MANURES.-NIGHT SOIL.

There cannot be more conclusive evidence of the inestimable value of a portable extraneous manure, capable of producing a good crop of turnips, upon poor land, than is afforded by the use of bones as a manure in certain soils. Thousands of acres are now under tillage and producing rich crops, which, but for the aid of bone manure, would have continued to be mere rabbit warrens, or at most, supplying a miserable support to a few half-starved sheep. Bone manure is, however, limited in supply and applicable to certain soils only; any other manure, therefore, which not being too bulky or heavy, and hence costly in transport, which can be rendered at a moderate price, so as to meet the deficient supply of bones, and applicable to soils in which bones do not produce a beneficial effect, would be invaluable to the cultivators of poor turnip soils. It is well known that night-soil possesses the most efficacious qualities as a manure. It has long been used for that purpose in France and Belgium, and in China it is preserved and prepared with the greatest care. The offensive smell has hitherto been the great obstacle which has prevented its use. The difficulty seems however, at length to have been overcome; Messrs. Payen and Buren, celebrated chemists, in France, having succeeded in producing a powder, the mixture of which with night-soil, almost instantly frees it from the offensive smell. It afterwards undergoes further preparation, and when ready for use assumes the appearance of a fine OLD SERIES.]

black mould, not in the smallest degree offensive, and so dry and powdery, as to be capable of passing through the drill, and deposited with the seed. A licence to use the French patent in this country has been taken out, and a manufactory of the article has been established in London. We last week inspected the works, and saw several thousand quarters of the manure in different stages of preparation. The process of mixing the powder with the night-soil was performed before several gentlemen who were present, and in the course of a few minutes the offensive smell was entirely removed. The efficiency of the manure has been most satisfactorily proved in France. A great many persons have already purchased some of it for the purpose of testing its effects, and we trust they will make the results of their experiments public, for the benefit of the agricultural body. If the thousands of tons of this article, possessing the most powerful qualities as a manure, but now altogether lost in consequence of its offensiveness, can be rendered inoffensive, and therefore available, it will be a most important addition to our present means of production. A quantity sufficient for manuring two acres can be packed in a cask of the size of a sugar hogshead, at an expence of from 30s. to 21. per acre. The trouble and cost of a trial is trifling, we therefore hope that some practical farmers in different parts of the country, will be induced to try it, in order that a fair opportunity may be afforded of testing its general value, and also of ascertaining whether its effects vary on different soils.

B

[No. 1.-VOL. XI,

In a number of your valuable paper of December last, "a Lancashire Agriculturist and Rent-paying Farmer," in language not the most courteous, exhibited considerable indignation at some remarks of mine contained in a paper, read at the Preston Agricultural Meeting, on the drilling of grain, in which 1 am sure it was the farthest from my intention to offend any one. Although invited to reply, I avoided it, having no wish to enter into centroversy with an anonymous correspondent, hoping at the same time that Mr. Blakie of Norfolk, or some other practical gentleman, would take up the cause of the drill; nor should I now have taken up the subject had not a correspondent in the Farmer's Magazine of last month, signing "Rusticus," in his great zeal for broadcast renewed the attack by making similar observations upon my paper, which he is pleased to style "a long premeditated oration." Having been disappointed in the hope that other advocates for the drill would come forward to relieve me from entering into a controversy on a subject of so much importance, I have no alternative but to accept, though late, your invitation, in order to convince these gentlemen of the old broadcast school, or in default to expose their prejudices. The "Lancashire Agriculturist" observes, "it is somewhat amusing when we reflect how we farmers are to be enlightened and instructed by such men as Mr. Binns, certainly he can claim some experience as a farmer, and agricultural information too, part of which he may have acquired by a proceeding, which not many rent paying farmers can afford, that is, travelling in different parts of the country." He further observes, "I have no doubt but good crops of wheat may be grown on the drill, but if that had been so superior to broadcast, as Mr. B. in the most unqualified terms asserts, surely the farmers of England have been stupid, as many Solomons suppose them to be, or they long since would have seen the superlative excellence of the practice." Then remarking on my expression that agriculture was yet only in embryo," he observes, "if this is true, obtuse must have been the understandings of the cultivators of the earth for many thousand years." "Now if the writer be a "Lancashire Agriculturist" of any experience, he must know that most of the universally admitted improvements have been introduced within the last 20 or 30 of these many thousand years." Without inquiring of him at what exact period this obtuseness became extinct, I beg to ask him how long it is since the Lancashire farmers were in the practice on nearly all occasions, and under all circumstances, of ploughing with a string of horses singly one before the other? I have seen seven horses to one plough in a small field that is now ploughed better by two a-breast. How long is it since they believed that the ground in Lancashire was too poor to support the Leicester sheep, or since they discarded their slow growing long horned oxen, which required five or six years to bring them to maturity, and were then sold for 10l. to 12l. each, and their long horned heifers which were often four years old before they calved and which they were determined to adhere to, till they were tired of taking them home again, after standing the market all day

