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Rural Economy of Great Britain and Ireland.

farm horses consumed the produce of one-
fourth of the arable land of the country."
We suppose such a machine is wanted
as the author of Talpa would approve,
whose force should be downwards.

M. de Lavergne details the method used by Mr Huxtable, of Dorsetshire, for distributing his liquid manure. We find, however, that at the meeting on the 6th December, "the chief points of debate were on the relative merits of solid and liquid manure, and on the application of steam to agriculture. In regard to the former, it was considered by some, that, though liquid manure was very beneficial for grass crops, yet for grain and root crops it was injurious." It is to be hoped that "in the multitude of counsellors there is wisdom;" certainly there are material differences of opinion. Mr Huxtable conveys the liquid manure through pipes under ground, branching off in every direction, and brought to the surface by vertical pipes, with caps, to be taken off when distribution is required.

In

But all these improvements, and suggested improvements, can only be undertaken at great expense. M. de Lavergne calculates the cost at no less than four or five hundred millions sterling. But when he takes into account that in a quarter of a century this nation has expended two hundred and forty millions sterling upon railways alone, he is disposed to think it only an impossibility in other countries, and alone possible in the United Kingdom. He indulges in dreams of wonderful progress. these our days of united invention, perseverance, and industry, who can assert that he may not awake and find it true? "All this, no doubt, constitutes an immense revolution. Agriculture changes from a natural, and becomes more and more a manufacturing process; each field will henceforth be a kind of machine, worked in every sense by the hand of man, pierced below by all kinds of canals, some for carrying off water, others for bringing manure, and-who can tell?-perhaps, also, to convey hot or cold air as required, for effecting the most rapid changes on its surface." While all this is doing, we can only compare the whole earth to a great ant-hill, with its busy myriads,

raising up, triturating the soil, pierc[Jan. ing it with their roads of passage in every direction, and conveying their materials for structure, that seem out of all proportion with themselves.

in this volume, make a tour with M. Those interested in agriculture will, de Lavergne through the several the southern, eastern, western, middivisions of the United Kingdomland, and northern counties. They just inferences. will find valuable facts given, and confined to a general view, than to Our object is rather any arranged detail of the work. For the great results of farming on a magnificent scale, we recommend the reader's attention to p. 204, showing the management of 740 acres by Mr islands, Scotland, and Ireland, come Rigden, of Sussex. Wales and the separately under review. M. de Lavergne thinks Wales should cultivate buckwheat, and expects to hear of brilliant success when experiments are made upon a large scale. The remarkable for fecundity, throwing goat obtains his especial regard, as usually two kids, while the sheep produces generally one.

"The goat, when well fed, gives an abundance of extremely rich milk, which may where all agricultural industries are be made into excellent cheese. In France, known, although too often very imperfectly practised, whole districts owe their prosperity chiefly to the goat. Such is the Mount d'Or, near Lyons, where a goat yields as much as a cow elsewhere. As population increases, I have no doubt the goat will be more appreciated, only we must learn to treat it properly, and reclaim it from that half-wild state which Theocritus and Virgil, than to agriculrendered it dearer to the shepherds of Providence are good when kept in their turists and cultivators. All the gifts of places and treated with skill. The goat's shrubby plants can be cultivated for its place is on the barren mountains, where food, unless, as at the Mount d'Or, it is subjected to the strictest stabulation."

for a little amusement at the idea of a
We must beg our author's pardon
goat in his proper place, a wild moun-
tain, suddenly dropping into the "strict-
est stabulation." Is the goat natur-
ally more wild than the sheep? The
ing all bounds, if transferred to en-
Welsh sheep are well known as break-
closed countries.

