Those readers who have been accustomed to see in French authors no very true accounts of this country, will be agreeably surprised in finding these pages remarkable for the utmost possible fairness and candour. A strong love of his subject directs him throughout we have never seen a work more remarkable for the desire it evinces to come at truths, and to tell them plainly. It should be read by every agriculturist, and become a text-book for the science. At the time when it would have obtained to the author more popular favour to speak to the disparagement of this country, he gave unqualified testimony to the superiority of the agriculture of England in comparison with that of France; and surely his work is the more welcome now, when the old warfare of the two countries is being converted into a noble, and, we trust, permanent emulation.

"The fact is," says our author, "that English agriculture, taken as a whole, is at this day the first in the world; and it is in the way of realising further progress. I design concisely to show its actual conditionto point out the true causes of that condition, and to draw inferences as to its future. France may derive some useful lessons from this study." He considers, with regard to soil and climate the subject of his first chapter-that greater differences are to be found in the British Isles than in any other country.

"England proper the largest and richest portion of the three kingdomscontains thirteen millions of hectares,*

or a little more than a third of the total extent of the British Isles, and equal to one-fourth of France. It is this portion especially which is now to be considered. In comparing it with the best cultivated fourth part of France-viz., the northwest angle, comprising the ancient provinces of Flanders, Artois, Picardy, Normandy, the Isle of France, and even adding to it the richest departments in other parts of the country-we have not an equal extent of well-cultivated land to oppose to it. Certain parts of our soil, such as almost the entire department of the Nord, and some other detached districts, are superior in productiveness to

the best of England; others, such as the departments of the Seine Inferieure, the Somme, Pas de Calais, and Oise, may sustain a comparison; but thirteen million of hectares, equal in cultivation to the thirteen million hectares of England, we do not possess."

It is not, he asserts, the soil and climate which are the cause of England's superiority, for they are inferior to the soil and climate of France.

"It is now more than sixty years since that great agricultural authority, Arthur Young, admitted this natural superiority of our soil and climate. This

celebrated agriculturist renders similar homage to the sky of France. know,' says he, with pride, how to turn our climate to best account, and the French, in this respect, are still in their infancy.'

But if France is inferior to England in agriculture, she surpasses other nations of the world, excepting Belgium and Upper Italy, possessing superior advantages. He proceeds from this point to show, in the following chapters, how it is, and why it is, that English agriculture is richer than that of France or any other country. The first subject of his detail is "sheep," and forms the second chapter.

England has ever attached the greatest importance to the rearing of sheep. Its importance is symbolically expressed in the "woolsack," upon which the Lord-Chancellor sits in the House of Lords. Mutton has been so esteemed for ages, that in the foundation statutes of some of our great public schools, as Winchester, it is specified as the scholars' food, and so continues to this day. It is not known where the origin of the race is to be found. But we have reason to believe that it has been so altered by the cultivating care of man as almost to be considered as his creation. In all its varieties, it is an animal of seeming contradictions of instinctive character. Proverbially harmless and inoffensive, it has both courage and skill in protecting itself. As if aware of their inadequate means of defence individually, a flock will arrange themselves, upon approach of

danger, almost with a military precision. Drawing themselves into a compact body, it is said that they place the young and females in the centre, while the males present a formidable front. They have been a byword for stupidity, yet few animals are more sagacious, whether in the selection of their food or in foreseeing and providing against the inclemency of the weather. They are hardy, able to endure the severities of climates, yet subject to diseases which require the constant care of man.

We have somewhere met with a curious remark, that the two creations, wheat and sheep, seem more than any other to have been purposed for the use of man, and to be perfected, each in its kind, solely by his care and industry,-that, in fact, neither can exist without continual human attention. It has been said, that if any given country were sown with wheat, and left; and so with flocks of sheep, and they were left entirely to themselves, after not very many years, neither a grain of wheat nor a sheep would be found in that country.

There is another noticeable peculiarity in the sheep which fits it for man's use. The wool, which in cold countries supplies the human race with clothing, ceases and becomes a rough hair in hot climates.

