil, if so it is to be regarded, is to be counter- acted. It is strongly hoped that this may be one of its first achievements. Most of what it has yet given us in the case is theory. What we want is practical and efficient rules by which the health and strength of the declining patient may be at once and with certainty recovered. The next object is, to have a suc- cession of crops, one crop often growing between the rows of another, and prepared to take its place as soon as it is removed, so that there is no respite of the cultivation, while the season allows of it ; and near London, with the help of straw covering, and mats, and glasses, some plants are on the ground all the year. For this object, and to counteract the effect of the seasons, the most extensive preparation is made ; articles are prepared of brush, of matting and straw, and hand-glasses, or boxes with glass tops, and, to guard against insects, boxes with coarse gauze tops are prepared in the greatest abundance, and changes of the temperature and weather are watched with the most sedulous care. Hot and forcing beds, likewise, and conserva- 32* 378 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. tories, and hothouses, are made ready in the most extensive forms, for the purpose of forwarding plants to be set out at proper seasons, and for the growing of those plants which require artificial heat. Lastly, irrigation is as much as practicable attended to, and engines, and watering-pots, and other contri- vances, are in constant requisition for these purposes, and as far as they can be applied. The science of gardening is here a substantial science ; and young men are as carefully educated in its various departments as in any of the learned professions, and receive a patronage according to their skill and merit. Under such circumstances, the market gardens near London are man- aged with a skill and enterprise worthy of all praise, and sure of rewards much more substantial. LXI. — COVENT GARDEN MARKET. The great market in England for vegetables, fruits, and flowers, is the market of Covent Garden, without question a corruption for Convent, as this place is miderstood to have been formerly the garden of the convent, and connected with the establishment of Westminster Abbey. The whole square included in the market- place is said to embrace five acres ; but this, I think, must take in the buildings, dwelling-houses, hotels, shops, &c., forming the exterior boundary of the square. In the centre of this square is the market-house, of which no verbal description can convey a very exact idea to the reader. It combines open stalls and close shops, sellers within and on the outsides, with a long hall or arcade, running through the centre, sixteen feet in width, and fitted up with shops on each side, and with shelves projecting into the passage, which are spread out with all the fruits and flowers of the season. 1. Fruits and Vegetables. — The outer stalls are for tlie coarser vegetables, potatoes, cabbages, &c., and for tlie common foreign fruits. This is by no means tlie only vegetable and fruit market in London, but it is the principal one ; and some of the other markets, and many of the fruit-shops, scattered over Lon- COVENT GARDEN MARKET. 379 don, receive their supplies from Covent Garden. There is hardly any season of the year when every variety of fruit and vege- tables, which can be forced, is not to be found in this market ; and in the proper seasons a great variety is to be found, the product of natural and artificial culture, in the highest perfection. The sale of dried foreign fruits is here likewise immense. Eng- land can scarcely be considered as a fruit country, and the high prices charged for the iiiiest fruits place them beyond the reach of all but the most wealthy classes. Two shillings, or half a dollar, for a single peach, — and at no season are they much less than half that sum, and many other fruits in proportion, — render them forbidden fruit to the great multitude. In quantity, Covent Garden is limited compared with the city of London, which it is intended to supply ; but it is high tide here on a market-day, at daylight in the morning, when the wholesale market-men supply the retailers, and the streams from this fountain flow into and permeate every part of the city and its neighborhood. The market in Farringdon Street occupies as much ground as Cov- ent Garden, but this embraces butchers' stalls as well as fruits and vegetables, Covent Garden presents an interesting spectacle on a great market-day, at 4 o'clock in the morning, when the wholesale business commences, and the retailers, seeking supplies for their different stalls, and the occupants of stalls in other markets, and the keepers of vegetable shops in the town, and the various itinerant dealers, who penetrate all the by-places and streets in different parts of the town and the vicinity, come to make their purchases. This occupies two or three hours ; and a busier scene is hardly to be witnessed. All the smaller articles — gooseberries, currants, peas, beans, new potatoes, apples, &c. — are brought in baskets ; cabbages, lettuces, rhubarb, celery, &c., in bulk, as 1 have described. Peas, in Covent Garden Market, are shelled be- fore they are sold, and after they come out of the hands of the wholesale dealer. These come frequently in sacks. It is an inter- estins sight to see the poor and squalid women and young girls, who come to earn a few pence by shelHng the peas, sitting about in different squads, (and I have counted at one time as many as eiglity in one party,) all busily engaged in this occupation at about one penny, or two cents, per quart. Raspberries and straw- berries are brought in small cone-shaped baskets, containing little 380 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. more than a pint ; and these are usually brought long distances on the heads of women. It is said that these women, who carry such heavy loads upon their heads, are principally from Wales, and that many of them, for example, come into market twice a day from Brentford, where great quantities of strawberries are raised, and return ; and this is a distance of more than seven miles, making at least thirty miles in a day. To such endurance may even a woman's frame be trained. Many of the milk- women in London, who carry their milk in large tin cans slung from their shoulders, and containing from six to eight gallons each, travel long distances in the course of the day. But the most remarkable instance of strength and endurance is perhaps to be found in the fish-women of Edinburgh, who attend the market from New Haven and Musselboro'. Their load, which is in two baskets, one over the other, containing different kinds of fish, slung upon their backs, often weighs 150. lbs., and has been known to weigh 200 lbs. The distance from New Haven to Edinburgh is more than two miles, and in this distance they stop to rest but once only ; and after their arrival they are to be found crying their fish in all parts of the town. How many of the Chestnut Street, or Washington Street, or Broadway belles would it require to lift even one of these loads from the ground ? Yet these market and milk-women, and the fish-women of Edinburgh, are perfect models of health and strength. The latter — with their elephantine arms and legs, their bright, clean caps, and fair com- plexions, their firm tread, and their stentorian lungs, with their gay costume of various colors, and their five petticoats, so arranged in difl"erent lengths that a portion of each may he dis- played — are among the most picturesque, and not unpleasing, objects of that beautiful city. The advantage of bringing the finer fruits to the market in this way is. that they come in the best possible condition. The wholesale business being completed, the growers of the produce return home, and the marketing goes at once into the hands of the shopmen and retail dealers, who are, in general, residents in the city. 2. Flowers. — Having said so much of the vegetables and fruits, I must not omit another article in Co vent Garden Market, of which the sale is immense, — that is, flowers. In the winter COVENT GARDEN MARKET. . 381 they are sent here from the greenhouses ; at more genial seasons, from various gardens and conservatories in the neighborhood. They are displayed in the greatest profusion and perfection, and are, undoubtedly, a large source of income to the cultivators. The English appear to me to Iiave a strong passion for flowers, and I commend their taste. A country house, without its plantation of flowers and flowering shrubs, would be quite an anomaly ; and many of the humble and moss-grown cottages have their small gardens of flowers, their doors trellised with wood- bines and honeysuckles, and their outer walls covered with a thick mantling of ivy, and made gay with the sweetbrier and the monthly rose. The door-yards of the English, in the coun- try, their windows, their halls, their palaces, are all decorated with flowers ; they are among the most beautiful ornaments at their festivals ; and even the highest charms of female loveliness are studiously augmented by these innocent and splendid adorn- ments. Looking out of my window a short time since, I saw that the laborer wheeling his barrow before the door had his button-hole decorated with a beautiful geranium. I went into the street, and the driver of the omnibus, whom I first met, wore a handsome nosegay. I met a bridal party, and, besides the white favors worn by all the servants in attendance, each one had a bunch of flowers at his breast. I met the crowd of magnificent equipages hastening to a drawing-room to pay their courtly homage to a sovereign queen, whose virtues and most exemplary demeanor render her worthy of the homage of true affection and respect ; and every lady bears in her hand a magnificent bouquet ; and the coachmen and the footmen seem to emulate each other in the gayety and beauty of the flowers which they all wear. At St. Paul's, at the opening of the term of courts, the long procession of grave and learned judges, who then go in state to church, appears, each one, with an elegant nosegay in his hand. At the opera, upon the breathless and successful competitors for public favor, in the midst of a tem- pest of applause, descends a perfect shower of floral wreaths and '•ich bouquets. I sympathize heartily in this taste of the English for flowers, which thus pervades all ranks, and, flowers being accessible to all, and among the most innocent and the cheapest of all pleasures, diffuses a vast amount of enjoyment. They are, indeed, among 382 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. the richest adornments of God's beautiful creation, and every where, in the tangled forest, in the most secluded thicket, on the ocean prairies, and even upon the desolate heaths, are scat- tered about in such an endless variety and profusion as cannot fail to impress a reflecting and devout mind with the most grateful veneration and delight. As for those persons who can see no good and no utility in any thing beyond that which fills the belly, or covers the back, or puts money into the pocket, they are of the earth, earthy. Such grovelling selfishness and animalism I trample under foot with ineffable scorn. But the cultivation of flowers does much for the benefit of the mind. A taste for objects so pure expels a taste for others, which are unworthy. A passion for what is beautiful and refined in nature often secnres the mind from the intrusion of passions low and hurtful. Every advance, which is made in any direction for the improvement of the taste or the refinement of manners, is so much done for the general comfort of social life and for ffood morals. LXII. — GENERAL MARKETS. Besides the markets to which I have referred, there is a market in London exclusively for the sale of raw hides and leather ; and in various parts of the country markets are held, at fixed times and places, for the sale of wool, and of butter and cheese. These generally go under the name of fairs ; and I do not think they can be too soon established in the most populous districts of our country. There may be evils, but there are great and overbal- ancing advantages, attending them. The large dealers attend in numbers to make their purchases, and both sides have equal ben- efits from an extended competition. Prices assume an equal and a fair rate. The farmer may feel, ordinarily, quite sure of a market for his produce at a fixed time, and to receive his money, instead, as now, of depending almost upon accident for a pur- chaser. Last, but not among the least of the benefits of the markets in question, is the wholesome emulation Avhich is created by bringing diff'erent articles of produce into comparison GENERAL MARKETS. 383 with each other. The producer of an inferior article is stimulated by the success of his neighbor to produce a better ; agricultural information becomes generally diiTused: and thus agricultural improvement is essentially advanced. Should such markets be established, the most stringent rules should be adopted for their management ; but, above all things, all trickery and fraud should be eschewed and denounced. A man guilty of it should be so branded with infamy, that he should never presume to show himself there a second time. Men, under such circumstances, would be sure to discover that "honesty is the best policy." In London, there are markets for the exclusive sale of poultry and game, and in Dublin, I found one wholly devoted to the sale of eggs. The amounts here collected and disposed of almost surpass belief. The statement of a respectable witness and cus- tom-house agent, recently, before a parliamentary committee, is quite remarkable. He said that there were five vessels annually engaged in that trade between Normandy, on the coast of France, and London, which brought about 3700 tons of eggs in the year. Ten cases went to a ton, and from 1000 to 1200 were in each case. This trade was betAveen Cherbourg, Harfleur, Caen, and Portsmouth. Forty millions of eggs were annually imported through this channel alone. Some one asks very emphatically, " Why should they not be produced at home ? "* * " The value in money of one seemingly unimportant article, eggs, taken, in the course of the year, from Ireland to tlie ports of Liverpool and Bristol, amounts to at least £100,000. The progress of this trade affords a curious illustration of the advantages of commercial facilities in stimulating production and equalizing prices. Before tlie establishment of steam-vessels, the market at Cork was most irregularly supplied with eggs from tlie surrounding district ; at certain seasons tliey were exceedingly abundant and cheap, but these seasons were sure to be followed by seasons of scarcity and high prices ; and at times, it is said to have been difficult to purchase eggs in the market at any price. At the first opening of tlie improved channel for conveyance to England, the residents at Cork liad to complain of the constant high price of this and other articles of farm produce ; but as a more extensive market was now permanently open to them, the farmers gave tlieir attention to the rearing and keeping of poultry ; and at the present time, eggs are procurable at all seasons in the market at Cork ; not, it is true, at the extremely low rate at which they could, formerly, be sometimes bought, but still at much less than the average price of the year. A like result has fol- lovv-ed the introduction of this great improvement in regard to the supply and cost of various other articles of produce. In the apparently unimportant article fcatlicrs, it may be stated, on the respectable authority above quoted, that the yearly impor- tation into England, from Ireland, reaches the amount of £500,000 sterling." — Porter's Progress of the JVation, vol. iii. 83. 384 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. Markets of a general character are held once or twice a week in all the principal towns ; and in those cases where the farms are small, the farmers' wives and daughters will be seen going six or eight miles on foot, or in vans, (i. e. lumber and freight coaches or wagons, ) to sell the week's product of their dairy or their poultry-yard. In this case, they are always found, with their neat baskets upon their arms, in a particular part of the market as- signed to them. Their neatness of dress and person commend them to attention. It requires some courage to elbow your way among them, if you do not design to be a purchaser ; and their chaffering and courteous solicitations to buy, with the emphatical recommendations of the articles for sale, together with the usual chatter and gossip to be expected among such a collection of gude wives and bonnie lasses, are sufficiently amusing. ¥' 1 mm EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. FIFTH REPOET. LXII. — GENERAL MARKETS. (Continued.) 1. Market at Derby. — Nothing can be more miscellaneous than an English country market ; and my readers may be grati- fied with the partial account which I took of one of them as I went through it. This may be considered as a fair sample of others. Many of the goods are spread upon the ground, or under temporary stalls or booths erected for the purpose. Every seller pays a certain tax to the town for permission to sell, or for the load of goods brought into market. This toll is generally col- lected at the entrance of the town, as it is to this day in Lon- don, from ev^ery loaded vehicle which enters the city. This market was held in the open square at Derby, and the stalls were chiefly attended by women. 1. Nails and tacks. 2. Old iron, chains, &c. 3. Cutlery of various sorts. 4. Shoes and boots. 5. Hats and caps. G. Hosiery. 7. Millinery. 8. Iron ware. 9. Tin and copper ware. 10, Various kinds of female dress, caps, laces, &:.c. 11. Household furniture, old and new. 12. Brushes, mops, &c. 13. Bread. 14. Bacon and salted pork. 15. Muslins and caps in upturned umbrellas on the ground. 16. Children's toys. 17. Combs and paste. 18. Flour. 19. Butter and cheese. 20. Fish of various kinds. 21. Baskets. 22. Old books. 23. Sofas, bureaus, and tables, 24, Crockery ware and glass ware of various kinds on the ground — a great many sellers. 25. Glass ware in abundance.. 33 386 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 26. Rabbits and game. 27. Poultry. 28. Meats of various kinds. 29. Vegetables and fruits. 30. Straw bonnets. 31. Re- freshments, gingerbread and ginger beer. 32. Wool in large packs. 33. Oranges, «&c. 34. Sieves, wire-baskets, and bird- cages. 35. Bandboxes and trunks. 36. Dolls. 37. New books and stationery. 38. Live birds. 39. Confectionary of various kinds. 40. Shoes, combs, &c. &c. 41. Saddles, bridles, col- lars, &c. 42. Rakes and agricultural tools. 43. Ginger pop, as usual. 44. Garden seeds. 45. Patent medicines, and especially worm lozenges, with about fifty bottles of worms preserved in spirit to evince the efficacy of the medicine — a terrific exhibi- tion. 46. Meats of various kinds. This comprehends but a small portion, and by no means all the varieties of stalls. The whole are dispersed by 3 o'clock in the afternoon. The popula- tion of Derby is about 37,000, and is chiefly a manufacturing population. LXIIi. — GENERAL REMARKS AND DIVISIONS OF THE SUBJECT OF ENGLISH FARMING. The agriculture of England presents itself under three great divisions — that of arable farming ; breeding and grazing, or feed- ing ; and dairying. I propose, in a great degree, to arrange my observations conformably to these three parts. There may be, with some of my readers, a misconception as to my plan, and, in consequence, expectations which will fail to be met. I do not undertake to give a complete system of farm- ing, and specific and exact directions in detail for the cultivation of every crop, and for every department of farm management. This would oblige me to execute a work vastly more extensive tiian that which I have undertaken. With respect to many of my readers, it could prove only a work of supererogation, for much of these details must be as familiar to them as the roads over their farms. I have always found, likewise, in respect to such directions, with which many books are crowded, extending, as they frequently do, to circumstances the most minute and in- significant, that they are often inapplicable, from the infinite diver- GENERAL REMARKS AND DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT. 387 sity of circumstances which different cases present. Most men have their peculiar methods of accomplishing an object, which are in truth the best for them, because the most natural ; they would be hampered and embarrassed by other modes, less familiar, which might be prescribed. Unless, therefore, there is some striking originality, or some obvious and peculiar convenience, in the method suggested, it is only necessary to say in general what is to be done, and leave it to every man's own ingenuity to find out the best method of effecting it. My principal object is to point out, in European agriculture, such circumstances of difference between it and our own as may serve for the improvement of the agriculture of the United States, and to give such an account of the modes of manage- ment which prevail abroad, and which have been sanctioned by long practice and experience, as may facilitate their adoption, as far as the circumstances existing among us would render their adoption eligible. Every country, differing from other countries in its climate and temperature, in its soil, in its facility for pro- curing manures, in the character and supply of its labor, in its commercial and political relations, must be expected to have an agriculture in some respects peculiar to itself; and the practices of another country can only be partially adapted to its own. At the same time, the general principles of agricultural practice are every where the same ; and these, with the various modifications, which they may be expected to assume under different degrees of civilization, or different degrees of improvement in science and the arts, and their general and special application, cannot be too fully discussed and illustrated. We may learn much from others, who do things which we are never called to do ; who cultivate crops which we never cultivate, and never can cultivate ; and we may learn much from persons who do the same things which we do, but in a different Avay from ourselves — who cultivate the same crops, but by their own peculiar methods. We may learn much from those who cultivate better, and from those who do not culti- vate so well as ourselves. There is little hope in any thing, so far as any great improvement is concerned, for the man who im- plicitly follows any guide whatever. He must exercise his own reason, experience, observation, and judgment, in the application of rules which may be laid down for his direction. The celebrated Bakewell, whose name occupies a distinguished 388 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. place in the annals of agricultural improvement, advised farmers, who would improve their cultivation and management, '-to go abroad and see what other people were about." Every observing man, who acts upon this advice, will find its advantages. 1 have often heard it said, and, if I thought it of any value in the case, I should say that my own experience confirmed it, that one of the best modes of understanding a book written in a foreign language is to read different versions or translations of it. The different forms of expressing the same thought adopted by different per- sons, or the different conceptions which different minds gather from the same expressions, whether in themselves right or wrong, may give us a clew to the true meaning, and correct many a mis- construction, or reveal and make light many a hidden or obscure passage. This analogy suggests the true mode in which an in- quisitive mind may gather instruction and knowledge from the practices of other men. Three things seem to me absolutely essential to human prog- ress in any and every art, in any and every science. The first is a profound conviction of the imperfection of all human knowl- edge ; the second, an entire distrust of all human infallibility ; the third, a perfect docility of mind, and a readiness to receive light and instruction from any and every quarter where it may be gathered, or by which it may approach us. Self-esteem, which, when combined with a good measure of benevolence and con- scientiousness, and so leading men to admit and respect the just claims of others, is a usefid and harmless sentiment, and prompts to many valuable enterprises, — when found excessive, and in a great degree unqualified, becomes an almost hopeless impedi- ment to improvement. I was told, before I left the country, by some American friends, that there was nothing in the way of agriculture to be learned in England, and that American agriculture was as improved as English agriculture. I had been but a short time in England before I heard, from various quarters, that in no country on the globe had agriculture reached that degree of improvement which it had attained in England ; and really in some cases, at public dinners, when, in the language of modern agricultural chemistry, the gases of the wine began to stimulate the brain, one wovdd be almost led to infer that agriculture itself was a recent invention of British genius ; and England presented herself to the en- VL REMARKS AND DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT. 389 ciiaiiiea imagination leaning upon the handles of a plough, with piles of scientific books spread open at her feet, weeping, like the Macedonian hero, that she had no more worlds to conquer. A Flemish gentleman informs me that the agriculture of the Low Countries is altogether superior to that of any other part of the world. The Chinaman puts forth his claims to superiority, and shows pretty conclusively how much justice he has upon his side, when he points to the extraordinary and unquestionable fact, in his own country, of the largest amount of population sup- ported upon the smallest extent of land. In the midst of all this comes a German, of wide possessions, of long practical experience, and of much intelligence, and says to me, " The English are the most arrogant and conceited people under the sun ; and, in respect to agricultural improvement, they are far inferior to the Germans." Now, I do not feel it necessary to buckle on my armor and defend my good friends the English against language which, it must be admitted, is sufficiently peremptory and harsh. Nor do I deem it necessary to enter the lists \yith either of these parties, and endeavor to force him from his position. A diseased or in- ordinate self-esteem brooks no argument, and, in contending with national prejudices, the result can only be as it is, to use the rather coarse metaphor of Dr. Franklin, with a man who spits against the wind — that he spits in his own face. The first con- clusion to be drawn from these confident assumptions is, to dis- trust them all ; and the second is, by looking calmly and impar- tially at the improvements in which each claims a superiority, to gather instruction from the results of each one's experience, and new facilities and motives to enterprise, inquiry, and exertion. LXIV. — THE SOIL. Agriculture rests, first of all things, upon the nature of the soil which is to be cultivated. The soil is the basis on which the plant is to be supported, and the medium through which it is to receive the food by which its life is to be sus- tained, its growth promoted, and its progress advanced to matu- 33* 390 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. rity. Some scientific persons assert that the principal, if not the only, use of the soil is for the support of the plant, and that the food of the plant is derived wholly from the atmosphere. In the heat of their imaginations, they have even asserted that a man's fields may be enriched, or rather his growing crops may be fed, by the exhalations from his neighbor's manure-heap in an adjoining field. This would be very much like a man's being fed by standing over the grating of a hotel, or a cook's shop kitchen, in London, and inhaling the odors from the savory viands which are there in the process of preparation. How much flesh might be gained, and how long life might be sustained, in this way, we shall know when the experiment is once successfully tested. That plants receive a large proportion of their nourishment from the air, does not admit of a doubt. But the calculations of the phil- osophical chemists as to the amount of carbon Avhich the atmos- phere, taking it at its estimated height of forty-five miles, is ca- pable of supplying, (equal, according to some calculators, to the sum of seven tons to an acre ;) and the discussion of the great question how the atmosphere was first supplied with this great element in vegetable life ; and the apprehension which some persons express, on account of the supposed actual diminution of carbon, — though there appears to be enough, according to the most rigid calculations, to last several thousand years longer, — are, to say the least of them, sufficiently amusing ; but of what prac- tical use they can be to the common farmer, is not so easy to de- termine. If the animal creation is to be starved out some thou- sands of years hence, it need not give the present generation, whose average of life does not much exceed thirty-five years, any great personal concern. It will not be a harder fate than that which certain of what arc called the higher order of animals seem disposed to anticipate for some of their fellow-beings noAV living. But, whatever may be the part which the atmosphero performs in the food or nourishment of vegetables, it is beyond human power to affect or control it, unless we can grow our crops under bell-glasses or in greenhouses. The duke of Devonshire, in his magnificent conservatory at Chatsworth, three hundred feet long, seventy-five feet wide, and sixty-four feet in height, heated by seven miles of pipes, and covering, with its appurte- nances, a full acre of ground, might manage to charge the atmos- phere in which his plants respire with gases exactly suited to THE SOIL. 391 their wants, and of the most nutritious character ; but, beyond thii- gigantic experiment, to which few can aspire, nothing certainly is to be hoped for. The farmer's whole business, as far as cultiva- tion is concerned, lies with the soil ; and upon the soil, and the skill and intelligence with which he manages it, must depend entirely his success. The notion, that plants receive a large por- tion of their nourishment through their leaves, — although some experiments, in my opinion not sufficiently decisive to determine the question, seem to favor it, — appears to me about as probable as that animals receive a large portion of their nourishment through their lungs. If they absorb carbon and discharge oxygen by day, they reverse the process, and absorb the oxygen of the atmos- phere, and discharge the carbon, by night ; and what portion of the latter in this way is assimilated, and made to form a part of the plant, (as far as I can understand the experiments which have been made,) does not as yet seem to be determined. I know the confidence with which this is affirmed, and, as a philosophical fact, I admit that it is of great interest and extremely worthy of inquiry. A friend, a few days since, said to me that he was con- scious, when immersed in water, of absorbing considerable water by means of the pores of the skin, and wished me to believe it. With great respect both for his intelligence and honesty, I still remain skeptical. What may be the case after death, when de- composition has commenced, is an entirely different matter. At present, I believe that the only way in which the food, by which the body is nourished, is received, is by the mouth ; always except- ing the case of the soldier at Washington, so fully reported in the medical journals, who had a hole in his stomach, by which, in order to watch the process of digestion, food was supplied, as a servant puts away cold meat in a cupboard. The fact is un- doubted that plants by day absorb carbonic acid and exhale oxy- gen, and that by night the process is reversed, and they inhale oxygen and expel carbonic acid ; but it does not seem so well established that in this way they obtain the carbon which is assimilated in their organism. At least, the supposition is so Ihtle favored by analogy, that I hope it may be lawful still to doubt. That the atmosphere contributes essentially to vegetation — that plants derive much of their nourishment and substance from the air, as I have already remarked, does not admit of a question : 392 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. but. SO far as any practical use whatever is to be made of this fact, we must consider this nourishment as receiv^ed through the roots, and consequently through the medium of the soil in which these roots spread themselves, and the manures by which it is enriched. The soil therefore, as the basis of all vegetation, is the great object of the farmer's consideration. LXV. — THEORIES OF THE OPERATION OF THE SOIL. Soils may be considered in two points of view ; first, in ref- erence to their intrinsic or absolute character, and next, in ref- erence to the plants to the growth of which they are adapted. In a preceding number, in speaking of the chemical analysis of different soils, I think it appeared how little practical advantage had as yet been derived from any experiments in this way which had been made. The common properties of soil may be distinguished by the eye or the feel with persons of experience and practical observation ; but chemical examination may often be of the highest importance in detecting the presence of some mineral ingredient by which the cultivation of particular crops may be hindered or wholly prevented. A friend, eminent for his agricultural knowledge, pointed out to me a particular field, in which all attempts to grow wheat had been unsuccessful, while no such incapacity existed in the adjoining fields. In such a case as this, one would look to the chemical analysis of the soil to determine what ingredient was deficient, or what unfriendly element existed or predominated in the soil to prevent the growth of the plant ; and, this being ascertained, perhaps a remedy might be found. But the extraordinary and minute exactness to which the chemical analysis of the soil is sometimes carried, and upon which many scientific persons insist, it would seem, can serve little other purpose than that of producing despair of adapting our cultivation to such diversified and minute variations. What portion of the soil is abstracted for vegetable food is not yet determined ; and it is a singular fact, that, though analyt- ical chemistry has demonstrated that certain mineral substances THEORIES OF THE OPERATION OF THE SOIL. 393 are taken up in the organism of plants and are essential in composing its structnre, and has proceeded to calculate the actual amount in pounds' weight abstracted by the growth of crops of a particular quantity, it has never yet, by an analysis of the soil before the planting, and as exact an examination after the crop has been removed, determined the loss in such case. Why this has not been done, or whether it be beyond the present power of chemical analysis to accomplish, — extraordinary as is the degree of perfection to which the science has been advanced, — must be left to others to answer. I am perfectly aware, of course, that the same identical soil cannot be subjected to the process of analysis, and then employed for the purposes of vegetation, Avith a view of ascertaining what has been lost or abstracted ; but an equal weight taken from the same place with that em- ployed for growing the plants might be examined, and after- wards that in which the plants were grown, so that, by this kind of comparison, the truth might be to a degree approximated. I am quite aware that it may be said, in this case, that the amount of mineral ingredients found in the produce would show the exact amount abstracted ; but it would be extremely interesting to know, by an examination of the soil, that these results exactly or nearly corresponded. But it is found that land left to itself for a lengtli of time recovers its fertility, and, after a lapse of two, three, or more years, the same crop, which failed when grown in immediate succession to another of the same kind, can be advan- tageously cultivated again. It would be highly curious, then, by retaining a portion of the land in which the plant had been grown, and leaving it exposed to the ordinary influences of light and heat, and rain and frost, to ascertain in what length of time the soil would recover its exhausted elements of fertility. This has not, within my knowledge, been attempted. The ingenious theory of DecandoUe, that the exudations or excrementitious matter from one kind of crop unfitted the ground for an immediate repetition of the same species of plant, seems now to be generally abandoned. It is a well-established prin- ciple, which practical men understand quite as well as the scien- tific, that a rotation of crops is indispensable to a successful agriculture ; and the theory is altogether probable that a par- ticular crop exhausts the soil of certain elements essential to its })rodtiction, which must be somehow supplied before a second 394 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. crop of the same kind can be grown on the same land ; but it would be extremely interesting if the fact of such exhaustion, and its extent, could be more particularly determined by a chemical examination of the soil which has been cultivated. The beau- tiful theory of the great agricultural oracle of the day, that certain mineral ingredients which are always found in the ashes of plants, and which are carried off when these products are removed, and, being essential to vegetation, require to be either artificially replaced or supplied by a natural process, — and that, the land being suffered to rest, or applied to a different production, the ordinary influences of air and moisture in decomposing the rocks of the soil will renew the supply of these mineral elements which have been removed, — seems to offer the desired explana- tion ; and the experiments to which this theory has led, and which, under its influence, are now going on in various parts of the country, must presently determine it, and, what is better, show its proper application, and greatly simplify the processes of agriculture, reducing its expenses and giving comparative cer- tainty to its results. The operation of air and moisture upon the soil, the effects of light, and electricity, and frost, upon vegetation, all admit to be powerful ; but they are as yet only partially understood, and present subjects of the most interesting inquiry. In the progress of science, technically so called, we have much to hope for ; but in what it has already accomplished, enough has been gained to quicken, but very far from enough to satisfy, the appetite. One of the most eminent agricultural chemists of the present day, Boussingault, second perhaps to no other, has said,* "A great deal has been written since Bergman's time upon the chemical composition of soils. Cliemists of great talent have made many complete analyses of soils noted for their fertility ; still, practical agriculture has hitherto derived very slender benefits from labors of this kind. The reason of this is very simple ; the qualities which we esteem in a workable soil depend almost exclusively upon the mechanical mixture of its elements ; we are much less interested in its chemical composition than in this ; so that simple washing, which shows the relations between the sand and the clay, tells, of itself, much more that is important to us than * Rural Economy, Law's edition, p. 266. THEORIES OF THE OPERATION OF THE SOIL. 395 an elaborate chemical analysis." This is certainly a great con- fession for an eminent chemist to make. To exemplify the different results to which the most scientific men arrive in these cases, I will refer both to Boussingault and Von Thaer in respect to a simple point, the presence of the car- bonate of lime in the soil as essential to the growth of a crop of wheat, on which subject the public mind has been so long, so generally, and so confidently made up. Von Thaer says,* " The richest argillaceous soil that I ever analyzed, the fertility of which was regarded as of the very richest quality, was taken from the right bank of the Elbe, some few miles from its mouth ; it contained eleven and a half parts in a hundred of humus, four and a half of lime, a great quantity of clay, a little coarse silica, and a considerable portion of very fine silica, which could only be separated from it by ebullition. It certainly possessed a great degree of cohesion, but, when moder- ately moistened, it was not very tenacious. It was made to bear the richest crops, as cabbages, wheat, autumnal corn, beans, &c. ; but every sixth year it was necessary to manure it thoroughly, and to give it a fallow." On the preceding page, he says, " The richest land I ever ana- lyzed, and which was taken from the marshes of the Oder, contained 192 parts in 100 of humus, 70 of clay, a little fine sand, and an almost imperceptible quantity of lime ; but the situ- ation of this land was too low, and it was too damp, to admit of a correct estimate being formed of its fertility." Boussingault says,f " I may remark generally, thai, from the whole of the analyses of good wheat lands which have hitherto been made, it appears that carbonate of lime enters in consid- erable quantity into their composition ; and theory, in harmony with practice, tends to show that it is advantageous to have this earthy salt as a constituent in the manures which are put upon soils that contain little or no lime." On the next page, % he says, " M. Berthier's analysis is still far from proving that the presence of lime in a soil is indispen- sable, inasmuch as beautiful wheat crops are grown in the neigh- borhood of Lisle without lime. In proof of this fact, I shall here cite the analysis of one of the most fertile soils in the world, * Vol. i. pp. 355, a54. \ Rural Economy, p. 294. \ p. 295. 396 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. the black soil of Tchornoizem, which Mr. Murchison informs us constitutes the superficies of the arable lands comprised between the 54th and 57th degrees of north latitude, along the left bank of the Volga as far as Tcheboksar, from Nijni to Kasan, and stretching over a still more extensive district upon the Asiatic side of the Ural Mountains. Mr. Murchison is of opinion that this land is a submarine deposit formed by the accumulation of sands rich in organic matters. The Tchornoizem is composed of black particles, mixed with grains of sand ; it is the best soil in Russia for wheat and pasturage ; a year or two of fallow will suffice to restore it to its former fertility after it has been exhausted by cropping ; it is never manured. " M. Payen found in this black and fertile soil, " Organic matter, . 6.95 (containing 2.45 per cent, of azote.) Silica, .... 71.56 Alumina, ... 11.40 Oxide of iron, . . 5.62 Lime, 0.80 Magnesia, . . . 1.22 Alkaline chlorides, 1.21 Phosphoric acid, . a trace. Loss, 1.24 100.00" It is a little remarkable, judging from the analysis here given, that not only is the quantity of lime extremely minute, but even the phosphates, deemed so essential and indispensable to success, are also absent. Such are the diversified results to which even the most scien- tific are led ; and they are well adapted to admonish us of the imperfection of human knowledge, and the limitation of human powers. In Lincolnshire, where some of the best farming in England, as is universally admitted, is to be found, on a soil where the whole substratum was chalk, or the carbonate of lime, and where the mould or loam was not more than three or four inches deep, I found the farmers manuring the land, from pits dug in the field, with the very chalk by which the whole soil was underlaid. Upon my proposing the question to an eminent geological professor, then with me, much interested in agricul- ure, why this was done, he replied that the lime in the surface THEORIES OF THE OPERATION OF THE SOIL. 397 soil had probably become exhausted by sinking down, through its greater specific gravity ,• but I could not see that there could be any difficulty hi the plants reaching it, where the whole body of lime lay within so short a distance of the surface. My own belief is, that, in this case, its operation is chiefly mechanical, and that its use was merely to consolidate the upper surface, and make it more adhesive for the roots of the plant, and that any other substance or marl, equally firm and consistent, would have served the same end. One of the most eminent chemists of the present day, distin- guished for the splendor of his attainments, seems to entertain, with no small confidence, the opinion that chemistry, including probably electricity and galvanism, is destined to solve all the secrets of vegetable and animal life ; that the various processes going on in nature are mere chemical processes ; and that any thing like a vital power above or beyond them all, and incapable of being solved by scientific investigation, is an hypothesis unworthy of an enlightened mind. It is certainly not for the human mind, as yet, to say what cannot be done ; and it would be quite premature for Science to assume that she has reached the ultimate boundaries of investigation, as it would be impious for her to claim the prerogatives of omniscience. But if I may in the case adventure the remark, — admiring as much as any one can the actual and wonderful achievements of science, — there still remains beyond even the farthest advances an impassable barrier, a terra incognita, which the most adventurous have not yet penetrated. It is easy to ascertain that certain substances have an affinity for each other, and science, with wonderful ingenuity, has determined the forms of combination under which they become united. The action or force by which they are brought together and there held may hereafter be explained, and may be ranked under some unknown chemical force ; but as yet any attempts to define, or even conjecture, its nature, have been wholly abortive. The simple and familiar fact, that the muscles are obedient to the will in moving the limbs, every one admits ; but in what this will consists, and how it is exerted, and how it effects its purpose, seems as yet as far from being reached, as on the day that the first child was born into the world. We are very apt to exclaim, in the ecstasy of the Grecian phi- losopher in the successful investigation of an interesting prob- 34 398 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. lem, " I liave found out! I have found out ! " when, witli all the apparent and flattering loosening of the strings, the Gordian knot remains as firm as ever. The processes of nature must be all simple enough to the great Mind which established them, but that is not the human mind. To compare a rushlight to the sun would fall infinitely short of expressing the difi"erence be- tween them. But it is obvious that so many circumstances must combine to accomplish even the simplest and most familiar results in nature, that, to a finite understanding, the simplest pro- cesses must be complicated. Any person of common observa- tion, who will go into a meadow or pasture, and observe the different varieties of plants which cover the ground, and remark how every one preserves its own peculiar distinctive character and form, and, though all growing upon the same soil and under the same external influences, each one extracts for itself, and for itself alone, that which its own peculiar character and constitu- tion require, — and that in size, and form, and color, and odor, and stem, and leaf, and fruit, and seed, there are essential, and inviolable, and invariable distinctions, — and that each one appro- priates to itself that which is required to form the stem, and to expand the leaves, and to throw in the coloring, and to mature the fruit, preserving always the perfect identity of the species, and furnishing in some cases a nutritious, and in others a poison- ous compound for animal life, — will, I think, be very far from considering the phenomena of vegetable life as simple, or resol- vable into those few chemical laws which have been established in what must at least be still considered as only the infancy of the science. LXVI. A MODERN DISCOVERY. It is lately stated, as one of the great discoveries of the age, that an eminent agricultural chemist has invented (or rather de- termined how they should be compounded) a variety of manures specially adapted to the particular crop to be cultivated, furnish- ing in exact measure and kind the food which is required. The professed object is to supply those mineral and alkaline sub- A MODERN DISCOVERY. 399 Stances to the soil of which it has been exhausted in the process of cropping, and to furnish them in such form, and so combined, as that they may be best taken up by the plant, and presented to the plant only so gradually as the habits of the plant may require. This eminent chemist claims, to use his own words, '• to have found means to give to every soluble ingredient of maiune, by its combination with others, any degree of solubility without alter- ing its effect on vegetation. I give, for instance, the alkalies in such a state as not to be more soluble than gypsum, which, as is well known, acts through many years, even as long as a particle of it remains in the soil. The mixture of manures has been adapted to the mean quantity of rain in this country, (England ;) the manure which is used in summer has a greater degree of solu- bility than that used in winter. Experience must lead to further results, and in future the farmer will be able to calculate the amount of produce of his fields, if temperature, want of rain, &c., do not oppose the manure coming fairly into action. I must, however, observe that the artificial manures in no way alter the mechanical condition of the fields ; that they do not render a heavy soil more accessible to air and moisture ; for such fields the ])orous stable manure will always have its great value ; it can be given together with the artificial manure." * With the highest respect for this eminent man, whose scien- tific labors have given a spur to agricultural inquiry and experi- ment unknown in any former time, one cannot but remark the convenient reservation afforded by the qualification " if tempera- ture, want of rain, &c., do not oppose the manures coming fairly into action ; " and the recommendation to apply the stable ma- nure together with the artificial manure, and the statement, in another place, that certain manures "act far more favorably on the production of grain crops, especially if they are added to the animal excrements, and are given to the fields at the same time," present sagacious and certainly very safe advice. They slightly remind one of a custom formerly prevalent in some Catholic countries on the Continent, when, at the opening of the spring, the priest was accustomed to go over the fields of his parishion- ers to give them his blessing ; but when he came to fields which were exhausted and sterile, he was very careful to add, " This needs manure." The doctrine of the occasional and temporary * Liebiw on Artificial Manures. 400 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. exhaustion of the soil, by the continued repetition of the same crop, of ingredients or elements important to its growth and maturity, certainly seems reasonable and well established ; but the dread which seems to possess some minds of an exhaustion which would doom the soil to perpetual barrenness, without some extraordinary supply of the materials of which it has been de- prived, may have more ground to rest upon, when the birds in any country or locality are unable to find lime to form the shells of their eggs, and animals become mere lumps of gum-elastic for want of material to form their bones.* There is a recuperative power in nature by which it would seem that any soil, originally adapted to the growth of any particular plant, by rest, or by the growth of other and different plants, be- comes again fitted for the original cultivation. That this may be hastened by artificial manures, there can be no doubt. That science may at last achieve the great discovery of a way by which the same plant may be cultivated uninterruptedly year after year on the same soil, is certainly to be hoped for. Whether this object is already accomplished by this distin- guished philosopher, is now to be submitted to actual experiment by those who can afford to purchase this artificial manure. * The fears which seem to haunt some minds, lest, by cultivation, the exhaus- tion of the soil should proceed so far as ultimately to put even the existence of the human race in peril, from famine, may be useful enough in exciting men to frugality in the saving of manures, and enterprise and industry in their applica- tion ; but seem as little warranted as the sanguine expectations of the Millerites, who looked for the end of the world in April, 1843, and some of whom, having got their white robes fitted, and tlieir wings spread, seemed to be rather out of temper that their predictions failed, and that Heaven in its mercy granted the "poor dogs," the unbelievers, a short reprieve, Voltaire, when admonished that coffee was a sIoav poison, remarked that it must be very slow indeed, for he had drunk it constantly for seventy years. Mr. Lyell, in his late Tour in the United States, (which, let me remark by the way, is written in the calm spirit of a philo- sophical observer, and does honor to his candor and sense of justice, as well as to his scientific attainments,) is of opinion that the time occupied in the recession of Niagara Falls from the shores of Lake Ontario, where they once were, to their present position, could not have been less than 35,000 years ; and that the fossil remains, both vegetable and animal, now found there, show that even this period, startling as it may seem, belongs to a modern and not a primeval era. How idle in respect to tliesc matters, seem, then, the calculations of beings, who ■ are such stuff As dreams are made of, and whose little lile Is rounded with a sleep ! " SOILS OF GKEAT BRITAIN. 401 These compounds are advertised for sale at £10 sterling, or $50, per ton, and a ton, it is said, will be sufficient for manuring four acres. Some agricultural friends, who have ap- plied them, have promised me the results of their experiments. My readers shall have them when they are received. Such a discovery would certainly constitute a great advance in agricul- tural improvement. I shall not venture to predict, but patiently wait the issue, not deeming it necessary to caution those, whose funds are limited, against large investments. It seems, from some examples already given, that, Avith time, the soil itself, by its own inherent energies, for which we cannot be sufficiently grateful, will recover its exhausted fertility. In the mean time, its use is never to be abandoned ; for the improved agriculture of modern times has certainly made one great advance in utterly condemning a naked fallow, and the soil may be occupied with ^ END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE AND RURAL ECONOMY FROM PERSONAL OBSERVATION HENRY COLMAN, HONORARY MEMBER OF THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND, OF THE NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF FRANCE, AND OF THE NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES. " For, in all things whatever, the mind is the most valuable and the most important ; and in this scale the whole of agriculture is in a natural and just order; the beast is an informing principle to the plough and cart, the laborer is as reason to the beast, and the farmer is as a thinking and presiding principle to the laborer." — Burke. YOL. II. FOURTH EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS. BOSTON: PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & COMPANY. NEW YORK ; CHARLES M. SAXTON. PHILADELPHIA : THOMAS, COWPERTHWAIT & CO. BALTIMORE : CUSHING & BROTHER. CHARLESTON, S. C: m'cARTER k ALLEN. CINCINNATI : H. W. DERBY & CO. BUFFALO : G. H. DERBY & CO. 1851. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year IM9, by HENRY COL MAN, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. STEREOTYPED AT THE BOSTON TYPE AND STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY. WIUGHT AND HASTY S STEAM PRESS. INDEX, TABLE OF CONTENTS VOL. II. SIXTH REPORT. PAGE. Preliminary Observations xi XC. Paring and Burning 1 XCI. Burning Land 9 XCII. Admixture of Soils 21 XCIII. Improvement of Peat Lands 30 1. Drainage 35 2. Pai-ing and Burning 38 3. Application of Lime 39 4. Rules in Ireland for Redemption of Bog 41 5. Application of Gravel or Sand 41 6. Application of Clay or Marl 42 7. Application of Mud or Loam 45 8. Improvement of Chat-Moss 47 9. Depth of Ploughing on Peat Soils 49 10. Manures for Peat 50 11. Cropping of Peat Lands 51 ,XCIV. Warping 54 XCV. An Experiment 60 XCVI. Straightening a River 61 XCVn. Work in Ireland 62 XCVIII. Drainage 63 1. The Importance of Drainage 63 2. Extent of Drainage, and Embanlonent against the Sea 65 3. The Ancholme Drainage GQ 4. Embankments against a River, and Discharge of Water by Steam-Engines 68 5. The Deeping Fen 69 6. The Muston Drainage, 69 7. Drainage at Scampton 70 IV INDEX. PAGE 8. Drainage in Nottinghamshire 73 9. Drainage at Wiseton 74 10. Grandeur and Value of these Improvements 75 11. Relation of these Improvements to the United States 75 XCIX. The Drainage of Farms 76 1. Climate, and Condition of the Soil 76 2. Modes of Draining. Open Ditches. Covered Drains 77 3. Elkington's System of Drainage 78 4. Draining with Fagots and Straw 79 5. Plug Draining 79 6. Draining with Turf Covering 81 7. Draining by the Mole Plough 82 8. Suffolk Draining 83 9. Draining in Berkshire 84 10. Scotch Draining Plough 85 11. Draining with Broken Stones 87 12. Thorough Draining, or Deanstonizing 88 13. Implements for Draining 96 C. National Characteristics. — A Digression 98 CI. Tile and Pipe Draining 99 1. Improvements in Form of Draining-Pipes 99 2. Important Points in Draining. 101 3. Results and Experience in Pipe Draining. — Depth of Drains 101 SEVENTH REPORT. CI. Tile and Pipe Draining, (continued.) 105 4. Size of Pipes 106 5. The Philosophy of Draining 108 6. Magnificent Agricultural Improvements, and their Moral Results Ill 7. Soils to be drained 1 13 8. Association for Drainage 115 9. The Process of Draining 116 10. Examples of Drainage in Ireland 118 CII. Subsoil Ploughing connected with Thorough Draining 125 1. Results of Subsoiling and Draining 126 2. Failures in Subsoiling in Adhesive and Heavy Soils 126 3. Success in Subsoiling Sandy and Light Lands 128 4. Success of Subsoiling on Thin, Peaty Ground 132 5. Importance of Subsoiling and Draining, and their Applica- tion to the United States 133 6. Objections to this Improvement 133 7. Read's Subsoil Pulverizer 135 INDEX. V PAGE. cm. Irrigation 138 1. Theory of Irrigation 138 2. General Principles and Directions for Irrigation 140 3. Welbeck, Nottinghamshire 147 4. Teddesley, Staffordshire 154 5. Audley End, Essex 15G 6. Somersetshire 157 7. Edinburgh 159 8. Willesden, Middlesex 161 CIV. The Rotation of Crops 170 CV. Soiling, or House Feeding 180 CVI. Crops 203 1. Wheat 203 EIGHTH REPORT. CVI, Crops, (continued.) 223 1. Wheat, (continued.) 223 2. Oats 244 3. Barley 247 4. Rye 248 5. Beans 249 6. Peas 250 7. Vetches or Tares 251 8. Turnips 252 9. Potatoes, Beets, Carrots, Parsnips 257 10. Cabbages 2G1 11. Rape 260 12. Mustard 267 13. Chiccory 268 14. Lucern 268 15. Sainfoin 270 16. Crunson Clover, {Tiifolium Incamcdum.) 272 17. Whin, Furze, or Gorse, [Ulex Europcsus.) 272 18. Clovers and Grasses 276 19. Rye Grass 281 20. Orchard Grass, or Cocksfoot, [Dactylis Glomerala.) 282 21. Bokhara or Tree Clover 282 22. Rib Grass, or Plantain 283 23. Red Top, Herds-Grass 283 24. Millet , 284 25. Sowing Grass Seed 284 26. Hops 286 CVII. Flax 292 1 General Views "Ht^ a* VI INDEX. PACE. 2. Soil, and Preparation of tlie Soil 294 3. Seed and Sowing 294 4. Weeding 295 5. Pulling 295 6. Rippling 296 7. Steeping. 296 8. The Courtray Method 298 9. Breaking and Scutcliing 298 10. Uses of tlie Seed 299 11. Mr. Warne's Metliod 300 12. Average Produce, and Uses of the Produce 302 CVIII. Live Stock 303 1. Horses , 307 2. Neat Cattle 312 (1.) The Improved Short Horns 313 (2.) Herefords 314 (3.) The Dcvons 315 (4.) The Aj/rshirc 317 (5.) The West Highland Cattle, or Kyloes 318 (6.) Tlic Aberdeenshire Polled Cattle 318 (7.) The Alderney or Guernsey Cattle 319 (8.) Dairy or Miking Stock 320 (9.) Improvements in Relation to the United States 329 3. Sheep 331 (1.) Various Breeds 332 (2.) Cheviot and HigJdand Sheep 334 (3.) Leicester Sheep 335 (4.) SotUh Doion Sheep 336 (5.) General Management of Sheep 344 4. Swine 346 CIX. Dairy Husbandry 347 1. Butter. 347 2. Cheese 349 (1.) Stilton Cheese 350 (2.) Improved Stilton Cheese 351 (3.) Cheshire Cheese 353 ex. Manures 357 1. Guano 358 2. The Nitrates 359 3. Soot 359 4. Woollen Rags 360 5. Lime. . . . .' 360 6. Sea-Sand 362 7. Super-phosphate of Lime 363 8. Fibrous Covering, or Gurneyism 366 CXL General Reflections 368 INDEX. VII CXII. CXIII. CXIV. cxv. CXVI. CXVII. CXVIII. CXIX. CXX. CXXI. CXXII. CXXIII. CXXIV. cxxv. CXXVI. NINTH REPORT. PAGE. French Agriculture 371 Soil and Aspect 371 Crops 373 The Forests of France 373 A French Landscape 375 The French Peasantry 375 Size of Farms and Division of Property 377 Measures of the Government for the Improvement of Agri- culture 387 1. Department of Agriculture 387 2. Statistical Returns 387 3. Inspectors of Agricultural Districts 388 4. Importation of Improved Stock 388 5. Agricultural and Veterinary Schools 388 (5. Agricultural Societies and Show 389 7. An Agricultural Congress 389 8. Conservatory of Arts and Trades 389 9. Society for the Improvement of Wool 390 Paris Markets 390 1. Corn Market 390 2. Meat Markets 391 3. Markets for Eggs, Butter, Cheese, Vegetables, Fruits, Poultry, Fish, &c 391 4. Market for Forage 392 5. Horse Market 393 6. Flower Markets 393 The Culture of Flowers. — Botany 394 1. The Floral Magnificence of England 397 2. The Flower Gardens of Paris. — The Garden of Plants 398 3. The Gardens of the Palaces 399 4. Rural Embellishments in France, Holland, Belgium, Ger- many, and Italy 399 Abattoirs, or Slaughtering Houses 406 The Filth of Paris 410 Night Soil. Poudrette 414 Agricultural Education 419 1. School at Grignon 419 2. Veterinary School at Alfort 43G 3. Agricultural Colony at Mettray 440 4. Colony at Petit Bourg 443 Crops 446 1. Wheat 446 2. Spelt 468 3. Rye 469 4. Barley 472 5. Oats 475 6. Meslin, or M6teil 477 Vlll INDEX. PAGE. 7. Maize, or Indian Corn 477 8. Buckwheat 479 9. Millet 479 10. Clover 479 TENTH REPORT. CXXVI. Crops, (continued.) 481 11. Lucern 481 12. Sainfoin 482 13. Beets. — Beets for Sugar 482 14. Silk 488 15. The Vine 496 16. Olives 499 CXXVII, General Views of French Agriculture 501 CXXVIII. Farm near Versailles 502 CXXIX. Farm Accounts 503 CXXX. Agriculture of Belgium and Holland 506 CXXXI. The Soil 507 CXXXn. The Dikes and Polders 507 CXXXIII. The Water Machinery or Mills 510 CXXXIV. Flemish Agriculture 51] CXXXV. The Soil ; and Size of Farms 513 CXXXVI. The Cultivation of tlie Soil, Trenching, Ploughing, Ma- nuring 513 1. Deep Cultivation 513 2. Subsoiling 514 3. Draining 515 4. Mixing the Soil 516 5. Rotation of Crops 516 6. Manuring 518 7. Liquid Manure 519 8. Cleanness of Cultivation 521 CXXXVn. Manures 522 1. Mineral Manures 522 2. Vegetable Manures 523 3. Animal Manures 525 4. Liquid Manures, and Means of saving them 52f) 5. Compost Heaps, 531 6. Jauffret's Manure 532 7- General Remarks on Manures 533 CXXXVIII. Crops 534 1. Colza 534 2. Navette 537 3. Poppy 537 INDEX. IX 4. Camcline 538 5. White Mustard 539 6. Flax 539 7. Hemp 544 8. Tobacco 547 9. Hops 549 10. Madder 550' 11. Woad 551 12. Weld 552 13. Carrots 553 CXXXIX. Implements of Husbandry 554 CXL. Spade Husbandry 557 CXLI. Live Stock 5fi0 1. Oxen and Cows 5(11 2. Goats 5(>3 3. Asses 564 4. Horses 564 5. Swine 566 6. Sheep 566 CXLII. Dairies 567 CXLIII. Farm-houses 570 CXLIV. Swiss Farming. 571 CXLV. Hofwyl. Irrigation 572 CXLVI. Lodi's Benevolent Establishment 574 CXLVII. Institution for reclaiming Vicious Children 576 CXLVIII. Condition of tlie Poor and Laboring Classes 576 CXLIX. Important Practical Conclusions 581 1. Thorough Draining and Deep Cultivation 581 2. Manures 581 3. Soiling of Cattle 581 4. Improvement of Live Stock 582 5. Improved Articles of Culture 582 6. New Articles of Culture 583 Appendix — I. II. Select Farms 587 STEEL ENGRAVINGS. Three South Down Wethers Fronting title page to second volume. Three South Down Rams Frontispiece to Seventh Report. A Leicester Ram do Eighth Report. Three new Leicester Wethers do Ninth Report. A Boar do Tenth Report X INDEX. WOOD CUTS. PAGE. Plans of Draining at Scampton 71, 72 Water-wheel used for Draining 73 Wooden Blocks used in Draining. 80 Draining with Turf Covering 81 Mole Plough 82 Scoop, and Narrow Spade 83 M'Ewan's Draining Plough 85 Draining with Broken Stones 87 Transverse Section of Drains, &c 91 Transverse Section of Drains, &c., with Sketches of Implements used in their Formation 97 Plan of the Thorough Draining on Part of the Townland of Carnesure 120 Sub-pulverizer 13G Plan of a Part of the Irrigated Meadows in the County of Nottingham 149 An Elevation of a Shuttle or Gate, for the Regulation of the Passage of Water. . 150 Seam Presser 213 Crosskill's Patent Clod-crusher 214 Garrett's Patent Horse-hoe 223 Garrett's Patent Drill for General Purposes 225 An Implement for Dibbling 229 Sheaf of Rye Grass 281 Curd-breaker 351 Agricultural Colony at Mettray 441 Sketcli of the Polder of Snaerskerke 508 Three Watering Carts for Liquid Manure 520 Watering Machine for Small Farms 521 Plan of Urine Cistern 530 Walloon Plough 555 Common Flemish Plough 556 Mouldebart 556 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. Agriculture is the first and most important of all arts. Though not more honorable nor more innocent than many other arts and professions, yet it is per- fectly innocent, and is as honorable as any. That likewise may be said of it which can be said of few others, — it is essential to human subsistence. We shall find few persons in the community who do not at once assent to this ; but often the assent is merely formal, and is not that deep and established conviction which should, much more than it does, prevail throughout the community ; and especially amongst those who, gifted either by talents or station, have most con- cern in moulding human destinies, and in adjusting the interests and forming the condition of society. The aifecting and extraordinary events of the last two years should have their due influence upon every reflecting mind. In a single country, by the loss of a single crop, at least five hundred thousand persons have perished, amidst the accumulated horrors of starvation, or the diseases engendered and aggravated by famine. Ireland has its millions of fertile acres untilled, and its millions of strong hands unemployed. Had the agriculture of Ireland been what it should be, this terrible event — and one more terrible does not darken the pages of history — could not in all human probability have happened. The essential ciiaracter of the agricultural art is constantly pressing itself upon our attention. I have had from my childhood an inclination for rural pur- suits. I have followed the plough many a day, with a freedom and a buoyancy of spirit which seemed to have no counterpart but among tlie winged denizens of the air, who hovered around me, and with their thrilling notes cheered me on my way, and made the woods echo with their melody. I have cast the dry seed into the teeming earth, and watched its first bursting above the ground, and its gradual progress to maturity, recompensing every grateful attention bestowed upon it, until it poured its ripened treasures into my lap, with a grateful, and, I may add without presumption, a religious elevation of soul, which no language could adequately express. Xll PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. We may be told that agriculture is a purely material and sensual art, and does not deserve a place among the humane arts. To a mind material and sensual in all its habits, every thing becomes material and sensual in the lowest and most degrading sense of those terms. But its rational pursuit is not incom- patible with high intellectual attainments and the most refined taste. Whatever occupies and absorbs the mind exclusively, is, of course, unfavorable to any great excellence in other pursuits. Agriculture, pursued as a mere branch of trade or commerce, or a mere instrument of wealth, will be found to have influ- ences upon the mind, narrowing and restricting its operations and aspirations, corresponding witli any other of the pursuits of mere avarice and acquisition, and which even those of the learned professions, when pursued wholly with such views, are sure to have. But when followed without exclusive views to mere gain or profit, it is far from being incompatible with a high state of intel- lectual cultivation. Many of the sciences are the handmaids of agriculture, and serve as well as ennoble it. Its practical pursuit, though it occupies, yet it does not exhaust the mind ; but, within certain limits, inspirits and invigorates all its faculties. A spiritual mind may spiritualize all its operations ; a religious mind sees, in its wonderful and curious processes and tlieir marvellous results, many of the adorable miracles of a beneficent Providence. That a profound study of the agricultural art, and an intimate acquaintance and familiarity with its practical details, are not incompatible with a high degree of intellectual im- provement and cultivation, we have too many living examples of this union to leave us to doubt ; and the immortal names of Cicero, Bacon, and Washington, show, from their own assertions, that minds highly gifted of Heaven have found their richest pleasures in rural and agricultural occupations and pursuits ; and in company with many others, in ancient and modern times, form a magnificent constellation of learning, genius, and taste, shedding their splendor upon this useful art. When I hear this art spoken of with a sort of disdain, as wholly sensual and materia], I would ask. What is there with which man has to do whicli is not material and sensual ? All his organs of perception are material and sensual ; all of tliat which he calls purely intellectual or spiritual, without the power of giving any intelligible definition of what he intends by it, is directly connected with, moved by, controlled by, and dependent upon, his physical organization; and is vigorous as that is vigorous ; healthy only as that is healthy ; lives only by being well fed and well cared for. Even the pious clergy, who caution us so strongly against secular pursuits, and against seeking things earthly and tem- poral, without the labors of the husbandman, without beef and bread, witliout wool and silk, without milk and honey, since manna has ceased to come down PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. XUl from heaven by nirjht, and the rock no longer pours forth its crystal treasures at the touch of the prophet's wand, could give us neither their prayers nor their exhortations ; the pious hands could not be raised to Heaven for its benediction, and tlie eloquent lips would become dumb. I believe the agricultural profession is highly favorable to good morals ; I shall not presume to say more so tlian any other ; but it will not be too much to say more so than many others. Perhaps it will be said, that the agricultural districts of England and other countries yield their full proportion of crime. I will not peremptorily deny what is often confidently asserted ; but I am not ready to concede to it until other proof than I have yet received is furnished. As far as my own personal observation and experience go, my conviction is tlie reverse of this. Two fruitful sources of crime are to be found in excited pas- sions and in powerful temptations. Agricultural occupations, so far from ex- citing, tend to exhaust and allay the passions ; and the retirement and seclusion of the country present fewer temptations than the tumultuous life, the oppor- tunities for vicious association, the disorderly hours, and the infinite variety of attractions and engagements of city life. Among, however, a degraded popu- lation, poor and half-fed, without education, Avithout any interest in the soil, without friends to take an interest in their welfare, without any sentiment of the value of character, without self-respect, accustomed to pass their unoccupied time in drinking-houses and in degrading pleasures, and treated and lodged without distinction of sex, and without any regard to the common decencies of life, it is not surprising to find a nursery and hot-bed of crime, where it shoots up in startling luxuriance. My acquaintance with many of the villages and rural districts of England and Scotland satisfies me that the favorable moral influ- ences which might be looked for from rural life and agricultural pursuits, are there found in full operation ; and under a system of more general and improved education, and especially under institutions which would give those encourage- ments to labor which are the most powerful motives, as well as the proper rewards of industry and good conduct, these influences might be expected to be even more general. Let me speak of a district or country with which I have been many years familiar:* it is a purely agricultural district; it contains about three hundred thousand inhabitants ; its climate is cold and severe ; its soil, with some excep- tions, of moderate fertility, and requiring the brave and strong hand of toil to make it productive. It has public and free schools in every town and parish, and several seminaries of learning of a higher character, and where the branches of a * The State of Vermont, United States. VOL. II. b XIV PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. useful and literary education are taught, at an expense so moderate, that it is placed within the reach of persons even of the most humble means. It has every where places of religious worship, of such a variety that every man may follow the dictates of his own conscience, where religious services are always maintained with intelligence and decorum, sustained wholly by voluntary con- tributions ; and sects of the most discordant opinions live in perfect harmony, recognizing in their mutual dependence the strongest grounds for mutual for- bearance and kindness. Taken as a community, they are the best-informed people I have known; and they have numerous and well-chosen circulating libraries in almost every town. They have no connection with any large mar- ket ; and the produce which they have for sale goes through intermediate hands to the great marts. They have few or no poor, and those only the emigrants who may stroll there from neighboring provinces. The sobriety of the people is remarkable ; they are every where a well-dressed people ; their houses abound in all the substantial comforts and luxuries of life; and their hospitality is un- bounded. They understand their rights and their duties, and have often dis- tinguished themselves by an extraordinary bravery and manliness in their vindication and defence. No where is public order more maintained, or public peace better preserved ; large portions of the inhabitants never bolt a door, nor fasten a window, at night; and in a village of some thousand inhabitants, I have known a garden stored with delicious fruit, with no other fence than one which served as a protection against cattle, as entirely secure from intrusioii or plunder, as if it had been surrounded even witli a prison-wall bristled with chevaux-de- frise. In this state crimes are comparatively rare; courts of penal justice have little occupation ; tlie prisons are often without a tenant, and tliere has been scarcely a public execution for half a century. From such an example of a community almost exclusively agricultural, I have a right to claim for agricul- tural and rural life all tlie beneficial moral and social influences to which its enthusiastic admirers pretend. The present excited state of tlie civilized world ought more than ever to call the attention of philanthropic individuals and of governments to the immense importance of agriculture. I have been in France during the exciting scenes of a political revolution, in whicli I have seen very many thousands of workmen with- out the means of support from their labor, and large bodies of them actually depend- tjnt upon public charity for their daily bread. It is not the dangers to public liberty and order, growing out of such large unemployed and destitute multi- tudes, which so much disturb me, as the actual suffering to which tliey are exposed, and the melancholy future that lies before them. In London I have encountered, with an extreme depression of heart, thousands of squalid, ragged, PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. XV miserable poor, witliout resource but from crime or charity. A distinguished manufiicturer in one of the most industrious counties in England, states that there are at least five hundred thousand operatives without employment, and many on the borders of starvation : tradesmen and professional men will tell you that every trade and profession is overstocked ; and one is daily saluted with the melancholy, not to say presumptuous exclamation, that there are too many people. This reminds one of the sad shipwreck of the French frigate, the Alceste, when many of the wretched survivors, who were floating upon a raft composed of fragments of the ship, deemed it necessary to their own safety to drive by force a large portion of their suffering companions into tlie sea — a sad and horrible alternative. It would be more than absurd in me to attempt to prescribe a remedy for evils upon which so many sagacious heads and philanthropic hearts have concentrated without success their powerful energies. But I will point out what I deem the true cause of this great evil, and leave to wiser minds to suggest a cure. One thing is certain ; as matters go on, the evil must extend itself, and become every day more aggravated and terrible, unless some remedy is devised. The reme- dies for the wretched, or, if not wretched, the unfortunate condition of the labor- ing classes, which have been proposed in Paris by men whose good intentions I would not distrust, and which have been so fully and publicly discussed, are absurd, impracticable, and mischievous. The interference of government in limiting or fixing the hours of adult labor ; in attempting to establish a rate of wages irrespective of the time employed ; in proposing to equalize the wages of all trades, and determining the same rate for the skilled and the unskilled, the active and tlie indolent ; tlie proposition to furnish the unemployed with work at the national expense, and to destroy private competition by the establishment of national workshops, — are all of them attempts which are sure to defeat them- selves, and which are as impracticable for the end which they propose, as to attempt to chain the wind, or to stop the flowing of tlie tide. None of them touch the true cause of the evil. Must we affirm, tlien, that tliere are too many people in the world.' and that thousands and millions are born into it for whom there is no place at the table of a beneficent Providence ? Why, in France there are more tlian nineteen millions of untilled and unoccupied acres, and in England more tlian eight mil- lions, all capable of yielding food and clotliing to countless human beings; and here and in other lands there are millions of acres, for the want of labor wJiich might be applied, that produce not a moiety of what they might be made to produce. In ancient Rome, seven acres were the ordinaiy size of farms on which a family might be sustained. In Flanders, on a soil which was ones XVI PKELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. sterile, but which human labor has made productive, two and a half acres will give ample support for a man and wife and three children, or what is considered equal to three grown-up men and a half; and add to it three acres more, which this amount of labor is more than sufficient to cultivate, and you add a consid- erable surplus for other purposes. The great cause, then, of the evils complained of, is, that the cultivation of the earth is deserted ; and that such innumerable multitudes pour into cities and towns, and, filling every profession and every mechanical art and trade, destroy each other by a competition in articles of which the demand is necessarily lim- ited. There may be too many physicians, too many lawyers, and too many ministers, for them all to get a sufficient and an honest living ; and too many hatters, and too many printers, and too many shop-keepers ; for, besides that these persons furnish more of a particular article or service than the community require, tlieir work is in general only formal ; they only manufacture, — they do not produce ; they do not, like the grower of bread and of clothing, create that which may be said to have a substantial and permanent value. For when was the time when there was too great an abundance of the materials — I mean par- ticularly of those which can be kept from year to year — for food and clothing, for human subsistence and comfort ? As long as this state of things continues, there must be misery in tlie community ; as the population increases, this misery must increase. In cities, money becomes tlie standard of prosperity. Wages are paid in money ; money is the instrument of subsistence, of gain, and of pleasure. Avarice, under these circumstances, becomes stimulated to excess, and often leads to crime. Men's happiness becomes dependent upon that which has no intrinsic, but only an arbitrary value, — a value which is always capricious, and continually changing. If men could be induced to cultivate the earth, and, trained to the simple habits of laborious and rural life, be satisfied with what that affords them; if they would measure their prosperity and wealth, not by so many shining pieces of gold or silver, which they have hoarded in their closets, but by the produce of their labor in bread and clothing, and the various and innumerable simple luxuries of life, with which a kind Providence so often blesses the labors even of the most humble, how changed would be their condi- tion ! If they could be as well satisfied to breathe the fresh air of their native mountains and forests as the coiTupt and pestilential atmosphere of crowded streets and confined dwellings, from which both sun and light are shut out ; as well content to enjoy the simple and healthful sports of the country, as the ex- citing and exhausting pleasuresof city life; if their taste could be bettor satisfied to contemplate the verdant fields, waving witli crops or enamelled witli flowers, PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. XVII than carpeted and gilded halls; if tliey could be taught to prefer skies painted with clouds of brilliant hues, and studded with stars whose lustre never grows dim, to palaces blazing with artificial lustres and adorned with tlie far inferior magnificence of man's genius and taste ; if, indeed, by any possible means, you could induce men and women, and, above all, the young, to love the country ; if, in a word, you could keep them in the country by an attachment to its simple labors and recreations, and prevent their crowding cities to repletion, and thas destroying by competition the ordinary professions and trades which prevail tliere, where so many vigorous young men, and so many fair and blooming maidens rush in, like flies in a summer evening into a blazing taper, to find too often the grave of their health, hopes, happiness, and virtue, — what an immense gain would be achieved for morals and for humanity ! But while matters continue otherwise, while such millions of acres remain unoccupied, while such thousands upon thousands crowd into the learned pro- fessions, and into the mechanical arts and trades, and fill cities to repletion, under the powerful stimulus of a vain ambition, an inordinate avarice, or a love of excitement, luxury, and pleasure as inordinate and unrestrained, we shall continue to complain of a superabundance of population ; and that superabun- dance, wherever tlie wave accumulates, will bring Avith it crime and misery. The decrees of Divine Providence cannot be violated with impunity. Every inordinate and unrestrained passion will yield its bitter fruits. Every infraction of the laws of man's moral constitution will be followed with its just and inevita- ble penalty. To my mind, then, the great causes of the evils of which society, especially in the old countries of Europe, is every where complaining, are primarily those which are now pointed out, — an excessive crowding of the professions, trades, and mechanic arts, creating a most baneful competition, and an entirely false assumption, which every where fixes itself in men's minds, that pecuniary wealth is the true standard of prosperity. Competition, which, when excessive, is so hurtful and serious in the mechanic arts ar d trades, : s, .'n agriculture, always a good. Under proper management the earth cannot be made to produce too much. It is a generally received theory, that as yet there has ueen no suir. i3 produce ; that what is grown in one year is, upon an average, only sufficient ior that year; and tliat one year's entire failure of the crops would cause tlie destruction of the human race. I shall not speculate upon this theory, wliich, possibly, may be well founded, but which Heaven forbid that it should bo put soon to experiment. In some years there may be a surplus of some products, and then there may be a dearth of others. But I have never known too much grown : 1 have never knoAvn the great mass of mankind enjoying too much bread, 6* XVin PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. or too much clothing, or too many of the substantial comforts of life. If tliey get the comforts, or their substantial necessities are supplied, then certainly we should desire that tliey should have the luxuries of life in addition, — above all, those simple luxuries which are the produce of their own honest labor, and to which that circumstance alone will always give a peculiar zest. Can any thing be done to remedy or abate this great evil, and to turn aside this rushing current, Avhich threatens to accumulate in such masses of frightful misery ? This is a great inquiry for tlie philanthropist, and for all governments which have at heart the only proper object of government, that is, the welfare of the governed. The Divine Providence often punishes human cupidity and madness by its judgments ; but war, disease, famine, and floods, which sweep away their tens and hundreds of thousands, are dreadful curatives. They seem only temporary in their operation. They lay waste instead of fertilizing. They make man's heart sink witliin him ; and they leave behind them nothing con- solatory or hopeful. No reflecting mind, at least no mind with any experience of human life, will suppose for a moment that any eSectual remedy can be at once discovered or applied. It is only the madness, or enthusiasm, if the milder terra is more fitting, of a French revolutionist, which dreams that the whole form and relations of society can be suddenly changed, and that the next morning's sun shall rise upon a cloudless sky, bringing back the golden age, dispelling all the fogs and mists of night, drying up all tlie sources of human misery, and pouring out a flood of xmiversal peace, plenty, and happiness. While human weakness and passions remain what they are, no complete remedy is ever to be even hoped for. It does not yet appear tliat Heaven designed that man should realize an optimism in this world. To our humble views it seems to be the aim of Divine Providence, by the limitations, uncertainties, imperfections, and trials of this state, to stimulate a virtuous ambition, and to arouse the minds of the well-disposed to all possible exertion to ameliorate the condition of their fellow-men. There is one great encouragement to every phil- antliropic attempt. Little as any individual, or any combination of individuals, can effect, yet I believe truly that no benevolent exertion, however humble, ever failed to produce some good ; and experience constantly shows that seed, which has been cast into the ground, may lie long concealed, may not show itself above the surface even during the lifetime of those who planted it, to gladden their eyes, yet it may yield, though a late, an ample harvest. Every one knows the power of public opinion, and how all the world are influ- enced by fashion, or what is called general sentiment. I have heard of a man who was asked, as is common on leaving church, " how he liked the preacher." His honest reply was, that " he did not know ; he had not heard any body PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. XIX say." This liomely anecdote illustrates a striking element in the human char- acter, and shows how much our judgments, and consequently our actions to a certain extent, depend upon the rank which most things hold in public estimation. I wisli to see an agricultural life, much more than it is, the choice of men of fortune, of influence, of talents, occupying the higher positions in society; and this, not as mere dilettanti or amateurs, but as plain, active, practical husband- men ; men, not merely to come on deck in some fine sunshiny day, to admire the ship witli all her canvass filled, and all her streamers flying, as a beautiful object of art, and, in a spasm of poetical fi-enzy, to enjoy the deep green of the ocean, and its graceful undulations, and its ruffied waves ; but who understand perfectly the art of navigation, who " know every rope in the ship," the nature and stowage of tlie cargo, and the place and duties of every man in the company. I have devoted weeks, and months, and years, in my humble way, to recom- mend this noble art, to vindicate its claims to the attention of those who have at heart their own and the welfare of the community, to show tliat it is a source, if not of large, yet of reasonable profits ; that as an occupation it is as honorable as it is useful ; that it conduces to health of body and peace of mind ; that rural pleasures are, to a well-disciplined mind, among the last to cloy and exhaust it, and wholly pure and innocent ; but especially, that a strictly agricultural life, under those reasonable limitations which apply to every other pursuit, is not incompatible with the pursuit of science and the cultivation of a refined taste ; so that men of fortune, talents, and liberal education, who now sacrifice tlieir fortunes in tlie idle pastimes and frivolities of city life, and their health and peace of mind in its feverish excitements, and the competitions of a diseased vanity and ambition, would find in the simple and hospitable habits of rural life, healtli and vigor of body and mind, and that independence of money and of time, and opportunities for general reading, or the prosecution of any favorite science, ^vliich it is almost impossible to find in the crowded haunts and the eternal and ever-varying round of city engagements and pleasures. The most gifted minds accomplish comparatively little, and fall far short of what might be hoped and expected. The most humble contributions may not be without avail in affecting the mass of public opinion and sentiment. I am happy in thinking that I have sometimes struck a sympathetic chord in some generous minds ; and under any and every discouragement, I console myself with the perfect and serene con- sciousness of having labored at a purpose wholly disinterested, innocent, and useful. What govermnents should do in tlie case, is a most important question. A XX PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. great portion of the governments which have existed, have been little else than an unmitigated curse to mankind. The accumulation of wealth, the acquisition of territory, family aggrandizement, purposes of purely selfish ambition, the mere pomp and luxuries of life, military domination and despotism, have been almost tlie sole purposes aimed at by the governments of the world. The only legitimate purposes of government are the security and welfare of the gov- erned ; but how little have these been regarded ! how often entirely overlooked ! Holding, as I do, all offensive war, of every description, and under any pretext, as a crime against humanity and against God, one's heart bleeds at the recitals of history, which seem little else than recitals of bloody conquests and human slaughter, of wasted fields, of famishing millions, and of sacked and burning villages. If the millions and millions of laboring hands, of sacrificed lives, and of hardly-earned treasures, which have been worse than squandered upon these wicked objects, had been devoted to the subjugation and cultivation of the waste places of the earth, and, instead of attempts to destroy, society had devoted itself to attempts to save life, and to the production of food and the multiplication of tlie comforts and innocent luxuries of mankind, how different would have been the result! What an extraordinary moral anomaly, if so it may be called, does France at this moment present — a nation on the verge of bankruptcy, burdened with exces- sive taxation, with an army of four hundred thousand men, and more than nineteen millions of acres of unoccupied land, all susceptible of cultivation, and of feeding and clothing millions ! Does Great Britain furnish no parallel to this monstrous fact ? With an increasing national debt, whose payment is perfectly hopeless, a weight of taxation the subject of universal complaint, millions upon millions lavished upon her armies and navies ; workliouses and prisons filled to repletion, tliousands and hundreds of thousands upon tlie verge of starvation ; and in the two great islands, resplendent witli the brightest lights of civilization, more than thirteen millions of acres of unoccupied land, and even her cultivated soil, witli an improved agriculture, capable of sustaining in plenty three times tlie number of those who now draw nourisliment from her breast. What a singular con- juncture of circumstances ! Are not these monstrous facts, deeply distressing to philanthropy, deeply wounding to human pride ? We may well ask, If in two of the most enlight- ened, the most civilized, and the most polished nations which have ever existed, nothing better has been attained, or rather so much remains unaccomplished for human comfort, such a mass of human crime and misery remains unreached and unalleviated ; have we not some reason to ask, what are the blessings, and what are tlie triumphs of civilization ? We have a right to demand whetlier the true PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. XXI ends of government and society have been answered ; — whether it has really reached the limits of its power for good ; and whether it has not yet to study the arts of peace and the public welfare. The expenses of fortifying Paris and of providing its armaments, would have converted a whole department into a garden, teeming with the substantive comforts and luxuries of life. The enormous ex- penses of the wars, under the empire, of which now little remains but triumphal arches stained all over with human blood, and splendid monuments to tlie glory of one of the great butchers of the human species, would have converted the whole of France into a fruitful field ; planted every wliere schools, churches, colleges, and smiling villages ; filled her every where with the industrial arts, and witli monuments of taste; banished, under the blessing of Heaven, all want, where there was industry to collect, and frugality to use the products of nature's bounty ; and put it in the power of every one of her thirty-sLx millions of people to sit down in peace and comfort under his own vine and fig-tree. Tlic moneys expended in the naval armaments of Great Britain, in the preparations of muni- tions of war, in the support of her navies and armies in any year of her liistory, what would not they have done in subduing and making her waste lands pro- ductive ! The sums expended for her defence of Ireland, for the repression of disorders, in a great measure consequent upon her wants and miseries, and the vast sums bestowed upon that wretched country in charity, the necessity of which springs directly and wholly from its neglected and wretched agriculture, what would not they have accomplished in draining her bogs, in enriching her meadows, in changing her mud hovels into comfortable cottages ; in warding off the grim horrors of famine, and in raising millions of human beings, sunk, as I myself have witnessed, in a lower degradation than that in wliich it seemed possible that human life could be sustained, to the common level of humanity, and even to a high measure of comfort and civilization ! What, then, shall government do to remedy the dreadful evils under which civilized society is now groaning aloud ; and one part of God's family is impi- ously complaining that He permits another portion, though with equal rights as tliemselves, to come into the world ; and our cities, from an excessive compe- tition or production in the pursuits of mechanical industry, or in the learned professions, are every where teeming with masses of misery and crime ? I do not say that an extended and improved agriculture would prove the only remedy : nor tliat it would prove a certain remedy ; but I believe it would prove effectual to a certain and large degree ; and I demand to know what single remedy will prove more efficient. To whatever degree, be it more or less, to which it is extended, it increases national wealth ; it multiplies the means of subsistence ; XXll PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. it withdraws men from tlie competitions of trade and manufactures ; and, above all, it attaches men to the soil, and so far gives a pledge of order, loyalty, and patriotism. The efforts of government, then, should be directed to give every possible facility and protection to this art or pursuit; to render land accessible ; to break up those tenures under which, by various provisions, worthy only of a barbarous age, land is kept out of cultivation; to alleviate, as much as possible, the bur- dens upon land ; to assist in all those great improvements, which are too vast for individual effort ; to diffuse agricultural knowledge ; to promote agricultural education ; to learn and translate the improvements and crops of other countries : and by honors and premiums to encourage an emulation in the only art in M-hich emulation is not only innocent and harmless, but always useful to all parties ; and tluis to stimulate cultivation and improvement in every branch of this art, and induce habits of domestic economy, by every practicable means. What govern- ments can do on a large scale, landlords and proprietors may do perhaps more efficiently and successfully within their own domains. May they feel the great responsibility whicli their situation imposes on tliem ! If any one of the great nations of Europe would give but half the attention and half the expense to the improvement of its agriculture, which it now bestows upon its military prepara- tions and improvements, we might expect an equal proficiency in the one art as in the other. Which should be preferred — whether it be better to save life or to destroy — I leave to the judgment of my readers. It is now only a few months since I passed a day at Waterloo. I saw, waving with their luxuriant crops, the fields which had been enriched by torrents of human blood : I stood upon the grassy mound under which tens of slaughtered thousands lay entombed. I have a profound reverence for that heroism which bares its bosom in defence of right, justice, and freedom ; but I have no respect for that tiger ferocity which deligjits in human carnage, and that mad enthusiasm which follows, reckless of its own and of other lives, the phantom which men call military glory. The cannon's roar, the waving plumes, the burnished hel- met, the bristling bayonets glittering in the sunshine, have no charms for me. I took in my hands a skull pierced by a ball, which the plough had recently turned up. I thought for a moment of the burning passions, the fiery hate, the thirst for revenge, for conquest, and for blood, which had filled and swelled in tliis little casket, — the noblest production of divine power, — when death instantly de- manded the account. Other associations rushed upon the mind. I thought of some once cheerful fireside made desolate ; of some aged mother robbed of her staff; of a widow cast friendless upon the world ; of orphan children, and of PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. XXlll weeping friends. And this, said I to myself, is military glory ; these are the trophies of war. l touna the sprmgs ot feeling beginning to be deeply moved. I turned my eyes at once to other neighboring fields of conquest, which I had recently left. I had seen millions of acres, by an enterprise truly grand, a courage most heroic, a labor most indomitable, rescued from the sea, and its proud waves repelled ; barren sands converted into fruitful fields ; and where tlie ocean held its profitless sway, and the winds, and waves, and tempests were accustomed to spend their mingled and destructive violence, the calmness and security of rural life every where triumphant ; fields crowned with plenty, and speckled every where with rejoicing herds ; and cities and villages swarming with busy and happy thousands, and rich in all the arts and luxuries of civilized and refined life. I did not need to ask myself, What conquests are tne most noble ? I hope my kind reader will not deem these reflections misplaced, as prelimi- nary to the somewhat dry task and the plain matters of fact to which I now invite him. One of the most distinguished agriculturists which England ever produced said, " tliat the best way of improving agriculture was to go abroad and see what other people were doing." I have been now some time in Great Britain and on the Continent, that I might see what other people were doing, and learn from personal observation the true state of the agriculture and the rural economy of the old world ; that I might present to the agricultural com- munity in my own country, and in other places, matters of instruction and exam- ples for imitation, if such were to be found ; or subjects of congratulation if their own improvements have already placed them in advance, and left them nothing to learn. A full survey of European agriculture is a task for many minds, for many years of observation, and for higher talents and acquirements than I could bring to the work. Yet I shall deem it no mean honor to contribute any useful service to so important an object. It will be understood that I enter the field only as a gleaner. It is said that the gleaners often bring home the heaviest and the ripest heads of grain, because these are the first to drop from the stalks. I shall be but too happy if the analogy should be found to hold in my case. The sketches of French agriculture commence at the ninth report ; and these will be followed by, and sometimes intermingled with, sketches of Flemish and Swiss agriculture, and other observations which have suggested themselves in the course of my tour. There may be found some deficiencies, because I mean to state nothing, unless otherwise declared, which has not been verified by personal observation ; but, on the other hand, there will be this advantage, that such statements rest upon a responsible authority. My great object will be to XXIV PBELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. give, almost exclusively, information of a practical character ; but if occasionally there may appear some slight digressions, my kind reader will regard them only as watering-places on the journey, where the traveller loosens the reins and dismounts for a moment in a dry and dusty road, that he may renew his progress with more freshness and vigor EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. SIXTH REPORT. I PROCEED, in this Report, to treat of other processes than those which I have described in the management of arable land. XC — PARING AND BURNING. The process of paring and burning the surface of the land has been practised with great, though not always with equal, success in many parts of the country. The objects of it are threefold : the first, to reduce the coarse vegetable matter on the surface to a state of decomposition, that it may be supplanted by a more profitable vegetation ; the second, to destroy grubs, insects, and the larvae of insects, which infest the soils, and are pernicious to the cultivated crops ; and the third, to convert the coarse, vege- table matter on the surface into ashes, for the nutriment of the crops which are to follow. This process is not to be confounded with that, which I shall afterwards describe, of burning clay for the purpose of manure and of rendering the soil friable and per- vious to the roots of plants. In the operation of paring and burning, a thin slice, or turf, varying from one to three inches, is taken from the surface, and, after being sufficiently dried, is cut into pieces of a convenient length, and then piled in heaps preparatory to being burned and reduced to ashes. The turf is cut sometimes with a plough with a broad share, of the width of the slice desired to be raised, or, VOL. II. 1 2 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. Otherwise, with a spade made thin, with a flange or wing on one side of the blade, resembhng, in this respect, a spade for the cut- ting of peat, and with a long and curved handle, with a cross- piece at the end, by which it is forced under the sward by a pressure against the thighs of the workman. The work, when performed with the spade, is deemed severe, and it is considered a sufficient day's work for a man to accomplish a quarter of an acre. The sods, when collected, are piled in heaps of a larger or smaller size, according to the convenience of the operator, pains being taken to form a sort of furnace beneath, in which are placed some brushwood, fagots, or coal, as in the oven of a brickkiln. The sods are piled over this ; and, fire being kindled, attention is paid to prevent its blazing out, so that wherever a hole is found, by which the fire might escape, it is immediately filled up with fresh dirt ; and, as the fire advances, new sods are occasionally heaped upon the pile ; the object being to reduce the whole to ashes by a smouldering fire. It is surprising to find to what a fine state the sods and vegetable matter may be reduced, and how the burning will continue to go on, though the whole seems to be in a state of perfect quiescence. A thorough burning requires frequently a month, or a longer time, for its completion. The headlands of a field are occasionally burned without the rest of the field being subjected to the same process. Here there is always an accumulation of soil, and a collection of rubbish, coarse grass, weeds, or bushes ; and all these are dug up occa- sionally to the depth of six or ten inches, and piled in heaps, and burned as I have above described. In cases where the whole is not consumed, the part which is not sufficiently reduced by the action of the fire is transferred to another heap. Two or three pieces of advice are commonly given in regard to the manage- ment of this burning. One is, not to make the heaps too large in the beginning, as the weight of the incumbent mass is liable to extinguish the fire, but to heap it up gradually as the fire goes on ; the second is, not to allow the fire to blaze out, as else it would soon burn itself out ; and a third is, not to make the fire too hot, as otherwise much of the earth, instead of being made to crumble, and reduced to a friable state, would become baked hard, like bricks. PARING AND BURNING. ^ 3 The ashes, then, of these heaps are evenly spread over the fields operated upon ; and this is generally followed by a green crop, such as vetches or turnips, which, under good management, are consumed on the field. Then follows the usual course of wheat, barley, and grass. The amount of ashes, obtained by the ordinary process of paring and burning, has been made the subject of exact calculation, and is so remarkable that I deem it worth stating. " An acre of land, from which the turf was taken in the common mode of paring and burning, appeared to have produced an average of 2660 bushels of ashes, which, at their mean weight of 65 pounds to a bushel, when dry, would give 172,900 pounds, or rather more than 11 tons, per acre." The subject of paring and burning land has been long matter of warm discussion. Of its advantages, in many cases, there can be no doubt. In the well-cultivated county of Essex, it is a constant and successful practice. A distinguished farmer states that he has practised it for more than twenty years ; and where, when he began the practice, he was able to keep only one, he now keeps six sheep. It has been said that the destruction of the vegetable matter, in the soil must necessarily impoverish it ; and that it would be much better to bury this vegetable matter, where, by a slow decomposition, it might serve to afford nutri- ment to the crops to be cultivated. There are, in the first place, some mechanical difficulties in the case. Where a piece of heath land, covered with coarse grasses and low bushes of furze or fern, is ploughed, it is extremely difficult, even by the most severe process of pressing or rolling, to make it lie flat, and so consoli- date it that it can be cultivated to advantage. This is stated to have been the fact, on an extensive heath in Surrey, where cul- tivation, under the practice of paring and burning, succeeded well, but very ill where the land was only turned over without paring and burning. "In the former case, the land was immediately fit for turnips, tares, barley, and clover ; in the latter, the tough wiry-bent heath, and dwarf furze, kept the land too light and spongy for any crop. Even rolling could not keep it down, for its elasticity raised the soil soon after the roller had passed over it, and it is of so imperishable a nature, that it is likely to plague the farmer for many years." There are certainly strong reasons, in such cases, for paring and burning fields of this description ; but they do not apply to those lands where the vegetable matter 4 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. is of a different description, and would, by being covered over, be speedily brought into a state of decomposition. Here the expediency of paring and burning is more questionable. In the process of burning, it is evident that none of the earthy or mineral constituents, or what are called the inorganic portions of the soil, are consumed. But all the vegetable matter, with the exception of that portion which has become charred in the process, is destroyed. The extreme doctrine of some eminent chemists is, that the humus, or vegetable portion of the soil, is of no importance to vegetation ; but universal experience and observation seem to attest that the fertility of soils, with some exceptions, may be ordinarily determined by the quantity of decayed vegetable matter or mould in which they abound. If plants, in fact, derive nothing from the soil but the mineral in- gredients which are found in them, yet the humus of the soil may itself be the means of abstracting from the air, and conduct- ing to the plants, the nourishment, the carbonic acid, and the ammonia, which they are to obtain from thence.