the Now and the Hereafter, and so presenting in his works opinions which no system-monger can parcel out into a creed or squeeze into a formula; opinions so at one with all that is best and truest in Nature, with all that is highest and most precious in Revelation, that they have ever commended themselves to the judgment of the wise, and won the grateful homage of the good. While the vessel of the English Church was lurching now to the side of Geneva and now to the side of Rome, Shakspeare became impatient of the harbour to which he was moored by the accidents of birth, and set sail for the wider ocean of Humanity at large. And so it comes to pass that above the narrow janglings and bickerings of the age in which he lived, his easy numbers' rise to the full diapason of a more than earthly music, filling the heart with joy and gladness. Angry zealots like M. Rio and Mr. Simpson may rail and bluster as they will about the religion of Shakspeare, but we apprehend that those who study the subject with the greatest care and impartiality will ever be the foremost to acquiesce in the conviction that while no sectary can claim him as a partisan, no true Christian can disown him as a brother.

ART. VIII.-1. Journals of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, from 1839 to 1865. 8vo. London.

2. The Farm Homesteads of England. DENTON, M. Inst. C.E., F.G.S. perial 4to. London: 1865.

Edited by J. BAILEY 2nd Edition, 1 vol. im

3. Reports of the Cattle-Plague Commissioners.

October 31, 1865.

London:

4. Orders in Council relating to the Cattle-Plague, from July 1865 to December 1865 inclusive.

A ND they are the bane of agriculture-these were, if we remember rightly, the concluding words of that memorable letter launched by Lord John Russell from Edinburgh in October 1845, which pledged the Whig party to the total and immediate repeal of the Corn Laws, and clinched the resolution of Sir Robert Peel. No doubt, in the fierce contest which ensued between protectionists and free-traders, no article in the creed of commercial freedom was received with more scorn and incredulity than this assertion, that the laws expressly designed to foster and protect the interests of agriculture were

its bane. That truth, like many others, has only been brought home to the convictions of men by experience. But twenty years have now elapsed since the decision of this great controversy by the legislature. For twenty years the theory of freetrade in corn has been applied to the agriculture of England; and we are now able to point to the positive results of that great experiment, not only by the vast increase in our commercial and manufacturing industry, not only by the rapid growth of population and the ameliorated condition of all classes, but more especially by the improvement of British husbandry, by the enormous increase in the production of the soil, by the successful efforts of the British farmer to keep pace with the times, and by the general augmentation of the value of landed property. The sinister predictions of the Protectionist party have been falsified in every instance-farms are not abandoned, the land is not untilled, rents have not fallen, tenants are not ruined, landlords have not emigrated to Boulogne or Brussels-but, on the contrary, in no former period of the history of this island has the progress of agriculture been as great and rapid as in the last twenty years, or the result to all classes engaged in agricultural pursuits so satisfactory.

We are about to describe in the following pages the leading characteristics of this auspicious revolution-briefly indeed, for the subject is one on which innumerable volumes have been written, and we can allow but a few pages to the consideration of it. But it may be doubted whether the nation at large is aware of the extent of the progress which has been insensibly going on within it. To the disgrace of Parliament and of successive Governments, this country, almost alone in Europe and America, is entirely destitute of agricultural statistics. There are no records of agricultural industry and produce to which we can point with the certainty which the returns of the Bank of England give to the money market, or the returns of the Board of Trade give to our manufactures and our foreign commerce. It is only by particular observation and by general inferences that we can realise the advance we are really making: and the full sense of our progress only breaks upon us when we compare it with the agricultural condition of England, either half a century or a quarter of a century ago. We shall not go back to the earlier period, which would lead us too far from the immediate field of this inquiry; for although we hold that the repeal of the Corn Laws has greatly stimulated and accelerated the improvement of agriculture, we readily admit that the progress made between the termination of the war and

6

the year 1845 had been considerable. The Royal Agricultural Society came into being in 1838. About the same time other societies with similar objects were formed. The railway system, which was destined to produce most important effects on agriculture, as we shall presently see, was then beginning to come into extensive operation. We therefore take that year-1838 -as our starting-point, and if we turn to the first volume of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society,' then just published, we shall find a paper entitled 'The Present State of Agriculture in England,' in which Mr. Pusey, a very competent authority, described the existing husbandry of the country, and expressed the views then entertained of its future prospects. From these pages we may conveniently borrow a passing sketch of the state of the question at the time we select for the outset of these remarks.

ears.