How long have turnips and clover been grown to any extent, and how long have clover and tares been given in the green state to even horses? Few till lately knew the use of the hoe for turnips, but thinned them with their fingers.

The Lancashire farmers are now highly respectable men, many of them are intelligent and enterprising, and from the improvement in progress in the county it is evident that they participate in the moral and intellectual advancements now taking place.

The writer says that my comparison between the manufacturer and the farmer "will not abide a candid and fair inquiry," and that "farmers are assailed from all sides with charges of ignorance, stupidity, laziness, and lethargy." In the paper alluded to I merely stated the fact that the isolated situation of the farmer prevented the access to libraries, mechanics' institutions, societies of arts, lectures, and museums, and the intimate exchange of ideas which the manufacturer and mechanics living in towns possessed, and that this disadvantage would inevitably continue to operate, until the landlords and those who could afford it used means to supply the deficiency which is acknowledged in almost every part of the kingdom, by establishing libraries, and facilitating the acquisition of knowledge amongst farmers. I should be extremely sorry to cast any reflection upon the farmers of this country, I have ben much amongst them and have often partaken of their hospitality; the remarks I have occasionally made at agricultural meetings or elsewhere have been with the view of promoting their best interests by endeavouring to induce landlords and agricultural societies to institute libraries, and to promote the education of those who had no other means of obtaining it. The superior agriculture of the Scotch is supposed to have arisen in a great measure from their superior education. While on this subject I cannot omit mentioning the munificent conduct of the Duke of Hamilton, towards his tenantry in the neighbourhood of Lancaster, and of Thomas Clifton, Esq., towards his tenantry in the neighbourhood of Lytham, who have lately established agricultural societies upon an extensive scale, which through their intelligent agents, Mr. Lamb and Mr. Fair, will be productive of most valuable results. To these societies libraries I believe are intended to be attached. A society has also been established by T. R. G. Braddyll, Esq., in the district of Furness. Lancashire, though a manufacturing district, can, perhaps, proudly boast of more important agricultural societies than other counties, to this may be attributed her rapid agricultural improvements of late years, but education and useful publications in their societies have been less attended to than premiums for cattle and crops. In the midland and southern counties on the contrary, where agricultural societies have been neglected, agriculture is still in a backward state, and some of the farmers a little "obtuse," they as well as our Lancashire Agriculturist, very naturally ridicule what they and their fathers have not prac tised. Thus for want of information they cannot comprebend or appreciate the value of a better system, and what but education can provide a remedy?