* The humus of the soil serves to render it more friable ; it absorbs moisture from the atmosphere, and it retains heat, and, in these respects, if in no other, contributes to vegetation. f In dissipating this * "Humus, in contact with air, gives off carbonic acid." "The capital fact which results from these experiments of Saussure, the deduction directly ap- plicable to the theory of manures, is this — that humus is dissipated Avhen it is ex- posed to the air ; and that, during the slow combustion which it undergoes, it is a constant source of carbonic acid gas." — Boussingault, p. 323. " Potash and soda dissolve humus almost completely, causing an evolution of ammonia." — Ibid. p. 321. f " There is an important element, which must always be taken into the ac- count in estimating the value of soils, no matter what their special composition ; this element is their depth, or thickness. In running a deepish furrow in a cultivated field, we generally distinguish at a glance the deptli of the superficial layer, which is commonly designated as tlie mould, or vegetable earth ; this is a layer gener- ally impregnated with humus, and looser and more friable than the subsoil upon which it rests. The thickness of tliis superficial layer is extremely variable. It is frequently no more tlian about three inches ; but it is also encountered of every depth, from three or four to twelve or thirteen inches. It must be held an ex- ceptional and unusual case, when it has a depth of three feet, or more. Never- theless, we do meet with collections of vegetable soil of great depth, deposited by rivers, washed down into the bottoms of valleys, or accumulated on the surface, as in the virgin forests or vast prairies of America. Depth of mould or vegetable soil is always advantageous ; it is one of the best conditions to successful agri- culture. If we have depth of soil, and the roots of our plants do not penetrate PARING AND BURNING. matter, then, by burning, we must look for some compensation in the ashes which are produced, or in the mechanical effects which this burning operates upon the soil. The ashes them- selves are powerful absorbents and retainers of moisture, and they answer a valuable purpose in the disintegration, or loosening, of the soil. They certainly, in many cases, operate as an efficient manure. I have seen their effects often, both upon old and new land. In examining the returns of nearly four thousand dif- ferent wheat crops in Massachusetts, in which, with a view to secure the premium offered by the state upon the cultivation of wheat, it was required to give the mode of culture in detail, I. found, in every case where ashes were applied to manure the crop, the beneficial effects were emphatically affirmed. In clear- ing new land, it has been the custom to fell the standing wood, and, after it has become sufficiently dried, to burn it completely upon the land. This always leaves a large deposit of ashes on the ground. It is common to plant Indian corn directly upon these ashes, without ploughing the land, and, at the close of the season, at the last hoeing of the corn, or indeed its only hoeing, to sow wheat among it, which, to use the common phrase, is then "hacked in" by the hoe. Some of the largest crops of Indian corn and of wheat, which I have ever known, have been grown in this way. In one case, upon a very large field, the product of wheat averaged sixty-four bushels to the acre. What is the chemical effect of ashes, I believe, is not well ascertained : but I shall presently let those give their opinion who assume to understand their operation. It seems natural to infer, that that which once formed a constituent element in a plant may serve as food for another plant of the same species. There may be other uses, which are not so direct and obvious, but equally efficient. The expediency of paring and burning land must, as I have remarked, depend upon the nature of the soil which is to be sufficiently to derive benefit from the fertility that lies below, we can always, by workinn; a little deeper, bring up the inferior layers to the surface, and so make them concur in fertilizing the soil. Independently of this great advantage, a deep soil suffers less either from excess or deficiency of moisture ; the rain that falls has more to moisten, and is therefore absorbed in greater quantity than by thin soils; and, once imbibed, it remains in store against drought." — Bonssin- gauU, p. 297. 1* b EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. subjected to the process. On light, sandy, or gravelly soils, where the vegetation is thin and sparse, it is strongly objection- able. I will subjoin here an extract of a letter, with which I have been favored, from the intelligent steward of the excellently- managed farm of Lord Hatherton, at Teddesley, Staffordshire. " With respect to the trial we made, of paring and burning some of the high heath lands at Teddesley, we prepared two small patches, about half an acre each, in the usual way, in the spring of 1844, upon the highest part of the Teddesley common, and the ashes were spread and harrowed when the turnip seed was sown. The other part was ploughed and dressed with about five tons of lime to the acre, and sown with turnips at the same time as the above ; but, in consequence of the summer of 1844 being unusually dry, both experiments were deficient. We again sowed the land with turnips last June, and the land pre- pared with lime has now a decided advantage, and I have not the least doubt it will be much more apparent in the next crop, which will be oats. I have frequently witnessed the experiment of paring and burning waste lands, when they are first brought into cultivation ; but in no instance should I recommend its adoption upon dry, sandy soils, which are already deficient in vegetable matter, which is the case with most of the common lands in this neighborhood, particularly the high lands. The crop of oats was grown upon the highest part of the common, after a crop of turnips, for which the land was broken up and limed, as I have before stated." " The crop of oats on this land, of which there were sixty acres, were at the rate of full sixty bushels to the acre — the result of heavily liming the land when first broken up, and then twice eating turnips off it ; " (that is, eating them on it, by folding the sheep upon it. — H. 0.) *' On no other plan than that of taking nothing out of the land, and putting as much as possible in, could such a produce of oats have been obtained from such a soil." * The lime, in this case, if it were copiously applied, as I saw * Since writinfj tlie above, a very competent friend Avrites to me tlius : " The experiment of burninrr did not answer. All my experience has satisfied me that it will not do on my (jTonnd. Nor do I believe that it is a good thing any where, where other means of reducing vegetable matter can be had. I have pared and burned a good deal formerly. It brought good crops, but the land was clearly impoverished afterwards." PARING AND BURNING. 7 preparations for doing on another part of the farm, may have assisted, as the fire would have done, in the decomposition of the vegetable matter. The lime is advised to be applied always with the ashes, when the surface is pared and burned. They are stated to work well together. A certain gentleman, about to undertake the office of a judge, was advised, by another very shrewd and experienced magistrate, to give his decisions without giving the reasons for those decisions. Perhaps he saw that his causality was deficient, or knew how often it happens in life that for many exceedingly well-established facts it is very dif- ficult to give any reasons. I avail myself, in this case, of the same sage advice. The eff"ects of lime are in a degree capricious and uncertain. I know that they must follow the general and established laws of nature ; but, in spite of the confidence of some men, it does not appear that these laws are yet fully under- stood. A deficiency of lime in the soil implies the necessity and advantages of its application ; but the " quantitive philosophy," as it is called, leaves me sometimes at a loss, when I am told, on the one hand, that the ashes of a crop of clover, on an acre, con- tain full three bushels of gypsum ; and know, on the other hand, that half a bushel of gypsum sown broadcast, in a rainy day. upon an acre of clover, will often very much more than double the crop. In this case, whatever may have been the effects of the lime, or whatever, in any case, may be the advantages of mixing lime with ashes, where land has been pared and burned, (and I am not disposed to deny them,) the advantages of consum- ing the crops of turnips upon the ground, by folding and feeding the sheep, are not matter of question. A high authority, on the treatment of land which is pared and burned, advises " to apply the whole of the manure produced by the crops to the ground ; and to manage it, generally, in the usual course of regularly-cul- tivated arable land." This corresponds with the shrewd advice. to which I referred in a former number, given in respect to the application of a new artificial manure, which was, that, in ad- dition to the artificial manure, you should apply to the ground the quantity of other manure ordinnrily used in such cultivafio?? : and somewhat reminds one of the mode adopted by the Irish servant, (an Irishman, of course,) whom his master desired to get rid of a light guinea, and who reported to him, with much self- 8 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. i gratulation, that he had done it most adroitly by passing it, un- observed, at the turnpike-gate, between two sixpences. The paring and burning of peat land is always advised, and the ashes to be spread. Here there is an excess of vegetable matter, which, perishing under cold water, and that water usually impregnated with an excess of iron or some pernicious mineral substance, is in an unfit condition for the purposes of vegeta- tion. The coarse grasses, likewise, customarily found upon peat meadows, forming a thick, matted sward, require to be either entirely removed, or thoroughly reduced and decomposed, before a better kind of vegetation can take their place. Peat ashes are stated to have a specific value, which I shall speak of presently. The burning of peat ground, however, requires very great care, as I have sometimes seen very deep and inconvenient holes made in the surface, by the fire having been sufi"ered to proceed too far. In all cases where it is attempted to bring a soil into cultiva- tion by paring and burning, it is considered indispensable to success, that the land should be drained and laid thoroughly dry. This rule applies to other cases, besides those of paring and burning. I may, as well as not, here, though I shall have occa- sion to repeat it hereafter, urge upon farmers the importance of laying their land dry, or rather of having the command of the water upon it, in order to a successful culture. Without this, it is idle to expect success. Water, one of the great elements in vegetation, may, by excess, become thoroughly pernicious and destructive, except to those coarse aquatic plants to which it is the natural condiment and home.* * After writing the above article, I met witli some remarks of the distinguished writer on rural economy, Boussingault, to whom I have before referred, which had not before met my eye, but which I know my inquisitive readers will be glad that I should present to them. "The effect of the imperfect combustion of these pyritic turfs, the product which results from it, explains to a certain extent the beneficial effects of the practice of paring and burning — an important and widely-spread practice, the utility of which it would be difficult to understand, were it not connected in some way witli the production of ammoniacal ashes. " The useful effects of paring and burning are, in all probability, connected with the destruction of organic matter, very poor in azotized principles ; in the trans- formation of the surface of the soil into a porous, carbonaceous earth, made apt to condense and retain the ammoniacal vapors disengaged during the combustion ; BURNING LAND. XCL — BURNING LAND. The burning of the soil is a process somewhat different from that of paring and burning, and, properly speaking, for different objects, though the latter process tends in some degree to the same end. No operation in husbandry, which I have seen this side of the water, surprised me so much as this. Of its expe- diency, or rather of its remunerative character, I must leave others to judge. In the last particular, the difference between two dollars a week for labor without board, and three dollars a week with board, will be found material. In either case, it will be found that there are few operations more expensive. The question which an English farmer, or improver of land, often proposes to himself, is very different from what an Ameri- can farmer in similar circumstances would propose to himself. The price of land in England is often most exorbitant, £60 sterling, or 300 dollars, per acre, being frequently paid for large farms, and, not seldom, much more than that. The annual rents paid in Great Britain for extensive farms would, in some lastly, by the production of alkaline and earthy salts, which are familiarly known to exert a most beneficial influence upon vegetation. These conditions seem so entirely those, the object of which it is to realize by paring- and burning, that, in or- der to make the operation favorable to the soil which undergoes it, the vegetable matter which it has produced must of necessity be transformed into black ashes ; when it goes beyond this, when the incineration is complete, and the residue pre- sents itself as a red ash, the soil may be struck with perfect barrenness for the fu- ture. The burning, therefore, that was not properly managed, that led to the com- plete incineration of all tlie organic matter, would, for the same reason, have a very bad effect in the preparation of the Picardy ashes ; Avhich might, indeed, act in the same way as turf ashes from the hearth and oven, but which, deprived of all azotized principles, would not ameliorate the ground in the manner of organic manures." " I have frequently seen the process of burning performed in the steppes of Southern America. Fire is set to the pastures after the grass which covers them has become dry and woody ; the flame spreads with inconceivable rapidity? and to immense distances. The earth becomes charred and black ; the combus- tion of those parts that are nearest to the surface, however, is never complete ; and a few days after the passage of the flame, a fresh and vigorous vegetation is seen sprouting tlirough the blackened soil, so that in a few weeks the scone of the desolation by fire becomes changed mto a rich and verdant meadow." — Rural Economy, p. 374. 10 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. cases, almost buy the fee simple of lands in the United States, lands much more fertile, and, in the old and settled parts of the country, subdued, well fenced, and with good buildings. Where land now is waste, and produces little or nothing, it is obvious that it would be wiser to expend a sum equal to what would be the full value of the land after its improvement, than to suffer it to remain wholly unproductive ; such improvements may, in fact, be considered as creating so much land, as adding so much productive land to an estate. In the United States, where land is abundant and cheap, such expensive improvements, unless on a small scale, and in some most favored localities, cannot be recommended. It would be wiser to abandon land so worthless, and have recourse to better soils, which are easily accessible for prices vastly less than the expense of such improvements. The process of burning land, of which I am speaking, is ap- plicable only to stiff, clay soils. The objects of it are, first, to render it friable, and destroy its adhesiveness, and the second is to create a supply of manure in the ashes of the soil thus burned. The first I can understand ; the second seems more difficult of credence. The process consists in digging, either with a plough or spade, the whole top-soil of a field, and placing it in small heaps, with a furnace or oven under them, where a fire of coal, or fagots, or brushwood may be kindled, and continue to burn until the whole pile is, properly speaking, reduced to an ash-heap, as far as the nature of the substance so reduced admits of being so designated. Where I have seen the process carried on, the depth of soil so dug and burned did not much exceed a foot ; but I have been made acquainted with one experiment, where the depth so moved and reduced was three feet. Those of my readers who are fond of mathematical calculations may amuse themselves with calculating the gross number of tons of earth which, on a single acre, must be moved in such an operation ; and I think they will be surprised at the result. I know of scarcely any thing like it, except in the case of the old man in the fable, who bequeathed to his two sons a valuable treasure buried in the field, for which they were to dig. Whether avarice or curiosity prompted them in the case to go deeper than this, and to accom- plish a more Herculean task than this, we are not informed. In one case, which I saw, the pieces of clay were baked BURNING LAND. 11 into hard lumps ; and a good deal was completely vitrified, the whole presenting the appearance of the floor of a brickkiln after the burned bricks had been removed. The process here had evi- dently been carried too far, and the experiment disappointed the enterprising undertaker — a failure, for which he suggested many causes besides the true one. I have always found that the strong back — for very strong it must be to bear all that is put upon it — of a certain nameless personage in theology was an ex- ceedingly convenient repository for certain persons to put their sins upon, which their own inordinate self-esteem would not allow them to ascribe to the proper source ; so my friend, in this case, had half a dozen reasons to give respecting the season, and other extraneous hinderances, in place of the true reasons why his experiment failed ; and, like a brave veteran, the hero of many fights, in the midst of his discomfiture, his heart still glowed with the confidence of ultimate success. Such courage and perseverance deserve a better reward than I fear he will obtain. There are some chemists, learned in the highest degree, who speak with confidence of pounded glass being used as a manure ; and another, eminent in his peculiar science, speaks of the power of a plant, in its wonderful action of growth, to de- compose the sides of the glass vessel in which it is grown, and appropriate portions of it for its nutriment. 1 believe it. He is a brave man who will presume to say what cannot be done. A single imprisoned drop of water, by the power of fire or of frost, may rend a mountaiii asunder. The power of vegetable action is as tenacious and indomitable as the Creator could make it, for the purposes for which he designed it ; and it is only another form in which that wonderful Power, which can command stones that they shall be made bread, displays itself, that enables the plant, which is itself to become bread to man, to extract, even from the inert stones themselves, its own proper nutriment and substance, and convert them into a principle of life. I do not know where better than in this place to insert a letter received from a most intelligent and practical farmer in Stafford- shire, which will be read with interest, and which relates partic- ularly to this mode of improvement. " I fear it will not be in my power to give you any satisfac- tory or decisive information as to the result of burning the Need- wood Forest clay sand. What I have done has not been by 12 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. paring and burning the surface, which is, I believe, pretty exten- sively done in some parts of England. In that case, I presume, a great portion of the substance burned is vegetable matter, which almost of itself furnishes the fuel for burning the soil. I have ploughed up a fallow-field as deep as the plough would go, perhaps a foot deep, of which three or four inches were clayey soil, and the rest pure clay, and have then with coal- slack burned the whole in small heaps, or in rows. This is the third season since it was done ; but the two which have elapsed have, from drought, been extremely unfavorable for the cultiva- tion of land out of which every particle of moisture had been burned." " I have also very imperfectly succeeded in having the burning effected as I should have wished. The clay breaks up in large, rough, solid lumps, and it is extremely difficult to subject the whole to the action of fire, without having a large portion of it reduced to brick, or brick-dust. Under the most favorable cir- cumstances this is difficult, and the difficulty is constantly in- creased by weather. A violent wind drives through the heaps, rapidly consumes the fuel, bricking the clay in contact with it, and leaving the rest untouched ; or a soaking rain, for a day or two, interferes equally unfavorably. The object, I presume, should be to get the fire to smoulder through the whole mass, which no doubt would be more easily effected if it were some- what of a more loamy character, and had any tendency in itself to carry on the action of the fire." " In 1843, I had a very full crop of barley from the first half acre, which was burned and spread down early in the spring, and received a good soak of rain. From the next portion I had a very bad crop of potatoes, and from the rest of the field a poor crop of turnips, which were sowed very late, and, from want of moisture, did not come up till they should have been half grown. They were a healthy crop, but very small. Last year I sowed barley, which came up very partially, from want of moisture ; and in June, I ploughed it up and sowed turnips, which in all this part of the country (as well as in that field) were, last year, (1844,) a complete failure. These two years of non-return from the burned land indisposed me to try it for another without the aid of manure. I dunged it, and have now on one half a good growing crop of oats, and on the other a beautiful crop of wheat. BURNING LAND. 13 One land of the wheat was left without manure. It was worse than the rest, but not bad. In the icorking of the land a vast im- provement has been effected by the burning. I sent specimens of my unburned and burned clay to be analyzed by Professor John- ston, iu Edinburgh ; who wrote to me, after the analysis, that he was quite unable to assign any chemical reason for the fertilizing efiects attributed to it. I told him that I had not any experience myself of its fertilizing effects ; and I then sent him specimens of clay, burned and unburned, from Newhall, a colliery distant about seven miles from this place, where I have been shown fields, which are said to have borne six and seven successive luxuriant crops without a particle of manure, after being burned, having previously been exceedingly unproductive. The clay is in appearance very different from mine, and burns into a very different substance, apparently not having any tendency to burn into brick, but into black and red loam. I have not yet received Professor Johnston's report upon them."' " In the last two years I have burned a great deal of clay, but it has been under different circumstances, and with different objects. In draining my land, nearly the whole material taken out is pure clay, which I consider unfit to be put in again, in that state, over the tiles. I therefore burn it, and then fill the drains with burned clay, of which about one half then remains, which I cast upon my plough-land to improve its texture, in which way I find it very useful." Experience is always a valuable instructor, when that expe- rience is intelligent, and carefully detailed. The letter which I have given is, on every account, entitled to respect. I shall pro- ceed to give some other details from another source, the Journals of the Royal Agricultural Society.* Mr. Charles Randell, who speaks of having had much expe- rience in the improvement of cold and heavy soils, by the appli- cation of burned clay, has given the particulars of several experi- ments of this nature. The first was made with a field of eleven acres of the worst description of clay on the side of a steep hill, " inaccessible to the dung cart, to which it had always been a stranger." It was ploughed in the summer, and he, with the scuffle and drag, * Vol. V. part i. p. 113. VOL. II. 2 14 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, brought the clods of couch grass and wiry turf to the surface, which, with the quantity of soil necessary to procure a good dressing of ashes, were shovelled and forked together, and burned in heaps of about a cart-load each, with wood from the neglected hedge-rows in the vicinity. The weather, he says, was unfa- vorable, and the work not well done, but the result was sat- isfactory. The field, after the ashes were lightly ploughed in, was planted with vetches, and these were eaten otf the succeed- ing summer with sheep, and then planted with wheat, which produced more than thirty bushels per acre. It was afterwards laid down to grass, and carries a much heavier stock than before. He says " that, if he finds it go back, he shall plough it again for vetches, having no doubt that it is now capable of bearing a crop sufficient, Avhen consumed upon the land by sheep," (I beg my readers particularly to remark this qualification,) "to enable it to grow as good a crop of wheat as the last." His next trial was upon a field of sixteen acres, fifteen of which are a strong clay, the remainder fair turnip land. The clay part of the field was exceedingly foul, so that he had two objects to attain — first, to get rid of the couch by burning it in the clods ; next, with the ashes so obtained, to render the whole field capable of bearing a crop of swedes. In this case, likewise, he speaks of his success. " The whole, after draining, was limed and manured alike, and the crop was quite as good upon the clay as upon any part of the field. All the swedes were con- sumed upon the land by sheep ; the succeeding barley crop was much better upon the part which had rarely, if ever, been planted with barley before ; the seeds (that is, the grass seeds) were equally good; but the wheat crop this year, (1843,) from the excessive growth of straw, went down early, and became mildewed, and, though more bulky than the rest of the field, will not be so productive. The field is now ploughed for swedes again ; and the clay part is as healthy, and as likely to grow a crop, as that which has always been considered turnip land." It will not escape observation, that this land last mentioned was drained, and limed, and manured, and all the swede turnips consumed upon it by the sheep, who were, of course, folded upon it. This certainly cannot be considered as niggardly treatment of the land, whatever may have been the effects of the burning. Two other fields are mentioned, in order to show more satis- BURNING LAND. 15 factorily the fertilizing power of ashes, because, to use his own expression, they were not assisted by any other kind of manure. What Mr. Randell means by not being assisted with any other kind of manure, will appear from his account. The field of five acres was a foul bean stubble ; the English horse-bean is un- doubtedly intended, which, when not cut close, leaves a large amount of stubble. In May, it was skim-ploughed to the depth of about one inch and a half, and all that the plough raised burned with fagots, and the ashes spread. It was then ploughed and scuffled, and rendered perfectly clean ; planted with vetches in October ; and fed off, the ensuing summer, by sheep folded upon it; and this followed by wheat at more than forty-five bushels per acre. Another field adjoining, of three acres, under similar treatment, produced nearly 'equal results, the dif- ference in the wheat crop, which was 7iot quite so heavy, being attributable to the vetches having been eaten off by horses tethered on them, instead of sheep. The difference of the results in the two cases — of feeding with sheep on the ground, or with horses — is quite worthy of remark ; but it is much to be regret- ted that the amount of difference should not have been exactly ascertained, instead of adopting the terms, "nearly equal results," and "not quite so heavy," which imply that the result was matter of conjecture, not of measurement, or at least admit of considerable latitude of construction. Another experiment of the power of ashes, unaided, to restore exhausted land, (more conclusive, he says, than the former,) was a field of ten acres of exceedingly stiff" clay, " in 1839, an aw- fully foul piece of two years old in grass." He ploughed and planted it with wheat, which was dibbled in, and twice hoed, and gave only sixteen bushels per acre. Afterwards the stubble was skim -ploughed, and attempted to be dragged, but so matted and heavy, it would seem, that this was found impracticable ; " it was then parted with forks, and burned ; and the quantity of ashes burned could not have been less, upon the far greater part of the field, than from 150 to 200 yards per acre." What is meant by yards, in this case, 1 must leave it to my readers to con- jecture, — I suppose, however, cubic yards. It was then planted with vetches ; but such a crop of crowfoot, charlock, and rubbish of all descriptions followed, that it was mowed and carried to the fold-yard. It was then fallowed and drained, and then, in 16 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. the ensuing spring, sowed with barley, which produced fifty-six bushels per acre. The next field consisted of thirteen acres of stiff, but tolerably productive wheat land. It was foul, burned equally well, was drained, limed, and manured, and produced an excellent crop of swedes, no turnips having been grown upon it before. " It has since grown barley and seeds, as good as I could wish," rather an indefinite mode of measurement, " and is now planted with wheat." All these pieces of land had the ashes burned and spread upon the land, with wood cut from the adjoining hedges, or with in- ferior coal, and the cost of the process estimated at £3 10 s., or about $17, per acre. In another case, the same farmer adds, "upon fifteen acres, which were dressed in like manner during the winter, where no attempt was ever before made to grow turnips, in consequence of the tenacious quality of the land, and without the aid of manure of any description except the ashes, and I have had a very excellent crop; and the most extraordinary part of the matter is, that, although the greater part has been eaten ofi in the months of October and November last, which were very wet, by nearly four hundred sheep, constantly kept upon them, the nature of the soil has been for a time so changed by the ashes, that I have been enabled to plough close behind the sheep, and drill the wheat as fast as ploughed." He remarks, likewise, what I deem of much importance, that, if the soil be dug and " thrown with the spade in large pieces, a double quantity of coal will be consumed, and the ashes of no more value than so many brick ends. The proper mode is to move the soil with a pickaxe, breaking it all the time as much as possible ; it is then put lightly on the fires with a shovel." What he says of the value of ashes is quite worthy of atten- tion. " That the mechanical effect of ashes, in rendering heavy land friable, has a great deal to do with increasing its powers of production, there can be no doubt ; but it is unfortunately as certain, that their effect in this way is not so great in subsequent years as in the first two or three, though it will always be con- siderable. This is accounted for by the natural tendency of ashes, like lime, to sink into the soil. In a few years, they become incorporated with a larger proportion of earth than at BURNING LAND. 17 first ; and their effect in rendering it more easily workable then gradually diminishes ; but that their virtues are not to be attrib- uted to their mechanical effect alone, I have proved by wheeling ashes upon the surface of part of a crop of vetches, when the part so dressed showed, in the succeeding spring, a superiority which was distinguishable as far as the field could be seen, and where the crop was cut (green) while the whole was heavy, that part to which the ashes were applied was completely rotten at the bottom." " For those who, like myself, have to get a considerable tract of foul and poor clay land into a tolerable state of cultivation, there are, to my knowledge, no means by which it can be accom- plished in so short a time, and with so great a certainty, as by burning. Let it be accompanied in all cases by draining ; let the first crop be a green one consumed upon the land, and the land will be at once established, and may ever after, at the least possible expense, be maintained in a productive state, provided it be kept clean, and cropped in a fair and reasonable manner." We have likewise, in this case, the testimony of Mr. Eli Tabrurn, who speaks of having practised the burning of land for thirty years, and of having made it a regular course of farm- ing. He commences on the land by sowing ten to twelve pounds of the best trefoil seed, and from four to six pecks of rye-grass per acre, on the exhausting wheat early in the spring, having it harrowed and rolled in, the expense of which is amply repaid by the autumn and spring feed it produces, enabling a much larger flock of sheep to be kept. There is a twofold advantage in being liberal in the quantity of seed sown ; that is, in the quantity of feed, and in the increase of herbage, which mate- rially assist the burning, and much improve the quality of the ashes. It is highly necessary to have the land well under- drained before burning. He adds, afterwards, that if the cul- tivation " is followed up by effectual burning, about once in six or eight years, with an intermediate coat of yard manure, or folding, it would double the returns of much of the land of which he speaks, both in stock and crops. Another farmer, Mr. Eli Turvill, speaks of burning land as much practised in his vicinity. '• The fuel generally used is a good wagon-load of haulm per acre, or brushwood from the hedges, and a portion of bean-straw. Some burn the heaps at 2* 18 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 4 perches square, 40 per acre, and each heap is expected to con- tain three yards of ashes ; some in heaps, at 8 yards square, at 75J per acre, and each heap is expected to contain two yards of ashes. The whole of the ashes are spread, and the land fal- lowed in the usual way. It is repeated every four or six years, as may suit the rotation of crops. It is an excellent preparation for all kinds of corn, (wheat, barley, &c. :) on the thin-skin land, white turnips are grown well after burning ; it absorbs the water ; the land dries earlier, and can be sown sooner in the spring. The improvement on the crop amply pays for the out- lay, as well as leaving the land much better for the following crops. Burning is a fertilizer of the soil, and the oftener it is burned, the more it improves the staple and quality of the land ; so far from destroying the soil, it acts greatly to its improvement, and is highly conducive to the growth of the cultivated crops; the effects may be seen more particularly in the clover." * Such are the accounts of practical farmers, on this important process. Let us now hear what lessons science inculcates in relation to the subject. Dr. Playfair, the learned consulting chemist to the Royal Agricultural Society, says, — " By this process of paring and burning, injurious organic matter is consumed. Plastic clays are quite changed in their character, not only by having all their constituents brought into contact with the oxygen of the atmosphere, and thus undergoing change, but the clay itself acquires another character ; it becomes absorbent, taking up from the atmosphere ammonia, carbonic acid, and watery vapor, as well as affording more ready access to the nutritious substances which may be dissolved in water. But in this you see nothing is destroyed, and the inorganic elements of the soil are only brought more fully into contact with the absorbing organs of the plants." f We may next refer to the great agricultural oracle, Professor Liebig, on this subject. " The advantage of manuring fields with burned clay, and Ihe fertility of ferruginous soils, which have been considered as facts so incomprehensible, may be explained in an equally simple * .Toumal of Ro3'al Apiricultural Society, vol. iv. part 1, p. 267. f Lecture before the Royal Agricultural Society. BURNING LAND. 19 manner. They have been ascribed to the great attraction for water exerted by dry clay and ferruginous earth ; but common dry, arable land possesses this property in as great a degree ; and, besides, what influence can be ascribed to a hundred pounds of water, spread over an acre of land, in a condition in Avhich it cannot be serviceable either by the roots or leaves ? " The true cause is this : The oxides of iron and alumina are distinguished from all other metallic oxides by their power of forming solid compounds with ammonia. The precipitates obtained by the addition of ammonia to salts of alumina or iron are true salts, in which the ammonia is contained as a base. Minerals containing alumina, or oxide of iron, also possess in an eminent degree the remarkable property of attracting ammonia from the atmosphere, and retaining it. Vauquelin discovered that all rust of iron contains a certain quantity of ammonia. Chevalier found that ammonia is a constituent of all minerals containing iron ; and that even hematite, which is not at all porous, contains one per cent, of it. Bonis showed, also, that the peculiar odor observed on moistening minerals containing alumina is partly owing to their exhaling ammonia. Indeed gypsum, and some varieties of alumina, — pipe-clay for example, — emit so much ammonia, when moistened with caustic potash, that, even after they have been exposed for two days, reddened litmus paper held over them becomes blue. Soils, therefore, which contain oxides of iron and burned clay must absorb ammonia — an action which is favored by their porous condition. They further prevent the escape of ammonia, once absorbed by their chemical properties. Such soils, in fact, act precisely as a mineral acid would do, if extensively spread over their surface ; with this difference, that the acid would penetrate the ground, enter into combination with lime, alumina, and other bases, and thus lose in a few hours its property of absorbing ammonia from the atmosphere. The addition of burned clay to soils has also a secondary in- fluence. It renders the soil porous, and therefore more perme- able to air and moisture. The ammonia absorbed by the clay or ferruginous oxides is separated by every shower of rain, and conveyed in solution to the soil."* I have gone thus at large into the subject of paring and burn- * Liebig, Agricultural Chemistry, Boston eel. p. 102. 20 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. ing land, and of burning clay, and the value of the ashes of clay, deeming that it would at least be found interesting to my American readers, where the process is certainly rare, if not un- known, excepting on peat lands ; and because, likewise, it is a process belonging to English agriculture ; but not with any strong expectation of its being adopted to any great extent in my own country, where land is cheap and labor is dear. The scientific solution of the operation of burned clay, and of ashes generally, I submit to those who are interested in, and competent to deal with, such discussions. The practical farmer will not fail to observe how much stress is laid in every case, with scarcely what may be called an exception, on the quantity of vegetable matter consumed in the burning, and going to increase essentially the amount of ashes to be applied. He will not fail to observe, likewise, the connection, in some cases, with the burning, of liming, manuring, and folding sheep upon the land, and consuming the produce grown upo7i it. If he should undertake to burn his soil, it is hoped that his attention will be specially arrested by these points. The value of ashes, the ashes of consumed vegetable substances, is not a thing now to be learned ; and how much soever pains may be taken in burning clay, it is quite safe at present to assume that the more of vege- table matter is consumed with it, so much the better for the ashes of the clay. The opening of clayey and adhesive soils by burning them, so as to make them easily worked, and rendering them accessible to air, and moisture, and light, and heat, is an obvious and decided advantage. In their ordinary condition, the cultivation is a work of great labor. The burning of the grass and rubbish upon the American prairie grounds is always followed by a thickening, and increased luxuriance, of the succeeding crop. This burning, however, rarely does more than skim the surface, and, except in cases of ex- cessive drought, does not destroy the roots of the herbage. The burning of the fallen trees in the new parts of America, and the successful culture of crops upon their ashes, I have already referred to. In the management of broom corn, (sorg/mm saccharatum,) on Connecticut River, a crop which leaves a large amount of haulm, many farmers have long been accustomed to burn the stub- ble upon the ground for the sake of the ashes, rather than either plough it in. or carry it into their barn-yards to be added, in its ADMIXTURE OF SOILS. 21 decomposition, to their manure heaps, or to take pains to cure it, and use it as feed for their stock, for which, when saved in a proper condition, it is as good as tlie stubble or stover of Indian corn, {zea mays.) The farmers of Long Island, New York, have for years been in the habit of sending to the towns on the sea-shore in New England, for the purchase of the spent or waste ashes from the soap-boilers and others, and for which they pay what is deemed a high price. They apply it to their wheat lands, sown broadcast upon the young wheat, and say that, with- out it, they are not sure of a crop. The farmers in New Eng- land err in allowing it to be taken from them at any price, unless they can find a substitute in guano, or some other manure as portable. I speak of these facts, however, as showing the uni- versally admitted value of ashes as a manure, a subject to which I shall refer again, when the important subject of manures is treated, as designed. XCII. — ADMIXTURE OF SOILS. One of the most common and obvious suggestions, in the im- provement of the soil, is that of rendering, as far as practicable, plastic and adhesive soils free and permeable ; and, on the other hand, that of making those soils, which are loose and light, close and compact. In the former case, in order to effect the desired object, draining has been applied with great success, and must be regarded as the basis of such improvements. Without drain- ing, indeed, and a complete riddance of the superfluous wetness and moisture, little is ever to be hoped for in any case. In order to eflect the latter object, rolling with heavy rollers, and es- pecially treading with sheep, have been resorted to ; and several farmers, with whom I have had the pleasure of forming an ac- quaintance, abandon all expectation of a crop, unless the ground, after being sown, is thoroughly trodden by sheep, which tread- ing, for the purpose specified, may be considered even as more effectual than the application of the roller. But an improvement of a more substantial and permanent character is attempted by what may be termed an "admixture of 22 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. soils; " by the additioji of clay to sandy soils, and of sand to clayey soils. In agricultural books and addresses, I have often seen this method recommended, with a great air of sagacity and confidence, as an obvious process of improvement, of very easy accomplishment, by persons who understand little of practical agriculture, and very imperfectly appreciate the difficulties of such a process. The transportation of soil is among the most expensive operations in husbandry, and can scarcely be expected to be carried on, on a very extensive scale. To convert a clayey soil into a siliceous soil, or, on the other hand, a siliceous soil into a clayey soil, so as deeply and permanently to change their character on any extensive surface, must be left to those great geological changes which are alike beyond human prescience, command, or control. Amendment, rather than change, is all that human skill and ability are likely to effect ; and I shall detail in this matter such examples as have come under my ob- servation. The application of sand to clay, like the application of sand to lime in the making of plasterers' mortar, has, in general, es- pecially if the clay is wet when the sand is so applied, a tend- ency to give it hardness, rather than to render it friable and open. Where the land is in a state of dryness, and newly ploughed, the application of a limited quantity of sand might serve to render it more open. That this would be the whole eiFect to be expected from it, and this to a degree uncertain, and that it would effect no chemical alteration in the soil, seems gen- erally agreed. That a portion of silica is essential in the forma- tion of all the cereal plants is established ; but in all clays there is presumed to be a sufficiency for this purpose. In peat lands it may be otherwise. A distinguished practical and scientific farmer, the late Mr. Rham, states that he has never known an instance in which the application of sand to clayey soils has been found to succeed in rendering them more porous. The expense of laying on the large quantity of sand that would be required must probably swallow up any profit that could be derived from it. Mr. Pusey, however, showed me an example in which a clay land field in grass had been decidedly benefited by a top-dressing of sand from a neighboring hill. Whether the sand, in this case, had any peculiar chemical properties, from which the benefit of the application was derived, did not appear. ADMIXTURE OB' SOILS. 23 It is not so, on the other hand, with the appHcatioii of chiy to light soils ; and this has been practised in England so exten- sively, and with so much success, that I shall detain my reader with some prominent examples. Of the application of clay in the improvement of peat lands, I shall speak presently ; I now refer only to its application to sandy and Hght lands, with a view of giving them compactness. The object of applying clay, indeed, may be twofold ; tlie first to produce a closeness of soil ; and the second, that of obviating their too great dryness, the property of clay being to absorb and retain moisture both from the atmosphere and that which falls in rain. One of the most extensive applications of it, which I have witnessed, was on the farm of the Duke of Bedford, at Woburn, a place distinguished, under the care of its present noble pos- sessor, as under that of his eminent predecessor, for a most in- telligent, scientific, extensive, and successful husbandry; in all its various arrangements, and the completeness and extent of its operations, surpassed perhaps by no one in the kingdom, or hardly, indeed, rivalled. The intelligent manager of the place, Mr. Burness, states that he finds " the application of clay to his light soil of great ad- vantage. It makes the straw much stronger, with a better ear, and standing much better up in wet seasons. When the land is highly manured, without being clayed, the crops are liable to fall down, become lodged and spoiled." He adds, likewise, that he finds claying of great advantage to the turnip crop. The practice is to put the clay on the clover leys as early as the crop is off, and get it broken in pieces as much as possible before the land is ploughed for wheat. It is also laid on land that is under fallow for turnips early in the winter, that is, on land which has been ploughed preparatory to its being cultivated in turnips the ensuing season. This is done that it may have the chance of the winter and spring frosts to become well pul- verized before it is ploughed down ; and this he prefers to spreading it upon clover leys. He goes on then to speak of some experiments. " We clayed last summer four acres, and left two acres not clayed on an old sward and light soil. The clay was put on in .Tuly, and lay all the summer ; was ploughed up in November, and pressed," (an operation which I shall describe presently,) "and the wheat 24 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. dibbled into the pressed grooves. In February, we top-dressed the six acres with good farm-yard dung ; and, as late as the be- ginning of May, I thought there would not be half a crop, al- though plenty of ends ; but toward the middle of the month the clayed part began to look of a much darker appearance than the two acres which were not clayed ; and, at the present time," (when he gave this account,) he thought, '^here was one third part more on the clayed than on that which had not been clayed, although managed in every other way the same." He goes on to say that, in Jarmary, 1841, he clayed some land which was going to be a turnip-fallow the following sum- mer ; and in the month of April, when he began to harrow and plough the land, the clay broke down and slacked like lime, and worked in with the soil. There was not much apparent dif- ference in the turnip crop that summer, as the other part of the field was sown at a ditlerent time, and he was not able to tell the difference ; but the ensuing year, he says, " the barley looks much stronger and stiffer in the straw, and stands much more upright, than in the land which was not clayed, where the greater part of the crop is down on the ground, and exposed to be rotted by the rain." The quantity applied to the acre is generally about fifty loads ; 1 suppose single-horse cart-loads are meant. If more is to be applied, it is advised to make the application at successive times, as, in his opinion, more given at once would do harm. Nearly all the light soil on the farm of the Duke of Bedford, near Wo- burn Abbey, has been clayed, and a great deal of it twice ; and, in every instance, its beneficial etfects have been established. I myself can bear witness to the neatness and excellence of the cultivation, though I had not the pleasure of being there when the crops were standing upon the ground. The clay may be dug from the pit at any time most convenient for the farmer, and, if turned over once or twice, will mix much better with the soil, though, of course, the expense of the operation must, in such case, be increased. Mr. Burness says, his plan is to dig and cart it on to the field at once. Mr. Pnsey is of opinion that this substance, denominated clay, contains a great deal of lime, and is, in fact, a stiff marl. Another eminent Bedfordshire farmer, whom I have the pleasure of knowing, speaks of the application of clay or marl, ^VDMIXTORE OF SOILS. 25 customary in his ueighborhood, as varying from 50 to 150 cubic yards jier acre. He deems the smaller quantity preferable at one operation, as it mixes more steadily with the soil, and, though it may not last so long, comes sooner into operation. He has applied it to clover leys in summer, and to turnip fallows at dif- ferent times. He advises to have it dug in winter, and to cast it upon the turnip land in the spring, when it has had time to dry, and has become lighter of carriage. We have the testimony of another skilful farmer, a tenant of the Duke of Bedford, who has pursued the practice of claying land to a great extent. Not satisfied with the quality or quantity of his produce, he has clayed 420 acres, in every instance with good effect. Upon the gravel and sand land he has put forty loads per acre, containing forty bushels per load. On the moor- land, covered with rushes, he has put seventy loads. The time of applying it is directly after harvest, or in winter, if there has been a frost. At the former time, it is done with less labor to the horses and less injury to tlie land. The clay gets dry, and, as soon as rain comes, it may be harrowed about, when, accord- ing to his opinion, it will begin to act beneficially to the land by correcting the acidity, of which most lands have too much, there- by making food for plants of what was inert in the soil, and giving the land that solidity which it required. In one case, he speaks of witnessing the decided advantages from it, after a lapse of fourteen years from its application. He speaks further of having both marl and clay upon his land. He tests their dif- ferent (pialities by applying vinegar, and determines their good- ness by their effervescence. In the case above referred to, the clay which he applied would not effervesce on the application of an acid; but, on drying it before the fire, and then apjilying the vinegar, he found the desired result. This determined him to use it on the land, giving it all the benefit of the sun in summer. In another case, he applied, in September, 1835, seventy loads per acre of marl, blue, with some chalky particles among it, upon seven acres, and left seven acres adjoining unmarled. The next year, the oats were very good where the clay was ; the succeed- ing year, with tnrnips, the crop was good where the land had been clayed ; on the other land the crop appeared, and soon per- ished. In 1840, the whole field was clayed, and a large crop of barley was obtained throughout. He remarks, '• that land will VOL. II. 3 26 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. not always show the benefit in the first crop after the applica- tion. Some farmers," he says, " prefer lime to clay, on light land." He deems this an error. Lime will correct the acidity in such land, bat it does not give solidity or compactness to the soil, but makes light land still lighter. Besides the advantages to which I have above referred, he considers the application of clay as serving to strengthen the straw of wheat, and to increase the quantity and improve the quality of the grain ; and likewise — certainly a most material point — to prevent mildew in wheat, to which the farm was formerly subject. He is of opinion, like- wise, that it prevents a disease to which turnips are subject, called, vulgarly, ^«o-trs and toes, which I think is more doubtful ; and that it supplies to the soil an element favorable to the growth of clover, of which I believe there can be no question. It may be thought, in this case, that advantages may arise from the application of marl — in which, of course, there is a considerable portion of calcareous matter, more active than the aluminous element — which are not to be expected from the ap- plication of pure clay. This would probably be the case ; but I have seen repeated examples of the application of pure clay, both spread upon grass land, as a top-dressing, and otherwise applied, which have been highly beneficial ; and where the material is at hand, and can be procured without a heavy expense, the practice may be confidently recommended. On the farm of Mr. Pym, in Bedfordshire, a very skilful and practical agriculturist, " the whole farm," Mr. Pusey says, " which is a light yellow sand, and which was covered with heath and a gray lichen, the gray moss of trees, — a kind of vegetation indicat- ing a great degree of sterility, — the whole farm has been made fertile by means of a dark gray clay, which is full of lime, situ- ated at the foot of the sandy hill, and the moderate dose of sixty cart-loads per acre is found to last at least twenty years. On this sandy farm, both turnips and swedes were ridge-drilled, and looked remarkably well." This practice of marling or claying light land has been long and most extensively practised in the county of Norfolk, a county which yields, perhaps, to no other in its agricultural improve- ments, which was the residence, and the scene of the labors and improvements, of that acknowledged prince of farmers, Mr. Coke, (the late Lord Leicester,) of Holkham, and which now presents, as ADMIXTURE OF SOILS. 27 r have had the pleasure to witness, some of as good examples of intelligent, exact, and successful farming as are to be found in the United Kingdom. In the cases of marling, to which I shall refer, while the upper stratum, or surface, is light and sandy, yet there is found, at not a great depth, a deposit of clay or marl, which is proved to be highly beneficial, and which, from its being so accessible, is applied easily, and at a moderate expense. The substance applied is a bluish clay, and found from four to six feet under the surface. Pits are dug, about six feet by three, in rows, in a part of the field most convenient for the ap- plication of the material, and least inconvenient on account of the injury done to the fields, and two or three spades' depth of the clay is taken out ; the top soil, which in many cases is peat, being thrown back into the open pits. The whole piece thus dug over is sometimes converted into a plantation, where, the roots of the trees extending themselves, and the ground being covered with the waste of the trees, the soil thus dug over be- comes consolidated, and ultimately brought into a condition for use. In most parts of the country, and universally where the land is inclined to wetness, at least before the introduction of Mr. Smith's system of under-draining and subsoiling, in which all cultivation in ridges is disapproved of, fields are cultiv'ated in beds, or, as they are here called, stetches, varying in width from six farrows to thirty. The practice of one farmer, in Norfolk, whose admirable cultivation is second to none, 1 have had the pleasure of observing, is to plough two of these beds outward, leaving a deep trench, or wide double furrow, in the centre, and here, where the clay is near the surface, obtaining it to spread upon the land. In the instructive Report on the Agriculture of Norfolk, published in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural So- ciety, an account is given of one enterprising farmer in Norfolk, who had applied 54,055 loads to a little more than 286 acres of land, or at an average rate of 189 loads per acre. In another case, a farmer clayed a thousand acres twice over, at the rate of forty loads per acre, in the course of eight years. Another farmer applied at the rate of fifty loads per acre. In another case, a great improvement has been effected by trenching, so as to bring the bottom soil to the top, and bury the top at the bot- tom. " In this case a trench is opened three or four feet wide, 28 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. and two spades deep ; the bottom of the trench is then turned up with a spade or three-pronged fork." The surface earth is then thrown back, and a complete inversion of the soil takes place. In some cases, men are employed, at a season when labor is to be had most cheaply, to marl or clay the lands with wheel- barrows, where the material is near at hand. The nearness of the material to be applied, its quality and abundance, and the price of labor, are all elements to be taken into the calculation, where any such improvements of land are to be undertaken, as well as the return to be expected, and the value of that return, when obtained. I give in this case no accounts, which are stated, of the actual or probable costs of such improvements, because little or no practical use could accrue from such calcula- tions in the United States, where the price of labor and the value of produce are so entirely different from what they are here. The application of chalk to the improvement of land is often and successfully made ; but, as I know of no deposits of chalk in the United States, such a process can have little interest with us. I have already referred to the practice, in Lincolnshire, of chalking liberally chalk lands, or lands with only two inches or more of decayed vegetable matter or soil, underlaid by pure chalk. The same practice prevails in Hampshire ; but 1 know no satisfactory reason to be given for it beyond that of giving closeness and adhesiveness to the loose and light surface soil. The effect of chalk is to bind land, without increasing its weight. The same may be said of lime, and of mixtures of lime with clay, as in calcareous marl. Though we have no deposits of chalk in the United States, yet we have an abundance of lime, and without doubt much calcareous and rich marl, yet to be dis- covered. The green sand of New Jersey, underlaying a large portion of that arid and siliceous soil, and extending along the eastern shores of Virginia, has already, in some cases, effected wonderful and valuable ameliorations, and those too of a perma- nent character ; and when its ultimate, and, if I may so say, its moral as well as its chemical influences are considered, may be deemed much more valuable than an underlaying of gold dust. Of the chemical influences of clay upon the soil, as yet, but little seems determined. " Potash," says Liebig, " is present in all clays ; according to Fuchs, it is contained even in marl ; it ADMIXTURE OF SOILS. 29 has been found in all the argillaceous earths in which it has been sought. The fact that they contain potash may be proved, in the clays of the transition and stratified mountains, by simply digesting them with sulphuric acid, by which process alum is formed. Land of the greatest fertility contains argillaceous earths and other disintegrated minerals, with chalk and sand in such a proportion as to give free access to air and moisture.'' The remarks of Boiissingault on this subject are, in my opinion, well worth giving to my reader. " The qualities which we esteem in a workable soil depend almost exclusively upon the mechanical mixture of its elements. We are much less interested in its chemical composition than in this ; so that simple wash- ing, which shows the relations between the sand and the clay, tells, of itself, much more that is important to us than an elab- orate chemical analysis. The quality of an arable soil depends essentially on the association of these two matters. Sand, v/hether it be siliceous, calcareous, or felspathic, always renders a soil friable, permeable, and loose. It facilitates the access of the air and the drainage of the water ; and its influence is more or less favorable, as it exists in the state of minute subdivision, or in the state of coarse sand or of gravel. Clay possesses physi- cal properties entirely opposed to those of sand. United with water, it forms an adhesive, plastic paste, which, once moistened, becomes almost impermeable. With such characters, it will easily be conceived how it is impossible to work to advantage a soil that is entirely argillaceous. The proper character, or, if you will, the quality of soil, depends, then, essentially on the element which predominates in the mixture of sand and clay that composes it ; and between the two extremes, which are alike unfavorable to vegetation, viz., the completely sandy soil and the unmixed clay, all the other varieties, all the intermediate shades, can be placed." * An account is given in the Journal of the Agricultural Society of the application of bituminous shale to land, with very bene- ficial effects. This shale may be considered as an imperfectly- formed coal, a slaty stone, which is found on the opening of coal quarries, and is generally deemed an indication of the neighbor- hood of coal. A quantity of this substance had been thrown out * Rural Economy, p. 266. 3* 30 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. in digging a watercourse. An application was made, by the tenant to the landlord, for an allowance for removing this shale. which incumbered the land. The owner, upon examining the spot, found around each heap a circle of dark green and luxu- riant grass, such as would have surrounded a heap of rich manure, and observed that the frost was reducing the shale to powder. These circumstances indicated a fertilizing property in the substance, and he recommended to his tenant to apply it to the land. The result of such an application was a heavy crop of hay, and after-grass. I am mainly induced to quote this account for the sake of showing the beneficial results often to be expected from experi- ment and observation. It is too frequently that we neglect valu- able resources within our reach, as this farmer, in truth, proposed to remove and throw away that which proved a beneficial manure ; and the casual glance of an eye accustomed to obser- vation perceived its valuable but hitherto unknown properties, from the luxuriance of the growth of the grass around the edges of the heaps. Mrs. Barbauld, in her admirable lessons for chil- dren, presents a striking contrast between two boys taking a walk, one with his eyes open to see every object as he passed along, and the other sauntering along, as it were, with his eyes closed, without observing any thing. The moral of such a story is quite obvious. It would be of use to many others than chil- dren, who might find the means of all sorts of improvement constantly within their reach, if they would look after them, where now every thing appears barren and hopeless, and not go through the world with their eyes closed, or blind through stu- pidity or prejudice. XCIII. — IMPROVEMENT OF PEAT LANDS. The improvement or redemption of peat lands is the topic upon which I shall next treat. This subject essentially concerns the farmers of the United States, as, in many parts of the country, there are extensive tracts of peat land, now producing nothing valuable, which might be made eminently productive, as advan- IMPIIOVEMKNT OF PEAT LANDS. 31 tageously to the health of their vicinity as to pecuniary profit. Upon a small scale, great improvements have already been made, in this way, in several parts of New England, within my own knowledge, with a skill, intelligence, and success, highly hon- orable to those persons who have accomplished them. One of the greatest enterprises of this kind, probably, ever undertaken by individual effort, was that of Lord Karnes, sixty or seventy years since, at Blair Drummond, in the neighborhood of Stirling. This was not an improvement of the peat soil, but an actual removal of it. Underlaying the peat was a bed of deep and rich alluvion. From the walls of peat, or the cuttings which appear at the sides or bounds of this improvement, — for, though an immense body was taken away, an extensive tract is still to be found, — the depth of peat removed, as it appeared to me, must have been six feet or more. It is stated to have been in some places full sixteen feet. It was necessary to obtain a command of water sufficient to carry the turf into the River Forth. A wheel twenty-eight feet in diameter, and eight feet wide, was employed to raise the water, which it did at the rate of six and a half tons per minute. The water thus raised was directed into channels cut in the moss, along the sides of which men were stationed, cutting the moss into pieces, and tumbling it into the current of water, by which it was floated into the river, and thence much of it into the sea. This was really a vast undertaking. Whether the expenses were met by the advantages gained, I am not able to say ; but a large tract of most excellent land \vas uncovered and brought into cultivation, and which, as I had the pleasure of witnessing, now yields as good crops as are ordinarily grown in the country. Enterprises of this nature must, of course^ be rare, and in but few circumstances practicable ; but such a work does infinite honor to the boldness which conceived, and the perseverance and labor which executed it. The interesting and extremely picturescpie neighborhood of Stirling is all classic ground, made memorable liy acts of prowess and heroism in the civil wars which prevailed here, and by dreadful and bloody affrays. In looking at this magnificent improvement of Lord Kames, in comparison with these memorials of revenge and hate, of misery and murder, (for aggressive war deserves no milder name,) I could not help feeling how infinitely higher is the honor of subduing 32 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. the earth, that it may be rendered more fruitful, and serve the purposes of hfe and happiness, than any of the triumphs of mil- itary glory, any of the bloody conquests of revenge and unbridled ambition. These serve no other purpose than that of scattering abroad agony and desolation ; glutting the most hateful passions of a depraved nature ; and marking their progress, not by the displays of genius and skill, and the brilliant and rich fruits of civilization and humanity, but by laying waste the improvements and refinements of science and art, and pouring out every where a turbid flood of unmitigated wretchedness and death. In England, Ireland, and Scotland, vast amounts of peat land have been subdued and redeemed, and, from being wholly waste and unproductive, are converted into well-tilled and fruitful fields. Thousands and tens of thousands of acres have been recovered in England ; and, in Ireland, improvements of this nature are in progress on a most extensive scale. The single territory of Gleneaske, near Ballina, consisting almost wbolly of peat bog, and which was to me the object of a most interesting visit, embraces about 3500 Irish acres, or upwards of .5600 Eng- lish acres.* This, a public-spirited company, called the Waste Land Improvement Company, and possessing an ample capital, have undertaken to reclaim and cultivate, and have already made a considerable progress. There is, indeed, in Ireland, ample scope for this species of improvement, as the area of peat bog is estimated at no less than 2,833,000 acres, almost the whole of which is deemed capable of being redeemed, and brought into productive cultivation. I know nothing in the United States resembling the bog land of Ireland and England. Much of it, indeed, is on a level sur- face, but extensive tracts of bog are elevated into hills of consid- erable height, composed wholly of peat, and that often, as I have seen, to the depth of six, and even ten feet on the summit. Peat, properly so called, as my readers well know, is a de- posit of vegetable matter, composed, in general, of a particular kind of plants, which have decayed imder water, and containing much of the element which is called tannin, which preserves it in the state in which it is found, often impregnated with iron, or * An Irish is to an English acre as 121 to 196. IMPROVEMENT OF PEAT LANDS. 33 Other mineral substances, and charged with acids unfriendly to vegetation. In its natural condition, it produces only a coarse kind of herbage, distasteful and innutritions, or is covered with a short moss ; in Ireland, in many cases, by heath, alike worth- less for any purpose of feed. It is retentive of water like a sponge, and is very difficult of being reduced, so as to furnish a good bed for a sweet and healthy vegetation." In a wet condi- tion, it is scarcely accessible ; in a dry state, it becomes too light and hard ; and, though composed wholly of decayed vegetable matter, is in an inert condition, or deficient in some elements essential in order to render it productive. It is found of very different depths ; in some cases, only a thin stratum of decayed vegetable matter, of six inches or a foot in depth, overlaying a bed of white sand or gravel ; in others, a bed of black spongy matter, of many feet, and often of unascertained depth. Much of this land in England, Ireland, and Scotland, has been redeemed, and made highly productive. An eminent Scotch farmer, to whom I had the honor of letters of introduction, states that land which, in its natural state, was not worth more than sixpence an acre, in its improved condition is now fully equal to three pounds per acre. This refers to the annual rent or income of the land. This farmer has recovered two hundred acres of peat bog. Much of it was redeemed at a great expense, as it had been cut over for fuel, and it was deemed important to fill up the holes which had thus been left. Much of it was reclaimed at the expense of £30, or ,$150, per acre ; but the farmer con- sidered himself amply remunerated by the improvement. Other lands, which gave him not more than Is. 6d., or 37^ cents, per acre, now give him 12s. to 14s., $'3 to $3 50, per acre, annually. A similar improvement is stated by a farmer in West Somerset- shire, whose peat land, before comparatively valueless, now lets for £3 to £4 per acre. The improvements in the fen land of Lin- colnshire and Cambridgeshire, which is in many parts a species of peat land, have been followed by results equally valuable. The extensive tracts of bog land in New Jersey, lying between the city of New York and Newark, in New Jersey, over which both the turnpike and the railroads now pass, open a field for improvements of the same kind and of the most valuable de- scription. Partial attempts have been made already, a3id their success is sufficiently encouraging. But when the whole of this 34 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, great extent shall be dyked against the tide, and the power of steam applied to its eflectual drainage, the obtaining of a soil of the richest description, so near to some of the best markets in the country, will be likely to afford an ample compensation for any expense which may be incurred. It may be said that such improvements must be very distant in a country where immense tracts of unoccupied land, of the richest description, remain to be had at very low prices; but the proximity to a great city, and to several large and thickly inhabited towns, continually increas- ing, in population, business, and wealth, with almost unparalleled rapidity, must give a value to such lands which can scarcely be calculated, and keep far in advance of the competition of even the most fertile lands in a remote interior. Indeed, a slight inquiry will satisfy any one that the value of lands in the neighborhood of our cities, for agricultural and horticultural pur- poses, iu spite of all the predictions founded on the improved and unlooked-for modes of conveyance by canals and railroads, has been continually rising, and has by no means reached the zenith. Three difficulties may be said to present themselves in the redemption and improvement of all peat lands ; the first is their wetness, and draining must be the first operation to be applied to them ; the second is their want of compactness, for they are often too light and spongy for the growth of plants, though this defect will be partially remedied by the draining of them ; and the third is the removal of some pernicious quality, some min- eral acid, which is prejudicial to the growth of the best vegeta- tion, or the supply of some element of vegetation which is requisite in the cultivation of any other plants than that of which the moss itself is formed. Peat, though wholly a vegetable sub- stance, and, properly speaking, a compact mass of humus, — in itself furnishing, under a proper form of preparation, a useful ma- nure, — is still deficient in the elements necessary for the growth of the finer grasses, the esculent vegetables, and the cereal grains.* What, in particular, these elements are, remains for * Professor Kane, in his instructive work on the Industrial Resources of Ire- land, remarks, that " it is by the grndnal formation and decomposition of this body (nitrogen) that the organic matter of the soil becomes so powerful an agent in its fertilization. The roots and fibres of a crop, left in the soil, gradually rot, and become thereby the means of absorbing from the atmosphere a quantity of nitre- IMPROVEMENT OF PEAT LANDS. 35 agricultural chemistry to discover. The philosophers have approached the promised land, but have not yet got possession. 1. Drainage. — Drainage is the first step in the progress. The land should be pierced by deep ditches of at least four feet in width, and the depth, and distance from one to the other, to be determined by circumstances. Peat lands, or bogs, vary greatly in depth — from a foot to a depth, in some cases, of twenty feet, or indeed much more, and beyond being sounded, and which, in our improvements, it would be hopeless to attempt to reach. The only rule to be given is to make the drains of such a depth as to take off the water completely from the bog as low as three feet. It seems generally advised to leave the great, and, if so they may be called, the central drains open. If they are not sufficient to effect the perfect drainage of the land, then side drains, not sunk so deep, but emptying into the main drains, must be made. It is impossible to lay down rules, applicable to all places, for the distances at which these drains must be made from each other — so much must depend upon the extent of land to be drained ; the quantity of water ordinarily to be removed, whether it be water from permanent springs or only flood-water from the hills ; and, likewise, the descent or fall by which it can be carried off". Two eminent farmers in Lincolnshire, one of vv^hom I had the pleasure of visiting, speak of making their ditches eleven yards apart, from centre to centre, and of four feet width ; but no arbitrary rule can be adapted to all situa- tions ; and this must be left to the judgment of the improver. These ditches are left open ; and perhaps, here, this is the only eligible mode ; yet, on two farms in Massachusetts, where, I am proud to say, the improvements in redeeming peat bog, though on a comparatively very small scale, for the intelligence and success with which they have been made, would do honor to gen, which is rendered available for the sustenance of the next generation of plants. In estimating the fertility of a soil, therefore, it is most important to de- termine the quantity of these organic matters, and particularly the amount of nitrogen which they contain. The more presence of organic matter indicates nothing ; thus a peaty soil may be absolutely barren, if the decomposition of its organic matter has been earned on under water, where the oxygen and nitrogen of tlie air have not access, and consequently only inert ulmino, destitute of ths power of evolving carbonic acid and ammonia, be produced." — p. 270. 36 ELilOPilAN AGKlCULTL'llE. any country, — the bog to be drained, in these cases, being a sort of basin surrounded by hills which were covered with stones, — a ditch of considerable width was dug, at the edges of the bog, to a depth of six feet, and filled in with stones of various sizes, gathered from the adjoining fields, to within about thirty inches of the surface, and then the bog earth returned upon the top, and the whole levelled. Thus a double purpose was an- swered — that of draining the bog, and clearing the neighboring land of unsightly and useless stones. With respect to the position of the drains, some reference is to be had to the sources of the water by which the land is drenched. If it be flood-water from the hills, then it would be advisable, as far as practicable, to intercept it by cutting a ditch at the margin of the bog. If it arises from springs, whose source can be ascertained, then it would be desirable to reach these springs directly by a drain into which they might flow. If the springs are too numerous, and cannot be ascertained, then the best judgment must be exercised in laying out the main and the side drains. Here, the side drains emptying into the main drains are recommended to be made with tiles, and I have seen tiles of a very large bore, on the farm of one of the best farmers in Scot- land, — and that is perhaps as high praise as I can bestow, — em- ployed for the centre drains into which all the side drains entered, so that the whole work was completely covered in. The bore of these tiles was, I think, about eight inches by six, and consid- erable ingenuity was displayed in forming them by a method which I sliould find it difficult to describe so as to render myself intelligible. They were designed to be used with a sole, and holes were formed for the entrance of the side drains. They presented an example of extremely neat husbandry, and were effectual in relieving the land of a large amount of water. Where a solid substratum, whether of clay or gravel, is reached under the peat, tile may be used for drains without the soles, or the drains may be formed of broken stone, directly upon the hard bottom, as 1 shall presently describe ; but where the depth of the peat is such that a hard bottom cannot be found, tiles without soles, or drains formed of broken stone, would soon become useless. In the Lincolnshire improvements, open ditches are made so as to include areas of twelve or fifteen acres; and these, without any undcr-d rains, are found sufficient for the ob- liMPROVEMENT OF PEAT LANDS. 37 ject intended. Open drains are made, likewise, on Chat-Moss, so as to include about an acre of land. It is well known that open drains are liable to be constantly worn away by running water ; and the overhanging surface breaks down by its own weight, and fills up the ditch. The severe frosts which occur in the northern United States, and which heave the ground deeply, and the sudden thaws which are consequent upon them, do much to disturb and break up the sides of open ditches. To guard against this as much as possi- ble, it is advised to make the top of the open ditches very wide, and the slope of the sides very gradual. At Lord Ducie's model farm, under the care of that highly intelligent and practical farmer, Mr. John Morton, the slope to the drain (or the sides of the main ditch) receded so far, and was made at so small an angle of declination, that a cart might be driven upon it without danger of overturning. In most cases this could be done only at the expense of removing a large body of the peat. Whether this might not be advantageously pared and burned, and the ashes spread upon the land ; or made into piles, and, by a proper intermixture with other matters, such as night-soil, stable ma- nure, or lime, be reduced into a fine enriching manure ; or carried into the stable or fold-yard to increase the compost heap ; or, otherwise, be dried and employed as fuel, — must be left to the judgment of every individual farmer, according to the circum- stances of the particular case. In such a mode of spreading and forming an open drain, which declines gradually to the cen- tre, the very current of the water is a security against all inju- rious wear and tear of the sides ; and it is obvious, if the land is devoted to grass, either in pasturage or mowing, it may be made productive to the water's edge. Upon the beauty of the appear- ance of such easy slopes, when made with the neatness and exactness with which all such operations are performed here, in Great Britain, I need not remark. The lines of all ditching and draining here are made with mathematical precision, and are in general as straight as they can be drawn. I am unwilling to say where I have seen such operations performed in a way to induce one to suppose that he who made them always walked back- wards, and, after starting, gave himself little concern however zig-zag his course might be or at what point he should come out. Many of us, it would seem, have yet to learn that the VOL. II. 4 38 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. most perfect mode of doing a thing is ultimately found to be the best mode, though, in the beginning, it may be neither the quickest nor the cheapest. There may be, in some cases, an extreme or excessive particularity or precision ; and we are often told of people who are more nice than wise, though I have not found this class very numerous ; but the exceptions may serve only to prove the value of the rule. Farmers are not entirely agreed as to the degree to which the water, in draining, should be taken off. Some persons contend that the land should be rendered as dry as practicable, while others maintain that it is quite enough to reduce the level of the water to a depth of three feet below the surface, and that the land will be benefited by the presence of water at such a level, as it will serve to keep the soil moist — I suppose, by capillary attraction, and by evaporation. There seems to be some reason in this argument ; and it is conformable to the opinion and prac- tice of one of the best farmers whom I know. It perhaps admits of one qualification. If the water of the meadow is strongly impregnated with iron, or some mineral acid, as may in general be easily discovered from its rusty or colored appearance, its presence may be injurious to the roots of the growing plants. If it is clear or running water, it is obviously not liable to the same objection. By most farmers, however, it is recommended to make the ditches deep rather than numerous. I shall return presently to the subject of drainage, and now proceed to speak of other processes customary in the improve- ment of peat land. 2. Paring and Burning. — The land being drained, the next process usually advised is to pare and burn the surface, and spread the ashes. This practice is not without its opponents. If the land is to be covered, as I saw in one case, with six or eight inches of mud or soil, the removal of the coarse vegetable matter from the surface would be an unnecessary, and perhaps some would think, a wasteful process ; for, under such a mass of soil, its decomposition would be, though slowly, yet certainly effected. But Avhcrc a sufficient covering is not intended to be apphed to accomplisli this purpose, the expediency of paring and burning the surface is, in my opinion, determined. There is always a large amount of the coarsest vegetation, which, if IMPROVEMENT OF PEAT LANDS. 39 turned up by the plough, would remain difficult of management, and very slow of decomposition, and much interfere with any crop which might be cultivated. But this being pared and burned on the ground, the ashes, which are stated to contain the element of potash, so useful in vegetation, furnish in themselves a valuable manure. In paring and burning, great care is to be used lest the burning should proceed too far, and burn deep holes in the peat, which would be both unsightly and incon- venient. 3. Application or Lime. — The next inquiry is, What appli- cation shall be made to the soil ? Lime is very generally recom- mended, in places where it is accessible at a reasonable rate ; but farmers are not unanimous as to its necessity or utility. The effects of lime are understood, in what must be considered the present imperfect state of the science, to be four-fold. It oper- ates, first, as a mechanical divider of the soil ; and this effect is undoubted and valuable. The application of sand to peat effects the same purpose. Secondly, the lime operates, by a chemical process, to decompose and reduce the peat ; but on this point, chemists seem to hold a double doctrine — maintaining that, in some circumstances not very clearly defined, it dissolves and consumes, but, under other circumstances, it tends to harden and preserve, the woody fibre. This may be true in both re- spects, though we may find it as difficult to understand as the satyr, in the fable, did to understand how the traveller should blow in his hands to warm them, and blow in his broth to cool it. Lime is supposed to be beneficial in a third respect, that of furnishing to the plant a portion of food which it actually re- quires, an element of which its substance consists. This is not, of course, required in all plants which may be cultivated ; nor to the same extent in plants of the same family. There is another advantage supposed to arise from the application of lime ; and that is, its chemical effects in correcting the mineral acids which often abound in peat bogs. An excess of iron, which may be seen in the color of the stagnant water or drainings of these lands, is a common fault. The application of lime, in such a case, converts the sulphate of iron into the sulphate of lime, or gypsum, — that is, from poison into food, and wholesome nutri- ment, for vegetables. " Turf, or turfy soils," says Boussingault, 40 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. " yield rich crops when we succeed in converting the turf into humus. By a happy coincidence, turfy deposits frequently alter- nate with layers of sand, of gravel, of clay, and of vegetable earth, which have been accumulated at the same epoch. By a mixture, by a division, of these different materials, preceded in every case, however, by proper draining, mere peat bogs may be turned into good arable soil. Pyritic turf, however, shows itself more intractable ; it rarely yields any thing of importance. To improve such a soil, it is absolutely necessary to have recourse to siibstances of an alkaline nature, such as chalk or lime, wood ashes, &c., which have the property of decomposing the sul- phate of iron which is formed by the efflorescence of the pyrites." * The experience of a distinguished farmer in Scotland, in the use of lime upon peat lands, is well worth quoting. He has im- proved two hundred acres of peat bog, which certainly gives him a right to speak. " The farmers in Scotland think that they cannot raise good crops of grain without lime, as ihe greatest part of the south of Scotland is composed of new red sandstone, grauwacke and granite, and therefore devoid of lime, v/hich forms a considerable portion of every fertile soil ; indeed, it was found that the soil in Dumfrieshire did not produce well-filled barley-crops until the farmers employed lime, which they now do to a great extent, and find it equally useful for potatoes and turnip crops, which is amply testified by the farmers' purchasing lime to the amount of £3000 annually from my lime-quarry at Close Farm." This value of lime to turnip and potato crops is a new fact. Certainly, I would hint not the slightest distrust upon the authority of this intelligent witness ; but matters not half so weighty as £3000 worth of lime, purchased annually, at one's own quarry, may, without our own consciousness, some- what affect the judgment. This farmer adds, " 1 have employed lime, as it is practised in Derbyshire, to great advantage upon the surface of moor land, (i. e. bog ;) but as it requires a very large dose of lime, it can only be done where lime is cheap, as it requires from 200 to 300 bushels of lime, per acre, to destroy the great quantity of vegetable matter in moor soils, which it soon accomplishes, as is » Page 304. IMPROVEMENT OF PEAT LANDS. 41 shown by the land being soon filled with moles, which are drawn to it by the decayed vegetable matter producing worms, the food of moles." " In Craven, in Yorkshire, lime is employed very extensively, as a top-dressing, even upon a limestone soil. I have found that cattle feed upon pasture, well top-dressed with lime, much quicker, and that the meat is much richer and better mixed, than upon pastures equally productive of herbage." 4. Rules in Ireland for Redemption of Bog. — The direc- tions given in Ireland for the reclamation of bog under very judicious and successful management, are as follows : ■= — " The first essential in reclaiming bog lands is, that they should be sufficiently drained. " The second, that they should receive an ample covering of clay, soil, or gravel, not less than three or four inches deep. The third, that they should be well limed, and that the lime should be applied immediately after being slacked, and mixed with clay ; if lime cannot be had, ashes are a good substitute.*** So soon as the ridges shall have had time to dry, forty barrels of fresh-powdered lime may be applied to the acre, and covered over with clay taken from the trenches."* I believe that a dressing of lime for peat may always be safely recommended ; but the expense would be, in many cases, enor- mous, and put its application quite out of question where a pe- cuniary return is expected. 5. Application of Gravel or Sand. — Other applications are made with success. Common coarse gravel is sometimes ap- plied ; but the only effect to be looked for, from such an applica- tion, seems to be merely the mechanical division of the soil, and the hardening of the surface. The late Earl Spencer,f a higli authority in all agricultural matters, in the improvement of a tract of peaty meadow, which he had drained by means of a steam- * Principles for the Reclamation of Bog Land on tlie Cloghan Estate, by J. P. Kennedy, Esq. f The unlooked-for deatli of this distinguished friend, and active and generous promoter, of agricultural improvement, h;is been deeply felt, and has lofl a sen- sible void in the agricultural community. To the memory of his personal kind- ness, his beautiful simplicity of manners, and his eminent, attractive, and amiable 4* 42 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. engine, found that a thick top-dressing of sand improved the pasture more than hme, or any other dressing which he had tried. 6. Application of Clay, or Marl. — But one of the great im- provers of peat land is clay, or marl. By marl, in this case, will be understood a substance composed of clay and lime, or a soft, unctuous earth, which indicates the presence of lime by its effer- vescing with acids. This, so far as my observation or knowl- edge goes, has been found invariably beneficial. A simple dressing of clay, to the depth of two inches, has given a desired compactness to the soil, and by degrees has, in the progress of cultivation, converted the dry, fibrous, and spongy matter into a rich black loam. This is represented to have been the effect upon the Lincolnshire fens, which have been repeatedly clayed or marled, though I saw small indications, although they are represented as peat, of that coarse, fibrous, light, and spongy character, which, by way of eminence, goes under that name, and which constitutes, it is said, nearly three million acres of the surface of Ireland. In many cases of peat bog there is found, underlaying the peat or turf at varying distances, a substratum of clay or marl. By taking this out of pits, or out of the ditches which are dug for the purpose of draining the land, and spreading it on the surface to the depth of two or three inches, the best results fol- low. The soil is brought into a condition for cultivation. It is comminuted, or decomposed, and made fine ; it is rendered com- pact ; it retains that degree of moisture which is useful to vege- tation, and furnishes a tenacious substratum for the roots of the growing plant. Its chemical effects may be considerable ; but as yet these are rather conjectural than ascertained.* virtues, it will not be deemed misplaced that I here record the humble tribute of my grateful and most sincere respect. " His saltern accumulem donis, et P'ungar inani munere. " * It may be interesting to my readers to have the opinions of Mr. Anderson, of Scotland, on the Uses of Lime in Agriculture, whose essay on this subject was rewarded, by that distinguished body, the Highland and Agricultural Society, with a prize of ten sovereigns. " Of the legwninoiis crops, we may say unhesitatingly, from what wc have observed, that they cannot be cultivated with any success witliout the previous application of lime, unless where abundance of native calcareous matter exists in IMPROVEMENT OF PEAT LANDS. 43 The practice of one of the best farmers in Lincohishire, whom I have the pleasure of knowing, is described by him as follows : — He resumed the occupation of a farm which had been let to a tenant, and which had been all clayed over once. He fallowed it thoroughly, and, after getting some crops of cole or rape, he clayed it again, putting on about 300 cubic yards to the acre. Clay dikes are formed eleven yards from the centre of each, and are dug about three feet wide and four feet deep, which fur- nishes a large amount of clay to be applied to the land. He then went through a regular course of cropping, and clayed a third time, and obtained highly productive crops — forty bushels of wheat to the acre, and from sixty-four to seventy bushels of oats. He began to clay a fourth time, but not with the same success as before ; from which he inferred that the land had been the soil." (Yet it seems to be a conceded fact that the application of lime is most beneficial where there is most lime in the soil. This is a remarkable, and, in a measure, an inexplicable circumstance. — H. C.) "The bean, indeed, and, so far as we have observed, the potato crop, are exceptions to this rule ; altliough we have seen lime, in compost with earth or old turf dikes, give a most produc- tive and valuable crop of potatoes." " Whether spread on tlie surface of pasture-land alone, or in compost with earth, or applied with a crop and grass seeds, with a view to pasture, it never fails to call into existence the dormant seeds of the superior grasses in the soil, and to nourish and facilitate the growth of those that may have been confided to it by the agriculturist. This is a fact beyond all dispute. It is a never-failing fertilizer of grass land. The effects of lime on peaty soils are the following: — "Peat is known to contain two substances inimical to vegetation, and eminently preventive of the changes and interchanges, the compositions and recompositions, necessary to afford a supply of genial nourishment to a superior class of vegeta- bles. These injurious substances are tannin and gallic acid. But let us con- sider for a moment the composition of these inimical compounds, and we shall find that we have it in our power, by a simple process, to convert them into sub- stances most friendly to the advancement of superior vegetation, and in this form contributing highly to the fertility of soils. We find, on analysis, that they are composed of the following constituent proportions : — Carbon. Hartly as urea. Urea is converted, during putrefaction, into car- bonate of ammonia ; that is to say, it takes the form of the very salt which occurs in rain water. Human urine is the most powerful manure for all vegetables containing nitrogen ; that of horses and horned cattle contains less of this element, but infi- nitely more than the solid excrements of these animals." * I do not deem it necessary to cite any other authorities on this subject. Mr. Dickenson's experience in the case is conclu- sive ; and he finds it for his advantage to save all the urine of his stables, to carry it in carts a distance of five miles, and is content to sell to those who will buy it his solid manure. Next to the introduction of fresh water into a city, the disposi- tion of its waste or sewerage, in respect to the sanatory condition of the population, is most important, and ought to occupy in- tensely the consideration of the public men, and men of influence, and the municipal authorities, in the United States. The influ- ence of cleanliness upon health, comfort, and morals, in all cities or large aggregations of people, is of immense moment. In all public works of drainage, extreme care should be taken to guard against hurtful mistakes in the beginning ; and to make, under the direction of the highest and most practical and experienced engineering skill, such arrangements as will be efi"ectual and substantial without any mean reference to expense. Where any portion of the sewerage of a city can be saved without oflence, and without danger to health, the results at Edinburgh, as evin- cing the value of such savings, show to how much considera- tion the matter is entitled. The agricultural value of one por- tion of this saving is estimated in Edinburgh at £150,000 sterling, which would be equal to a sura yielding an interest of $45,000 per year. This, we are to understand, is already ob- tained with very imperfect arrangements. After making a deduction of all the miscellaneous matters which go to swell * Liebig, p. 97. IRRIGATION. 