Praise is lavishly bestowed upon Scotland. Its agriculture is pronounced to be at this day superior even to the English, at least in some districts. It is the school for farming to which people send their sons. "The best books upon farming which have appeared of late years, have been published in Scotland, and when an English proprietor requires a good bailiff, he generally sends to Scotland for one." Although our author leans to the liking of small, or at least moderate properties, and seeing twothirds of the land, and about onethird of the whole rental, in the hands of large proprietors, he pronounces Scotland a favourable specimen of large property. He (considers also the law of primogeniture favourable to Scotland; for whereas in England and Ireland the law makes a lease personal property, and therefore divisible among children, in Scotland it is not so."The younger sons of a farmer, knowing that they have no title to share in their father's lease, seek a livelihood in other ways, while the oldest prepares himself at an early period for the heritage which awaits him. This is a new and successful application of the right of primogeniture in matters relating to the soil, and it is favourable to that natural movement which, in society in a state of progress, diverts the surplus population from rural occupations into other channels." There seems to be no reason why these same arguments are not of universal application. He thinks much of the prosperity of Scotland owing to the establishment of banks, of the management and stability of which he speaks in high terms. Runs on banks, he says, are unknown in Scotland. The progress of Scotland in agricultural and commercial wealth is more surprising even than that of England. A century ago, the characteristic of Scotland was, with regard to its present sources of wealth, barrenness and poverty. Whence the change? Evidently from her union with England. It is the rich firm taking a poor but industrious partner. English capital soon became the stock upon which the energies of the new partners worked. "The counties of Lanark and Renfrew, where manufactures and com

merce are most active, have increased in population, in the space of a hundred years, from one hundred thousand to six hundred thousand. Clydesdale, once deserted, now rivals Lancashire for its collieries, manufactories, and immense shipping trade." Why is it that, having taken Ireland also into partnership, no similar progress has been made? Capital will not flow through the obstructions of turbulence. Ireland has disadvantages, in habits of long growth, which time alone, through the many sweeping revolutions that time brings, can change. It is a curious expression which M. de Lavergne uses, "that Scotland, in a political point of view, is an improved edition of England." We leave it where we find it. We do not quite understand the conclusion which our author would draw from a passage, wherein he ascribes the superiority of the Scotch rural economy to the smallness of the number of its labourers. "In France, as we have already observed, the rural population amounts to about sixteen per 100 acres, and in England to twelve; but in the Lowlands it is only five, for an average production at least equal to that of France, and to one-half that of England." The fact seems to disarrange altogether the principles of the Malthusian theory. We cannot think it morally or politically desirable that rural populations should diminish and town populations increase. Certain economists, and even "high-farming" agriculturists, encourage this idea, and look with complacency upon a future very great diminution of rural population. Yet we cannot but think that actual man's labour upon our lands would ultimately increase the productiveness, and keep up a race hardy and industrious, with means of moral advantages greater than can be well applied in manufacturing towns. They are the healthy, sturdy, manly stock; and surely the love of the soil, which is in the habit of their growth, is the true germ of English patriotism. Too much street-dirt has been cast at this honest race, ridiculed as "dolts." A due and well-considered partiality for this our ancient stock, "average men," who have been insolently told to get into the rear, that keener wits "may

come to the front,"-a regard for those whom Providence has endowed with a true mother-wit, if not so keen, is another inducement to us to recommend the agricultural system of the author of the Word in Season, which includes in its promised benefits the happy labourer in full employment.

We look with little interest, if we are discussing only agricultural progress, upon the temporary profits arising out of a fashion-the rents for sporting manors. We should be satisfied to have these sports kept up, and generally followed, not so exclusively as they are appropriated to the wealthy and fashionable. M. de Lavergne writes with a certain zest, as if he had been "on the moors." "Nothing is more fashionable than Highland sports. The pencil of Landseer, the favourite delineator of British sport, has described under every form some of its most interesting incidents; and that bustle, which for two or three months in the year awakens in the slumbering echoes of the rocks something like the gathering of the clans, results in fine incomes to the proprietors." These last few words greatly deteriorate the sport. Shall we startle the admirers of royal academicians-the lovers of the arts, and more especially the flattering admirers of Sir Edwin Landseer-if we say, and somewhat boldly too, that in the best sense and feeling of nature his pictures are not natural? Nature seems ever to us to take especial care to keep out of sight the necessary cruelty (we say cruelty as not seeing, yet not doubting, the benevolence of the law) by which animal preys upon animal. Rarely, as we walk the fields or the woods, does the perpetration of this destruction become visible; rarely does the death or agony of the creatures presen't itself. Most animals prey in the night, when man's eyes are closed; and those that perish by day, and are devoured, are covered in the secrecy of lone places. Nature loves to hibit the cheerful side of life singing-birds come nearest to habitations, creatures are mo in enjoyment of their life. kind nature, is fearful to too much into the visible the awful secret of death