I have frequently been in the midland and southern counties, and have had the best opportunities for observing the mode of agriculture there practised. The horses, with few exceptions, are a fat, heavy, and hairy-legged race, harnessed singly, even in stirring loose and dry fallows, having one or more great fellows in fine frocks to drive them, in addition to the man at the plough, which is frequently encumbered with a pair of wheels. The waggons and carts

are unwieldy and inconvenient, and the harness costly to the farmer and oppressive to the horses. During this spring I saw seven horses, one before the other, drawing a plough, and another set of seven attached to a harrow. In one considerable district the ground is limed upon the grass, an. afterwards ploughed. Oats are taken for three years in succession; in the last crop sometimes a very little rye-grass is sown, though the land is often left to kind nature, without grass seeds of any description. The lands thus treated the farmers acknowledge are so impoverished as to require from three to seven acres for the support of a small cow. After lying a few years with this scanty scattering of bad grass or weeds, the land is again limed and ploughed as before.

Agricultural produce must inevitably be dear, and importation from abroad be required with this expensive machinery; on reasoning with the farmers on its disadvantage, they replied they had been used to it, and it was not common to do any other way; and I have no doubt would be satisfied with it for half a century to come: so I suspect it will be with our "Agriculturist," and his friend "Rusticus," who cannot condescend to think any plan right but their own. I should be doing a great injustice to some meritorious individuals, if I did not say there are a few splendid exceptions in the midland counties to this "obtuseness" (I thank the Lancashire "Agriculturist" for a word so happily applicable). Mr. Lewis, the talented agent of the Duke of Suther land, at Trentham, conducts his agriculture upon the most improved Scotch system, and the Duke and he give every encouragement to improvement. Sir H. Vavasour, by the assistance of his practical and valuable agent, Mr. Bond, has lately instituted on his estate at Draycot, in Staffordshire, an agricultural library and experimental garden, for the use of his tenantry, for the trial of various kinds of seeds and plants; I might mention other instances, but it would lengthen this paper beyond proper bounds. The Lancashire "Agriculturist" says, and I cordially agree with him, that where this "obtuseness" prevails, "no man can make a livelihood, bring up and educate a family by farming, unless he pursues the strictest economy, and the most persevering industry." I agree with him that it is of "necessity," but he does not explain to us whence the necessity? Is it not because the farmer employs a more laborious and expensive mode of cultivation, his crops after all being inferior to what might be produced by a less expensive but more skilful process? consequently farmers cannot live so well as even the pauper manufacturers" mentioned by the " Lancashire Agriculturist." What would have been the fate of our manufacturers had they not paid more attention to science, and made the nicest calculations of mechanical power, reducing all to the greatest possible system of regularity, using the most rigid economy in their labour and machinery,-constantly making improvements by the aid of science, and by an ever active principle of invention? How do the manufacturers of England, with the disadvantage of high priced food and labour, and the expense of exportation, undersell foreigners in their own markets, and receive the great profits to which the "Lancashire Agriculturist" alludes; and what has prevented the farmer (granting him equal skill, education, and energy) from taking the same advantage? He truly observes of farmers, that they are "always ready to communicate their knowledge to one another, and by that means advantage the public." I grant this; but it must be admitted that the public would have reaped more advantage if the farmers had put this

knowledge more into practice. It is a curious anomaly that premiums through agricultural societies to such a liberal amount have been required to induce profitable cultivation. By the meetings of these societies much information has been diffused, and it is with my humble attempt to call forth agricul tural discussion at those meetings, instead of irrele vant matter, that the "Lancashire Agriculturist" quarrels.