169 the heap, " it is calculated that, in a city containing 100,000 inhabitants, there is produced of human manure 24,440 tons a year, sullicient, according to Liebig, to manure 50,000 acres of land, and, if conveyed to the soil by irrigation, worth at least £12,000 a year, [or $60,000,] and probably much more." If even one half of this could be so saved and applied, it is obvious how much would be gained. The subject is now, in England, occupying, to an intense degree, the minds of many of the most distinguished men — politi- cians, magistrates, agriculturists, and philanthropists — in the king- dom. A company has been formed, with a capital of one million pounds sterling, and by men who are entirely above any plan of mere speculation, for the purpose of supplying towns with water, and availing of the drainage of large towns for agricul- tural purposes. Some of the first engineers in the kingdom are actively engaged in their service. One of them, Mr. James Smith, of Deanston, the eminent agricultural improver, whose system of thorough drainage and subsoiling may be said to constitute an era in agricultural improvement, has laid before the public a plan for conveying the sewerage of towns into the country for agricultural uses, by means of pipes, which is now being carried out in the city of Aberdeen, Scotland. His plan is, having col- lected the sewerage water of a town into a convenient receptacle, to force it, by means of a pump, to a sufficient altitude to send it into the country through large pipes, to be used for the purpose of irrigation of lands below the level where it is received, or of applying it to other lands by means of a pipe and hose. I do not deem it necessary here to give all the elements of his calculation ; but the result is that, in supplying an equal amount of the elements and requisites of vegetation, the cost of manuring one acre with sewerage water, upon his plan, would be £0 12 s. 9d. " guano, 2i cwt. at 8 s 10 " farm-yard manure, 15 tons, at 4 s. ... 3 It is added that, "by an experiment made last season on a por- tion of meadow in Lancashire, applying at the rate of 15 tons of farm-yard manure per acre, and 3 cwt. of guano to another equal portion, their effects were found to be inferior to the 8 tons of sewerage water applied to a similar extent of ground. The amount of fertilizing matters contained in the water was VOL. II. 15 170 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. not ascertained, but, assuming a similar quantity to that found in the Edinburgh sewer-water, the amount applied must have been about 1792 gallons per acre, which is less than the quantity which Mr. Smith proposes to apply to tillage land under his improved method of conveyance. The proposition at first is startling, and may awaken incredu- lity. I can only say that the plan is proposed and approved by men of as much engineering skill, and of as much practical expe- rience, as are to be found in the world. It certainly should not be condemned, unheard, in a day when cities are every where lighted with blazing air; information is communicated hundreds, and soon will be thousands, of miles, instantaneously, by means of electricity; and men are conveyed from one end of a conti- nent to another, over wide-spreading lands, and heaving and boisterous oceans, with the swiftness of a swallow's flight, under the wings of a steam dragon. Having now treated at large some of the prominent operations in English husbandry, I shall proceed to speak of other points in their management, which deserve attention. CIV. — THE ROTATION OF CROPS. The rotation of crops implies the alternation or succession of different crops on the same land. It is well ascertained by frequent and long experience, that where the same cultivated crop is frequently repeated on the same land, and allowed to per- fect itself, its product will be diminished, and in some cases will fail altogether. The grasses would seem to present an exception in this case ; but they are commonly mowed or depastured, and so do not ripen their seed. Where grasses proceed to perfection, certainly it may be said, in respect to many of them, that they are subject to the same rule. Forest-trees likewise mny be con- sidered as forming an exception, though it must be remembered that they supply their own nutriment from the decay of their own foliage, and that, although they bear fruit while young, yet they are many years in reaching a perfect maturity ; and even THE ROTATION OF CROPS. 171 in respect to forest-trees, nature, in many cases, clearly indicates the necessity of a change of production, in that where you cut down a forest of oak, it is usually followed by a growth of pine, and where you remove a forest of pine, there will spring up a growth of oak ; the soft and the hard woods thus alternating with each other. Sometimes it is found that the substitution of a single differ- ent crop is sufficient to prepare the land for the repetition of the former one. In some cases, the crop can be repeated with ad- vantage after an interval of two, three, or more years. In some instances, the land, if left to itself, or what is called a naked fallow, becomes, after a year or more, prepared for the repetition of the first crop. The regular and plentiful manuring of the land will enable the land to bear the repetition, though there are cases in which even this ceases to restore the land to its former condition. It is found likewise that crops of the same family, though not of the same kind, will not follow each other to advantage. Thus the cereal grains, wheat, rye, barley, and oats, are considered improper to follow each other in immediate succession. The English divide their crops into two kinds, white and green crops. The grain crops are white crops ; the green crops are the esculent vegetables, such as turnips, ruta-baga or swedes, carrots, parsnips, beets, cabbages, peas, beans ; although the two latter, which are cultivated for their seeds, would seem more properly placed among the white crops. There is, how- ever, another distinction between the narrow-leaved and the broad-leaved plants, which is to be considered in this case The narrow-leaved plants, such as the grains and grasses, receive their nourishment mainly, as is supposed, from their roots, which are numerous and fibrous ; the broad-leaved plants, such as tur- nips, cabbages, beans, and peas, and the clovers, receive their nourishment chiefly from the atmosphere, and do not therefore so severely tax the soil. This difference, it is supposed, allows of one of these crops being alternated with the other without prejudice to either. I am giving, in this case, the theory of others, which certainly, to a casual observer, seems plausible enough. I trust I may be allowed to demur to it, or at least to hold my judgment in suspense, because, to my mind, the proof is wanting. It remains, in my opinion, yet to be established that any plants receive their nourishment through their leaves. 172 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. It would be presumptuous to pronounce it impossible, but the proof does not appear conclusive. Two other theories have been suggested to account for the necessity or expediency of an alternation or change of crop. The first is, that every plant throws out from its roots, as excrement, that which is unfavora- ble to the growth of, or poisonous to, any plant of the same kind that may succeed it, but which, on the other hand, may be favor- able to the growth, or be the proper food, of a plant of another kind. It is maintained, that by the cultivation of another kind of plant, of different wants from the former, this pernicious excre- ment is used up ; or even by the suspension of cultivation, by what is termed a staked fallow, by the stirring or ploughing of the ground without cultivation of any crop, this offensive matter is destroyed, and the former plant may be again successfully cultivated. The second opinion is, that different kinds of crops make demands of different elements from the soil ; that the cultivation of a particular crop tends to exhaust the soil of the ingredients or elements which it particularly requires ; that this element may be sometimes artificially supplied by manuring ; or that the land being suffered to remain without cropping, or by a succes- sion of different crops, nature itself will provide for a renewal of the deficient or exhausted element. The former theory is in a great measure abandoned ; the latter is the prevalent opinion with those who claim a right to speak with authority. The latter theory, however, is not without some difficulties or exceptions. Onions, for example, are cultivated successfully, year after year, on the same land, from preference, because it is found that the longer the land has been accustomed to this crop, the more favorable does it become to the growth of it. I have known cases in which Indian corn has been successfully culti- vated forty years without interruption on the same land. A distinguished agricultural traveller and observer,* says that he has seen, "in the table lands of the Andes, wheat fields which had yielded excellent crops annually for more than two centu- ries ; and that potatoes may come again and again upon the same soil ; they are incessantly cultivated at Santa Fe and Quito, and nowhere are they of better quality." * Boussingault. THE KOTATION OF CROPS. 173 In all these cases, which seem to militate against a theory perfectly rational in itself, there may be circumstances unde- tected or unobserved, which, if known, would fully explain the exception. I do not mean to deny this theory, and certainly not to throw any discredit upon the aid which science may give to agriculture ; but these matters are not so simple as we are dis- posed to think them. The confidence and presumption of knowledge abate the desire of further attainment, and remove the stimulants to in- quiry. Science has yet a great work to perform for agriculture ; and when chemistry can, by analytical examination, show pre- cisely what is wanted in any particular soil for the growth of any particular crop, and how it may be supplied, we shall hail the discovery as one of the highest importance, and the noblest triumph which it can achieve. We believe, at least we con- fidently hope, that this may be done. We know what has been promised in this matter, and wait patiently its fulfilment. Agriculture will then be reduced to a system of rules so simple and exact that the plainest mind caimot mistake the course to be pursued. At present, we must be guided by practical experience. Most crops are found to diminish in their yield the more frequently they are repeated in immediate succession upon the same land. Manuring for every crop will not always prevent this, although it will commonly do it where an ample supply is to be had. Some crops, it would seem, will bear a repetition much less fre- quently than others. Red clover bears to be repeated only once in four or six years, and some farmers would introduce it into the course of crops only once in twelve years; yet here we are not without dissent, for an experienced and observing farmer says, it may be cultivated as often as we please, provided the soil is sufficiently consolidated. Flax, it is constantly said, cannot be successfully cultivated oftener than once in five years ; yet in one of the counties of New York they cultivate it with advan- tage every other year, and the experiment in Ireland has been equally successful. There cannot, however, in spite of these exceptions, remain a doubt, that, in the present state of agricul- tural knowledge, there should be an alternation or rotation of crops, as the surest mode of obtaining the largest product from the ground, and of keeping up the condition of the soil, I have 15* 174 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. known rye sowed, year after year, on the same land, for a length of time, with a constantly-improving product ; but in this case, clover was always sowed with the rye ; and this clover, in a state of luxuriance, was always turned in by the plough with the rye stubble, or, as it is here termed, " smothered," preparatory to the land's being again sown with rye. One great object in any rotation of crops, which might be adopted, should be to make the intermediate crop, which is sup- posed to be fed upon the land, prepare the land for the crop, which is to follow. Thus it is that a green crop, which is ma- nured, will itself do much in manuring the land for a white crop. While the amount of manure which is applied to a green crop can hardly be excessive, the same manure, if applied to a white crop, would be likely to increase the straw at the expense of the grain, and render its growth so luxuriant, or, if the term be allow- able, so plethoric, that it would be liable to disease or blight, or to perish by being lodged. The course of crops varies in different localities, according to the nature of the soil and the climate ; and the kinds of crops grown depend likewise much upon local circumstances, such as the vicinity of a market, and the demand which that market creates. The most common rotation, and that which goes, by way of eminence, by the name of the Norfolk system, is called a fourshift rotation, and consists of, 1st year, turnips ; 2d, barley ; 3d, clover ; 4th, wheat. In this case, there is usually but one manuring or dunging for the course, and that is given to the turnips. But, then, under the best husbandry, the turnips are fed to sheep which are folded upon the land, the turnips general- ly being cut and given to them in troughs, the fold being formed of hurdles, and changed frequently ; and the clover likewise is fed upon the ground by sheep. The wheat and the barley go to market ; and the straw is reserved for feeding and for litter in the barn-yards and stalls. On an English farm, no straw is ever suffered to be sold or carried off the place, unless an equivalent in dung or other manure is brought on. In some parts of Kent, it is stated that wheat and beans are alternated continually. On a farm in Gloucestershire, much celebrated for its good manage- ment, turnips, potatoes, and wheat, constitute the alternation of crops, though sometimes a crop of vetches or rape intervenes, which is fed off upon the land. In this case, a great deal of THE ROTATION OF CROPS. 175 manure is purchased and brought upon the land. In some places, in the county of Kent for example, a six years' course is recommended: thus, 1st, swedes, [rutabaga,] well manured, and fed off with sheep, who at the same time have a plentiful allow- ance of oil cake, than which nothing contributes more to the enriching of the manure ; 2d year, barley or oats ; 3d, clover ; 4th, wheat ; 5th, peas or beans ; 6th, wheat. In this case, the wheat, the beans, and the peas, have a dressing of dung ; and in some cases, in the third year, beans are substituted for clover ; and in the fifth year, clover for peas and beans. " On land of a second rate quality, the five-field course is com- mon : 1st, turnips ; 2d, barley ; 3d, clover ; 4th, wheat ; 5th, oats. This is found to bring the clover tilth too often ; to remedy which the following course is sometimes adopted : 1st, turnips ; 2d, barley ; 3d, half clover, half peas or tares ; 4th, half wheat, half oats ; 5th, half oats, half peas. This brings the clover round only once in ten years, when the crop becomes much more certain." A very experienced farmer has been kind enough to commu- nicate to me what he deems an eligible rotation for a " farm, of a heavy soil, varying from four to eight inches in depth, resting on a stratum of strong brick clay from two to three feet in thickness, the substratum being the red crumbly or dried marl, intermixed, in some places, with thin slaty stone, and containing occasionally gypsum. All the arable land has been drained with tiles, in the furrows or divisions of the land, which vary from five to nine yards in width, about eighteen inches deep. The cold springs, pressing beneath the stratum of clay, in the greater part of the farm, have been cut ofi" in an effectual manner by a few large under-drains, varying from ten to sixteen feet in depth. About half the arable land is considered to be totally unfit for the grov/th of turnips ; on the other half the cultivation of tur- nips has for sev^eral years been part of the rotation, and lately with considerable success, for the purpose of carting off into the farm-yards and pasture-grounds ; but no part of the land is dry enough, or properly calculated for feeding off the turnips with sheep." Each division of the farm consists of twelve fields or enclo- sures, and is worked on a double rotation of six years. The rotation has been, 1st, common turnips; 2d, barley ; 3d, white 176 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. clover and rye grass, pastured ; 4th, ditto ; 5th, wheat ; 6th, winter tares ; 7th, Swedish turnips j 8th, barley ; 9th, red clover ', 10th, wheat ; 11th, beans; 12th, wheat. In this case, the turnips, the first year, are manured with ten two-horse cart-loads of manure to the acre, well turned in in the spring. The crops of the third and fourth year are fed off by sheep on the land. The sixth year, the tares have a moder- ate dressing of manure. The seventh year, the Swedish turnips, besides twelve two-horse loads of manure, have likewise applied forty bushels of ashes and bone dust. The ninth year, a slight dressing of manure is applied to the land after the first crop is taken off for soiling. The eleventh year, the land is manured with seven or eight two-horse cart-loads of manure, applied be- fore sowing in the spring. The rotation of crops pursued by Mr. John Morton, on the Whitfield Example farm, which I had the pleasure of visiting, is for a clay soil, as follows : 1st year, swedes and mangel-wur- zel ; 2d year, wheat and beans ; 3d, clover ; 4th, wheat and oats, that is, part of the land in each ; 5th, vetches, rye, early turnips ; 6th, wheat. On a sandy soil, the rotation is as follows : 1st, swedes and mangel-wurzel; 2d, barley; 3d, clover; 4ih, oats; 5th, cab- bage, potatoes ; 6th, wheat. On a limestone soil, 1st year, rye and turnips ; 2d, barley ; 3d, clover ; 4th, oats ; 5th, turnips ; 6th, wheat. I do not deem it necessary to cite any more examples of the rotation of crops ; and my object has been, not to prescribe any particular rule of management, but merely to illustrate the prac- tice which prevails here. How far it would be eligible, or adapted to the condition of agriculture, in the United States, is quite another question, and must receive a very different answer in different localities. Many of the crops which are cultivated here are not, within my knowledge, cultivated at all in the Uni- ted States, such as vetches or tares, though I have myself tried them upon a small scale, and have known one or two farmers to experiment upon them in the same way ; and, in the next place, there is here an incapacity to grow a crop which is common with us, — the maize, or Indian corn, — a crop, which, in my honest opinion, all its uses being considered, is the most valuable prod- uct that ever came out of the ground. THE UOTATION OF CROPS. 177 The examples which I have given will serve to illustrate the systematic form in which agriculture is pursued here. Accord- ing to the rotation determined on, the farm is divided into por- tions, and each one comes, in its turn, into a regular course of cropping. With the tenant farmers, this is not a matter of choice, but is commonly strictly prescribed in the lease, and is not suf- fered to be departed from. The great principles of cultivation and management which they suggest must be obvious; first, that a regular change or rotation of crops is always advisable in order to secure the largest product from the land ; next, that the white and the green crops should alternate with each other ; that two white crops should not follow each other, and seldom two green crops ; that the manure should be applied for the green crops, and that the green crops should always be consumed by stock upon the farm ; and, where the nature of the land admits of it, by stock, sheep in particular, folded upon the land which it is desired to put into a condition for a grain crop. Formerly, it was deemed indispensable to introduce into the course what is called a naked fallow, in which a season was lost ; for, though the land was cultivated, no crop was grown. This was done for two reasons — first, because it was supposed that, in a course of cropping, the land occasionally required rest ; but secondly, with a view of exterminating the weeds, or noxious plants with which the land was infested. The former doctrine is now exploded, and it is considered that, by the substitution of a different crop, the land may be occupied continually ; and clover crops by their tap-roots, and all crops which are fed and expended upon the land on which they are grown, so far from being considered as exhausting, must be regarded as enriching crops. The second reason for a fallow must be admitted to have much force. The degree to which many fields here are infested with weeds, with charlock, dock, poppy, and, above sX\, with twitch grass, (iriticum repens,) is most remarkable ; and the latter, propagating itself, as it does, from even the smallest fibre or joint, cannot be got rid of without extreme pains, by harrow- ing, grubbing, and picking it out by forks and by hand. On a piece of ground under the process of being cleaned I have seen the collected heaps of it as thick and large as haycocks on a iiewly-mown field. A hoed crop, of course, presents an opportu- nity of cleaning xYxq ground as cfF&ctually almost as a naked fallow. 178 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. It will be for the farmers in the United States to consider how far the rotation of crops deserves their attention, and, if any par- ticular course be adopted, what is best suited to their particular condition or locality. The same course is obviously not alike adapted to soils of different character, or to places varying in climate and in their demands for particular articles of produce. I am quite aware that, at present, in the United States, there are few examples of what may be called a systematic agriculture ; and in many parts of the country, especially in the new states, where the virgin soil is unexhausted, and in some cases its exu- berant riches would seem almost inexhaustible, — for in parts of the western territories, in the prairies and bottom lands, I have seen the rich alluvial soil exposed to the depth of eighteen feet, — it would seem to be of little consequence to present gen- erations by what course the land should be cultivated. But to the perfection of the art of agriculture, to the realization of its greatest products, and, above all, to the attainment of that great point of good husbandry, the obtaining of the largest and most profitable return from the land at the least expense of labor, at the least injury to the soil, and, as it may be hoped in many cases, with an actual benefit or improvement to the soil, without doubt an exact system of cultivation and a regular course of crops will be found indispensable. The climate of England and the southern parts of Scotland presents advantages which we in the Northern and Middle States, perhaps in most other parts of the United States, cannot enjoy. The mildness of the winters here enables them to fold their sheep, and to feed the crops to them in the fields where they grow, during any part of the sea- son. In very rare instances are the sheep ever housed, or even sheltered or protected ; and in many parts of the country the turnips are eaten by the sheep where they grew, or are pulled as they are wanted and given to them in the fold. Where this is not the case, the turnips are either pitted or placed where they grew. To " pit " them is to place them in heaps in the field, some- times digging a hole of a foot deep to receive them, and, after bringing as many loads to the heap as is deemed convenient or proper, shaping the pile like the steep roof of a house, and, after putting on a layer of straw over the turnips, adding to this a layer of dirt of a sufficient thickness to secure them from frost. To '• place " the turnips, is to pull two rows of turnips, and, with- THE ROTATION OF CROPS. 179 out removing the tops or the earth from the bottoms, lo place them close on each side of the intermediate row that is left in the ground. A plough is then passed down on each side, and the whole are covered by the earth being turned upon them. These are secured from frost, and are accessible at pleasure through the winter, and given to the stock as wanted. My own conviction, and that founded upon no little personal experience and observation, is, that the farmers in the United States, where circumstances favor it, would find a great ad- vantage in growing esculent vegetables for their stock, especially turnips, swedes, and mangel-wurzel ; and where these are prop- erly pitted in the fields, they may be preserved from the most severe frosts, and at the same time be accessible, in the coldest weather, at the southern end, which may be secured by bundles of straw, to be removed and replaced at pleasure. That, during our long winters, a supply of such vegetables would very much conduce to the health and comfort of our stock, that they would be found most valuable for cows in milk and in calf, and for fatting cattle and sheep, is certain ; and the cultivation, of them would yield an ample profit, and the return of manure from the consumption of them upon the farm would prove most valuable. In this way, likewise, the straw of the farm would be converted into rich manure. It will be observed that, in any rotation of crops to which I have referred, there is little provision for hay. Comparatively, very little hay is grown, excepting for market, or for the horses on a farm ; and what is grown is husbanded with the most ex- emplary care — with a care which would much astonish many of our farmers, whose habits in this respect are extremely wasteful. On many farms there are meadows in permanent grass ; some portion of the clover crop is usually dried and cured ; and when rye grass forms a part of the rotation, it is almost always con- verted into hay. The main dependence for the stock, with the exceptions above named, is upon the esculent vegetables and the straw. As soon as the spring advances, there is a supply of rye sown for the purpose of being fed green to the stock, or of win- ter vetches, and the farm horses are usually soiled through the summer upon the latter crop, of which I shall presently give a more particular account. 180 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. CV. — SOILING, OR HOUSE FEEDING. The practice of soiling stock prevails to some, but not, within my observation, to a great, extent in England. The soiling of stock implies the keeping of them in stables or yards all the season, and bringing to them green feed, when it is to be ob- tained, cut fresh from the fields. I have not been able to get that exact information on the subject, which I should have de- sired ; and perhaps it would be vain to look for it. Work horses are almost universally soiled in England upon clover, rye grass, rye, vetches or tares, or rye and vetches sown together. These are sown expressly for this purpose. The horses are frequently kept upon them without any additional feed ; but when on the road, or when the farm work is severe, they require grain of some sort in addition. Sheep, as I have before said, which are in a course of prepa- ration for the market, and sometimes store sheep, especially those which have lambs by their side, that are designed for market, are folded, and the tares cut green and conveyed to them, which may be considered as soiling. A large stock on Lord Hather- ton's admirably managed farm at Teddesley Park, in Stafford- shire, are soiled ; and their good condition evinced the excellent care which was taken of them. In many cases, in small hold- ings, I have found the system pursued with great success. On Lord Gosford's estates in Ireland, under the judicious and excel- lent care of Mr. Blacker, who has the superintendence, as he in- formed me, of several hundreds of tenants, (such are the subdivis- ions of estates in that country,) I found that among many of these small tenants he had introduced the practice of soiling their cows. Several, whom I visited, were keeping in good health, and with great advantage, three or four cows, where formerly they kept but one, and that one in a half-starved condition. It is said that in Ireland a cow is sometimes recommended for her capacity of getting her own living by leaping hedge and ditch, and foraging any where at her pleasure. Under a system of soiling, that branch of her education might well be dispensed with, much to the advantage of the peace of the neighborhood. That a great saving of food is effected by soiling there can SOILING, OR HOUSE FEEDING. 181 be no doubt ; no one rates it at less than two to one ; many say that three animals, some assert with confidence that four ani- mals, can be well kept upon the produce of land, if soiled, where not more than one could be kept if depastured. The difference, undoubtedly, in this respect, is very great in favor of soiling ; but its expediency upon the whole, in any given case, will be affected by a variety of local circumstances. The soiling of work horses on a farm is always to be advised. They require the most particular superintendence ; but this can be given to them only when they are near at hand. They should be protected against those extreme changes of tempera- ture from which they are likely to suffer if turned into a pasture at night after a hard day's work. They require to have their food prepared for and brought to them ; otherwise much of the time, which should be given to sleep and repose, is necessarily devoted to obtaining their food ; and a horse turned empty at night into a pasture, will be likely to pass a great part of that night in filling his stomach. The same remark applies also to working oxen. It is highly creditable to the English farmers that their work horses are attended to with the most particular and faithful care, as to cleaning, littering, feeding, working, and watering. I have referred already to the practice of one distin- guished farmer, who never allowed his horses to be trimmed, or curried, or housed, against their inclination. He was of opinion, that Nature, in this respect, was the best guide ; and that she gave the animals their thick and matted coat, in winter, when they required it, and it was, therefore, wrong to deprive them of it ; and in the spring she took equal care in divesting them of the covering, which then became oppressive and superfluous. There may be some reason in this ; but whenever I see either horses or men in this shaggy and wild-bear condition, I cannot help thinking that nature. may be somewhat improved upon. It cannot be said of this farmer, however, that he did not give his horses the opportiuiity of sheltering themselves if so they chose; for he had warm sheds and open stalls, most amply littered, to which they might have recourse at pleasure. This latter cir- ctmistance, of leaving them loose, was a feature in his manage- ment much to be commended ; for it seems a great cruelty, though not an infrequent practice, to tie a hard-working horse in VOL. II. 16 182 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. a close box or stall, with a short halter, where he cannot stretch himself, nor lie down but in a constrained position. Nothing, indeed, is more remarkable throughout England, as far as my observation has extended, than the care and kindness bestowed upon the horses ; excepting always the omnibus and cab horses in London, who seem, like galley-slaves, to be sen- tenced to hard labor as a punishment, and the hunting horses, who, especially in what are called steeple chases, which are in fact only trials of speed under the most unfavorable circum- stances, are subjected to a severity of usage absolutely barbarous. I had the pleasure of enjoying the hospitality of a family of high rank, at whose residence forty or fifty carriage and hunting horses were kept, and where it was the custom for the principal members of the family, and their guests, to visit, by a covered passage way, the stables late in the evening, to see that every thing was in order ; that the grooms and their respective charges were in their places, and in proper condition ; and that the noble animals, who contributed so essentially to their pleasure and comfort, were duly cared for. The establishment was a model of neatness and good management. I have had the pleasure to find many a farm stable, where the comfort and health of its occupants were provided for with a carefulness equally exem- plary. I confess I never witnessed such kind, and only proper care bestowed upon these noble animals without a strong desire that some other animals employed in the labor of the farm, cer- tainly not less noble, and whose toil is equally severe, were the objects of a similar care and kindness. With respect to the soiling of sheep, it could rarely be prac- tised on any extensive plan ; but the folding of sheep for fatten- ing, and with a view to enrich the land in the fields, where the produce grows, which may be considered as one form of soiling, is universally practised. Experiments have been made on the feeding of sheep entirely within a yard ; and the result, Avith respect to an eminent farmer in Yorkshire, whose establishment I had the pleasure of visiting, seemed to show that much was gained by this process, inasmuch as the animals consumed a much less quantity of food, in the proportion of 30 to 50, than animals which had a free range ; but later experiments, by other individuals, do not confirm these results. Mr. Pusey, for exam- SOILING, OR HOUSE TEEDING. 183 pie, states, that he " kept ten Down lambs in a shed, and ten out of doors, weighing each lot regularly ; but found the gain of weight rather on the side of the lambs fed out of doors." It is extremely difficult to say why one experiment succeeds, and another of the same kind fails or gives an entirely diiferent result ; but this is a frequent occurrence, and requires us to draw conclusions from single or from few facts with extreme caution. We can presume to be confident only when these facts are mul- tiplied, and often repeated under the same circumstances, and always with the same results. With respect to the soiling of cattle, it is the case with some farmers that their calves are never turned into the field until they are a year old, and that many cattle may be said to be wholly reared in the stall. The fat stock, which are sent to the Smithfield cattle-show, and much of Avhat is designed for the market, are kept altogether in the stalls or in loose boxes, as they are here termed. In regard to milch cows in the country, they are commonly depastured ; but in the large dairy establishments of London and its vicinity, they are wholly soiled. After being once placed in the stalls, they are never untied, excepting in some cases where they are loosened for the purpose of being watered, until their milk ceases to be sufficient to meet the expense of their keeping. They are then fattened and sold to the butcher. The feed is cut and daily brought to them in a green state, sometimes from a considerable distance. In such a city, cows, if kept at all, must be kept in the house ; and during the season when green feed is attainable, it is of course obtained, for its advantages in increas- ing the milk. Two great advantages of soiling cattle are, first, the increase of manure ; and second, the keeping of more cattle on the same land. The increase of manure from soiling is very far beyond what would be supposed by any one not experienced. Where proper provision is made for this purpose, all the manure of the animals is saved, instead of being left and scattered either on the road side, or in the fields, to be dried up by the sun, or washed away by the rain ; and it is at hand to be applied as the farmer shall choose. It gives him an opportunity of converting all his long litter, and the straw of his farm, into the most valuable of ma- 184 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. nure, by using it as an absorbent for a large amount of the liquid portions of the excrements of his cattle. It affords him likewise the power, by properly-constructed gutters and tanks, of saving his liquid manure — the best portion, if well managed, and, ac- cording to the estimation of many eminent farmers, compared with the solid portions of the manure, in point of value, fnll two to one. The next great advantage of soiling is the increased stock which may be kept upon the same land. From the various facts which have come under my observation, where the soil >s carefully and judiciously cultivated, and duly manured, and a proper rotation observed, I believe that on land under artificial grass or esculent crops, three animals may be soiled where one only is now grazed. I believe this may be done with equal or superior advantage to the health and thrift of the animals, and that, in most cases, the increase of valuable manure obtained in this way, will much more than pay for any extraordinary trouble of attendance. Another advantage is in the saving of interior fences upon a farm. Where cattle are kept constantly in barns or yards, the necessity of enclosures is of course done away ; and, separate from the saving of expense in the case, the convenience of cul- tivating in long lines and open fields, the saving of land, and the superior neatness of the cultivation, are great and obvious advantages. The trouble of cutting and carrying the fodder for a large stock presents to many persons an insuperable objection to soil- ing. This, however, must depend on local circumstances, which every farmer must take into consideration for himself. Without doubt, in some cases it might be such as to render the experi- ment ineligible. The difficulty of finding a supply of green feed sufficiently early in the spring, is likewise made an objec- tion. This may be an objection in many localities; but in Eng- land proper, where an ample supply of Swedish turnips, car- rots, and mangel-wurzel, are grown, and Avhere winter vetches, rye, Italian rye grass, and lucern, afford an early cutting, this objection does not apply. It has been objected that co^vs soiled will not give so much milk as when grazed ; on the other hand, the testimony of some individuals, with whom I have become acquainted, establishes the contrary. At Teddesley, in Stafford- SOILING, OR HOUSE FEEDING. 185 shire, where a large stock is soiled, the opinion is, that the cows do not give so much milk as when grazed. At Glasnevin, Ire- land, the opinion of the intelligent superintendent of that estab- lishment is, that their production of milk under the soiling system is much greater than when grazed. In a trial lately reported upon the comparative advantages of feeding cows with malt or barley and other articles of food, it was found that, upon being taken from the fields to the stalls, the milk of these cows was considerably increased. It is difficult to make a comparison in the case upon which the matter may be confidently determined. The quality of milk must, to a degree, depend upon the na- ture, and its quantity upon the supply, of the food which the animal receives. Some animals naturally and constitutionally, from peculiarities or circumstances which have never yet been explained, secrete milk of a much richer quality than others. The Alderney or Guernsey cows are remarkable examples of this kind, their milk being much richer than that of any other breed of cows known. Yet that the quality of the milk is not wholly constitutional, but depends to a considerable degree upon the nature of the food on which the cow is fed, is well established. Its quantity, of course, depends upon the supply of food which the animal receives. It seems to be determined by experiments which have been made here, that, of all food, grass fed green will produce the largest secretions of milk. It is found, likewise, by experiment, that in order to the largest secretions of milk, the temperature in which the animal is placed must be comfortable ; she must be free from external annoyances ; and she must be ''at ease in her mind." These things being equal, it is not easy to see why, under an ample supply of fresh grass eaten with a good appetite, there should not be an equal production of milk in the stall, as in the pasture. In illustration of some of my remarks, and because I think it may gratify the curiosity of my readers, I will here quote from a report just presented to Parliament in relation to the trial of dif- ferent articles of food upon two cows, with a view to determine the result upon the quantity and quality of their milk. " The intestines are the reservoir in which the food is placed for the purpose of being absorbed into the blood. The rapidity with which the dissolved or digested matter is taken up must, it is obvious, depend upon the rate at which the vessels destined 16* 186 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. for this purpose act : these bemg set in motion by the heart, this again by the nervous system, and the latter by respiration, there is discernible a beautiful chain of connection between the oxy- gen of the atmosphere and the absorbed food. If the system described were always in equable movement, if no influences were occasionally present to interfere with its proper equilibrium, animals would be in the condition of plants, which possess ab- sorbing apparatus, but are destitute of one powerful interfering agent in the animal economy ; this is the brain and nervous system, upon the condition of which depend passions and emo- tions of the mind. It is principally by the study of this impor- tant apparatus that we derive our knowledge of what is pecu- liarly termed the constitution of animals. Without this system, animals would be merely chemical machines, and we might then predicate, in every case, the eff'ects of particular influences, as one animal would then differ from another merely in the extent of its mechanism. This remark is to be kept in view in consid- ering the subsequent experiments. The cows were very differ- ent in reference to their nervous condition. The white cow was quiet and steady, generally eating equal portions and producing equable quantities of milk. The brown cow, on the contrary, was fitful in her appetite, and, of consequence, was variable in the amount of her products. In proportion to her weight, she consumed a larger amount of food than her fellow, but always afforded less milk, and a greater amount of butter. The va- riable action of her organs is well exhibited in the first series of tables. When at pasture, she had given two pints less than the white cow, and immediately before the experiments, she gave the same quantity as her fellow. On her arrival in Glasgow, her milk greatly increased; but it soon began to diminish, although the same amount of food was continued. That the change was not produced by any alteration in the food is obvious from the steadier result afforded by the white cow, which was also sup- plied with an equal weight of fodder. The amount of milk given by the brown cow was as much as 26 lbs. per day, when she was fed with grass, and upon the same kind of food the quantity declined to 22 lbs. ; while the milk produced by the white cow was, at the commencement of the experiment with grass, 23 lbs., and at the termination of the trial 21 lbs. ; so that there was a falling off, in the case of the brown cow, to the SOILING, OR HOUSE FEEDING. 187 extent of 4 lbs., and with the Avhite cow only to the amount of 2 lbs. That this result was not merely owhig to a deficiency of water was proved by experiment, which gave the same amount of water in the milk of both cows ; but the quantity of butter afforded by the brown cow amounted to 11^ lbs., while that of the white cow was 8Jlbs., in fourteen days, from 1427 lbs. of grass supplied to each animal. Again, when the animals were fed on steeped entire barley, the brown cow's milk fell from 22J lbs. to 17^ lbs., while that of the white cow's only declined from 221bs. to 19^ lbs. ; the brown cow falling off to the extent of 5 lbs., and the white only to the extent of 2 J lbs. These facts are sufficient to show that the two animals were constitutionally different. The occasional wild look of the brown cow, her ten- dency to gore those who approached her, her frequent startled aspect, all indicated a nervous state of excitement ; the probable cause of which has been already alluded to. The result of these experiments seem to countenance the idea that, although a hand- some external figure is not necessarily an indication of the high- est capacity in a cow to produce milk and butter, yet that it may conduce to afford a steady supply of milk, inasmuch as it appears to indicate a proper relation between the organs. " * That stall-feeding does not necessarily tend to reduce the quantity of milk, seems satisfactorily established at the various milk establishments which I have visited, where it is often found that the quantity is increased by the improved system of feeding under which they are placed. One milkman, of large experience, has assured me that he can almost at pleasure, in some cases, increase the quantity of milk full an eighth by a change of feed, as, for example, by giving them an extra supply of raw potatoes in addition to their other food. In acomparisoii. likewise, between the two modes of feeding, it must be remarked, that cattle wholly grazed are liable to the changes made in their feed by the variations of the seasons, the grass being at one time abundant and most succulent ; at another short, or dried up by drought. In the stable, their feed may be kept uniform through- out the season. Cows, with us, that are depastured, give a flush of milk in May and June, when the feed in the pastures is most luxuriant, but " fall away " greatly in their yield in August ; * Parliamentary Report on feeding Cattle with Malt, 184G. 188 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, from which decline they but partially recover, when turned into the mowing fields in September and October, upon the after- math, or rowen. Now, although they may not, at any time, in the stall, give as much milk as when turned into the pasture at the very height of the feed, yet, their keep being equal throughout the season, the yield of milk will be longer kept up; and the whole amount given throughout the year will probably be more than that obtained from animals which are wholly grazed, and left to encounter the vicissitudes of the seasons. In any system of soiling, it would seem most important that the animals should be occasionally turned out into an open yard for some portion of the day, as essential to their health, rather than to remain tied in the same position, as they are compelled to be in many of the large dairy establishments in the cities, not only from one week or one month to another, but from the be- ginning to the end of the year. " It is known," say the com- missioners on the state of health in large towns, " that tubercular consumption is very prevalent among the cows which supply milk to the inhabitants of some large towns, where they are immured during part of every year in dairies perfectly closed ; and which, being too small for the number of animals which they contain, soon become filled with heated, vitiated air, for the removal of which no provision is made. This is remarkably the case with the cows belonging to the milkmen of* Paris, which are annually carried off by consumption in considerable numbers. A confirmation of the influence of this cause is aff'ord- ed by the exemption of the horse from consumption, although frequently placed in the same circumstances with the cows, but with intervals of exposure to fresh air, and the enjoyment of ex- ercise. Where a number of horses, however, are collected together in ill-ventilated stables, they may become consumptive. A dis- covery of this kind was only lately made, as to the efl"ect of defective ventilation on the cavalry horses in some of the gov- ernment barracks in England ; and it is stated that a saving of several thonsand pounds per annum was efli^cted by an easy improvement of the ventilation of the barracks near the metrop- olis." These statements seem to mc to have a very important bearing upon the construction of our stables and barns, and the general treatment of our live stock. The health of our live stock is, I fear, not sufficiently regarded. I have already alluded to SOILING, OR HOUSE FEEDINCJ. 189 it ; but the subject is of so great importance, that I may be allowed to reiterate my admonitions. Though they cannot tell their complaints, these are not the less severely felt ; and the animal constitution is liable to the same irregularities within, and to the same injurious influences from without, in one case as in another, in the brute as in the human animal. I have seen, as I have already remarked, several instances of soiling in this country ; but, with the exception of large milk establishments in the towns, and one or two large farms in the country, they have been upon rather a restricted scale. I have said that horses are almost universally soiled ; the same may be said of much of the fat stock, which is in preparation for an early market, and especially for the agricultural shows. Fatting- sheep, in England, are generally folded, and in most cases the feed is cut or pulled for them, and they arc fed from mangers or troughs. Other stock is generally grazed, as with us. Indeed, in parts of the country, especially in Scotland and Ireland, there is a large portion of the country which does not admit of, or would not pay the expense of, cultivation, and this is devoted to grazing, as the only beneficial use to which it can be applied. I am bound to say that soiling is not universally approved. Mr. Stephens, the eminent author of the Book of the Farm, says that he has tried twice the experiment of soiling his horses, but failed in both cases ; at one time for want of cutting grass, the second cutting having entirely failed that year ; and the other time, for want of straw for litter, until the arrival of the new crop.* The latter reason seems to me about as appropriate and valid an objection against soiling, as it would be to have said that his experiment of soiling failed because he had no stalls in which to tie his cattle, and no troughs from which to feed them. Litter is indispensable in order to reap from soiling all the advantages, which it may afford in the production of manure ; but it is difficult to understand with what propriety it can be objected to the practice of soiling, that it fails, when that failure is not in any way the fault of the system, but grows out of the deficiency or neglect of him who makes the experiment. The former objection has a good deal of force ; and it would be great imprudence or improvidence to under- * Book of the Farm, vol. iii. p. 851. 190 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. take a system of soiling without an ample preparation against such contingencies. Mr. Dickenson's experiment, which I have so fully detailed in a preceding part of this Report, (p. 161,) and the experiments of the cow-feeders near Edinburgh, most clearly show what can be done. It does not come within my province, in this case, to detail what has been done in the United States in the way of soiling. The experiments of Josiah Q,uincy, Esq., on his estate in Quincy, Mass., made with great intelligence and acuteness, are detailed most fully in the Reports of the Massachusetts Agricultural So- ciety. I have in other publications referred to a dairy of Robert Smith, Esq., near Baltimore, where a hundred milch cows were soiled. Another similar establishment I have visited on Long Island, N. Y., where an equal or larger number of cows are soiled. I have likewise, in former reports, mentioned the admi- rable experiment of a small farmer, in Waltham, Mass., who, from three cows carefully soiled, and allowed to recreate themselves for two hours a day in the barn-yard, produced at the rate of thirty pounds of butter per week, for three months. But 1 will refer to some cases which have come under my observation here, always finding occasion to regret the extreme difficulty of obtaining from farmers in general very exact accounts of any of their farming operations. I shall give first the experience of Mr. Skilling, the intelligent and skilful manager of the school farm, at Glasnevin, near Dublin. At first, he was a country schoolmaster, having the manage- ment of four and a half acres of land. " When I adopted the house-feeding system," he says, " my neighbors laughed at me, and predicted that my cattle would die ; others said the cattle would give no milk. I lived near a village, through which I led my cows twice a day to water. They had a good appearance, as they were well fed ; and they ran through the village wild and full of spirit. This showed they were in no danger of dying ; and when they saw (for I was closely watched) firkin after fir- kin of butter going to market, they began to think there could be no great deficiency in the milk. I fed them on mangel-wur- zel and turnips ; and when other cows were dry, mine were giving milk. During three years, I kept three cows, and SOILINCJ, OR HOUSt: FKKOING. 191 sold £6 worth of batter each year, from each cow, besides hav- ing a sufficiency for a family of six persons." When I visited Mr. S killing's well-managed establishment, he was then soiling sixteen cows in clean, well- ventilated, and con- venient stables. He states that these cows, upon an average, give him £15 10 s. a year, each, and this principally from the sale of the milk. He estimates " that a cow fed in the house will make twenty-five tons of liquid manure, which will be suffi- cient for an acre of ground." I am afraid in this case my friend overrates the quantity. He says, he can, " on an average, keep a cow on every two English acres of land." I believe that, with proper pains and cultivation, a cow may be kept upon less than two acres. I have known a cow very well kept upon one acre through the year, and a portion of hay annually sold from the same ground. " Such," he adds, "are the advantages of house- feeding. There may be difficulties in keeping cattle in houses; but people should have patience, and not let difficulties overcome them. The advantages that arise from house-feeding are a larger quantity of manure, and much more milk ; and, such being the case, it would appear strange that men should continue to practise the old plan. The system is applicable to a large farm, as well as to a small one. In England, the farmers do not keep half a sufficient stock upon their farms. They keep a great number of sheep, but not sufficient to compensate for the short stock of cattle. But it may be objected that, on a very large farm, say 1000 acres, it is difficult to erect a cow-house sufficiently large to accommodate as many cattle as would be necessary. The difficulty can be easily obviated. Let a num- ber of cottages be erected on the farm ; and beside them let cow-houses be built, so that the persons residing in the cottages can take care of the cattle in the houses next to their own. Let the young cattle be in one house ; the milch cattle in another ; the fat cattle in another ; and it will be found, at once, that the system is as applicable to a large farm as to a small one." Mr. Skilling, it will be seen from these statements, is of a sanguine temperament ; but the observations of a man so experienced as he is are entitled certainly to a respectful hearing. He goes on to say, " The house itself must be airy, well venti- lated, and perfectly clean. The animals must be well curried and brushed every day." His stables and their occupants gave 192 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. ample evidence that he practised what he preached. " There ought to be one particular person to superintend and pay atten- tion to the feeding ; and one of the most important parts of his duty is, to ascertain the appetite of every beast. Cows, like other animals, will eat less or more ; and they ought to be sup- plied according as they require it, being kept rather with an appetite, than otherwise. As soon as the animal has eaten its food, all refuse should be immediately taken away, and nothing- suffered to remain in the stalls before it. The cattle will know the hour of feeding as correctly as the clock tells it, and will be disappointed and fretted if neglected. This neglect is preju- dicial both to milking and fattening. Every farmer who culti- vates his land in a proper manner, will have plenty of food for his cows in the house, summer and winter, and of various kinds. Cows, like other animals, are capricious in their appetites ; they will not agree with being constantly confined to the same kind of food. No matter how nutritious in itself, there ought to be a variety ; a change, if possible, for every feed." This is the mode of feeding which, he says, he himself has found eligi- ble. '' I give six feeds in the day, summer and winter, beginning at 6 o'clock in the morning, and ending at 9 in the evening, viz., at 6, at 8, at 12, at 3, at 6, at 9. They get water in their stalls at 10 in the morning, and at 5 in the afternoon ; they are likewise turned out one hour, from 10 to 11, where they exercise, and drink if they choose. The kinds of food I use chiefly are the following : In summer, at 6, 1 feed with perennial or Italian rye grass and clover ; at 8, with cabbages or leaves ; at 12, with cut hay and straw ; [this feed is to prevent the action of too much green feed upon them ; a cow in health ought never to be purging ; if she is, both milk and flesh are running off"; ] at 3, upon vetches; at 6, upon mangel-wurzel leaves, rape, cleanings of ditches, or other refuse of the farm or garden ; at 9, clover or grass, or this may again be dried feed, if the state of the bowels requires it. In winter, at 6, first feed with steamed food; at 8, with turnips, raw; at 12, with cut hay and straw ; at 3, with mangel-wurzel raw ; at 6, with steamed food ; at 9, with hay and straw. Water must be given or oflered, and plenty of salt used in the steamed food. This mode, after much experience, I have found highly advantageous for all my cattle." lie adds, " I have ascertained that when my SOILING, OR HOUSE FEEDING. 193 present farm was in pasture, it pastured eighteen cows in sum- mer ; but now it feeds sixteen cows and three horses, all the year round, and I have as large a proportion of grain crops on the same land as most other people, besides." I have thought that these details, all of which came under my own observation, would be interesting to my readers ; and I will refer to some experiments on a small scale, on the estate of Lord Gosford, in the county of Armagh, Ireland, already spoken of, under the management of William Blacker, Esq., who may be considered as the author of house feeding in Ireland. I had the gratification of a most instructive visit with this gen- tleman, among several of his small tenants, who every where greeted him with a warmth of welcome which showed their deep sense of his kindness. Indeed, many of them, through his judicious and beneficent agency, had been recovered from a con- dition of want, disconragement, suffering, and debt, and placed in circumstances of independence, comfort, contentment, and improvement ; and I know not who are more to be envied than those persons who have it in their power to confer such bene- factions, and M^ho are permitted to see the beneficent fruit of their labors. I shall be excused if I interrupt the coarse of my subject to speak of the means by which these changes, which here meet the eye and warm the heart, and form such an affecting contrast to the indescribably wretched condition of many of the cottiers of Ireland, have been brought about. The numerous tenantry among whom he was placed, and a large proportion of whom were the occupiers of very small hold- ings, labored under two great difficulties, — ignorance of the best mode, and the want of the means, of cultivating their grounds, — difficulties which press heavily upon a great portion of the Irish population. The best of all charities is that which helps the unfortunate to help themselves. To understand the condition of Ireland, — unlike, it is said, that which exists in any other part of the civilized world, — it is necessary to go into Ireland. My eye never before rested upon, my imagination could scarcely ex- aggerate, the state of destitution and degradation, as far as their condition was concerned, in which I saw millions of these peopk living The whole blame of this condition is not to bo charged, as is too often done, upon the landlords. If, as is well known. VOL. u 17 194 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. there are too many landlords who neglect, there are those who seek to perform, their duty, and to discharge their high responsi- bilities, and who, actuated by an ardent spirit of philanthropy, are sincerely anxious to ameliorate the condition of their depend- ents, and to raise them from their low estate. But what can be done with people who are satisfied to burrow in a mud cabin, or a mere hole in the earth, and to marry, and live, and to bring children into the world, upon poverty and potatoes ? Mr. Blacker, with the cooperation of the nobleman whose estate he manages, has effected the most beneficial changes among his tenants, by stimulating their pride, by multiplying their wants, by calling out their self-respect, by teaching them the best modes of man- agement, and assisting them to pursue these modes. His first plan was to employ some respectable and skilful farmers from Scotland, well qualified to teach, who were to serve as agricultural instructors. They were themselves to occupy a small farm, on which they were to exhibit an example of the best mode of management and cultivation ; and, within a pre- scribed district, they were to visit the cottiers and small tenants, and instruct them in these improvements, looking after them frequently, reporting them, and encouraging them by the promise of handsome premiums for superior skill and industry, to be be- stowed at the annual agricultural meeting, at the close of the year. In addition to this, through his Scotch agents, or by him- self, Mr. Blacker offered the tenants aid in the form of seeds, artificial manures, improved implements, and sometimes a cow, the expense of which was all to be ultimately reimbursed. The plan has succeeded admirably. One of the first visits was to a small farmer, who had been at one time negligent, addicted to intemperance, deeply in debt, and wholly discouraged, and with- out even a cow, so important a blessing in a poor man's family. His habits were now changed ; he had applied himself most dili- gently to the cultivation and improvement of his little farm ; he had paid his debts ; he was keeping two or three cows, and now felt the pride and wore the port of a man. It would be diffi- cult to say what superior benefaction he could have bestowed upon such a man ; and the beneficence was gratefully appreci- ated ; for there is a chord in the human heart from which the touch of disinterested kindness seldom fails to bring a response. I will give the returns of some of these small tenants. SOILING, OR HOUSE FEEDING. 195 A. B. has fourteen acres. lie keeps four cows and a horse. The sales from the produce of his cows amounted in the year to £17, beyond the suppHes of his family. Under the system of house feeding, he says he can keep four cows where he could keep only one before. Such a place as this, it is clear, should not be burdened with a horse. Each acre of his land, he stated, gave him a profit of £5. C. D. cultivated eight and a half acres, in potatoes, flax, oats, turnips, &c. &c. He kept two cows, but had wisely sold his horse. He paid £9 15 s. rent, and had cleared, in the previous year, £43, exclusive of butter used in his family. His oats were a magnificent crop ; and where they had been manured with the water in which his flax had been rotted, the beneficial efl"ects of the application were most striking. He raised two pigs. E. F. occupies nine acres. Had last year three cows : this year he is keeping four; sold last year about £40 of produce, exclusive of butter. His cows produce about seven pounds of butter each per week. All this is spade husbandry and house feeding. I shall pro- ceed to give some other statements, which did not come under my particular observation, but with which Mr. Blacker was kind enough to make me acquainted. G. H. stated that he had fed his stock of four cows and two calves upon one acre and two roods of land * all summer, being about one rood and four perches for each cow, after allowing for the calves, and had three roods of turnips, and one of rape, for winter. His whole occupation amounted to eight acres and three roods of land. His stock, of four cows and two calves, he stated, late in the autumn, had been fed, through the summer and up to that time, upon clover and vetches, on the same piece of ground which formerly, in grazing, kept only one cow, and that poorly. This man added that he was satisfied that there was no way in which land could be made to produce so much, or by which it could be brought into such heart, as by the soil- ing system, and four-course rotation of crops. He was just beginning to feel the benefit of it, his land being now all per- fectly clean, every inside ditch levelled, not a spot in the whole that was not productive, and not any of it whatever in pasture. * I suppose, in these cases, the Irish acre is intended, which, to the English statute acre, is as the square of 14 to the square of 11, or as 196 to 121. 196 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. I. J. states that, when he came to his farm, fom' years ago, he could only keep one cow, and two acres of such pasture as it afforded was only sufficient to summer-feed her ; that he had gradually increased his stock from year to year, until he had now three good cows, and a horse, on his eight acres of land, and had now more acres manured than he then found roods. K. L. states that where formerly he had only two cows, a heifer, and a pony, he now had five cows, two heifers, and one good horse, upon his sixteen acres, kept on clover and vetches in summer, on cabbage in the autumn, and turnips in the winter and spring. M. N. occupied twenty-three acres of land. His stock was seven cows, two heifers, one calf, and two horses, which were kept in good condition ; and besides this, he had nine hundred stocks of excellent oats, and an acre of flax. O. P. occupied six acres of land. Two acres and two roods were in potatoes, one acre in turnips, and he produced about thirty barrels of oats. He house-fed three cows, three calves, and an ass; he made three firkins of butter; he had two pigs; he had to support a family of eleven persons ; and yet he had twenty barrels of potatoes to sell. Q,. R. held four acres, one rood, and twenty perches of land. He had two acres of potatoes in arable land, and three roods in reclaimed bog, of which he had reclaimed two acres ; he had one acre of turnips ; he had ten barrels of oats to sell ; he had made three firkins of butter during the summer ; he had house-fed two cows and two heifers. He had thirteen in a family to support, and he expected to sell ten barrels of potatoes ; had already sold three pigs at a profit, after paying their cost, of £5. S. T. held five acres of land. He had two acres of potatoes, three roods of turnips, twenty perches of flax. He had house- fed three cows and a genet. He had made three firkins of but- ter, and had twenty-four barrels of oats and fifteen barrels of potatoes to sell. I do not deem it necessary to multiply these examples, although more arc within my reach. I need not point out the conclusions to which they lead. Two things, however, deserve particular attention. The first is, that none of the product of the land is lost or wasted. The second, which rcv^eals the whole secret of success, is in the large quantity of manure which is obtained SOILING, OR HOUSE FEEDING. 197 upon this system. It is confidently stated that, where every thing is well managed and saved, a single cow will furnish ample manure, in the course of the year, to be applied to an acre of ground. I do not recollect that, in any of the cases which I visited, any provision was made for saving the liquid manure in a tank, so as to be applied by sprinkling to the land. This, if properly done, as may be seen from Mr. Dickenson's example, would have greatly increased the resources of these small farmers. How far the system is applicable in other cases, every farmer must determine from the circumstances in which he is placed. I have no hesitation in saying that there is no farmer, who keeps live stock, to whom the subject is not worthy of attention. Per- haps there is no farmer with whom it may not very advan- tageously be to a degree applicable. The moving spring of every farmer's success is his manure heap ; and how the manure heap is to be created and enlarged every one knows. The great matter to be considered is, how to obtain a supply of succulent food throughout the whole year. With us in the United States, the plant of Indian corn, for a part of the season, cut green, and as early as it will bear cutting, furnishes the richest and most abundant of all provision. It may be sown broadcast or in drills, and so as to furnish a succession of feed until the frost comes. This advantage cannot be had here. The Italian rye grass, which I have already so fully described in speaking of Mr. Dickenson's management, is an admirable plant for this purpose. In addition to this, there is a species of rye, called St. Johri's day rye^ lately introduced here, which grows luxuriantly, and comes into a state fit to be repeatedly cut very early. I saw this plant cultivated on Mr. Pusey's estate, and there brought into most advantageous contrast with the common rye, which was sown in the same field. I shall give Mr. Pusey's account of it. " Some farmers do not approve of rye, for while young it gives but little food, and shoots up rapidly to a harsh stalk, which stock do not relish. This does not apply to the St. John's day rye. This plant, if sown in proper time, and on a suitable soil, presents itself to the scythe in a state palatable to horses for full three weeks or more. It will grow from six to seven feet high. 17* 198 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. The time to sow it (in the climate of England) is the 24th of June, at all events before July. The condition of the soil must not be poor, and the produce will pay for good land. The soil needs to be compressed after sowing, if the land be at all light, by rolling or sheep treading." In June of the following year, the farmer whom I have quoted above sent Mr. Pusey an account of his further success in the growth of this rye. The stalk was six feet in length, though it had not then flowered. He began to soil eight cart horses with it on the 13th of May, then three feet high, and four cows a week later. Both these kinds of stock ate nearly the whole of it with scarcely any waste ; it had then been twenty-two days in use, and he expected its eatable state would extend through a month. He thinks he should have begun a week earlier, not waiting until it was three feet in height. Mr. Pusey, whose growing crop I saw, " sowed some in July, 1843, on some poor, moory soil, without manure ; it was fed off in the autumn, and again in the spring, yet produced, on little more than a quarter of an acre, thirteen bushels of seed. The seed was sown again last year, (1844,) in August, as soon as harvested. It produced on a sandy loam very good feed in the autumn ; and in this backward spring, (1845,) it realized the description given of it, and established its character by covering four or five acres with a thick coat of herbage, in which the lambs were browsing breast-high, while there was little or no other feed in the neighborhood." It is said to be called St. John's day rye " because it grows so rapidly that, if sown about St. John's day, it will be fit to mow green by the middle of September ; and in favorable sea- sons, may be fed off" again in November, without preventing its giving ample feed the next spring, and a good crop of grain at harvest." This rye, in Belgium, is deemed inferior to the common rye in yield of grain, but " it has evidently two advantages over the common rye. It tillers so much as to produce double the quan- tity of herbage on the same space of ground. In one field, where the two varieties were growing together, the common rye, after twice feeding off, became so thin that I ploughed it up, while ^his new rye covers the ground with its third crop, as with its SOILING, OR HOUSE FEEDING, 199 first. It is sweeter than the common rye when young, as is shown by its being preferred by the hares and rabbits. Its prin- cipal merit is, however, its superior sweetness in advanced growth, and the oonsequently longer time during which it remains fit for use as spring feed." Mr. Baker, a distinguished farmer of Essex, speaks of having obtained seed from two difi"erent seedsmen, and having found that, for spring feed, one was a fortnight earlier than the other, and yielded double the amount of produce. By the use of this plant, he says, he is now able to support all his horses and neat stock for two or three weeks before his neighbors commence. From the middle of April last, (1845,) he has been enabled to maintain upwards of forty horses and colts, and fifty head of neat stock, the former up to the present time, (24th of May,) and the latter until the 14th of this month, almost without the assistance of hay. The chief difficulty he had to contend with, was, to remedy the great waste occasioned by the horses and stock in foddering ; for, as the rye advanced in stem, the stock would eat only the most tender portion, and, if tares were sown in conjunction, would waste the greater part of the rye in the endeavor to extract them while feeding. To remedy this, he cut the whole into chaff, and, by the addition of a small quantity of hay, and about one half of sweet wheat or oat straw, which he gradually diminished as the season advanced, he ob- tained a description of food for which, for early use, he knew of nothing as an equivalent, in point of cheapness or utility, be- sides the advantage of gradually adopting the change from dry to green food without risk or inconvenience to the animal. The number of acres consumed, to the present time, did not exceed nine ; and the land upon which it was grown was already in a forward state for turnips. The rye grown by Mr. Baker is un- derstood to be different from the St. John's day rye. For house feeding, likewise, lucern is sometimes cultivated, although not so extensively in England as I had expected to have found it. This requires to be sown on rich soil ; broadcast, if the land is clean ; but in narrow drills, so as to admit of being hoed, if it is likely to be infested with weeds, which, in truth, constitute a principal obstacle to its cultivation. It is believed there is no more nutritious food to be found for cattle and horses. 200 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. and none from which so large a product can be obtained from an acre, save only Indian corn, in a favorable climate and soil. It is stated confidently, but perhaps extravagantly, that an acre of good lucern will keep four or five horses from May to Octo- ber, when cut just as the flower opens. It requires a dry, rich, loamy soil. The climate of Scotland is said to be too cold for it ; but I have known very good crops of it produced in the neighborhood of Boston, New England. Clover — the common red clover — furnishes an excellent article for soiling, scarcely in- ferior to any thing which can be found ; but its cultivation is too familiar for me to enlarge upon it. The article mainly depended on in England for soiling, es- pecially for horses, is vetches or tares. These furnish a very large amount of feed, and there is at least one kind which may be cut more than once in a season. Of the vetches which are cultivated for the purpose of soiling in England there are two kinds ; one, which will bear to be sown in the autumn ; the other, which is sown in the spring, to afford late summer or autumn feed. As well as I could learn, there is no observable difference in them, but that one will endure the winter, and consequently will afford early spring feed, and the other kind will not endure the winter ; and the general impression is, that these peculiarities are the result of cultivation and habit, rather than of original constitution, if the term may be so applied. After the early and trying part of the season is past, the crops of turnips, swedes, mangel-wurzel, and various tribes of cabbage, under industrious and good cultivation, will furnish an abundant supply of food ; in respect to some of them, first in their leaves, and next in their bulbs and roots. Rape is likewise cultivated v^ery extensively, especially in Lincolnshire, for the folding and feeding of sheep. As far as my observation extended, it is not usually cut for sheep ; but a temporary fence is put up round a portion of the field, and they are turned in upon it. This being eaten, another enclosure is made ; and in this way they succes- sively enter upon the different portions of the field. That a variety of food is conducive to the health of the ani- mals, and to the increase of the milk of the cows, seems well established by general opinion and by actual experiment. Dried food is much less conducive to milk and to fatness than green ; SOILING, OR HOUSE FEEDING, 201 and the effect of dry straw is to produce almost immediately a great diminution of milk. Hay is conducive to health, and to jnilk, in proportion to the succulent state in which it has been cured, provided, however, it has attained some substantial growth before being cut. I think it will be interesting to my readers, if I quote here from the report to which I have alluded, on a trial of some different kinds of food upon cattle, made under the direction of the government, and just published by their order. 1 cannot say that the report, as a whole, is altogether satisfactory, or that the conclusions arrived at are very definite. The remarks, however, which I shall quote, are very worthy of attention. " That a change of diet is necessary for animals which are kept in a confined condition, is proved by the tables accom- panying this report in a striking manner ; and the results now obtained amply sustain the idea, supported by us some time ago, in reference to the dietary of human beings shut up in poor- houses and places of confinement. It was then argued that, in order to retain the human constitution in a healthy condition, variety of food should be properly attended to, and different species of diet were suggested as well calculated to supply a series of dishes to the poor. In the Asylum for the Houseless and in the House of Refuge, at Glasgow, the recommendations were followed out, and, according to the report of the treasurer, the dinner meals being varied two or three times every week, the change in the dietary is much relished by the inmates, and may have had some effect in the greater degree of health which has been evident among them of late. The analogy subsisting between the physical nature of human beings and of many of our domestic animals, would lead us to the conclusion, upon physiological grounds, that their dietary should be conducted upon precisely similar principles. To prove this by exact exper- iments, is a point, it will be admitted, of considerable importance to the agriculturist, although it may have been, as might be ex- pected, surmised by many intelligent observers. Not only, how- ever, is vanety of food requisite for an animal in an artificial state, — it is found also to be beneficial to one in a condition more akin to that of nature ; for it is upon this principle that we are able to account for the superior influence of old natural pastures, which 202 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. consist of a variety of grasses and other plants, over those pas tures which are formed of only one grass, in the production of fat cattle and good milk cows. To any one who considers with attention the experiments which have been detailed, there cannot remain a doubt in the mind, that cattle, and especially milk cows, in a state of confinement, would be benefited by a very frequent and entire change in their food. It might not be too much to say, that a daily modification in the dietary of such animals would be a sound scientific prescription." I have deemed it important to go thus largely into the subject of soiling or house feeding, because I think it will enable many of the farmers in the United States, especially in the older states, to keep three times the amount of stock which they now keep, and to very much more advantage with regard to produce and profit, and especially to the improvement of their farms, than the system which they now pursue. The great means of im- proving our farms are in the amount of stock which we keep upon them, always premising, however, that that stock, to be profitably kept, must be well kept ; and while every farmer loses who does not keep all the stock which his farm will carry, he perhaps loses still more who keeps more stock than he can keep well. But every eff'ort should be made by a good farmer to increase the capacities of his farm to their utmost extent ; and by the number of cattle and sheep which he can amply provide for, may be determined his means of enriching his farm and enlarging the profits of his husbandry. I foresee two objections that may be argued against the adoption of the system of house feeding in the United States — the one, the expense of labor ; the other, the trouble of undertaking it upon any extended scale. The first is a simple question of profit and loss ; if its profits will be more than an equivalent for its expenses, the application of any amount of labor under such circumstances cannot be reasonably objected to. The trouble and care which it may bring with it are no further a reasonable objection to its adoption than to every other project of improve- ment. No good in life is obtained without its proportionate price ; and to men who live by their farms, and therefore have an interest in making those farms as productive as possible, as to enterprising men engaged in trade or manufactures, it resolves CROPS. 203 itself into the simple question, whether it will prove sufficiently remunerative to compensate the labor and attention. The reply to this question will of necessity be qualified by many local cir- cumstances, and must be left to every farmer's own decision. CVI. — CROPS. The island of Great Britain produces, of bread crops, wheat, oats, barley, and rye ; and perhaps in no other part of the world has the cultivation as yet reached a greater degree of perfection. I am, however, far from believing that it has attained its highest point : and, if the extraordinary crops produced in some parts of the country evince what can, the inferior yield in other parts, without any ascertainable hinderances of climate or soil, show what should, be done. I believe there is no part of the island in which wheat may not be successfully cultivated. In the north, oats are more cultivated than wheat, and constitute there the principal bread of the people at large. Oaten bread, how- ever, in that country, is found under certain forms at the tables of the rich and of the higher ranks, as well as among the lower classes ; and though I consider it altogether inferior to the bread of Indian corn, — and such, indeed, is my honest opinion of wheat bread also, — yet it is agreeable to the taste, and its uutri- tiousness is undoubted. In Ireland, where fine wheat is grown, and where also a considerable portion of oatmeal is consumed, the food of a large mass of the people is potatoes, and of this not always a full supply. 1. Wheat, however, is to be considered as the standard grain, and the great crop of England, upon which the arable farmer mainly depends for his money returns from his farm, and for the payment of his labor and rent, and to which, therefore, his at- tention is constantly and principally directed. Of wheats there are great varieties. In the Agricultural Mu- seum at Edinburgh, first established by the most commendable enterprise of Mr. Lawson, but now the property of the Highland 204 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. and Agricultural Society of Scotland, a vast number of kinds are exhibited ; and his account enumerates more than eighty different sorts. The common divisions are into bearded or beardless wheats, into thin skinned, or white, and hard or flint wheats, or into white or red wheats. The botanical distinctions would be of little con- sequence to my general readers. The white wheats,or thin skin- ned, yield the largest proportion of flour or starch ; the flint wheats of gluten, which is the most nutritious part of the wheat. The colors white and red are not permanent distinctions, but are con- sidered as attributable to the soil in which these two kinds are grown ; the white wheat sometimes changing into a red, and the red into a white. No advantage would come from my enumerating the various kinds cultivated. Every district has its favorite wheat ; and it is with wheat as with most other popular favorites — public opinion is continually changing. The results, too, with respect to the same kind of seed, are different under different cultivation, and are likewise materially affected by the season. Different markets, likewise, have their preferences for different kinds of wheat. The baker wants one kind of flour ; the confectioner requires another. I shall presently specify some of the principal ones cultivated. The analysis of different wheats has shown a remarkable difference in the quantity of gluten in each ; but it probably will be found that this more depends upon the soil and the species of manure applied, than upon any peculiarity in the seed itself.* * " A sack of Italian, Sicilian, or Russian (Odessa) flour, -when tough in kneading, or, according to the baker, '■full of proofs or gluten, takes up, in con- sequence, from five to six gallons more water than a similar quantity of British flour, and makes, in consequence, from four to six more quartern loaves. When the wheat, in England, is not well harvested, it is frequently necessary, in order to make a loaf ' which will stand up in the oven,' and sell, to mix with it flours of tlie above description. Starch is perfectly white, while albumen, the same sub- stance as white of egg, is of a grayish color ; and gluten, by exposure to air, becomes brown. The flours called fines and erirafines are made from Dantzic wheats, when to be had. From their whiter color, and their taking up, in the for- mation of bread, less water than wheats from the south, they must contain more starch and less gluten and albumen. Our British wheats, used also for fines and extras, in which the former is known to abound, are also whiter ; and, as articles of luxury, it is true that tlie Avhiter wheats bear a higher price. But flours from tlie south, from containing more gluten, are browner, and, seeming to be loss well dressed than they are, and to contain more bran than they do, sell at a lower price : still they go farther, and make a more wholesome and nutritious bread. The Intel- CROPS. 205 There is another distinction of wheats — into autumn, or those which are sown in the autumn, and spring wheats, those which are sown in the spring. But this is undoubtedly an accidental and not a permanent or constitutional distinction. With care in the selection of the seed earliest ripe, after a succession of seasons, what was winter wheat may be converted into spring wheat ; and by sowing spring wheat in the autumn, its season of ripen- ing will be retarded, and after a while it will take its place among winter wheats.* Of the average yield of wheat per acre throughout the knig- dom, it is difficult to speak with any confidence, as no exact returns are collected, and conclusions of this sort must be almost wholly conjectural. Nor do I see what useful lesson is to be learned from combining the results of poor and negligent with those of the most liberal and skilful cultivation, and striking a general average between them, except to afford an excuse or pal- liative for the neglect and indolence of those who do not culti- vate their lands as well as they might. What we require to know is, what can be done ; and this is determined beyond all ligent laborer who bakes his own bread from seconds knows this well ; it keeps him better up to his work than whiter flours." — JV. H. Hyclt, Esq., Royal ^Agricultural Journal, vol. ii. pt. i. p. 144. " Proust found French wheat to contain 12.5 per cent, of gluten ; Vogel found that the Bavarian contained 24 per cent; Davy obtained 19 per cent, from winter, and 24 from summer, wheat ; from Sicilian, 21, and from Barbary wheat, 19 per cent. The meal of Alsace wheat contains, according to Boussingault, 17.3 per cent of gluten ; that of wheat grown in the ' Jardin des Plantes,'' 26.7 ; and that of winter wheat, 3.33 per cent. An increase of animal manure gives rise, not only to an increase in the number of seeds, but also to a most remarkable difference in the proportion of the substances containing nitrogen, such as the gluten which tliey contain. One hundred parts of wheat grown on a soil manured with cow-dung (a manure containing the smallest quantity of nitrogen) afforded only 11.95 parts of gluten, and 64.34 parts of amylin, or starch, while the same quantity grown on a soil manured with human urine yielded the maxi- mum of gluten, namely, 35.1 per cent." — Liehig, p. 94. * We must guard here against a mistake which, I know, has been made, and with much loss and vexation. The Whittington wheat is called a spring wheat, but it must be sowed in February. We on the other side of the water, hearing of its excellent qualities, and supposing it to be a spring Avheat in our sense of the term, sowed it in the last of March and in April, and it did not come into head, as the season was too short Many persons blamed the seedsmen for liaving deceived tlicni in soiling them a winter for a spring wheat ; but tlie mistake arose, as eiTors and faults oflen arise, from a different use of the terms in tlie two countries. VOL. II. 18 206 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. question when we learn what has been done. No good cuUivator should willingly stop short of what has been reached by others, nor should even this satisfy him, if there is a possibility of going beyond it. In statistical works, 26 bushels are put down as the average yield of wheat through the kingdom ; a few years since, 18 bushels were named as the customary yield. This would argue a very great improvement. There are not a few who even now insist that 14 bushels are the average product, taking the whole kingdom together. This seems to me much too low. Among all the farms which I have visited, I have not found a single farmer who has rated his product so low. On the other hand, under good cultivation, I have scarcely ever found it less than 32 bushels. I have very frequently found it full 40 bushels. In the fens of Lincolnshire, on the redeemed land, I am informed, on the best authority, that the yield is very often from 7 to 8 quarters, that is, from 56 to 64 bushels per acre. A much higher amount than this has been named. One of the best farmers in the kingdom, in the county of Berks, assured me that the crop upon his large farm, in 1844-5, averaged 56 bushels to the acre ; and it is well attested that a crop grown in Norfolk county, in the same year, produced 1 1 quarters 2 bushels 3 pecks per acre, that is to say, 90 bushels 3 pecks per acre — the largest crop on record, within my knowledge. When I received from most credible authority the account of the last crop, so very extraordinary as it is, I felt the strongest desire to ascertain, if possible, by what means it was pro- duced, and especially whether there was any peculiarity in the soil, to which so great a yield was to be ascribed. This desire was felt as strongly by other members of the Royal Agricul- tural Society ; and they directed the very eminent chemist of the society. Professor Playfair, to make an analysis of the soil and report it. I shall give my readers this report at large, which has been published in their Journal. Two portions of the soil — one of the surface, the other of the subsoil — were placed in his hands. " I place," he says, " for the information of the council, the analysis in two forms, one of these giving the actual statement of the analysis, the other indi- cating the probable method in which the ingredients are asso- ciated in the soil. CROPS. 207 " 1. Surface Soil III \^Q pni'ts as actually found. Organic matter, .... 2.43 Hydrate water, .... 2.60 Carbonic acid, . 0.92 Sulphuric acid, . 0.09 Phosphoric acid, . . . 0.38 Silicic acid and silica, . . 81.26 Peroxide of iron, .... 3.41 Alumina, 3.58 Lime, 1.28 Magnesia, 1.12 Potash, 0.80 Soda, 1.50 Chlorine, a trace. Loss on analysis, .... 0.63 100.00 In \Q{S parts as contained in the soil- Organic matter, .... 2.43 Hydrate water, 2.60 Silica and silicic acid, . . 78.27 Peroxide of iron, .... 3.41 Carbonate of lime, . . . 2.10 Sulphate of lime, .... 0.15 Phosphate of lime, (as in bones,) 0.08 Phosphate of magnesia, . . 0.58 Magnesia, (probably as a sil- icate,) 0.88 Alumina, (probably as a sil- icate,) 3.58 Silicate of potash, .... 1.58 Silicate of soda, .... 3.71 Chlorine, (in combination as salt,) a trace. Loss on analysis, .... 0.63 100.00 2. Subsoil. In 100 j;ar^5 as actually found. Organic matters free from ammonia, 1.20 Hydrate water, .... 2.60f Carbonic acid, .... 0.04 Silica, 82.55 Peroxide of iron, .... 3.70 Lime, 0.69 Magnesia, 1.55 Alumina, 4.48 Potash, 0.60 Soda, 1.10 Chlorine, 1.26 Sulphuric acid, .... 0.16 Phosphoric acid, ... a trace. Loss on analysis, .... 0.07 100.00 In 100 parts as contained in the soil. Organic matters free from ammonia, 1.20 Hydrate water, 2.60 Silica and silicic acid, . . 81.96 Peroxide of iron, .... 3.70 Carbonate of lime, . . . 0.09 Lime, (probably as a silicate,) 0.58 Magnesia, (probably as a sili- cate,) 1.55 Alumina, (principally as a sili- cate,) 4.48 Sulphate of lime, .... 0.27 Chloride of sodium, . . . 2.08 Silicate of potash, .... 1.19 Phosphoric acid, . a mere trace. Loss on analysis, .... 0.30 100.00 * Water which is not driven off at the boiling point, 212°. f Water not expelled by long-continued exposure to a water bath. 208 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. " The subsoil may be viewed as representing the soil iu its natural condition, and, as such, is rich in every constituent essen- tial to fertility, with the exception of phosphoric acid, of which substance scarcely a trace could be detected. All the iron in the soil exists in the state of peroxide, so that the plants may appro- priate its constituents without injury. The presence of so much common salt in the subsoil is only explicable on the supposition that it has been washed by the rains from the upper to the lower soil, for we find it absent, except as a trace from the surface soil. The vicinity of the soil to the sea explains the origin of the salt." " The upper soil has obviously been improved by manure containing phosphates, and perhaps also silicates. I regret that no information on this point accompanied the letter from the secretary of the Statham Farmer's Club. The soils, from the presence of the alkalies and the alkaline earths, and of all the proper acids in the subsoil, are admirably calculated to furnish plants with their proper food." I give this account of the soil, upon which this extraordinary crop was produced, from a gentleman truly eminent for his sci- ence, with feelings of no little discouragement, as showing, in a case where the curiosity was most reasonable and intense to get at the secret of this remarkable success, and where chemical analysis seems to have done its best, that we are still in as much darkness as ever. His conjecture how the ingredients were probably mixed in the soil, as appears from the second part of each table ; his supposition, in the absence of all information on the subject, that phosphates, and perhaps silicates, may have been supplied in the manure : the utter want of the phosphates in the soil, deemed so essential to vegetation and to the growth of a grain crop; and the impossibility, which I think every farmer must feel, of deducing from the result any practical conclusion what- ever, — are circumstances in the case which can scarcely escape observation, and which I submit to the judgment of my readers without comment. That, under any circumstances, we can command a crop, or insure any given amount, need not be said; but the extraordinary pains taken here in the preparation of the land and the culture of the crop are followed with all tlic success wliich is to be expected. I have a great many returns of 32 bushels and CROPS. 209 40 bushels produced on an acre ; and I am strongly inclined to believe that the average of good cultivation, in ordinary- seasons, is seldom less than 32 bushels per acre. The product of good cultivation should be considered therefore as the standard crop, without reducing it by the much smaller crops of those who either cultivate negligently, or manure sparingly, or suffer their crops to be stifled with weeds. In an experiment carefully made by a distinguished farmer * in Northamptonshire, who has given to the world, in a plain and practical manner, the results of his agricultural experience, the products per acre of six different kinds of wheat sown were as follows : — The Essex brown yielded at the rate of 40 bush. ; 64 lbs. per bush. Surrey white, 36 " 64 " " " Brown, (called clover,) . . .40 " 63^" " " Snow-drop white, 39 " 63 " " " Burwell brown, 45 " 63 " " " Whittington white, .... 38 " 62 " " « Here were six different kinds, of which it must be admitted the yield was large, and shows what may be done. In an experiment made by W. Miles, Esq., M. P., the produce, per acre, of sound wheat was 48 bushels ; 42 bushels 2 pecks ; 47 bushels ; 35 bushels 3 pecks ; 49 bushels. The crops on a farm of P. Pusey, Esq. were, on one acre, at the rate of 37f bushels ; on another, 45J bushels ; on another, 47^ bushels. " This, it will be remarked, was not a garden ex- periment, but applies to a whole field of wheat, and the amount was given by the occupier of the land." W. L. Kidd, M. D., of Armagh, Ireland, informed me that he obtained at the rate of 50 bushels of 62 lbs., or about 28 cwt., per acre, and that there were persons in the neighborhood whose crops were still larger. The wheat was red wheat ; the quality such as to command the highest price. The soil was a stiff clay recumbent on limestone. Mr. Theadstow, of Booth, near Liverpool, informs me, that in 1844-5, on a piece of land less than a statute acre, he pro- * C. Hillyard, Esq., Thorpelands. 18* 210 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. duced 64 bushels of wheat of 70 pounds the bushel. I will subjoin his statement in this case. " The soil is very light, consisting of a great portion of sand, and lying close to the sea-shore. The land, the previous year, had been trenched to the depth of about three feet, by hand labor, and well manured with horse and cow manure, and planted with potatoes. When the wheat was sown, the ordinary mode of cultivation was pur- sued. Something short of two bushels of white Dantzic wheat was sown. The seed had been produced on land of a heavier nature than that on which it was sown here. The mode of sowing was broadcast ; the time of sowing, the 1st of December. This is a mode of cultivation adopted generally on my farm, — universally with vegetables, — and produces sometimes uncom- mon roots. Some of the cabbages, which I have weighed, weighed 45 lbs. each." In some experiments made in Gloucester- shire, the products were as follows, per acre, of good wheat : — Brown's white prolific, 48 bush. 3 pecks ; weight, 62 lbs. per bush. " red prolific, . 46 " 2 '' " 60^" Whittington white, . 48 ''.... '' 59 " Old Herts white, . . 46 " . . . . » 61 " Golden drop red, .. 49 '•'.... " 61^ " Creeping wheat, (red,) 46 " 1 peck; " 62^" The above were planted on a gravelly loam, (clover lay,) in a high state of cultivation. In the same county, in another case, the products were as sub- joined. Cobham wheat, per acre, 42 bushels ; Brown's white Chevalier, 44 bushels ; yellow Chevalier, 36 bushels ; Whitting- ton white, 38i bushels ; Hertfordshire white, 39 bushels ; Golden drop, 40 bushels. The above were grown after peas, which is considered a bad preparation for wheat. In Worcestershire, a crop of wheat, in 1843-4, was at the rate of 45 bushels to the acre ; and as much was expected the succeeding season. It was of a kind called Burletta wheat, and was sown by drill at the rate of two busliels per acre. In another part of Worcestershire, in 1844-5, on 130 acres, the crop was nearly 47 bushels per acre, and the sample represented as excellent. CROPS, 211 These are remarkable facts, and well worthy the attention of the farmers. Wheat is sometimes grown here upon a summer or naked fallow, especially where the land is much infested with weeds ; but naked fallows are well nigh exploded in any improved sys- tem of English husbandry. Wheat generally comes once in a four years' rotation ; sometimes twice in live years, and in some cases twice in seven years ; in some every alternate year, beans forming the intermediate crop. The latter course, for sixteen years, has been the practice of an eminent farmer in Norfolk, whose admirably-managed farm I had the pleasure of visiting. The land subjected to this treatment is a deep rich alluvion, formed from the deposits under the sea, and the beans are most thoroughly manured. The preparation of the land for wheat is made with extraor- dinary pains. The crop preceding it is usually turnips, or some green esculent, which is consumed by sheep upon the land. The turnips are of course most amply manured, and are gener- ally cultivated in drills. When the season for sowing wheat arrives, these drills are opened by the plough, and the decom- posed manure very thoroughly distributed. It is considered bad husbandry to apply green manure, or manure of any kind, except- ing from the folding of sheep upon it, to the land, the year the wheat is to be sown ; but the result is always better, when the sheep so folded, besides the turnips or other green feed with which they are supplied, are liberally furnished with oil cake. One of the most skilful farmers in Lincolnshire, who, by a suc- cessful husbandry, has risen from small beginnings to wealth, and has established in comfort several sons upon farms in his vicinity, ascribes his success wholly to the liberal use of oil cake for his stock, considering it of the highest value in enriching his ma- nure. I had the pleasure of witnessing the most ample evidences of his good husbandry. This system of enriching land by folding sheep upon it in movable folds — a custom long known in England — might in many instances be adopted in the North- ern United States, especially when the market for mutton is im- proved. This, I think — after carefully watching its progress for some years past — it is destined to be ; especially when our breeds of sheep, grown for this express object, are improved. Here mutton may be considered as the favorite dish with all classes 212 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. who consume meat, and is the principal meat to be found in the markets, where it is exhibited in extraordinary perfection. The soil preferred for wheat is a strong soil, with a large pro- portion of clay ; but experience has, of late years, contrary to early and strong prejudices, determined that even the light and loamy soils are capable of bearing heavy crops of wheat, pro- vided they can be sufficiently consolidated. This is done often by driving sheep over the land after sowing, and by an imple- ment which I shall presently describe, called a. presser. The first process is, thoroughly to clean the land from weeds and rubbish ; but the green crop previously cultivated, if it has been properly managed, will have done much towards this. The twitch grass [triticum, repens) abounds in the lands here to a most extraordinary extent, and this is raked out and pulled out, and generally piled on the land and burnt, and the ashes spread. vSome persons adopt the method of mixing the piles of it with quicklime, and thus forming an enriching compost for their land. Others carry it into their barn-yard, to be trodden under the feet of the cattle, and to absorb the liquid of the yard. But wheat is often sown after clover, -or upon what is called a clover lay ; the first crop in the course being turnips, the second barley, the third clover ; if cut the first year for hay, then de- pastured with sheep the second ; or otherwise fed and ploughed in, and the wheat sown on the inverted sward, and the land not harrowed so deeply as to tear it to pieces. When the clover is designed to stand only one year, it is mowed and made into hay in June, and then sheep are folded upon it ; and in this way they go over the field twice before it is ploughed for sowing. It is deemed of great importance, in this case, that the soil should be in as compact a state as possible, and a heavy roller is passed over it. The greatest stress is laid upon this matter of consolidating the soil, where it is of a light or spongy character ; and in some soils the ground is simply harrowed, where the preceding crop allows of such a process, or otherwise ploughed not more than three or four inches in depth. An instrument much used for consolidating the soil, and very much approv^ed of by those who use it, is called a scam-prcsser. This implement passes over the land in the direction of the fur- row, and it forms on the furrows two deep drills at a time, the two rollers being eight or nine inches apart, and the blade of the CROPS. 