not to familiarise him with the general slaughter going on around him, lest he become more cruel than he is. Now, nature wishes to be painted with this expression of her forbearance. Painters who disobey this injunction deserve not to be called nature's painters. She will have all cruelty kept out of sight. Sir Edwin Landseer makes the cruelty his subject. We scarcely know a picture from his pencil that is not utterly cruel. His works are in defiance of kindliness and humanity. We cannot understand how people can take any pleasure in them, unless it be in the artistic skill, the lowest source of the pleasure derivable from art. There is the "Otter Hunt," wherein the poor creature is represented held up by the huntsman writhing in agony around the spear that pierces him. There is the poor heron victimised in the air-the sporting party, which, according to all humane taste, ought to be in the foreground, faintly seen in the distance. How unlike the cheerful hunting scenes of Wouverman, in which all cruelty of the sport is kept out of sight, and the gaiety of the party going out made alone conspicuous. There is the horrid deer-stalking picture-cruelty to animal, and a degrading of man-for the poor creature is seen shot down in his wildness, and the sportsman skulking like a secreted felon. There was the dead deer locked together after fight, of last year, and the fox and bird of prey coming to devour them, the glazed eyes and death agonies still perceptible in the prostrate carcasses. And is this year's picture better? It is worse, for it misrepresent royal person amiable Queen never seen by human about to tre faces and tered other

[graphic]

humanity; and sincerely hope that foreigners do not consider them as specimens of our taste and excellence in the one, or of our character in the other. Foreigners pronounce us "rough of manners;" can it be wondered at, if they take our characters from pictures which they see so favourably received? It is polite in them that they use no worse epithets. But to return from this digression-if it be one.

Scotland and Ireland are in perfect contrast: Scotland a comparatively barren soil, Ireland a rich one-riches and beggary.

"Even the English admit that Ireland, in point of soil, is superior to England. The conformation of the country is peculiar; mountains range along nearly the whole extent of its coasts, the interior being a vast plain, and for the most part highly fertile. Ireland contains eight millions of hectares; rocks, lakes, and bogs, occupy about two millions of these, and two millions more are indifferent land. The remainder-that is to say, about half the country-is rich land, with calcareous subsoil. What better could be conceived?" "It is the richest soil I ever saw," says Arthur Young (speaking of counties Limerick and Tipperary), "and such as is applicable to every wish." The misery of the people has been frequently ascribed to low wages; M. de Lavergne shows otherwise. "The wretched condition of the cultivators cannot be attributed to the small amount of wages as distributed over the whole, for not only did this item amount in principle to half the gross produce, while in England and Scotland it is only a fourth, but it was frequently higher, owing to the non-payment of rent. Nowhere, perhaps, was the share of wages greater; whereas, compared to the rent, it should have been less rather than more."

Though the population of Ireland was at no time too large for its acreage, if the land had been under good cultivation, and trade towns had afforded means for receiving any superabundance, in its neglected condition the population was too large, being almost exclusively rural. The cottier tenancy and the con-acre tended greatly to increase it. The