He next says, that I appear to think, and "very obstinately too, that broadcast for every crop should be abandoned." I avow that where the land admits of drilling, I am still decidedly of opinion that broadcast ought to be abandoned. The "Lancashire Agriculturist" does not attempt to deny any of my deductions, but contents himself with a general denunciation of the practice of drilling, observing that I say broadcast "is a disgrace to a civilized country, and fit only for barbarous times." These, the "Lancashire Agriculturist" says, "certainly are severe remarks." I am glad they have produced the effect intended; my object was to rouse those who adhered to that slovenly system: I contend for the drill as "obstinately" as ever, and I am still more decidedly of opinion, that where the drill can be used, that "broadcast is a disgrace to a civilized country, and fit only for barbarous times." He states one instance of 7,000 lbs. of wheat being produced upon a Cheshire acre (which is rather more than two imperial acres), and challenges me to produce instances of better crops. Provided I could not do this, it would be no argument against the drill, because the crop he alludes to was, I have no doubt, grown upon some of the best of the Cheshire wheat soils after a summer fallow; but it is, notwithstanding, inferior to the drill crops I mentioned, which were grown upon poor gravelly land after a clover ley or other green crop; if these had been broadcast they would have been worth little or nothing. I have heard of more than 7,000 lbs. of wheat on the Cheshire acre, but it is a rare occurrence, and I believe the average produce of Cheshire and Lancashire, broadcast, is little more than half that weight.

The next subject of his critical remark regards the question whether the failure of plants when repeated too frequently on the same land, arises from them having exhausted the soil of nutritive matter required by that plant, or from the excrementitious matter left in the soil, being injurious when followed by the same kind of plant. He throws great ridicule upon my suggestion, that this subject deserves investigation by the English Agricultural Society. He says it may sound well in the ears of gentlemen who are ever ready to accuse the farmers of want of knowledge, and if the English Agricultural Society makes no better use of its resources than pursuing to practical men such useful enquiries, the country, though so susceptible of improvement, will not be much ameliorated by that truly patriotic institution." The writer is evidently satisfied with the knowledge of facts, without troubling himself about causes, but when this subject is further investigated, it may be discovered, that by the adoption of a certain succession of plants, the excrementitious substances of one may be made subservient to the growth of another, and by this means manure may be economised. I must admit that I have been taught by experience, that speculative and scientific experiments, often end in disappointment, but this ought not to deter or discourage us from these investigations; advantage often arises from them, though not always in the way we anticipate. The experimentalist, unfortunately, is often deficient in practical knowledge, and the practical man, in education and science; between the

two, much valuable information and many important results are lost. Too much stress therefore cannot be laid upon the importance of a scientific education to the practical farmer, who ought to have an intimate know. ledge of mechanics, and be versed in chemical agency, and animal economy, geology, botany and vegetable physiology. If these were more generally taught in schools, the character of the agriculturist would be raised, and he would be able to take that respectable station in society to which he is entitled. In a paper read before the statistical section of the last meeting of the British Association by L. Hindmarsh, Esq., of Alnwick, he speaks of the Northumberland farmers, as being skilful and shrewd practical men," whose skill is a collection of facts in their own experience, and that of their neighbours, applied in daily practice by shrewd minds, without knowing the principles which give to these facts all their efficiency and importance. Thus their range of vision is limited, the whole bearing of these facts is unseen, and important truths, which are involved in them are undiscovered. Here this want of a scientific education is felt by many excellent farmers." Now if this want be felt where the farmers occupy farms from three to four thousand pounds a year, and are acknowledged to be of a superior class, how much more is it wanted in many other parts? The occupation of an agriculturist is, and I hope will always be considered, one of the most honourable as well as the most interesting and delightful; "not a tree, a leaf, a blossom, but contains a folio volume:" education only is wanting to render it the most intellectual and virtuous." "We hail the birds of Spring as the blessed messengers of hope-the seed is scattered in faith-the harvest is reaped in joy-the rains descend, and we give thanks for the opening of those fountains, whose source and whose seal is above." This letter, I am aware is extending to an inconvenient length, but I must not neglect "Rusticus" who accuses me of the folly of "adopting a generalising principle which supposes success and benefit from every case of a similar application, overlooking as unworthy of notice, the difference of circumstances under which the application must be made, and on which the whole question hinges." How did " Rusticus" happen to overlook the qualifications contained in my paper which he criticises so unsparingly? "In strong or stony land where the drill is not so manageable, the practice of ribbing may be advantageously practised, that is by opening out a light furrow each way, then sowing the seed and covering it with the harrow. In many parts of Lancashire the soil is of a light description composed of either sand, or a mix. ture of sand and peat; these soils are very prolific in weeds, particularly the polygonnum (redshanks) and arenaria (sandwort), which would be cut up by the hoe most effectually."