213 roller, if so it may be called, or the riin, being \ / thin at the edge, and growing wider above the edge, thus, \ / , and form- ing, as it revolves, two fmTows, hardened by its weight, into which the grain drops as it is sown ; and when it comes up, it appears as if it had been regularly sown in drills of eight or nine inches apart, according to the width of the revolving presses from each other. " The seam-presser is, in fact, an abstract of a drill-roller, con- sisting of but two cylinders of cast iron, which, following the plough in the furrows, press and roll down the newly turned-up earth." Seam-Presser. On heavy or clay soils much more work is rendered necessary to bring them into condition. The first of all requisites is, that the land should be thoroughly drained or freed from wet. In all cases of heavy land, it has been the custom to throw the field up into beds, or, as they are here called, stitches, with an open fur- row between them. In many cases which I have seen, these are even less than six feet wide ; and wherever they are made by every sixth furrow or every eighth furrow, it is obvious that every acre in six, or every acre in eight, is lost ; for nothing grows in the intermediate drains. The practice of cultivating in beds or stitches is, I may say, almost universal throughout England and Scotland ; in general, however, these beds are from three to six yards wide ; on dry lands, more than this. Since the introduc- tion of the Deanston system of thorough-draining and subsoil- ing, it has been shown that they are not at all necessary for carry- 214 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. ing off the wetness of the land ; and that on a perfectly flat sur- face, which has been drained and subsoiled in an effectual man- ner, all the water falling upon the surface, will, by a direct descent into the ground, find its way to the drains. In this way the loss of land is prevented, and the condition of the land over the field is more equal ; for the practice of forming beds or stitches by continually turning the furrow towards the centre of the ridge, is to rob the part of the land nearest the furrow ; and the plants growing near the margin of the furrows are always inferior to those upon the centre of the ridge. Under these circumstances, the only consideration upon which these stitches can be recom- mended is, that they assist the sower and the reaper in the meas- urement of their work. Another instrument is used on hard clay soils, — which often remain after ploughing, and even harrowing, quite lumpy, — called a clod-crusher, which not only reduces these lumps to fine- ness, but serves likewise to consolidate the soil. It can only be applied with advantage where the lands are dry and the clods hard. CrosskiWs Patent Clod-Crusher. ^- Clod- Crusher. — This valuable implement is composed of a series of iron rings, with notched edges set apart from each other about three or four inches. Small crossbars, or knives, are placed at frequent intervals on the faces of these, and near their outer notched rims, so as to intersect every portion of land ovei which it passes. Its construction, combined with its great weight, renders it very effective for the purpose wliich its name CHOPS. 215 denotes. It has been aptly said to be ' a roll and a harrow combined.' Its use has been fonnd to prevent the ravages of the wire-worm — no small recommendation to it." " Further improvements have been made in its construction, the principal features of which consist in an improved form of tooth, for breaking, rather than grinding, the clods ; and in ar- ranging for each cylinder independently to revolve upon its own axis — an advantage which not only increases its efficiency, but materially lessens the power required for its draught." " The roller is an implement which requires more than usual judgment as to the time of its use ; and this remark applies with increased force to the one under consideration." Perhaps there is no agricultural implement in use in England, at the present time, save only a plough, that is so much ap- proved of by practical farmers as this clod-crusher. It is used sometimes before sowing, to get the land into condition and pro- duce a fine tilth. It is used, likewise, after the plant has come up, to consolidate the land and fix the roots of the plant; and it is used also with much advantage on the wheat, in the spring. It has proved of very great efficacy in the destruction of the wire-worm, frequently at once arresting its ravages in a wheat field. It is used likewise with great advantage upon light soils, in consolidating them, and as a substitute for the treading of the wheat-ground by sheep ; for which purpose, when they are used, it is considered, in most cases, very much to their injury. The implement is heavy, and is generally drawn by three horses. The quantity of seed to be sown has been matter of much discussion and experiment. The amount, with different farmers, varies from three pecks to three bushels per acre ; and some persons contend for four and even five bushels. The saving of two, or even of one, bushel of seed per acre, upon the whole extent of land cultivated throughout the kingdom, would be indeed an immense saving. The saving in seed of two bushels, to a farmer who cultivates his fifty or his hundred acres of wheat, would certainly deserve much consideration ; but if this saving is to be made at the loss or diminished product of three or five bushels in the crop, it would prove a kind of economy not much to be commended. Among the various conflicting state- ments which have been made to me on this subject, and which 216 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. have been publicly reported, it is exceedingly difficult to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. A very eminent Scotch farmer, of large experience, says that, " in some seasons, a moderately thin plant — that is to say, a small mimber of the young plants of wheat standing upon a given space of ground — is found to be advantageous both to quantity and quality of grain, and in others highly injurious." Mr. Davis, of Croydon, to whom I have before referred, claims, fiom a sowing of three pecks to the acre, to produce an average crop of forty bushels to the acre. The last season, on visiting his farm, though the straw was of a very large size, and the heads long and full, it seemed to me impossible that it should have pro- duced even thirty bushels per acre ; and much of it was certainly extremely foul with weeds. I regret that, though I have at- tempted, I have been unable to ascertain the actual yield ; and I am quite ready to admit that one is very liable to err in judgment upon such a crop, not making proper allowance for the length of the heads, which was quite remarkable. The experiments of Mr. Barclay, M. P., given in the 6th volume of the Journal of the Agricultural Society, seem to go strongly against the thin sov/ing of wheat. 2J bushels of seed drilled, 9 in. apart, gave 37 bushels per acre. J a u u a JO li ii ic 05 " u cc 1 " " '•' dibbled, 12 " " " 31 " " " J« a a a a n a a a Qir a n u 2^ " " " sown broadcast, . . " 40 " " " The value of the grain, as estimated by the miller, was 3 d. more per bushel, in the first and last case, than in the others, and the straw, in the last case, was considerably more, in quantity and value, than in either of the former. In an experiment which I myself saw upon a very small scale, wheat, dibbled at the rate of six quarts to the acre, pro- duced at the rate of seventy bushels to the acre. In some experiments reported by W. Miles, Esq., M. P., made at his beautiful farm at King's Weston, near Bristol, the yield of the drilled wheats, at two bushels, and one bushel three pecks, per acre, was very much superior to those dibbled at two pecks and one quart per acre. CROPS. 217 The wheats produced as follows : — Drilled Wheats, No. Quantity of Seed per Acre. Product in Good Wheat. Product in Tail or Imperfect Wlieat. 1. 2 bushels. 48 bushels 6 pecks. 7 bushels 2 pecks. 2. 2 42 " 2 " 4 '' " 3. 2 " 47 " " 7 u 1 rs not appenr, from nuy oxpcrnncnts CROPS. 219 which have been reported, or which have come under my notice, that the crop has, in any case, been lessened by too much seed. This subject is, certainly, one of great importance. The farmer, who has most strongly advocated thin sowing, or a great reduction of the usual quantity of seed, from a letter which I have recently received from him, remains confident of the soundness of his views. On the other hand, the opinion of another emi- nent practical farmer is, " that these new doctrines are calculated to do greater and more extensive mischief, not only to the growers but to the consumers of corn, than any other theory he ever remembered to have been broached." In some experiments given in the able report on Norfolk farming, in the Royal Society's Journal, it appears that wheat sown at the rate of ten and a half pecks per acre produced nearly two bushels per acre more when sown in 7 inch than when sown in 9 inch drills. In another case, there were three and a half bushels in favor of the 7 inches. In another case, wheat drilled at 4^ inches exceeded 9 inches by nearly two bushels, and 7 inches exceeded 9 by eleven pecks and three pints. In another experiment, 8 pks. seed produced more than 7i pks. by 5 pks. 14 pts. per acre. Q a u u li li a u (( n (i q a u cc \Q (i u a a i'. i: u a j a a u h a Wl. << '' " " <' <• " " J^2 " 6 " " '• 121 •' " " " " " '• " 14 " 12 " " '■ These statements do not determine the case, but they are strongly entitled to consideration. It would be wrong, however, not to state that, in a subsequent experiment of this same farmer, the difference betv/cen sowing eight pecks or twelve pecks, after deducting the seed, was only a few quarts. Thus, 8 pks. of seed produced at the rate of 39 bushels 2 pks. 2 qts. 12 " " '< '• " << ii ii 4Q li And in another case, three bushels of seed actually produced less than two bushels and a peck. Thus, 9 pecks of seed produced 40 bushels 2 pecks 2 quarts. 12 " '^ " " 40 " 220 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. It is admitted that crops standing thickly ripen the soonest ; and tlie grain produced by them is said to be of a superior qual- ity to that which comes from thinly-sowed crops. On Lord Leicester's estate, in Norfolk, (who, more than any other man in the annals of English agriculture, distinguished himself for his successful husbandry,) the practice was to sow three bushels per acre. On Mr. Dixon's farm, in Kent, whose crops are said to average forty-two bushels per acre, the custom is to sow two and a half, and sometimes nearly three, bushels per acre. The time of sowing wheat in England admits of a long range, from the middle of September until December, and sometimes even into February. Where circumstances favor it, an early sowing is preferred ; and very forward wheats are fed down, in the spring, by sheep, which are folded upon them. In cases where a crop, to be followed by wheat, is to be used upon the ground, the wheat is not sowed until that crop is fed off; or where wheat follows potatoes, the sowing is carried forward far into the season. Wheat follows turnips, mangel-wurzel, carrots, potatoes, and clover. The last is universally approved. Mustard is likewise sown, as a preparation for wheat, sometimes at the rate of seven, and sometimes at the rate of sixteen, pounds to the acre, to be fed off by sheep, or otherwise to be covered in as a green dress- ing. A matter is stated as a fact in this case, which deserves attention ; that the white mustard will not remain in the soil after being once ploughed up ; that the black can hardly be eradicated, but has been known to remain in the soil for ages. We must be cautions what guests we entertain. I have already said that, in a rotation of crops, only one out of the four is manured, and that green barn manure is never applied to the wheat crops. But the wheat crop cannot be said to be not manured, for the folding of sheep upon the ground, by their consumption of the green crops, furnishes a most effectual manuring. Besides this, artificial or saline manures are applied to the crop, and guano has been used with great snccess. The nitrates have mainly served to increase the amount of straw, but not of grain ; and although some experiments seem to have pro- duced a great increase of grain from their use, yet they are not very often applied. I have, however, the assurance of one exten- sive farmer of his success in the use of the nitrate of soda when cKOPs. 221 applied to oats upon a clay soil, increasing the crop in the propor- tion of 12 to 5, and this in repeated trials. I regret that I could obtain from him no further and no more exact particulars. There are many instances given, and some from farmers with whom I have the pleasure of an acquaintance, of the very successful appli- cation of nitrate of soda to wheat ; yet, in spite of these, it is not very extensively used, and its application is viewed with great distrust. Further, and more exact, and longer-continued experi- ments are greatly to be desired.* There are three modes of sowing wheat — the first, broadcast ; the second, by drilling ; the third, by dibbling. The last two methods are generally done by machines ; the last not always, however ; unless women and children, who drop the grains in the hole made by a dibble of the most simple construction, are to be considered as machines, and the human hand the most perfect of its parts. Drilling and dibbling are methods certainly to be [-re- ferred, as the seed is more evenly sown, and an opportunity is offered of hoeing and weeding the crop, which is here most carefully done, and undoubtedly to great advantage. When wheat is drilled, likewise, there is an opportunity of cultivating between the rows by implements for that purpose, the advan- tages of which are unquestionable. These implements are de- nominated horse-hoes, or sciifflers. In my next Report, I shall give a plate of a horse-hoe much in use ; but I cannot, among the many varieties exhibited, pro- nounce it the best. I shall give it as a specimen of the imple- * " With regard to nitrate of soda, from which so much was once expected. there are the most undoubted proofs, from numerous quarters, of an enormous increase of the produce after its use ; there are as undoubted instances of it- utter failure. Nor have we any clew to the mystery. On the same land, when' it gave me eight bushels one year, it gave barely three in the following; and hav- ing tried it largely, at that time, on different farms, nowhere with success, I have given it up. Still, there is evidently a principle of fertility in it, which will some day be found out; and some farmers continue to use it; but in several cases it has produced mildew in wheat and barley, by forcing the crop beyond the strength of the land. By tlie side of the nitrate, I tried, on several fields, the sulphate of ammonia, exti*acted from gas-water the first time. It acted precisely as the nitrate of soda, darkening the color of the plant, and strengthening the straw and the ear even more than the nitrate ; but it certainly did not pay. Again, we have the principle, and we must learn to combine it." — P. Pusey, Esq., M. P. 19* 222 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. ments used here, thinking, if it has no other benefit, it may- furnish some useful suggestions to some of our inventive man- ufacturers of agricultural tools, who, in the ingenuity and skill of their productions, and especially in the excellence of the workmanship, (and if is no disparagement to the English manu- facturers for me to say it,) need not fear a competition with the best mechanics on this side of the water. The implement has received the highest premium of the Agricultural Society, with very strong commendations. %v,> EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, EIGHTH HEPOET CVI. — CROPS. ( Continued. ] GarrtWs Patent Horse-Hoe. " This horse-hoe, invented by Garrett and Son, of Leiston, is suited to all methods of drill cultivation, whether broad, stetch, or ridge ploughing, and is adapted to hoeing grain of all kinds, as well as roots. The peculiar advantages of this implement are, that the width of the hoes may be increased or diminished, to suit all lands or methods of planting ; the axletree being movable at both ends, either wheel may be expanded or con- tracted, so as always to be kept between the rows of plants. 224 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. " The shafts are readily altered and attached to any part of the frame, so that the horses may either walk in the furrow, or in any direction, to avoid injury to the crop. " Each hoe, or each pair of hoes, works on a lever independ- ent of the others ; so that no part of the surface to be cut, however uneven, can escape ; and in order to accommodate this imple- ment to the consolidated earth of the wheat crop, and also the more loosened top of spring grain, roots, &c., the hoes are pressed in by different weights being hung upon the ends of each lever, and adjusted by keys or chains, to prevent their going beyond the proper depth. " That which has hitherto been an objection to the general use of the horse-hoe, in this is avoided by adopting a mode of readily shifting the hoes, on a plan similar to that of the steerage adopted in drills, so that the hoes may be guided to the greatest nicety. This implement is so constructed that the hoes may be set to a width varying from seven inches to any wider space ; the inverted hoes are preferred, when the distance between the rows is sufficient to admit a pair of them ; otherwise, triangular or arrow-shaped hoes may be substituted, or any other form that may be considered best for the purpose. " Two points in this hoe are worthy particular notice ; the one being that the blades of the hoes are made entirely of steel, and are attached to the stalks so readily that, as they may become damaged or worn out, they may be replaced, by the operator, without difficulty ; the other, that the position of the frame admits of easy adjustment, so that, according to the tex- ture of the soil, the cutting edges of the hoes may assume a position more or less inclining to the work." * Wheat is drilled when it is sown in a continuous line, and in general the distance of these drills or rows from each other is about nine inches. A greater width is preferred by some persons. When the ground is marked out by a seam-presser, as before described, the seed then comes up in continuous rows, as if it were sown by a drill-machine ; but there are several machines in operation expressly for the drilling of wheat and for depositing, at the same time, in the drill, such fine manure as it may be de- sired to sow with the grain. Indeed, to such perfection have * Ransome's Implements of Agriculture. CROPS. 225 some of these macliines been carried, that even coarsely-chopped manure is likewise deposited by them in the row, as is done in the case of sowing turnips or other roots. At first sight, these machines appear extremely'' complicated and unwieldy ; and one would be inclined to think that a spin- ning jenny might be managed with equal ease in the field. They are cumbrous, and to a degree complicated ; yet they are much in use, and they certainly perform their work extremel^r well. This, perhaps, is all that is to be asked of them ; and mechanical ingenuity, which, under the stimulus of large pre- miums and a powerful competition, is now, every day, becoming more active, may presently succeed in rendering them more simple and light, without reducing their efficiency. I give below, merely as a specimen, the engraving of a drill machine GarreWs Patent Drill for General Purposes. to which the Agricultural Society awarded its premium of thirty pounds ; it is said to have a deserved popularity'. I have seen several different kinds in operation, but with very imperfect means of making a comparison between them ; and. from a neces- sarily cnrsorv observatiou, it would be presumptuous in me to 226 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. pronounce a decision upon their merits. As every man, with a common endowment of philoprogenitiveness, deems his own children the handsomest; and, though they may be blear-eyed or bandy-legged, will come at last to look upon these defects and deformities with indulgence, or even with complacency and ad- miration, and will insist that others shall have the same opinion; so, if we take the accounts which the inventors and makers give of their own machines, we shall find the correspondent exaggera- tions of self-esteem, and vanity, and shall be called upon to believe that each one supplies the defects, and surpasses the merits, of every other. " The Suffolk drill is the kind in most general use throughout :he kingdom, and is adapted for drilling corn either on level lands or on ridges, and on all descriptions of soil. It is furnished with independent levers, by which the colters are each readily and separately made to avoid any rocks or irregularities of the ground, and a press-bar, extending over the entire width of the machine, to force the colters, in case of need, into hard ground, with a varying degree of pressure, according to the texture of the soil. " The colters can be set so as to drill the corn at any width, from four inches to a greater distance. They also, if required, readily allow of the introduction of the horse-hoe ; and, from being placed in double rows, they admit, when at work, large stones to pass between them, of a size that, under the old plan of placing the colters in one line, would break or stop the machine. The most complete drills are furnished with the ' siving steerage,^ by which the drill-man keeps the rows at exact or even distances from those which have been previously drilled. The 'corn barrel' is made to deliver from two pecks to six or seven bushels of seed, per acre ; and they are furnished with an additional barrel for drilling turnips and mangel-wurzel. These barrels, by a simple yet efficient 'regulator,' are kept, on unequal, hilly ground, at the same level ; so that the grain is evenly delivered, in whatever situation the drill may be placed. " A ' seed engiiie ' is also sometimes added to the common corn drill, by which the grass seeds and clover are sown at the same time as the corn, and each kind of seed, if required, separately. By this plan, any quantity, per acre, of the seeds may be much more evenly distributed than by mixing them up together. For CROPS. 227 -'» these seeds, being of different sizes and weights, are, in the or- dinary seed engines, very apt to separate in the boxes ; and thus the brushes too often deliver them in unequal proportions. " The weight of these drills necessarily varies with the num- ber of colters, ranging from three to ten hundred weight ; they are drawn, according to circumstances, by one, two, or three horses ; the sliding axletree, allowing the addition of any num- ber of colters, adapts the drill to different breadths of land. " The manure-box may be taken on or off at pleasure. It is a simple yet accurately-working apparatus for delivering the manure, which it does with great evenness, and in quantities varying, as the ' slip ' is placed, from six to eight bushels per acre. In the best drills, also, a very important improvement has been made within the last few years, which consists in the use of separate colters for manure and seed. The manure is now deposited, according to the mode preferred by the cultivator, not only from two to three inches deeper in the ground than the seed, but from ten to twelve inches in advance of it, so as to give the soil time to cover the manure before the next colters deposit the seed ; whereas, on the old plan, of depositing the seed and the fertilizer together down one pipe, an evil was liable to arise ; when it was used with some of the more powerful arti- ficial manures, the seed and the manure were too close together, and the manure was not dropped with certainty in its best posi- tion, under the seed. " * At the Shrewsbury meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society, a drill, or seed-depositing machine, was exhibited, of which the approbation of the judges of implements is so emphatical that I shall quote it in full. It was the invention of Mr. William E. Yingoe, of Penzance, Cornwall. " This implement enlisted the judges' earnest attention and unqualified admiration, from the simplicity of its acting parts, the accuracy of its deposition of seed, and the mechanically- good adaptation of means to ends. Although simple, it is diffi- cult to describe. It travels on three wheels, the leading pair being attached to the shafts, from which pair is derived the small power required to effect the measurement and deposition of the seed. The machine is capable of sowing six rows of Ransome's Implements of Agriculture. 228 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. corn, (grain,) or other seed, at a time. The apparatus for forming the drills consists of six pressing wheels, immediately followed by as many narrow boxes or shares, which maintain the little trenches clean and open, and each trench perfectly distinct, until the seed falls into them. Through these shares, the seed is con- ducted by small tubes from the seed-box or hopper above them ; and immediately behind the shares is placed a peculiarly-simple and effective kind of hoe, for covering the seed. The seed is received upon sliders resting upon the bottom of the hopper, and furnished with proper recipient holes, the size of which determines the number of seeds desired to be planted. Means are provided for striking off excess ; and it was found, on re- peated trials, that no greater difference took place, in the number of seeds deposited, than was fairly attributable to the difference in the magnitude of the corns. The entire apparatus is readily raised out of the ground at headlands, or when turning. If the preparation of a firm seed-bed be a good principle, this machine effects it as well as any presser ; pressing and drilling six rows at once, with an adjustment for shifting the width of the rows from five to any other number of inches apart desirable for grain ; and it either distributes the seed in a train or drops it within a small compass." * Such a machine as this would seem to meet its objects per- fectly ; but there are many others, which claim for themselves equal advantages. It would be idle to attempt to enumerate the various forms of drill machines which I have seen at work in the country, and to the value of which I can bear a strong testimony, not so much from an inspection of the construction of the machine as the excellent manner in which, so frequently, the work appears to be executed. The practice of drilling wheat is in ray opinion greatly to be preferred to that of sowing wheat broadcast ; first, in the much more equal distribution of the seed ; next, in the better opportunity which the wheat has of spreading or tillering ; and thirdly, in the opportunity of clearing and culti- vating the crop, which latter is of great importance. I am of an opinion, borne out very strongly by facts which have come under my observation, that wheat in the early periods of its growth is as much benefited by cultivation as any plant which * Report of Committee on Implements, at Shrewsbury, 184.5. CHOPS. 229 is grown ; and the injury which is done, both to the growth of the plant and to the sample of grain, by the weeds which ripen their seeds among it, renders the weeding or clearing of the crop of great importance. This is often done here, even when the crop is sown broadcast ; and it is not uncommon, in the spring, to see a large party of women in a field, employed in weeding ; but it is obvious to what disadvantage this is done when the plant is sown broadcast, compared with it when sown in drills. The next mode of planting wheat is by dibbling. Drilling is sowing the wheat in rows, in continuous lines ; dibbling is planting it, in these rows, at intervals, sometimes, of six inches to a foot. This is sometimes done by hand : a laborer goes forward, with an instrument with two or three teeth, a making holes, into which children, who follow him, i drop one or more seeds as they go on, and cover U w' them with their hands or feet. Labor is here so ' * abundant, and parents, in order to eke out their narrow means of living, are so ready to avail themselves of the labor of their children, that this operation is not expensive, and indeed is often compensated by the actual saving in seed ; and abating the irregularities in the sowing, which may be expected from the common recklessness of children, may be considered as a good mode of executing the work. But machines have been invented for dibbling as well as for drilling ; and one called Newherrifs machine^ from the name of its maker, is exceedingly ingenious in its construction. I should find it difficult to describe it in- telligibly. A machine calculated to sow only one row has one wheel, to sow five rows has five concentric wheels, hollow, and with a box in them to contain the seed, with dibbled points upon the rim of these Wheels, at such distances as it is desired the holes should be made. As the machine revolves, these dibbles or pins, which are in fact hollow, force themselves into the ground, making a place or hole for the deposit of the seed ; and, as they are being raised from the hole, they divide and drop the seeds into it, which is covered and pressed down by the machine. The machine is calculated to sow from four to five pecks an acre. It is drawn by two horses. — in some cases more are required, — and in general performs its work well. It is an expensive machine ; VOL. 11. 20 230 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. and its weight has been objected to by many persons ; but by some farmers this, on light lands, is considered an advantage. There are several other kinds of dibbling machines, which I need not describe, and, among others, a machine carried in the laborer's hand, which makes the hole and drops the seed by the same operation. It is ingenious, but is adapted to cultivation only on a very small scale. On one of the best cultivated farms in England, — that of the Duke of Bedford, at Woburn, — Mr. Bumers, the farm manager, states (1845) that he employed boys to dibble one hundred acres of wheat. The holes were made with a stick or dibble, three inches asunder in the row, the distance between the rows being nine inches ; and the number of " dibs," per acre, amounted to 232,320. He states that he has some boys who would make one hundred and fifty-one holes in a minute ; but of course they could not long continue such a rate.* A great diversity of opinion prevails on the subject of drilling and dibbling wheat; and, from the respectability of the diftering parties, there is reason to believe these different opinions are held in equally good faith. The invention of a patent machine for any particular object, like that of a patent medicine, always de- velops in the artist or inventor a wonderful facility in procuring authorities in its favor. The advantage of being able to weed and cultivate the plant applies even more to wheat which is dibbled than to that which is drilled, and the product is likely to be as good. In all these cases, the main saving calculated upon is in the quantity of seed to be sown. This may vary from one bushel and a peck to two bushels and upwards per acre. This is, certainly, where any large quantity is to be sown, an important consideration. Where the land is in good condition, enriched and free from weeds, and where the planting can be * On this excellent and admirably-managed estate, I found that thirty boys were constantly employed in flirm work, for which tliey received sixpence per day. Their wages were never raised, but whenever they could improve their condition, they were at liberty to avail themselves of the opportunity. They were thus furnished with regular work, and were serving an apprenticeslup to agriculture under the most favorable circumstances. This was real and most judicious philanthropy. This may not be understood on the other side of the water, where there is an urgent demand for all the labor that can be supplied ; but it will be appreciated here, where employment, at any rate, is often very diffi- cult to be procured. CROPS, 231 done very early in the season, and carefully done, dibbling may be considered safe, and perhaps to be preferred ; but, in all cases, against the advantages of dibbling a small quantity of seed, are to be set off the danger from insects and frost, and the imperfect germination of the seed. To save two bushels, or even one, per acre, in all the seed sown throughout the kingdom, would be an enormous saving, and come very near meeting all the demands which are made for foreign supplies ; but on tiie other hand, from the omission to sow sufficient seed, to experience a loss or deficiency of four or more bushels per acre, as some pretend would be the result, would be a much more serious matter. I liave known a good many persons to hold to some particular opinions or faith in religion, because they say, notwithstanding their con- viction of their inconsistency or absurdity, if they should prove wrong they still would be safe ; whereas, if they adopted other opinions, to which they feel strongly inclined, and of which they perceive the reasonableness, if they should not prove true, they would fiud themselves in an unfortunate condition. The state of opinion, in regard to the thick or thin sowing of wheat, is quite analogous. Farmers may be safe, and save their seed, by sowing little. They do not save their seed, but they are sure to be safe, — so far as this goes, — in regard to a crop, by sowing a good deal. Different minds will view the matter differently ; but, having fully stated the case, like a wise judge, I submit it to those whose province it is to decide. I have known a great many persons, who have enjoyed an extravagant reputation for wisdom, who never gave a decisive and unequivocal opinion in any case. Like the Delphic oracle, they were always sure to be right, because the prediction would fit any result. Without any pretensions to wisdom, it may be safe in me to adopt the same course. The increase which, by painstaking, may be obtained from a single seed is very remarkable. I have already spoken of some instances, but 1 shall refer to others, for two reasons ; first, for the curiosity of the fact, and showing how prolific, under good culti- vation, a plant may become ; and next, as evincing with how little difficulty a new and improved variety of grain may be obtained, by selecting from a field even a single head. A farmer in Cambridgeshire, in 1840, gathered, from one of his fields, eighteen very fine ears of wheat, (which were five, six, and 232 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. seven set,) the proceeds of which filled a common wine-glass. The above was planted the following autumn, and produced one peck, which was planted November 8, 1841, and produced seven bushels and one peck : planted the same, November 2, 1842 ; the produce one hundred and eight bushels and two pecks ; which was planted in the autumn of 1843, and produced one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight bushels. This was the increase from the eighteen ears, in the short space of four years. We have another account of the product of a single ear, grown by an excellent and spirited farmer, Mr. Jonas, of Cambridgeshire. In 1838, dibbled in 50 kernels, (30 of which only grew ;) product, 14f oz. " 1839, " '• 14f ounces; .... " 1^ bushel. " 1840, " " 1 bushel 1 peck ; . . " 45 bushels. " 1841, " " 45 bushels; .... " 537 A wheat in Scotland, known as the Hopetoun wheat, and deemed an excellent and prolific variety, owes its origin to the accidental circumstance of an observing farmer, Mr. Patrick Shirreff", having, in 1832, remarked a very superior ear, from which he picked out ninety-nine corns ; and from their product came this celebrated variety. A similar origin is ascribed to the Chevalier barley, a popular and favorite variety, which sprung from an extraordinarily fine head, gathered from his fields by a gentleman of the name of Chevalier, and sedulously propagated. It is thus seen " what great effects from little causes spring," and how often an improved variety may be obtained, in the vegetable as well as in the animal creation, by a careful, repeated, and per- severing selection. The preparation of seed wheat, with a view to prevent smut, is by immersing it in brine sufiiciently strong to bear an egg, and then sprinkling it with lime. Some persons recom- mend a solution of arsenic ; but this is always attended with dan- ger. An eminent farmer in Gloucestershire is of opinion that he always secures his crop against smut, by sowing newly- threshed seed, the produce of the preceding year. In his culti- vation, he sows from three and a half to four bushels ; his average crop is stated to be from twenty-eight' to thirty bushels, and sometimes forty bushels, per acre. The depth of sowing CROPS. 233 is a point upon which all farmers are not agreed. Where the land is liable to be heaved by the frost, deep sowing of three and four inches is recommended ; and in such cases, the wheat is often ploughed in, and the land left in a rough state, which is supposed better to shelter the plant. By the best farmers, great pains are taken in the selection of the seed- wheat. It was once held — and upon as high authority as that of Sir John Sinclair — that imperfectly ripened and scarcely merchantable wheat, since it would germinate, would answer equally well the purpose of sowing as the best formed and best ripened wheat. This was even recommended as being a saving of seed, since more kernels in number would be contained in a bushel of shrivelled or half- ripened wheat than in one of full and plump grain. This notion, however, is exploded ; and wheat is understood to follow the universal rule, that, to produce the best, it is necessary to propa- gate from the best. Many farmers take pains, in selecting their seed, to take the best sheaves in their hands and strike them against some hard body, without threshing them either by ma- chine or flail, thinking that, by this process, the fullest and ripest grains will drop out, which they save carefully for seed. It is deemed of great advantage, in the spring, to drag or har- row the crop ; or, where it is in drills, to scuflle it, as I have already described ; or to hand-hoe and weed it, which, being light work, is generally done by women. I was about to say by old women ; but I am not positive in that matter ; for field-work, and poor clothing, and poor living, give an appearance of old age which is premature. Wheat is sometimes rolled in the spring before har- rowing ; and when far advanced in the autumn, it is sometimes fed down by sheep ; the effect of which is supposed to be, to strengthen the stalk and to cause it to tiller or spread more. The time of harvesting wheat has been matter of much dis- cussion ; but the results of repeated experiments, with a view to determine the best time, all point to an early rather than a late cutting. The best rule for harvesting is not merely when the stalk below the head has changed color, and the circulations have con- sequently ceased, but when the grain, though it has ceased to yield any milk upon pressure, is yet soft. It then ripens well in the sheaf; it yields more and better flour; and none is lost by shaking out, as when it is suffered to stand initil it has become dead-ripe. Some farmers recommend that the wheat should be 20* 234 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. cut seven days, others fourteen, before it would be perfectly ripe. I do not hold that the middle path is always the preferable course ; but there may be an error, as my own experience satisfies me, in cutting grain too early, as well as in cutting too late. In one respect, the farmers here have a great advantage on their side, in the number of laborers they can, at any time, bring into the fields ; so that the largest crops may be cut and gathered in a compara- tively very short time. Wheat here is seldom put in barns ; it is generally made into stacks. Staddles are formed of wood, — in some cases the feet are of cast iron, — about eighteen inches or two feet in height; sometimes the frame is of iron as well as the feet. On these the grain is stacked with the most extraordinary neatness, and well thatched. In this way, it will keep au}^ length of time. When placed on iron staddles, the stack is inaccessible to rats. In parts of Cambridgeshire where the stacks were placed upon the ground, I found them plastered with lime-mortar, about two feet from the ground up, and whitewashed, which was regarded as a preven- tive against vermin. The stacks, in general, are made round ; but this is objected to in Norfolk county, where the stacks are made long, as being made at less expense and more conveniently re- moved, in parts, for threshing. The stacks, generally, are calcu- lated to contain from eighty to one hundred bushels; but, in Lincolnshire, 1 found them of an immense size — at least twenty- two feet in height, and more than fifty feet in length. In Nor- folk, I found stacks of grain more than seventy feet long, and sur- rounding the homestead like a vast encampment. On one farm in the Lothians, I counted sixty-seven staddles ; and more than those were filled every year. Many of the large stacks which I saw were estimated to contain from eight hundred to one thousand bushels each. The neatness with which a skilful thatchcr will form, and finish, and frequently ornament, his stacks, is surpris- ingly beautifnl ; and the conscious dignity with \vhich one of these large farmers displays his magnificent stack-yard, and leads you about his premises, is sufficiently to be admired, and certainly not by me to be condemned. At the example farm at Whitfield, Gloucestershire, there was a small railroad from the stack-yard to the threshing-floor, by which the sheaves were very conveniently transported. The great advantage of stacking grain, over storing it in barns, is, that it is not so liable to injury from heat ; but the CROPS. 235 thatcher's art is a matter of great skill and experience ; and as long as wooden barns are erected among us at so small an ex- pense, and with our off-hand modes of doing things, it can scarcely be expected that we shall have patience to adopt it. I can only add, that I know no agricultural picture more beauti- ful than a neat farm-house in the midst of a crowded and well- thatched stack-yard. I was to have said something of the different kinds of wheat ; but it would not be possible to find any universal or unanimous preference, as different kinds are popular in different localities. Hunter's wheat, in the Lothians, *' may be considered the most extensively cultivated of any genuine or unmixed variety in Scotland." It takes its name from the person who first propa- gated it by selection ; and it is said to have been cultivated on one farm more than sixty years. It weighs from sixty-four to sixty-five and a half pounds per bushel, and has produced at the rate of forty-six bushels to an English statute acre. It is a winter wheat. Mr. Skirving, the eminent seedsman of Liverpool, writes to me that he considers the Chidham wheat as the best to cultivate. This is known in Scotland as the pearl wheat. The grain weighs about sixty-five pounds per bushel. "It is a prolific variety, a free grower, and tillers freely in the spring." The Whittington wheat presents a very beautiful grain. It was here called a spring wheat, because it had been sown in Feb- ruary, and was mistaken for what is called a spring wheat in New England, and not sown there until April, when it universally failed. It is, however, a late wheat, and, with us, should certainly be sown in the autumn. The Talavera wheat is an early wheat, and much valued. " The bread made from it," says Colonel Le Couteur, whose care- ful experiments on the cultivation of different kinds of wheat are well known to the agricultural public, "is incomparably the best that I have met with. It is light, very white, and preserves its moisture almost as long as bread made from spring wheat. It is, moreover, so sweet and well-flavored as to appear to some palates more like cake than ordinary bread." It has yielded at the rate of fifty-two bushels per acre, weighing sixty-one pounds per bushel. Under the cultivation of another farmer, it produced thirty-six bushels per acre. Its cultivation has, however, been 236 EUROPEAN AtiUlCLbTCilE. abandoned in Scotland. It is not deemed sufficiently hardy for their cold and wet springs, and is complained of as not tillering freely. The Egyptian wheat, with its compound head, — appearing as though several heads of wheat, with the longest in the centre, were brought together, — is sometimes cultivated ; but its produce and quality are not such as to encourage the cultivation of it. I might enumerate many other varieties which are cultivated here ; but I have, in truth, seen none superior to kinds common in the United States, especially the white western wheats. Indeed, the bakers here, for the purpose of producing the finest bread and confectionary, prefer the best American flour ; and it would be difficult, at any time, to find any superior to the best Howard Street, from Baltimore, the best Philadelphia, and the best Genesee flour. The seed having been sown, every pains is taken to keep the ground entirely free from standing water or puddles, which are always hurtful to the plant ; and where the land has not been thoroughly drained, furrows are run across the field, for the pur- pose of intercepting and carrying off" any water which might otherwise stand upon it. Where wheat is to be followed by grass, or, as it is here termed, by seeds, clover and Italian rye grass are sown in the spring and harrowed in. Wheat sometimes follows potatoes ; but this is not generally approved. It often follows clover which has been mowed or depastured, and then ploughed and rolled and harrowed, and the seed sown on the inverted sward without disturbing it. This practice is much commended. Some farmers have found an advantage in sowing white mustard, and either feeding it off" by sheep folded upon it, or ploughing it under, in a state of succu- lency, as a green dressing for the land. About twelve or sixteen pounds, in such case, are sowed to an acre. A case is stated where the farmer, after ploughing in a crop of white mustard, obtained six or eight bushels more of wheat, per acre, than from land which was manured with rape cake. The land in this case, as I understand, was not manured for the mustard. The land is usually manured for mustard with seven or ciglit loads of manure per acre. The mustard is considered as a great preven- tive of wire-worms.* * Almack's Report of Agriculture of Norfolk. CROPS. 237 I particularly refer to this practice, for the purpose of bringing before my readers an account of the experiment of John Keely, of Massachusetts, illustrating the beneficial effects of ploughing in a green crop as a preparation for a grain crop. To some of my readers, I am aware, it will be familiar, as I published it, some years since, in my first report of the Agriculture of Massa- chusetts ; but I must claim their indulgence, on account of other of my readers, on both sides of the water, to whom it may not be known, as the experiment seems to me of great importance, and directly bearing upon the subject which I am now treating. I shall abridge it as much as possible. " The land on which this experiment was made lies on the Merrimack River. The soil is a sand, approaching to loam as it recedes from the river. It is altogether too light for grass. Oats might probably be raised upon it to advantage, were it not that the land is completely filled with the weed commonly called charlock, (wild mustard,) which renders it unfit for any spring crop, excepting such as can be hoed. The crops of rye, on the neighboring soil of the same nature, vary from seven or eight to twelve or thirteen bushels per acre, according to the cultivation and their nearness to the river. " In the summer of 1827, we sowed three bushels of winter rye, near the river, on about two acres of land, which produced twenty-eight bushels. In 182S, we sowed four bushels on four acres, running the whole extent of the plain from the river. This piece was sowed in the spring with oats, but they were completely smothered with charlock ; and about the middle of June, the whole crop was mowed, to prevent the charlock seeding. By the middle of August, a second crop of charlock having covered the land, it was ploughed very carefully, in order completely to bury the charlock, and then suffered to remain until the 15th of September, when we began sowing the rj^e in the following manner : A strip of land about twelve yards wide was ploughed very evenly, to prevent deep gutters between the furrows, and the seed immediately sowed upon the furrow and harrowed in ; then another strip of the same width ; and so on, until the whole was finished. We found the oat-stubble and charlock entirely rotted, and the land appeared as if it had been well manured, though none had been applied to this part, since it had been in our possession. The rye sprung up very quickly and vigorously, 238 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. having evidently derived great benefit from being sown, and hav- ing sprouted, before the moisture suppHed by the decaying vege- table matter in the soil had evaporated to any considerable extent. This crop produced one hundred and thirty-three bushels. "In 1829, the charlock was suffered to grow on the land appro- priated to rye, until it had attained its growth, and was in full blossom. The land was then ploughed, and the charlock com- pletely covered in. In a short time, a second crop appeared, more vigorous than the first. As soon as this had attained its growth, it was ploughed in as before. A third crop appeared, which was covered in when the land was ploughed for sowing, about the middle of September. This piece of land was a strip parallel with the other, and contained two acres. The crop produced seventy-four bushels and a half. " In 1830, the land appropriated to rye included nearly all the lighter parts of the soil, and, owing to a pressure of business, was not attended to as we could have wished. It was ploughed, in the early part of the summer ; but harrowing, to destroy the weeds, was substituted for the second ploughing. This, and the unusual blight which affected all the grain in this part of the country, led us to anticipate a small crop. It yielded fifteen bushels to the acre. " The land on which the crop of rye was raised the present season had, for three or four years previous, been planted with Indian corn ; and owing to the extent of our tillage land, we have not been able to apply more than four or five loads of manure to the acre this season. The charlock was suffered to attain its growth as usual, and on the 18th and 19th of June, it was carefully ploughed in. The second crop was ploughed in on the 6th and 7th of August. On the 14th and 15th of Sep- tember, it was sowed in the usual manner ; viz., a small strip of land was ploughed, and the seed sowed immediately upon the furrow, and then harrowed in. Then another strip of land was ploughed, and so on, until the whole was completed. One bushel per acre was sowed, as usual. Owing to the unusual severity of the winter, the crop was much injured, but recovered soon in the spring. The rye was reaped at the usual season. The land contained one acre and thirteen rods, and yielded forty-six bushels and three pecks — a remarkably fine sample." This is certainly an extraordinary resuk. Mr. Koely remarks. CROPS, 239 that he " would not turn a furrow after the dew had evaporated. I have no doubt that a large portion of that fertilizing quality in the soil, which daring the summer months is constantly exhaled from the earth, is by the dew brought again within cur reach ; and it would be wise to avail ourselves of the opportunity of again burying it in the soil.* In the second place, I would by all means use a heavy roller after each ploughing. It would fill all the cavities left by the plough, and, by pressing the soil more closely upon the weeds, would liasten their decomposition and much retard the evaporation from the soil." An eminent judge was advised, when he gave his decisions, never to give the reasons for them : his decisions might be right, but the reasons for such decisions might not be the true ones. Mr. Keely might have benefited by the same caution. His facts, without question, are as stated, but the causes which he assigns for the result may not be those which have produced it ; yet the suggestions of such a man are entitled to consideration. The harvesting in England is performed in three modes ; by the sickle, by the common scythe, or by the Scotch bow or cradle. The sickle is fast yielding to the other instruments. The wheat is cut higher by it than by other modes, and there are therefore fewer weeds or foreign substances gathered among the straw, to fill the manure with pernicious seeds ; and the straw, being clean, is not liable to be heated in the stack. But, if the seeds are not carried into the manure, they are left in the field, and in some cases with equal disadvantage. The grain being cut high, more straw is lost upon the ground ; and reaping with the sickle is comparatively a slow process. Where the crop is much lodged, however, or matted, the sickle is almost indispensa- ble. Mowing the grain with a common scythe is practised in many places. A skilful mower lays the grain with great precision, so that it is easily gathered and tied. The crop is, of course, cut very low, and the straw is much mixed. The Scotch bow, which is merely a hoop, extended upon the handle of the scythe so as to receive the grain in falling, that the workman may de- posit it evenly for the binders, is much used, but, I may be allowed to say, is very inferior to the cradle, with its four or five fingers, in use in Now England and New Yorlc. * It will be recollected that this is the opinion of a plain and practical farmer, some years before Liebig detected the presence of ammonia in rain-water. 240 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. The wheat being harvested and removed, it is customary lo leave the field for the gleaners — the women and children of the vicinity. A farmer who does not do this, or who rakes his fields after the removal of the crop, usually renders himself obnoxious to the ill-will of his neighbors. This has now become, from long use, matter of prescriptive right. It is often, but not always, limited to the wives and children of the laborers in the service of the farmer. This privilege is worth more than one would at first be disposed to consider it, as a single expert gleaner will collect, in the season, three or four bushels. One woman assured me that she had sometimes obtained, by gleaning, to the amount of six bushels, in a year, of wheat ; but I deemed this statement, as perhaps peculiar to the sex, a little poetical. Such results exemplify, in a striking manner, the extraordinary amounts of small savings ; and if, as it is natural to suppose, they correspond to the accumulations of small expenditures, an experienced traveller or resident in England ceases to be sur- prised at them. The gleaners in a field, the women and chil- dren, from the peach-bloom of two years old to the sallowness and decrepitude of an old age withered by toil and want, present an interesting spectacle. I am not certain that this form of charity is unobjectionable ; but it is gratifying to contemplate, when a benevolent farmer, by not suffering his reaped fields to be closely raked, himself shares in the pleasures of the gleaners" acquisitions, and thus strengthens the bonds of good-will and kindness which connect him with his humble dependents. I have gone thus largely into the cultivation of wheat, be- cause in England, and perhaps throughout the world, it must be considered, as a bread plant, the most important of all agricul- tural products. I myself believe, when all its uses and all the circumstances of its culture are considered, — what it requires and what it returns, — that Indian corn is more valuable ; but it would be difficult to persuade others of this, who have not been brought up to its use. To the arable farmer here, and in the United States, where it can be grown, wheat must be the great object of attention. I suppose tliere is no country where the average yield of wheat is so large as in England ; and this product has nearly doubled within the last thirty or forty years. I am quite aware tb.at, in many parts of England, the crojis are still sirinl!. and do CROPS. 241 not exceed sixteen bushels to an acre ; but on the estate of the late Mr. Coke, afterwards Lord Leicester, — where, when he came to reside on his property, it was thought, on account of the thin- ness and poverty of the soil, wheat would not grow, — the average yield is from forty to forty-eight bushels per acre ; and I have already referred to a large farm where the crop on the whole farm, in 1844-5, — a most favorable season, — averaged fifty-six bushels per acre. These are most encouraging results ; but since, beyond all question, in an instance referred to, eighty bushels have been produced, who will say that the limits of improvement have been generally even approached ? All this too has been, with- out doubt, the effect of improved cultivation. I have gone so fully into this subject that my readers may deem a recapitulation unnecessary ; but the subject is so impor- tant, and bears so strongly likewise upon other crops, that I must claim their indulgence for a few remarks. The success of no crop whatever can be commanded ; there are agencies and elements concerned in the production far beyond the power or skill of man to command or control. But that cul- ture may do much, is equally certain ; and the circumstances under which it succeeds are those in which we are mainly con- cerned. The soil on which the improvements on Lord Leices- ter's estate have been made, was originally a thin, gravelly, and light soil ; but it has been deepened by ploughing, and thoroughly pulverized, and enriched by manure. The manure has beeii appliea to the green crop, the turnips or swedes, in a most liberal manner, at the rate of fourteen loads to an acre, when ten are ordinarily considered an ample allowance ; but in addition to this, the crops have been consumed on the land by sheep folded upon it, and these sheep, during the folding, have been them- selves liberally supplied with linseed oil cake, than which, ex- cepting the flaxseed itself, nothing contributes more to .enrich the manure. In some cases, Mr. Coke was accustomed to ust.' rape cake as a manure, and this was ground fine and sowed in the drills with his wheat. There is no doubt of its efficacy, but it is not safe to use it without some mixture. The Dutch farmers dissolve it in their tanks of urine, and then apply it with great advantage. It is sometimes used as a top dressing between the rows of the growing crop. I have not found its use extensive. VOL. II. 21 242 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. Guano was not known as a manure in the time of Mr. Coke, but is now applied, properly mixed, by many farmers, with great advantage. The manure, however, which comes from animals folded on the land and fed liberally with linseed oil cake, is, beyond question, one of the most safe, one of the most enrich- ing, and one of the most permanent in its beneficial effects, which can be applied. I believe the soil for wheat cannot be too deep ; though, as I have already stated, it may be too loose at the top, and, in such cases, requires shallow ploughing and treading, or pressing on very light soils, in order that the roots may be firmly fixed in the soil, and the dirt not liable to be blown away from them. In Lord Leicester's cultivation, the seed was always drilled, and the crop most carefully horse-hoed, in which operation the dirt was thrown towards the plants. In the third place, the land was thoroughly cleaned of weeds. A gentleman, who visited the estate during the life of the former proprietor, states that in travelling over, and observing most carefully, a field of wheat of seventy acres, he discovered but one single weed, and that of charlock, which one of the workmen pulled up with a good deal of indignation. I will add only that success is always uncertain unless the land be thoroughly drained. Standing water upon the soil, or in the soil, is always prejudicial, and often fatal, to the crop. With respect to other matters connected with this cultivation, I have treated them so fully that I may leave it to my intelligent readers to form their own conclusions. I believe that the average crop of wheat here may be fully doubled. I shall quote, rather as a curiosity, the following state- ment, which has been furnished me. A cultivator, in the end of August, 1843, planted in his garden thirty-two grains of wheat, of the very best quality, at six inches apart, and at the depth of an inch and a half. In 1844, this seed produced thirty-two plants, having from ten to twenty-eight stems and ears each ; the average number of ears was sixteen ; the average weight of each plant was one and three quarters of an ounce. An acre of land would contain, at six inches' distance, 174,240 plants; the prod- uce, 304,920 ozs., or 10,000 lbs., or about 320 bushels, per acre. When a farm can be subjected to a most careful garden cultiva- tion, though the expectation of any approach, upon any extensive scale, to a crop even of one third of this amount, would be CROPS. 243 deemed pure lunacy, it is apparent that a large increase of product may be confidently looked for. One would not be sur- prised at a great extension of spade husbandry, since I have been over a field, on one farm, of one hundred and fifty acres, thoroughly trenched to the depth of eighteen inches by the spade, and where the growing crops presented a promising appearance. This was done in a place where, and at a time when, labor was most abun- dant ; the undertaking was a substantial benefaction to the poor ; and the cost was not more than it would have been by brute labor. I might speak of the diseases and accidents to which this crop is liable ; but this would be to compose a treatise rather than a notice, and my readers will not expect it. One experiment made in the destruction of slugs upon wheat, by the apphcation of salt, is highly important. Where slugs have appeared on the wheat, a farmer in Norfolk has been in the habit of sowing one hundred weight of salt to the acre, which, without injury to the wheat, has proved effectual to their destruction. In one case, where the operation of sowing was in progress, on discovering slugs, he sowed as above, and in two days they wholly disappeared. An application of lime to slugs proved harmless.* I have known, in New England, the application of salt mixed with manure prove effectual for the destruction of wire-worms, in a cornfield. Calculations respecting the amount of injury often done to the wheat crops by the wire-worm, rate it at more than £60,000 per year. Indeed, it may be much more than that, and is scarcely a subject of calculation. Many insects affecting the grain crops are considered as wire-worms, which belong to a different tribe of insects ; and there are insects which prey upon other insects, and thus check their destructive ravages. The reflections of Mr. Curtis, an enlightened naturalist, on this subject, are so striking, that I know I shall gratify my readers by their quotation. " Let us now pause for a moment, and reflect upon the ex- traordinary fact, that our corn, the staff" of life, is placed in the power of this pygmy race ; and that, destined as man is to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, yet famine, accompanied by its concomitants, disease and death, may overtake him, (notwith- standing his industry, and let his prospects be ever so promising,) * Almack's Report of the Agriculture of Norfolk. 244 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. through the united operations of the insect race. How wonder- fully" displayed, therefore, are the wisdom and goodness of the Creator in so nicely balancing the destroyer and his parasitic enemies, as to keep man, naturally prone to indolence, ever on the alert ! and yet, when the countless hordes of noxious insects fall like an irresistible plague upon his crops, that Hand which is ever ready to befriend mankind arrests the scourge. Myriads of parasitic insects are let loose, multiplying as their prey in- creases ; the threatening scourge passes over with less loss than could have been anticipated ; and in the succeeding year, to the astonishment of the farmer, instead of the mischief being in- creased, not an insect enemy is to be seen." * 2. Oats. — Oats are cultivated largely in Great Britain. In Scotland and Ireland, they are cultivated extensively for food for the population ; and, when the meal is of the best quality, in some forms in which it is cooked, it is not only palatable, but extremely agreeable. Porridge is prepared merely by boiling it in water, with some salt thrown in, until it reaches a proper con- sistence, and in this form is ordinarily eaten with milk. Brose is prepared simply by scalding the meal with boiling water, and throwing in a little salt. This is likewise eaten with milk. Oatmeal cakes are made of oatmeal, and spread out to a thin- ness not exceeding a quarter of an inch, and baked to a crisp. In many cases, I found a bitterness in the floiu", which I appre- hended arose from the seeds of some weed having been ground up with it ; but, with this exception, the porridge and the brose, ichcn eaten with a plenty of cream and sugar, (a little, as I thought, to the consternation of some of my Scotch friends,) was a most agreeable dish. A coarse quality of meal, in such cases, is preferred to that which is fine. It will not do to say that it is not a nutritious substance. The allowance, formerly, of a Scotch laborer was a peck of oatmeal per week, and two Scotch ])ints, or four quarts, of milk per day ; and this comprehended the whole of his subsistence. Where more hardy or more skilful laborers are to be found ; where wo are to look for a finer race of people than the Scotch, — more erect, more muscular, more energetic, with more of physical or of intellectual power, — I know * Curtis on Insects affecting- Corn Crops. CROPS. 245 not ; and this dish is, perhaps, never absent from a Scotch table, and, with a large portion of the Scotch, constitutes their principal diet. In England and Scotland, oats and beans form the chief food of their horses, with a comparatively very small portion of hay ; and so many are kept for labor, sport, or pleasure, that the demand is immense. A pound of good oats is understood to give as much nourishment to a horse as two pounds of hay. Oats are not cultivated very difterently from the methods pre- vailing with us. They are most commonly sown broadcast, but sometimes are drilled, where the land is foul with weeds, and sometimes dibbled. When drilled, four bushels of seed are sown to an acre ; .when broadcast, it is not uncommon to sow six bushels : for though oats, like wheat, throw out side shoots, or, as it is termed here, tiller, yet the heads from the side shoots are seldom of nmch value. The crop varies from thirty to sixty, and some- times eighty, bushels. It is strongly advised to cut oats early, as soon as the stalk turns yellow under the head, and even while the other parts of it are green. None are lost, in such case, by shaking out ; the grain itself is brighter, and the straw is saved in a much more palatable condition for the animals to whom it is fed. When grass land is broken up, oats are almost always the first crop taken. In this case, the land is ploughed and the sward completely inverted in the autumn, and then harrowed or lightly ploughed in the spring. In this way, the oats have the benefit of the decaying vegetable matter turned under. The oats, when sown broadcast, are most often harrowed in ; but when ploughed, it is done with a light fnrrow, as they will not germi- nate when deeply covered. Oats are sometimes sown after turnips which have been fed to sheep folded on the ground. In this case, the ploughing is very light. . Those, however, which are grown upon old grass or pasture land broken up, give gener- ally much the largest return. Oats are grown upon soils of almost every description, but certainly not with equal success : and a strong, rich loam may be expected to give the best crop. The poorer the soil, in general, the more seed is advised. In the admirable Agricultural Museum of the Highland Agri- cultural Society there are specimens of forty diff'erent kinds of oats ; but it would be useless to give a mere list of names. What is called the common oat is the oat which, without any 21* 246 EUROPKAN AGRICULTURE. particulai" selection, happens to be cultivated iu some particular district. The potato oat, which I have often met with, is much esteemed The grain is short and white, the panicles well filled, and it is usually without beard or awns. But it is said to become bearded, from being cultivated too long on dry soils without changing the seed. The specimen in the Museum weighed forty-six and a half pounds per bushel. I have known this oat cultivated in the United States ; the first year with success; but the second year the crop was much less in the number of bushels, and in the weight of the grain. I cannot think there are any insuperable obstacles to its successful cultivation in the Northern United States, unless they should be found in the intense heat of our summers. This sort is said to have had an accidental origin among a field of potatoes, and from that circum- stance obtained its name. The Hopetoun oat is another celebrated Scotch oat, which had its origin in an accidental selection. It is stated to be not so liable to be shaken out by the winds as the potato oat, and to be a few days earlier ; its straw longer and stiffer, and not so likely to become lodged. It is esteemed better adapted for light than for strong clay soils ; but is more liable to smut than the potato oat. For low meadows and newly-reclaimed lands, it is much esteemed. The sample in the Museum, which was se- lected from that exposed in the Edinburgh market, weighed forty-six pounds per bushel. The black Tartarian oat is much cultivated in England, the white to a considerable extent in Scotland. The straw sometimes reaches six feet in height. These kinds are late, and require a very rich soil. They are well known among us, having all the panicles on one side; not often found unmixed, but, within my knowledge, successfully cultivated by an eminent farmer, in New Hampshire, on Connecticut River, whose crops average from sixty to seventy bushels per acre. I have seen here a very superior oat from Archangel, in Russia, and greatly esteemed by Mr. Dickinson, at whose extensive and beautiful stables, in T^ondon, I met with it. He informed me it was cured by fire in the plant, and weighed thirty-eight poimds per bushel. He valued it for feeding, weight for weight, more than any other. It was a small oat, but long in proportion. CROPS. 247 3. Barley. — This crop is very largely cultivated in England. It oiten follows turnips; and then, clover being sown with it, a good preparation is made for wheat. The uses to which it is ap- plied in England are principally for malting and making into beer, of which the consumption is great beyond all ordinary calcula- tion, malt hquor being the favorite drink of all the lower classes, and seldom absent from the tables of the rich and luxurious. In Scotland, much barley is used for distillation into spirits. Barley was formerly, and is now, in some countries, used for bread ; but in this respect it yields to the finer grain, wheat, and even to rye and oats. It is used to some extent for feeding cattle and swine, but mainly for the purpose of malting. Barley is of various kinds. One kind has two rows, and an- other has six rows, to a head. That which has two rows only is generally preferred. There are two kinds, distinguished from the time of sowing, as winter and spring barley, the former being sown in autumn. The alternations, in winter, of freezing and thawing, are prejudicial to winter crops, and an early sowing of the spring crop is strongly recommended. There is a coarse kind of barley, known as here, or bigg, which is advised to be sown where the crop is to be cut for green feed. There is a kind, called the naked barley, which somewhat in appearance resembles wheat, and from which the corolla is spontaneously separated. This kind is said to be much esteemed on the Conti- nent, but is not much cultivated in Great Britain. The here, or bigg, ripens much earlier than other kinds, and is consequently adapted to a late climate. Barley is sown broadcast or by drill, and harrowed in. It is advised that it should be sown always upon a newly-ploughed and fresh soil, and that it should be carefully rolled, either im- mediately upon being sown or after the plants are above ground. When barley is drilled, and it is intended to sow grass seeds among it, they may be sown after the barley is hoed, and then rolled ; or, if the barley is sown broadcast, they may be sown with the barley. There is almost always danger, in such cases, however, of burying the grass seeds too deeply. The cultivation of barley is so well understood in the United States that I need not enlarge upon it. One of the best farmers in England, whose premises I have had the pleasure of inspect- ing, drills in about three bushels and a half per acre, at seven 248 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. inches apart, and then harrows it with a h'ght harrow, and sows clover and other grass seeds upon it with a machine drawn by a horse, that it may be the more evenly spread. The barley under his management is always carefully weeded. A double-rowed barley, called Chevalier, from the name of the person who first selected a single head in his field and grew ultimately a crop from its product, has for many years been greatly preferred in England, and continues to maintain its high reputation. The average weight of barley is from forty-five to fifty-five pounds per bushel, and a crop on land well prepared is from thirty to fifty bushels. Its proportion of nutritive matter is sixty-five per cent. ; that of wheat being seventy-eight per cent. On good loamy soils, barley is more profitable than oats. It is not so eli- gible on stiff and cold clays. It is considered not so great an exhauster of the soil as oats. A good deal is sown in the neigh- borhood of London, to be cut as green feed for milch cows in the large milk establishments. Machines are in use for hummel- ling barley, — that is, breaking otf all the awns close to the grail), — and likewise for hulling it, so as to form what is called pot or pearl barley, a very nutritious and agreeable ingredient in broths and in drinks for invalids. 4. Rye is very little cultivated in Great Britain, and I have never seen it used here for bread. It is, however, sown for green fodder, and with great advantage, as it comes early. I have described already an early and extraordinarily-useful kind under the designation of St. John^s day rye, which produced, besides being repeatedly cropped, thirty-six bushels to the acre. I believe that rye might be more extensively cultivated in England, to great advantage, for human food, if its proper use was understood, — for the feed of dairy cows in the spring, as nothing will produce greater secretions of milk than rye meal, — and also for the fat- tening of swine. In the best dairy districts of the United States, where the amount of cheese made to a cow is nowhere ex- ceeded, nor within my knowledge equalled, — a draught of about three quarts of rye meal per day given to a milch cow, in the spring, before the grass is abundant, is amply compensated by the increased amount of milk and cheese produced; and I have known it applied to the feeding of swine with great success. Having thus far treated the cereal or bread grains, called lohitc CROPS. 249 crops, I come next to consider another class of plants, much cul- tivated and of great value in English husbandry. 5. Beans. — Beans are of several kinds. The first division is into garden and field beans. Of garden beans very few are cul- tivated. String beans, otherwise called French beans, are com- mon enough ; but I have not met with our finest kinds of shell beans, such as the cranberry, the pole, kidney or caseknife bean, and, above all, that rich and delicious vegetable, the Lima bean. If they are known in England, it has not been my fortune to meet with them, either in the markets or at private tables. Beans may be considered, in England, as a most important field crop, and are principally used for the feeding of horses, to which they are given, usually, broken and mixed with oats, — a quart of beans being considered as quite equal to two quarts of oats, — or with cut hay and chaff. They are likewise used in fatting swine ; but they are considered to give too much hardness to the pork, excepting when it is to be used for bacon. They are deemed valuable likewise for fatting oxen, and increase much the milk of cows. They may be said to take the place with the English which Indian corn takes with us. Some quantity of beans are mixed with new wheat to be ground, as the millers say "that soft wheat will not grind well without them ; and, as one shrewdly observes, they take care that in this matter there shall be no deficiency." I have eaten, in Scotland, bread made with a large proportion of bean flour, but I cannot say with much relish. The nutritive qualities of beans, as compared with wheat, are as sixty-eight to seventy-eight per cent. The ordinary weight of a bushel of beans is sixty-six pounds. There are several kinds cultivated, which are known bydifier- ent names ; but the kind most approved is a small, round bean, of a dark color, and of nearly twice the size of a marrowfat pea. A well-cultivated field of beans is, in its early stages, a beautiful object. The land most suited to beans is a strong, rich loam, and a clay soil is congenial to them. Nearly seventy bushels have been obtained from an acre ; sixty is a large crop ; ordina- rily, however, they do not exceed thirty bnshels. Here they are sown early, — in February or early in March, — and ripen late. They are sometimes sown broadcast, and large crops have been obtained in this way ; but it is not recommended, from the diffi- 250 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. culty of keeping the crop clean, which is of the highest impor- tance, where a wheat crop is to follow. They are usually drilled ten or twelve inches asunder, and the intervals hoed ; and some- times two feet, or two feet and a half, apart, and then carefully cultivated between the rows. The land, in such case, is com- monly highly manured, the manure being rotted barn manure, spread and ploughed in ; and, being kept as clean from weeds as possible, there is a fine preparation for wheat. In this way, wheat and beans are made to alternate on the same land for years, with advantage ; though the land should be strong, to bear so severe usage, and the bean crop must be liberally manured. The rotation often adopted is, turnips, barley, clover, beans, wheat ; where the land is very rich, it is, turnips, barley, clover, oats, beans, wheat, beans. The quantity of seed sown by drill for beans is two and a half and three bushels. Peas are sometimes sown with beans for a green crop, for the purpose of soiling ; in which case, three bushels of beans and two of peas are sown ; and this produces a nutritions and well-relished food for cattle and for pigs. Of crops which ripen their seeds kw are less exhausting to the soil than beans. Beans, at harvest, are shocked in the field until dry, and then placed in stack to be, after a while, threshed out, either by flail or by a machine. The fodder, cut up with other fodder, in the spring of the year, is eaten by stock. Caution is advised in givmg horses new beans, as they are very likely to founder them. The crop of beans here is certainly most valuable, in a climate where Indian corn will not grow ; but it seems, in all respects, much inferior to that inestimable and useful product, the value of which, in my estimation, and the more I see of foreign husbandry, is contin- ually rising. The small, white, kidney or round bean, so com- mon with tis, and so much eaten in some parts of the country, is not, within my observation, grown or used here. I tried the cultivation of English horse-beans more than once in the United States ; but they were always, in the time of flow- ering, destroyed by a small, black fly, which they seemed to attract in an extraordinary degree, and which stripped the stems completely of their foliage. 6. Peas do not appear to be extensively cultivated in England, as a field crop. The yield, when successful, varies from twenty CROPS. 251 to forty bushels ; but there is nothing pecnHar in the cultivation. It is considered a valuable food for horses and for swine, and large quantities, raised or imported, in the form of split peas, are consumed in soups, &c. The garden culture of peas, in the neighborhood of London, and other large cities, to be sold green, is most extensive ; but there is nothing remarkable in the process. With a view of forwarding them, the land is thrown into ridges, running north and south, and the seed is dropped on the south side, at the bottom of the ridge. High manuring increases very much the growth of the stalk, but postpones proportionately the forwarding of the pods. For five different and valuable kinds of peas, " the country," Mr. Lawson says, " is indebted to T. A. Knight, Esq., the late distinguished president of the London Horticultural Society, who obtained them by crossing or hyb- ridizing some of the most esteemed varieties. From their re- markably-wrinkled appearance, together with the peculiar sweet- ness which they all possess, Knight's marrows may be said to form a distinct and most valuable class of garden peas." These are, certainly, most honorable contributions of eminent skill and science to the public good. The haulm of peas, as well as that of beans, is carefully saved, and much valued as fodder for cattle, and especially for sheep. 7. Vetches or Tares. — This plant is extensively cultivated in England, and considerably in Scotland ; and, in my opinion, its cultivation may be strongly recommended in the United States. It is not much cultivated for the seed, as the permitting it to ripen would tend to exhaust the land ; but the seed is usually imported from the Continent. The principal object of its culture is to fur- nish green food for stock, horses and milch cows, which are soiled. Tares supply an immense burden of most nutritious food. They are cut only once ; but they are sown at different times, and sometimes as late as August, that the supply of green feed may be uninterrupted. Tares are of two kinds, — winter and spring, — which differ in no respect, excepting in the habit of ripening ; and the tares sown under favorable circumstances in the spring will not lag far be- hind those which are sown in the autumn. The land should bo brought into a state of fine tilth, and should be well manured. Sometimes they are sown upon a grain stubble, 252 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. which must be carefully ploughed in and reduced. Three bushels is the quantity of seed to be sown to an acre where they are to be consumed green ; two and a half where they are grown for the seed. They may be sown broadcast, or drilled, or dibbled ; and the latter modes are recommended where the lands are foul with weeds. With winter tares it is recommended to sow rye ; with spring tares, which are to be cut for feed, oats or barley may be sown, to improve the value of the crop. The crop is cut daily and fed to sheep, which are folded upon the ground, or cut and carried into the stables for horses and cows. Vast quantities are cultivated, in the neighborhood of London and other large cities, for the milk establishments, and for a change of diet for the horses which are kept there. The cut- ting of the tares may be begun as soon as they come into flower, and continued until the pods are fully formed ; and if there is then a surplus, they may be cut and made into hay, so as to avoid the exhaustion of the soil by the ripening of the seed. I am not able to give the amount of product which may be obtained from an acre, but from observation I know it must be very large. I do not know whether a larger yield can be ob- tained from it than from the improved Italian rye grass, of which I have given an account ; but, as an article for soiling, it is easily cultivated, and would prove invaliiable. The winter tares would scarcely endure our northern climate. The value of some por- tion of green feed to our horses kept in stables, in cities, would be very great; and a mixture of this with the dry feed upon which many of them are now exclusively kept from one year's end to another, would be greatly conducive to their health and comfort. Many a poor mechanic or laborer among us, with a small piece of land attached to his domicile, would find it quite easy to keep a cow, and obtain an ample supply of milk for his family, by the cultivation of some such crop as this. This plant is an annual. There are vetches which are biennial, but they are not recommended for cultivation. The seeds of tares are deemed vaulable for poultry. They will increase the flesh of horses, but are considered hurtful to them. 8. Turnips. — The next great crop in English husbandry is turnips. Of these there are several botanical varieties ; but 1 avoid those distinctions, as of little value to general readers. There CROPS. 253 are two great and well-known classes ; the common turnip, of which there are three varieties, — the flat, the globe, and the tankard turnip ; and the Swedish turnip, or ruta baga. The common turnip requires a shorter season, more quickly decays, and is a less substantial food, than the Swede turnip. The common turnip is usually white ; but there are yellow varieties, which are nearly as solid, and almost as enduring, as the Swedes, Such, for example, is the yellow Aberdeen turnip, which will keep late into the spring, when the common white turnip has become corky and vapid. ' The turnip has been cultivated for centuries in England ; but it is within a comparatively recent date that it became a matter of general field cultivation upon light lands, and may be said to have effected a revolution in husbandry. The great value of it is in feeding stock, especially in the return which it makes to the land when it is fed to sheep folded upon the land ; in the manure, likewise, which it produces when fed to cattle or sheep in stalls or yards ; in the increased number of stock which its production puts it in the power of farmers to keep; and in its intermixture with dry feed, enabling them to make use of that dry feed to advantage, to which, otherwise, cattle could not be confined but at the expense of health and comfort. Though other articles may be useful and expedient — such as grain, and oil cake, and hay, — yet many sheep and cattle are now actually fatted upon turnips and straw. It is said that this is done with more difficulty at the south of England than at the north ; the turnips in Northum- berland, and at the north, being accounted richer, or more nu- tritious, than in the southern counties ; thus seeming to confirm a strong opinion entertained by some persons that the colder the climate, the more nourishing the esculents grown in it. Another great advantage arising from the cultivation of turnips is in the cleanness of cultivation to which it leads, and which thus forms a suitable preparation for wheat, or the grain crop which usually follows them. The land for turnips, if not stifT and hard bound, cannot be too rich for them ; though the application of an excessive quan- tity of manure would be prejudicial, in some cases, to the suc- ceeding crop of wheat, causing too rank a growth, and occasion- ing it to lodge. The common preparation for turnips is by a thorough ploughing in the autumn : then the land is amply VOL. II. 22 254 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. manured, by manure spread on the furrow and lightly }..luughed in. The manure, however coarse, in such case, will become fully decomposed by the spring. In the spring, this land is laid into ridges about twenty-seven inches apart, and the seed sown on the toj) of the ridge by a machine. In other cases, where the cultivation is more complete, furrows are opened in the spring, and the manure placed in the furrows ; back furrows are then turned so as to form a ridge, upon which the turnips are sown by a drill machine, which, as it deposits the seed, deposits, at the same time, a quantity of ground, or dissolved bones, or some other artificial manure. Sometimes the bones are sown broadcast ; and from twenty to twenty-five bushels of ground or broken bones are considered an ample dressing. On the application of bones as a manure, and their solution by sulphuric acid, — that great contri- bution of chemistry to agricultural improvement, — I shall speak under another head. About two pounds of turnip seed are sown to an acre. The practice of sowing broadcast, which formerly prevailed, is nearly abandoned ; but it is still a vexed question whether they should be drilled in upon a flat surface, or upon ridges. Where the land is thin and liable to suffer by drought, the flat surface is to be preferred ; but otherwise, in my opinion, ridges, with the manure placed under the plant, are much better. The ridges, for Swedes especially, should be at least twenty-seven inches apart, — for the common turnip a less distance ; and the land may then be thoroughly cultivated between them. After the last hoeing, if the condition of the land admits of it, cabbages may be planted between the rows. The interval at which the plants are left on the ridge is, generally, about a foot. Mr. John Bloomfield, of Holkham, one of the favorite tenants of Lord Leicester, and from whose experience and excellent farming I derived much valuable instruction, states that he gets a better crop when his Swedes are left at eighteen inches apart. Six inches apart is enough for other turnips. Turnips, in the first part of their season, cannot be cultivated too much. The fly is the great evil, in the turnip crop, witli which the farmers have to contend. A preventive is found by some farmers in late sowing. The flics are accustomed to appear at a season when, ordinarily, the plants are in readiness for them. By postponing the sowing ten or twelve days, the flies will have passed their period, and the crop is safe. CROPS. 255 The turnip crop is to be considered, as I have already re- marked, as the foundation of the improved husbandry of Eng- land, in the means which it affords of supporting an increased stock, in the abundance of enriching manure which it thus supplies, and in the cleanness of cultivation to which it leads as a preparation for other crops. They are usually fed oif in the field ; the white turnips, often, as they are grown, in the ground, — which I cannot help thinking a slovenly mode of hus- bandry. But in most cases, they are pulled and topped, and tailed, and cut by a machine, and fed to the sheep in troughs on the field where they grew ; the fold, which is composed of movable fences, being changed from one part of the field to tlie other, until the whole is gone over, and the crop consumed. They are sometimes spread upon grass lands, both for cattle and sheep, but are most commonly given to cattle in stalls. Many of the best farmers pull all their turnips, and feed them to their cattle and sheep in their straw yards ; which enables them to convert their straw into enriching manure. The Scotch fanners in the Lothians, and the farmers in Northumberland and the northern counties, who grow immense quantities of turnips, sell them to feeders of sheep and stock, as they stand in the field, upon the condition that they are to be consumed where they grow. The sheep and cattle are brought, in such cases, from the Highlands in the north, and are here prepared for market. The climate of England enables the farmers to leave their turnips, for the most part, in safety, in the ground, during the winter, and to gather them as there may be occasion. The Swedes, if not pulled, and if left to thaw in the ground, suffer little from frost. Various modes are adopted for protecting them, in parts of the country where it is deemed necessary or expedient ; and they must, of course, be removed, where a grain crop is to be sown in the autumn or early winter. I need not describe these modes, as few of them would be applicable to my own country. Swede turnips may, as I know by re- peated experience, be kept well during our coldest winters, by being laid upon the ground, where the bottom is dry, and piled up in a long ridge, like the pitched roof of a house, being first covered lightly with straw, and then with dirt, — holes being left in different places, as ventilators for the heat to escape ; and then, as the cold increases, the covering of straw and dirt is 256 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. to be increased. Access may be liad to them, in such case, at the southern end, which may be kept fortified against frost by loose bundles of straw packed. In this way, with care, they may be well preserved until spring, and be at hand through the winter for the stock. They may be well kept likewise in bins, in our barns, well packed round, top, bottom, and sides, with coarse hay. This is an excellent and most convenient mode. In our cold climate, the covering must be liberally and carefully returned, if they are opened occasionally for a supply. I believe our farmers would find a very great advantage in growing esculent vegetables for sheep and cattle, instead of keeping them, as is now done, through our long and severe win- ters, exclusively upon dry feed. They would be most useful for sheep in the lambing season, and for cows in milk; and though, in fattening properties, I know no article, all things considered, superior to our Indian corn, yet they certainly would come most beneficially in aid of that. I do not assert that turnips are the best crop, for this purpose, which can be grown, but Swedish turnips are certainly among the best. Mangel-wurzel, carrots, cabbages, parsnips, and potatoes, are all useful. I may recur to this subject again ; but the conclusion to which I have my- self come, and in which I am daily confirmed, and with which I wish the farmers of the United States could be more and more impressed, is, that an abundant supply of succulent food should be provided for their stock during our long winters, — first, as conducive to the health of the stocli: ; and next, as contributing essentially to the improvement of fattening stock, and as enabling the farmer to keep more stock ; and lastly, as furnishing him with the best means of enriching his farm, and extending and improving all his other crops. These have been the striking and universally-acknowledged results of such a system of hus- bandry here : and I have not a doubt that, in those parts of the United States from which the markets in our cities are to be supplied with beef and mutton, though, from the severity of our climate, it might with us be a more laborious process than here, and we could not have the advantage of feeding off our green crops on the lands where they grew, yet its great benefits would be an ample compensation for any extra expense or labor to which it might, in many situations, subject us. The difficulty and expense of procuring labor may present itself as an objec- CROPS. 267 tioii ; but that will be constantly diminishing. Improved ma- chinery, and new implements of husbandry, arc yearly affording increased facilities in cultivation ; and, for our husbandry to be successful, it will require the liberal application of capital, added to enterprise, experiment, eifort, and perseverance. The following result of an experiment, by Mr. J. Bloomfield, of Warham, Norfolk county, to determine the best distance at which plants should stand, was given me by this excellent farmer, and will be curious to my readers. It was made upon Swede turnips. The row was twenty yards long. Rows. No. of Turnips in each Row. Distance apart in the Row. Average Weiglit of each Turnip in the Row. Weight of all in the Row. Produce per Acre, topped and tailed. Inches. lbs. Stone. lbs. Tons. Oct. 1 32 24 5d- 11 12 24 4 2 38 22 3f 10 2 20 1 3 39 20 3i 10 00 19 13 4 40 18 3 8 10 17 15 Fractions are omitted. The stone is 14 pounds. 9. Potatoes, Beets, Carrots, Parsnips. — Of these several crops I see nothing peculiar in the cultivation in Great Britain, which would require me to treat them at any great length. The potatoes brought upon the table are, in general, of a much better quality, drier, and more mealy, than those grown in the United States. The potatoes grown on new land, however, in the Northern States, are excellent ; and the potatoes brought to market from the northern parts of Maine, and from Nova Scotia, are not excelled by any which I have met with. Within my own observation and experience, likewise, I have found that the finest seed potatoes from this country, planted in the United States, with the exceptions above referred to, have, after the first year, deteriorated, and become conformed to those usually planted in the country. It is demonstrated, therefore, to my mind, that new lands yield potatoes of a better quality than lands which have been long under cultivation ; and that a low temperature and damp climate, such as are found in the northern parts of Maine, and the British Atlantic provinces of North America, are favorable to potatoes, while in hot and dry climates the quality of the vegetable is inferior. 22* 258 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. Potatoes are almost invariably planted here in drills or fun'ows about thirty inches apart. The furrow is first opened ; the manure laid in it ; the potato planted ; and the land reversed by the plough, so as to cover the seed. They are then, just after appearing above ground, often harrowed ; and, after getting to some height, the harrow, or cultivator, is passed between the rows ; and they are earthed up with a double mould-board plough, or by a single plough passing twice in the furrow. When ready to be dug, or, as it is here termed, lifted, a double mould-board plough is passed down once, or a single plough twice, through the row of potatoes ; those are picked up which are thrown out ; and then the whole field is thoroughly harrowed, which brings the remaining potatoes to the surface to be gathered. Two or three points seem to be well established here ; first, that, in planting, it is better to use whole than cut sets; that, where they are cut, the seed end of the potato is more produc- tive than the opposite end, and, while the former is used for planting, the latter may be saved for food; and lastly, that the crop is considerably increased by early plucking ofi' the blos- soms. I have already described the lazy-bed mode of cultiva- tion, and the large crops sometimes obtained, in my account of the Agricultural School at Glasnevin. In general, however, the crops are not large, not much exceeding two hundred and fifty bushels to the acre, which, though a respectable, is certainly not a great yield. Potatoes are raised largely for the market in some places ; but, in passing through the country, the extent of land under cultivation in potatoes appears comparatively small. I cannot join with Cobbett in his anathemas upon pota- toes, to which a learned agricultural professor here has lately added the force of his denunciations, which are likely to fall harmless under the power of habit and general taste. There certainly can be found, as common consent seems to have estab- lished, no more agreeable, and no more nutritious esculent than a well-cooked potato ; and under few crops will an acre of ground yield more food for animals. The disease which has prevailed in the potato — the ravages of which have been so extensive and alarming — will, it is hoped, prove only a temporary evil, or some ofTectual remedy against it be found. In Ireland, a large num- ber of the population, amounting to millions, depend, almost ex- clusively, upon the potato for subsistence. The ordinary allow CROPS. 259 ance to a working Irishman is, from fourteen to sixteen pounds of potatoes per day. It cannot be denied, however, in a moral view, that potatoes to the Irish are an equivocal good. In order to improvement, man reqnires a constant and severe stimulus to exertion. The necessities of men are the excitements to indus- try and enterprise, and very often the foundation of their virtues. But what hope can be entertained for the improvement of per- sons content to live upon the meanest fare, and in circumstances of destitution barely compatible with existence, and to go on and marry, and rear children, with no expectation or ambition beyond that of a mud cabin, a peat fire, and a potato diet ? Next to potatoes and turnips, beets occupy a principal place in English cultivation. Of beets, the field cultivation is limited to the mangel-wurzel. These are cultivated in rows, upon ridges, similar to the cultivation of turnips, about thirty inches apart ; and though the seed is commonly dibbled in at six inches dis- tance in the rows, the plants are thinned out to a distance of one foot. Deep cultivation is always strongly recommended for all tap-rooted j)lants. An eminent farmer in Northamptonshire, after having furrowed and manured the furrows for his mangel- wurzel, as the wheels of the cart and the trampling of the horses tend to harden the bottom of the furrow, before the land is turned back upon it in order to form a ridge, passes down in the furrow with a miner, that he may loosen and deepen it. A miner is simply the colter of a plough, without the mould-board. He speaks of this as being attended with great advantage. No machine has yet been invented which may be safely trusted to drop the seed. A wheel with pegs of about two inches in length, and six inches apart, upon the outside of the wheel, which shall make holes in the ground as the wheel revolves, handles like those of a wheel-barrow being attached to it, is used to dibble the land, into which children, who follow, drop the seed, one being sufficient in each hole, as every capsule in fact contains four seeds. The seeds are then covered with the head of a rake or with the hand. The land between the rows should be kept loose by ploughing, and thrown upon the rows, but not upon the plants, whose nature it is to grow much out of ground. In the latter part of the season, the under leaves may be gathered and fed to milch cows, or sheep, or swine, with ?rcat advantage 200 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. to the consumer, and, where the crown is left unbroken and only the lower leaves taken, without injury to the producer. Reports have been furnished me of crops of fifty-eight tons pei acre, and, in other cases, of forty-eight tons, and fifty-six tons, per acre ; this, of course, after they were topped and cleaned. These, however, are very extraordinary crops, the common yield being about thirty tons. They are much valued for milch cows, and for fatting cattle. Experiments have been made to test the value of mangel-wurzel compared with Swede turnips in the fattening of cattle. The experiments which have come under my knowledge — the estimate of the increase of weight of the animals experimented upon having been made from external measurement, and not in scales — do not appear to me decisive, but only indicative of considerable superiority in fattening properties of the mangel-wurzel over the Swedes. The yield of mangel-wurzel, per acre, under good cultivation, is con- siderably greater. Caution is to be used in giving them to milch cows, as they are apt to produce scouring. From this effect I have suffered in the free use of them with my own cows. It is strongly advised, likewise, not to use them until the spring or late in the winter ; and I have known farmers to keej: them sound and fresh into August. They are considered as not unfavorable to wheat, which may be sowed after them. The seed of the beet should be well soaked before sowing; and it is advised, in the event of transplanting them to fill up vacancies, not to place the plant lower in the ground than it formerly stood, as otherwise, if planted to the top, it will send out shoots from the top, and become scraggy or forked. Carrots are cultivated to some extent, and much valued. There is nothing, however, peculiar in the cultivation. The land should be deeply ploughed and highly manured. They are usually cultiv^ated on a flat surface ; but I am satisfied that the ridge cultivation at a distance of two feet, so as to plough between them, would be far preferable. The seed should be sprouted before sowing and mixed with sand, in order to avoid its being sown too thickly. If sowed on ridges, they will be much more easily cultivated and kept clean ; and they should be thinned out to the distance of six inches apart. The Belgian white carrot has come greatly into favor in England. A d«^ CROPS. 261 tinguishcd farmer, in whose authority I place the utmost confi- dence, pronounces it as thirty per cent, more productive than the common carrots ; and I met with an eminent farmer who had grown thirty-one tons seventeen hundred weight upon an acre, and whose crops averaged twenty-four tons per acre. Another farmer informed me, that he usually obtained twenty-five tons per acre. A farmer, at Birkenhead, near Liverpool, who is lay- ing the foundation of one of the most splendid agricultural es- tablishments in England, and whom I had the pleasure of visit- ing, obtained a crop of a hundred tons from three acres. Much of this was due to the liberal application of guano. Another farmer reports having grown upon four acres four thousand eight hundred bushels of the white carrot, or twelve hundred bushels per acre, which he fed to his horses, ten pounds each per day, and to his neat cattle, with very great advantage. A strong prejudice exists against the use of white carrots for horses, as injuring their eyes ; and the farmer first mentioned above thinks it not without foundation, believing that his own horses had suf- fered from that cause. With respect to the common red beet, or the sugar beet, and the parsnip, I have not seen them under field cultivation in England, though the parsnip is said to be largely cultivated, as feed for stock, in the channel islands. The sugar beet is re- ported to yield abundantly, and to furnish a more nutritious food, better for fattening, and for milch cows, than the mangel- wurzel ; yet the former has not supplanted the latter. The Jerusalem artichoke is often served at table, and is approved by many as food for stock, but is not so palatable or so nutritious as the potato. It grows, however, without much care, and in almost any ground, besides continuing itself in the ground from year to year. Under favorable circumstances, it is said to yield five hundred bushels to an acre, — a statement which I do not give from personal observation, nor receive without some dis- trust. 