13 DECEMBER 1873, Page 11

"THE FUTURE OF FARMING."

changes recommended would imply retrogression rather than advance ; others of them seem to us hopelessly impracticable ; but it is well to have the subject considered in reference to large theories, and no one who knows the history of farming during the present century will rashly assume that extraordinary trans- mutations in the methods of agriculture, of a sort quite com- parable with those which have affected other industries, are impossible. Going back for seventy years, we have Arthur Young doubting whether chemistry could ever be successfully applied to farming ; while Hunter, the author of the "British Georgics," declared that though the drill system was the most perfect mode of sowing, it could never become general, by reason of the expensiveness of the machines required for working it. What a change since then ! The whole art of husbandry has been revolutionised, under the guid- ance of scientific observation and mechanical improvements. The properties of particular soils have been analysed, and fertilisers of a nature to correct and stimulate them have been manufactured or imported at a price which equals year by year the rent paid for their occupany, while labour-saving implements of complex make and enormous cost are articles of necessity for every tiller of the soil who would not find himself left far behind. The successors of men like the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Leicester who led the way in adopting these innovations have profited from five to sixfold by them, while their tenantry in turn, smitten by the spirit of enterprise, or forced to its practice, have grown in wealth and intelligence. The process has not reached its limit, nor come to a standstill. On the contrary, it is plain that we are yet in a transition state, that further and greater changes are to be looked for, and that whether Mr. Jefferies (the writer in Fraser) is right as to their tendency and range or not, they will be of a character which must affect very powerfully the trade of farming in all its aspects,—as a branch of industry, a source of national sustenance, and an element of natural beauty.

Mr. Jefferies starts from two indisputable facts ; that farming has become a trade, and that wheat-culture does not pay in this country. The first goes without proof. The evidence for it is before everyone's eyes. The modern farm is simply a food factory. The modern farmer justly boasts himself a scientific producer. The old relations betwixt the tenant and his landlord are pass- ing away. The one no longer regards himself as being, in Homeric phrase, "a shepherd of men," and the other is losing his feeling of dependence upon the patronage and protection of his superior. The modern form of their relations is that of the capitalist who lets his land for what rent he can get, to another capitalist who hires it in order to make what profit be can. It is true that a lingering sentiment, derived .from another order of things, survives in strength enough to prevent this description

from being accepted as absolute. Considering the associations and privileges which have in all ages been attached to territorial rights, we doubt whether that sentiment can ever be entirely obliterated, but it is plain that the tie which links the two classes has approximated and is approximating to that of a purely com- mercial bargain. Mr. Jefferies' second postulate deserves more illustration than he has given. It is sustained by the considera- tion that the price of wheat is almost stationary, whereas every other species of farm produce is on the rise. This is no new phenomenon. It dates back fully a hundred years. The only kind of corn that is much dearer now than in 1770 is barley, a fact accounted for by the growth of distillation and brewing. In the early days of the controversy as to the probable effect of free- trade upon British farming, Mr. James Caird, now the head of the Drainage Commission, laid his finger with great sagacity upon this peculiarity, founding thereon an advice to his brother farmers to which it would have been well had they given speedier heed. He pointed out that while, with the great mass of consumers, bread was the prime article of food, yet as soon as they could afford it, every family of them indulged in an occasional meat dinner, or at the very least sought to season their dry hunch with a morsel of cheese. He estimated that among the well-to-do classes the expenditure upon articles the produce of grass and green crops was nine times as great as upon articles the produce of corn ; and assuming that this disparity would endure and increase, he further indicated that while corn could easily be brought from abroad the importation of fresh food —animal, vegetable, and forage—would be weighted with diffi- culties which could not fail to enhance the relative difference in the value of corn and stock, and to make it worth while to devote special regard to the cultivation of the latter. It need not be said how fully the prediction has been verified. Meat and dairy produce have mounted to prices which would have been deemed incredible in those days, while corn has stood fast with wonder-