Although England has for many hundred years been celebrated for its sheep, and chiefly for the production of the wool, for a century past the object has changed; and while in France the principal product is still the wool, in England it has become the accessory, and meat is the object of greatest consideration. For a time much pains were taken to introduce the Spanish breed, on account of the fineness of the wool, but it was abandoned under a sense of the growing importance of the animal for food. A sheep was not fit for the butcher until about four or five years' old; indeed, it was not thought in perfection until six. About the middle of the last century a very great change was effected by Mr Bakewell, "a man of genius in his way, who has done as much towards enriching his country

is contemporaries Arkwright and

"Bakewell thought, very justly, that if it were possible to bring sheep to their full development before that age-to make them fit for being killed at two years old, for example-the produce of the flocks, by this single means, would be doubled. With that perseverance which characterises his nation, he successfully carried out this idea at his farm of Dishley Grange, in Leicestershire, after many years of labour and expense."

"This extraordinary breed, unrivalled in the world for precocity, produces animals which may be fattened as early as one year old, and in every case have reached their full growth before the end of the second year."

How very few individuals are sufficient to produce the greatest revolutions in the interests of countries. These are gifted men, and we would fain think gifted to carry out the designs of Providence; they appear just when they are wanted, and prepare the way for other changes which other gifted few have to effect. Agriculturists and mechanic inventors reciprocate advantages. They are necessary to each other. Jethro Tull, Arthur Young, and Bakewell in agriculture, Arkwright and Watt in mechanics, and Liebig and other moderns in chemistry, all in their several ways and sciences, elaborating apparently unconnected work, have, by an undesigned, unthought-of mutuality, wrought the most astonishing changes in the world. Revenons à nos moutons. Bakewell's success was SO great, the results so astonishing, that, his method being pursued through all varieties of sheep, races were thus procured suited to climates greatly differing.

"As everybody wished to have Dishley breed, it occurred to Bakewell to let out his rams in the place of selling them. The first he let returned him only twentytwo francs (18s.) a-head. This was in 1760, when his breed had not reached its perfection; but in proportion as he continued to make progress, and the reputation of his flock increased, his prices rose rapidly; and in 1789 a society having been formed for the propagation of his breed, he let his rams to it, for one season, at the enormous price of six thousand guineas.

The wealth which

Bakewell has conferred upon his country is incalculable. If it were possible to compute what the Dishley breed has yielded to English agriculturists during

the last eighty years, the results shown would be truly enormous."

England, by directing attention to the sheep principally for food, has been rewarded by unlooked-for events, even with regard to the wool. She no longer imports from Spain, but from her own colonies in Australia, the Cape of Good Hope, and the British possessions in India. "Adding,' says M. de Lavergne, "to her own the produce of her colonial sheep, England every year realises six hundred to seven hundred millions of francs, which she afterwards doubles by her manufactures. What a wonderful power of human industry that can thus turn the gifts of Providence to such good account!"

From sheep our author proceeds to the subject of" cattle." Here, too, we are greatly superior to France, though not quite in the same degree as with sheep. The two countries differ in the objects in view. The French agriculturist employs his cattle in labour; the British relinquishes the labour, and has regard chiefly to the milk and meat. The race of cattle which is best for labour is the worst for milk. "France possesses four millions of cows, and the United Kingdom three millions; but three-fourths of the French cows are not really milch cows, and almost all the English ones are."

The enormous consumption of milk in England astonishes our author. They who live upon milk are noticed by Homer as long-lived and the most just of men :

σε Γλακτοφάγων ἀξίων τε δικαιοξάζων ἀνθρώπων.” The blessings our farmers look to from this system are of quite another character-money profits. If this nutriment, under its various forms, fails to prolong our lives, or to render us remarkably just, we must take into the account the adulterations to which milk is subjected before it reaches our population. There is, as it is universally admitted, enough dishonesty in the mixture to corrupt the healthiest. Cæsar said of us, Lacte et carne vivunt." "The quantities of butter and cheese manufactured throughout the whole extent of the British Isles exceeds all belief. Cheshire alone produces cheese to the value of a million sterling, or twenty-five millions of francs annually."