10. Cabbages. — Cabbages have been cultivated to a consid- erable extent in England. There are many varieties ; but my province lies only with those whicli are cultivated for the feed of stock ; and this embraces two principal kinds, — those with spreading leaves, from which the leaves are plucked, and tl\BH 262 eurojPean agriculture. others produced, and those which form compact and solid heads such as the drum-head, and the savoy, weighing, in some cases, upwards of forty pounds each, though such must be considered as remarkable. In Scotland, they are rarely cultivated as a field crop. In the south and most temperate parts of England, they may be safely left in the ground, uncovered, through the winter. The usual course is to plant them in a nursery, and then re- move them to a field ; and the largest kinds require ample room, and may be planted at three or four feet distance each way. In transplanting, a dibble is commonly used; but, in such case, the root is often doubled up and crowded into the hole, to the injury of the plant, A better way is, to plough a furrow, and, taking the plants singly, cut off a portion of the top, and dipping the root ends in some liquid, lay them at proper distances in the furrow, and then cover them with a plough ; having a third per- son to follow, who may relieve any plants which may have been too deeply covered, and pressing the earth against the roots of those plants which require it. Cabbages are deemed most excellent food for sheep and stock, though some persons consider them as of too laxative a nature for cattle — a fault which would be corrected by an ample supply of meal, or some dry feed, given in conjunction with the cabbage Oil cake is given with them to fattening sheep, with extraordinary advantage. Cabbages are considered as great exhausters of the soil ; but where they are consumed upon the farm, they undoubtedly make a full compensation for what they have abstracted. At Ockham Park, in Surrey, the seat of the Earl of Lovelace, which I had the pleasure of visiting, they have been cultivated, for several years, in connection with a crop of beans. The beans are planted in double lines, four inches apart, and with an inter- val of three feet to the next row. The ground between the rows of beans is then carefully cultivated, until the time of set- ting out the cabbages, which are then planted, two feet apart, in the rows. The beans are harvested in August, and the cabbages are then ploughed and cultivated, and are ready to be fed off in December. He thinks that he gets as much feed from the land by this crop as he should obtain from a crop of common turnips, though not as much as he would obtain from a crop of swedes ; and the crop of beans is not diminished. Indeed, he adds that CROPS. 263 the crop has increased since he began the practice, having been at the ontset, for five years before the combination of the crops, about thirty-five bushels to the acre, and, for five years after uni- ting the crops, at the rate of forty-one bushels per acre. Our winters in the North United States would present insuper- able obstacles to the preservation of cabbages, to any great ex- tent, as winter food for stock; but the same objections would not hold at the south and in the Middle States. The cultivation, however, cannot be said to extend itself in England, the Swedish turnip being generally preferred. Some years since, an English farmer, by the name of George Adams, published what he terms " A New System of Agricul- ture and Feeding Stock," for which he obtained the king's let- ters patent. The pamphlet, though containing only about thirty pages octavo, was sold at a guitiea a copy. I caused it to be republished, some years since, in the United States, — not from any confidence in his plan as being feasible, but as suggesting some hints as to the amount of produce possible to be obtained from an acre, which might induce inquiry and experiment, and, in that way, contribute to agricultural improvement. As the work now is scarcely known on either side of the water, I will tran- scribe a few passages, which I think will interest my readers. '* By pursuing," he says, " the following directions, a single acre of land will produce a crop sufficient to feed, in one year, twenty-four beasts, or two hundred and forty sheep." " In September, or sooner, let your land be well manured and properly ploughed, so as to raise a good deal of fine mould ; then plant one third of an acre of the land with the large sort of early cabbage plant, viz., the late York or sugar-loaf; one third more, in February or March, with the same sort of cabbage plant ; and the remaining third of the acre, in February or March, with the ox or drum-headed cabbage plant. If the land be good, I would recommend that the plants should be set in rows three feet wide, and two feet between each plant, that is, three plants in every square yard. Upon this plan, an acre of groinid will require fourteen thousand five hundred and twenty plants, reckoning five score to the hundred; but if the land be poor, it will be advisable to set the plants thicker proportion- ably, according to the grower's judgment of the quality of his land. By the beginning of June, the first crop of cabbages will 264 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. be in perfection. Tlien put either six beasts or sixty sheep, in the manner here directed, according to tlie plan of the movable houses, herein annexed, either for cattle or sheep. Let the cab- bages and leaves be carefully cut off, leaving the cabbage stalks cut across at the top, to grow again. The cabbages, upon good land, may be expected to average fifteen pounds apiece, which will be, upon the acre, two hundred and seventeen thousand eight hundred pounds, or one hundred and eight tons eighteen hundred weight, at five score to the hundred weight. Allow to each beast, or ten sheep, two hundred pounds every day and night, which will be twelve hundred pounds a day and night, for six beasts, or sixty sheep ; in eighty-four days, or twelve weeks, these will be fat. Then put up six other beasts, or sixty more sheep, which will fatten in the same time and manner, viz., at the end of the half year. Eighty cabbages will have been consumed daily, amount- ing to fourteen thousand five hundred and twenty cabbages, just the number planted upon the acre, which, taken at fifteen pounds apiece, amounts to one hundred and eight tons eighteen hundred weight, at five score to the hundred weight; so that tlie feed of twelve beasts, or one hundred and twenty sheep, stands as under. Tons. Cwt. For 84 days, or 12 weeks, 6718 cabbages, at 15 lbs. apiece, 50 8 " 84 " " 12 " 6718 " " " " " 50 8 " 13^ " " 2 " 1084 " " '' " " 8 2 18U " " 26 " 14520 " '* " " " 108 18 As soon as you begin to clear off a few rows of cabbages, after the 1st of June, spread the dung and urine carefully over the ground, leaving all the cabbage stalks, which will soon sprout again ; then with a small hoe work the ground regularly over, so as to cover the manure, and sow turnip seed amongst your cabbage stalks, as you clear off the cabbages, and continue to do so till you have gone all over the ground the first time. About the 1st of November you will have another crop of keep as good as the first ; and then, as you clear off all the cabbage sprouts and turnips, you must again properly apply your manure all over the land, as before, which is now either to be ploughed or dug, and planted as at first. Thus you will have a regular succession of good keep, and if the winter's produce be what may be expected from good management, the same acre of land will feed, in one CROPS. 265 year, twenty-four beasts, or two hundred and forty sheep. This, like all other crops, will, of course, vary with the season ; but, if the weight here mentioned be produced, the number of cattle above stated will hardly get through it. In case of a failure, in the winter, a little hay or corn may be given to supply the de- ficiency." Such is the author's account of his scheme, in his own words. It will be seen that he goes into a fraction of time, to meet the exact amount of keep v/hich he proposes to obtain from the land. He proposes, as a part of his plan, to keep his beasts and sheep in movable houses or folds, so that they may be placed directly by the feed which is grown for them, and that the most careful provision should be made for the saving of all their manure. I shall not discuss the practicableness of his plan. I have no confidence in it to the extent to which he proposes to carry it. But it shows the author's strong conviction of the advantages of soiling, and it leads to that great question, the full answer to which has not yet been approached. What are the productive powers of an acre of land ? That cabbages in the Northerii United States cannot be relied upon for winter feed, except in a very limited degree, is certain ; but where the plants are for- warded by artificial heat in the spring, they may be made to furnish a large amount of autumn feed, and may,, in many cases, be cultivated to great advantage. Any methods by which the farmers in the old states, near the great markets, can increase the means of enriching their lands by the growth of products to be advantageously consumed upon their farms, certainly deserve consideration. They may purchase manure in the cities; but even if the cost of the manure, at first, is small, — and in most cases it is otherwise, — yet the expense and trouble of transporta- tion are always considerable and vexatious. Whether it shall be by the production of milk, by the fattening of swine, of sheep, or of cattle, must be determined by local and individual circum- stances. The proximity to a quick market in such cases will always, in respect to many products, give the farmer in the old states, and near the large cities, peculiar advantages. I have some doubts, however, whether, for the purposes of soiling, for milk, or for fattening, any product can be found equal to that of Indian corn cut green. The cultivation of a variety of feed may be advisable, as in the event of the failure :f one kind of crop VOL. II. 23 266 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. another kind may succeed ; and that animals thrive better upon a variety" of food than when confined to a single sort is a point well establw'ied. 11. Rape. — This crop is seldom, within my observation, cul- tivated for seed, but as a green crop, for the purpose of feeding sheep, which are soiled or folded upon it. In some parts of the country it is sown in August, to be fed early in the ensuing spring ; but it would not endure our winters. It is most gen- erally sown in May, and at successive times, so as to provide a continuance of the feed, and comes into eating in about three months after being sown. It is sometimes sown broadcast, and left vmder a slovenly cultivation, to take its chance ; but it is ad- visable to sow it in drills about twelve inches apart, and then the weeds may be extirpated, and it may be kept clean by the hoe. In such case about four pounds of seed are sown Ufion an acre. Sheep, being folded npon it, gain flesh rapidly; and tlie ground, in tliat case, is much enriched for a crop of wheat, or other grain, which may be sown after it is thus fed off. It must be com- pletely fed ofl" before it passes out of blossom. I was told, in Lincolnshire, that the ears of lambs which are thus fed upon it are often made so sore by some acrid matter which proceeds from it, as sometimes to lose their ears ; but whether this was stated for the benefit of my credulity or not, I am not certain. I can only say that, if — which I am not willing to believe — it was told me with that view, the relater would himself deserve to have his own ears gently clipped. The ear is said to swell, ulcerate, and drop off. Another farmer, on whose opinion I place great reliance, speaks of this crop as too heating to the blood of young sheep, and advises, where they appear affected by it, to bleed them in the nose and give them salt. I always regard a preven- tive as much more valuable than a remedy ; and confess, if such were likely to be the usual effects of feeding upon this plant,, I should be very cautious in advising its cultivation. It is much grown, however, for the purpose of feed, in Yorkshire and Liti- colnshire, and these objections were not frequently made to it. When this plant is grown for seed, the yield is represented as about thirty bushels per acre ; but it is then deemed a great ex- hauster of the soil, and will not bear a repetition under five or six years. Cole and rape, though often spoken of as the- same CROPS. 267 thing, differ from each other — the cole growing stronger, and ripening its seed much later. When grown for seed, they are cultivated in the same manner, being sown in drills, and the plants thinned to five or six inches apart, and carefully weeded and hoed. The production of seed from cole is more than from rape. When fed upon the land by sheep folded upon them, they enrich the land ; but in leases a clause is often inserted forbidding their cultivation for seed, because of their exhaustion of the soil. In passing through Lincolnshire, I could not help admiring the sagacity of a dog whose business it was, in the character of a rural police-officer, to keep a flock of sheep upon a field of rape, and away from an adjoining field of turnips. 1 do not know that this sagacity would have been increased had he been with- out his posterior appendage, and stood upon two legs instead of four. The learned author of the "Vestiges of Creation" would probably have pronounced him fur advanced in the trans- ition state. 12. Mustard. — I found mustard cultivated in some parts of the country, but not to a large extent for the seed. It may be sown either broadcast or in drills, and is gathered by being shaken by hand into a sheet in the field. A good crop is esti- mated at twenty-eight bushels per acre. A strong prejudice exists against the black mustard, as the seeds remain a long time in the ground, and are with difficulty eradicated. In many leases the cultivation of it is forbidden. The white mustard is not liable to the same objection ; and this is often cultivated for the purpose of folding sheep upon it, and is said to yield a better crop than rape for this purpose. It has been sown in May, and eaten off in July ; it has been sown after a crop of oats, and eaten off in October. In all these cases, when fed on the ground or ploughed in, it has proved a great enricher of the land. The amount of seed sown has varied from seven pounds to sixteen pounds per acre. It is recommended by some farmers for folding ewe sheep upon, in autumn, as indirectly assisting the increase of the flock. Neither of these crops requires very high manuring ; and they are often grown, with tolerable suc- cess, upon land of moderate fertility, never contravening, however, the inviolable rule, that fire is not to be made without fuel, and that good land, good cultivation, and good manuring, are the only certain foundation for expecting good crops of any kind. 268 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 13. Chiccory. — Chiccory is cultivated in some parts of the country. It was first introduced as feed for cattle and sheep, its leaves being abundant, and very succulent. It could, for such purpose, be cut once the first year, and four or five times a sea- son, after it became established. It was not, however, found superior, as green feed, to other plants cultivated for this pur- pose, and it was thought to give an unpleasant taste to the milk and butter. It is now, however, cultivated almost exclusively for the roots, which are used for the adulteration of coffee, and many persons think with advantage. I am not of that number. The land on which it is to be cultivated must be rich and highly manured, as it is important, where the roots are to be used for this purpose, that they should be forced as much as possible the first season, as they become too old and hard in the second year. Chiccory is to be sown in April, like carrots, in drills, kept clear of weeds, and the plants thinned out to a distance of six inches in the rows. In September, the leaves are taken off, and the plants dug with a fork : they are then washed and split by hand, and kiln-dried, and sold to other factors, who cause them to be burnt and ground like coffee, which, in that case, they entirely resemble. They greatly deepen the color of the liquid, when prepared as coffee ; and, when mixed in the proportion of a fifth, they communicate no unpleasant taste. Chiccory is deemed very exhausting to the soil, and liquid mainire is applied to it, while growing, with great advantage. The cultivation of woad was pursued to a considerable extent in the same neighborhood ; but as this, together with madder, will come more fully under view in my observations on continental husbandry, I for the present pass them over. 14. Lucern. — This plant is cultivated to some extent for the purpose of soiling, and indeed could not be expected to be cultivated as a field crop. It is undoubtedly a much superior forage to vetches or tares, and is more productive than clover, not yielding more weight at a single cutting, but growing much faster, and therefore may be cut more frequently. But it is far less cultivated than either vetches or clover, perhaps for the reasons that lucern, though it will bear it even the first year, does not come into a perfect state for cutting until the third year ; that it CROPS. 269 squires a good deal of labor at first in keeping down the weeds ; id that it does not take its place in any rotation of crops, it Doing expected to occupy the ground for a length of years, where It is once planted. All agree that it affords a most excellent feed for horses or milch cows ; and it is advised that, after being cut, it should be kept over a day before it is given to cattle, as, in that case, it will un- dergo a degree of fermentation, which will prevent its being in- jurious to them. The yield of an acre of good luceru, it is said, will fully keep four horses from May to October. The time for cutting it is when it is in flower ; and, though it is almost always given green, yet it makes excellent fodder when converted into hay. Some persons advise that the first cuttiug should be before the plant comes into flower, believing the succeeding crops will be more vigorous for this early cutting. It is commonly be- lieved that a plant is more nutritious when in flower than at any previous stage of its growth ; though this conclusion is not conformable to some of the deductions of Sinclair, in his experi- ments upon grasses at Woburn. It requires a deep, rich, aud dry soil, as it sends down its tap- root far into the ground, and in time of drought draws moisture from a great depth, which keeps it in a green state when most grasses fade and are burnt up. The ground should be deeply ploughed, or, better, should be spaded or trenched, and thoroughly drained, as a clayey, wet, or retentive soil is unfavorable to it. Great pains must be taken to keep it clean from weeds. It is cultivated in two ways — either by being sown broadcast, in which case, where it is kept thoroughly clean from weeds for two or three years, it will acquire such a hold as to dispossess the weeds, but will be benefited by being rather heavily har- rowed in the spring ; or it may be sown in drills about twenty inches apart ; in that case, it may be cleaned by a horse hoe or scufHer, and be effectually protected from other plants or weeds. When sown broadcast, it is advised to sow about sixteen pounds of seed to an acre, and this may be sown with barley or rye ; but when sown in drills, ten pounds of seed are deemed suffi- cient. The broadcast method is likely to give the best crops. It is said that it will not endure severe frosts, and consequently is not suited to a cold climate ; but I have known it cultivated successfully for many years by the late excellent " farmer's 23* 270 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. friend," John Lowell, Esq., near Boston. The great impedi- ment generally found to its cnltivation is the difficulty of keep- ing it from weeds ; but the sowing it in drills will give an ad- vantage in this matter. I have no means of comparing it, in point of value or product, with the Italian rye grass, of which I have given an account ; but its reputation has long been estab- lished as one of the most valuable plants which can be cnlti- vated for the purposes of soiling. It may be expected to last for eight years, and some persons assert a longer period, and will be benefited by occasional top dressings. Lucern has been cultivated, with great success, by a farmer of the name of Rodwell. whose account I think will be read with interest. "My growth of lucern this year, (1841,) in a field of eight acres of sandy soil, with a dry, sandy loam for its subsoil, being the third year's growth, (the seed having been sown, twenty pounds per acre, 1838, by a Bonnet's seed-engine, with a crop of barley,) produced me, in its first mowing, (which commenced May 24th,) six weeks' entire support for thirty horses, keep- ing them in good condition and good health, while in con- stant employment. The second mowing, begun July 3d, fed me twenty horses for six weeks ; and the third, begun Septem- ber 15th, supported thirteen horses fourteen days; after which, the autumnal feeding with sheep was equivalent in value to the expenses of cleaning, &c., in the previous spring, which was effected by the extensive use of the Pinlayson harrow — a process necessary every second or third year, if upon soils inclined to grass. The only manure used upon this crop has been soot, at about thirty bushels per acre, applied twice since the sowing in 1838."* 15. Sainfoin. — This plant is cultivated in localities where a chalk or calcareous soil prevails, both for soiling and pasturage. It is sometimes, likewise, made into hay, and forms excellent fodder. It is universally understood that a calcareous or lime- stone soil is most congenial to its growth, and one must hesitate in distrusting the lessons of experience ; but the best crop which I have seen of it — and an admirable crop it was — I found upon an * Journal of Royal Agricultural Society, vol. iii. p. 238. CROPS. 271 extremely rich loam, which, from its high cultivation, might be called a vegetable garden mould, and to which no lime had been applied, and none certainly was apparent. It is a highly-productive plant, with small, pointed leaves, rather coarse brandies and stem, and bearing a small blue flower. It may be cut twice in a season, and then fed, and will yield, under good cultivation, from one and a half to two tons of dried fodder to an acre ; but it is not so productive as lucern. It is not so apt to become heated as clover, not being as succulent : it will grow where clover will not grow ; and drawing its nour- ishment from a greater depth, it is less liable to sufter from drought. It may be cut, and afterwards fed off by sheep the first year of its growth ; but it is not in the best condition for mowing until about the third year after planting, and then ii will continue for eight or ten years. I have said one of its prin- cipal uses is for soiling, and for this it is much esteemed. Though it may not be so valuable as lucern, clover, Italian rye grass, or Indian corn, where the latter can be grown, yet there is an ob- vious advantage in a variety of food ; it is more agreeable to the animals themselves, and some plants will flourish in some seasons, and some soils, in which others would fail. I have seen it cul- tivated in New England in one case only, and that not with much success ; the winter was deemed too severe for it. The amount of seed sown to an acre is four bushels in the chaff"; and it maybe sown with barley, or alone. The seed is of very uncertain quality, and should be tried in a pot. Sainfoin is a great exhauster of the soil, Avhen suffered to ripen its seed. Lord Essex gives an account of curing a crop of sainfoin, which was cut on Monday and Tuesday of the last week in June, when in full flower. It was once turned on Wednesday, and carried and stacked on Thursday and Friday. The weather was dry and hot, but the hay was still so green, that much mois- ture exuded upon pressm-e. It was stacked with alternate layers of oat straw. It came out in the finest condition, and the inter- leaved straw was much improved. It is well known that, with us, clover is often cut in the morning, turned once merely, in a hot sun, and then packed away, the different layers being well salted, at the rate of more than a peck of salt to the load. In this way, where the moisture proceeds from the sap, and not 272 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. from rain coming upon it, I have known it effectually preserved and furnishing an excellent fodder. There are different kinds of sainfoin, some of them distin guished from others by a greater earliness. I saw, in the same field, side by side, and where both kinds had been once mown at the same time, a second crop coming on, where, in one case, the plant was in full flower, and, in the adjoining land, the plants showed no signs of flowering. I know no means of distinguish- ing one from the other in such a case, but by actual trial. The farmers who cultivate this crop successfully esteem it very highly. The Messrs. Lawson, of Edinburgh, speak of having, in 1833, introduced from France the double yielding sainfoin, — a very luxuriant growing variety; but I have not seen it. 16. Crimson Clover, ( Trifolium Incarnatum.) — This is an annual plant, presenting, in its blossoming, a beautiful crimson flower in the shape of a cone. It is a very productive plant, and is principally valuable as green feed ; made into hay, it is deemed superior to the common clovers. Here it is sometimes sown upon a wheat or grain stubble, the stubble being simply har- rowed, and the seed sown ; and it is then bush-harrowed and rolled. This gives a good crop for green feed the ensuing spring. It is said to be a fortnight earlier than lucern. Few things in the vegetable world present a richer appearance than a field of crimson clover in full flower. It is sometimes drilled at the distance of eight inches in the rows. The quantity of seed is from eighteen to twenty pounds to an acre when sown broad- cast ; less would be required when drilled. Its chief value is its quick return ; as, when sown in autumn, it may be mowed so early the next season, as to leave a favorable opportunity for fallowing the land for wheat. In this respect, however, I cannot perceive that it has any advantage over our common June clover • and I should have great distrust of its endurance under the severe frosts of New England. I have tried it myself upon a smal scale, but then it was sown early in the spring. 17. WniN, Furze, or Gorse, {Ulcx EiiropcEUS.) — This is a coarse, evergreen, prickly shrub, growing, in many cases, to a height of some feet, propagating itself, and spreading over large CROPS. 273 extents of ground which are left uncultivated, or kept merely as preserves for game. It is singularly productive ; it requires to be gathered only as it is wanted to be used; and, when bruised, it furnishes a most nutritious food. I shall give the directions of one farmer in Worcestershire, who finds his account in culti- vating it pretty largely, and whose excellent farming I had the pleasure of inspecting. It is used more extensively in Wales than in any other part of the kingdom. It proves excellent food for horses and cows. I have not learned that it has been used for sheep. The yield of it is represented, even under unfavorable circumstances, to be from eight to twelve tons, per acre, of green feed, and where the soil is favorable, double that quantity. It may be cut in a year after being sown ; but it is deemed advisable not to commence cut- ting it until it is two years old ; and then it may be cut every year, and requires no manuring. Some prefer that it should be cropped not oftener than once in two years ; but in that case, the plant becomes woody and hard, and is with difficulty cut by a scythe. There are two kinds of gorse ; but that which is called the French gorse, is much preferred ; the other kind, being shorter, browner, and much less succulent, is used only in times of ex- treme scarcity. It is advised to be sown in March or April, and either broadcast, or drilled at a distance in the rows of from eighteen to twenty-four inches. When sov/n on a side-hill, the rows should be made oblique, rather than directly up and down the hill. The young plants should be kept carefully weeded, as weeds and couch grass are the great enemies to the successful cultivation of the plant ; and they should be protected from cattle. Sand, lime, ashes, and cinders, are applied as manure to the plant; but it grows well without manure. The intelligent farmer, in Worcestershire, whose farm I had the pleasure of in- specting, — Richard Spooner, Esq., M. P., — grows it upon an old woodland, cleared up, the soil of which is partly a burning gravel, partly a strong clay, but very dry at bottom, and hilly. The product of half an acre of this land is, on an average, suf- ficient to keep a cow twenty weeks. On rich, loamy, dry land, he informed me that, in his opinion, double the quantity might be grown. He has now been in the habit of using it more than twenty years. 274 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. He sows it as he would clover seed, with a crop of barley or oats, and it is fit to cut the November twelve months after sow- ing. He mows it afterwards, every year during the winter, as Avanted, with a common scythe, close to the ground. On good, dry land, he cuts from seven to ten tons per acre. His principal use of it is for his cows ; three bushels and a half per day is suflicient for a cow. It is first cut through a common chaff'-cutter, and then bruised in a mill similar to a cider-mill for grinding apples, the revolving fiuted wheels, or nuts, being of iron. He has four-and-twenty cows in one house. Besides the gorse, they are allowed one hundred weight of hay among the whole, — being about four and a half pounds of hay to each cow, — and eight bushels of Swedish turnips, or about twenty pounds of Swedish turnips, to each cow per day. On this, dairy cows are kept in excellent condition, and the butter is remarkably good ; fattening-cows on the same allowance will fatten fast. When Swedes arc scarce, he substi- tutes about four pounds of oil cake, per day, to each cow ; and as the fattening-cows get forward, he increases the quantity of oil cake gradually, never, however, exceeding twelve pounds of oil cake, per day, to cows of a large size, and that only for the last month. He advises that the gorse should be well ground, and salt mixed with it, at the rate of four ounces, each cow, per day. In the communication with which he has favored me, he adds, that "it requires no manure, but in its consumption creates a great deal. It will grow on poor, hilly land, if dry, which will not pay for cultivating. When once sown, and well rooted, it yields a great quantity of food for cattle, at a small expense." He has cut over the same ground now for many years. He mows it as soon as the grass feed ceases, and it lasts until the grass comes again. If there is an appearance of snow, he mows a consider- able quantity beforehand, and it will keep, laid loosely down in the yard ; but it must be bruised as it is wanted, for it will not keep after being bruised, not even over night. Furze is prepared, in some cases, by being cut in a common chafl"-machine, and then passed through two revolving and matched cylinders of iron, like the nuts of a cider-mill ; or it is cut, and then laid upon the ground, and rolled by a stone wheel with a broad, flat rim, somewhat resembling the wheel employed by tanners for crushing or grinding their bark. In some cases, two CROPS. 275 such wheels are fixed to the same axle, which, of course, expedites the work, and both are carried round by a horse or donkey. An Irish farmer describes his mode of feeding with gorse as follows : " Horses eat it with great avidity, and thrive well on it. I give each working horse a bucket of prepared gorse in the morning, before going out ; at dinner time, a feed of boiled potatoes ; and at night, two baskets of gorse ; neither hay nor oats. Cow-feeding is different ; at daylight in the morning, the cattle are driven from their stalls to water — if possible, a running stream. Gorse, if crushed over night, and allowed to lie in a heap, would ferment before morning ; the cattle are, therefore, supplied with a feed of mangel-wurzel, while the gorse is under- going preparation. After breakfast, (ten o'clock,) they get a feed of gorse • — as much as they will eat, (should any remain in the trough, it is taken away;) another feed at two o'clock; at four, are again driven to water ; and at six, get a large feed to last all night. Cattle will not eat so large a bulk of gorse as of other food, it being so rich that a less quantity sulHces. Gorse, after being once established, requires neither tillage, manuring, nor weeding, producing the most nutritious food without imparting any unpleasant flavor to the milk, which is rich and creamy. Twenty acres of gorse would support one hundred head of cattle, for the winter six months, without any other feed, save the morning feed of mangel-wurzel, turnips, or potatoes."* Three modes of sowing it are prescribed — the first, that of sowing it broadcast, when, by some cultivators, seven or eight, by others, twenty pounds of seed are advised to be used. Others recommend to sow it in drills, eighteen to twenty-four inches apart, when, of course, a much less quantity of seed will suffice. Others advise to sow it first in a seed bed, and transplant it, making the drills as above, and setting the plants six inches asunder in the drills. As the seed is a long time in germinating, and much, on this account, is liable to be lost, it is advised to soak the seed four or five days before sowing, and then let it remain a week or more in a heap, being careful to turn it frequently, to prevent fermentation. The transplanting must be as early as practicable, that the plants may get a sure footing for Journal of Royal Agricultural Society, vol. vi. part 11, p. 536. 276 EUROPKAN AGRICULTURE. the winter. Four pounds of seed will be sufficient to supply- plants for transplanting. Having seen the value of this plant, for feeding purposes, on the well-managed farm to which I have referred, I have gone thus at large into its cultivation, believing that the account would be interesting to my American friends. How far its cul- tivation can be recommended in the United States, experience only can decide. Our severe winters, and deep snows, would be much against it in the Northern States ; but there are localities in which, undoubtedly, its cultivation would be beneficial. The obtaining a green succulent feed for our stock in winter, wouU be a most valuable acquisition. The labor required to prepare i would prove a serious objection in a country where labor is difficub to be procured, and where the almost universal practice is hurry and despatch, and things are but too often only half done. 18. Clovers and Grasses. — The introduction of cultivated grasses, though not recent, is, properly speaking, an improve- ment of modern husbandry. In British agriculture, various kinds have been introduced; but I shall speak of those which ar* 1 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. NINTH REPORT. CXIL — FRENCH AGRICULTURE. The agriculture of France is its great and commanding inter- est. Its manufactures and commerce are considerable ; but its manufactures are mainly concerned in the fabrication, and its commerce in the transportation and exchange, of the products of its own soil. I should have no difficulty in giving the statistical returns of the agriculture of France ; but this comes only in a limited degree within my province, and a long table of mere numbers would convey little instruction to my readers. It is of great advantage to France, however, that it procures these returns regularly ; and thus, as in the late scarcity of grain and in the failure of the potato crop, enabled the government to provide early, with a humane foresight, against the sufferings which were likely to follow. It is sufficient to say that France has nearly thirty-six millions of inhabitants ; and that in ordinary seasons she is able, to a great extent, to feed her own people from her own soil. CXIII. — SOIL AND ASPECT. The agriculture of a country of necessity corresponds to its climate, soil, and aspect. Besides these physical conditions, it 372 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. depends upon many circumstances of a political or moral char- acter, and others which may be termed accidental. The terri- tory of France, stretching through nearly eight degrees of latitude, is susceptible of a great variety of cultivation. On the eastern side, it feels the cold influences of a range of mountains covered with perpetual snow ; on its western side, its climate is softened by the vicinity of the broad Atlantic ; its northern portions gather humidity from the ocean which bounds it ; its southern portions enjoy the sunny influences of an early spring and an almost tropical summer, and of the vapors which rise from that most beautiful of all waters, the Mediterranean, which laves its shores. Its territory is traversed in various directions by several magnificent rivers, the Rhine, the Rhone, the Loire, the Garonne, the Seine ; and many minor tributaries, which, if they have not the magnitude of many of the rivers of the western world, aff"ord nevertheless great facilities for inland navigation and transporta- tion ; and, at the same time, present on their banks a large extent of alluvial land of the most productive quality. While the soil of these alluvial lands is most excellent, the soil of the high grounds, as far as it has come under my observation, is of an inferior quality. It is in general strongly calcareous, with the lime or chalk forming almost the entire surface. In dry weather, such lands suffer from the drought, and in wet weather nothing can be more unpleasant to work. Large portions of land likewise are found composed almost wholly of a yellov/ ochrey sand or gravel, mixed at the same time with an aluminous sub- stance, and apparently highly charged with iron, which consti- tutes a soil very unfriendly to vegetation. Of soils purely alumi- nous or clayey I have met with few ; but there are many of a mixed character, with a loam of considerable thickness on the surface. These are capable of great improvement and produc- tiveness. In some parts of the country, lime and gypsum (sul- phate of lime) are abundant; and marl of an unctuous and enriching quality is found in many places. CROPS. THE FORESTS OF PRANCE. 373 CXIV. — CROPS. The common crops of France are wheat, rye, barley, oats, beans, and potatoes ; but its peculiar crops are, beets for sugar, grapes for wine, and silk. Leguminous crops, or esculent vegeta- bles, excepting to a comparatively small amount, for luiman food, are little cultivated ; oats and barley, it seemed to me, only to a limited extent ; buckwheat, in the poorer parts of the country, in a small measure ; and although the southern portions of France, or more than one half of the kingdom, would produce Indian corn, it does not appear to be largely cultivated, and its value seems imperfectly appreciated. Hay, or grass for hay, cannot be said to be largely cultivated ; but there are extensive meadows, which are left in permanent grass. Of the grasses cultivated for feeding, lucern (if it may be called a grass) and sainfoin occupy the first place. The former, when cut green, forms the principal food of the stock during the summer, and when dried makes also an excellent fodder. Vetches do not appear to be extensively cultivated, the preference being decidedly given to lucern. Beans and lentils are cultivated in some districts. Hemp, tobacco, and flax, are likewise grown ; but they cannot be considered as prominent crops. Cabbages are sometimes largely cultivated for stock; turnips rarely; and few fields of ruta-baga, of any great extent, have ever met my eye. I have seen large crops of colza and rape, but they do not pre- dominate. It must be understood that I make these observations with great diffidence. France is a large territory : different portions of it, in all their habits, differ much from other portions. It would require years to give a thorough and perfect account of its husbandry, instead of a brief and cursory examination, which is all that my limits admit of. CXV. — THE FORESTS OF FRANCE. In travelling through France, one is constantly impressed with the immense tracts of land Avhich are in forest. The forest con- voL, II. 32 374 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. nected with the palace at Fontainbleau, only about fifty miles from Paris, is said to contain 35,000 acres ; the forest connected with the palace of Chambord, 20,000 acres. There are other forests in France of great extent, some of them being portions of the national domain, and many of them the property of individual proprietors. They are not, however, kept merely for show, or luxury, or sport. The heath, or common lands, in France, which remain open and unproductive, are returned as 19,499,180 acres, or about one seventh part of the whole surface of the kingdom. The fuel generally used in France is wood or charcoal. There are, it is said, large deposits of mineral coal in France ; but they are not extensively worked, or are not easily accessible, though their value is beginning to be appreciated. Wood, therefore, is grown for fuel, and comes to market by means of the great rivers and canals in the form of wood or coal ; so that these forests are regularly and gradually cut off for timber or fuel, and either replanted or suffered to grow again from the old stumps. The law permits the proprietors to cut off their wood only once in eighteen years ; and this under the control of a government inspector, who requires that it should be cut clean, leaving only such trees as may be valuable for ship-timber or for other pur- poses, which the government claims a right to take for its own uses at an equitable price. Under these excellent arrangements, the supply of fuel is constantly kept good, and the price of wood has scarcely varied for a quarter of a century. In the cities, and in many parts of France, wood is always sold by the pound ; and it is curious in Paris to see the immense arks of charcoal and wood which come down the Seine, and piles of wood in the city, covering acres of ground, and on a level with the tops of the highest houses. The value of the timber in these immense forests is likewise great. Although throughout France the prin- cipal and almost universal material for building is stone, yet much timber and boards are wanted for floors and roofs, and various purposes ; and many large proprietors think that they cannot make a better provision for their children than by planting forests, or preserving and cherishing such as they already have. A FRENCH LANDSCAPE. THE FRENCH PEASANTRY. 375 CXVL — A FRENCH LANDSCAPE. A French landscape is peculiar. A large portion of the terri- tory is comparatively level, with few great inequalities. The appearance resembles that of some of the large prairies of the United States ; for in a great portion of France fences of any kind are unknown. Here and there a large farm-house, or what is called a chateau, or castle, meets the eye, with its customary appendages; but the laboring people chiefly live in villages, which seem scattered about like islands, and are generally known by the spire of the church overtopping the cluster of houses. The French villages more resemble compact towns than country villages ; the streets are ordinarily paved ; the houses are placed directly upon the street ; and though there are usually or fre- quently gardens attached to the houses, it is remarkable that there are no trees either for shade or ornament in the streets. Yet the great roads through the country, which are usually as straight as they can be made, furnishing a paved way in the centre, and two side paths which are unpaved, are commonly lined with trees on each side for many miles. CXVII.— THE FRENCH PEASANTRY. Excepting with the great farmers, where there are small build- ings for the residence of the permanent laborers ordinarily in the court-yard, or immediate neighborhood of the great house, the peasants generally live in the villages, and sometimes go long distances to their work. They rise early, and among their first duties are those of religion ; their first visit being, in most cases, to the village church, which is open at all hours. I have often met them there in the morning, when it was scarcely light enough to see the way ; and I have found crowds of them in the churches at night, after their return from labor, when, with only one or two lamps burning over the altar in the church, it has 376 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. been so dark that the dress of persons could not be distinguished until you came within arm's length of them. It is the beauty of the Catholic religion, that, although it is in a degree social, it is at the same time individual and personal in its character ; that although the ceremonials of the worship are of a splendid, and often gorgeous description, yet the worshipper seems regard- less of every thing but his own particular part in the service, which he performs silently, and generally with an intensity and an abstractedness which are remarkable ; and in churches whose splendor and magnificence it would require a brilliant pen to describe, I hav^e seen laboring men in their frocks, and with their spades upon their shoulders, and market-women with their baskets upon their arms, go up to the altar, and after perform- ing their devotions, and evidently with no other object in their thoughts, go away to their labors. In all parts of Europe the women are as much engaged in the labors of the field as the men, and perform indiscriminately the same kinds of labor. Having been much among the peas- antry and the laboring classes both at home and abroad, I must in truth say, that a more civil, cleanly, industrious, frugal, sober, or better dressed people than the French peasantry, for persons in their condition, in the parts of the country which I have visited, and especially the women, I have never knov/n. The civility and courtesy, even of the most humble of them, are very striking. There is neither servility nor insolence among them : their economy is most remarkable ; drunkenness is scarcely known ; their neatness, even when performing the dirtiest work, is quite exemplary; cheerfulness, and an innocent hilarity, are predominant traits in their character. The wages of the French peasantry are in general from a franc to a franc and a half per day to a man, that is, ten to fifteen pence, or twenty to thirty cents ; and to women about four fifths of the former sum, or about eight pence, or sixteen cents. In this case, they ordinarily provide entirely for themselves. In harvest, however, or under extraordinary circumstances, they are pro- vided for in addition to their wages. Cofiee and tea are scarcely known among them. They drink no ardent spirits. Their usual drink is an acid wine, not so strong as common cider, and this mixed with water; they have meat but rarely; occasionally fish ; but their general provision is soup, composed chiefiy of SIZE OF FARMS, AND DIVISION OF PROPERTY. 377 vegetables and bread. Bread, both wheat and rye, is \vith them literally the staff of life. With all this they enjoy a ruddy health ; and the women are diligent to a proverb. They seem unwilling to lose a. moment's time. I have repeatedly seen them carrying heavy burdens upon their heads, and at the same time knitting as they went along. CXVIIL — SIZE OF FARMS, AND DIVISION OF PROPERTY. The size of farms in France has been a subject of much dis- cussion. The right of primogeniture has ceased to exist there : and since the great revolution, the law has ordained that the land possessed by any one at his death should be equally divided among his children. This did not take place without a hard struggle against it on the part of the great proprietors, nor without many predictions of ruin to the agriculture of France, from the infinite subdivisions which the land was likely to undergo, and the small size to which farms were about to be reduced. The law, however, has been maintained, and, as far as I have been able to observe, with the happiest results to France.* It was predicted, that, under such an arrangement, no system of exten- sive agricultural improvement could be attempted ; and that small proprietors being thus multiplied, and the laborers them- * In France the total number of taxed landed properties is stated, in 1835, to have been 10,89G,G82, and these were again divided into 12-3,300,338 separate pieces of land. It is supposed, however, that of heads of families occupying estates, which combine many of these smaller divisions, and which consequently become merely nominal partitions, thei'e are about 5,000,000. Now, allowing an average of four to a family, it will be seen that tliere are 20,000,000 of peo- ple in France directly interested in the property of the soil. The number of proprietors of the soil in England, who hold landed property yielding a rent of £100 sterling per year, is stated, at the same time, at 38,000 ; and the whole mimber of proprietors of the soil in England and Wales is rated at 200,000, and in the whole United Kingdom at 600,000. The extent of the United Kingdom is about two thirds that of France. — Statistique GinSrale de la France, par Schnitzler, torn. iii. p. 11. 32* 378 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. selves becoming proprietors, the lands of the country were destined to go into the hands of men without capital, too igno- rant to understand or learn the best modes of cultivation, and without the power of applying, even if they knew, them. These objections are not wholly without force ; but as this subject possesses considerable interest for many persons, I hope to be excused for enlarging upon it. It happens with respect to many things which are deemed evils, or from which evil conse- quences seem likely to result, that there is a compensating or balancing power at work, which, if left free to operate, of itself corrects the irregularities, restores the equilibrium, and prevents the evils apprehended. If all France were to be cut up and divided into pieces of ground of the size of a table-cloth, as, from the comments made upon this law by those who know nothing of its actual operation, one would suppose was likely soon to be the case, we should expect a state of things extremely adverse to the national prosperity. But it must be remembered, that while the law requires an equal division of the land among his children at the death of a proprietor, it does not require that the land should remain thus divided. The appropriation of it is left optional with those who inherit it ; and in this, as in other cases, they will be governed by their interests, their convenience, and other nameless circumstances by which human conduct is ordi- narily influenced. A father dying and leaving several heirs, sons and daughters, it is scarcely probable that they will all wish to devote themselves to agriculture, and this too when the parts of such property growing out of this division would be, either of them, too small, under any circumstances, for the support of a family. The result is, as we should expect it would be in such case, that some one of the heirs purchases the rights of the others, and the farm remains in its integrity. What, then, is the advantage of such a law ? It is, that it leaves this matter, as it should be left, to the choice of the parties concerned ; and that it in fact prevents the too great accumula- tion of landed property in the hands of individuals. Tliere can hardly be a greater evil, in countries where labor is abundant, and population presses hard upon the means of subsistence, than that immense tracts of land, which might be made productive, should be locked u\) in the hands of individuals who will neither use the land themselves, nor suffer it to be used by others. It SIZE OF FARMS, AND DIVISION OF PROPERTY. 379 seems a violation of natural right, justice, and humanity ; and there are many circumstances in the condition of society in the old world, which indicate that it must be modified or abandoned. One of the first duties of society is, to give to every man a perfect security in the enjoyment of the fruits of his own indus- try ; but it is equally the duty of society to secure to every man disposed to labor an opportunity, as far as possible, fully and effectually to exert that industry. The end which governments ordinarily .aim at, is the protection of property; and almost all laws, being made by men of property, have this for their great object. But wealth is ordinarily quite able to take care of itself ; and the object of government should be to protect poverty, which constantly requires protection. The true wealth of a community is its labor, its productive labor. A man is not the richer for houses which he cannot occupy, lands which he cannot use, money that he cannot spend. He might own a continent in the moon, but what would that avail him ? He might die of starva- tion in the vaults of the Bank of England, or in the undisturbed possession of the richest of the mines of Peru. Labor is the great source and instrument of subsistence and wealth. Labor, therefore, honest labor, should be, under all circumstances, the great object of the protection and encouragement of every just government. Laws should be such as to secure to labor, as far as possible, an open field for exertion. Such is the tendency of the laws of France respecting the posthumous division of landed estates. The laws of primogeniture, by which large landed estates go exclusively into the hands of the eldest son, and laws of mortmain, by which lands are forever appropriated to particular uses, are laws of a different description. The law of primogeni- ture seems to many persons essentially unjust in the favoritism which it implies, among those who obviously have equal claims upon parental kindness and impartiality. The law of mortmain and perpetual devises, by which extensive landed estates are locked up and appropriated in perpetuity to particular uses, has met with many warm combatants. They ask, and with what reason I shall leave to the judgment of my readers, Was not the land given to man, that from it, by his labor, he might obtain a subsistence, which, in truth, can come from no other source ? Now, shall any man, or set of men, so monopolize and appropriate this land, that it shall not be available to these objects ? It would 380 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. seem that the earth belongs to those who possess it ; and that, when a man once quits it forever, his rights in it should cease ; yet society admits the remarkable fact, that men who died cen- turies ago shall determine how the land at present shall be used and appropriated ; or that it shall not be used nor appropriated at all. It does not come within my province to enter upon matters of dispute, which, in a period full of questions and inquiries, seem to be assuming importance, and are becoming matters. of private and public discussion. I am well aware of the necessity of giving as perfect a security as human society admits of to the rights of property ; but these rights, it would seem, should be held in subserviency to a still higher right, and that is, the right, to live. That which a man produces by his industry or toil, by his skill or genius, exerted without prejudice to the equal rights of another man, is his own; it is his exclusively, and it should be his in perpetuity ; that is, the appropriation of it should be his, and should be uncontrolled excepting so far as to prevent its application to an immoral object, to an object prejudicial to health or life, or to the public peace and welfare. But the appro- priation of the soil itself to any object in perpetuity, the shutting it up from use, the prevention of its occupation for purposes of human comfort and subsistence, seem incompatible with those natural rights with which the Creator endowed man when he commanded him to till the eartli, that he might from it obtain a subsistence. The laws in many of the states of the United States, when the property of a debtor is seized for the payment of his debts, very properly take care to leave him in the posses- sion of the tools of his trade, that he may still provide for his own, and the subsistence of those dependent on him. A law which would rob him of his tools, and, while the community and his duty to himself and his family require that he should by his labor provide for himself and them, should virtually put it out of his power to exert that industry, would be of the same character with that which, under any pretence or form, in the midst of hungry and starving thousands, excludes them from the use of that soil from which Heaven designed they should get their bread, and from which only it can be obtained. It is one of the great effects of the revolution which gave independence to the United States, and of the great French revolution, that SIZE OF FARMS, AND DIVISION OF PROPERTY. 381 it broke up these restrictive laws, and in general left property in land to follow the usual course of other property ; and, above all, made it universally attainable. In the United States, where land is abundant, and where countless millions of acres must remain for countless years unoc- cupied, laws restraining the monopoly of land are far less neces- sary ; but even in the United States they should have a care to guard against the perpetual appropriation of land for any objects whatever, whether under the plea of pious or of moral uses, as in fact a direct violation of the rights of every generation to judge for itself, and to judge only for itself, what shall or shall not be maintained ; and secondly, as conferring a power which experi- ence shows is liable to gross and injurious abuses. A principal objection urged against this subdivision of land is, that it prevents any system of extensive improvement of the soil by the great processes of modern discovery, — draining and sub- soiling. This argument has some force ; but we may hope that in many cases the owners, seeing their own interests clearly con- cerned in such improvements, may combine their forces to effect them. In many of these small holdings, likewise, the cultivation being by the spade, and not by the plough, the land will be trenched as a substitnte for subsoiling, and an equal productive- ness secured. Where such improvements are obviously demanded, and they might be too great for individual effort to accomplish, there seems no reason why the government itself should not undertake them, assessing the expense upon the different owners of the land in such forms as would be equitable, and made payable at such periods as would render its discharge easily practicable. It is objected likewise that these small farmers having no capital to apply in the cultivation of their lands, and being of a class not likely to be acquainted with modern improvements in husbandry, their agriculture will probably be of an inferior char- acter. These objections must be allowed some weight ; but then the holders of these small parcels are acting under the most powerful of all stimulants — that of their own immediate self-inter- est. They themselves being the owners of the soil, whatever improvements it receives, and whatever crops it produces, must accrue directly to their own benefit. The holding being small, it becomes the more important that it should be forced to the 382 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. greatest extent, in order to meet their wants. This circumstance will prompt to the greatest exertions in procuring from every available source, and in saving their manure for the enriching of their small farms. Labor and economy, thus applied, may be said in themselves to constitute a valuable and active capital. But in place of speculations, let us revert to facts, and inquire how this system has actually worked in France. It has pro- duced a great revolution in the tenure of property ; but from the best inquiries I could make among the most intelligent and can- did, I found a unanimous and emphatical acknowledgment of its beneficial results. In what may most properly be called the rural districts, — that is, a district somewhat remote from large towns and villages, — there are found farms in size from one hun- dred to five hundred, se-ven hundred, and a thousand acres, and upwards; and so it seems likely to remain. The law, though it requires a division of the real estate among the heirs, does not make it compulsory to continue such division. The law in fact does little else in such situations than, so to say, to bring the land into the market, and leave it then to be disposed of accord- ing to the circumstances of time and place. But in cases of partition, we may suppose a farm of twelve hundred acres divided among four heirs ; they would have farms of a respectable size ; divided again, it would leave farms of seventy-five acres each, which perhaps may be considered the average size of farms in New England, and exceeding the aver- age size of Flemish farms. Even another division of the same number of parts might take place, and twenty acres would cor- respond with the size of many of the most productiv^e farms in Belgium. Many persons, in arguing against such an arrange- ment, proceed upon the supposition that the division is to be infinitesimal. But this is absurd ; and, as I have already re- marked, the evil of too great a subdivision has already a ten- dency to correct itself, and to stop where it would become positively mischievous. This is found to be the case, as I have remarked, in the strictly rural districts. But a person passing through the environs of large towns and cities will perceive that the division has proceeded very far ; the fields often appear like patchwork, and are cut up into very small pieces. This is exactly as it should be. These pieces are owned by small gar- deners, who supply the markets with fruit or vegetables, and SIZE OF FARMS, AND DIVISION OF PROPERTY. 383 who, on account of its limited extent, carry their cultivation to a high perfection, and often in the number, variety, and quantity of their crops on these small pieces of ground, astonish one by their success. Very often these pieces of land are owned by persons engaged in severe mechanical trades in the cities, who find health and needful recreation in their cultivation. One thing is quite certain in such cases — that no land thus situated will be left uncultivated ; and under the system of minute econ- omy to which it is subjected, will unquestionably be rendered as productive as possible. If we look at large farms in Great Britain, — I mean farms of hundreds of acres, with the exception of some of the best culti- vated districts, such as the Lothians in Scotland, for example, or the counties of Northumberland, Lincoln, and Norfolk, and only some farms in these counties, — we shall find that even these are by no means always fully cultivated ; and that, either for want of skill, or enterprise, or capital, large portions of them are wholly unproductive. This is far less frequently the case with small farms, for the simple reason that the owners cannot aff'ord to neglect their land, and that the management is much more easy. It is to be added likewise, that in very small holdings, of six, or ten, or twenty acres, the great expense of a team, and of costly implements, is dispensed with. In some parts of England, though very rarely, but in many parts of the Continent, and especially in Switzerland, the small farmers use their milch-cows for work, thus getting a double advantage from them ; and a milch-cow, used tenderly, and treated liberally, may be worked from four to six hours a day without injury to her milk. This saving is a great circumstance. On large arable farms it may be calculated, that from a fourth to a third of the produce must be counted for the support, and equipments, and cost of the teams. The saving of this expense is a great affair ; and this is accom- plished on small holdings where cows are kept, which pay the expense of their keeping by their labor and their calf; or where, as in many cases, the whole cultivation is performed by human instead of brute labor — by the spade instead of the plough. I believe, therefore, it will be found, that in a fair comparison, the small farms are in fact more productive than the large ones ; that they are managed at less comparative expense, and, in propor- tion, leave more for human consumption. 384 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, If thus much may be said of the economical resuhs, still more may be said of the beneficial moral influences of such a system. Of all the influences which operate to promote exertion, indus- try, and good conduct, none certainly is more powerful than the hope of bettering our condition ; and I may add, without undertaking to give a reason for it, as an established truth, that nothing inspires more self-respect, as connected with a feeling of independence, than the possession of property, and especially the possession of a fixed property in house or land. This eff'ect is constantly seen in the laboring classes among the French. They are extremely ambitious of getting a piece of land ; and perhaps too much so, after once coming into possession, of extending their possessions. This stimulates them to industry, and induces the most rigid economy. The subdivision of property or of land in France renders this practicable, which, in other countries, where the right of entail prevails, or where property is held in large masses, and guarded with extreme jealousy, is out of the question. There is a wise foresight likewise, in this matter, in respect to the security of public order and the peace of the country. The persons of all others least likely to engage in projects of revolution certainly are those whose property must in every case be endangered by such revolution ; whose possessions are fixed, and not transferable from one place to another at pleas- ure. Their estates constitute the strongest pledge of their loy- alty and patriotism. The more property is divided in a country, the more equally it is held, or rather, that it should be attainable by all on equal conditions, the greater security is there for the rights of property ; the more are concerned in the preservation of the public peace. The humblest agricultural laborer in France may look forward, by industry, sobriety, and economy, to become a proprietor and a holder in fee-simple of some portion of the soil which he cultivates. There is, therefore, the strongest inducement held out to good conduct ; and the benefi- cial influence of this condition of things upon the character of the French peasantry cannot be doubted. Few things have struck me more forcibly than the diflerence in the condition of the agricultural population of France and that of Great Britain — a subject to which I have already referred. I have never seen a more healthy, a better-clad, or a liappier population, than the French peasantry. Something may SIZE OF FARMS, AND DIVISION OF PROPERTY, 385 be ascribed lo their naturally-cheerful temperament, and some- thing to that extraordinary sobriety, which every where, in a remarkable degree, characterizes the French people ; but much more, I think, to the favorable condition in which this law, which renders attainable the possession of a freehold in the soil, places them. I am extremely averse to making any unfavorable comparisons ; and I am quite aware that my judgment may be at fault ; but I shall offend no candid mind by the calm expression of my honest opinion, The very poor condition of a large portion of the English agricultural laboring population must be acknowledged. The acquisition of property is, in most cases, all but impossible. The great difficulty, where there is a family, is to subsist ; in sickness they have no resource but private charity or parish assistance ; and they have, in most cases, nothing to which they can look forward, when the power to labor fails them, but the almshouse. I believe there is an equal amount of philanthropy, and as strong a sense of justice and humanity, among the English, as among any people ; but it is not to be expected, in any country where wealth constitutes the great and most enviable distinction, and where, by various circumstances, avarice is stim- ulated to the highest degree, that the great mass of the com- munity should be either philanthropic, or humane, or just. Wealth is almost every where, in what is called civilized, and too often miscalled Christian, life, the great instrument of power. Power is a dangerous possession, and always liable to abuse. The only security against this abuse is the division of power ; and to give the humbler classes the means of helping them- selves. In Great Britain, as I have already said, the rural laboring classes are placed in circumstances of hardship and disadvantage. It would be ordinarily quite idle for them to aspire to the owner- ship of land. Philanthropic and benevolent persons, in various parts of the country, have given them small allotments ; though some have endeavored to limit these allotments to one eighth of an acre, and many farmers have combined in denouncing the allotment system, and have refused to take leases where the laborers were to be allowed allotments. The beneficial effects of these allotments, both upon the comfort and morals of the VOL. II. 33 3S6 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. laboring classes, have every where been acknowledged ; but under the best circumstances, the allotment system can never be a substitute for that by which the ownership of the land is itself attainable. I will not contest the point that great improvements can only be expected. to take place on large estates and with the help of large capital ; yet, on estates of a medium size, such as a hundred or even fifty acres, these are, perhaps, more likely to take place than on estates of a much larger size, as being ordinarily more within the reach of most men — the majority of farmers being men of restricted capital. The immense improvements in diking and embankments, and in redeeming land from the sea, which have been made in Holland, and in Lincolnshire and Cambridge- shire, in England, could only have been effected by the union of large bodies of proprietors. No single fortune is any wiiere competent to such enterprises. I will not deny that under a system of large farms more produce may be for sale ; and, in a commercial view, more money will be made, and larger fortunes accumulated. But I cannot agree that the wealth of a community, held as it ordinarily is held, is the standard of its prosperity. That undoubtedly is the happiest condition of society, where none are over-rich, and none ex- tremely poor ; where one is not continually offended by those striking contrasts of enormous wealth and extreme destitution, which some countries present. That condition of society is undoubtedly above all others to be preferred, where the power of bettering our condition is, as far as possible, equally enjoyed by every man, and certainly not denied to any one ; and where every possible encouragement and facility are given to the exer- tion of this power. It is often a great charity to help our neigh- bor ; but the best and wisest of all forms, in which this charity can be exercised, is that, when a man helps his neighbor to help himself. MEASURES FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 387 CXIX.— MEASURES OF THE GOVERNMENT FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF AGRICULTURE. The measures of the government for the advancement of agii- culture have much to recommend them, if they are carried out in an iuteUigent and faithful manner. 1. Department of Agriculture. — In the first place, there is a department of agriculture, the secretary or minister of which, being one of the first men in the kingdom, is expected to look after this great interest ; to obtain statistical returns of agricul- tural produce from all parts of the kingdom ; to learn what is the condition of the art ; what improvements have been made : what improvements are most required ; and what is the condition of the agricultural population. 2. Statistical Returns. — The statistical returns of the produce of France have been recently completed, and show a work of immense industry and labor. It is obvious that such a work can present only an approach to exactness ; but even that is of great value ; and it will be found that some facts have been brought out, in respect to the average increase of the crops, which are in the highest degree encouraging. These returns have been obtained by a direct application to well-informed and confidential individuals, in different parts of the country, who have made their returns to the central bureau in Paris. A great variety of subjects have been embraced in them, such as the amount of land in cultivation ; the amount of land devoted to different crops; the manure applied; the quantity of seed em- ployed, and the average yield. It extends, likewise, to the number of persons engaged in agriculture, and the number of domestic animals reared or kept in every department, with a great variety of agricultural and commercial information, sub- sidiary to and connected with the subject, of a very interesting character, and of equal utility. This magnificent work does the highest honor to the government, and to the persons employed in its execution. 388 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 3. Inspectors of Agricultural Districts. — The next provision made by the government is the division of the king- dom into four agricultural districts, to each of which an intelligent and experienced agriculturist is appointed, as inspector or com- missioner, whose duty it is to go through his district annually at least, observe carefully its condition, and report it to the govern- ment ; and at the same time, in his journeyings, communicate every where advice and information, as he may see that they are needed. This is certainly an admirable mode of dispensing knowledge and exciting emulation.* 4. Importation of Improved Stock. — The government likewise have imported from other countries some of the most valuable animals, such as bulls and stud-horses ; and stationed them in different parts of the country, that the farmers may avail themselves of the advantages which they offer for the improve- ment of their stock. On account of the large demands made by government for horses for the cavalry, this becomes a matter of great importance. Whether the keeping of bulls would not be better left to private enterprise, is a question much debated. That which belongs to the public is seldom cared for like that which belongs to an individual ; but the government have met this objection by disposing of their improved animals occasionally at public sales. 5. Agricultural and Veterinary Schools. — Prance has likewise several agricultural schools, established in different parts of the kingdom, of which I shall presently give an account, designed to furnish a complete scientific and practical education in agriculture. In addition to this, they have veterinary schools, where comparative anatomy is thoroughly studied, and the dis- eases of all the domestic animals most carefully treated. These likewise may be supposed to grow in a great measure out of their army, where the medical treatment of their horses is obvi- ously of great importance. * At one time, several persons were employed by the government to visit foreign conntries for the purpose of seeing their improvements, gatlicring agri- r iiltural information, and bringing home such plants and seeds as were likely to bo useful to the country. It is proposed by the provisional government to revive this excellent plan. March, 1848. MEASURES FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 389 6. Agricultural Societies and Show. — In various parts of the country agricultural societies are established, and assisted by the government, for the purpose of diftusing information ; and these will, in all probability, extend themselves. A society in Paris, composed of some of the first men in the kingdom, meets regularly twice a month for the discussion of agricultural sub- jects, for the report of improvements, and, at the end of the season, for the bestowal of premiums. An agricultural show was undertaken the last year at Poissy, the Smithfield of France, where some excellent native, and some very good improved stock, though not to a large amount, was exhibited ; and here I saw sheep of the very best and most profitable kind, especially for such a country as the United States, where good mutton, and particularly fine wool, are in demand. These were pm-e Merinos, of a very large size, well proportioned and fat, and with fleeces of an excellent quality. I have never seen animals of the kind combining more valuable properties. It is intended that these shows, of which this was a first attempt, should be continued annually. 7. An Agricultural Congress. — Previous to this show, an Agricultural Congress, composed of more than 300 gentlemen interested in agriculture, and sent as deputies from different parts of the country, had been sitting in Paris for a fortnight, to dis- cuss practical questions in agriculture, and likewise political questions bearing upon it ; which was done with great ability. At Poissy, the minister of agriculture distributed premiums of large amount ; and every circumstance indicated an active, an increased, and increasing attention to this great subject. 8. Conservatory of Arts and Trades. — Paris is, in the next place, distinguished by its direct means of scientific instruc- tion. It has what is called a Conservatory of Arts and Trades. This is, properly speaking, a school for the industrial and me- chanical classes. Here is a complete collection of models or of examples of agricultural buildings and implements — to say nothing of other arts — not only of those in use in France, but specimens of the best of every description which are used in foreign countries. Here, under accomplished professors, courses of agricultural lectures, or rather of chemistry and mechanics 33* 390 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. as applied to agricLilture, are regularly given, to which access is entirely gratuitous, the professors being supported by the govern- ment ; so that here is presented to inquisitive minds the best means of learning the application of science to agriculture. Perhaps, in the science which involves the connection of chem- istry with agriculture, no country has made so great advances as France, as the labors of Chaptal, Boussingault, Payen, and other distinguished men decisively show. If agricultural chem- istry could make men good farmers, the French should take precedence of all others. How far the facts conform to this sup- position I shall leave to others to judge ; because I have no wish to put my head into the lion's cage ; though I am compelled to say, in passing, that the best arable farming which I have evei seen, the cleanest, the most exact, apparently also the most pro- ductive and economical, is in countries where there is no science, technically so called, and implements only, of the most ordinary description; I mean Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland. I shall take occasion to remark upon this fact in another place. 9. Society for the Improvement of Wool. — Besides the Society of Agriculture, which meets in Paris twice every month, and is the centre of the correspondence of all the agricultural societies of the country, there is likewise a Society for the Im- provement of Wool, which twice a year bestows valuable premi- ums upon persons who have made the greatest advances in the improvement of the fleeces of their flocks. This society has its public exhibitions of wool, and has undoubtedly accomplished much good. CXX. — PARIS MARKETS. 1. Corn Market. — Paris concentrates much within itself that is extremely interesting to an agriculturist. Its markets are in the highest style of convenience, neatness, and abundance. The market for the sale of all kinds of grain is a circular stone building, two stories in height, and 126 feet in diameter, sur- rounded by high galleries for the storage of flour, the unground PARIS MARKETS. 391 grain being in the centre on the floor, and covered in by an iron roof of admirable architectural construction. The building is completely fire-proof. The grain is always brought to market in sacks, and the building, it is said, is capable of containing 10,000 sacks. There are to be found here wheat, rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, beans, peas, lentils, and vetches. Bureaus, or small offices, are ranged round the circle on the inside for the factors, or salesmen ; and, as in almost every other department of busi- ness in France, women are as much employed in the sale of grain as men ; and there can be no doubt they manage with admirable skill and address. Sharp trading seems often the characteristic of the sex ; excepting only where the affections are concerned. The Corn Exchange is held here two or three times a week. 2. Meat Markets. — The meat markets are of the neatest possible description ; but they are scattered about in shops. The beef in Paris, in point of fatness, is much inferior to the Eng- lish ; yet it is of a fair quality. The mutton is likewise very inferior to the English. Some persons complain of the English beef and mutton, especially the Dishley mutton, as being much too fat, and therefore attended with great waste. Veal, in France, is not killed until it is full six months old, and is of the very finest description. The meat shops in Paris are shut in by doors of iron grating, so as to admit a free circulation of air at night, with cloths covering the meat to ward off" the dust ; and they are visited every morning by the police, and undergo a strict examination, so that, if there is any meat of a bad descrip- tion, or which has remained on hand too long, it is at once con- demned and seized. The butchers in Paris are licensed, and laid under heavy bonds to conform to the police regulations ; and the meats and other articles brought into Paris are subject to a duty, collected at the barriers, which goes towards the improvements of the city. 3. Markets for Eggs, Butter, Cheese, Vegetables, Fruits, Poultry, Fish, &c. — The market of the Innocents,* as it is called, is one of the largest in Paris. This market is to undergo great alterations, and a very large sum is in reserve to build it * Being the site of an old convent or nunnery. 392 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. upon the most extensive and magnificent plan. This market comprises not only the great fish market of Paris, but also the egg market, the butter and cheese markets, the potato market; the onion market, and the general vegetable and fruit markets. The sellers, with scarcely an exception, are women, very sharp, very busy, and of course very talkative. Looking down upon the whole area from the magnificent fountain in the centre, it would be diflicult to find a more gay and animated scene. The fountains in Paris are one of its most remarkable features ; and no principal market is to be found without its continually-flow- ing fountain. The vegetables, butter, eggs, fish, and many other things, are always disposed of at auction early in the morning to the retail dealers. The vegetables in Paris are excellent. Carrots, and turnips, and onions, are not so large as in England and the mar- kets of the United States, because the French deem the large- sized vegetables not so good for eating as the smaller-sized. It is remarkable, likewise, that there is hardly any season of the year when almost any description of vegetables may not be found in the markets of Paris ; and in the middle of December, green peas, asparagus, string beans, and strawberries, may be purchased in quantities, which shows the perfection to which the art of gar- dening is carried among them. The fruits exposed in the markets of Paris are of a superior quality, pears especially, for which the French have long been celebrated. The St. Michael and the St. Germaine pears, which, in the United States, have almost wholly failed, from having, as has been supposed, completed their period, are here still in per- fection, which would seem to contradict this theory, and leave some other cause to be discovered for the extraordinary failure of these excellent fruits. I have not been able to ascertain any thing in respect to the culture of any of these articles, which is not familiarly known to all cultivators. 4. Market tor Forage. — I have spoken of the grain market in Paris ; it has likewise its hay and forage markets, where ex- tensive sheds for protection against the weather are furnished. These articles, as in England, are sold in small bundles of a fixed weight. I shall, perhaps, surprise some of my American readers if I inform them, that hay, in small packets or bundles, PARIS MARKETS. 393 is often sold in Paris at the groceries. I refer to this fact for an opportunity of making a remark, which, hereafter, if it has not now, will have some importance in the United States ; and that is, that where hay, for example, is bought in such small quanti- ties, it is likely to be expended with an extreme economy. No observing American comes from the United States to Europe, without soon becoming convinced, that economy of living is no- where so little understood as in his own country ; and that for nothing are the Americans more distinguished, than for a reckless waste of the means of subsistence. The refuse of many a family in the United States, even in moderate circumstances, would often support in comfort a poor family in Europe. When persons buy tea by the ounce, and wood by the pound, and hay by the handful, it is quite obvious that these articles will be expended with far more frugality, than where the store is less limited and seems inexhaustible. While meanness is contemptible, a rigid economy, avoiding all waste, is a great virtue. The inhabitants of the United States enjoy an abundance for which they cannot be too grateful ; but which is very little understood in Europe, where, with a large portion of the population, including many in the middle condition of life, it is a constant struggle to live, and to bring even their necessary expenditure within their restricted means ; and where the constant inquiry is, not what they want, but what can they afford, — not what they will have, but what can they do without. 5. Horse Market. — Paris, besides its grain and cattle mar- kets, has likewise, weekly, its horse market, for the sale of horses, mules, and asses, where immense numbers of every description are brought, and change hands ; and where the morality is probably upon a par with that of the trade in horses in other parts of the world, of the green-spectacle character, as exemplified in the Vicar of Wakefield. 6. Flower Markets. — The flower markets are another extraordinary feature in Paris. These are held at all seasons of the year, in three different parts of the city, twice a week, and in the most favorable season comprise a collection of flowers and plants as beautiful as the climate admits of. It is stated on good authority, that occasionally there are exposed in a day, in Paris, 394 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. for sale in these different markets, not less than 30,000 pots of flowers, the value of which is estimated at full 9000 dollars, or £1800 sterling. With the strict notions of utility entertained by- some persons, such facts may seem scarcely compatible ; but, if we may judge that to be useful, which gives us a pure and per- fectly innocent pleasure, certainly there is no luxury whatever which should be looked upon with more favor. There are dis- tinct markets, held likewise at proper seasons, for the sale of trees, ornamental and fruit-trees, and flowering shrubs and plants, presenting an extraordinary and beautiful variety. CXXI.— THE CULTURE OF FLOWERS. — BOTANY. Perhaps I have already said, in other places, as much as my readers will bear, with patience, of the cultivation of flowers. Yet I must crave a further indulgence. I must urge it on grounds of utility, on grounds of taste, and, above all, on moral grounds. My words will reach many dwellers in the country, who, amidst their daily severe labors and toils, are sighing for some relaxation, and some refreshment of the soul. They want something which shall relieve the dull monotony of their daily toil ; something which shall interest their cares, their thoughts, their imaginations, I will add, their affections. They require that which, so far from wasting, shall invigorate their strengtii. They require a pleasure which shall be inexpensive, and easily attainable, and innocent, and wiiich, enjoyed to its utmost extent, so far from satiating and exhausting either the body or mind, shall not weary the former, and shall enlarge, recreate, and ele- vate the latter, and fill it with the purest delight. All this is at hand in the cultivation of flowers. The taste which leads to it is among the most pure and the most innocent which can be indulged, and where it does not interfere with imperative duties, is unexceptionable. I cannot say that, as a science for study, botany is ordinarily presented in a form interesting to general readers. The general classification of plants, and the scientific distinctions which are THE CULTURE OF FLOWERS. BOTANY. 395 made between them; the physiology of plants, so far as it is understood, which admits us at once into some of the most won- derful and beautiful secrets of nature ; the different modes of culture which different plants require ; their peculiar adaptation to various soils and climates, so strikingly as it displays the benevolent adaptations in the works of a wise and omniscient Providence ; the acclimation of different plants, and the curious changes which, under such acclimation, they undergo, and by which, like many animals, they are brought from a savage into a domesticated state ; the presence of certain plants in certain localities, found nowhere else, and where their presence would seem indispensable to render such places habitable to human beings ; the economical uses of different plants for food, for cloth- ing, for building, for mechanical purposes, for naval purposes, for fuel, for coloring, for light ; the medical uses of different plants, so extensive as it is found to be in every pharmacopoeia ; the infinite variety of fruits, not for subsistence merely, but for lux- ury ; the uses of plants in the fine arts, for imitation, for adorn- ment, and for taste ; the chemical qualities or properties of plants in their particular uses, and in their general influences upon the atmosphere which we breathe, in the gases which they take in, and those which they exhale : the control and influence which human sagacity and power have been able to exert over the vege- table world in acclimating plants, in propagating them, in fruc- tifying and engrafting, and changing the different species ; — all these matters, directly involved in the science of botany, render it one of the most interesting of studies ; and, even in its present imperfect state, it is the business of years to master it. The extensive discoveries, likewise, which have been made of fossil plants, in particular geological formations, which, as compared with present existing species, lead to so many curious inductions in regard to the past condition of the earth, open to the mind many interesting subjects of inquiry. It is as obvious, likewise, that the establishment of a common scientific and technical lan- guage, by which the description of a plant, wherever found, shall be every where understood, and the plant, when met with, recog- nized, is of the highest importance. But botany, as it is com- monly taught in schools, and as it appears in botanical works in general use, seems little else than a vocabulary of arbitrary and technical terms, in a language not generally understood, creates 396 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, usually but little interest, and is of little practical utility. Within my limited knowledge, the botanical work is yet to be written, which shall present the subject in that natural, plain, instructive, familiar, comprehensive, elevated, — I hope I may add, without offence to science, — popular form, which would give to rural pursuits and recreations, and to the culture of ornamental as well as of useful plants, an interest, a utility, a delight, even to humble minds imperfectly educated, infinitely beyond what they are now found to have with many persons, in other respects of cultivated taste and enlarged knowledge. But, putting aside this view of the subject, in which it cannot be expected that the study of botany should become general or even frequent, the simple cultivation of flowers, without any skill or knowledge in technical botany, can scarcely be too strongly enjoined upon the dwellers in the country. While I would urge it upon the wealthy proprietor, if there were occasion for it, I would with still more earnestness press it upon the small farmer, and even upon the cottager and the laborer, who, in the United States, if he will, may always have his house and his garden, humble as they may be, and, I may add, his acres, to devote, as he chooses, to purposes of utility and recreation. No farmer, in my opinion, should be without his fruit and vegetable garden, to which he should be able to look for a large portion of the daily supplies of his table ; for profit, as matter of economy, for health, comfort, and luxury ; and a part of this, or a portion additional, should be devoted to the cultivation of flowers and plants for ornament. I do not mean that the great labors of a farm should be intermitted for the care of the gar- den, as some persons profess to fear that in such case it would be ; but they may ordinarily go hand in hand together, and the one serve in truth to advance the other, France is not without such beautiful examples. On every well-regulated farm there should be hours of recreation, when at least the most severe and harassing labors of the farm should be for a while relaxed, I know that there are seasons of the year when such a remission could hardly be expected. But there are seasons when there is ample leisure ; and in almost every household, and on almost every farm, there are what may be called supernumerary hands, women and children, to whom such cares would always be a welcome occupation and a healthful pastime. THE CULTURE OF FLOWERS. — BOTANY. 397 On grounds even of interest, a proprietor may find, upon con- sideration, that he is essentially a gainer by every thing which improves the appearance of, or serves to embellish, his estate. This may be a small matter in England, where estates are held to keep ; but it is worthy of much reflection in the United States, where almost all estates seem to be held to sell. There may be most expensive embellishments, which should never be undertaken without being maturely considered ; there may be embellishments in very bad taste, against which it would be difficult to prescribe any other remedy than that which improved education brings with it ; there may be embellishments of a costly yet of a perishable nature, which certainly are not to be chosen ; but embellishments planned in good taste, corresponding with the general character and uses of the property, greatly im- prove the value of an estate, far beyond their cost. Shade trees, ornamental and flowering shrubs, are always easily attainable, and may be considered as permanent improvements, which give a real and durable value to an estate. In speaking thus on this subject, among the great variety of tastes which I may be expected to encounter, I know there are many to whom I cannot look for sympathy. They, I hope, will at once turn these pages over, and leave them for persons who take an interest in these subjects. These rural embellishments are common in Europe ; but they are not appreciated, or, if ap- preciated, they are not yet so general as they should be in the United States. I wish they might be universal. 1. The Floral Magnificence of EngLxVND. — In England, they prevail every where, and render the country extremely beautiful. There is not a country-house without its shade trees, its ornamental hedge-rows, its shrubby avenues, its parterres of flowers, its trellises of vines of the most beautiful description ; sometimes covering all the sides and the roofs of the houses with their thick matting of foliage, suspending their rich tresses over every door-way, climbing every corner, peeping into every win- dow, and covering it with their graceful drapery as a curtain, and hanging, in thick masses of green and gold, intermingled often with flowers and fruit of the most exquisite richness and beauty, from the edges of the roof, and from every angle and projection, where they can fix their grasp. I have seen nothing VOL. II. 34 398 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. to surpass the admirable and charming diversity, and beauty, and richness, of these embellishments as I have found them all over England ; not unfrequently at the residences of the lower classes, as well as those of the rich and noble. I have found often the humble cottage of the humblest laborer adorned with vines of unsurpassed luxuriance ; the sweetbrier exhaling its delicious odor under the windows, and roses, and geraniums, and syringas, and dahlias, disputing your passage to the door. These are the petted children of his industrious wife and daughters ; and he looks at them with honest pride, and drinks in their odors with the sweeter relish, because they are trained by hands which disdain no useful labor, and can be enjoyed in all their fragrance and beauty without giving pain to a single human being. Bet- ter than all this, they are to every passing observer the outward and infallible indications of the industry, frugality, neatness, and good economy, which reign within. Wherever circumstances admit of it, every considerable coun- try-house in England has likewise its conservatory, in which, at least, the female part of the household shelter those objects of their care, which are too tender to bear exposure ; and find recre- ation and keep alive the remembrance of the summer's glories and magnificence, when winter utters his hoarse voice without doors, and commands all that has life to retire before his sweep- ing and icy blast. 2. The Flower Gardens of Paris. — The Garden of Plants. — Paris is not only distinguished for its beautiful flower markets, but for its beautiful flower gardens, which may be said to be almost unrivalled. The Garden of Plants, so called, in Paris, in extent, in number and variety of plants, in scientific and instructive arrangement, in the perfect condition in which it is kept, and in the extent of its conservatories, is probably un- equalled. It is not only completely adapted to botanical instruc- tion, but likewise to public recreation, combining with these objects as perfect a Flora as science and taste, aided by the ready patronage of the government, have been able to collect and maintain. The most useful as well as the most ornamental plants may here be found and studied in all their aspects and varieties, and in all their habits and uses. THE CULTURE OF FLOWERS. BOTANY. 399 3. The Gardens of the Palaces. — There are magnificent flower gardens likewise connected with the national buildings or palaces in Paris and its vicinity, which, with a liberality that eminently characterizes the French in all their public establish- ments, are open to the public for study, for pleasure, and for recreation ; and in pleasant weather are crowded with persons who appreciate and enjoy them. In most of these gardens, the scientific as well as the familiar name is attached to the plant, together with the class to which it belongs, and the country of which it is a native. The gardens attached to the palaces of Versailles and St. Cloud, and more distant at Fontainbleau, are among the great sights of France. They exhibit the most splen- did triumphs of genius, skill, and taste, in rendering, as far as these can do it, the beauties of nature even more beautiful, the magnificence of nature even more magnificent; and seem, in their shady avenues and their green lawns, their superb trees and their flowers of superlative beauty, in their statues exhibiting the triumphs of the sculptor's art, — an art all but divine; and in their splendid fountains, combining, with the most extraordi- nary brilliancy, what is most exquisite in design and graceful in motion, to rival, if -not to surpass, the splendid and poetical descriptions of the golden age. 4. Rural ExMbellishments in France, Holland, Belgium, Germany, and Italy. — The country in France is very far from being as picturesque and beautiful as that of a great part of Eng- land. The deep verdure of England, owing to .the constant humidity of its climate, and somewhat to the character of its soil, which is adapted to retain the moisture, is not to be looked for in France, where the soil is to a great extent calcareous, and where the droughts of summer are often long and severe. I have already remarked likewise that the villages in France wear by no means a rural aspect. But France is not without its beau- tiful country-houses and villas, presenting often, in their con- struction and adornment, examples of almost unsurpassed taste ; and none of them without the charming embellishments of parks and gardens, lawns and fountains, shrubs and flowers. Some of the best farms which I have visited, farms of several hundred acres in extent, have not been without some of these delightful appendages. 400 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. In passing through Holland, among persons whom we are sometimes pleased to call the stupid Dutchmen — and, in my opinion, there was never a greater misnomer, as I shall presently show — one is charmed with the multitude of residences, orna- mented in the highest degree with shrubs, and vines, and flowers of extreme beauty and luxuriance. At Brussels, at Leyden, at Utrecht, are botanical gardens, supported by public munificence, of great extent, and where no pains are spared to carry the cul- ture of plants to the highest degree of perfection. At Antwerp, and at the Hague, there are public promenades, and gardens, and parks, laid out with trees, and shrubs, and flowers, with taste and liberality, kept in the neatest manner, and open constantly to the recreation and enjoyment of the public. The environs of Frankfort on the Rhine may be pronounced a region of perfect enchantment. The whole city, certainly one of the cleanest and handsomest which I have seen, is surrounded by a wide belt of large extent, and furnishing not only man)" walks, but drives for several carriages abreast, of trees and flower- ing shrubs, and flowering plants of the greatest variety, combin- ing the richness and glory of the vegetable world as far as the climate admits of it. This charming promenade is open always freely to the public for health, recreation, and delight. The public, thu^ freely admitted, never dream of defacing a statue, or disturbing a fountain, of breaking a shrub, or plucking a flower. Indeed, I can almost believe, that the richest fruit might hang there untouched — such is the sentiment of propriety in which these people have been trained, and the conviction deeply im- pressed upon their minds, that what is intended for the common and unrestricted enjoyment of all, should be protected by com- mon consent. In Milan, and Turin, and Florence, and all the principal cities of continental Europe, as far as I have seen, the same taste for rural embellishments prevails, and the same lib- erality in opening these grounds and gardens to the free enjoy- ment of all. In the neighborhood of Rome, a prince,* one of the rich men of the sovereignty, gives up his whole villa, com- prising a large extent of the most richly ornamented and embel- lished grounds, to the free enjoyment of the public. In England, with the exception of the magnificent parks of * Prince Borsrhese. THE CULTURE OF FLOWERS. BOTANY. 