He commences by advocating the ridge or Northumberland system of turnip culture, in place of the broadcast system then prevalent; stating that the crop would be increased from 5 or 15-the general yield-to 25 or 30 tons per acre. The catalogue of farm implements then in use sounds meagre in our Those mentioned are the plough, harrow, turnip-slicer, seed-drill, and threshing-machine. The slicer was only just introduced. Of the drill, which gave the farmer a mastery over those hosts of weeds that sucked away his profits, he remarks: -The use of another instrument, a more complicated one, by which the seed is laid in regular rows, has lately become 'frequent in southern as well as in northern England, though 'it has established itself so slowly that for a long time travel'ling machines of this kind have made yearly journeys from 'Suffolk as far as Oxfordshire.' Horse threshing-machines were objected to by tenant farmers on the ground that they would be at a loss to find work in winter for their men were such machines used. Steam for threshing-machines is mentioned as a dream of the future-not very far off; in fact, already proposed for travelling threshing-machines in France. He deals with Smith of Deanston's theory of drainage suspiciously, but contends that land should be drained to carry off the surface-water. The trenching and subsoiling of land he mentions as operations successfully performed in Holland. Bones he speaks of as applied for the first time in 1835, and in giving a list of artificial manures he mentions only lime, marl, peat-ashes, gypsum, nitre, and the refuse of certain trades. He alludes to improvements in breeding, to our cattle, sheep, and swine stocks as the sources to which other nations do look, and will look, for refined blood; and by way

of throwing out a lure, computes at a profit of 20 per cent. the advantages derivable from the early maturity of New Leicester sheep. Concerning the rotation of crops Mr. Pusey makes the following far-seeing remark, the truth of which has since been fully endorsed by all men of large experience :

'But though the Norfolk, or alternate, or four-course system of husbandry has conferred such great though silent benefits on the country, it may be doubted whether that system has not accomplished all that it is capable of, and must not pass into another.'

He closes with a strong hope that the meetings to be henceforth held may bring practical men and solitary experimentalists more together, and that the Agricultural Society may act as a common centre endowed with centripetal and centrifugal notion, to receive and disseminate the new life-blood that was to be poured into the rural system.

From these indications we gather that the Royal Agricultural Society was not as a thing out of time. It was almost the first application to agriculture of the truly English principle of association. There was a great work to be done, in which it was well fitted to take part. It has been stated that other societies came into being at about the same time. The Irish Society (in 1841), and the Yorkshire Society (in 1846); the Bath and West of England (1777), the Smithfield Club, and the Highland (1784) Societies were formed at an earlier period; indeed, the progress of agriculture in Scotland had been far more rapid than in Southern Britain. The unparalleled success of the Royal Agricultural Society appeared to infuse new life into the older societies, which now possess nearly as wide an influence as their younger rival. One of its most desirable effects was not to weaken, but to strengthen, all existing institutions. In this way the societies already mentioned waxed from pigmies to powers, and beneath them grew up 358 local associations, which by means of annual local shows, lectures, and the like, do their best to promote interchange of thought and spread of opinion. In 1839, the English Society numbered 1,338 subscribers: their avowed objects being to disseminate information by means of a journal, together with meetings for the exhibition of live-stock, vegetables, vegetable seeds, and machinery. Chemical, geological, and veterinary departments were established for the purpose of promoting research in these directions. According to a recent report*, the Society has during the last twenty-three

* Royal Agricultural Society's Journal, vol. xxv.

years received the steady personal support of 5,000 leading agriculturists, and its annual disbursements, in the shape of journal expenses, grants to scientific departments, prize-money, and expenses of county meetings, have reached 11,500l. Its affairs have been conducted with great spirit and liberality, and whenever its funds have been heavily taxed to stimulate a backward and thinly-peopled district*, a visit to some busy hive of industry has always sufficed to make up the leeway.

Although this Society began to exert an immediate influence for good, it would have been as powerless as the Board of Agriculture, and the societies that existed before it, had it not been for free trade, and the facilities of transport presented by railway enterprise. These twin forces excited it to action, and almost the first serious business before it was to determine. by what means farmers were to be supported when the crutch of Protection was withdrawn.

The surprising increase of population had for some time given special prominence to the question, how are the people to be fed?' and that, as Sir Robert Peel has recorded in the history of his own conversion, was the difficulty which weighed upon the mind of every reflecting man, and satisfied even the advocates of Protection that a change was at hand for which it would be wise to prepare. The change in national policy indicated a change in the system of husbandry, and even before the advent of Free-trade intelligent landowners were urging their tenantry to think less of wheat-growing, and more of green crops,' which henceforth should be regarded as the mainstay of British agriculture. Probably this change would have resulted from other causes. His own instincts seem to have been leading the farmer in the same direction; for since the great arterial channels of communication by railway had been laid down, it had become evident that, year by year, the circle was widening within which dairy farming, the cultivation of vegetables for sale, the production of meat, together with a more garden-like management of the soil, were the most profitable points to which he could direct his labours.

* A Cumberland farmer recently exclaimed, 'Thanks to the Royal Agricultural Society's holding their meeting at Carlisle, I believe 'that meeting was instrumental in opening the eyes of many of our Cumberland mechanics. Previous to 1855 our county was wont 'to boast of her ploughmen, and when it came to the test at Carlisle we were well beaten upon our own soil; not that our ploughmen were deficient in skill, but they had not the implements to work 'with.'