fully slight fluctuations. Oar grain consumption has in- creased enormously, but neither increase of demand nor scarcity in the home supply has any decided influence upon the market rates. Our ships can at any moment be converted into floating granaries, and a rise of a shilling or two per quarter will bring abundance from the ends of the earth. During the seven years ending with 1859 our average annual importations were but five million quarters ; during the next seven, which included three remarkably bad home harvests, it was eight millions ; but in 1871 the amount was nine and three-quarter millions, while last year it was ten and a half. The average price for the seven years 1860-7 was 578.10d.; in 1871 it was 56s. 81; last week it was 61s., being higher than for some time, though the fluctuations have been of no great consequence. A perusal of these figures will make it plain how it comes that, having to face increased rents on the one hand, and an immense increase in the cost of labour on the other, the farmer finds wheat cultivation unprofitable, and is considering wistfully the best means of limiting the proportion of his land which he puts under the plough. The difficulty which meets him is that stock must be kept and fattened during winter ; that a large breadth of soil must be kept in an arable condition to provide food for this purpose ; and that in connection with it a certain rotation of crops must be observed, out of which wheat cannot be dropped. Mr. Jefferies is rather staggered by this consideration, but in the long run gal- lantly clears it by announcing that we must look out for some new vegetable which will give a " crop to take the place of wheat, and fill up that gap with a yield of profitable animal food. Given such a discovery, and he makes no doubt that the present yield of 30s. of meat per acre could be raised under a system of high farming, to one of £.5 over all England, the production on one or two farms having been already forced up to an average of ET. At present, we believe, on the strength of the agricultural returns, there are about thirty-five cattle in the United Kingdom for every hundred persons. Were that number to be even doubled, there would be smoking sirloins of home breeding on many Christmas tables ten years hence, which will go without at the proximate anniversary.

The most interesting part of Mr. Jefferies' speculation, however, relates not to the direct effect of his "new and important vegetable" (for which he accepts later on the discovery of some "new and important manure") upon the production of meat in its relation to the national demand, but to the style in which he imagines it would react upon the modes of farming. He fancies there would arise a system which would almost abolish the tenant- farmer. Here is how he would have that person superseded. It is well to give our author's own language :—

"We may then look to a time when farming will become a commer- cial speculation, and will be carried on by large joint-stock concerns, issuing shares of ten, fifteen, or fifty pounds each, and occupying from three to ten thousand acres. Such companies would, perhaps, purchase the entire sewage of an adjacent town. Their buildings, their streets of cattle-stalls, would be placed on a slope sheltered from the north- east, but near the highest spot on the estate, so as to distribute manure and water from their reservoirs by the power of gravitation. A stationary steam-engine would crush their cake and pulp their roots, pump their water, perhaps even shear their sheep. They would employ butchers and others, a whole staff, to kill and cut up bullocks in pieces suitable for the London market, transmitting their meat straight to the salesman without the intervention of of the dealer. That salesman would himself be entirely in the employ of the company, and sell no other meat but what they supplied him with. This would at once give a larger profit to the producer and a lower price (in compari- son) to the public. In summer meat might be cooled by the ice-house or refrigerator, which must necessarily be attached to the company's bacon factory. Except in particular districts it is hardly probable that the dairy would be united with the stock farm ; but if so, the ice-house would again come into requisition, and there would be a condensed milk factory on the premises."

Moreover, he thinks that such a Company would be disposed to root out hedges and fill up ditches, as occupying land to no good purpose,—that they would try to shorten the period between crops, and to get more than one off the same soil in the year,--that, for accomplishing this, irrigation would be resorted to upon an exten- sive scale, and that artificial heat would be applied, or an electric current be run through among the plants,—and that blasts of hot air might be used not only to ripen the crops, but to prepare them for being harvested as soon as cut. There is much here that to wiser and leas prejudiced men than the Northern Farmer of de old school may seem utterly fantastic and insane. Yet it is certain that some of the recommendations, particularly the last, as to securing crops in good condition during a wet season, have been put to the proof of experiment with the most complete success ; while as to every item of the

scheme, it is not too much perhaps to say that though it may far outrun the likelihood of speedy adoption, it is in the line of existing tendencies, and may contribute to foster and control their develop- ment. Some of them, it is probable, may turn out egregious blunders; but others, it is reasonable to suppose, are only sanguine anticipations of what may be realised. We do not see why the attempt at realising them should be suspended upon the condition which Mr. Jefferies lays down, nor can we understand why it should be presented as only possible in one mode. There is sio insuperable barrier in the way of applying joint-stock enterprise to farming pursuits, but neither is there any necessity for holding that the joint-stock system is alone adequate to the testing of Mr. Jefferies' theories. He is -enamoured of what is really a modification of the meteor plan for fixing rents,—that is to say, he would restrict the landlord to a rent-charge of one and half per cent, on the value of his land, whatever else he might get coming to him as a per-centage on the receipts of his tenants ; but this obviously is but the fond attach- iment of an inventive mind, which is wedded to every bit of a complete scheme which has been self-contrived. Such a provision Las nothing to do with, and is easily separable from, the sug- gestions as to improved methods of tillage. These suggestions, granting them to be far-fetched and high-flown, are, we cannot but think, worthy of more serious consideration than they are likely to receive.