401 London, which, for their extent, and in some parts for their beauty, can scarcely be too much admired, these places are not open to the public. The splendid exhibitions of the botanical societies can be shared only at an expense quite beyond the means of the great mass of the community ; and are thus arranged with an evident intention to exclude them. If the acquisition of money for the payment of premiums, to encourage emulation, be the object, this object would not be defeated by admitting the public on succeeding days, or on other occasions, freely or for a small fee. The squares in London, full as they are of beauti- ful shrubs and flowers, are nevertheless all kept under lock and key, and the public are wholly excluded. I must except from these remarks the magnificent grounds of the Duke of Devon- shire at Chatsworth, to which access is free ; the Arboretum at Derby, of which I have spoken in another place, and which the liberality of a spirited merchant has expressly consecrated to public use ; the Royal Gardens at Kew, and the charming grounds at Hampton Court, near London, which are open to the public under proper restrictions. There may be many others, which have not come within my knowledge. A spirit is evi- dently growing up in England, which will presently show itself in the most ample provision for the gratification of the masses. This great people are not wanting in philanthropy ; and though highly conservative in all their arrangements, and phlegmatic and slow in coming to their convictions, are sure to follow them, when they are once determined. I am aware that most of these squares are private property ; but it would be a noble charity, small to those who give, but great to those who receive it, to allow the poorer classes to enjoy them, at least at fixed times, and under proper restrictions. The admirable police of London would easily guard against any irreg- ularity or nuisance ; and, indeed, where people are accustomed to such indulgences, no person thinks of committing a trespass. I believe the English people have as high a sense of honor and justice as any people living, where confidence is reposed in them. It is for want of this confidence that persons are often led to do wrong. No better use can be made of wealth than to multiply the rational and innocent pleasures of the poorer classes, to im- prove their taste, and to elevate their characters. A philanthropic mind can find no higher gratification than in giving pleasure to 34* 402 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. Others ; and the indications of the times strongly show that this use of wealth is becoming as necessary to its security as it is conducive to its true enjoyment. I must add again, that the parks of London, including Ken- sington Gardens, for extent and beauty, are nowhere surpassed ; and the neatness and order in which the grounds and walks are kept, is, in the highest degree, exemplary. The government likewise have opened a new park of large extent, Victoria Park, in a part of London where the poorest inhabitants reside, for their health and recreation, and are fast progressing in its em- bellishment and improvement. They have other plans for pro- viding public grounds for the inhabitants, which are as creditable to the liberal views of the government, as they are serviceable to the health, and, I will add, to the moral improvement of the population. But what are we to say in the United States, where, in a country in which the rapid acquisitions of wealth almost realize the fables of romance, and where old cities are becoming crowded, and cities and towns are fast multiplying, to be filled with the children of industry and toil, there is very little or no provision of this kind for the public health and recreation, or for the im- provement of the public taste and education by ornamental and embellished gardens and grounds ? This seems to me a cardinal omission ; and it is not a little humiliating, that while, under monarchical and despotic governments, the most liberal provision is made for these objects, and the freest liberty accorded, yet in a republican country, where the people have all the power in their own hands, they will do nothing for themselves. It re- quires no great sagacity to foresee, that, with our rapidly increas- ing population, this improvidence — to use no stronger term — will be to be deeply deplored, and when those who come after us will learn how much more easy it would have been to prevent than to cure an evil or supply an omission. This subject is one of great importance, and especially in a country where institutions are in the progress of formation, which are to affect the destinies of unborn millions ; and where no childish and slavish reverence for antiquity prevents the most independent inquiry into what is just, what is expedient, and what is useful. Too much pains cannot be taken, too much attention cannot be given, and scarcely too much expense THE CULTURE OF FLOWERS. BOTANY. 403 incurred, in providing rational and wholesome pleasures and rec- reations for the poorer, and especially the laboring, classes of the community. The rich can always find for themselves the means of pleasure and enjoyment. If they do not exist near home, they can seek them abroad ; and they are often so crowded and surfeited with them, that enjoyment itself becomes almost a toil. It is wholly different with the poor and the laboring classes. They are ordinarily fixed in their residence, and have little power of locomotion ; their lives are commonly passed in almost unceasing labor; their residences in general, in cities, are in the compact and most crowded quarters, where ventilation is imperfect, and where the cheerful and invigorating light of the sun is often shut out, and where, consequently, strength is more rapidly exhausted ; diseases are engendered ; the comfort of liv- ing is not known ; life itself is abridged ; the decencies of life are forgotten or trampled upon ; moral disease and crime follow in the rear of physical suffering and privation ; and a gangrene appears upon the social body, spreading through all the circulations its disastrous influences. Every effort should be made, and all pains should be taken, that these labors may be relaxed ; and that some innocent and wholesome recreation should be provided for these children of severe and almost un- ceasing toil. Public gardens, and shaded and ornamental grounds, should be established, and every effort be made to render them accessible and attractive. These people are almost in danger of forgetting that there are green fields, and blue skies, and trees which offer a refreshing shade, and flowers which combine the most delicious perfumes with the richest beauties of form and coloring, and warm suns, and glittering stars, and floating clouds of every form and hue, which, in their expansive folds, and in their brilliant and gorgeous coloring, seem the fit emblems of that abyss of glory, where the Divine Majesty has fixed his throne, and into which human presumption has not dared to penetrate. I would do all that can be done to bring these peo- ple "out of darkness into this marvellous light." The recreations of the laboring and poorer classes, especially in cities, are generally of the lowest character. This is particu- larly the case in England, where large numbers of the laboring population, either in the town or its neighborhood, give them- selves up to gross excess. In many of the mechanical trades, 404 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. the workmen, who are usually paid off on Saturday night, do not return to their employment until Tuesday morning, — with their senses stupefied, and, usually, their earnings expended, and their families unprovided with bread. From what I have been able to observe, it is different in France. The public grounds and gardens, of the most beautiful description, are thrown open to the public, and, especially on Sunday afternoons, are crowded with well-dressed men, women, and children. At Versailles, at St. Cloud, in the Champs Elysees, and the Garden of Plants, the Garden of the Tuileries, and of the Luxembourg, where not only these beautiful grounds, but the public galleries and palaces, are also open, I have seen several times, on a Sunday, thousands, tens of thousands, twenties of thousands, enjoying tlie walks, the flowers, the lawns, the shades, the fountains, the statues, the paintings, the most beautiful productions of ancient and of modern art. Here are persons of every grade in society, and thousands of blooming and happy children and young persons ; but not a flower is ever plucked, not a twig broken, not a statue defaced, simply because every thing is put under the protection of their honor. Here is not the slightest irregularity or want of perfectly good manners any where apparent ; no crowding, no shouting, no loud talking, no swearing, no drinking, and no drunkenness ; and the people at the close of the day retire quietly to their own homes, or mingle in the evening in some innocent festivity. This has always given me unaffected pleasure, and I do not know how, by these people, the Sunday afternoon can be more rationally spent. It is obvious what a gain there must be to public morals, whenever we can draw men from pleasures of a low and purely sensual character, ruinous alike to health and morals, and utterly destructive of all self-respect, and give them a taste for pleasures of a purer, and, I may add, a spiritual and intellectual character. The pure and simple love of nature, so liable to become extinct amidst the harassing cares, and labors, and frivolities, and sensual indulgences of city life, is among the most wholesome senti- ments which the mind can cherish. The love of the beautiful, of the curious, of the grand and sublime in nature, can never become injuriously excessive ; and as it is, in its own character, perfectly innocent, so we have reason to thank the Great Author of nature, that its resources, and the field of its application, are absolutclv unbounded and inexhaustible. THE CULTURE OF FLOWERS. BOTANY. 405 For my own part, I look upon all these establishments as one great branch of public education. Men are not instructed merely by books and masters, by schools and set lessons, but by every thing which meets the eye and the ear, and especially all which meets the eye and the ear directly, without the intervention of any other agent. Few persons, in even the humblest condition of life, can range through a fine and extensive botanical garden, or through a museum of natural history in any of its forms, without gathering much useful instruction ; but especially with- out having their curiosity excited, some thirst for knowledge awakened and stimulated. This being once put upon the scent, will often pursue the chase with interest and pleasure, and as often with eminent success. What is more gratifying to our self-love than any triumph in such case ? and what pleasure is more innocent, more pure, and more intense oftentimes, than the pleasure, under such circumstances, of acquiring knowledge ? Compare with such gratifications the purely sensual pleasiu'es and low indulgences which engage a large portion of mankind, how infinitely do they transcend them ! The one transient and per- ishable, always stimulating to excess, and that excess always pernicious, exhausting to the animal vigor, ruinous to health, and but too often the blighting, the degradation, and the ruin of the whole mind. Not so with the pleasures of refined taste, of intel- I'ectual progress and attainment. The more knowledge is ac- quired, the more the capacity and facilities of knowledge are increased. The more the mind is exercised, the stronger it becomes. The more the taste for intellectual pleasures is culti- vated, the less likely is man to become the slave of his lower appetites and passions. Then, what a great gain will it always prove to the laboring classes, if labor can be something more than mere mechanical drudgery and toil ! AVhat a gain it nuist be, if, in the midst of almost unremitted labor, requiring only a mechanical dexterity, which practice soon renders easy, there are resources within to alleviate this monotony of toil, or rather to make us less sensible to it ; and if, in the intervals of labor, the mind finds means of recreation, intellectual, alluring, delightful recreation, which draw it away from all painful reflections upon what most persons will consider the hardships of a life of con- stant toil! I am most anxious that in cities and in the country much 406 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. should be done — indeed, that every thing should be done which can be done — to educate and so to elevate the laboring classes. I want that they should be treated, not as too often they are treated, as mere animals and machines, to be used and applied as we have the power and inclination to use and apply them ; but as beings who have minds as well as bodies — minds destined to be immortal ; and who should be rendered capable of self- direction. I cannot think that their duty would he less faith- fully, because it would be more intelligently, performed. What- ever benefits the humbler classes must essentially benefit those above them. In agriculture we have learnt one great and important lesson, which seems destined to confer the greatest benefits upon the art, that when, as in subsoiling, the lower strata are loosened, their superabundant moisture drained off, and the air admitted, they become prepared to be mingled with the surface soil ; and thus the whole is enriched, and its produc- tiveness greatly increased : so in society, just in proportion as the humbler classes are educated, improved, and elevated, the whole mass of society is enriched and benefited. CXXII. — ABATTOIRS, OR SLAUGHTERING HOUSES. There are other establishments in Paris which are intimately connected with agriculture ; and among these the abattoirs, or great slaughtering houses, deserve to be considered. There are at least five of these large slaughtering establishments for cattle in Paris, just at the barriers of the city. No cattle are allowed to be driven through the streets of Paris, unless it be very late at night, when the streets are empty; and no person is allowed, under any circumstances, to slaughter cattle in the city. These abattoirs are enclosed by high stone walls, excepting at the entrance, where there is a handsome iron paling ; and the space covered by each of them embraces some acres. These are mag- nificent establishments. The enclosure of one of them, for example, — and they are all built upon the same model, though not all of equal size, — is 615 feet in one direction, and 570 in the ABATTOIRS, OR SLAUGHTERING HOUSES. 407 Other. I shall take the liberty here of borrowing a detailed account of the arrangement of one of them which I have repeat- edly visited. In front of it is a small promenade planted with ornamental trees ; and the enclosure contains twenty-three piles of building. At the entrance are two pavilions containing the offices of those persons who have the management of the estab- lishment. To the right and left of the central court, 438 feet in length by 291 in breadth, are four immense slaughter houses, separated by a road crossing the enclosure ; they are each 141 feet long by 96 broad, and include respectively a flagged court, on each side of which are eight slaughter houses for the use of the butchers, by whom the keys are kept. Each slaughter house is lighted and ventilated from arcades in the front walls. Above are spacious attics for drying the skins and preparing the tallow : and, to preserve coolness, a considerable projection is given to the roofs. Behind these slaughter houses are two ranges of sheds containing sheep-pens, and at the extremities are stables for about 400 oxen. Each of these buildings contains a loft for forage. These masses of building form the sides of the court. At the end is a commodious watering-place and pens for cattle and sheep, besides two detached buildings, each traversed by a broad corridor which communicates with four melting houses, below which are cellars containing coolers. Beyond these, parallel with the outer wall, are two buildings raised on cellars, in which the skins are kept, and near them, in front of the entrance, is a double reservoir for water, 228 feet in length, built in solid masonry, and resting on arches, which form stands for carts. There is also a Triperie, or building for washing and boiling tripe and calves' feet. Cattle and sheep, on coming to Paris, are immediately driven to one of the abattoirs, and there kept at the cost of the butcher. The meat is taken to the shops in the city during the night. The slaughtering at one of the abattoirs, for example, may be estimated at a weekly average of 400 oxen, 300 cows, 600 calv^es, and 2000 sheep. The establishment is superintended by a res- ident inspector of police, and gives employment, independently of the butchers and their servants, to eighteen individuals with their families. Houses for the residence of the workmen and managers are within the court-yard, with handsome grass-plats, trees, and a fountain in the centre. This description gives, how- 408 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. ever, a ver^'' imperfect idea of these truly grand, convenient, and useful establishments. The buildings are all of stone, with roofs of brick-tile upon iron rafters, so as to be completely fire-proof ; and the neatness is such that, excepting in the boiling houses, one is not in the smallest degree oftended by any noisome odor. Every part of the animal is taken care of and turned to some use, and there is no waste of any kind whatever. The blood and waste manure are all received into cisterns, to be applied to some useful purpose ; and an abundance of water, always at com- mand, enables them to keep the slaughtering places, which are neatly paved with flagging-stone, entirely clean. The whole is under the immediate direction of the city government ; and there are so many checks, that there is scarcely a chance, as there is no motive, for fraud. The salesman finds his animals slaughtered in the neatest manner, and the proper returns accurately made. Such establishments are most important in their bearing upon public health ; and I should most truly rejoice to see them taking the place of those private establishments in the neighborhood of our large cities, and in England in the large cities themselves, which are odious in all their relations, and which often poison the atmosphere to a great extent. The public inspection of the establishment by disinterested parties prevents the sale of dis- eased meats, which there cannot be a doubt is carried to a great extent, and with perfect recklessness, in many private establish- ments in some countries, where they are secure from observation. Such establishments as these abattoirs would be greatly for the satisfaction, if not the advantage, of the farmers of the United States, who, driving or sending their cattle to the market, must now, in most cases, resign them to the purchaser ; and, without any opportunity of seeing them either slaughtered or weighed, must rely upon his honesty for a true return of the weight — a reliance not always of the surest kind. It is curious to remark, in connection with this subject, the slow progress of improvement, and the obstinacy with which persons adhere to old customs and usages, however objectionable. The abattoirs of Paris have now been established more than thirty years; and yet London, perfectly aware of their eminent advantages, and so distinguished for its social improvements, and claiming a monopoly of what are called the comforts of life, sub- mits to the terrible nuisance of a crowded cattle market in the ABATTOIRS, OR SLAUGHTERING HOUSES. 409 midst of its thickest population, to and from which cattle are driven at all times of day and night, to the great terror, and often at the peril of life and limb, of the passengers. Slaughter houses are to be found in all parts of the city, even the most fashionable, into which cattle are driven directly through the front doors and passages of handsome residences ; the Newgate market is com- pletely underlaid with subterranean slaughter houses of an odious description ; the blood, and much of the animal refuse, so valua- ble in an agricultural point of view, passes into the common sewer, .either to check the current and produce disease, or it goes on with other filth to poison the waters of the Thames : and in one of the largest and most populous streets in London, for some distance the sidewalk is lined with slaughter houses, where the killing of the animals is open to every passer-by, and where the very gutters, as I have often seen them, are red with blood. The London markets have very imperfect protection against the sale of diseased meats ; and diseased animals in Smithfield meet with a quick disposal at a lower price to persons who in various forms disguise the meat, and impose it upon the humbler classes. Indeed, in all that concerns the cleanness, the preparation, and the economy of human food, and the preeminent neatness of those who sell, as much as of the articles which they sell, the French — I speak particularly of the Parisians — are, within my knowledge, excepting only the markets of Philadelphia, without a rival. They are, indeed, scarcely approached. No part of the animal is lost ; every part which is capable of being converted into human food, is prepared for use ; and even the cold meats, the fragments and remnants of the table, which are sold in the markets to the poor, are always presented in a clean and inoffen- sive manner.* Besides these establishments for the slaughtering of cattle and * The Londoners, it seems, are just waking up to the utility and importance of establishing abattoirs in the neighborhood of the city; thougli, strange to say, they have suffered an admirable establishment of this kind at Islington, conve- niently situated and excellently arranged, to lie useless and to go to decay. Since the above was written, a project for the removal of the Smithfield mar- ket has been defeated, and a public dinner been held to celebrate tlie triumph of the successful party. It ought to have been given in one of the subterranean slaughter houses of Newgate market VOL. II. 35 410 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. sheep, there are abattoirs for the slaughtering of swine, distinct from these, but upon the same plan. I have observed nothing particular in the mode of killing cattle in Paris ; their heads are brought to a ring, and they are then stunned with an axe, and the throat is cut. I do not know that a mode of killing producing less suffering has as yet been devised ; but I am not without hope that even this mode may be improved on. When we consider the vast amount of animal life which the wants and luxuries of man require to be daily taken, human- ity is greatly concerned in the diminution of the suffering attend- ing it. Since Divine Providence has recently revealed to man an inexpensive method of suspending sensibility, so that the most painful surgical operations are endured without suffering, and even without consciousness, and the first discovery has been succeeded by one as effectual, and even more simple and of more easy application, I see reason to hope that it may be applied to the lower classes of animals, to save them, in the cases referred to, the pangs of death ; and thus an immense amount of animal suffering be prevented. If there are any who regard the subject with indifference, and look upon the suggestion as ridic- ulous or useless, I can only say that with such persons I have no sympathy whatever. They have a practice in Paris which I have not seen any where else. When the skinning of the animal is commenced, a large bellows is inserted under the skin, by which it is inflated, and becomes much more easily separated from the flesh than by the ordinary process of skinning with the knife. CXXIII. — THE FILTH OF PARIS. There remains one establishment to be spoken of, directly con- nected with, and of great importance to, agriculture, as Avell as to comfort and health ; but which, having no other than a dis- agreeable interest to many of my readers, I forewarn them at once to pass it over ; though a French writer humorously observes, that " a book written upon asafoetida is in itself no THE FILTH OF PARIS. 411 more offensive than a book written upon roses." In some respects, the habits of the French, both in their houses and the streets, are execrable and abominable. No familiarity in any degree reconciles a delicate mind to them ; and exposures are frequently witnessed in the public streets, which are absolutely brutal, and which in England, (not in Scotland,) and in most parts of the United States, would be regarded as indictable. Yet Paris, in other respects, is an eminently clean city ; and even in these matters is evidently improving, and is, with the exception of Milan. Turin, and Genoa, vastly in advance of the Italian cities. Rome, Florence, and Naples can hardly be considered other than as three great public necessaries, where the most sacred places are scarcely free from nuisances, which shock all decency and reverence ; and the old town of Edinburgh, and Glasgow, and Dundee, may fairly claim an unenviable position in the same rank. This subject, considered in a philosophical and practical view, is of the first importance. It would be altogether a false, in truth, a mere affectation of delicacy, to hesitate to treat it as its importance demands. In all the arrangements of Divine Provi- dence, nothing strikes the reflecting mind with more force than the beautiful circle of mutual dependence and reciprocity in which every thing proceeds ; so that the humble elements per- form their part, and the most elevated and brilliant can do no more ; and the part of the former is as essential to the common well-being as that of the latter. Look at a heap of manure, composed of every offensive sub- stance which can be congregated together, reeking with detes- table odors, and presenting a mixed mass of objects utterly disgusting to the touch, the smell, and the sight. Yet this is the food of the vegetable world ; containing all the elements of richness, nourishment, health, and beauty. All these the plants know how to separate, to analyze, to digest, and appropriate, and with a skill distancing the sagacity of science, they will return it purified and sublimated in bread, and wine, and oil ; in flowers of exquisite coloring and beauty ; in perfumes the most odorous which nature's toilet can furnish ; in fruits luscious to the taste ; and, above all, in products indispensable to life, and full of health and strength. The farmer standing in his barn-yard, knee-deep in its offensive accumulations, may proudly say, " Here is the 412 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. source of my wealth ; that which has fed my cattle shall now- feed my crops ; that which has given fatness to my flocks shall now give fatness to my fields." A mysterious power is ever operating in every department of nature ; suffering nothing to fail of its use ; •' gathering up the fragments, that nothing he lost ; " and providing for the various wants of the infinitely varied forms of life to which existence has been given, and from which, if the Creator should, for one second, withdraw his guar- dian care, the whole must instantly perish. The refuse of a city may be considered as of at least five diflerent kinds ; first, the ordinary refuse of a house, such as fragments of vegetables, remains of food, bones, rags, and a thousand miscellaneous and nameless substances ; second, the remains of fuel, such as ashes and soot ; third, the refuse of dif- ferent trades, of workers in leather, workers in bone, workers in horn, soap-boilers, glue manufacturers, workers in hair and in wool, sugar refineries, and the innumerable other trades always to be found in the busy hive of a city ; fourthly, the dung of the domestic animals, cows and horses ; and lastly, human ordure or night-soil. I shall say little of some other substances which have been used for purposes of manure ; but it is well known that many graveyards have been ransacked for the purpose of gathering up their mouldering relics, and that many hundreds of tons of human bones have been transported from the field of Waterloo to England for the purpose of enriching the cultivation. It cannot be denied in this case to be a more rational, humane, and, I will add, Christian use, than that to which they were put in the bloody arena, where they were first deposited. In Paris, every species of refuse is husbanded in the most care- ful manner. No refuse is allowed to be thrown into the streets after a very early hour in the morning, nor until after ten o'clock at night. This refuse consists of what may be called the house- dirt, and is laid in heaps in front of the houses near the gutters. A very numerous class of people, called chiffonnicrs, consisting of as many women as men, with deep baskets on their backs, and a small stick with a hook at the end, carefully turn over every one of these heaps, selecting from them every article of bone, leather, iron, paper, and glass, which are thrown at once into their baskets, and, being carried to their places of general deposit, are there again examined and assorted, and appropriated THE FILTH OF PARIS. 413 to any specific application for which they may be suited. These persons appear like a most degraded class ; they inhabit par- ticular quarters of the city, and the interior of their habita- tions is such as might be expected from their occupation. The profession descends in families from father to son, and from mother to daughter. They are a most industrious race of peo- ple ; and many of them may be seen, even at midnight, with their lanterns, taking advantage of the first pickings, and antici- pating the labors of the coming morning ; and with the earliest dawn they are sure to be found at their tasks. No article of food escapes them ; and they call the street their mother, because she often thus literally gives them bread. Though their occupation is necessarily dirty, yet they are almost always comfortably clad, and are never ragged. They never beg, and disdain to be considered objects of charity. They are licensed by the city authorities, for which some trifling sum is paid, and for which they must be recommended for their sobriety and good conduct. They have their particular districts assigned them, and are very careful to prevent all foreign intrusion. The chifl:bnniers having done their work, next come the sweepers and collectors of dirt. Every inhabitant of Paris is required, under a penalty, to have the sidewalk in front of his place of business or residence carefully swept every morning. The sweepers of the streets in Paris are almost universally wo- men, who, with long twig or birch-brooms, sweep the streets thoroughly, and all the accumulations are taken in carts to be transported to the great places of deposit. The women assist as much in loading the carts as the men. These women appear to work extremely hard, carrying always a long broom in their hands, and a shovel fastened to their backs, to be used as occa- sion may require. The gutters in Paris are washed out every morning by fountains, which are placed in every street ; and what these sweepers are not able to collect for the carts, they are care- ful to sweep into the drains leading into the common sewers. I have looked at these people and at the chiffonniers often with great interest ; and, filthy and disgusting as their occupation necessarily is, I have always felt in my heart a sincere respect for persons who, poor as they are, would be ashamed to beg ; and who, by the severest and most useful labor, are proud to obtain for themselves and their families, though a very humble, 35* 414 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, an honest living. Ail this refuse is transported to places appro- priated for its deposit, where it remains until it is decomposed, and is then sold to the farmers for manure. CXXIV. — NIGHT-SOIL. — POUDRETTE. The disposal of the night-soil in Paris is a different affair, and occupies a large class of persons. In the crowded parts of Lon- don and Paris, such an appurtenance to a house as an open yard is not always to be looked for, and the houses are built in imme- diate contact with each other. The accommodations for the family are necessarily within doors. In England there are water-closets closing with a trap, and of most exemplary neat- ness. In Paris, with some exceptions, they are not water-closets, but mere cabinets ; and from habitual neglect, which seems too generally to prevail among the middle and lower classes, filling the house with a detestable odor. In many of the houses in the Scotch cities, and houses not always of an inferior descrip- tion, will it be believed, there are no accommodations of this sort within or without doors ? The refuse of the family used to be thrown from the windows at night, not always to the perfect safety of the unwary passenger, and is now commonly carried into the gutters in front of the houses, after ten o'clock at night, to be taken up by the night-carts in passing. Can it be surpris- ing that fever and disease annually remove a large portion of the population of such places ? In London, this refuse passes off into the common sewer,* and from thence mixes with the water of the Thames. It is calcu- * The extent of these sewers may be judged of from the fact, that one day in London I saw a man emerging' from an opening in Hay Street, near Berkeley Square, with a bunch of candles in his hand, who told me he had travelled seven miles under ground. Tlie sewers are about five feet in height, and of a propor- tional width, being the segment of an oval with the bottom cut off, thus Q . This probably was an exaggeration ; but it must require a good deal of courage to have ventured even half that distance alone, although it is an undoubted fact, that there are many persons in the habit of daily exploring the sewers, where they sometimes find prizes of value. What an employment ! NIGHT-SOIL. POUDRETTE. 415 lated that this refuse, which may be said to be worse than lost, would be sufficient to manure annually more than a million acres of land, if it could be applied. I have in another place referred to an association formed in London, with an enormous capital, for the purpose of applying the liquid portions of it ; but the progress as yet made does not warrant any public report. The passage of this fecal matter into the sewers does not remove all offence ; for in London the odor from the traps or ventilators of the sewers, which are necessarily frequent, is in warm weather disagreeable and odious. Though the habits of the English are eminently cleanly, yet, judging from the sanitary reports, the condition of things in some of the poorer districts of Loudon, and in several of their manufacturing towns, is most objection- able and degrading,* Paris, in some respects, then, has the advantage of London, and, indeed, of every city which I have been in, excepting the cities of Holland and Belgium — in that all this fecal matter is saved, and certainly with less offence in its removal than could have been supposed possible. In general it is removed by what is called the atmospheric process. The cart is placed at the door in the street ; a long leather hose is extended from the vault to the cart ; and, the air being exhausted, the fecal matter, in a semi-fluid state, passes * The worst parts of Paris and the worst habits of Paris are, however, entirely- distanced by some parts of London, eminently cleanly as it is in many other parts. Hear what the philanthropic Lord Ashley has recently said in his place in parliament: — " He should read a description of a court which he had witnessed himself. It was in such places that a large mass of the community dwelt. In one of these courts there were three privies to 300 persons ; in another there were two to 200 people. This was a statement made by a medical man. In a place Avhere these public privies existed, scenes of the most shocking character were of daily occur- rence. It would scarcely be believed, that these public privies often stood opposite the doors of the houses ; modesty and decency were almost altogether unpossible." — Times, of June 7, 1848. The " cabinets d'aisancc sans odeur," which are to be found in many parts of Paris, and which are always kept in the most cleanly condition, but wliich are often spoken of with sneers by strangers visiting Paris, are to be highly com- mended as useful and important public accommodations. An eminent medical gentleman once assured me, " that a very large portion of the worst maladies which he had to deal with, arose out of improper neglect in this matter, growing out of inconvenient arrangements or a false delicacy, which should be got rid of." 416 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. directly into the cart. The whole affair is managed, not abso- lutely without offence, — for that at present seems impossible, — but certainly without any offence which is avoidable. The men bring their working-dresses with them, so as never to appear in the streets otherwise than in decent attire. The vehicle in which this fecal matter is conveyed, is a very large, tight cask, or sometimes several tight casks ; the horses, harnesses, and the whole equipment are of a neat and perfect description ; and in most cases would never be detected by a stranger, if either he were not informed of their uses, or did not read the inscription of the objects to which they are devoted on some part of the vehicle. In no case is any offensive matter left in the streets, or permitted to escape from the carts, until it arrives at its place of deposit. The carts arrive at their destination before, or as soon as day- light. This place is near one of the barriers of the city. The fecal matter is here suffered to run out upon an extensive piece of ground, flattened and made hard like the bottom of a brick- yard. Here it remains until the liquid portion runs off into an artificial basin, from whence as much as is wanted is taken for the purpose of extracting the sal-ammoniac. The rest escapes into the canal in the neighborhood. The solid matter, becoming dry, is then broken up, turned over, re-broken ; and this process goes on until it becomes so dry as to be easily reduced to powder, when it is laid up in heaps, of which immense masses are accu- mulated. It is thus almost entirely deprived of odor, and may be handled without offence. In this condition it is sold to the farmers, who remove it either in open carts, or in bags or casks. I cannot say that this place, (which occupies several acres of ground,) or its neighborhood, is without offence ; but it is inhab- ited chiefly by persons who get their living by the operation ; and to whom, therefore, the offence is not so great. After the first drying, when it forms a thick and hard crust, it is broken up by the plough, and afterwards by the harrow : and this oper- ation is necessarily several times repeated. In the end it passes through a thorough sifting. As many women are employed here as men ; and the laborers are principally of the lower order of Germans, whose industry and acquisitiveness are usually remark- able. A great many children are likewise employed ; and the search after prizes of value is always animated. As to the health- NIGHT-SOIL. POUDRETTE. 417 iness of the occupation, its early processes are undoubtedly peril- ous both to health and life ; and many a poor fellow perishes in the vaults, into which they are sometimes compelled to descend ; but I found an overseer on the spot, who said he had been con- stantly employed there for eighteen years, and had never suffered even a day's illness. The municipal arrangements in Paris seem to me, in various matters, commendable. For eftecting the process spoken of, so important and indispensable to health, comfort, and even life, there are three contractors, men of large capital, who take the whole enterprise of cleansing the city in this matter upon them- selves. The city is divided into four districts. The contractors are laid under heavy bonds to provide horses, carts, and work- men ; never to remit the work excepting one night in seven, — Sunday night ; and they are paid so much by the cubic foot, by the owner of the house whose vaults they cleanse. They do not begin their work before eleven o'clock at night, and they must leave the city before daylight. The men are divided into parties of five ; and each man has his particular office, and is known among them by a distinct name. The corporal, or over- seer, constituting one of the five, directs the whole operation, and gives his aid as occasion may require. The man whose duty it is to descend into the vault, always does it at the risk of his life from suffocation. They are liable also to suffer from an inflam- mation of the eyes, which makes them blind for several days, in which they frequently weep blood, and Avhich is attended with extreme suffering. The whole number of persons employed in these services, in Paris, exceeds two hundred. They constitute a people by themselves, and the employment goes down from father to son. Their wages are from twenty to twenty-five francs a week, or from four to five dollars, or one pound sterling. A notice is given at the proper office, by the owner of a tene- ment, that his vault requires to be emptied, and the service is immediately attended to. I have gone thus at large into these homely details for several reasons; first, for their bearing upon agriculture; for, perhaps, no manure is so valuable. We send ship after ship into the Pacific Ocean, to bring home that for which we have a substi- tute equal, if not superior, in efficacy, at our own doors. Secondly, because the information how the removal of this mat- 418 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. ter is performed in such a city as Paris, may be of use in other cities, where it is generally left to private enterprise, with very imperfect apparatus and preparations; and is often slovenly and offensively performed. I confess that, in the third place, I have been moved by some moral reasons, because I would lose no favor- able opportunity of calling the attention of the richer and more favored classes in society to the condition of their more humble brethren in many departments of human industry, upon the results of whose labor they live ; and who peril their lives, and pass their days and nights in the most humble, the most severe, and often the most odious and disgusting services, to secure the health and comfort of those elevated above them ; and receive, in the form of compensation for labors so perilous and offensive, that which serves only as a bare subsistence. It is said that the wives and children of the men who perform the most dangerous part of these services, when their husbands and fathers leave home at night, show the same anxiety for their safe return, as if they were leaving upon some perilous voyage by sea. Various methods have been tried for the purpose of disinfect- ing this substance ; but, either from their inefficacy or the diffi- culty and expense of procuring them, are seldom used. Quick- lime thrown into the vaults is said to destroy the best parts of the manure ; but, by many persons, however, it is greatly approved. Charcoal-dust, burnt tan, peat-ashes, the mud from the bottom of rivers or ditches burnt or dried in ovens, have all been used, as it is reported, with success ; and may be recom- mended, not only as disinfectants, but as useful additions. The Parisian arrangements are far from being perfect. In London, at present, every thing of this sort is lost. In Paris, only the solid portion of the excrementitious matter is saved for manure, whereas there is no doubt that the urine is of far greater comparative value than the solid portions. Various attempts have been made to save this in such a form that it might be easily transported ; and in London, manures are sold under the name of urates, which are only urine combined with plaster or gypsum ; but the quantity of urine taken up in such cases is so small, compared with the weight or bulk of the article, that in this respect it is considered of little efficacy or value. Chem- istry would jierforni an immense service for agriculture, if it could discover a means of combining this substance in some AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 419 portable form, and in which its efficacy might be preserved. One of the circumstances constituting the great vakie of guano, and of the dung of birds, separate from the particular food on which they live, is, that their excrements being voided under one form only, the element of urea is inseparably combined with the other matters. I shall not trouble my readers at present further on this sub- ject ,• in which I can only say, I have been anxious to give no offence even to the most delicate mind, and must claim their indulgence if I have not succeeded. I shall now proceed to other topics. CXXV. — AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. The subject of agricultural education has received much attention in France ; that attention is increasing, and new insti- tutions are growing up, to which the government promptly lend their aid. The subject is of so much importance, that I deem it proper to give an enlarged account of the leading establishments for this object which have come under my notice. 1. School at Grignon. — The principal establishment for agricultural education is at Grignon, about twenty miles from Paris. It consists of an estate of 474 hectares, or about 1200 acres, with a large dwelling-house upon it, — formerly, I believe, a royal seat, — and other necessary buildings, which have been erected since its endowment. It was ceded by the French king, Charles X., for a term of forty years, to a society of gentlemen specially interested in agriculture, who have the management of the institution, and, by private subscription, have supplied the funds for conducting it.* The government are represented in the management of the estate. They provide all the instruc- tion, by paying the salaries of the professors and superintendent ; * The sum raised by private subscription amounted to 300,000 francs, or about 60,000 dollars, or £12,000 sterling. The rents paid to the government for the estate are the same as were paid by the farmers who previously held it The substantial or permanent improvements upon the estate are estimated by a 420 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. and they support some pupils. The pecuniary results for the last few years have been favorable ; and all profits go to the support of free pupils, or to increasing and extending the benefits of the institution, which is capable of accommodating seventy pupils. The term of residence is fixed at two years, though it will be seen, from the course of instruction adopted, a much longer time is requisite to acquire a thorough education in the branches prescribed. The institution at Grignon is designed to supply instruction both in the science and practice of agriculture, and the constitu- tion and arrangement of the school seem admirably adapted to this end. The students in general are from that class in life who depend upon their own exertions for a livelihood. This is as it should be. In the United States we have no other class, and, from the present arrangements of property, are not likely to have. Long may this wise and happy arrangement continue ! In a great portion of Europe, a large part of the community are little else than beasts of burden. As long as they live, they must carry upon their backs those who do not choose to main- tain themselves. It is a pity they could not put their burden down, and make them " go themselves." Their doom, how- ever, is fixed ; and with the present distribution of political power, and the present moss-covered institutions respecting property, there is little chance of an alteration. In England and in France a class exists, of which, at present, in the free portion of the United States, we know nothing ; and it may be some time before they are required. These are the persons who man- age the estates of large proprietors ; who in England are called bailiffs or stewards ; in France, agricultural engineers. Grignon may be said to be particularly designed to educate this useful class. At the same time, there are among the pupils several who seek this education for the management of their own estates ; and these agricultural engineers are themselves, without doubt, hoping presently to become proprietors. In the south of France, land is held generally under what is called the mettaycr system, or what is known in the United States as taking land upon commissioner once in five years, and are to go, at the end of the lease, in acquit- tal of the rent. The money subscribed by individuals was given to the institu- tion. On this capital, employed on the farm, an interest of sixteen per cent, has been realized, which goes, as above stated, to tlie benefit of the institution. AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 421 shares. After certain deductions, the half of the produce is returned to the proprietor as the rent of the land. In either case, such education must be highly valuable ; in the case of a tenant, that he may be able to obtain the best return from the land, and, in the case of the proprietor, that he may know what to require, and how properly to direct the management of his estate. The term of residence at Grignon is fixed at two years ; but the pupil remains three months after his studies are completed, in order to digest and draw up the entire management of an estate, and describe its details in every department. The students are divided into classes denominated internals and externals, or resident and non-resident. The former reside entirely in the house, where they are lodged and boarded, and pay about 800 francs, or 32 pounds, or 160 dollars, per year. The externals, or non-residents, provide for themselves, or lodge at the houses of the neighboring farmers, and pay a very small amount for their instruction. This arrangement is particularly designed to benefit poor scholars. Both classes are equally sub- ject to the general discipline and rules of the institution, and are alike engaged in the same works and studies. There are lectures every day in the week. At the commence- ment of each lecture, the professor examines the pupils on the subject of the preceding lecture ; and they are required often to take notes, and present a written report of the lecture. Besides the professors, there are two monitors, who have been educated at the school, who labor with the pupils in the fields. They are expected, and it is their duty, to question the pupils on the sub- jects which have been treated in the lectures ; to show their application ; to illustrate what may have been obscure ; and, in short, to leave nothing unexplained which is liable to misunder- standing or error. There are two public examinations annually, in which the scholars are subjected to a rigorous questioning in what they have been taught. If, at the end of two years, their conduct has been approved, and their examination is met success- fully, they receive a diploma from the institution. They are not only employed in the general work of the farm, but particular portions of land are assigned to individuals, which they manage as they please, and cultivate with their own hands ; they pay the rent and expenses of manure and team, and receive VOL. II. 36 422 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. the product, or its value, from the institution. Certain of them are appointed in turn to take care of the different departments of the farm for a length of time — such as the hog estabhshment, the sheep establishment, the cattle, the horses, the implements, &c., &c. They have likewise adopted a practice, which seems much to be commended — that of employing workmen, shep- herds, cow-herds, &c., from foreign countries, — as, for example, from Belgium and Switzerland, — that they may in this way become acquainted with the best practices in those countries. The time is thus divided and arranged among them : They rise at four o'clock in summer, and at half past four in winter. They go immediately into the stables to assist in the feeding, cleaning, and harnessing of the teams, and the general care of the live stock, according to their respective assignments. At half past five, they take a light breakfast ; at six o'clock, they go into the halls of study, and here they remain until eleven o'clock ; at half past six, they attend a lecture, or course of instruction, which occupies them until eight o'clock ; at half past eight, they are occupied in reading or in making notes of the lectures which they have heard, and the monitors before spoken of are present to render them any assistance required ; at half past nine o'clock, there is another lecture or course of instruction for both sections, which occupies them until eleven, when they take their second or principal breakfast. From noon until five o'clock, the pupils are occupied in labor or practical operations. The professors, from time to time, take a section, and employ them in land-sur- veying, in drawing plans, and in levellings ; others are occupied in mineralogical or in botanical excursions, or in inspecting the management of forest lands ; others are occupied by their teacher in the practical management of farming implements, in the man- agement of teams in the field, in sowing, and other general oper- ations of husbandry, in a field devoted to these purposes ; and a section, to the number of twelve, are every day employed in the direct labors of the farm, in ploughing, digging, harrowing, &c., &c. They work in company with the best laborers, that they may observe and learn their modes of executing their work. They are required to be attentive to every operation that is per- formed, and to present a full report of each day's work to the director-general. At half past five in winter, and at six in summer, they take AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION, 423 their dinner. At seven o'clock in the evening, they go again into the halls of study. From seven to half past eight o'clock, there is another course of instruction, or a repetition of what they have had before. Until nine o'clock, they are occupied in their journals, or in making notes of their lectures. At nine o'clock, the sleeping -rooms are lighted, and they retire for the night. There are several distinct professorships. The Professor of Practical Agriculture gives two courses ; the one written, the other oral ; and, like the lecture of a clinical professor at the bedside, it is given in the fields. This professor understands not only how a thing should be done, but how to do it ; and he can put his hand to every form of agricultural labor, such as ploughing, harrowing, sowing, managing the teams, feeding the animals, handling every instrument of agriculture, buying, sell- ing, &.C. In the words of his commission, his object is at the same time to form the eye and the hand ; to teach his pupil how to learn ; to command, to direct, and to execute. To this end it was necessary to form a complete agricultural organization for practice, independent of the exercises attached to the depart- ments of the other professors. The farm is composed of Arable land, about 670 acres. Land in wood and plantations, .... 365 " Irrigated meadows, 35 " Gardens, including vegetable, botanical, fruit garden, orchards, mulberry plan- tations, osiers, and nurseries, .... 28 acres. Ponds and watercourses, 15 " Roads and lands in pasture, 50 " Occupied by buildings, 6 " The animals on the farm include, Animals of draught or labor of different kinds, 18 Oxen for fatting, • . . 20 Cows of different ages and races, and diflerent crosses, 100 Sheep, embracing the different kinds, . . 1100 Swine establishment, ....... 100 424 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. There are likewise on the establishment workshops or manu- factories, if so they may be called, — For the making of agricultural implements ; A threshing-house and machine for grain ; A dairy room, for the manufacture of different kinds of cheese and of butter ; A magnanerie, or establishment for silk-worms ; A stercorary, for the manufacture of compost manures. To all these various departments the attention of the students is closely called, and they are required to take some part in the labors connected with them. Besides the farm belonging to the establishment, there is a field of one hundred acres devoted exclusively to the pupils, and principally to the culture of plants not grown on the farm. Here they make experiments in different preparations of the soil, and with different manures. Two scholars, one of the second and one of the first year, are appointed to attend particularly to the general condition of the farm. Their business is to examine constantly the whole establishment ; the works that are going on in every depart- ment ; to look after the woods and the plantations ; the gardens; the horses ; the fatting cattle ; the dairy ; the sheep-fold ; the swine ; and the hospital ; and to attend to the correspondence and the visitors. This service lasts a fortnight, and there is a change of one every week, taking care always that there shall be one scholar of the first and one of the second year associated. They attend to all the labors on the farm, and to all the commu- nications between the principal director and inspectors and the laborers. In the veterinary or hospital department of the estab- lishment, they assist the surgeon in all his visits and operations ; take notes of his prescriptions ; make up and attend to the administration of Iws medicines ; and observe particularly the sanitary condition of the stables and buildings, where the live stock, sick or well, are kept. On Saturday evening, each scholar, to whom this duty has been assigned, makes to his fellow-pupils a full verbal report of what has been done. This report is transcribed into a journal designed for that purpose ; and thus a continued history of the entire management of the farm is kept up. The whole school is divided into sections or classes of twelve each ; six of two and AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 425 six of one year's standing ; and these sections are constantly under the direction of the Professor of Practical Agriculture. As the establishment at Grignon may be considered a model agricultural establishment, it may be useful to go more into detail in regard to the course of instruction pursued here. Once a week there is an exercise, which embraces every thing relating to the management of the teams and the implements. First, for example, in the different modes of executing any work, and using the utensils employed. The harness, the collar, the traces, and how attached, the shaft-horse or the cattle attached to the load, and the adjustment of the load to their backs ; the yoke, the single yoke, the double yoke ; the pack- saddle ; the harnessing of a saddle-horse ; the team for plough- ing ; the team for harrowing ; the team for drawing loads ; the team for wagons and for carriages with all their appurtenances ; — every one of these matters is to be practically understood, as well as the whole management of the team in action. In ploughing, the turning the furrow, its inclination, its breadth and depth; the laying out of fields; the management of large and small fields ; how to make the first furrow, and to finish the last furrow ; to lay the land flat, to break it up in clods ; to plough it at a certain angle, to lay the land in curved furrows; — these are all considered, and make part of the instruc- tion given. The preparation, equipment, and use of every agri- cultural implement — such as ploughs, harrows, rollers, scarifiers, cultivators, sowing machines, trenching machines ; the practice of sowing, the diff"erent modes of sowing, whether broadcast, by dibble, or in drills ; the application of manure both as to time, mode, quantity, and preparation, and the composting of manures. — are matters of inquiry and practice. The cutting of grasses ; the making of hay, and the construc- tion of stacks ; the harvesting of grain, by the scythe or by the sickle ; appendages to the scythe, called commonly the cradle ; and the grinding of scythes ; the making of sheaves, and of shocks, or stacks ; and the loading and the stowing away of grain, — are matters to be understood. A practical attention is required to every form of service on the farm ; in the cow-house ; the horse-stables ; the fatting- stalls ; the sheep-fold ; the sties ; the poultry-yard ; the thresh- ing-floor ; the stercorary ; and the storehouses for the produce 36* 426 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. of the farm of every description. The duties in this case em- brace not merely the observation of how these things are done, but the actual doing of them, until an expertness is acquired. Leaving the practical department, we come now to the course of studies to be pursued. For admission into the institution some previous education is demanded, and the candidate is subjected to an examination before the principal and one of the professors. First, he is required to present an essay upon some subject assigned to him, that his knowledge of the French language and grammar may be ascertained. It is necessary, next, that he should be well grounded in the four great rules of arithmetic ; in fractions, vulgar and decimal ; in the extraction of the roots ; in the rules of proportion and progression ; and in the system of measures adopted in France. In geometry, he must be well acquainted with the general principles of straight lines and circles, and their various com- binations ; and with the general measurement of plane surfaces. In natural philosophy, he must understand the general proper- ties of bodies, and be acquainted with the uses of the barometer and thermometer. Candidates for admission must bring with them certificates of good character and manners, and must be at least eighteen years old. They are rigidly held to an attendance upon all the courses of instruction at the institution, and have leave of absence only on the application of their parents or guardians. The studies of the first year are begun with a course of math- ematics. Geometry and trigonometry are made a particular subject of attention ; embracing the study of straight lines, and circular or curved lines, on the same plan ; the admeasurement of surfaces ; the use of the compass ; the recording of measure- ments ; the delineation of measurements ; the surveying of open fields, of woods, of marshes, of ponds or lakes: comparison of ancient land measures with those in present use ; the use of the square, the chain, and the compass; the elevation of plans; the construction of scales, and the ordinary divisions of landed properties. The study of various plans in any form ; solid measure ; conic- sections, their principal properties, and their practical application ; the theory and practice of levelling ; the method of projections AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 427 and their application ; cubic measure of different solids, of hewn stones, of rough stones ; the measurement of loose or broken stones, of sand, of lands excavated, of ground filled in, of stacks, and of heaps of manure ; the cubic measure of trees standing, and of felled trees, of beams, and every kind of carpen- ter's work, of firewood, of walls, arches, and ditches or dikes ; the ascertaining of the capacity of carriages, wagons, carts, wheel-barrows, pails, troughs, barrels and casks, basins or ponds, and different vessels in use, and of granaries and barns, and the determination of the weights of bodies. To all this is added a full course of trigonometry. They are accustomed likewise to the familiar use of the scale, of the square, of the compass, and of the compasses for delineation, and are often occupied in super- ficial and in profile drawing. The next course of instruction embraces embankments, the force of earths and liquids, or their pressure, at rest or in motion. The materials employed in masonry ; their uses and applica- tion in building — embracing stones, bricks, lime, sand, mortars, cements, plaster ; and all the various modes of building. The laying of walls for foundations ; the erection of walls ; the supports requisite ; and the construction of passages, enclo- sures, and arches ; the different kinds of woods, their absolute and relative strength ; their duration, and the modes of preserv- ing them ; every kind of carpenter's work ; the construction of floors, staircases, scaffoldings, and exterior supports ; the con- structions of roofs, in timber, with thatch, rushes, shingles, tiles, slates, zinc, or bitumen ; the paving of roads, the formation of barn-floors, with clay or composition of bituminous substances, which form a hard and enduring surface, — are subjects of inquiry. Next comes instruction in the blacksmith's shop, in the use of the forge, and the other implements of the trade ; and in the various applications of iron and steel, of copper, lead, and zinc. They are instructed, likewise, in the manufacture and use of leather and cordage ; and in the various details of painting and glazing. The prices or cost likewise of all these different pro- cesses, are, as far as practicable, ascertained ; and the modes of estimating such work are explained. The next course embraces the elements of natural philosophy; and this includes chemistry, geology, and mineralogy. First, the general properties of bodies, their divisibility, elas- 428 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. ticity, and porosity or absorbent powers ; and the special influ- ence of this last circumstance upon the character of an arable soil. The following are all subjects of study : bodies in the mass ; the weight of bodies ; means of determining the density of bodies and their specific gravity ; the physical properties of the air ; of atmospheric pressure ; and of the cons-trnction and use of the barometer. The study of hydrostatics ; the pressure of liquids in their reservoirs, and against dikes and embankments ; hydraulics : capillary attraction ; the use of siphons and pumps. The study of heat in all its various phenomena. Its effects upon solid and liquid bodies, and the ciianges which it makes in their condition ; the phenomena of fusion, ebullition, and evap- oration ; of vapors; of the hygrometer or measurer of moisture, and the utility of the instrument ; the conducting powers of bodies ; of metals in particular ; of free or radiating heat ; appli- cation of heat to furnaces or kilns ; laws of cold applied to bodies ; power of emitting and of absorbing cold ; measure of heat ; means of determining the mean temperature of any place ; influence of heat and cold upon vegetation ; means of preserving certain vegetables from frost ; construction and use of the thermometer. Meteorology. Explication of the phenomena of dew ; of white frosts ; of clouds ; of rain ; of snow ; their various influ- ences upon harvest, and the whole subject of cHmate. Study of light. Progress of light in space ; laws of its reflec- tion ; laws of its refraction ; action of light upon vegetation. The subject of vision. The polarization of light ; the explica- tion of the rainbow, and other phenomena of light ; the prism. Study of electricity. Conductors of electricity ; distribution of the electric fluid in nature ; power of the electric rods or points ; electricity developed by the contact of bodies ; of gal- vanic piles ; their construction and uses. Atmospheric elec- tricity ; its origin ; the formation of thunder clouds ; action of electricity upon vegetation ; of lightning ; of thunder ; of hail. Chemistry. Simple bodies ; compound bodies ; diflerence between combination and mixture ; atomical attraction ; cohe- sion ; afllnity ; what is intended by chemical agents. Explana- tion of the chemical nomenclature, and of chemical terms. AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 429 The study of simple bodies. Of oxygen; its properties; its action upon vegetation, and upon animal life. Nitrogen, sulphur, chlorine, carbon, hydrogen ; their action upon vegetable and animal substances ; their uses in veterinary medicine, and their influence upon vegetation. The study of compound substances. Chemistry as applied to air and water ; their importance in agriculture ; their influence upon the action and life of plants and animals; the acids, — the sulphuric, the nitric, the carbonic, the chloric ; the alkalies, — lime, soda, potassium, ammonia ; their application in various forms. The salts in chemistry, and their various applications and uses ; their importance as constituent parts of the soil, or as improvements. The subject of marls and of earths, and of various substances deemed favorable to vegetation. Under the direction of the Professor of Chemistry, the students are taught to make analyses of difierent soils and marls. To this is added a course of Mineralogy and Geology. This embraces the general properties of minerals ; the physical, chem- ical, and mechanical character of mineral substances the most common. The study of the distinctive properties and situation of those mineral substances which are most extended over the globe, and which are the most in use ; such, especially, as the carbonate of lime ; comprehending stones for building, for the making of roads and walls, limestones, marbles, sulphate of lime, or plaster of Paris ; and all the variety of mineral substances ordinarily found, and of use in agriculture or the arts. A course of Geology follows this, embracing all the leading features of the science, with a special reference to all substances or conditions of the soil connected with agricultural improvement. In this case, the professor makes frequent excursions with the pupils, that they may become familiarly acquainted with the sub- jects treated of in the lectures, and see them in their proper local- ities ; so that the great truths of geological science may be illustrated by direct and personal observation. Next follows a course of instruction in horticulture, or gar- dening. Of the soil ; the surface and the subsoil, and practical consid- erations relative to their culture and products. 430 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. Of the climate ; the temperature, the aspect and local condition of the land in reference to the products cultivated ; the ameliora- tion of the soil, and the substances to be used for that object, with the modes of their application. The various horticultural operations, and implements employed ; and manner in which they are to be executed. The employ- ment of water in irrigation ; modes of enclosing by ditches or walls ; walls for the training of trees ; trellises and palings ; and of protections against the wind. The different modes of multiplication ; sowing, engrafting by cuttings and by layers, and practical illustrations of these differ- ent processes. The culture of seed-bearing or grain-producing plants ; the choice of them ; their planting and management ; the harvesting and preservation of the crops. Under this head comes the kitchen-garden, and the choice of the best esculent vegetables for consumption ; the nursery, and the complete management of trees from their first planting ; the fruit-garden, considered in all its details ; and the flower-garden. The general results of gardening ; the employment of hand, or spade-labor ; the care, preservation, and consumption of the products, and their sale. The gardens at Grignon are upon a scale sufficient to supply all practical demonstrations. The next division embraces the botanical garden. Here the whole science of botany is treated in its principles, and their practical application. The study of vegetable organization, with a full account of the prevailing systems and nomenclature of botany, and the classification of plants. Vegetable physiology, in all its branches, and vegetable anatomy ; comparison of plants in their native and cultivated states ; influence of cultivation in developing and improving plants ; the propagation of plants in their natural condition, or by artificial means ; the subject of rotation, or change of crops. The practical application of these botanical instructions ; and especially in the examination of plants or vegetables which may be useful in an economical view. The garden of the establishment embraces what is called a school of trees ; a school of plants for economical and commer- cial purposes ; and a school of plants for common use. These are all carefully classed and distinguished by their proper names. The pupils are accustomed to be led into the gardens by the AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 431 professor, that his instructions may be fully exemplified and coMfirmed. The next branch of science taught at the school is veterinary surgery and medicine. This embraces a course of anatomy and animal physiology. It comprehends a full description of all the animal organs ; and demonstrations are given from subjects, de- stroyed or obtained for that purpose. The functions of the different organs are likewise described ; the organs of digestion, respiration, circulation, and the organs connected with the con- tinuance of the species. Every part of the animal, external and internal, is shown, its name given, its uses explained ; its situation in relation to the other organs ; the good points, the faults or defects in an animal ; the peculiarities of different races of animals, with the modes of discriminating among them. The choice of animals intended for different services, — as in horses, for example, whether for the saddle, the race, the chase, the carriage, the road, the wagon, or the plough. Next, the treatment of the diseases of animals ; the medicines in use ; their preparation, and the mode of applying or employing them. The next subject of instruction embraces a complete system of keeping farm accounts and journals, with the various books and forms necessary to every department. From this the pupil proceeds to what is called rural legisla- tion, embracing an account of all the laws which affect agricul- tural property or concerns. I shall give a specimen of some of the topics treated of in this department. The civil rights and duties of a French citizen, and the constitution of France. Property, movable or immovable, or, as denominated with us, personal and real ; of the divisions of property ; of its use and its obligations. Of commons ; of laws relating to forests ; of the rights of fishing in rivers ; and of hunting. The laws relating to rural police ; to public health ; to public security ; to contagious or epidemic diseases. The rights of passage of men or animals over the land of another; if any, and what. Of crimes. Theft in the fields ; breaking or destruction of 432 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. the instruments of agriculture ; throwing open enclosures ; de- struction or removal of bounds. Laying waste the crops by walking over them ; inundation of fields by the stoppage of streams, or the erection of mills. Injury or breaking of public roads and bridges. Poisoning, killing, or wounding animals. The duties of country magistrates ; guards or justices of peace. Of courts of law. Of contracts, general and specific. Contracts of sale and pro- hibitory conditions. Of leases of different sorts. Of hiring labor J- of the obligations of masters and servants. Of corpora- tions, and the laws applicable to agricultural associations. Of deeds, mortgages, bills of exchange, commissions, and powers of agency and attorney ; insurance against fire, hail, and other hazards. Of the proof of obligations ; written proof ; oral testimony ; presumptive evidence ; of oaths. Of legal proceed- ings ; of the seizure of property real or personal, and of bail. The instruction proceeds imder various courses, and I have so far given but a limited account of its comprehensiveness, and the variety of subjects which it embraces. The study of the different kinds of soil, and of manures, with all their applications, and the improvements aimed at, take in a wide field. Under the head of soils there are the argilla- ceous, the calcareous, the siliceous, turf-lands, heath-lands, vol- canic soils, the various subsoils, loam, and humus. Under the head of manures, come the excrements of animals, all fecal matter, poudrette, urine ; the excrements of fowls : guano ; noir animalisee ; the refuse of sugar refineries ; the relics of animals ; oil-cakes ; the refuse of makings ; tanners' bark ; bones, hair, and horn ; aquatic plants ; green-dressings. The application likewise of sand, clay, marl, lime, plaster, wood-ashes, turf-ashes, soot, salt ; the waste of various manufac- tures ; mud and street dirt. The plants cultivated for bread ; wheat, rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, millet, rice, and the modes of cultivating them. For forage, — potatoes, beets, turnips, ruta-bagas, carrots, arti- chokes, parsnips, beans, cabbage. Lucern, lupines, sainfoin, common clover, trifolium incarna- tum, vetches, peas, lentils, and plants for natural meadows and for pasturage. AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 433 To these arc added, colza, rape, poppy, mustard, white and black, hemp, flax, cotton, madder, saffron, woad, hops, tobacco, chicory, teasels. The weeds prejudicial to agriculture, and the insects which attack the plant while growing, or in the granary or barn. The production of milk ; and, as already said, the making of butter and cheese. The production of wool ; tests of its fineness ; classing of wools ; shearing of sheep ; weight of the fleece ; washing of wool before or after shearing ; and every particular in reference to the subject. The fatting of beef, mutton, and pork. Choice of animals for this purpose ; nutritive properties of different kinds of food ; in what form to be given ; grains entire or ground ; roots cooked or raw, green or dry ; the value of the pulp of beet-root after the sugar is expressed ; refuse of the starch factories ; of the distil- lery ; of the brewery ; fatting by pasture or in stalls ; comparison of the live weight with that of the animal when slaughtered. Care and management of the various kinds of domestic poultry. Care and management of bees, with the construction of hives. Care of silk-worms, and their entire management. All these studies are pursued in the first year of the course ; and the time is so arranged as to aff"ord the diligent pupil an opportunity of meeting his duties, though the period is obviously too limited for the course prescribed. The second year enjoins the continuance and enlargement of these important studies ; the higher branches of mathematics and natural philosophy ; an extended knowledge of chemistry ; and a thorough acquaintance with mechanics, when the scholars, %vith their professor, visit some of the principal machine-shops and factories in Paris, or its environs, in order to become practi- cally acquainted with them. The students are further instructed in the construction of farm-buildings of every description ; in irrigation, in all its forms ; in the drainage of lands ; in the construction of roads ; in every thing relating to farm implements ; and in the consti-uction of mills and presses. As I have said, organic chemistry is largely pursued with the VOL. II. 37 434 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. various inannfactiires to which it is applicable ; and animal phys- iology and comparative anatomy are very fully taught. These studies are followed by a course of what is called agri- cultural technology. This embraces the manufacture, if so it may be called, of lime, of cement, of bricks ; the preparations of plaster ; the making of coal by various processes ; the making of starch; the making and purification of vegetable oils; the mak- ing of wines, of vinegar, of beer, of alcohol, of sugar from the beet-root, including all the improvements which have been intro- duced into this branch of manufacture ; and the pupils, under the direction of the professor, are taken to see the various manu- factories of these articles, so far as they are accessible in the vicinity. The whole subject of forests, of nurseries, of fruit-trees, orna- mental trees, trees for fuel, trees for mechanical purposes, are brought under the student's notice. This is a great subject in France, where wood has an extraordinary value ; where immense extents of ground are devoted solely to the cultivation of trees ; and where, consequently, it is most desirable to understand the proper kinds of wood to be selected for the purpose in view ; the proper mode of forwarding the growth of the trees ; and of removing them without prejudice to their restoration. Under this head comes the culture of Trees for fuel. Trees for timber. Trees for house and ship-building. Trees for fruit, including all the varieties adapted to a particu- lar climate. Trees for their oily matter ; such as olives. Trees for their bark ; to be used in tanning, and other purposes. Trees for their resinous properties ; such as pines. Osiers and willows for making baskets. Mulberry-trees for the support of silk- worms. Next to this comes the culture of vines, and the establishment and care of a vineyard — a subject of great importance in France. I have already spoken of the veterinary course of instruction. This embraces the whole subject of the breeding and rearing of animals ; their training, shoeing, and harnessing, and entire management. Under the head of farm accounts, the establishment itself at AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 435 Grignon is made an example ; the accounts of which are kept most accurately by some of the students, and open to the inspec- tion of all. A journal of every thing which is done upon the farm is made up every night ; and these accounts are fairly transferred into a large book. To this is added, a particular account of the labors performed, and the occupation of each workman on the farm. Next, a cash-book, embracing payment and sales, which are adjusted every fortnight. Next, an account with the house ; charging every article sup- plied or consumed. Next, a specific account of each principal department of the farm ; such as the dairy, with all its expenses and returns ; the pork establishment ; the granary, &c., which are all balanced every month, so that the exact condition of the department may be known. As the students are advanced, more general and enlarged views of the various subjects of inquiry are given ; such as, The taking of a farm, and the cultivation or management to be adopted. The influence of climate and soil. The crops to be grown ; and the rotation of crops. Agricultural improvements generally. The devoting of land to pasturage; to dairy husbandry ,• to the raising of animals ; to the fatting of cattle ; to the growth of wool ; to the production of grain ; to the raising Cf plants for different manufacturing purposes ; or to such a mixed husbandry as may be suggested by the particular locality. The use of capital in agriculture ; the mode of letting farms ; cash rents ; rents in kind ; rents in service ; laws regulating the rights and obligations of real estate ; the conveyance of real estate ,• with the various forms of culture in large or in small possessions, or on farms of a medium size. I have extended, perhaps bevond the patience of my reader, the account of the Agricultural School at Grignon, and yet have given an imperfect and abridged statement of the subject matters of instruction and study at this institution. The institution at Grignon may be considered as a model establishment ; and a thorough education in the various branches referred to, must be, to any young man, an important and invaluable acquisition. 436 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. The question comes up, Will such an education make men better farmers ? It must be their own fault if it does not. There may be some branches of the prescribed course, which may not appear to have a direct practical bearing ; but there is not one without its use ; if not directly, yet indirectly subservient to agricultural improvement ; and if not immediately applicable to practice, yet intimately connected with the agricultural profes- sion, adapted to increase its power, utility, and dignity, to elevate and adorn it. 2. Veterinary School at Alfort. — I must not, in this connection, pass over the veterinary schools of France. There are three of these institutions in France, and they furnish all the advantages to be expected from such establishments. The three veterinary schools established by the government of France are at Alfort, Lyons, and Toulouse, and comprise 600 students. The average number of horses kept on them is 1332 ; viz., 838 stal- lions. 127 mares, 212 colts, 99 fillies, and 56 draught horses,* The one at Alfort is that which I have had the pleasure of inspecting. This establishment is beautifully situated on the River Seine, near the village of Charenton, about six miles from Paris. The buildings for the different objects of the institution are spacious and well contrived, and the grounds sufficiently extensive and judicioasly arranged. Like other governmental establishments in France which have come under my observation, the institu- tion is upon a grand scale, and complete in all its parts. The government of France, in a liberal manner, avails itself of the talents of the most competent men in every department, and of all the advantages wliich science and art can afford; and it spares no expense in the perfect execution of whatever it undertakes. It adds to all this, as is every where to be seen, a refinement of taste in the arrangement of the most ordinary subjects, which increases the expense only in a small degree, which does not abstract at all from the solidity ahd substantial character of the work itself; but relieves that whicK would otherwise be monot- onous, if not offensive, and renders often the plainest subjects attractive. The school at Alfort is designed to furnish a complete course * Statistical Report. AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 437 of instruction in veterinary medicine and surgery ; embracing not horses only, but all the domestic animals. A student at his en- trance must be well versed in the common branches of education : and a full course of instruction requires a residence of four years. The number of pupils is limited to three hundred. Of these, forty are entirely supported by the government. These arc educated for the army ; and are required not only to become versed in the science and practice of veterinary medicine and surgery, but likewise in the common business of a blacksmith's shop, as far as it is connected with farriery. Students can be admitted only by the nomination or with the consent of one of the great officers of government, the minister of commerce and agriculture. The expense of board and lodging is about fifteen pounds, or eighty dollars a year ; the instruction is wholly gratuitous, the professors being supported by the government. The establishment presents several hospitals or apartments for sick horses, cows, and dogs. There are means for controlling and regulating, as far as possible, the temperature of the rooms, and for producing a complete and healthy ventilation. There are stables where the patients may be kept entirely alone, when the case requires it ; and there are preparations for giving them, as high as their bodies, a warm bath, which, in cases of diseased limbs or joints, may be of great service. There is a large college with dormitories and dining-rooms for the students; houses for the professors within the enclosure ; rooms for operations upon animals, and for anatomical dissections ; a room with a complete laboratory for a course of chemical lectures ; a public lecture- room or theatre ; and an extensive smithery, with several forges fitted up in the best possible manner. There are, likewise, sev- eral stands, contrived with some ingenuity, for confining the feet of horses, that students may make with security their first attempts at shoeing, or in which the limb, after it has been sep- arated from its lawful owner, may be placed for the purpose of examination and experiment. An extensive suite of apartments presents an admirable, and, indeed, an extraordinary museum, both of natural and artificial anatomical preparations, exhibiting the natural and healthy state of the animal constitution ; and, likewise, remarkable examples of diseased affections. The perfect examples of the anatomy of the horse, the cow, the sheep, the hog, and the dog, in 37* 438 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. which the muscular integuments, the nerves, tlie blood-vessels, and, indeed, all the parts, are separated and preserved, and ex- hibited, by the extraordinary skill of an eminent veterinary surgeon and artist now deceased, who occupied the anatomical chair of the institution, exhibit wonderful ingenuity in their dis- section and preservation, and present an interesting and useful study, not to the medical students only, but to the most ordinary as well as the most profound philosophical observer. I have seen no exhibition of the kind of so remarkable a character. The numerous examples of diseased affections, preserved, as far as possible, in their natural state, strongly attract observation, and make a powerful appeal to our humanity in showing how much these poor animals, who minister so essentially to our service and pleasures, must suffer without being able to acquaint us with their sufierings ; and how often they are probably com- pelled to do duty, and driven to the hardest services by the whip or the spur, in circumstances in which a human being would not be able to stand up. A great number of calculi, or stones, taken from the bladders of horses after death, are exhibited, of a large size, and, in some instances, of a very rough exterior, which must have excessively irritated and pained the sensitive parts with which they came in contact. One of these stones was larger than the head of an ordinary man, and weighed, as I was informed by the attendant, tliirty-eight pounds. I am aware how severely this account may tax the belief of my readers, but I assure them there is no exaggeration, though I should have found great difliculty in believing the fact, had I not seen the stone. It is scarcely possible to overrate the suffering which the poor animal must have endured under such an infliction.* The department for sick dogs, containing boxes for those which require confinement, and chains for such as require to be kept in the open air, and a cooking apparatus and kitchen for the prepara- tion of their food, was spacious, well arranged, and contained * Facts of this nature strongly demonstrate the importance of pure water for our brute animals as well as for ourselves. Sucli diseases are most likely to occur in a country Avhere the waters are strongly impregnated with lime. In Paris, where, of all places wjiich 1 i)ave seen, they appear least demanded by any excess of modesty, or even sense of common decency, it is said, that since tlie erection of public urinals along some of tlie principal streets, the diseases of gravel or stone in the human subject have greatly diminished. AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 439 a large number of patients. Any sick animals may be sent to the establishment, and their board is to be paid at a fixed rate of charges ; twelve sous or cents, or sixpence, per day for a dog ; and fifty sons or cents, or twenty-five pence, for a horse, includ- ing medicine, advice, and attendance. In cases of epidemics or murrain prevailing in any of the districts of France, the best attendance and advice are sent from these schools to assist in the cure, and especially to watch the symptoms and progress of the malady. In countries where large standing armies are maintained, and where of course there are large bodies of cav- alry and artillery to be attended upon, as well as wagon-horses for carrying the supplies, the importance of veterinary surgery is vastly increased ; but in countries where no standing armies exist, the number of horses kept for use or pleasure, and of other domestic animals, bears a much larger proportion to the number of human beings than we should be likely to infer without in- quiry ; and renders the profession highly important. A large and select library belongs to the establishment, and a garden for the cultivation of medicinal plants, and likewise of the grasses employed in agriculture. A farm is likewise attached to the place, on which instruction is given in practical agriculture, and numbers of various kinds of animals are kept for the pur- pose of breeding the best, and illustrating the effects of crossing. Some selected animals of domestic and of the best foreign breeds, — horses, bulls, cows, and sheep, — are kept for this special object. On one occasion, Avhen I visited the institution, there was a public sale of bulls of the improved short-horns, which had been raised upon the place ; and of some bucks of the best breeds of England, the Leicester, the South-down, and others from a cross of the Leicester with a large-sized Merino. I saw at Grignon the cross also of the South-down with the Merino. These crosses presented examples of improved form, of large size, and of a great quantity of wool of a good, but not of a very fine, quality. These were the result of a first cross ; how far it may be suc- cessfully continued is not determined. Attempts of this kind to intermix breeds of a decidedly different constitutional charac- ter, as far as my inquiries have been extended, have not bcoi satisfactory after a first cross. These animals belonged to the government, and were sold, not with a view to profit, but to the general improvement of the breeds of Franco. In this excellent 440 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. mode, the government provides, in respect to horses, cattle, anu sheep, for the propagation through the kingdom of the most valuable races. The minimum price was fixed upon the animals as they were brought forward, and they went into the hands of those who made the highest advance, and who were required, imder certain conditions, to keep them for the purposes of breed- ing.* Besides these sales, the best description of horses and neat cattle, studs, and bulls, owned by the government, are at the service of the farmers upon the most liberal terms, for the im- provement of their stock. In England, the veterinary establishments are maintained by private subscription. Perhaps, in general, that which is left to private management under the stimulus of personal interest is better cared for than that which is wholly public property; but as in this establishment there is no want of liberality on the part of the government, so there seems to be no want of fidelity and diligence in accomplishing its objects. The students are numer- ous, and the professors eminent for their scientific and practical acquirements. 3. Agricultural Colony at Mettray. — There are two other institutions for agricultural education in France, which I visited with great interest, and a notice of which will not, I hope, be unacceptable — the one at Mettray, near Tours, about 150 miles, the other at Petit Bourg, about 20 miles, from Paris. The colony at Mettray was founded in the spirit of the good Samaritan, which succors the wounded and forsaken traveller by the way-side, takes him home, and there nourishes and cherishes him. This establishment grew out of the compassion of two gentlemen of high rank and fortune, who were moved to essay what could be done for the rescue of unfortunate, condcnmed, and vagabond boys, to save them, if possible, from destruction, and give them the power of obtaining an honest living. It is not consistent with my plan, in this place, to go further into the account of the institution, than as a school of agriculture, though the directors propose three objects of instruction — to qualify their pupils for farmers, sailors, or soldiers. The discipline of the * The expense to the government of supporting the three veterinary schools is said to be about 492,000 francs, or 100,000 dollars, per annum. AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 441 442 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. institution is military. They have a full-rigged ship of ample size in the yard, that boys designed for naval life may here take their first practical lessons ; and they have a well-stocked farm of five hundred acres, which is under direction to be cultivated by the pupils. The institution is situated in a healthy part of the country, and near a large market-town. They employ an educated and experienced agriculturist as director of the farm. The first object is to render it productive, that it may go as far as it can be made to go towards defraying the expenses of the institution ; the second, to instruct the boys in the best and most improved methods of husbandry. The institution had its foundation in private subscriptior], and though, in its commence- ment, it had many difficulties to struggle with, it has now a firm establishment.* Besides a farm, there are connected with the institution a large garden, an extensive nursery, and a manufac- tory for the fabrication of all the implements, carriages, &c., which are used on the farm. The boys are likewise employed in the making of the shoes, caps, clothes, and bedding, which are required, and many fancjT" articles which serve for sale, and give them occupation, when by any circumstances they are pre- vented from out-door labor. The number of pupils is at present 450. It is not intended to keep them after sixteen, but they are willing to receive them at the earliest convenient age. I saw several not more than six or seven years old. They live in fam- ilies of forty or fifty, in separate houses, under the care of a respectable man and his wife, who give them their whole time. This seemed to me a most judicious provision. They have a guardian with them in the fields, who always works with them. Many of them have been condemned at courts of justice for some petty offence, and many of them, orphans and friendless, have been taken up in the streets in a condition of miserable vaga- bondage. The discipline of the institution is altogether moral and paternal. Confinement, abstinence, solitude, and disgrace, constitute the chief pmnshments ; but there are no whips, nor blows, nor chains. It has been so far eminently successful. A * The Vicomte de Courteillcs gave a largo estate, and M. De Metz, a dis- tinguished pliilanthropist and a royal counsellor, besides sacrificing his Jiigh situation at court, lives among the children, and gives — tlic greatest of all chari- ties, his whole time — his hand, his head, and heart, entirely to this object. AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION'. 443 boy, who had been early famihar with punishments and prisons, and now for some time a resident at Mettray, was asked why he did not run away from Mettray. His memorable answer was, " Because there are no bolts nor bars to prevent me." When one looks at the innumerable herds of children, turned, as it were, adrift in a great city, not merely tempted, but actually instructed, stimulated, and encouraged, in crime, and observes them gradually gathering in and borne onwards on the swift current with increasing rapidity to the precipice of destruction, until escape becomes almost impossible, how can we enough admire the combined courage, generosity, and disinterestedness, which plunges in that it may rescue some of these wretched victims from that frightful fate which seems all but inevitable ? I do not know a more beautiful, and scarcely a more touching, passage in the Holy Scriptures than that which represents the angels in heaven as rejoicing over a repenting and rescued sinner. It is, indeed, a ministry worthy of the highest and holiest spirits, to which the Supreme Source of all goodness and benevolence has imparted any portion of his divine nature. If we look at this institution even in a more humble and prac- tical view, as affording a good education in the mechanical and agricultural arts, its great utility cannot be doubted ; and much good seed will be sown here, which, under the blessing of God. is sure to return excellent and enduring fruits. I should have said before, that there is connected with the institution a hospital, which v/as a model of cleanliness, good ventilation, and careful attendance ; all the services of which were rendered by those indefatigable doers of good, the Sisters 5f Charity. 4. Colony at Petit Bourg. — Another institution of a similar kind to that at Mettray, is about twenty miles from Paris, at a place called Petit Bourg. It was once a palace, built by a profli- gate king for a profligate woman, but now is converted into a school of charity, — certainly a better use. It is not designed for criminals or the condemned, but for vagabond children, fa- therless, motherless, and friendless ; and is to be regarded as a place for the prevention rather than the cure of crime. The farm contains about seventy acres ; and though an expensive purchase, and a house much too magnificent for a pauper estab- 444 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. lishmeiit, yet the large rooms in the house, and the various spa- cious appendages, have been easily converted to the useful purposes of the institution. The nearness to the capital, where the subscribers to the funds principally reside, and therefore can have constant access to it, and a quick market for the produce in fruit and vegetables, are compensating circumstances for the exorbitant cost of the land. No person is received over sixteen years of age, or kept beyond twenty-one. The cost of main- taining a pupil is twelve pounds sterling — sixty dollars; and they are paid for by individual subscribers, or out of the common funds. Seventy pupils are now maintained here ; and the appli- cations are far beyond their power of receiving. The children are trained to agriculture, to gardening in its various branches, and some of them to different trades, as tailors, shoemakers, cap- makers, blacksmiths, and carpenters. The farming was of a kind to be immediately productive, and was well managed. The cows at this establishment, as, indeed, in most parts of the Conti- nent which I have visited, are soiled, — that is, fed in the stables constantly ; and were of a superior description. There were two kinds which particularly attracted my attention, under the designation of Norman and Flemish. In appearance tmd prom- ise I have seldom seen any superior. I could obtain no exact returns ; but the Flemish was remarkable for size, and stated to be equally remarkable for her product in milk and butter. With a view to encourage their exertions, the pupils have a portion of their earnings put by at interest, for their benefit ; and which they receive, if, at the close of their term, they leave the place with honor ; but not if they are dismissed for faults or crimes, or if they leave irregularly, and without permission. I hope it will not be deemed out of place if I remark here in passing, that the discipline of the institution is intended to be wholly moral and paternal. Light penalties, which affect the mind, and which are designed to operate upon the self-respect of the offender, and to affect his character and standing, are found much more effectual than any corporal punishments. A public com-t, at which the master presides, is held among the pupils once a week, when the daily records of the institution are looked over. Here the deficient or guilty are called to account by their companions, and the penalties decreed. This, which may be called a court of honor has proved signally effectual. AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 445 There are, besides Mettray and Petit Boiirg, several other institutions on the same plan in different parts of France. They cannot be too strongly commended ; and this seems a kind of philanthropy without fault. Let me add, with reverence, that if it were a mission worthy of a Celestial Messenger to seek and to save those who were perishing, what can be more a duty than, in our humble measure, to imitate a divine example ? * I have deemed it useful to go thus fully into the matter of agricultural education in France, as the subject attracts much attention in England and the United States. The provision made in France for this object is obviously of a most liberal character, and the arrangements are made with equal judgment and wisdom. I pass now to other topics. * Some of my readers may be interested in the subjoined anecdote, wliich I received from the benevolent director of the establishment : Among the re- wards given at the institution, and those, extraordinary as it may seem, most coveted and deemed most honorable, are what are called tickets of favor. These only entitle the possessor to obtain some mitigation of punishment for an offending companion by bearing it himself. In one case, at the strong solicita- tion of the parents, a very unmangeable boy had been received into the institu- tion. Silence is always strictly enjoined at meal times. This boy, after re- peated admonitions, persisted in violating this rule, when a monitor took him by the collar in order to remove him from the table. The boy instantly stabbed the monitor, so as to endanger his life. For this offence he was sentenced to some months' imprisonment and seclusion, upon short allowance. Afler being some time confined, the boys solicited his release; the boy who had been wounded among the rest, and who had a right to claim a favor. After repeated refusals, tlie master at length consented, upon condition that the boy who had been v/ounded should take his place, and suffer out the time which remained to com- plete his sentence. This being agreed to, and the wounded boy taking the place and the penalties of the criminal, the culprit was appointed to the duty of attending upon him by carrying him his food. The confined boy finished the time to which the criminal had been sentenced. In the mean while, the culprit, witnessing the sufferings of the boy whom he had injured, and his magnanimity in undertaking to suffer for him, and the kind and forgiving conduct of the whole school towards him, was so deeply affected by it, that it appeared to have worked an entire reformation of character, and he became and had continued for a long time one of the best boys in the school. VOL. II. 38 446 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. CXXVI. — CROPS. The crops cultivated in France are the usual cereal grains, wheat, rye, barley, and oats ; but what may be called the pecu- liar crops, yielding an immense pecuniary value, are wine, silk, and sugar. 1. Wheat. — In gross amount, the wheat grown in France constitutes an immense crop. With the exception of Russia, from which no accurate statistical returns have been obtained, and in European Russia comparatively little wheat is grown, the bread used being chiefly of rye, it is stated, that more than half of the wheat grown in Europe is produced in France. From the best statistical accounts that can be obtained, the wheat annually produced in the United Kingdom, England, Scotland, Ireland, is . 