In the endeavours of "Rusticus" to disparage the drill husbandry, he has the folowing observations, "Culmiferous crops soon shoot up and exclude all cultivation and the utmost that can be effected is a slight pulverization by scarifying and hoeing, and a check given to weeds that infect the lands, in defiance of the cleaning by green crops; an opportunity is also afforded by pulling any tall weeds among the crops, and beyond these trivial advantages, I never could perceive any benefit from drilling." Does "Rusticus" really estimate all these to be "trivial advantages?" I admit at once if they be trivial advantages, there would be a trivial advantage only in the adoption of the drill, notwithstanding the land is kept in a perfectly clean state for every crop.

1 return again to the Lancashire Agriculturist, to

notice the most sensible and valuable of his remarks, his estimation of Mr. Blacker, in which I most cordially concur; I am proud to say that I have the honour and benefit of that gentleman's intimate acquaintance; he deserves all that a grateful country can bestow, few men have benefited their country more than he has done; he has poured prosperity and comfort into the poor man's cabin, and improved his moral and religious character; the beneficial results of his labours in Ireland, are well worthy of imitation in England. I beg leave earnestly to recommend the perusal and distribution of his pamphlet on small farms. I have before publicly stated that in consequence of Mr. Blacker's exertions, the Irish are excelling the English in agriculture. Books of this kind ought to be selected for distribution amongst farmers, particularly the rising generation, and agricultural societies would find advantage in purchasing and circulating this little manual, the profits of which are devoted to charitable uses in Ireland, entirely divested of party or politics. I am happy to say Mr. Blacker has been invited to attend several of our Lancashire autumnal agricultural meetings, where I hope to meet the "Lancashire Agriculturist" and "Rusticus", in their real characters, not concealed under a fictitious title, inconsistent with that openness and honesty of purpose, characteristics of true agriculturists. In taking leave of them, I have to thank them for affording me another opportunity of stating my opinions on the great improvements of which agriculture is susceptible, which must be admitted to be a subject of great importance to mankind. The agriculturist is the producer of food for the manufacturer and all other classes of society, and the more the land can be made to produce at the least cost, the more plentiful and cheap must the produce be. The very best farmers in the country are acknowledged to be those who are the best educated. It would be the interest of the manufacturer, having proved in his own department the advantage of scientific knowledge, to come forward liberally in support of agricultural societies, lectures, and libraries, for the dissemination of scientific and practical knowledge amongst agriculturists, there cannot be a doubt in the mind of any person of ordinary discernment and practically acquainted with agricultural subjects, unfettered by prejudice, that the produce of the laud in this country would not only exceed the consumption, but in consequence of greater economy and skill, it could be afforded at a price, remunerative to export, particularly that of cattle, sheep, and horses, for which, if even a small increased care were taken by the breeder, in place of the generally prevailing neglect, there would be a greatly increased demand from various parts of the world, even greater than could be supplied; the landlord would be in a better position than now, for decrease of price would be more than balanced by increase of produce; but if rents should be reduced, which I do not believe, he would have the advantage of a reduction of price in all articles of consumption; cheap food would have a tendency to reduce the price of labour and all other commodities. I know that the price of labour is principally governed by supply and demand, but it will be time enough to discuss this part of the question when there is a probability of the surplus labour being taken up. The progress of improvement is now in operation, for a very few years ago, wheat, according to the evidence of the first farmers in the country, which evidence was given with the greatest sincerity, could not be grown for less than 80s. a

* Ridgeway is the publisher.