The same man, Robert Bakewell, who had done such wonders in the breeding of sheep, commenced the improvements, though not with equal success, in the breeding of cattle. "There probably does not exist at this day in Great Britain a single head of cattle which has not been considerably modified according to Bakewell's method; and if none bears his name, as among the woolly tribe, all have equally received his stamp." M. de Lavergne speaks very highly of our breeds of horses-of our success in combining power and speed. We have the best saddle-horses in the world, and, perhaps we might add, the best riders. Riding is the pleasure of the English gentleman. The breed of hunters, as well as the skill of the riders, is owing to the good old English sport, fox-hunting; hence the excellence of the British cavalry in war-man and horse are of the best, for power and courage, and they know each other. We do not expect to find in a foreigner that just appreciation of the sporting gentleman of England, which we mostly have among ourselves. Our author is aware of a feeling among certain economists, inimical to English sports, who rather, in fact, are inimical to any aristocracy but that of trade, and would enforce the destruction of parks and game, that all the land might be productive of food. This is their plausible pretence, but not their real object. Cobbett wrote enthusiastically of the benefits the people at large receive from the location among them of a number of well-educated gentlemen in the parochial clergy. The same may be said of the resident countrygentlemen. It would be bad policy, indeed, to make it the interest of proprietors to be absentees from their estates, by depriving them of legitimate country-sports. The effects of such deprivation would be felt in the deterioration of the English character. Its manliness, its hardihood and courage, are maintained by their These English country pursuits. gentry send their sons, well prepared in strength of limb and stoutness of heart, to our army and navy, and by their home influence keep up the moral of the people. We do not think M. de Lavergne sufficiently

most important subject—" the crops." There were two ascertained facts which caused a revolution in the agricultural system-the exhaustion of the land by cereals, and the spontaneous growth of abundance of grass for cattle. The cattle-manure supplied the land's renovation, and thus the richness of the soil was restored for the increase of corn, and the large animal production was most valuable in itself. After a while, besides the natural pastures, artificial grasses and roots greatly enlarged the sphere of animal production, which again improved still further the cereal crops. It is thus stated by M. de Lavergne.

"The decisive step in this direction was taken sixty or eighty years ago. At the time when France was occupied with the sanguinary struggles of her political revolution, a less noisy and more salutary revolution was being accomplished in English agriculture. Another man of genius, Arthur Young, completed what had been begun by Bakewell. While the one showed how the most was to be made out of cattle, the other taught how the largest possible number of them could be fed upon a given extent of land. Extensive proprietors, whose efforts have been rewarded with large fortunes, favoured the diffusion of these ideas, by putting them into practice with success. It was then that the famous four-year course-known as the Norfolk rotation, from the county where it arose-began to spread. This system, which, with some variation, prevails at the present day in England, has completely changed the character of the most ungrateful land of that country, and everywhere created agricultural richness. I will not here repeat the well-known theory of this rotation. Everybody nowadays is aware that most forage-plants derive from the atmosphere the principal elements of their growth, while they give to the soil more than they take from it; thus, both directly and by their conversion into animal manure, contributing in two ways to repair the mischief done by cereals and exhausting crops generally."

Here for a while we leave our author, and make a start with another experimentalist, who, upon a system of his own, has defied this exhaustion of the soil, and set aside the absolute

necessity of renovation by manure. We paid a visit during the last summer to this experimentalist. We had known him as a very dear friend of many years, of far different tastes and pursuits than that of farming. A cultivated scholar, a clergyman, fond of literature and art, and possessing largely the accomplishments of a welleducated man, we were surprised to learn, some years ago, that, having much glebe-land, he was taken with the humour of studying agriculturenot for the sake or with the expectation of profit, but for amusement, and the acquirement of knowledge by practice. He commenced his trial upon a small scale. The study became daily Jethro Tull,* and commenced his exmore interesting to him. He read periments where Tull left off. The results have been wonderful indeed; and now he is visited from all parts of the country by persons desirous to see his process. While we were with him, a gentleman came purposely from the neighbourhood of Belfast to Northamptonshire, solely for the purpose of an hour or two's inspection and converse. Our friend has published his system the little pamphlet is now before us-the ninth edition-" A Word in Season, or how the CornGrower may yet grow rich and his Labourer happy; addressed to the Stout British Farmer." We extract a portion of the preface to this ninth edition, which the reader will think startling enough.

"At the opening of this address to the farmer will be seen (p. 9 to p. 28) the plan adopted and recommended for the profitable growth of wheat on a small scale. For the more expeditious and economical process on a larger scale, I refer the reader to p. 28. The result of the experiment there described was so startling and almost incredible, that I deemed it advisable, for the confirmation of the fact, to have witnesses at the measurement of the produce. For there had been wheat after wheat, on exhausted land, with no manure, with little more than a peck of seed to the acre; and yet the yield was forty-one bushels of clean wheat from the half portion of each acre, being at the rate of eighty-two bushels per acre. The produce was sold imme