111,081,320 bushels. In France it is 198,660,000 " The amount of seed ordinarily sown to the acre is from two to three bushels. The return of crop for the seed sown is repre- sented as, in the best districts, averaging 6-25 for one ; in the least productive, 5-40 for one ; but the mean average return for the seed in the principal wheat-growing departments is reckoned at 6-07 for one. These accounts must be considered as uncer- tain. Any person having experience in the case, knows how difficult is even an approach to accuracy. My readers may be curious to know the calculations which have been made in regard to some other countries in this matter. NORTH EUROPE. Countries. Year. Sweden and Norway, . . . 1838 Denmark, 1827 Russia, a good harvest, . . . 1819 , Province of Tambof, . 1821 , Provinces north of 50° latitude, 1821 ncrease for seed sown. 4-50 for one. 6 ii (( 5 11 (( 4-50 a u CROPS. 447 Countries. Year. Poland, 1826 England, 1830 Scotland, 1830 Ireland, 1825 Holland, 1828 Belgium, 1828 Bavaria, 1827 Prussia, 1817 Austria, 1812 Hungary, 1812 Switzerland, 1825, lands of an inferior quality, 8 ; of the best quality, 12. France, inferior lands, 3 ; best lands, 6. Increase for i eed sown . . 8 for one. . . 9 u a . . 8 a li . . 10 a ic . . 7-50 a a . . 11 a c. . . 7 to 8 u a . . 6 a u . . 7-05 a a . . 4 fapoleon, being cut off by the nations at war with him from those supplies of this article, which the people had been accustomed to receive from their colonies, conceived the plan of their supplying this great necessity from within themselves. It was much ridiculed, but he was not a man to be turned aside from any great project by any minor considerations, where success was possible ; his object, to a considerable degree, was accomplished. Since his time, the CROPS. 483 culture and manufacture have been immensely extended, and it bids fair to prove one of the greatest boons that was ever bestowed on agriculture. There are several kinds of beets cultivated, some of which have been cultivated for a long time. The common red or blood beet, ordinarily grown in gardens for the table, is a well-known vegetable, not, I think, however, so highly appreciated in the United States as in England and on the Continent, where it is much eaten. I have known this cultivated with great success for cattle, adding largely to the product of cows in milk. This species, however, is never used for sugar. The next is a very large kind, growing almost entirely out of the ground, of a pink color and white flesh, known commonly as the scarcity beet, or mangel-wurzel, attaining often a large size, and vahiable for cattle. There are one or two other kinds, of a yellowish flesh, growing largely out of the ground, and which are considered even more nutritious for stock than the mangel- wurzel. The beet employed for sugar is called the Silesian beet, with a whitish skin and white flesh ; but the most valuable kinds have a green neck and yellowish tint on the top. This is full as val- uable for the feeding of animals as any of the others, and is decidedly the beet selected for its sugar properties. I have before me the chemical analysis of the properties of the beet-root, but I am unable to derive from them a single practical inference. It may be hoped that chemistry will presently tell us what partic- ular soil is best fitted to its growth, and what manure it pecu- liarly demands ; but this service it has not yet performed. It grows best in a deep, rich, aluminous soil, not a sandy soil, not a calcareous soil, which is unfriendly to it ; and it is particularly desirable that the soil should not be liable to suff"er by excessive drought, so that vegetation is arrested. It will bear to be well manured, but it is not an extraordinary exhauster of the soil. It returns indeed a large amount of enriching matter to the soil in its abundant leaves. The land should be well prepared, by being deeply dug or ploughed, and thoroughly manured, and the beets may be either sown, or planted in rows, of about twenty-seven inches apart, and the plants in the row about fourteen inches asunder. A great advantage comes from growing the plants in a nursery bed, and 484 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. transplanting them. This gives a longer season for the prepa- ration of the land, and the increase of labor in transplanting is compensated by the increased facility of keeping the cultivation clean. The largest crop of which I have obtained any informa- tion, was about forty-nine tons to an acre, and this was a case in which they had been transplanted. The ordinary crop does not exceed, and in many cases it falls short of, twenty-nine tons. The amount of seed required for»an acre is not large, and every single seed produces four plants. A large proportion of the beet- root is water, and it is generally estimated that twenty pounds of hay are equal to one hundred pounds of crude beet. In trans- planting, it is recommended, instead of doubling it up, to break off the lower end of the tap-root, and to plant it with a picker or a dibble. In the culture of the beet, many persons have been in the habit of plucking the lower leaves for their stock, maintaining that the growth of the plant was not injured by this abrasion. Experiments fully establish the contrary. An experiment made in Belgium shows, that where beets, from which the leaves were not phicked, produced nine hundred and twenty-five baskets of roots, an equal part of the field, having been plucked once, pro- duced eight hundred and thirty-nine ; and another portion, which had been twice plucked in a season, produced only five hundred and thirty-nine. The form in which this experiment is stated is not exact, as a basket itself is an uncertain measure, and the degree to which the plucking extended is not stated, but it seems decisive. The leaves, at the harvesting of the crop, furnish a large amount of forage. If left on the ground, they are reputed highly beneficial as manure, still more so if consumed by ani- mals : and cases are reported in which they have been closely packed away, where the air was effectually excluded, and have yielded a valuable forage for the winter. That, exclusive of their sugar properties, they constitute a valuable green fodder for cows in milk, and fatting cattle, strongly recommends them to cultivation. They have this great advan- tage over turnips, that they give no disagreeable taste to the milk ; and that when, in the spring, turnips have become corky, and potatoes sprout abundantly, and seem to lose in a great degree their nutritious properties, the beet preserves its freshness, even into June. CROPS. 485 It is not within my province to go into the subject of the manufacture of sugar, farther than as it is connected with agri- culture. The greatest profits are realized where an individual unites in himself the character of cultivator and manufacturer. The pulp that remains, after the sugar is expressed, is employed in the fatting of cattle and sheep. An eminent farmer, whose cultivation was of the finest description, and who manufactured a large amount of sugar, informed me, that he estimated his pulp, for the feeding of cattle and sheep, as constituting seven-twen- tieths of the whole value of the crop. It was in June, in that most beautiful agricultural country, French Flanders, when I visited him ; and he was then using, and had large reservoirs of, the pulp from the manufacture of the preceding autumn. This he kept sweet and good in large vats, covered with sods and earth so as completely to exclude the air, and guard against a change of temperature. In this case, the beets were not rasped, but cut into small and thin slices by a machine, and then exposed to a hydrostatic pressure. Nothing could be finer than the samples of sugar which he showed me ; and I admired, with great pleasure, the high condition of his sheep and cattle fed upon the pulp. He informed me that he obtained six per cent, of sugar from his beets. The chemists say that the beet contains twelve per cent, of saccharine matter, but the amount obtained does not ordinarily exceed five per cent. Whether this proceeds from the imper- fection of the manufacture, further inquiries may determine. In general, the farmers are not manufacturers, but sell their crude product to the large manufacturers in their vicinity. In such case, they usually make arrangements to receive back a portion of the expressed pulp. If otherwise, it would clearly be an ex- hausting process. It is mentioned, that the pulp constitutes a third of the weight of the crop. One hundred pounds of raw sugar give seventy-five pounds of refined sugar, though it is stated that, by a recent discovered process, the sugar is bleached without being refined. The gentleman to whom I have referred above, states that the manufacture of beet-sugar is at present a highly lucrative opera- tion. At first, when the ports were closed to foreign sugars, prices were such, that, even with imperfect modes of manufac- ture, the business yielded a large profit. Afterwards, when the sugar of the French West India colonies came into competition 41* 486 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. with it in the open market, the colonists found the competition too severe, and thinking themselves on the verge of ruin, they cried to the government for help and protection. The colonies of France were regarded as so important to its commerce and its navy, that the government laid a heavy impost upon domestic sugar. I believe governments never intermeddle directly in the control of human industry without doing somebody a harm ; and excepting where allowed in some qualified cases as the rewards of inventive genius or skill, or as a security to the beneficial uses of capital, which otherwise could not be brought into use, monopolies of every kind combine all the elements of injustice. The effect of this impost was at once to ruin a large portion of the manufacturers of domestic sugar, and arrest the progress of a cultivation destined to exert the most beneficial influence upon the general interests of agriculture. The fixtures and establish- ments in different parts of the country fell into other hands, at a ruinous sacrifice to their original proprietors. The West India proprietors became more clamorous, for avarice was never yet satisfied with any concession, and the impost was still more increased. The elasticity of skill and genius have defied the pressure. Improved modes of manufacture have been discovered, by which more sugar is obtained from the same amount of the raw material, and obtained at a cheaper rate ; and in spite of the heavy imposts, the manufacture is highly profitable, especially to those persons who bought already made to their hands the old manufacturing establishments. In 1842, the production of beet sugar in France reached the enormous amount of 67,717,685 lbs. It had in some years, as it must evidently vary with the seasons, been even more than this ; and there is no reason to suppose that it has decreased. In some parts of the country I have seen several factories of recent erection. When the value of the leaves and the pulp for the fatting of animals is added to this actual creation of weahh out of the earth ; when the wages received by tiie innumerable persons employed in the culture of the plant, and the fabrication and refinement of the sugar, are also taken into view ; when the admirable preparation which this culture makes for the succeed- ing crops ; when its beneficial influences upon the commerce ol the country are considered ; and when, especially, the whole is regarded as the product of healthy, well-requited, and free CROPS. 487 labor, and without even the smallest expense or hazard to human life or comfort, — it is impossible to exaggerate the value of this great and increasing product. A highly-distinguished agriculturist in France, perliaps as competent as any man to speak on this subject, has recently given to the pubHc a statement in regard to it, wliich must attract particular attention. I shall give his statement nearly in his own words. An hectare (about two and a half acres) pro- duces in the Isle of Bourbon about 76,000 kilograms (a kilo- gram is about two pounds and a fifth of a pound) of cane, which will give 2200 kilograms of sugar, and which costs in labor 2500 francs. An hectare of beet-root produces 40.000 kilograms of roots, which will produce 2400 kilograms of sugar, and the expense of the culture of which costs 354 francs. The cost of the cane-sugar in this case is twenty-seven centimes, and of the beet-sugar fourteen centimes only, per kilogram.* These are extraordinary statements, and v/ill be looked at by the political economist and the philanthropist with great interest. There are few of the northern states of Europe, or of the United States, which might not produce their own sugar; and when we take into account the value of this product, even in its remains after the sugar is extracted, for the fatting of cattle and sheep, and of course for the enrichment of the land for succeeding crops, its important bearing upon agricultural improvement can- not be exaggerated. The production of beet-sugar is not by any means confined to France. Large amounts are produced in Belgium, where I found most extensive manufactories, and in several parts of Germany ; but in none of these countries is industry in any form unrestricted; and a man hardly dares to be successful in any enterprise, at least to proclaim his success, lest the govern- ment, by some impost or taxation, should endeavor to avail itself * " According to M. Peligot, the average amount of sugar in bocts is tv.-eive per cent. ; but by extraction they obtain only about five per cent. The cano contains about eighteen per cent, of saccharine matter, but they get only about seven and a lialf. The expense of cultivating an hectare of beets, according to Dombasle, is 354 francs. An liectare of cane, which produces 2200 kilograms of sugar in the Isle of Bourbon, and only 2000 in French Guiana, demands the labor of twelve negroes, the annual expense of each of wliom is 250 francs according to M. Labran." — Commission of Inquinj in 1840. 488 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. of his success for its own advantages. It is thus that every- where industry is checked and hampered, and enterprise scarcely rises from the ground, but is seen fluttering along upon one wing. 14. Silk. — Silk is another large product in France, giving an humble but honest living to thousands and hundreds of thou- sands. Its production is greatly on the increase j and the last year it nearly doubled itself. I know nothing so remarkable, in all its pecuniary and useful results, as the product of this humble insect, the silkworm, whose whole term of being is limited to five weeks. Nothing is to be compared with it in the perfection and beauty of the fabri- cations of which it supplies the material and basis. What man, woman, or child's dress, in any civilized community, is not in some measure indebted to the labors of this humble insect ? and its bearing in a commercial view is an immense affair. In its pecuniary results, with the exception of the article of bread, few things come in competition with it. It is not merely the value of the product as it comes from the insect which gives it importance, but the extraordinary amount of industry and commerce which its humble labors set in motion. In France, as in other old and populous countries, every branch of industry is divided and minutely subdivided. There is in the first place the grower of the mulberry-trees, who does not always connect with this pursuit the production of silk ; but the leaves of his trees are sold in the market as any other forage would be. To him succeeds the grower, or, as he is commonly called, the educator of the silk-worms, who hatches, feeds, and manages the worms until their task is completed, and the cocoons are ready for the market. He is succeeded by the filator, or winder, of the silk from the cocoons, who prepares the crude or raw silk for the manufacturer. Here anotlier and nu- merous class of operatives is set in motion — the si)inner, the weaver, the dyer, the pattern-former, the machinist, and the master manufacturer, from whose hands it proceeds next into the hands of the wholesale dealer, and thence into tbe hands of the retail dealer, to say nothing of the various forms which it afterwards assumes under the agency of modistes, dress-makers, furniture-makers, hat-makers, and the almost countless operations CROPS. 489 and transformations which it has to pass through in the various objects of art of which it constitutes a part. Indeed, it would be difficult to name any single article which plays a more important part in an industrial, economical, and commercial view. The earliest production of silk is attributed to the Chinese, but the particular date of its origin is lost in the obscurity of remote history. There are many other worms which, in the curious transformations through which they pass, involve them- selves, preparatory to their emerging into a new form of being, in a cocoon formed of the finest tissue. But it is the silk-worm, or, as it is sometimes called, the mulberry-worm, alone which furnishes a material of sufficient firmness to be converted into cloth. The production of silk in France is now carried to a great extent. Four years ago it was estimated at 1,200,000 kilo- grams, or about 2,640,000 pounds of raw silk per atmum. The last year it was reported to have doubled itself, but, if this should be an exaggerated statement, the production may yet be set down as having vastly increased ; and, in a peaceful condition of the country, is likely still more to extend itself. It aifords the means of living to many persons, who must otherwise be with- out resource. In many ])arts of this culture, the hands of chil- dren avail as much as those of men and women, and thus the industry of whole families is set in motion. The silk-culture has generally been considered as limited to a hot climate, and some have maintained that it belonged exclu- sively to countries in which the vine could be successfully culti- vated. The silk made in temperate climates, and even in the mountainous parts of hot countries, where the temperature is moderate, is esteemed better than that produced in very hot countries. It is difficult to prescribe the exact limits of this production. The mulberry will grow in very high latitudes: but in such cases, it is liable to be killed by the severe frosts of winter, and it is indispensable that the season should be long enough, after the first defoliation, for the mulberry-tree to renew and perfect its leaves. The worms require a mild and temperate climate ; for though they have been grown or reared in rooms where the temperature is, properly speaking, artificial, yet the expense and trouble attending such arrangements are a serious 490 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. abatement of the profits, added to the difficulties of managing such a temperature, and tlie risks to tlie lives and heahh of the worms. It is important to make every effort to keep down the expenses of the culture. The mulberry may be considered as the only proper food of the silk-worm. Various substitutes have been proposed by the Chinese and others, but wholly without success. The worms may be induced to eat, and may be kept alive upon other sub- stances, but tliey will make no silk. Tlie Chinese have moist- ened the leaves, and sprinkled them with powdered rice, chicory, and peas, and with the powder of the dried mulberry leaves, so that the worms, in getting at the leaves, were compelled to eat of the powder, but it has been without advantage. The mulberry is not a tree of difficult cultivation ; but, like most other things, it makes a full compensation for particular care and attention. It will grow upon a poor, but it will flourish only on a good soil, inclined to sand, and not humid or heavy. It is advised to train these trees with an open head, that the foliage may be accessible to light and air, and not to feed from them until they are full three years old. The leaves must not be taken from them more than once in a year, and it is desirable to forward the first defoliation, so that the second growth of leaves may become quite matured. Mulberry-trees are set out as ornamental trees by the sides of roads, and in the neighbor- hood of houses ; or, where the business is pursued on an exten- sive scale, they are planted in rows at a few yards' distance, as is customary with our apple orchards. In many parts of Italy, in Lombarcly and Tuscany, the vines are trained to hang in graceful festoons from one tree to another; and when the rich clusters of grapes are seen among the green foliage, it would be difficult to find any thing of the kind more beautiful. An hec- tare of arable or meadow land, in France, may be valued at 2000 to 5000 francs, or say, 400 to 1000 dollars ; an hectare of rnul- berry-trees in the same locality would, in such case, be valued at 5000 to 12,000 francs, or from 1000 to 2400 dollars. It is cal- culated that an hectare (about two and a half acres) of mulberry- trees, in full bearing, will produce sufficient foliage to supply the wants of the worms produced by ten ounces of eggs. This would give a product of about 22,000 pounds of leaves. The mulberry may be propagated by sowing the seed, by CROPS. 491 engrafting, or by layers; the two latter modes are of coarse the only certain modes of securing the best kinds. The principal kinds propagated in France are four ; but they differ somewhat in their product, as the experiments of one of the first cultivators of silk in France, with whom I have the pleasure of an acquaint- ance, seem to show. What appears to be wanted in a mulberry leaf (excepting for the worms in their first age) is a leaf of a good deal of thickness and weight. The four principal mul- berry-trees cultivated in France are, — Le murier rose, or the rose-leaved mulberry. Le murier multicaule, or the multicaulis, well known in the United States. Le murier Moretti, a mulberry, which takes its name from a physician who first produced it. Le murier sauvageon, or wild mulberry, which is our common white mulberry. The multicaulis is condemned in France in the strongest man- ner. It is of very easy cultivation ; it yields a great deal of foliage ; it produces a fair quantity of silk ; but it is considered too watery, and to create disease among the worms. One of the most eminent silk culturists in France denoimced it to me in no measured terms. The rose mulberry, is upon the whole, pro- nounced superior to all others. Its leaves have too much thick- ness and strength for the worms in their first age ; but in such case it is necessary to select the youngest and most tender loaves, and to moisten them with water. The leaves of the common wild mulberry are complained of, as fading rapidly after being gathered, and becoming too soon unfit for use. The time for hatching the worms should correspond as nearly as possible with the condition of the leaves, taking care that the leaves should be considerably advanced, as Ihc consumption of them in too young a state is necessarily wasteful. Experiments have been made to test the comparative value of the difierent mulberry leaves in the production of silk — I refer to its quality and cpiantity ; but though conducted with much care, they do not appear to lead to any important practical results. The difference in the worms deserves attention, some produ- cing a large, and others a smaller, cocoon ; and some giving, con- sequently, a larger return in silk than others. This difference is considerable, some producing from a certain weight of cocoons 492 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. ten or twelve per cent., and others eighteen per cent, of silk. The great division of races is, into those which produce a white, and those which produce a yellow, cocoon. It is said that dif- ferent races of the worm are suited to dilFerent climates, either hot or temperate ; and the results are always more or less affected by the mode of feeding and the care bestowed upon them. The principal of the white races of worms is called the Sina, and this species produces a very fine and beautiful silk. This species was imported from China almost a century since ; and its excellence has been maintained, and indeed it is represented to be much improved by care and selection. The silk of this species of worm is employed for making the very finest of the white silk fabrics. Ten to twelve pounds of the cocoons produce one pound of silk. The cocoons are cylindrical, round at the ends, with a depression or cincture round the middle. The principal of the yellow races is the Turin. This is known in Italy by several different names. The form of the cocoon is cylindrical, with a deep indenture or cincture round the middle ; the ends are round, and the color is a beautiful yellow. They are esteemed as among the best cocoons known, and furnish a very strong silk. The Cora is another celebrated race, which is reported to have been the result of a cross between two of the most beautiful and rich of the yellow races, the Turin and the Loudun. This species yields a large return of silk in proportion to the weight of the cocoons ; the cocoons are much sought after, and sell at a higher price than any of the common kinds. As my limits allow me only to refer to the best kinds, I shall not enumerate others. of which there are several sorts, more or less esteemed in differ- ent localities. The ordinary life of a silk-worm embraces five ages, or four important changes. There is a species called the three-change worms ; but this peculiarity is considered as the result of a dis- eased constitution, and the product is comparatively worthless. The worms, by extraordinary feeding, may be forced to finish their feeding in some cases in eighteen days ; but this at the expense of a great deal of trouble, and generally at the risk of disease. Their feeding is in some cases extended to fifty days ; but this is always owing to scanty and illiberal feeding, and the product is sure to be inferior. The period most to be desired, in CROPS. 493 which to complete their feeding, is twenty-eight or thirty days. This is supposed to depend somewhat upon the peculiar consti- tution of the race of worms which are fed, but more upon the feeding and management. It is earnestly pressed upon the cul- tivators to commence the hatching of the eggs as early in the season as the condition of the mulberry leaves will allow it to be done with a certainty of a supply of food. The hatching of the eggs should be artificially forced, in order, as far as possible, to be contemporaneous, as where it is left to take place naturally, there will be a difference in the time of hatching among the worms of several days, which is an inconvenience to be anxiously avoided. It is recommended in the first three ages to cut the leaves fine, and for the very young worms in the first stage, they should be sifted. In order to success, the worms must not be neglected by day or night. In the first age they require twelve feedings in the twenty-four hours; in the fourth age, eight or ten ; in the fifth age, seven or eight. The feedings should, in fact, be multiplied as much as possible ; as where, with a view of saving time or labor, the food of three or four times is given at once, the worms become disgusted and lose their appetite, a great deal of forage is lost, and bad results are likely to follow. As overfeeding is injurious, so is fasting equally injurious. In order to insure success, no neglect must be tolerated. Cleanliness in every department is especially important. The worms nuist not be crowded. They must likewise be occasionally assorted, placing together those whose progress and condition are most nearly alike ; and especially removing at once the feeble and diseased. The best preparation for their mounting, when their cocoon is to be formed, may be termed a small twig broom, inverted and placed so that the upper part maybe spread between the shelves on which the worms are fed. The cocoons, after they are completed, reserving those only which are designed for the continuance of the race, are placed, for the destruction of the chrysalis in steam, as being the most certain and eflectual mode. The cocoons, being completed, and the poor tenant of this silken abode strangled in his own habitation, now pass into other hands for the winding of the silk. In many parts of Europe, among those who cultivate the silk-worm upon a small scale, some vacant room in the house is occupied for the worms, and very often some vacant barn or VOL. II. 42 494 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. building is used for this purpose at a season of the year when it is not occupied for other purposes. Where silk is cultivated on an extensive scale, a building is erected for the special purpose of raising the worms, called a magnanerie. The size of this building is of course to be proportioned to the quantity of worms to be raised ; and the quantity of worms to be raised must be proportioned to the amount of food to be obtained. Great losses are sometimes incurred by a miscalculation in respect either to the forage or the worms. It is of great moment not to err on the side of too little provision for the feed of the worms, who in their last age consume with almost incredible voracity. Few things are more prejudicial to success than a deficiency of food, or subjecting the worms to fasting. The magnanerie must, in the first place, supply ample room for the worms ; they must not be crowded. It requires a separate room for the hatching of the worms and their feeding during the first age. It must be furnished with sufficient means for heating the apartments in which they are kept. It must have the means of complete ventilation, without bringing draughts of cold air directly upon them. It must be capable of being closed or opened at pleasure, in order to regulate the temperature, which is of great moment. It must be light also, and be capable of being lighted in the evening ; for they like the light, and if success is looked for, they are not to be neglected either by day or night. It has been supposed that the silk-worms are injuriously afiected by noise ; but this is now deemed an error, as no organs of hearing have been discovered. They are injuriously affected by noxious odors, and this must be guarded against. They are likewise much affected by changes of temperature, and especially by a close and confined atmosphere. The former may, to a certain extent, be regulated by artificial means, and the latter by ventilation. The tables on which the worms are placed, may be made' of canvass on an endless roller, and the worms, being induced by fresh leaves to rise upon a netting made of twine set in a frame, may be lifted up, and by turning the canvass, the litter may be easily removed, and the worms replaced. The legs of the tables on which the worms are fed, should be set in water, so as to prevent the access of ants, which are destructive to them ; and every pains must be taken to keep off birds, rats, and mice, which have no hesitation in destroying these industrious creatures. CROPS, 495 There are several serious diseases to which the worms are subject, and some of a fatal character. They are supposed in general to owe their origin to neglect, to insufficient or irregular feeding, to want of ventilation, to neglect of cleanUness, or to too much crowding. The disease called the tnuscardine is of all others the most dreaded, as it is contagious and generally fatal. The causes of it have not yet been ascertained, and no effectual remedy has been discovered. If it is not caused by neglect, yet the only hope of preventing it is by the most attentive and exemplary care. Where it has once prevailed, it is liable to reappear ; and in such places it is advised, as the only certain preventive, to suspend for a time the raising of the worms. It shows itself at all ages of the worms. A large premium has been offered by the Agricultural Society of France for the dis- covery of an effectual remedy or preventive ; but as yet without success. The worms are often injuriously affected by thunder- storms or a highly electrical atmosphere ; but no human skill affords any protection against this. Many experiments have been made to get two crops of worms and silk in a season ; but by the most experienced feeders such attempts are entirely disapproved. I shall not attempt any cal- culation of expenses or profits, these must so vary in different places from the difference in the cost of labor and of land. First, it may be said of the silk culture, that the principal labor which it requires occurs at a season when other agricultural operations are not of a pressing character, and the season is one of comparative leisure. In the next place, the farm buildings, which may be occupied, where the climate admits of it, as a magnanerie, are likely to be vacant, preparatory to receiving the crops. Next, the trees being once planted and matured, and the magnanerie established, they require but little care to preserve them in condition, and a large portion of the expense is incurred. In the last place, the work is of a character to give healthful, useful, and interesting employment to the younger and female parts of the family, whose expenses are sure to go on, but whose labor, for want of some such occupation, might otherwise be lost. The article, when produced, is imperishable, and at present may be considered as sure of a market. I have only noted the outlines of the subject. I must not go more into detail ; but the whole process is simple and intelligi- 496 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. ble, and the details are easily attainable. There is no extraordi- nary ingenuity in the apparatus or machines connected either with the management of the worms or the unwinding of the cocoons ; but I found with Mr. Robinet, of Paris, who has dis- tinguished himself by his attention to this subject, a small and ingenious machine for testing the strength of the raw silk. There was a graduated index at the back of the machine ; a strong pressure was made on two threads of the silk suspended from the top of the index, and the degree of pressure or tension required to break the thread indicated of course its actual strength. I can hardly quit this subject without calling upon my readers to admire with me the wonderful products of this humble animal. The pecuniary value of the product is enormous ; its utility is unquestioned and universal ; the amount of industry which it sets in motion is immense ; and the splendor and beauty of the fabrications, of which it forms the materiel, are unsurpassed. 15. The Vine. — The next great agricultural product of France is that of the vine. The whole extent of land culti- vated in vines in France by the last returns was 4,929,950 acres ; and there is reason to believe that this amount has been considerably increased since those returns were obtained. The total value of the vine crop in France, reckoning seven gallons of wine as required to supply one gallon of brandy, is estimated at 59,059,150 francs, or, in round numbers, 11,811,830 dollars, or £2,362,366 sterling. It is supposed that six tenths of the wine produced are consumed in France ; the remainder forms the subject of a lucrative commerce. In a moral view, one would at first be inclined to dread the effects of such a production upon the habits of the people. It would not be true to say there is no drunkenness in France; but, account for it as we will, temperance is preeminently the char- acteristic of the French people, and I believe them to be without question the most sober of all civilized countries. In the rural districts, wine is the ordinary drink ; but this is not in itself a strong wine, and is almost invariably diluted with water. Much com- plaint has been made that such immense tracts of land are devoted to the production of wine instead of bread ; but, in many of the bread-growing countries, a far larger proportion in value of the CROPS. 497 product has been devoted to the manufacture of a drink far more intoxicating, and much more fatal to peace, pubUc order, domes- tic happiness, and all good morals, than the mild and ordinary- wines of P^rance ; which, when unadulterated, are the pure juice of the grape, and have not the strength of common cider. I was in the vine-growing countries in the season of the vintage, when wine in the greatest abundance was free to all, but there was no more excess than at any other season. We could hardly expect these laborious people, whose chief solid subsistence is bread, to limit themselves to water ; and I could not but feel grateful that God had given them so innocent and delicious a beverage to cheer and sustain them under their toil. It is not the use but the abuse of these gifts of Heaven, which constitutes the crim- inality, and converts them into a fatal poison. Various attempts have been made in different periods to limit the cultivation of the vine. In one case, after a severe scarcity, one of the Roman monarchs ordered the whole of the vines in certain provinces to be destroyed, and more than half the vines in other provinces ; and several kings of France have prohibited the occupation of land beyond a certain amount in the culture of the vme, that the people might be compelled to the cultiva- tion of bread. Such interference on the part of governments in private concerns, and such arbitrary measures, seldom effect the desired end. The culture of the bread-grains is, imquestionably, always of the first importance ; but arrangements of this kind are generally much better left to private interest than to public control. The principal objection to the culture of the vine is, that it is in no respect subsidiary to any other crop ; that it occupies the land permanently, without permitting any other crop ; and that the vines require much manuring, (though they do not always get it,) without furnishing the materials for producing anymanure. Some persons have ploughed or dug in the cuttings and waste parts of the vine, and it is said with extraordinary success : but the practice is not much extended. The vines are ordinarily raised from cuttings in a nursery, and transplanted at one year old, generally in rows about four feet asunder each way ; but farther when it is intended to plough between them. Generally the land is dug with a spade ; the old wood cut away in the spring, and the new trimmed, leaving three buds only. They arc then striked, and trained to these 42* 498 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. Stakes, which are from four to five feet in height. At the har- vest they are gathered with great adroitness, the clusters being cut with a knife or scissors, and carried to the pressing-house in casks or carts. The whole process, afterwards, resembles pre- cisely the manufacture of cider, excepting that I saw no straw used in laying up what is called the cheese, the stems of the vines supplying the place of straw, in giving compactness to the heap : and that there is no breaking or crushing of the grapes, as of the apples, before they are put under the press. The juice, as it comes from the grape, is always white ; but it is colored by leaving the stems and skins of the grapes in the vat with the liquor twenty-four hours after it is expressed. The after-man- agement of the wine, where it is kept pure, consists in straining, and different drawings off and bottling, very much like the man- agement of the best cider ; above all things, watching over the casks to preserve them from must or any offensive substance. The different kinds of wine take their names from the differ- ent covmtries or vineyards in which they are produced. I cannot persuade myself that the grape itself has not much to do w^ith the quality of the wine ; but the constant reply to my inquiries was, that the character of the wine depended mainly upon the particular locality in which it was grown, upon some peculiarity in the aspect, or some unknown quality of the soil. I have no doubt the particular quality of the grape has its full share, and other circumstances besides those which I have enumerated. The adulteration of wines, their mixture, and their fabrication out of materials wholly foreign from the grape, are carried on. undoubtedly, to a great extent, especially in the cities ; as, indeed, in what country are not such adulterations more or less prevalent, as the condition of the market may render them profitable ? In France the appearance of a vineyard presents nothing very picturesque, though in the season of harvest it is extremely rich, as I have travelled for miles and miles through vineyards loaded with this delicious fruit. The fields in France are very rarely separated by fences or ditches; but many facts have come to my knowledge, and some within my own personal observation, which convinced me that nowhere are the rights of property more scrupulously respected. In Italy, especially in the fertile plains of Lombardy, the vines arc trained from tree to tree, sometimes CROPS. 499 covering a whole tree with their thick and umbrageous foli- age ; and the purple clusters of the fruit, hanging over the tree in the richest abundance, remind one of some of the earliest temptations to which our frail race are said to have been subjected. In passing up the Rhine, after entering upon the highlands, the base of which the waves of this magnificent river have swept for so many ages, one is absolutely struck with amaze- ment at the examples of industry, labor, and enterprise which every where present themselves, in the cultivation of the vine, wherever a favorable aspect presents itself. The steepest acclivi- ties are walled up in successive steps or zigzag lines, from the bottom to the top of very high hills, so as to create or obtain some little flat surface for the planting of the vines, and to pre- vent the washing of the dirt from their roots. Where there is no soil, soil has been transported on the shoulders of men and women in baskets, for no horse or mule could possibly ascend many of these heights; and where there has been no other method of securing the soil and the vine, these baskets full of soil have been placed, and there remain, that the plant may have a footing. The manure, too, to supply these vines, must be carried up, and the produce must all be brought down upon human shoulders. The labor performed here seems almost incredible. The German wines bear a high price, and these situations produce those of the best quality. The celebrated Johannisberg wine is grown upon the banks of the Rhine, at a magnificent place owned by the distinguished Prince Metter- nich, and is said to be a source of great profit. The delighted traveller has the opportunity of at least feasting his eyes on this beautiful vineyard, and this rich and picturesque country. A vineyard, if well cared for, will last an indefinite number of years. The worst wines grown in France are represented to be the most profitable, as they pay either none, or the lightest duties, and being sold at a cheap rate, they never want con- sumers. 16. Olives. — The cultivation of the olive-tree, both for comfits or pickles, and for the oil obtained from the fruit, is considerably extended in France, and still more in Southern Italy. The extent of land appropriated to the growth of the S0O EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. olive in France is stated to be about 303,000 acres. The cul- ture is limited to the southern portions of France, as the tree does not endure any considerable degree of cold. The money value of the product in France is estimated at 22,776,398 francs, or 4,555,279 dollars, for sale; and the value of that which is consumed is reckoned at 23,102,841 francs, or 4,620,568 dollars, or £924,113 sterling. This is a great product for a perma- nent article. The oil-cakes left after the expression of the oil are considered as very valuable for cattle, and their value defrays some portion of the expense of expressing the oil. The olive groves or orchards in Southern Italy are very exten- sive. Looking out from the high grounds in the neighborhood of Florence upon the enchanting valley of the Arno, it appears like an almost uninterrupted grove of olives as far as the eye can reach. It is difficult to conceive of a richer, more beautiful, or more picturesque landscape than is here spread before the eye ; combining a charmingly varied surface, with cities crowning the summits, and white palaces glittering among the richest foliage, the river winding its gentle and silver stream through the whole length of the valley, amidst forests and fields of the deepest and most luxuriant vegetation. The olive-trees are of long endurance. Some orchards were shown me to which tradition ascribes an age of eight hundred years ; the condition, however, either from age or neglect, was not flourishing. More than a hundred different kinds of olive- trees are mentioned in France, diff'ering in the quality of their product, and in their adaptation to different soils and tempera- ture. New varieties are occasionally produced by sowing the seed in nurseries. The trees are planted in squares in the fields, at the distance of five or six yards apart, more or less, according as the soil is dry or humid, nearer to each other in the former case than in the latter. The trees should be well manured either with stable manure or compost ; it is advised to dig round the trees every spring and autumn. The field should be cultivated, taking care to guard against injury to the roots, with the plough : and, if grain is sown, that portion of the plant near the roots of the trees should be dug in while green, and before the grain is formed. The great enemies of the olive-trees arc the cold, and certain insects. The severe cold in 1820 and 1836 destroyed a great many trees in France. Many insects infest the trees, which GENERAL VIEWS OF FRENCH AGRICULTURE. 501 sometimes prove destructive, against which remedies are pre- scribed hke those employed against the insects which infest the apple-trees. How far it might be successfid to introduce the cuUivation of the olive-tree into the Southern States of the United States, I must, after the above account, leave the parties interested to judge. The fig was growing freely in Italy in the open air, and by the road-side. This was in the month of August. CXX VII. — GENERAL VIEWS OF FRENCH AGRICULTURE. I have now gone over the principal crops produced in France, with the exception of some which will come under review in treating of the husbandry of Flanders, where these crops are grown with more skill and success than in France. I think my readers will have reached a conclusion to which I early arrived, which is, that the agriculture or husbandry of France is a subject of much greater importance, and conducted with much more skill than is generally thought. There are several subjects connected with it upon which I shall speak here- after. In many parts, I may add in large parts of the country, the cultivation is inferior, negligent, and extremely discreditable. France, however, is not the only country to which these remarks apply ; but it must be said of France, that in some of their prin- cipal crops, those to which their climate is adapted, to which they have been habituated, and which they have found to yield the largest profit, no persons have advanced further than they. I instance only the production of beet-sugar, which must be taken in connection with the residue or refuse of the manufacture, furnishing so rich and useful an aliment for cattle and sheep. This production is enormous, and constantly increasing ; next, the production of silk, which furnishes so valuable and simple a resource for the poor, and which, followed out in its various ramifications, will be found to set so many thousands, nay, hun- dreds of thousands, of industrious hands in motion ; and lastly, its production of wine, so important an article of domestic con- sumption, and so large an article of commerce. I am not of 502 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. opinion that perfection has been reached in either of these arti- cles of culture, — for to what that is human does that term perfection^ in any but the most qualified sense, apply ? — but certainly the culture of these articles is pursued with the most exemplary diligence and enterprise ; I may add, with as much diligence and enterprise as are applied in any cultivation in any country, and with success. CXXVIII. — FARM NEAR VERSAILLES. I shall hereafter recur to the subject of the agriculture of France ; but I may in this place say, that I have met examples of farming in France, which for excellence of culture and arrangement, and the success of the farming, are nowhere within my knowledge exceeded. A farm in the neighborhood of Ver- sailles, with the intelligent proprietor of which I had the pleasure of an intimate acquaintance, in its excellent management may be considered as a model farm. It consists of about seven hun- dred acres. The husbandry is of a mixed kind ; a large milking stock is kept on the farm, which, though not reared on the farm, are very carefully selected ; and kept and fed in well-arranged and capacious stables, where the best arrangements by gutters and cisterns are made for collecting and saving all the liquid as well as all the solid manure. Abundant crops of lucern are grown both for green feeding and hay, and likewise of sainfoin. Good crops of wheat are likewise raised, and of colza. Carrots are cultivated extensively for the stock ; and potatoes especially for the manufacture of starch. This manufacture, very simple in its character, constitutes a large object of attention ; and what with the potatoes grown upon the place, and those which are })urchased, more than one hundred thousand bushels are used in this manufacture in the course of the year. The refuse water or liquor from this fabrication is first collected in tanks or open reservoirs, where it makes a considerable deposit from the matter still floating in it. The liquid portions are conveyed by small channels or canals on to the grass-fields, which are thus irrigated, and the solid portions are taken out and spread. The effect of this manure is extremely beneficial, and it scarcely differs in strength from the best animal or stable manure. FARM ACCOUNTS. 603 CXXIX. — FARM ACCOUNTS. At no place have I seen a more complete system of farm accounts than at this farm. The books are kept with the great- est accuracy ; so that the result is seen at once, and any specific loss or gain is traced to its proper source. Through the kindness of the owner, I was enabled to procure a form of these accounts. 1 subjoin it, thinking I can give few things of the kind tnore valuable to my readers. The great and almost universal fault of farmers is, that through ignorance or neglect they can hardly be said to keep any accounts ; sometimes merely a few memo- randa in an interleaved almanac, or a few chalks behind the door ; or if they keep books, they are often confused, are seldom balanced, and the farmer never arrives at a result upon which he can rely. Often, under these circumstances, he finds himself grad- ually declining into hopeless bankruptcy, without being able to ascertain the most active and certain causes. The ship is filling, but he cannot detect the leak, nor consequently the means of stopping it. He may call all hands to work day and night at the pumps, but with little hope of saving the vessel until the fatal inlet is discovered ; and that may prove too late. Under the system adopted by this excellent farmer, an account is kept with every crop, with the stable, the cow-house, the sheep-fold, the poultry-yard, the laborers, and the farm-house. Each is regularly charged with every item on the debit side, and credited with every return which it makes. The whole is then brought into a general resume ; an account of stock is taken ; and the books balanced once a year with the accuracy of a banker's clerk. Take, for example, his Winter In other columns are ar- Wheat : it is charged with ranged Ploughing, harrowing, and rolling. The extent of the land in wheat Manures. Product in grain and in straw. Seed. Product by the acre. Reaping, and binding, and stacking. Value of the grain and of the straw. Threshing, measuring, and storing. Total value of the product- Transporting and marketing. Value per acre. Rent of land. Profit of the cultivation, Total of expenses. or Expense per acre. Loss. 504 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. The account of each crop is kept in this form in a book ruled in separate cohimns for this purpose. The history of the crop, such as the time of sowing and of reaping, is given at the bottom of the page ; and the average yield of the crop for the ten preceding years. The account of the Stable is kept in this form: — Credits to the Stable. Labors upon the Farm — ploughing, &c. " Upon the road. Manure. Profit or loss. Expenses. Feeding of the horses. Utensils and furniture for the stables. Equipages — Harnesses, saddlery. Carriages. Farriery. Wagoners and ostlers — Wages and expenses on the road. Board of wagoners and ostlers. Extraordinary expenses. The expenses of the Sheep-fold are kept as follows : The account opens with the 1st of July, and finishes with the 30th of June. Account is taken of the num- ber of Flocks. Sheep. Lambs. Rams. A second column gives the account of purchases ; and another of sales, during the year. A fourth column gives the number of flocks, sheep, lambs, and rams, at the end of the year. The next chapter embraces the several items of expense, such aS' Cost of feed. Medicines or drugs. Driving and folding. Hurdles, troughs, &c. Transporting and expenses of mar- keting. Shepherds — their wages. " " board. Straw for litter Total of expenses. Other columns give the esti- mated value of the flock at the beginning and close of the year. Returns from the sale of sheep. « " " wool and skins. " " the value of manure. " " the benefit from folding. Profit or loss. FARM ACCOUNTS. 505 The account of the Cow or Milk establishment is kept in the same form ; the various items, as follow : — Keeping of the cows. Number of cow3, and their value at Cost of cows. the beginning of the year. Care of thera. Expense of cows purchased. Utensils. Number of calves. Expense of the sale of milk. Returns from milk or butter sold. Litter for the stables. " " calves. Value of manure. The Poultry-yard, embracing also the Pigs, is brought under a similar supervision, and the accounts of the whole year, in expenses and returns, are carefully preserved and adjusted. The account of manures is likewise kept : — thus. Manures purchased. Loading and unloading. Compost heaps. Transportation of manure. Spreading. Folding. Straw for litter. Oil-cakes purchased. The general expenses of the account : — Overseers and their travelling ex- penses. Bookkeeper, stationery, and postage. Wages and clothing for the servants. Journeyings, hunting, dogs. Time of horse for service of the family. Insurance against fire and hail. Taxes. Utensils and furniture. Farm are then brought into the Wood and cutting fuel. Measuring ground. Mole and rat catcher. Workmen, by the day or task. Expense of wagons and farriery. Saddlery and harness. Bedding and linen. Painter, glazier, carpenter, blacksmith, ironmonsfer. The specific expenses of the household are next brought into account : — Kitchen expenses. Cellar. Eatables. Groceries. Butcher. Baker. Wood and charcoal. Household and kitchen furniture. Beer. Products of the farm consumed, such as milk and cream, eggs, poultry, mutton, pork, potatoes, fruits and vegetables, butter, and cheese. Presents to servants. New Year's and Christmas gifls. Care and medicine in sickness. Miscellaneous expenses follow : — For the poor, charitable gifls. Meat, bread, wood, medicine, boarding, Education of poor children. clothing, fruits and vegetables. VOL. II. 43 506 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. Expenses : — Civic charges at the mayory. For a public engine and carriage to To the police officers, or country protect against fire, watch. I have thus given the items of accounts kept on this excellently managed estate, not so much to recommend the precise form in which they are kept, as to show their particularity and exactness. The great value of this extreme precision is, that the owner is at once enabled to discover what are the particular sources or occa- sions of expense, and to determine, if it should be necessary or expedient, what he may at once retrench or forego. The keep- ing of such accounts requires time and care, and, perhaps, in this case, they may be too much extended. But a careful and orderly arrangement, together with punctuality and exactness, so that the work may never get into confusion or arrears, will overcome much of the difficulty. The satisfaction and advantages arising from it, will be a full compensation for the labor and expense which it may require. I cannot understand why on a large farm a bookkeeper should not be kept as much as in any shop or other trading concern. I only add, that I have the results of the accounts of this farm from 1816 to 1846 — thirty years ; that the receipts vary consid- erably, as products and prices vary ; but that, in not more than three years in the thirty, was there any loss, and in the other cases a fair and reasonable gain. CXXX. — AGRICULTURE OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. I pass now to the agriculture of Belgium or Flanders. My remarks will embrace the whole of the Low Countries, Holland as well as Flanders. Though they differ in many particulars, yet they may be considered together. I entered these beautiful countries, beautiful in the eye of an agriculturist from the rich- ness of their crops, and the perfection of their cultivation, in the month of June ; and I confess my expectations, excited as they were, were more than answered. THE SOIL. THE DIKES AND POLDERS, 507 CXXXL — THE SOIL. A great portion of these countries may be considered as allu- vial ; much of it formed from the recession of the sea and the elevation of the land ; much by the gradual encroachments of the land upon the sea, as where, by the meeting of the tides with the streams of some of the great rivers, which here, by various channels, find their passage into the sea, a sand bank is formed, and presently, by successive deposits of mud brought down by the streams, an island or outstretching point is produced, which is gradually raised above the level of the tides ; and, lastly, by the actual embankment by dikes of immense tracts, which still remain many feet below the lev'el of the sea, and which form extensive basins or enclosures of almost unsurpassed fertility. CXXXIL — THE DIKES AND POLDERS. The extent and magnitude of these embankments is matter of inexpressible surprise ; and one is compelled to ask, where and who are the men of such unconquerable and gigantic enter- prise as to raise these extraordinary mounds ; thus to defy the ocean ; and thus to effect conquests, than which none more brave, illustrious, or beneficent, are recorded in history, and com- pared with which, military conquests seem to deserve only the execration of mankind ? The external dikes are from one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty feet in width at the bottom, with spacious roads on the top of them ; and in several cases the water requires to be lifted twice before it is thrown into the sea. These im- mense tracts of land, which have been thus redeemed from the sea, are denominated polders. These polders are said to average more than eleven hundred acres each ; and that four hundred and thirty-six polders, embracing an extent of 170,000 acres, are kept dry by eight hundred and fifteen mills. The water to be 508 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. removed is of course the fresh water from rain, or the water from springs, and some, doubtless, from the infihration of the sea. The work of one mill is required to keep six hundred acres suffi- ciently free from water. The whole amount of this poldered or redeemed land in Holland is represented to exceed five millions of acres — an amount to be redeemed from the sea scarcely within the limits of credibility. But the original erection of these dikes is not the whole amount of labor which they demand — a demand which knows no interruption nor cessation. It is said, upon competent authority, that had the original dike at Walche- ren been made of solid copper, it would have cost less than it has cost in its formation and repairs. I present here a sketch of the polder of Snaerskerke, given by Radcliffe from the government survey. This polder contains Sketch of the Polder of Snaersker}<£. about thirteen hundred acres, and was drained by order of Napo- leon. " The creek, with its minor branches, by which the tide overspread nearly the entire surface, is traced, to point out its original state ; but that has now given way to the regular divisions and arrangements marked by the parallel lines, which THE DIKES AND POLDERS. 509 describe the present circumstances and appearance. The facility of this improvement is so obvions, that it is only surprising it should have remained so long unexecuted ; the banks of more ancient polders, which nearly surrounded this, having rendered it unnecessary to do more than to shut out the sea at one point of influx, about fourteen hundred and fifty feet in extent." Let us look next at the pecuniary result of this improvement. "The land which has been reclaimed by it was let for a sheep-pasture, at twenty-five pounds sterling, or about one hundred and twenty- five dollars, and was thrown up by the farmer as untenable. Upon being dried by this summary improvement, the lots, of which there are one hundred, of thirteen acres each, were sold by auction at an average of £291 13 s. 4 d. each, or about 1458 dollars, and would now bring nearly double that sum."* A great work of this same kind is now going on, which is no other than to drain the Harlaem Lake, and lay the bottom dry for cultivation. This great work has been some time in progress by means of powerful steam-engines, and when completed will lay dry about 50,000 acres.f The extent proposed to be drained is said to be seventy square miles. Another tract which has been laid bare contains 18,000 acres. It is impossible to con- template these mighty and beneficent achievements but with the most profound admiration. But if an immense labor and expense have been devoted to their creation, a corresponding vigilance, a vigilance most laborious, indefatigable, and unceasing, is required to maintain them. The inhabitants of this great country sleep always in the immediate neighborhood of an enemy's camp, and are exposed to irruptions and invasions, against which all human power may be unavailing. The recollection of the floods, which have occasionally broken away these barriers, and swept the country, is perfectly terrific. In the course of thirteen centuries | no less than one hundred and ninety great floods are said to have occurred in Holland ; so that a destructive inundation may be ^= Radcliffe's Flanders. f It is stated, that in order to exhaust the lake, 3000 millions of tons of water must be raised ; and in order to keep it dry, 54,000,000 of tons must be raised annually ; and sometimes 20,000,000 of this in one or two months. What a gigantic project! J From 516 to 1825. 43* 510 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. said to have occurred as oftea as once in seven years, and the years so late as 1808 and 1825 were marked by great floods. In 1230, 100,000 persons are reported to have perished, witli cattle innumerable. In 1410, 20,000 persons were drowned ; and in 1570 an equal number. In 1717, the flood is reported to have destroyed 12,000 men, 6000 houses, and 80,000 cattle. The sea has been known, in some cases, to have risen eight feet above the dikes. These events are certainly among the most tremen- dous in history, and evince the extraordinary courage and per- severance of a people, who again repel the merciless invader, and bravely plant themselves directly upon the recovered field. CXXXIIL— THE WATER MACHINERY OR MILLS. These countries have to exercise a double guard ; the first against the irruption of the ocean, and the second against the overflowing of the great rivers, which, fed by streams from mountains covered with eternal snows, here divide into many branches on their way to the ocean ; and likewise from the rain which falls, and has no way of escape but as it is pumped up and turned off" into the rivers or the sea. In some cases, six, eight, and ten feet of water have been removed ; it is stated " that in one case, a depth of more than thirteen feet required to be removed on land more than eight feet below the high water of the river into which it was necessary it should be discharged. It was raised into a reservoir, and let into the river at low water. The water required to be raised by successive lifts twenty-two feet — not an uncommon hft in Holland." The machines by which this water is raised are windmills, made with extraordinary care and expense, and presenting to the unaccustomed eye a peculiar but not unpleasing appearance. I counted more than two hundred in sight at one time, and was told that more than four hundred might be seen. These are variously constructed, some of them with a spiral screw working in a box to which the screw was exactly fitted, and by which large amounts of water were forced up without any heavy pressure upon the machinery. THE WATER MACHINERY OR MILLS. 511 In other cases, the water was lifted with a simple paddle-wheel working in a common trough. It is stated that one mill will free six hundred acres from water ; but it is obvious that this must depend upon various circumstances, such as the quantity of water to be removed, and the kind of machinery employed. The most constant vigilance is required to take advantage of all the wind that blows. To give some idea of the expense of these operations, a mill is said to cost from 8000 to 14,000 dollars, or from £1600 to £2800 sterling, and its operation costs 300 dollars or £60 sterling a year. Many of the persons who have the care of these mills live in them with their families. These are all windmills. Steam-engines would probably be as little expensive, and more under command. Most of these mills w^ere erected before the use of steam in this way was known ; but a reason given for preferring wind to steam is, that, as Holland has no coal, in the event of war she might be with- out fuel, and consequently unable to work steam-engines, the disastrous consequences of which it is not necessary to dwell upon. Such are the mighty works, as well indeed they may be called so, which arrest the admiration of the visitor to this reclaimed and fertile region, so marked by the most extraordinary enter- prise. They inspire a profound sentiment of the hardihood and enterprise, the courage and indefatigable perseverance, of the people who undertook, achieved, and have maintained them. CXXXIV. — FLEMISH AGRICULTURE. The agriculture of Flanders is chiefly arable. To give a detailed account of its various crops and their culture, would be to compose a large work ; and I shall therefore limit myself to noticing those peculiarities in their practice by which their culti- vation is distinguished, with such remarks upon particular crops as seem interesting and useful. Flanders itself is to some extent a redeemed country ; and the Flemish have also their polders and embankments, canals and dikes. 512 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. I begin by saying that the agriculture of Flanders is superior to that of any country which I have visited. I do not say that in England, Scotland, France, and Switzerland, I have not seen single farms as well cultivated as any I have seen in Flanders ; certainly in the Lothians in Scotland, in Northumberland, in Norfolk, in Lincolnshire, in Bedfordshire, in Berkshire, in Cam- bridgeshire, in Staffordshire, and in other places, I could single out particular farms and considerable districts where the cultiva- tion is carried to a high degree of perfection and productiveness: but taking into view the large portion of Flanders which I have visited, for neatness, exactness, and thoroughness of cultivation, for the evenness and magnificence of the crops, for the propriety and exactness of the rotation, for the economy and excellent modes of applying their manures, and for the obvious and dis- tinguished improvements made in the soils, this country seems unsurpassed. It is not a little humiliating that this has been done by a people comparatively without education, with no pre- tensions whatever to what is called agricultural science, and with few implements, and those far from being the most improved. To say, however, that they are without education and agri- cultural science, is a great misnomer. They have the surest of all science, that which grows out of long experience, and which comes from the application of the mind, sharpened by necessity, to whatever is passing within its own province, and avails itself of all the lessons which that experience suggests. I am far from thinking that with them the ultimatum of improvement has been reached. I should regret to find any where, in any science or art, the door of inquiry closed ; but at present they may con- gratukite themselves with having reached a degree of improve- ment which many other countries, with superior advantages in other respects, have not as yet approached. Though their im- plements have been imperfect, there is yet an obvious reason why they have been effectual. The great agricultural instru- ment in Flanders is a spade. We are contriving all kinds of implements which sliall lessen human labor. We want all sorts of machines which shall, if possible, do the work of or by them- selves. We want that they should be impelled by wind or by steam, or by brute force ; and we would be glad, as far as possi- ble, to dispense with the necessity of personal superintendence. The Flemish farmers reluct at no personal superintendence or THE soil; and size of farms. 513 toil ; and even an inferior implement, with a thinking and direct- ing mind at the end of it, may be more efficient than many a more complicated or better contrived machine, which is expected almost to make its own way. CXXXV.— THE SOIL; AND SIZE OF FARMS. The soils of Flanders are generally inferior ; but they illus- trate the Latin proverb, that persevering labor overcomes all difficulties. In many instances, the farmers plant themselves upon an almost hopeless blowing sand, which would seem to defy all vegetation. They will begin by planting oats, or rye, and broom ; the oats or rye are used for forage, and so are the tops of the broom, which remains in the ground three years, and is then ploughed in to form and enrich the soil ; and when by degrees they can advance so far as to grow turnips or clover, so as to feed a cow, the way of success is open. In such case, all manure, solid and liquid of every kind, is saved with care, and the whole redoubles itself; and after a time is witnessed the conversion of this arid sand into a productive soil. The size of farms in Flanders is small, in many cases not exceeding fifty acres ; often less than this, and not more than six or seven acres. The amoinit produced, upon even the smallest holdings, is remarkable, and presents an advantageous, and often an instructive contrast with the product of large farms. CXXXVL — THE CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL, TRENCH- ING, PLOUGHING, MANURING. 1. The first characteristic of Flemish husbandry is their deep cultivation. In some cases this is done by the spade, in others by the plough, and sometimes conjointly by the plough and spade. The land is gradually trenched to the depth of twenty 514 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. inches or more. The land for grain being laid out in stitches, six or seven feet wide, in the intervals a deep trench or ditch is dug, say of a foot in width. The next year, in cultivating this same land, a foot in width will be taken from the side of this stitch and thrown into the ditch or open space, widening, of course, the next bed to the extent to which it is cut off from the other ; filling up the trench of the preceding year, and forming a new trench. This is repeated year after year, until, according to the width of the stitch or bed, the whole ground is gone over to the depth of a doable spading. At the same time, as the suc- cessive crops have followed each other, the ground has been carefully improved by manure, until a fine rich and mellow bed of soil is formed. This operation resembles snbsoiling, with this dilference, that the work is more thoroughly and carefully done with a spade than it can ever be with a plough. A deep soil, where properly enriched, is obviously most favorable to vegeta- tion. The air itself is a great enriclier of the ground ; water, another great element of fertility, passes through a well-cultivated soil, leaving its fertilizing influences, without becoming stagnant, and so injuring the soil. All plants do not equally require deep- ness of soil, yet even the plants which appear most superficial often extend the fine tendrils of their roots in search of food much farther than the eye can follow, or than is generally sup- posed. A French farmer states that he has found the roots from a plant of wheat extending five feet. All tap-rooted plants, such as clover or carrots, frequent crops in Flanders, of course demand a deep culture. The first object, then, of the Flemish farmer, is to get a deep and friable soil, well enriched, and, as far as possible, equally enriched throughout. This is done with great painstaking, and the whole resembles the most beautiful garden cultivation. Even where it is ploughed, the trenches at the sides of the field, and between the beds, are cleaned out by a spade ; what is taken out is laid carefully upon the beds ; and the whole executed with a neatnesss and exactness the most particular, and perfectly delight- ful to the eye. 2. SuBsoiLiNG. — They have a peculiar mode of working their land in many cases, of which their best farmers tliink very highly, and which is well deserving of notice. Immediately THE CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL. 515 after the plough has opened the furroAv, workmen follow with a spade, and take out from the bottom of the furrow large spade- fuls of earth, laying them up upon the turned land. Here they remain in lumps until they are reduced to fineness by the warmth and air, and spread themselves upon the soil. They have an opinion that this is equal to a good manuring. The next furrow slice of course falls into these holes, and to some extent there is a complete inversion of the surface-soil. This does not answer, however, where the land is clayey, or strong and adhesive, as, in that case, water would collect and remain in the holes made under the furrow with the spade. The object of the Flemish farmer is to have the ground thoroughly enriched and friable ; and to give, as far as possible, a quick passage for the water which falls upon it, and free admission to the air. 3. Draining. — Nothing can surpass the painstaking of the Flemish farmer in the preparation of his soil, as the basis of all his etForts, and that on which he rests his hopes of success. I have already said, that with a view to get rid of surface water, he carefully lays his ground in stitches or beds, narrow or wide, in proportion to the quantity of water, which, from the situation of the land, may require to be disposed of. If the land is made wet by springs, he takes pains to cut off the springs by transverse ditches. These he fills with brush, or wooden boughs, and upon these he lays stones, and then covers with earth, and thus con- veys the water into an open side ditch. This is a primitive mode of draining, and not the best which could be chosen ; but after the wood has decayed, the channel being once formed, it is likely to be kept open for a length of time, by the force of the running water. If the wetness of the land proceeds from its low and sunken position, or from springs which cannot be cut oft', it becomes necessary then to cut it up by open ditches, which are made at distances varying according to the nature of the land to be drained, and into which the water becomes collected. This takes up a considerable portion of the surface, but the compen- sation is found by the dryness and availableness of the other portions, by which method only these could be secured. This is the universal practice upon the polders, and these principal ditches are often of sufficient width to proceed upon in boats, in 516 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. order to take off the produce to the outer edge of the polder, where it can be removed in carts. 4. Mixing the Soil. — ^If the soil upon which he proposes to operate be composed, as often happens, of different strata of earth, as, for example, of mould, next of a layer of clay, and next of sand, he is careful, by a deep trenching, thoroughly to stir, and by degrees to intermix and enrich the whole. In truth, every effort is made to produce a deep, friable, rich bed for their operations ; and by such means soils, which appear at first almost worthless, are made productive. Many soils, which in their original condition were sterile and comparatively worthless, now take rank with the most fertile. 5. Rotation OF Crops. — Another great feature of Flemish husbandry is that of a regular rotation of crops. This is exact, and observed with strictness. What this rotation shall be, must depend on a variety of cir- cumstances. An intelligent farmer will be likely to inquire first, to what crop is the soil best adapted, because of this he is likely to get the largest product ; what crop is most required for his own use or for the market ; what crop is likely least to exhaust the soil ; what crop is he best able to manure ; in short, a great variety of inquiries growing out of the nature and particular condition of the soil, which will determine the course of crops to be adopted by the farmer, having in view that which he can obtain with the largest profit, the least expense, and the smallest injury to the land. What are called green crops, with the excep- tion of potatoes, which enter largely into human food, such as carrots and turnips, are grown mainly with a view to the manure, which they furnish by the animals fed upon them. The farm is divided into several portions, and on these different portions distinct rotations are proceeding regularly, the aim of the farmer being to have a variety of crops growing at the same time. In this way he provides best for the supply of his family ; having a variety of articles to dispose of, he runs less risk in the fluctuations and caprices of the markets ; and he is enabled the better to husband and apply his manures. I shall here give some examples of these rotations of crops, not as furnishing a rule for other places, which may differ very THE CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL. 5ir much ill various circumstances, but simply as illustrating the practice of these careful husbandmen. On a soil of a good quality, and on which wheat may be cul- tivated, the following rotation is sometimes observed : — 1. Potatoes. 2. Wheat, with turnips sowed upon the stubble after the harvest. 3. Oats and clover. 4. Clover. 5. Rye, with turnips sowed upon the stubble after the harvest. 6. In grass, to remain as long as it is profitable. The farm, in a case like this, will be divided into as many por- tions as there are distinct crops, so that all will be growing on the same farm at the same time. The following rotation is sometimes had : — 1. Wheat. 5. Clover. 2. Rye and turnips. 6. Rape. 3. Oats. 7. Potatoes. 4. Flax. On a very strong soil the following rotation is given : — 1. Potatoes, 2. Wheat, 3. Beans, 4. Rye, 5. Wheat, 6. Clover, 7. Turnips, 8. Flax, 9. Wheat, 10. Oats, 11. Fallow, 12. To- bacco, 13. Rye, 14. Oats. The following rotation is adopted upon a stiff soil : — 1. Potatoes, with twenty tons of dung per acre. 2. Wheat, with three and a half tons, and fifty barrels of m-ine. 3. Flax, with twelve tons of dung, fifty barrels of urine, and five cwt. rape cake. 4. Clover, with twenty barrels of wood ashes. 5. Rye, with eight tons of dung, and fifty barrels of urine. 6. Oats, with fifty barrels of urine. 7. Buckwheat, without manure. On a rich loam the following rotation is pursued : — 1. Turnips, carrots, chicory. 2. Oats and clover seed. VOL. II. 44 3. Clover. 4. Wheat. 5. Flax. 6. Wheat. 7. Beans. 8. Wheat. 518 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. Wheat occurs in this rotation four times in eleven years. Clover, which occurs twice, is to be considered as the only enriching crop. Manure is applied, however, the first, third, / fourth, seventh, and ninth years. The cul- 9. Potatoes. V tivation is most careful, and no weeds are 10. Wheat. 1 spared. 11. Oats. / 1 have given these different rotations from Van Aelbroeck's account of Femish husbandry. It may not be easy to point out in every instance the prin- ciples on which these rotations are founded. With the Flemish farmers they are the result of long experience and observation. Perhaps they might often be changed to advantage. I have known, for example, in some parts of the United States, flax cultivated to great advantage every fourth year ; and in some parts of England, wheat grown every second year. But in each case the land was highly manured, and in the former case the land was comparatively a new and unexhaus-ted soil. My object in going into this subject was not to prescribe a particular course, but to illustrate a great principle of Flemish husbandry, which will be found equally applicable to every situation. The neces- sity of a rotation of crops seems fully established. The kind of rotation to be followed must be determined by the peculiar circumstances of each locality, remembering only that two crops of a similar character must not immediately succeed each other ; that the occasional intervention of a cleansing crop — that is, a crop which requires thorough weeding — is indispensable ; and that those crops which are to be consumed on the farm serve a double purpose: in addition to the animals which they sustain, they supply the manure which is demanded. The necessity of naked fallows — that is, of leaving the land wholly unoccupied Avith any crop, that it might recruit itself, and the weeds be exterminated by repeated ploughings — is no longer acknowl- edged ; and cleansing crops, which are manured, may be substi- tuted, greatly to the farnier's advantage. 6. Manuring. — The next great feature in the Flemish hus- bandry lies in their system of manuring. In the first place, they manure their land abundantly. In one of the rotations to which THE CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL. 519 I have referred, (p. 517,) the first six crops were each of them Hberally manured. The seventh, which was buckwheat, and completed the course, was without manure. In the next rota- tion, (p, 517,) where the rotation extended to eleven crops, five of them were manured. That the manuring was of a liberal char- acter, is seen in the application of sometimes twenty tons of manure to the acre, and sometimes twelve tons, with the addition of fifty barrels of urine. Indeed, the first object of a Flemish farmer is to increase his stock of manure ; to this end he sufters nothing which can be converted into manure to be lost or wasted ; and besides that which he makes from his savings and his do- mestic animals, he is always ready to purchase manure, where it can be foinid accessible — the various canals in the country fur- nishing great facilities for its conveyance. Perhaps there is only one point in which he is often deficient, and that is, in not raising sufficient green food for the support of cattle, with a view to increasing his manure. 7. Liquid Manure. — It is not merely in manuring liberalh' that Flemish husbandry is remarkable, but in the particular mode of applying this manure. The great object of the Flemish farmer is to apply it in a condition to be immediately taken up by the plants. Coarse and long manure he ploughs under in the autumn, that it may be in a condition to serve the crop which is to be sown in the spring. Or, if to be applied in the spring, he so works it over and prepares it, that it is in a condition at once to serve the plant. But the distinguishing circumstance in Flemish husbandry is in the application of liquid manure, both to the land before the sowing, and likewise to the growing crop. In such case the growing crop immediately receives it ; receives it at a time when, perhaps, the manure first applied has begun to lose some- what of its efficacy ; and in a form that its efficacy is felt at once. The difficulty of applying this liquid manure to the crops on the land is often considered an objection to its use ; and there is, with many persons, a fastidiousness in regard to the use of it, which is quite absurd, and leads to the sacrifice of the most val- uable and efficacious manure which is at the command of the husbandman. In some cases it is turned into the small ditches or furrows between the beds or stitches, and then with a spade thrown on to the beds with some of the soil by which it has been absorbed. In this case a light plough is sometimes passed 520 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. through these intervals or small ditches, between the beds, so as to loosen the earth by which the liquid has been absorbed. But most commonly it is applied directly, by means of a cask constructed for that purpose, resembling the vehicles used for watering the streets of cities. In the subjoined diagram the liquid from the cask falls into a trough placed horizontally, and pierced with holes, by which means it is very equally distributed. In other cases, where the liquid ^is too thick to be distributed through these holes, it is, in passing out, made to strike against a plank or board, by which means it is scattered evenly upon the ground. Thus : — In my opinion, if the liquid was made to fall upon a plank which should be placed behind, at a slight inclination, it would be more effectually spread. Thus : — THE CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL. 521 In case of small farms to which this manm'e is to be applied, and where the cultivator has only his own labor of which to avail himself, he adopts a method of distributing this manure, of which the subjoined cut will give an idea ; but which, I can easily suppose, may not be agreeable to persons not accustomed to it. The Flemings, however, reluct at no labor by which their objects may be obtained. In some cases it is transported into the field by means of a wheelbarrow, with the cask containing the liquid suspended between the shafts. There are acknowledged inconveniences at- tending its application ; but many of them are purely ideal, and the extraordinary value of the manure, when thus applied, is an ample compensation for any extraordi- nary labor or expense, which its saving or its distribution may cost. 8. Cleanness of Cultivation. — Another feature in the Flemish husbandry is the cleanness of their cultivation. They spare no pains in the eradication of every weed. They have, in this matter, much to contend with. An old country under a highly-manured cultivation is liable always to be much infested with weeds, and especially with the squitch grass, (trilicum repens,) which is their chief trouble. What cainiot be accom- plished by the plough, or the harrow, or the hoe, is done by hand ; and occasional recourse is had to a naked fallow. In such case a fallow crop, that is, a cleansing crop, — a crop the culti- vation of which would effectually destroy the weeds, — would be more eligible. The old doctrine, that the land absolutely required rest, with a view to the recruiting of its powers, is now exploded. With ample manuring, and a rotation or change of crops, its occupation may be unremitted. 44* 522 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. CXXXVII. — MANURES. I proceed to the subject of manures, as it presents itself in Continental husbandry. The Flemish call manure " the god of agriculture." Of its importance not a word need be said; and the Flemish, in the pains they take in its accumulation and use, evince the estimation in which they hold it. Manure is indeed the foundation of all good husbandry. 1. Mineral Manures. — Manures divide themselves popu- larly into three kinds — mineral, vegetable, and animal. Of min- eral manures, such as lime, gypsum, and marl, the use seems well understood; but, within my observation, they are not applied to so great a proportional extent as in England and Scotland. Lime, or the carbonate of lime, is employed upon lands which are clayey, cold, and heavy ; and in such case it answers a double purpose, to divide the soil and render it light and friable ; and secondly, to warm the soil. That plants take up some portion of lime from the soil is established ; but this is so small an ele- ment in their composition, that few soils are found deficient in the necessary quantity. That it should be applied to the land in a caustic or warm state seems likewise an established point. Some of the Flemish farmers advise to the mixture of lime with earth, and to its application in that form ; but this seems only an increase of labor without any obvious advantage. Others advise to the mixture of lime with heaps of vegetable matter, so as to reduce it ; but, in' such case, it is likely to destroy some of the most valuable parts of the manure. The eflicacy of a dressing of lime is considered by the Flemings to endure three years ; but this must obviously depend upon the quantity api)lied. Thirty bushels of unslaked lime after being slaked is consid- ered by some farmers a proper application ; while others advise the application of thirty bushels each year for three years in succession. I have met with the frequent application of marl to light lands, and to the surface of peat lands, where it soon forms a productive soil. The application of gypsum can scarcely be said to be general. It is sometimes applied in the ground to the seed of MANURES. 523 potatoes in the planting, in which case it is generally admitted to improve the quality of the potato ; and it is applied also by being sown broadcast upon young clover; in this latter case, ordinarily with success. The philosophy of its operation is still obscure. It is difficult to say why it fails; but it is not less difficult to say why it succeeds. It will sometimes be useful, and at other times without eftect, in the same locality. This I have myself experienced. A very competent farmer in the United States gives it as his opinion, and the result of his expe- rience, that it sometimes failed of its effects from being too coarsely ground, but that it always succeeded when reduced to an impalpable powder. Much has been said of the value and efficacy of sea salt as a manure, and in France great complaints have been made of the heavy duty, which in fact prevented its use in this way. A dis- tinguished French farmer and experimenter, who has devoted much time and expense to this subject, and has furnished most exact accounts of liis experiments and observations, has come fully to the conclusion that it is of no use whatever as a manure, and equally useless in the fatting of animals. These conclusions are diiferent from the popular notions, which seem always entitled to some respect ; but they are fully borne out by the experiments, repeated and varied, of this indefatigable inquirer. 2. Vegetable Manures. — Of vegetable manures I have only to say, that buckwheat and clover are often turned in by the plough, and with acknowledged advantage. The Flemish make a point of collecting every species of vegetable refuse which they can find, all vegetable matter growing upon the sides of the roads, and that which is found in the canals. They are careful likewise to plough in their stubbles, excepting where there is another crop on the ground, such as clover or carrots, which are sometimes sown among the grain soon after the crop is harvested. Under this head may likewise be placed ashes, of which the Flemish make great use. A large part of the fuel consumed in Holland is peat or turf, and the Dutch ashes are highly valued as dressing for clover. These ashes are imported from Holland into Flanders in large quantities in boats, and always find pur- chasers. They are applied as a top dressing to dry meadows, as well as to clover, and likewise to flax. It is not well determined on what their particular efficacy depends. 524 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. The ashes of sea coal or mineral coal are likewise used as a manure, but they are deemed very inferior to the Dutch ashes properly so called. Heath lands are sometimes lightly skimmed, and the heath burnt for the sake of the ashes ; but if it is intended to cultivate the land or to plant it for trees, it is deemed hurtful to remove the ashes of the surface. Wood ashes and the ashes from the soap-boilers are likewise most carefully saved and applied. Wood ashes are not easily obtained, because of their extensive use in the arts. The ashes from the soap-boilers are much esteemed by the Flemish for strong and moist lands, and have a value from their containing a considerable quantity of lime. The refuse from the bleacherieSj which contains a large quantity of soap, is more valued for dry and light lands; both of these manures are greatly esteemed for clover and for dry meadows. Their effects are understood to last for three years, and they are more efficacious the second than the first year. The cakes from the colza, or rape, which remain after the oil has been expressed, are very much used for manure ; in which case they are thrown into the urine cistern, and applied thus mixed. They are supposed very much to increase the efficacy of this liquid manure. Within a few years, however, as I learnt at Courtray, these cakes have been used with advantage for the feeding of cows and swine. In some parts of France and Belgium the stalks of the colza are ploughed in for manure, and sometimes burnt upon the ground, reliance being placed upon the efficacy of the ashes ; and in some of the wine countries, the cuttings of the vines are dug in for manure, it is said, with singular efficacy. It is thus that that which has been taken from the earth for the growth of a plant, is returned to it as a principal element in the growth of the same kind of plant which is to follow. Soot is likewise used as a top dressing with great advantage, and is considered twice as valuable as ashes. It is applied to the young clover and to garden vegetables, and is estimated highly for its power in destroying insects. Under good management, every article capable of being converted into vegetable food, or of enriching the earth, should be saved as manure. I have already spoken of the use of the drainings of the factory where potatoes are converted into starch ; their effects upon grass land were most remarkable. I have in another place MANURES. 525 spoken likewise of the use of the water in which flax has been rotted. I have seen the most beneficial results from it ; but I am not aware of its use in Flanders. Prom the starch factory this water is conveyed into a basin or excavation, where, after remaining a short time, it makes a considerable deposit. This deposit is taken out and spread upon the land, or thrown into and mixed in compost ; and the water is drained off, and conveyed upon the field by small ditches or rills. 3. Animal Manures. — The great reliance for manure, how- ever, every where is upon animal manure, the excrements of animals, and animal substances. One of the most obvious deficiencies in French husbandry is a deficiency in manure. They are not accustomed to folding sheep upon their lands, as is common in British husbandry. They grow very little of escu- lent vegetable food for their live stock, such as turnips and car- rots ; and their cattle are kept in the winter often very hardly upon straw. In summer their cattle are much in the pastures, overlooked by a herdsman or a child, so that the manure is scattered. There is likewise a manufacture of manure called animalice noir, which consists in boiling down the flesh of animals, such as horses, for example, or animals which have died of disease, and are unfit for food ; and after it is boiled, baking it in an oven, when it is brought into a state easily to be reduced to powder. There is a manufacture of this same kind of manure in London ; but, strange to say, the product is exported to France. The refuse of the sugar refineries, that is, the animal charcoal, or ashes of burnt bones used in cleansing the sugar, is highly esteemed as a manure ; but it is advised by the Flemish farmers to mix it with their liquid, manures in the urine vault. This manure is much employed in France. Its chief value is on heath and moist lands. It does no good on rich, highly cul- tivated land. It is spread broadcast for grass, and its effects are surprising. It is applied to wheat land at the time of the sow- ing of the seed ; it is deemed much preferable to apply it in the autumn rather than in the spring. It is applied in France at the rate of four hectolitres to an acre, which would be at the rate of more than eleven bushels. 526 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. The Swiss, likewise, are remarkable for their care of their manures. The heap is usually placed in front of the house, a slight excavation beiflg made for it, so as to form a basin into which the liquids are drained. The long manure is laid at the sides, and doubled in with the greatest care, and no little skill, so as to form a neat and compact pile in a square or oblong form. This seemed to be almost a universal practice : and the neatness and exactness with which it is laid up are quite remarkable. The manin-e from the stables and the refuse of the house is deposited daily upon it ; and the drainings which run down to one end of the basin in which the manure heap is placed, are often pumped or dipped up, and returned upon the pile. The odor of the heap directly by the door and under the windows of the house cannot be agreeable ; but the extreme neatness with which it is formed, and the cleanliness and care which mark ordinarily every thing about the premises, do much to redeem its offensiveness. In their economy of manures, in their modes of applying them, in their extraordinary liberality in the use of them, the palm must be conceded to the Flemish over all other people. The best Flemish farmers advise against the general mixing of manures. Their doctrine is, that as different animals demand different species of food, as well on account of their habits or constitution as on account of their taste, so different plants and different soils require specific and peculiar manures. I shall not discuss the question how far manure is to be considered as the food of plants. It is enough for us to know that matuu'es arc indispensable to their growth, and that different manures are very different in their various properties and effects. The manure of the horse is a powerful and warm manure, and con- sidered as best suited to lands which are cold and moist. It operates quickly ; it lightens the soil ; but its effects pass off sooner than those of many other manures. The manure of horned animals is deemed more substantial, slower in its opera- tion, and more durable in its effects. The Flemish farmers say, that where a second crop is raised upon the ground, the effects of this manure are more apparent in the second than in the pre- ceding crop. It is obvious, however, that the quality of the manure must depend very much on the kind of food upon which the animals are fed. The simplest experiment made with the MANURES. 527 original and most common of all chemical instruments, the hu- man nose, will at once determine the superior cfFicacy of the manure of animals highly fed with esculent vegetables and grain or meal over that of animals fed upon straw only. The manure of swine is considered by the Flemish as of very little comparative value, and where used, in order to produce as much effect, they advise to employ full double the quantity which they would use of cow manure. My own experience has led me to rely upon the dung of swine as among the strongest of manures ; and the low estimate which the Flemish farmers place upon it must come from the hogs among them being fed mainly upon grass ; and from what I have seen, both in Belgium and France, being very poorly kept at the best. The swill pail, which is found at the kitchen door in the United States full of butter-milk and whey intermixed with cooked vegetables, broken pieces of meat and bread, is, alas ! not to be found at many cottage or farm-house doors on the European Continent. The whey and the butter- milk are wanted for the table ; and it would be a species of sacrilege to give meat, — which a large portion of the laboring people seldom or never taste, — or bread, to the swine. The dung of swine is, however, in the best cases, to be considered as a cold manure, and not easily brought into a state of active fer- mentation. The dung of sheep is every where highly esteemed. It is active and powerful ; and upon light and moist lands they rate two loads of the dung of sheep as fully equal to three of the manure of other brute animals. It is much used with the oat crop ; but it is not advised for flax, as being apt to force it to a premature ripeness. Valuable, however, as is the maniu'e of sheep, I have seen on the Continent no instance of the excellent practice of folding sheep, which prevails so generally in England and Scotland. In the hergerie, or sheep-house, where their sheep are brought at night, they are careful to spread an abundance of litter, which is generally removed twice a year, in the spring and autumn. They begin with a simple layer, which the feet of the sheep soon reduce to fineness, and so proceed, layer by layer, to a depth of three or four feet, which thus becomes, throughout its whole thickness, thoroughly impregnated with urine. In some cases, where the farmer does not find it convenient to 528 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. purchase or own a flock of sheep, he receives one to keep or board for another person. In this case he furnishes straw for their litter in the stables on his own account ; and he furnishes Avhat hay, or grain, or pulse, they may consume at the expense of their owner, at the current prices, or such prices as may be agreed upon ; and he boards and lodges the shepherd with his two dogs, who has the care of the flock, at about fifty-four dol- lars, or eleven pounds sterling, a year. He does this for the sake of the manure and of disposing of his produce. In the Lothians, Scotland, I found several instances in which the crops of turnips, or ruta-baga, were disposed of in the field to persons bringing sheep from the interior, to be consumed where they grew. Where practicable, this arrangement is excellent. The Flemish are of opinion that a hundred sheep, well fed, will give, in a well- littered stable or bergerie, from fifty to sixty loads of manure, of more value than eighty or ninety loads of any other stable or barn manure. I have already spoken of the supply of manure obtained by the Flemish from the numerous distilleries which existed in Belgium, by the immense number of animals which were fed and fatted on the refuse grains of those distilleries. But these supplies are almost entirely cut off. Another species of manure, much valued on the Continent, and especially among those careful husbandmen, the Flemish, is that of pigeons and barn-door fowls. The superior efficacy of these excrements over most other manures is acknowledged. The excrements of birds are voided only in one form, and may there- fore be supposed to possess the greater strength. This manure is saved in Flanders with the greatest care. Contracts are often made with persons who keep pigeons for their manure. A hun- dred francs, or twenty dollars, is sometimes paid for the manure of six hundred pigeons. The manure goes under the name of columbine. The saving of this species of manure requires par- ticular care. It is advised to spread the floors of pigeon-houses and poultry-houses with fine sand, that this manure may be thoroughly intermixed with it, and a fermentation be prevented. If no care is taken of it, it is wasted, or it becomes full of mag- gots and vermin, which infest the birds. Sometimes it is applied mixed with water, but oftener in the form of powder. The dung of pigeons is considered more powerful than that of barn- MANURES. 529 door fowls ; but the reason is not ascertained. The dung of geese is not so much vahied as either, perhaps for the reason that they feed on grass. The birds, whose excrements form- the guano, feed wholly upon fish. Guano has been used to some extent in France, but its use is nuich discouraged by the extraordinary adulterations which have taken place in it. These adulterations, according to chemical analysis, have amounted to ninety per cent. Where it has been used, its fertilizing powers have been acknowledged ; but the French farmers whom I have met Avitli have not considered it superior in efficacy to poudrette, or dried night-soil. On a visit to a French farmer, about twenty miles from Paris, the state of whose farm would have been creditable in any country, and was certainly inferior to that of few farms which I have visited, he informed me that he had made trial of stable manure, of guano, and of poudrette ; and that he found the guano powerful, that the stable manure produced the largest growth, and that the poudrette produced the best grain. It is obvious that we want many more details and circumstances to form any strong con- clusion from this experiment. In all cases, however, among the French, which came under my notice, I found a strong approval of guano, but the preference given to poudrette. More experi- ence may result in a different verdict. 