rage for renting and underletting in subdivisions became necessities. There being no regular wages-system, and no manufactures from which to obtain a living, the land was the only resource. Children, when they grew to manhood, each looked for his bit of land, and built his hovel, and became the head of another family, because he could do nothing else. Hence early marriages, less improvident than necessary imprudences, stocked the land with a still increasing population. It appears, then, that population does not depend upon one law-prosperity. We are apt in this country to point to the increase, as shown in the census, as a proof of prosperity. Utter poverty and despair, which always endanger life, seem also to have the same tendency, producing unusual fecundity, by a law of reconstruction, or of compensation for the possible loss incidental to the dangerous condition of a society. This is noticed by M. de Lavergne. "There were also two mysterious causes of this unlimited propagation, both proceeding from the miserable condition of the people. The first is the inexplicable physiological law which ordains, for all living species, that the means of reproduction increase in proportion to the chances of destruction. The action of this law may be observed among the lower animals, and also in the human race inhabiting unhealthy climates. As the chances of death increase, births also increase; and, whether among animals or men, the strongest and best-fed races are not those which multiply most. Indifferent as to individual life, nature's first care is to preserve the species." It is as true that when a species becomes at once too numerous and too weak, and likely, from any peculiar condition into which it has fallen, to propagate disorganisation, moral and physical, nature brings a pestilence or famine, which sweeps off the least healthy, that a better life may replenish the land. The agriculture of Ireland is rather in promise than existence. We would fain hope that there is a promise. As to measures proposed, or to be proposed, for the raising the condition of Ireland, and bringing it into a state of sufficient security to tempt capital to flow in to

work substantial remedy, they are so many and so contradictory that volumes, not such a review as this, would be required to state them, and fresh volumes again to discuss them.

We must leave the case of Ireland to time and wise legislation, believing that there is now, at least, a sincere desire in this country, and which will be hereafter taken up by every government, to do everything that can be done to promote the best interests of that portion of the Queen's dominions. The Irish do not want now a Swift to advocate their cause. Our governments are as anxious now to promote trade and manufactures in that country, as they were discouraging in the days of the powerful Dean of St Patrick's.

Although we do not coincide in all the views taken by M. de Lavergne, we admire the fairness, the perfect candour with which he treats the whole subject of Ireland. He takes questions, and weighs arguments against as well as for. We give him full credit for a determination throughout his work to search into facts, with the earnest desire to reach truth, and to promote the welfare of every people, by showing them their advantages and disadvantages, their successes and shortcomings; and he lays before them, by specimens and details, what agriculture is in the several countries, and what it may become.

The work is extremely interesting, and is very well translated. It cannot fail to make its way.

MR THACKERAY AND HIS NOVELS.

It is now several years since that witty Cockney tourist and caustic observer of common follies, Mr Michael Angelo Titmarsh, emerged from the incognito which veiled him from the popular eye, and in the person of Mr W. M. Thackeray claimed the suffrage of the world, no longer as the author of picture-books and journeys unsentimental, but as one of that brotherhood of novelists who are the Shakespeares of our day and generation. Let us disguise it as we will, among all our voices of melodious verse, we have no poet to endow the names and manners of the age of Victoria with that immortality which has seized upon the age of Elizabeth. Perhaps electric telegraphs and steamengines are not exactly accordant with blank verse; and certainly it does not seem quite desirable to premise a lofty legend with that "waiting for the train at Coventry," which almost entitles our distinguished laureate himself to be sent upon a visit to that world-renowned and ancient town. Of all the sciences, that one which has made least progress in these few hundred years, is the science which makes investigation into the secret heart of our bumanity. Professor Owen and Mr Faraday could confer a vast deal of new and wondrous information upon that unlettered and

unscientific individual who wrote the Tempest and Macbeth; but we question much if the whole array of poets and story-tellers flourishing in these days could make Shakespeare much the wiser, despite of well-nigh three centuries of experience in which we have the advantage of him. It may be possible, perhaps, to make a very glowing and poetic description of that world,,older than all antiquity, where the Megatherium was monarch of all he surveyed, and where the Saurian was a caste in high life, disdainfully exclusive of meaner reptiles; but we fear it must be quite impracticable to reproduce the manners of that interesting age, the loves and griefs and gossips of its unwieldy society. The world of poetry and romance is purely a human world; the creatures beneath us, and the angels above us, are equally beyond our limits; and however widely we may search for the accessories of our scene, the true material with which we have to deal is that marvellous complexity that wonderful microcosm of detached and separate existence, which will be itself, and not another, through eternal ages

the heart and mind of man. Upon its hidden and mysterious workings, the discoveries of modern times throw but little light. It is true that they give us a very respectful

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