4. Liquid Manures, and Means of saving them. — The preparations for saving the liquid manure, which are universal in Flanders, and which are occasionally met with both in France and Switzerland, deserve the most particular mention. There is good reason to believe, that, if it could be saved and applied with equal ease, the liquid manure of an animal is of more value than the solid excrements. The Flemish farmers suffer nothing of this sort to be lost ; and it is stated that in Ghent the servants receive a compensation for saving the waste waters of the house. On a Flemish farm there is always a urine cistern, usually adjoining the stable or cow-house. A gutter or trough behind the cattle or the horses conveys all the liquids into this cistern, which is placed outside, rather than immediately under the cattle, that it may be accessible both for the removal, and the mixture of other matters. This cistern is sometimes twenty feet in length, twelve in breadth, and six in depth. It is built of bricks, VOL. II. 45 530 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE and the bottom laid in cement, so as to be water-tight. It is sometimes divided into two great compartments, and sometimes into several, as in the subjoined diagram. These diflerent compartments are designed to preserve the liquid of different ages separately. Each compartment is accu- rately gauged, and there is a fixed scale in each compartment, or in the cistern, where it is not separated, by which, from the height of the liquid, the quantity is easily determined. This is necessary for two purposes ; first, in case of the sale of the manure, and second, in its application to the soil ; in both which instances it may be important to know the quantity. In addition to the saving of the urine, the stables are frequently washed with water, and this likewise runs into the common receptacle. It is deemed best not to apply the urine until it has some age, and has passed through a degree of fermentation. In order to increase their stock of manure, the farmers purchase large quantities of manure, such as the emptyings of privies in the cities ; and these are carried in boats prepared for the purpose, on the different canals, to the farms which are accessible ; and many of these farms have places of deposit, or cisterns for the reception of this manure, directly upon the borders of a canal, that there may be little trouble in discharging the load. This is a double good, to the cities and the country ; to the former, in getting rid of their impurities, and preventing the diseases which they might engender; to the latter, in enriching their lands. In many cases these places are used as deposits for the use of manure merchants or dealers, who collect large amounts, and dispose of it in such quantities as may be needed to the neighboring farmers, MANURES. 531 who buy according to their means or necessities. It is sold by the barrel or tun, and is measured by the scale in the tank, or the vessel in which it is removed. Sometimes the cisterns are covered in with brick, arched, and emptied by means of a pump; in other cases they are emptied by means of dippers and buckets ; and it is important that they should be accessible, so that the sediment may be removed as it may collect. Sometimes the cistern is a mere round well sunk in the ground, and emptied by a pump. But the form is of little importance, provided it be secure and convenient, compared with the matter of saving all this refuse, the importance of which I have already most urgently insisted upon. To the great credit as well as to the great gain of the Flemish farmers, nothing of this kind is ever wasted ; and the cleanliness of the Dutch towns and cities is certainly not surpassed, and scarcely equalled, by any others. A good deal of stress is laid upon having the cistern outside of, and detached from, the stable, that the fumes from it may not injure the air of the stable, to the prejudice of the health of the cattle, or those who tend them ; and likewise on having different compartments in the cistern, that the liquid may have obtained a certain age before it is applied. They are in the habit, likewise, of mixing rape cakes, or the cakes which remain after the oil has been expressed from the rape-seed, with the urine, Avhich in this way forms a most efficacious manure. These cakes weigh generally about half a pound, and are sold by the hundred or thousand. The amount of this manure applied to the land is often very large ; liberal and ample manuring being one of the great principles of Flemish farming. 5. Compost Heaps. — The Flemish have, likewise, a mode of preparing a compost heap, which is greatly approved among them. They collect the scrapings of ditches, the vegetable matter which is floating in them, heath, bushes, stalks of vege- tables, and any waste vegetable matter which they can gather ; with this they mix a certain quantity of earth or soil, and then add quicklime in about the proportion to the heap of one tenth or one fifteenth. This heap is several times shovelled and cut up with a spade, until it is in a state of sufficient fineness to be applied to the field. In the Pays de Waes, a district of country between Ghent and Antwerp, the cultivation of which is not 532 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. surpassed in any part of the country, perhaps not in the world, — for I can hardly think of any culture more exact, more clean, or more beautiful, or any crops more luxuriant than I saw here, — the practice of the farmers is to place this heap near the side of the field intended to be cultivated, and then to pour upon it a copious sprinkling from the cisterns ; the heap is then shovelled over, and the whole thoroughly intermixed ; in which case it becomes an excellent manure to be applied before sowing. 6. Jauffret's Manure. — The preparation of Jauffret, which has had much celebrity in France, deserves notice here. I have seen one similar applied, and with success, as far as the object aimed at was concerned, in the United States. The object of this invention was to find some means by which straw, brush, ferns, heaths, broom, and other woody substances, might be speedily brought into a state of decomposition, so that the mix- ture might be applied to the land. He supposes it possible to supply nutriment to the land in this way, without the aid of ani- mals. He advises, therefore, to collect a heap of materials com- posed of vegetable matter, such as straw, ferns, heath, broom, turf, bushes, small branches of trees, stalks, &c. ; and when this heap is made, the articles being intermixed and pressed together, you are then to prepare near it a liquid of the following mate- rials : — 100 parts of fecal matter and urine. 25 *' '•' soot from the chimney. 200 " " gypsum in powder. 30 " " unslaked lime, 10 " " unleeched wood ashes. A small quantity of salt. '• " '• " refined saltpetre. 25 parts of the drainage of a manure heap, or of liquid fecal matter. These matters are to be mixed in a place by the heap, with water enough to make a quantity of liquor sufficient to water this heap, and, in, a few days, produce such a state of heat and fermentation as will reduce and wholly decompose it. The plaster or gypsum must be applied by slow degrees and in small quantities ; otherwise it would become hard. Near the heap, which should be placed on a piece of ground slightly inclined, MANURES. 533 should be a basin or hole to receive the drainings of the heap, that they may be returned upon it. The washings or applica- tions of the liquid must be repeated, and holes occasionally made in the heap to receive it. In a favorable temperature, it is stated that a fermentation will commence in forty-eight hours, and that in twelve or fifteen days the whole matter will be so reduced as to be in a condition to apply to the land to be ploughed in with advantage. I am not able to give with great accuracy the various propor- tions of ingredients which are prescribed ; but this general statement will be sufficient for practical purposes, understand- ing only that there must be a sufficient quantity of the .'iquid thoroughly to impregnate or saturate the heap. Several other mixtures have been prescribed by different individuals, which produce the same effect ; the only question is that of cost. I do not deem it necessary further to refer to them, as they have been given in various forms to the public. Any cheap process, indeed, by which such crude materials can be decomposed, must be valu- able, especially when the articles themselves, of which the application is composed, are of an active and enriching nature. In general such prescriptions are looked upon as a species of quackery ; but Jauffret's method has been much approved in France. 7. General Remarks on Manures. — I have heard from some farmers who claimed to be highly practical and intelligent, great distrust expressed of the value of liquid manure. They have applied to their lands, with comparatively small effect, the drain- ings of their dung-heap ; but, as a capital Swiss farmer observed to me, the drainage of a manure heap and the contents of a urine cistern are very ditferent matters. The former is, of course, in strength and efficacy, very inferior to the latter. The Flemish farmers, in the application of their manures, aim at two objects : the one to have their manure in a form in which it can be immediately taken up by the plant ; the other, to apply it at a time when it is directly needed. h\ a liquid form it is, of course, most accessible to the demands of the plant, and they apply it at the time of sowing ; and to some crops repeatedly afterwards, when they are in a growing state, and the effects of the first application are exhausted. They are, likewise, most 534 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. liberal and indefatigable in the application of their solid manures, not limiting them to the surface, but mixing them with the whole soil by thorough and deep trenching. CXXXVIIi. — CROPS. I have already treated fully of many of the crops cultivated on the Continent ; but there remain some few others, in the cul- ture of which the Flemish distinguish themselves, to which 1 shall refer. 1. Colza is a plant cultivated largely in parts of France, but very extensively in Flanders, where it may be considered as a standard crop, the culture of which is carried to great perfection. It is a species of the cabbage family, and is cultivated for the oil which is expressed from the seed. It occupies the ground nearly a year, being sown in July or August, or transplanted in Sep- tember or October, and gathered the ensuing July. The product of a good crop in seed is estimated at thirty bushels. It is con- sidered a great exhauster of the soil, but it returns in its refuse much of what it receives. The stalks are often converted into manure, and are frequently used as fuel in cooking food for cattle, and in heating ovens. The land on which it flourishes best is a strong, rich soil, rather inclined to sand, yet argillaceous, mod- erately humid, and with a deep, fertile bed. It must be well drained, so as to allow of no standing water upon it, and it must be well manured. The best preparation is a green sward, or a clover ley broken up ; it often, however, follows rye or barley. It is important that the cultivation should be thoroughly clean. When sown on stubble, the stubble is first to be thoroughly harrowed or ploughed to the depth of two or three inches, and then, the weeds being cleared from the land and the maimre spread upon it, the whole is to be turned over by the plough to a good depth. The seed may be sown broadcast, or it may be sown in drills ; in the latter case it is more easily kept clean ; or the plants may CROPS. 535 be grown in a nursery, and transplanted. In case of transplant- ing, the crop is usually much better, and the oil made from it of a superior quality ; but the labor and expense are considerably increased. When sown broadcast it is sown very thin, and cleared out so as to leave the plants about one foot apart. When sown in drills, the drills are more than a foot apart. When trans- planted, the plants should first be grown in an ample seed-bed, and set out at the distance of a foot from each other in double rows, the intervals between the double rows being eighteen inches. The land is ordinarily laid in stitches, on which four or six rows may be planted ; the land in the intervals dug out with a spade, and laid on the bed in the autumn, and in the spring this dirt levelled, the soil gathered up round the plants, and the whole kept thoroughly clean. In December, when the ground is frozen, it is sometimes watered with liquid manure from the urine cistern in which the rape cakes have been dissolved ; and this manuring is sometimes repeated in the spring, to the great advantage of the crop. This liquid manure is sometimes applied most beneficially immediately before sowing the crop. Wood ashes are likewise recommended as a manure ; and some farmers in Germany, when the plant presents four or six leaves, give it a dressing of plaster or gypsum. Marl on light soils is likewise extremely beneficial ; this is car- ried on to the land in a season favorable to this work, and then spread and distributed by a harrow. The seed is often sown broadcast : but it is very prejudicial to the crop to sow it too thickly. There are three different modes of transplanting the crop ; first, by a spade, when the workman makes the hole by plunging the spade into the ground to its full depth, when, pressing it from himself, children, who work with him, place two plants in the hole ; then, withdrawing the spade, the earth falls back upon the plants, and a pressure of the foot between them finishes the operation. Or a dibble or planter may be used, which makes two holes, into which the plants are placed, and the earth closed up by hand ; or a furrow may be struck with a plough, and the plants laid along in the furrow on the side of the furrow slice, and a second passing of the plough will throw the dirt directly on the roots of these plants, there being a workman to follow the plough to relieve plants, which hav^e been too much covered, or to cover those 536 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. which have received too little dirt upon them, and to set up those which have fallen down. The plants, which are grown in a nursery bed, should have plenty of room ; and soot is recommended as an excellent manure for them, as well as for the field after they have been trans- planted. The plants, which are designed to be set out, arc some- times kept out of ground five or six days. The design of this is to check vegetatioji, so that they may not advance too rapidly before the winter, lest the severe frosts should injure them. It is not considered indis-pensable to manure the field upon which the crop is to be planted, if it is in a good state, or if the previous crop has been manured, though the crop will bear the usual relation to the richness of the land. The crop follows rye or wheat with advantage, or clover ; but in the case of rye or wheat, the stubble is to be thoroughly cleaned. The crop is to be hoed during its growth, and earth drawn round the plants. The plant has dangerous enemies in flies and bugs which attack it. Against the flies a dusting of quicklime is sometimes of use ; but the bugs are with difficulty dislodged, unless by a frost. The frosts, however, when they occur nightly, with warm days, are injurious to the plant; much less, however, when the frosts are followed by fogs. It is the habit of small farmers to pluck a portion of the leaves as food for their stock ; but this is attended by a diminution of the product. The harvesting of the crop is a business requiring much care. It must be gathered before it is completely ripe. In good weather it can be laid in small heaps and dried, and then shelled out on cloths upon the field ; or it may be stored in a barn after it has become sufficiently dry. In wet weather it may be heaj-ed up with layers of straw between the layers of colza, until a return of good weather. If suffered to become too dry, it is liable to lose much by shelling out. In cutting with a sickle, the work- man is cautioned against taking too many stalks in his hand at one time, as more likely, by so doing, to shake out the seed. I have already spoken of the value of the cakes as manure, though they have been much used of late for feeding stock, wliich they mfornied me at Courtray was a modern practice. The clean cultivation of colza, and the ample manuring, serve emi- nently to prepare the land for wheat. CROPS. 537 2. Navette. — A smaller kind of colza, called navette, is cul- tivated where the land is too light for the larger kinds. It is cultivated for the same purpose, though the produce is seldom more than two thirds that of the other. Its produce is consid- ered more valuable, and sells for a higher price. It is sown broadcast, and requires the land to be well cultivated and manured. The navette, a rape of summer, is sown in the spring, and ripens its seed in September. This kind is much sown in parts of England, as feed for sheep ; but is seldom suffered to go to seed. It produces a healthy feed for sheep, and in good land a most productive vegetation. It sometimes, as I have observed in another place, affects badly the ears of sheep. The navette, a rape that is sown in autumn, has the advantage of bearing the frost well; and is much benefited by being harrowed in the spring. 3. Poppy. — The poppy is largely cultivated in Flanders ; but I have no recollection of seeing it any where else, though it often appears as a weed in fields of grain, both wheat and oats. It is cultivated for its oil, which, when properly managed, is much esteemed. It is grown in small quantities in gardens for medical purposes as a narcotic ; in which case the heads, with a piece of the stalk, are cut off" before their maturity, and hung up to dry, and the opium extracted by the druggists. The poppy cultivated is of two kinds, the white and purple. The latter kind produces the larger quantity of oil ; the former, the best quality. There is another diiference ; the head of one kind being much more open than that of the other : and the former kind is almost exclusively cultivated in Flanders. The soil required for the poppy should be strong and mellow, and, as far as may be, protected from cold. It should be well cleaned from weeds. Though ordinarily sown broadcast, it would be preferable to sow the seed in drills, that it may be easily hoed. The plants should be left about a foot apart. It succeeds well to grain, and especially to hemp ; in which case the manuring is not required to be repeated. It is especially recommended to follow potatoes, where the ground has been well cultivated and kept clean. When it is intended that the poppy should succeed potatoes, the potatoes should be well manured. When it follows any of the grains, several loads of manure should be given to 538 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. the land for the crop. This manure may be applied in the autumn or spring ; but in either case it must be ploughed or harrowed, and thoroughly mixed with the soil. There is danger of sowing the seed too thickly, and therefore it is advised to mix the seed before sowing with one portion of earth and two por- tions of sawdust. As soon as the plants appear, they are to be weeded and cleaned with great care ; and when a foot in height, to be hoed and slightly earthed up. The gathering of the seed of the poppy is to be done by hand, and at different times. As soon as the heads have acquired a degree of ripeness, they are to be carefully shaken over a basket or bag, so as to save the first loose seeds. This is after- wards to be repeated before the general harvest, when the whole is to be gathered by cutting off the heads. The shelling of the seed is afterwards done by hand ; for if done by a flail, the seed is cleaned with difficulty ; and the pieces of the stalk, which then become intermixed with the seed, give an offensive taste to the oil. The seed may be preserved a long time, but requires to be aired. The oil of the poppy is used both for food and light, and is considered a fifth more valuable than that of the colza. The cakes, remaining after the expression of the oil, are valuable for the fatting of swine ; and the stalks for fuel. The ashes, which remain after burning it, are of the best kind for manure. If the seed be pressed in a mill used for the colza or other oil, the greatest attention must be paid to cleaning it. The oil expressed in cold weather is much superior in quality to that obtained in warm weather, and the two must not be mixed. The great enemies of the poppy are the field-mice, which eat off the stalks while in a green state, and then destroy the heads. The birds likewise plunder a great deal of the seed. 4. Cameline. — Another plant, called Camelinc,^ is culti- vated, when, for example, the colza fails ; as it ripens its seed in three months. The oil is not so valuable as the colza, as it has a bad smell. The plant is not extensively cultivated ; but it succeeds well in sandy and inferior land. The stalks of the plant are used for brooms, and some persons cultivate it for this object. * Myagrum Salivuvu CROPS. 539 5. White Mustard. — The white mustard is sometimes cul- tivated both for the medicinal qualities of its seed and the oil expressed from it, which, though useful for many purposes, is not suitable for human food. The great objection to the culti- vation of this class of plants is, that it fills the ground with seed which germinates in succeeding years, and is with difficulty eradicated. It is sometimes subject to mildew or rust. It ripens in about fifteen or sixteen weeks. It is liable to be lodged ; but this does not ordinarily injure the seed. The plant is eaten as a salad ; and it is given to cattle as a change of food, when their appetites become capricious, and require to be quickened. 6. Flax. — Flax is a great crop in many of the northern countries of Europe. It has been largely cultivated in Flanders, both for its fibre and oil. It has been for a long period an im- portant article of commerce, and probably in no country has its culture been carried to such perfection. The value of the croj), and the extraordinary diff"erence in the value of difterent quali- ties, amounting in some cases to full one hundred per cent., show the attention it demands, and how liberally it recompenses extra- ordinary care. Flax will grow on various soils, but is not indifierent to the character of the soil on which it is cultivated. It requires a rich, sandy loam, and one thoroughly manured. It is advisable, how- ever, with the exceptions to which I shall refer, that the soil should be enriched by previous manuring, rather than in the year of its being sown. The Flemish farmers make flax a crop in their regular rotation, occurring once in seven or eight years ; and the manuring of their previous crops has reference to the flax crop, which is to succeed. There are generally stated to be two kinds of flax. The ditference does not appear so great, however, but that they may occasionally run into each other. There is a kind which runs upon a single stalk, which is generally preferred, on account of its producing a finer fibre ; there is another, of a coarser kind, which branches out at the top, like a tree. They make a dis- tinction in Flanders, likewise, between the plants which bear a close, and those which produce an open or gaping capsule or seed-vessel, the latter being preferred. Experiments have been made in Germany with seed brought from South Italy. The 540 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. seeds were beautiful, and brilliant, and large, yet the plant at- tained a comparatively small height. The Flemish farmers approve of changing their seed fre- quently. It is said that a crop from seed which has been twice sown in Belgium is inferior in quantity, owing to this circum- stance. I am an unbeliever in the deterioration of any plant on account of continuing the seed, where proper pains are taken to get, by selection and care, the best seed only from that plant. The seed preferred in Flanders is the seed brought from Riga, There are other places, however, from which seed is brought, the fibre produced from which is said to be finer than that from Riga. The seed to be chosen should be heavy and brilliant, of a gold color, or a clear brown, and especially clean. It may be tried in water ; and if much of it floats upon the surface, it is owing to the imperfection of the seed. It may be tried by throwing some little into the fire, to determine its oily properties ; and it may be laid upon a wet blanket or cloth, to determine its germinative powers. Seed which is black, or seed which has been much heated, is wholly unfit for sowing. The ground for flax cannot be prepared with too much care. A very fine crop of flax is often obtained on grass land, recently turned over, and this even without manure. The land in this case is carefully ploughed, rolled, lightly harrowed, and then sowed, and the seed lightly harrowed or brushed in. The crop which precedes flax is often oats or rye, but especially potatoes. The land, if in stubble or in potatoes, is carefully ploughed in the autumn, and then twice again in the spring ; and it requires to be most thoroughly cleaned, and kept clean of weeds. It is commonly sown thickly. Thick sowing tends to render the stalks fine and straight, without branching. One hundred and sixty pounds of seed is the usual allowance to an acre, which seems a large quantity. The land is sometimes manured in the year in which it is sown. In this case it is ploughed early, say in March, and thoroughly wrought, and then rolled smooth and hard. The land is then manured with thirty bushels per acre of peat ashes from Holland, or what is called Dutch ashes, and with a good dressing of liquid manure from the urine cistern, in which the cakes of colza have been dis- solved ; and this is mixed, likewise, with some manure from the CROPS. 541 privies. This makes a strong dressing; the land is then har- rowed ; the seed sown, and lightly brushed in with a bush- harrow, as there is always danger of covering the seed too deeply. Horse manure must not be used for this crop. The effect of marl used as a manure for flax is to injure the color. Pigeons' dung, or what is called columbine, and which includes also the manure of the poultry yard, is pronounced an excellent manure. It is plain that these manures do not favor the produc- tion of weeds, as is commonly the case with barn-yard manure, and consequently is much to be preferred. In the neighborhood of Courtray, where much the best flax is grown, they use great quantities of the liquid manure, with the rape cakes freely inter- mixed. A thousand gallons of this liquid manure, with a thou- sand rape cakes dissolved in it, are sometimes applied to an acre. Besides other crops, flax is said to follow to great advantage a crop of hemp, which is always highly manured, and kept per- fectly clean. The dung of sheep is much valued for the flax crop ; and especially where sheep have been folded on the land. The general opinion is, that high manuring produces a coarse flax ; light manuring produces a flax of a fine fibre. It requires a deep culture, as the roots are supposed to penetrate to a depth equal to half the height : the flax root has been traced much farther than this. The best flax is produced at Courtray ; and it is said that the same pains or manuring will not produce nearly as good in other places : this seems to imply some unascertained quality in the soil, peculiarly favorable to its growth. The time of sowing flax must be somewhat regulated by the climate or position of the place. It is sown in March, and some- times as late as May. The earlier sowing is advised, though in the countries of a high northern latitude the rapidity of vegeta- tion compensates to a degree for the shortness of the season. Ordinarily in fifteen days after the sowing of the seed the field will require to be weeded. This cannot be too thoroughly per- formed, and is done by women and children, on their knees, working against the wind, that it may raise the plants which have been pressed down. Flax is often liable to be lodged, especially if the growth be rapid. Great pains are sometimes taken to prevent this, by placing stakes in line in different parts of the field, and laying VOL. II. 46 542 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. poles or bars along upon them, which serve to keep the plant from falling over. If flax of an extraordinary fineness is required, it is pulled before the perfect ripening of the seed ; the superior fineness of the fibre is considered as a compensation for the loss of the seed. But if otherwise, an early is preferred to a late gathering ; as the longer it is left to stand, the coarser and harder becomes the fibre. The seed is generally taken off by a comb with iron teeth, made for the purpose, as soon as the flax is harvested ; or the whole is stowed away in a barn, to be taken off at pleasure. When the flax is stowed away in a barn, and the seed not taken off until the succeeding winter or spring, it acquires a ripeness which gives it a superior value. After the seed is taken off, the flax is set up in the field in a sort of windrow, the roots upon the ground, and the tops inclined to each other, until it is sufiiciently dried to be placed away in a barn, or stacked with the roots out, or steeped, preparatory to being dressed for the market. The bright and beautiful silvery color of the flax is of great impor- tance, and so is the fineness of the fibre ; and all pains are directed to secure these objects. There are several modes of steeping, or what is termed rotting the flax, that is, destroying the bark of the plant so as to clean the fibre. It is sometimes dew-rotted, that is, left upon the grass, being occasionally turned ; it is sometimes rotted in stag- nant water ; it is sometimes rotted in running water. In Flan- ders there are persons who are employed as regular sleepers of flax ; and when the farmer sells his crop of flax before it is dressed to the merchant or manufacturer, these persons dress and prepare it for the market. The inhabitants of Courtray steep their flax in the water of the River Lys, drawing off to the side in an arti- ficial basin, of sufficient depth and width, water sufficient for their purpose. The flax is set upright, with the roots down- wards, in a sort of hurdle or basket, and it is with great pains retained in its upright position, as being necessary to prevent its becoming discolored. They are careful to keep the roots at least a foot from the ground, or bottom of the pool. In many cases, instead of water being drawn from the river into a pool or basin, the flax is placed upright in hurdles to prevent its floating away, directly in the running stream, with planks and weights in all cases to keep it under the water, as the tops are longer in CROPS. 543 becoming macerated than the bottoms ; and where they are not sufficiently rotted, a considerable loss is experienced. In this case, of course, fresh water is continually supplied to the flax ; and the process is completed sooner or later, according to the temperature of the weather. Great skill is required to determine the precise time when the process is finished, and the flax is to be removed from the water, as a few hours are said in such case to make an important difference in the color of the flax. This must be matter of experience 'rather than of written instruction. In other cases, a pool or cistern of water is formed in a field, in which the flax is immersed, fixed upright, and the bottoms of the plants not touching the bottom of the cistern ; and so arranged, that this water can be drawn off" and replenished with clean water. It is said that in this way the cleaned flax has more weight than in any other, amounting, it is said, over some methods employed, to ten per cent. This method was at one time con- sidered a valuable discovery in Flanders. It is clearly important in all cases that the water should have no foreign substance in it, which would be likely to give a coloring to the flax. I have already mentioned the value of the water in which flax has been steeped as a manure to land, having seen the most beneficial effects from it. I am informed that a method has been adopted for getting the bark off" the flax by steaming the plant, in which case the whole is accomplished in seventy hours, but I am not sufficiently informed to speak of it with confidence. The flax being thus rotted, the remaining operations through which it passes are well understood. The operations of heckling and swingling flax, which were formerly performed wholly by hand, are now performed by machinery moved either by steam or water ; but it does not enter into my plan to describe these machines. The seed of flax is of great importance in Flanders for the manufacture of oil. About seven bushels of seed are rated as the ordinary yield from an acre of land. This seems a very small product. The seed, when first taken from the stalks, is carefully dried and kept in sacks, until it is beyond the danger of being heated. The cakes from the pressed flax seed are highly valued for the Ititting of cattle ; and the seed itself, being converted into jelly, is capable of being used in this way to great advantage. Indeed, as far as my own experience goes, I know no single article superior to it for cattle or for sheep. 544 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, In Flanders they sometimes sow clover or carrots among the flax, from which they get a crop after that is removed. This should not be done in any event until after the first weeding of the flax. The practice is generally approved. That it is to a degree prejudicial to the flax crop, there can be little doubt ; but whether the profits of the clover or the carrots would more than compensate the lessening of the crop of flax, is a matter upon which there exists a diversity of judgment, and, in diflerent cases, undoubtedly a diversity of results. 7. Hemp. — The cultivation of hemp prevails to a considerable extent in Flanders, and is expensive in the preparation of the land, and the quantity of manure required. The value of the crop is considerable ; the land, being well cultivated and highly manured, is in a condition for two or three successive crops of grain. The soil required for hemp is a strong, rich, moist loam, a deep alluvion ; and it needs to be deeply cultivated and liberally manured. It is not unusual to plough it eight to ten inches deep, or to trench it with a spade a foot deep or more ; and it should be finely divided and tilled. It is ploughed in the au- tumn, and then again twice in the spring ; but it must not be wrought when it is wet, which indeed may be laid down as a universal rule. A sandy clay loam may be considered as best adapted to this culture. It likes a warm exposure and low ground. It succeeds well after clover or potatoes ; and in some places it comes as often on the same ground as every second or third year. The manure which best suits hemp is horse or sheep manure. If the manure is coarse and strawy, it is ploughed in, and often by the first ploughing in the autumn ; but if well rotted, it is applied in the spring, and near or at the time of sowing. It requires a warm manure ; though the manure of cows, when about a third part is added of night-soil, or manure from the urine cistern, is an excellent application. The manure of pigeons and poultry, ashes, and the cleaning of streets, is much valued. To give a rapid growth to the plant, the manure must be in a condition, that is, well rotted or short, to be immediately taken up by the plant ; and with respect to hemp, there is little danger from the seeds of weeds in the manure, as the luxuriant growth of the hemp will overpower them. CROPS. 545 The seed is sown ordinarily about the middle or within the last fortnight of May, and sometimes not until June. The seed requires to be watched against the birds ; for even after it has made its appearance above ground, they will pull up the plants and take the seed. The plants are to be thinned out to a dis- tance of three or four inches ; but if the land be very rich, to a greater, or double the distance. If it is desired to grow a fine hemp for twine, the sowing should be thick; if for large ropes and cables, it may be sown more sparingly. The gathering of the hemp is made ordinarily at two ditferent times. There will be found in the field what are called the male and the female plants. Both in Belgium and in France, by a misnomer, the plant bearing the seed is called the male plant, and the plant bearing the flowers for the impregnation of the flowers upon the seed-bearing plant is called the male hemp. It is of no great importance by what term they are designated, provided the difference is understood. The plants which do not bear seed are to be pulled from the field some weeks before the seed-bearing plants ; they at that time will give a fine fibre, but if left until the ripening of the seed, they become of little or no value. The time for pulling them is when the flowers of the non-seed-bearing plants have been long enough unfolded to shed their pollen upon the male plants, and the top of the stalk be- comes of a yellow color, and the part towards the root is bleached. The ripeness of the seed-bearing plants is determined by the maturity of the seed, and the fading color of the stem. The hemp, being pulled, is tied in small bundles ; and, after being sufficiently dried by being set up in the sun, the seed is beaten or combed oft*, and the plant is prepared for steeping or rotting. The hemp pulled first requires not more than eight or ten days for rotting ; the last pulled, which is drawn, of course, when the weather has become colder, is sometimes kept in the water two months ; and it is well for it to remain until the water freezes. The mode of steeping does not differ much from that of flax, excepting that it is not deemed necessary to set it upright in the water, and that it is done in a pool or basin instead of the river. The color of the fibre of hemp is obviously of little importance compared with that of flax, though some of the finest of hemp is sometimes mixed with flax for the making of coarse linens. Hemp, too, like flax, is sometimes dew-rotted upon the ground^ 46* 546 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. where it is thinly spread out, and occasionally turned. That which is dew-rotted has a superior whiteness and fineness of fibre to tliat which is steeped, but is not so durable. This dew- rotted hemp is therefore preferred for twine, and the other kind for cables and strong cordage. The early-pulled hemp should not be rotted upon the grass, but upon stubble ; and it is believed by some farmers, that where it is spread upon a rye stubble to be dew-rotted, it acquires a whiteness above that by any other pro- cess. The seed-bearing hemp, when dew-rotted upon grass, must be spread so thinly that one stalk should scarcely touch another. The farmers of one of the best cultivated districts in Flanders, the Pays de Waes, are averse to planting hemp, because of the great quantity of manure which it requires : but, with the addi- tion of a moderate manuring, they get excellent wheat after it, and sometimes carrots are sown after hemp, and a superb crop of flax is taken from the same ground after the carrots. Two great advantages are said to come from the cultivation of hemp ; the weeds are stifled, and the leaves, which fall from the stalks, serve to enrich the land. The quantity of seed sown to an acre is about half a bushel ; and it is advisable to sow it in narrow beds, that when the non- seed-bearing stalks are pulled, the seed-bearing stalks may not be interfered with. Sometimes a crop of rye or wheat is sown among the hemp plants, while standing, and the extraction of the non-seed-bearing plant serves to cover it. This saves a ploughing. 7\t the harvest, the plant is usually drawn by the roots, though sometimes cut with a sickle or a knife, and laid on the ground to be dried. The hemp is said to be of a superior quality if thoroughly dried before it is put in the steep. The ends of the seed-bearing hemp are sometimes beaten over the edges of the head of an open barrel, as the seed which comes off" in this way most easily is, of course, the most ripe, and the best for sowing. The seed which first comes off" in this case is taken for this purpose. The roots of the hemp before dew-rotting are cut off" with a hatchet, and used for fuel. In pulling hemp, it is important so far to select the stalks as to bring together those which are of the same length, to be tied up in the same bundle. The hemp, after being steeped, must be thoroughly dried ; and this is done, CROPS, 547 in some parts of Germany, by a kiln of simple construction for that purpose, Avhich saves much time. The hemp, after being dried, is broken by a machine formed by one heavy stone rolling over another, which breaks the bark ; and sometimes by mallets, and then the bark is picked off by the hand — a slow process, and prejudicial to the health of the laborers from the dust which fills the room where this is done. The produce of an acre of hemp is ordinarily about 350 lbs., and of the seed from thirty to thirty-five bushels. There are several other crops cultivated extensively in Flan- ders ; but my object is not so much to give a specific and de- tailed account of the mode of cultivation of these crops as the general features of the cultivation. Tobacco and hops are grown to a considerable extent ; and likewise several plants valuable for their coloring or dyeing properties, such as Woad or Pastel, Weld, and Madder. 8. Tobacco. — Tobacco is cultivated as an article of large consumption and of commerce. It is quite remarkable that a plant so odious and offensive as this, in no respect conducive to health, and in most cases positively injurious, and so nauseous and repugnant to an unaccustomed taste until habit has over- come this repugnance, should have acquired such a hold, that it has become, with a large portion of mankind, almost a necessary of life. There is no hope of a reformation in this respect, and the use is constantly extending itself. There are two kinds of tobacco cultivated in Flanders — that of Virginia and that of Turkey : the former is esteemed greatly superior to the latter. It has its place in the rotation of many farmers, occurring sometimes once in four, and sometimes twice in seven years. It will grow well upon most soils, excepting a heavy clay, or a dry sand, or a wet soil ; but it requires laborious cultivation and abundant manuring. The crop is stated to be 4000 lbs. ; but this much exceeds the amount grown to an acre under the best cultivation which I have known in the United States ; 2000 lbs. would, I think, be considered there a large crop, though I have known an average crop of 2700 lbs. grown on several acres under circumstances peculiarly favorable. The soil is ploughed, and the manure ploughed in, in the 548 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. autumn, and again ploughed and labored in the spring. The manures used are cow and pigs' manure, and likewise the manure of sheep, which is deemed peculiarly favorable. Malt-dust from the breweries is much valued; and very large dressings of rape cake, sometimes in powder and sometimes dissolved in the urine cistern, are extensively used. If fecal matter is mixed with this, it is essentially improved for this object. The manure of horses, even the urine of horses, is objectionable, as giving a bad taste to the tobacco. What worse taste can be given to it than its ordinary taste, it would be difficult to imagine. The seed is first sown in a nursery-bed, in a warm and shel- tered exposure, in March ; the nursery-bed should be well- wrought and manured ; and, in case of danger of frost, the young plants require some protection either of bushes or of straw. The transplanting is usually made with a dibble in June, when the young plants have acquired a growth of six leaves. They are set out in rows two feet apart, and in the row the plants are fourteen inches apart. In about fourteen days the plants require to be hoed, and the plantation to be kept clean of weeds. When the plants have acquired a height of ten or twelve leaves, they are then, as it is sometimes termed, stopped, — that is, the top- shoot is pinched off, so as to prevent its rising any higher; and all side shoots are broken off, so as to leave only one stalk. In this way the sap of the plant is thrown wholly into the leaves. The tobacco plant is subject to be injured by frosts, especially in low grounds ; and is likewise liable to rust, under which the leaves perish and fall to the ground. This depending, as is sup- posed, upon a bad exposure or a bad condition of the soil, as yet unascertained, no remedy has been discovered. I have not been able to learn that the tobacco worm, so well known in the United States, and so destructive unless means are taken to remove it, is known in Europe. This is a large green caterpillar, found under the leaves ; and sometimes a large drove of turkeys is sent into the plantation, who pick them oft' and regale them- selves upon them. This is the nearest approach within my knowledge to the use of this weed among the inferior animals ; the worms eat the tobacco ; the turkeys eat the worms. When the leaves begin to turn yellow, the harvest begins ; they are picked off by hand close to the stalk, and, after a little exposure to the sun, are then tied up in bands and hung up under CROPS. 549 cover for perfect drying. When taken off they are sorted into three qualities — the first, into the large leaves ; the second, com- posed of the leaves next in size ; and the last, of the leaves which have grown nearest the ground. 9. Hops. — I know of nothing peculiar in the culture and management of hops in Flanders, excepting the production of 1600 lbs. of dried hops to an acre, which is a very large yield. They are careful not to have the plantations of too large an extent, as it would prevent a free circulation of air ; and they manure the ground most liberally with liquid manures. The hops are planted in hills six feet apart each way, and four plants to each hill. A trench is dug round the hill, which is filled with decomposed manure, and in some small measure earthed up. The usual operations of trimming and pohng them follow. As no crop of hops is taken the first year, the intervals are occupied by cabbages and other plants. A method has been recently invented and patented in England for drying or curing hops, by which it is stated that at least fifty per cent, of the fuel ordinarily used will be saved, and a much larger amount of the essential oil of the hops, the lupulin, will be retained in them. The furnace or kiln for drying them is of a peculiar construction ; and the air used for drying them is made to pass over sulphuric acid or quicklime, by which it is divested of its watery properties, and comes in upon the hops in a dry and decomposed state. The apparatus is deemed simple enough, and not extraordinarily expensive. The hops dried in this way have, it is stated, brought twenty-five per cent, more in the market than those cured by other methods. I have seen the plans for constructing the apparatus, but further experiments may bo desired to determine its advantages. It is said to be applicable to other agricultural purposes, such as malting, and even the drying of hay, so as to expedite the process, and at the same time retam the rich juices of the herbage. It is difficult to conceive that it should be useful in this way upon any large scale. Most patent inventions, however, like patent medicines, are catholicons. There are cultivated in Flanders, in France, and in Italy, several plants for the purpose of dyeing or coloring, such as woad, which is used for a blue dye, weld for yellow, and madder for 550 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, red. I was once asked, what bearing had the color of the trousers of a soldier of the French army, which are red, upon agriculture. The answer is obvious ; so infinitely diversified and innumerable are the circumstances which affect the various relations and interests of social life. 10. Madder.* — Madder is one of the most important of all the plants used in dyeing, and is cultivated at great expense. It is two years, and sometimes three, before the crop is gathered. There are two kinds cultivated — the one with a quadrangular, the other with an hexagonal stem. The former is the most productive ; the latter produces madder of the best quality. The soil required for its production should be deep and rich ; a clayey soil will produce good madder, but its working is diffi- cult ; a soil, therefore, in which sand enough prevails with the clay to render it friable, is that which is to be chosen. It must be deeply cultivated, as the roots, which constitute the value of the crop, run down very far. A plough will scarcely go deep enough, and the land should be trenched with a spade to the depth of at least three feet. Manure should be ploughed in and dug in until the whole bed becomes most thoroughly enriched. It is advised to plough in the solid manure in the autumn, and in the spring to apply liquid manure, urine and fecal matter intermixed. Cow manure and stable manure are also applied with advantage ; and the land should especially be rich from former cultivation, and from having been thoroughly cleaned of weeds. The manure should not only pervade the surface, but be buried deeply, that the roots may not want for nourishment as they go down. Madder should be sowed in a nursery-bed in a garden, and the seed of the last year should be used, as seed of more than a year old germinates at a very late period after planting. It is well to lay the ground in beds three feet wide, to receive two rows of plants ; or in five feet beds, to receive four rows of plants. The plants are to be set in line, a foot apart, and the rows at an equal distance. The intervals between the beds are to be shovelled out, and the ground kept loose by a spade until the second year, when the roots of the plants extend into the intervals, in which * Rubia Tindorum Saliva. CROPS. 551 case they must not be disturbed ; they must then be kept clean, but not dug. Holes may be made for setting the plants, either with a hoe or a spade ; they must be taken from the nursery- bed, and immediately set out, and not allowed to get dry or withered in the air ; they may be dipped in water when trans- planted, and great care must be taken to prevent their being injured, and to place them fairly in the ground, bringing the earth and pressing it carefully down around them. Liquid manure may be applied with great advantage in the intervals between the beds. After the planting, it is well to water the plants ; and they are to be kept clean, and the intervals kept loose by a narrow hoe or spade : the sprouts thrown out at the sides of the main stem may be bent down and covered with earth, so as to force the growth of the root. In the autumn the plants should have a slight covering of strawy manure. The madder which is not taken up until the third year pro- duces much more, and of a better quality, than that which is gathered the second year ; but the increased expense and rent of the land are seldom compensated by the increased product. The harvesting is a work of much labor. The roots, which, in a well-prepared soil, extend to a great depth, must be taken up with much care, and without injury. Sometimes a plough is passed along the line, and then the work is finished by the spade, but generally it is wholly done by the spade ; the intervals between the beds being dug out to the depth of two feet, and the plants carefully displaced and taken out by means of forks or narrow hoes. The plants lie upon the ground throe or four days, in small heaps, in order to become dry, and in case of rain are covered with straw. They are then carefully housed, and afterwards dried in a kiln for the market. The excellent condi- tion in which, under such cultivation, the land is left for other crops, is a considerable indemnity for the expense and trouble bestowed upon the crop of madder. The rich polders, or re- deemed meadows, both in Holland and Flanders, are favorite spots for the cultivation of this crop. 11. WoAD.* — This plant grows wild in various places, but is cultivated for its blue dye. Where indigo is not attainable, it * Jsaiis Tindoria. 552 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. takes its place ; and where indigo is attainable, it is found advantageous to mix a portion of woad with indigo. The use of indigo, however, much interferes with the cultivation of woad. It is sown both in the autumn and spring. That which is sown in the autumn has the advantage of giving a larger crop of leaves, and of sooner getting out of the way of insects. The leaves constitute the value of the crop, and these are gathered sometimes thrice in a season, the first gathering being much the best. It requires a rich soil ; and the particular kind of soil is not so important as that it should be deep, to admit of the free descent of the tap-root of the plant. Rich alluvions, which have been well drained, are particularly favorable to it. The land should be manured as well as for wheat ; and, above all, it should be kept thoroughly clean. It succeeds well after grain or after potatoes. It may be sown in drills, or it may be grown in a nursery, and transplanted. The plants require to be from a foot to a foot and a half apart. The leaves are gathered when they begin to droop, and turn slightly yellow ; they must be kept free from dirt, and when laid away must be guarded against heat or fermentation. They are sometimes washed, to get rid of any dirt which may adhere to them ; and a dry time must be taken for gathering. After being gathered, they are crushed in a mill, resembling a tenner's bark-mill ; they are then made into heaps, where they undergo a fermentation, great pains being taken to close any cracks which may appear in the crust of the heap : after this they are rolled into balls, twice as large as a man's fist, and are then pressed into the form of bricks ; and thus are ready for the market. The profits of such cultivation must depend upon the state of trade and the price of indigo. I found this plant culti- vated extensively in one part of Lincolnshire, where a large mill had been recently erected for its preparation. The best woad is grown in the south of France, where it is largely cultivated. 12. Weld.* — The weld is cultivated for its yellow color. It is a plant which grows wild in many places, and the smaller kind is known in the gardens as mignonette. It requires a soil dry, calcareous, and well cultivated. It will grow well upon a sandy * Reseda lufeola. CROPS. 653 day loam. Upon a very rich soil the stems will be proportion- ally strong and large, bat the coloring matter not so good ; upon a poor soil it will not pay the expenses of cultivation; a soil of medium fertility is to be preferred. It should be sown very early in the spring, and the ground should be well cultivated in the previous autumn. It does not require manure when sown upon a soil previously well cultivated and clean. The seed must be covered as lightly as possible, and it is best sowed in line. It will require to be carefully weeded ; and when the leaves begin to turn yellow, it should be gathered. In a sandy soil it may be pulled with the roots ; in a clay soil, where the dirt would adhere to the roots, it should be reaped close to the ground with a sickle. The plants which are designed for seed should be allow-ed to remain until the seed is perfectly matured. Fresh seed is greatly preferred to seed more than one year old, which often fails to come up; and when sown, on account of the small- ness of the seed, it is recommended to mix it with some fine sand. The plants, when gathered, are to be dried in the sun, and then tied up in small bundles, so overlaying them, that the tops of the plants shall be turned in upon each other, and the roots project at each end of the sheaf. They must then be put away in an airy and dry place, and are ready for sale. It may be cul- tivated on the same land once in eight years. 13. Carrots. — I must not quit the crops common in Flan- ders, without referring to the culture of the white carrot, which is vastly more productive than other sorts. This is sometimes sown among rye or wheat, or colza or flax, after the last clean- ing, and a small crop is obtained in this way, but often at the expense of the crop among which it is sown. When sown as a separate crop, they speak of twenty tons to an acre, or eight hundred bushels. It requires a comparatively light and dry soil ; it bears high manuring and deep cultivation ; and is con- sidered a profitable crop. I shall take the liberty of repeating here what I have said in another place. The land, after being fully prepared by manur- ing and fine tilth, should remain until the first crop of weeds comes up, and should be lightly ploughed, in order to destroy these. Furrows should then be made upon the field, into which the manure should be placed, and then a back furrow slice VOL. II. 47 554 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. turned each way upon this open furrow, so as to form a ridge directly over the manure. These ridges should be twenty or twenty-seven inches apart. On the top of these ridges, which should be smoothed off carefully, the carrot seed should be sown in double rows ten inches apart, and as straightly as possi- ble. The carrot seed should be sprouted in wet sand, before sowing, and should early be weeded. The land may then be ploughed between the rows, and kept clean with a hoe. They must be thinned out in the row to about six inches asunder. When ready to be taken up, by running a plough directly by the side of the row of carrots, they are gathered with little trouble. I have now gone through the principal crops grown in Con- tinental husbandry, and though not undertaking to give a fuli detail of the culture, yet I have given all the peculiarities which distinguish any mode of culture, and those general rules and principles which are universally applicable. CXXXIX.— IMPLEMENTS OF HUSBANDRY. In Paris at the Conservatory of Arts and Trades, at Brussels, at Utrecht, I found extensive collections of agricultural imple- ments and models of agricultural tools and machinery. These embraced many of the most improved implements to be found in England or the United States. It may excite a smile of surprise with an Englishman, that I speak of the United States in this connection. But I have seen nothing on the Continent or in Great Britain equal to the collections of agricultural implements which are to be found, for example, in Boston, United States. The English implements are usually clumsy, heavy, and inordi- nately expensive. In treating of British Husbandry, I have given an account of some of the best of them. They at least answer the purposes of the ingenious mechanics, who understand very well when they have got their pail under a cow with a full udder, and how in the most agreeable manner to abstract the gold from the pockets of enthusiastic agricultural amateurs. Like the Flemish cows, they are carefully fed, not to say flattered, while IMPLEMENTS OF HUSBANDRY. 555 being milked ; and finding tools and implements for every opera- tion, and adapted to all possible shades of difference in the manner of performing it, imagine they have only to purchase the tool to have the operation accomplished. In general they are compelled to learn that it is not so much the tool, as the man who holds it, upon which they are to rely for the proper execution of the work. Of this the Flemings are a striking example ; for it is impossible to find agricultural operations better executed, and with fewer and more simple implements. Two ploughs are much celebrated in Flanders, one called the Walloon plough, with wheels to the beam, of which I subjoin a sketch, and which is much used for ploughing deep in heavy lands. It is used with two, three, or four horses, according to the nature of the soil, or the depth to which it is desired to go. The other is of a lighter description, and is much esteemed as the Dutch plough. It is introduced into France, and there most highly approved. For light lands it is used with one horse, but ordinarily with two. What I have sometimes seen called the Dutch plough has had the mould-board so curved, or rather almost concave, as to offer great resistance ; and rather to press the dirt as if with the hollow of the hand, than to turn it over. The common Flemish plough is undoubtedly an excellent imple- ment. It has a shoe or regulator attached to the beam in front, by which the depth of the farrow is regulated. A plate of it is given at the top of the next page. The Flemings value it not only for raising and inverting the land, but for pulverizing it at the same time. In the harrows and rollers used in Flanders I saw nothing peculiar. They have bush harrows, and harrows with teeth of iron and of wood. >56 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE The instrument, which is deemed peculiarly Flemish, is the mouldehart, of which I annex a plate. It is designed for the speedy removal of earth, when it is not required to transport it to a great distance. The horses or oxen are attached to this implement, which immediately dips itself full of dirt, and when full, the handle is then pressed down, that it may slide easily over the ground. When it reaches the place of deposit, the handle is raised, and it empties itself; and the string, which is constantly held by the workman Avho guides it, is designed to pull it back after it is emptied. It is thus prepared to take up another load. It is a most useful instrument, and effects a great deal of work with a small expense of labor in a short time. It has been used many years in the United States, and is there called an ox-shovel. The plough which I saw frequently used in Italy was without a mould-board, and its share resembled the bowl of an inverted teaspoon, only more flat. It simply stirred the groimd, but did not invert it. The spade is an instrument much used among the small farmers of Flanders ; and in the best cultivated districts, such as the Pays de Waes, they deem it necessary, once in five or six SPADE HUSBANDRY. 557 years, to trench their land completely, to the depth of fifteen or seventeen inches, with the spade. I saw nothing in the carts, wagons, or vehicles in use on the Continent in any way to recommend them either to English or American farmers. Nothing, however, can be more complete than the fitting out of a Flemish or Dutch farmer's team. The equipments in France and Italy are in general wretched in the extreme. In Italy and in Switzerland, oxen and cows are prin- cipally used for draught. In Italy the breed of cattle is extremely beautiful in appearance. The oxen there are often brought out upon the roads to assist in dragging the coaches up their steep hills. They ordinarily draw by the horns or forehead ; but where a yoke is used over the neck, I have found a basket of stones hung at the centre to keep it down, that it might not impede the breathing of the cattle. Instead of bows, there were ropes round the necks of the cattle. The Dutch collar for draught horses has been the subject of much improvement, and the horses used in the Belgian artillery are said to have derived an immense advantage from its improved character. The first object has been to avoid, as much as possi- ble, a horizontal draught ; and, therefore, the point of attaching the chain or trace is placed high on the collar, so that it may not affect the breathing of the animal ; the second, to avoid galling the neck of the horse ; and for this reason the collars are made open, to buckle at the top, by which means they can be better adjusted to the neck of the animal. Great stress, and I believe very justly, is laid upon having the collars made so as to open at one end at pleasure. CXL. — SPADE HUSBANDRY. An implement which has accomplished an immense amount in some parts of continental Europe, is the spade ; and when we reflect upon the actual amount of labor effected by this sim- ple tool, managed by the human hand alone, the elevations which have been levelled, the canals which have been dug, and the mighty embankments which have been raised, wc are filled with astonishment at the grpat eflects which are brought about 47* 558 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. by the most simple means, and at the vast results of combined and persevering labor. A great amount of land is cultivated by the spade in Belgium, Holland, France, and Germany. Indeed, vast extents of land, especially in the vine-growing districts, on the steep acclivities and on the summits of high hills which are cultivated, are entirely inaccessible to horses or cattle. The ground is tilled by the spade ; the manure is carried up, and the produce is brought down on the backs of men or women. It is stated in a statisti- cal work, now in the course of publication in France, that not less than forty millions of acres in that country are cultivated by the spade. This strikes me as an over-statement ; yet the amount is, doubtless, very considerable. In Flanders the culti- vation is mixed, with the spade and the plough ; the land for grain crops is wrought with the plough and laid in beds or stitches, and the intervals are dug out with the spade, and the seed sown on the beds is covered with the dirt thrown out of these intervals. This is all done with the greatest care, and this is the occasion of the extreme neatness and exactness which appear in their cultivation. In the case of very small farms of a few acres, all the work is executed by the spade or the hoe. It may interest my readers to see the calculation made by the late Rev. Mr. Rham, a gentle- man highly esteemed for his agricultural knowledge, and his zeal in agricultural improvements, as to the amount of produce which may be obtained "from fifteen Ghent acres of light land and moderate fertility, which should be cultivated by the spade, with the help of a horse and cart. They will maintain four milch cows, and a heifer, a horse, two or three hogs, and a couple of young pigs; — sending to market, or consuming in the family, the following produce, deducting seed : — 90 bushels of wheat. 90 " '• rye. 30 " " buckwheat. 100 " " oats, leaving twenty bushels for the horse. An acre of flax. 60 bushels of rape seed. 8 cwt. of butter, from four cows. 2 fat hogs. A heifer and two calves, sold annually." SPADE IIUSBANDRV. 559 This is an extraordinary amount, and yet I have no doubt it may be realized. I am not about to enter into a comparison of spade husbandry with tfiat carried on by the plough and the help of brute labor ; but there are many cases in which, owing to the superabun- dance, and consequent cheapness of human labor, it may present a fortunate alternative. It is stated to require the labor of a man sixteen days to dig an acre, and thirty-two days to trench it, which would be going two spits deep. Labor in Flanders is about ten pence, or twenty cents a day, without feed, which would render it much less expensive than ploughing. In cultivating land with brute labor, it is to be remembered that on few small farms can a team be kept constantly at labor; but the expense of the keep goes on whether the team labors or not. The cultivation by a spade is much more thorough than by a plough ; much less seed is required, and much better crops are produced, A bushel and a quarter of wheat to an acre is ample, because every seed is carefully covered, and thus secured from the birds, and buried only at such a depth that it rises easily. The cultivation is much cleaner from weeds, and the manure is more thoroughly intermixed with the soil. The land is made friable, and the deep cultivation gives the roots of the plant ample opportunity to expand themselves. The beneficial effects of a good trenching will continue for five or six years. How far it may be expedient to adopt it on any large scale, must depend on a variety of obvious circumstances, which in dificrent situations must greatly vary. The expense of keeping such teams of horses as are kept in England, and in many parts of the Continent, — I speak particularly as to their consumption of food, — to say nothing of their equipments and deterioration in value, is enormous. It seems the great drawback in England to a farmer's prosperity. What might be accomplished where a su- perabundance of human labor exists, what should be done with a starving population around you, anxious to be employed, and willing to work, are for the consideration of those who find themselves placed in these painful circumstances. Such is the sad condition of many parts of the European continent. The example of a Flemish farmer supporting himself, and wife, and three children, keeping a cow, and fatting a hog, upon the prod- uce of two and a half acres of land, and selling, for various 560 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. purposes, the produce of three and a half other acres, — he being able, with the help of his wife and children, to cultivate well the whole six acres, and to have a great deal of time left for other purposes, — is, I am assured, often to be found in Belgium, and strikingly illustrates the success of quiet and patient in- dustry, joined to temperance and economy. CXLL — LIVE STOCK. In respect to the live stock of the Continent, a traveller per- ceives at once that, with the exception of horses, little attention has been paid to the improvement of the dijfFerent breeds. Per- haps I should except sheep likewise, as I shall presently show. In this respect England distances all other countries within my observation ; and has displayed a skill, perseverance, enterprise, and success, which are admirable ; and which, in enormous prices, have been liberally compensated. A thousand guineas for a bull, six hundred guineas for a cow, or three hundred guineas a year for the service of a ram, ring in one's ears like music from the regions of romance. The symmetry of propor- tion, and the extraordinary degree of fatness to which some animals are forced, as may be seen particularly at the Smithfield Christmas show, in London, and the extreme beauty of the im- proved stock of England, are most remdrkable. Aptitude to fatten, early maturity, and great weight of carcass, in proportion to the age, and the amount or cost of the food required, are points of great value in any race of animals which are designed for food. But beauty, either of form or color, has only an im- aginary value, and no necessary connection with its product, cither in beef or milk; and the extreme obesity of many prize animals is often obtained at an expense to the farmer or amateur much beyond any price which the animal is likely to command in the market. Early maturity is a point of great importance ; for, excepting where animals are kept for labor, animals kept a day beyond their readiness for a fair market, are almost always kept at a loss. The secret of profit is in general in a quick LIVE STOCK. 561 exchange. I have Known a farmer to weigh repeatedly two fattening oxen of fine thrift, and size, and extreme fatness, and he discovered that, for a whole month before they were sent to market, they had not gained a single pound. They appeared to have reached their acme, beyond which they could not be forced. It is a curious fact in regard to the human animal, that in a con- dition of health no change of diet and no abundance of diet ever carries him beyond a certain point ; so that every adult man has what he terms his own weight, which does not vary for years. Yvhether an analogy to this fact is to be found in the inferior animals, would, as far as it is possible to be ascertained, be a curious and useful inquiry. Ordinarily, I admit, not always, ani- mals consume in proportion to their size. I believe it will be foimd, in general, that two small, or medium-sized animals, of good constitution and thrift, pay the farmer better, in proportion to the amount of food consumed, than one large animal, which would give an equal or superior weight. The English farmers generally consider the small Highland cattle the most profitable for fattening. We know certainly that the milking properties of cows do not always bear a proportion to their size. The two best cows which I have known — one making 19^ lbs. of butter in a week, and more than 480 lbs. in a year ; and the other hav- ing produced more than 20 lbs. in a week — were tv.^o medium- sized cows of the North Devonshire breed ; and it seems an es- tablished prejudice, if so it must be called, that fatness, and the abundant secretion of milk, in the same animal, at tlie same time, are to a degree incompatible with each other. 1. Oxen and Cows. — I saw some very large oxen from Normandy in a fat condition on exhibition at Poissy. The cattle, however, most admired on that occasion were a cross of the improved Durham short-horn with some of the best breeds of the country. The cows, as met vrith ordinarily in France, are inferior. They show in the early part of the season the effect of bad keeping in winter, and appear scarcely to recover from it during the season. The cows, at several private establishments which I visited, were admirable for their milking properties, but of no particular race ; though at Grignon, at Petit Bourg, and generally, I found the Swiss cows held in high estimation. The Dutch 562 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. COWS have been a long time celebrated for their abundance of milk, which does not surprise one in looking at the rich polders in which in summer they are fed, and where they are often seen covered with a cloth as a protection against both the dampness and the cold. Being unacquainted with the Dutch language, I found it difficult to get as particular information as I desired. Radcliffe, in his book on Flanders, says, that " they are fair milkers ; but in this respect nothing remarkable, the average quantity, excepting in the grass districts, where it is infinitely greater, being computed at about seven quarts each cow in the twenty-four hours, through summer and winter." I quote this passage for two reasons ; first, to show how loosely many people speak and write on such subjects, for one is wholly at a loss to know how much a product infinitehj greater than seven quarts may be supposed to be ; and next, to say that an average yield of seven quarts per day, winter and summer, is a very great yield, and is seldom equalled. There is another report of a farmer at the Hague, furnished to Sir John Sinclair, where the milk estab- lishment of forty cows produced only about three quarts per day to each cow throughout the year. The produce of a Dutch cow is rated at about eighty pounds of butter, and one hundred and eighty pounds of whole-milk cheese, in a year, which certainly is not an extraordinarily large amount. They are generally of a black and white color. In some cases they are milked three times in a day. In the greater part of Flan- ders I found them soiled upon clover or vetches, but principally clover ; in Holland, they remain in the pasture all summer, where they are milked ; but in winter they make a part of the family, and, in truth, live in the common eating-room of the family, it being a part of the main house. The Swiss cows, as far as they have come under my observa- tion, are to be considered of two kinds ; the cows ordinarily kept on the common farms, and the mountain cows. The cows I found at Hofwyl are, from appearance and the accounts I received of them, the very finest of their kind. They are large, but jiot tall ; broad in the back, full and square behind ; fine boned, and with large udders, giving great quantities of milk. It is difficult, especially at any distance of time, and when innumerable objects are passing before the mind, to compare two objects, unless they are present ; but I think I have never seen finer animals of the LIVE STOCK. 563 kind. The race is known as the Cimmenthal ; and undoubtedly- great pains have been taken in their selection and management. I am at a loss to state the amount of milk given, or butter produced, by these cows, because I do not know the capacity of the Swiss measure ; but they are evidently deep milkers, and as well as I could understand, they give from sixteen to twenty- eight quarts of milk per day, and about two hundred pounds of butter by the year. These cows were reported to me to weigh from seven hundred to twelve hundred pounds ; they were exceedingly broad and round ; short and fine in the leg ; in high condition, and extremely well covered; and in their whole appearance excelled by none which I have seen. I saw many of these fine animals for sale in the cattle-market at Berne. There is another kind in Switzerland, which may be called the mountain cow, because I found them principally in the most hilly districts of the country. These were a small-sized animal, of beautiful form, small limbs, exceedingly light of foot, evidently fitted to climb hills and precipices, and with eyes as bright as those of a gazel, and not unlike a deer in their movements. These cows did not promise much in milk. 2. Goats. — In Switzerland, I found in the mountainous districts large herds of goats, which are brought down from the mountains at night to be milked, and sent away again at daylight in the morning. Many small families keep one goat in their stables to supply the family with milk. They give about one pint of very rich and delicious milk each per day ; sometimes more. Among the mountaineers of Ireland, near the lakes of Killarney, I found many families keeping goats for their milk ; one family having as many as thirty. These were kept for the comfort and luxury of travellers, who visited these wild and picturesque regions. They are kept at a small expense, and were it not for their wandering and mischievous propensities, a milch goat would be a treasure in the family of a poor man. They might easily be fed upon the waste vegetables of a poor man's garden or his frugal table ; though in most of the poor families in Europe there are other mouths who claim first to be satisfied, and leave little waste of any kind. The milk of goats is rich, and is often recommended to invalids by high medical authority. 564 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 3. Asses. — Of all beasts of burden or draught in Euroj^e, asses are, perhaps, the most common. Mules are bred and used largely in Spain, as I am informed ; and I found them in the mountainous parts of Switzerland for the use of travellers in places and passes where carriages cannot be used, and where sureness of foot is particularly desired. But asses are every where common, and, for the purposes to which they are applied, are certainly most serviceable animals. They are in general of a small size, and cost from one to two pounds, or from five to ten dollars; their keep is of the hardest description, and they live to a great age. One was used constantly at Carisbrooke Castle, in the Isle of Wight, for drawing water from a very deep well seventy years, and he was replaced by another, who, when I was there, had been employed for many years. This most useful race of animals presents an example of the humiliating truth, that real substantial merit does not always find its place in this world ; that grateful and kind treatment does not always follow the services rendered ; that abuse of power is too common a fault ; and that exterior appearance and address are a surer passport to favor than solid and useful qualities. I cannot say. however, that this is without exception, for I found in some cases in Manchester, in England, among the Irish, the donkey living in the same room with the rest of the family, and shariug ui their comforts, such as they were. Whether this was to be considered as an advance upon the usual companionship of an [rish cabin, I shall not determine. It shows at least an amiable trait of character to acknowledge our obligations, and is quite in the equality and fraternity style of the times. 4. Horses. — The Flemish horses have long been celebrated, and most deservedly so, as I have seen for their purpose no horses superior. In France and the Low Countries, horses ex- clusively are used for agricultural labor. In Flanders, two horses are allowed to fifty acres of land. In many cases the farms are accessible by canals, and manures are brought and produce car- ried away in boats, which, of course, on still waters are navigated at a small expense. The Flemish horses are of a medium size, compact, active, strong, and extremely well equipped ; these farmers being very proud of their teams, as indeed they well may be. Add to this, they are groomed with extraordinary care. LIVE STOCK. 565 In my journey from Antwerp to Rotterdam by diligence, it is hardly possible to praise the horses too much for their beauty, speed, and equipments. The French work horses are admirable, and surprised me by their excellence. I refer particularly to a breed called the Picheron, bred in the interior of France, and used in the dili- gences and the omnibuses in Paris. The horses generally employed in these cases arc unaltered, which clearly does not improve their temper or manners ; they are rather under than over size ; they are not groomed with much nicety, nor har- nessed with any show ; they are, however, kept in good condi- tion, and almost exclusively for work ; they are small-boned, well filled out, and extremely compact ; their usual travelling gait, according to my experience, with immense loads, is from six to seven miles an hour ; in the mail coaches in France, the rate of travelling is ten to twelve miles an hour; and nowhere are there more punctuality and despatch. The Flemish cart- horse, and the breed of French horses to which I have referred, would, in my opinion, prove a most valuable acquisition to the United States. The Flemish horse is slow in his movements ; the French horse extremely active and vigorous : their ordinary height is fifteen and a half hands. The mode of keeping horses differs much in different places. They are almost universally soiled in summer upon green food, either clover, vetches, or lucern. I have already mentioned the case of a large contractor for conveying the mails, who was accustomed, besides straw and hay, to give rye bread in certain quantities, whenever the price of oats or other forage or proven- der made it upon a fair calculation expedient. For the health of the horses he much approved this food. His stock exceeded four hundred horses ; oats are almost always deemed an expen- sive article ; but the best farmers recommend to give them in the straw cut up. Carrots are much valued in Flanders for horses ; and considerable quantities of beans are grown in France for horses, and given in a bruised or half-ground form. The Flemish give their horses what is called a white drink, that is, water mixed with some portion of rye or buckwheat meal ; and sometimes oil-cake is dissolved in it. In some parts of Flanders, the allowance for a horse is in wmter fifteen pounds of hay, ten pounds of straw, and seven VOL. u. 48 566 EUROPEAN AGRICULTITRE. pounds of oats per day. In summer, clover is given instead of hay and straw, seven pounds of oats, and their v/ater whitened with rye-meal. In another district, in winter, about six quarts of oats, thirty-five pounds of hay, or, in place of fifteen pounds of hay, about seventy pounds or a bushel of carrots. In sum- mer, seven quarts of oats ; eighty pounds of green clover are given. Instead of the oats, about four quarts of bruised beans are allowed. The Flemish are always anxious to have their horses in the best possible working condition. Excepting only the white drink, the keeping of the French horses does not ma- terially ditfer from that of the Flemish. The advantages of cutting and mixing food for horses are universally acknowledged, on the score of economy to the farmer, and of utility to the animal fed. 5. Swine. — The swine are almost every where on the Con- tinent, as far as I saw them, miserable ; lank, lean, gaunt, and, if they have not a good point about them, they certainly have other points in great profusion. If it was a herd of such sv/ine as one meets with continually in France and on the Continent, which Avere on one occasion driven into the sea and there perished, the owners certainly could have had little ground of complaint. At Grignon I saw some of the improved breeds of England introduced, and it is to be hoped that they will extend themselves ; at present the race seems under a curse. 6. Sheep. — I shall say little of the sheep of the Continent. The sheep seen on the rich meadows in Holland are of a large size, with long, coarse wool and a heavy fleece. The Saxony sheep are well known for the fineness of their wool, their small size, and their tenderness of constitution. I have already said that I found some excellent results at Grignon and Alfort from crossing the Merino with the South Down, but suflicient time has not been had to decide whether it may be persevered in with advantage — a point no where yet determined. The pure Merino sheep, which were exhibited at Poissy from the farm of Mr. Gilbert, near Grignon, and originally of the stock at Rambouillet, were, beyond all comparison, the finest of the kind I have ever seen ; and, I believe, of the very best kind of sheep, for the United States, which could be raised. They DAIRIES. 56~ would \veigli full twenty pounds a quarter when dressed : their wool is of a fine quality, and their fleeces extremely large and heavy. An intelligent American farmer, who was with me at one time when I saw them, and on whose opinion, from his having been a great wool-grower, I should place much reliance, perfectly coincided with me in my impressions of the merits of these extraordinarily beautiful sheep. They are not so large or fat for mutton sheep as the Leicester or South Down of England, in Vv^hich country mutton, being a favorite food, is much more an object of demand than in the United States; but they are suffi- ciently large for mutton, and the superior fineness of their wool gives them a peculiar value. There exists with some persons a prejudice against Merino mutton, but it is entirely without reason. CXLIL — DAIRIES. Holland and portions of Flanders are largely devoted to the grazing of cattle, and to the making of butter and cheese. The Dutch butter is much celebrated ; it is strongly salted and neatly packed, and may be shipped to advantage. Cheese is largely manufactured in Holland. The Dutch cheeses are well known. They are professedly made of whole milk ; but I must be per- mitted to distrust this, certainly in respect to those which I have tasted. They are made in the form of cannon-balls, weighing about seven pounds each. They are an article of extensive commerce, and are sent to market as early as they can be got ready. They are exported largely both to France and England. The taste of them is good, but in richness they arc very inferior to the best English cheeses. The Dutch dairy-rooms are models of neatness. Tlie French denominate this quality by an expressive word — propriety ; and, in the case of the Dutch farmers, it seems impossible it should be exceeded. Their vessels, pans, tubs, presses, shelves, dippers, every thing, in short, connected with the dairy, is marked by a cleanness which seems perfect, and they are bright with excessive brightness. The town of Broeck has been long celebrated for 568 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. its cleanness, and here not a horse ever comes ; the streets or passages to the houses are paved with bricks, or with rounded stones from the sea-shore; and a well-dressed lady might almost sit down in the streets without soiling her robes. The neatness of these places is proverbial. I cannot say tliat I have not seen it equalled in some private examples; and the sect of the United Brethren, otherwise called the Shakers, in the United States, are quite as much distinguished in their houses and settlements for their excessive cleanness; but it is clearly impossible in this respect " to beat the Dutch ; " and this most comfortable, agreeable, I will add beautiful, habit of the Dutch, is nowhere surpassed. The French butter, as found in the markets of Paris, seems the perfection of this article. It is generally sold entirely fresh, and that of the first quality is delicious. It is found fresh in the markets in winter as well as in summer, and is colored with the juice of the carrot. The French ofler for sale fifty-three differ- ent kinds of cheese. Having tasted of but few, it would be presumptuous in me to characterize the whole. The cream cheese is excellent. The Neufchatel, which is merely the curd, fresh and slightly pressed, is much esteemed. The Rochefort resembles the Stilton, and often equals it. These are deemed the best. I could learn nothing, either in Holland or France, peculiar either in making the cheese, or in the curing or use of the rennet. The Swiss cheese, called the Grnyere, is manufac- tured both in France and Switzerland, is much esteemed by many persons, but its flavor is excessively strong and not agreea- ble. I cannot, however, decide for the tastes of other persons. The celebrated Parmesan cheese, which commands every where the highest price, is made in a limited district in Italy. The mode of making it is kept a secret. It is of a light green color, and delicious flavor. A distinguished farmer in Switzerland informed me that they had repeatedly endeavored to imitate it, but without success ; that the agricultural societies had offered large premimns for this object ; and that they had actually sent persons into the district where it is made, but they were unable to get the information. It is conjectured to depend mainly upon the nature of the feed which the cows obtain. The ciUTent opinion, that it is composed of a portion of asses' milk, is consid- ered by the best informed persons as without foundation. DAIRIES. 569 I have gone so fully into the subject of dairying in my obser- vations upon English husbandry, that I shall not extend them. In Holland, the cows are generally pastured and milked in the field. In Flanders, in parts where good pasturage docs not abound, they are soiled, and in one of the best districts half an acre of clover to a cow is considered ample for the summer. In winter they have hay, straw, carrots, turnips, or potatoes, in such proportions as a judicious feeder will see to be necessary. But there prevails universally in Flanders a practice of giving the cows a mixture of rye-meal, or the meal of buckwheat with water. This is considered as most indispensable, and, no doubt, contributes essentially to increase the milk. In general, the Flemish farmers prefer a mixture of food both for their cows and their fatting cattle, cutting up straw, hay, turnips, and carrots together. There are modes of management in the Swiss dairies which are well worthy of notice. Where it is desired to avail them- selves of the feed upon the mountains, a herd of cows is driven therein the summer; and some persons — men in the cases which I found — go with them, carrying their provision with them, and, occupying a building which is only habitable in summer, tend the cows, and make the cheese. They carry little else than bread with them, and for this they have occasionally to descend the mountain, which, with the return, is no slight task ; but bread and buttermilk form their principal and almost sole diet. In another case, in a small village, consisting, it may be, of fifty or a hundred families, I found an arrangement certainly peculiar, but which seemed excellent, and capable of being adopted to advantage in many other situations. Some of the villagers kept one only, some two or three cows. A man and his v/ife, skilled in making cheese, were employed, in a suitable building, with all the necessary fixtures, to make the cheese for the village. The milk was carried to the place for making the cheese, morning and evening, and tbere measured and receipted for. Of the whey, each one, when he carried his milk, got his proportion in return. The cheese was sold on joint account ; and, after deducting expenses, the proceeds were divided accord- ing to each one's contributions. This arrangement was excel- lent ; first, for those who kept only one or two cows, and who could not, under the circumstances, make cheese but to a disad- 48* 670 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. vantage ; second, it saved the difFiculty and trouble of a dairy- maid in the family — a class of persons who are always difficult to be procured ; and, third, it assured the good quality of the cheese, by its being made by a person of known and acknowl- edged skill. CXLIII. — FARM-HOUSES. A Dutch farm-house is a remarkable object. They are seen scattered and alone at considerable distances from each other, over their extensive meadows, generally surrounded by a few trees. At a distance they appear like enormous barns. They are generally square, covering a large extent of ground, of one story in height, and with a roof rising to at least twice the height of the body of the house, gathering in from the four sides of the house, and terminating in a central point at the top, like an Egyptian pyramid. This roof is entirely devoted to the storage of grain and hay. The lower part of the house comprehends a dwelling for the family, sleeping-rooms, and a parlor or drawing- room, which is never used but upon great occasions, such as the death or marriage of some one in the family, and a kitchen, adjoining which is the keeping-room of the family. Adjoining this kitchen, in truth making a part of it, are the cow-stalls ; and adjoining this a room for the storage of the cheese, for the milk, the churns, the press, the tubs, and oflier dairy utensils, which, whether of wood or of brass, are kept in the most polished con- dition. The cow-stalls are so constructed that two cowsoccupy one stall together, tied by chains, with their heads to the wall, and behind them is a deep trench or drain, into which all the solid and liquid manure is received. The solid is immediately conveyed away to the heap outside the door, and the liquid is drained into a covered cistern at the side of the stable, on the outside of the house. Into this cistern flow likewise all the slops of the house and of the dairy, and the drain is kept constantly clean by water. In summer the cows are kept and milked in the pasture ; the stalls are then most thoroughly scoured and cleaned out, and SWISS FARMING. 571 either carpeted or sanded ; and exhibit the same perfect neatness as the rest of the apartment in which the family live. In all cases, both in Holland and Flanders, the cow-stalls, while occu- pied by the cows, are frequently washed with water, which, besides the purpose of cleanliness, serves to increase the contents of the urine cistern ; and over every stall is a cord suspended, by which the tail of the cow is tied when milked, to prevent her slapping the face of the milker, or throwing any dirt into the pail. Indeed, the neatness of all their arrangements is perfect. The farmer and laborers have their clean shoes or slippers at the door, where they always exchange their out-door shoes on enter- ing, that they may bring no dirt into the house. The contrast between a Dutch farm-house and an Irish cabin or wigwam, is most remarkable. The Swiss farm-house differs entirely from the Dutch. It is a somewhat stately erection, generally of two stories and high roof, with a piazza in front of the second story, to which there is access from the outside by steps. The lower story, or ground floor, is occupied by the live stock ; and the second lloor by the family. This spirit of fraternization and equality, wliich a})pears both among the Dutch and the Swiss, in regard to those useful animals upon whom their living and wealth depend, is certainly an amiable trait of character ; and is much more harmless in its operation, if we may judge from the results in the two cases, than when applied to human society. The neatness of several of the Swiss farm-houses which I visited, if not so remarkable as that of the Dutch, is really exemplary. CXLIV. — SWISS FARMING. The farming in Switzerland varies very much in dillerent cantons or districts. The soil varies, and the rugged aspect and broken and mountainous character of the country give a variety to their cultivation and modes of life, which at once impress a visitor. The habits and appearance of the population certainly differ much in different parts. 572 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. T[iere are large portions of Switzerland wholly devoted to pasturage, and which, from their inaccessibility to the plough, can be applied to no other purpose. In these cases, where cows cannot go, goats find their way. But wherever the plough or the spade can be used they are diligently employed, and this activity is stimulated in many parts of the country by a dire struggle to procure a subsistence under circumstances most inau- spicious and severe. In parts of Switzerland, the melting of the snow on small patches of ground is hastened by throwing small fragments of slate-stone upon it ; such, I may say, is the necessary impatience to get at the ground seasonably to put the seed in for a crop. In some parts the country is open, and fields of considerable extent are under admirable cultivation ; in other places, the smallest nook, the least patch by a running stream, and the most secluded valley, will be husbanded with the greatest care. The valley of Chamouni, enclosed by lofty mountains covered with the snows of untold centuries, and running at the very foot of Mont Blanc, the sublime monarch of these Alpine heights, was green and beautiful, waving with crops of grain ; and when I was tliere, covered with merry hay-makers. I may add, that these haymakers were almost all of them stout and active wo- men, whom I saw mowing as well as making, raking, and loading hay. They were very cheerful and seemed to enjoy ruddy health. In the arable districts of Switzerland I was told that the farms consisted usually of fifty acres, and many of these farms gave the strongest indications of independence and comfort. The farms in Switzerland are divided by fences; and, with the exception of the loftiest heights, it may be said that a Swiss very much resembles a New England landscape. CXLV. — HOF W YL. IRRIGATION. I visited in Switzerland the celebrated establishment of the late Mr. De Fellenberg, at Hofwyl, near Berne, for education. No school is better known ; and it is believed that none ever HOFWYL. IRRIGATION. 573 better deserved public esteem and confidence. It does not come within my province to speak of it in this place as a literary insti- tution ; but as a farm it may be considered as a model well worth studying. I have already spoken of the cows at this place, of which there were sixty, the superiors to which, in condition and produce, have not come within my view. The most remarkable improvement which I witnessed in this place was in irrigation. The land irrigated was in the shape of a bowl or basin, of which one side was wanting. The water, after turning a flour mill, was brought a considerable distance in a race- way on a bank, and then was carried round through successive rivulets formed round the sides of this semicircle or amphitheatre, watering the intervals between these gutters or trenches, and afterwards spreading itself over an extensive piece of flat land ; thus, at pleasure, watering one hundred and fifty acres of land. Nothing which I have seen could be better managed ; and the success of the improvement has been a valuable compensation for any expense which has been incurred. The land is kept continually in grass, and the water is let on several times in a season. It was deemed inexpedient to keep the water on more than half a day at a time. I shall find no more suitable place than this to mention the irrigation in the neighborhood of Milan. This is a level and most fertile country. A good deal of rice is cultivated in its neighborhood. The fields have their trenches, and cross ditches, and embankments made with great care. The water is brought from a neighboring lake, and these fields are irrigated at pleasure. Where there are facilities for it, or where even they can be formed within any reasonable expense, there are no more suc- cessful improvements than irrigation. Even simple pure water is of great fertilizing power ; still more when it brings with it the washings of cultivated fields, or other enriching matters, which it may collect in its course. A diversity of opinion prevails as to the length of time during which water may be allowed to remain on the land. The passage of the water over the land is preferred to having it remain stagnant ; and an irrigation of a few hours' duration is generally considered more eligible than a longer continuance. The farm at Hofwyl presents all the improvements which modern art and skill could bring to it, with the most improved 574 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. implements in use. Indeed, it may be considered as a model farm. A considerable number of the pupils Avere lads, who pay the expenses of their education and living by their labor. The number of pupils at this institution, which has heretofore been very great, furnished the best possible market for the abundant produce of the farm. CXLVL — LODI'S BENEVOLENT ESTABLISHMENT. I found one humble establishment of a philanthropic character, of which I deem it my duty to take notice. In a quiet and secluded village in the canton of Berne, I went with some friends to visit an humble peasant by the name of Lodi. He was a man of powerful intellect and extraordinary decision of character. His resolution once fixed, he was not easily turned aside from its execution. His mind from his childhood was profoundly im- pressed with a strong sense of religious duty, and his heart was warm with sympathy and benevolence for his fellow-men. He had received the advantages of a good common education, and had done much towards improving himself. He had a very small patrimony left to him ; he married early, and had one child. He found in his wife a mind and resolution congenial with his own. Looking with pity upon many orphan and for- saken or neglected children about them, he determined to do what he could towai'ds rescuing some of these unfortunate chil- dren from the almost certain ruin which menaced them ; and his wife and himself agreed to receive as many of them as would be given to them for this purpose, and as they could possibly sup- port by their united exertions. When I visited them, they had eighteen under their care, whom, in fact, they had adopted, for he made no difference between their treatment and that of his own child ; and they were all taught to look upon him and his wife as their parents, and themselves as brothers and sisters. They lived with them, and worked with them as their own children. He devoted a certain portion of every day to giving them a useful moral and religious education, and the rest of the LODIS BENEVOLENT ESTABLISHMENT. 575 time was given to work on the land. Industry and useful labor, economy, frugality, contentment, universal kindness and love, mutual affection and forbearance, and the fear of God and an humble and entire reliance upon his providence, formed the great principles which governed the \vhole household, and which presented themselves strongly illustrated in the examples of the father and mother of this household. This was exclu- sively an agricultural establishment, the girls and boys being taught and accustomed to all the labors and duties of their con- dition. He had many difficulties to struggle with in feeding- and clothing so large a family ; and in the scarcity of 1816, from the perishing of the potato, it was a most difficult effort to get through, and he then received some slight aid from abroad. At first his views were suspected, and he was treated with distrust and ill-humor by the villagers. But he had conquered every hostile prejudice ; his disinterestedness and philanthropy are universally acknowledged ; his children are examples to all, of good conduct and improvement ; his neighbors feel happy to render him some aid, and he is known every where as the good father of the village. This is an eminent example of the noblest philanthropy ; of immense good being accomplished by the most limited and humble means ; and of what may be done by heroic self-sacrifice, by noble and generous purposes, by indomitable resolution, and unslacking perseverance. I saw his school, and witnessed his parental deportment among his family ; I sat down at his frugal board, and partook of his simple meal of bread and cheese and wine, and I felt myself in the presence of the true nobility of human nature, and that no monarch in Europe had power to confer upon me a higher honor. It is not difficult to be charitable on a grand scale ; it is not difficult for a rich man to give away his superfluous thousands to any splendid charity, especially when he can use them no longer ; but to devote one's life to the poor, to be willing to share in their poverty, to take the stray lambs of the flock into one's bosom, and to make the orphans, the outcast, the houseless, your own children, and give them, in the midst of poverty, a useful education, and to qualify them for the business of life, to be useful and respectable, is an enterprise of the noblest character, conferring immortal honor on him who undertakes it. 576 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. CXLVIL— INSTITUTION FOR RECLAIMING VICIOUS CHILDREN. In the neighborhood of Berne, likewise, I visited another philanthropic institution, in which I was much interested. A few persons had contributed the means of purchasing a valuable and suitable estate for the purpose of establishing an agricultural school for vagabond boys, or those who have been convicted at the courts of law, and who, after suffering the legal penalties of their crimes, and being released from prison without character, without friends, without a home, or the means of procuring an honest living, seem to have no alternative other than that of returning to their former course of idleness, beggary, and crime. This undertaking is thus far eminently successful ; they having found an individual of high intellectual and moral attainments, and of indomitable resolution and great disinterestedness, ■