Читать книгу Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 353, March 1845 - Various - Страница 3

The growing demand for information among the agricultural classes, makes the appearance of new books of a really trustworthy kind of greater national value at the present time than at any former period. Besides, as our knowledge is rapidly advancing, good books upon practical agriculture are becoming more difficult to write. They require from their authors a larger acquaintance with the newer branches of elementary science than many practical men can be expected as yet to possess. These considerations induce us to advert for the second time to the work now before us. We drew the attention of our readers to the first volume when it made its appearance; two other volumes completing the work having since been published, we feel ourselves under a kind of obligation to follow the author cursorily through the remainder of his book.

The Book of the Farm might be called The Practical Farmer's Library, since it contains full information upon almost every practical subject upon which the intelligent young farmer is likely to require assistance or advice. The scientific branch alone is not systematically discussed, though here and there useful scientific points are treated of and explained. But this was not to be expected in a really practical work; and the author, upon this branch, very properly refers his readers to the published works of Professor Johnston.27

The feature that struck us most in the perusal of the first volume, was the remarkably wide range of minutely practical information which the author possesses and embodies in his book. He describes every practical operation as if he had not only assisted at it on some former occasion, but as if he were actually performing it while he is describing it with his pen. This gives a truthfulness and self-evident accuracy to his descriptions, which are rarely to be met with in agricultural works, and which could not be expected from one who was not really familiar with the points of which he treats. He seems even to enjoy every labour he describes, to enter into the spirit of every operation to be performed – into the heart and fun of the thing as it were. He becomes an actual participator in the fact – a particeps criminis.

No matter whether it is the currying or the skinning of his horse – the shoeing or the riding – taking him to the field or to the tanner, Mr Stephens is equally ready and willing for all. He tells you with the same glee, how to shelter your sheep on the hill side, and how to cut their throats after the most approved fashion; how to lay on fat on your short-horns – what are the marks of their being ripe for the butcher – and how you can kill them in the most Christian way. He pets his sheep-dog and praises him, tells you how kindly you should treat him, what constant encouragement you should give to so faithful a servant, at what age he should be hanged, and how you can make most of his skin. He instructs you to tend your young lambs, he helps you to select a pet from the flock; he goes with you afterwards to the barn, helps you to kill and skin it, teaches you to score and cross it in the most approved style, cuts it up for you like an anatomist, selects the best joint for your own cook; sits down with you afterwards at your own table and carves it, and after he has helped you all to your general satisfaction, he is still connoisseur enough to keep the best bit of all for his own plate.

Besides this living spirit, which pervades all the descriptions of methods and operations, another excellence we have remarked in these volumes is the kind of opinions given upon practical points, in reference to which a difference of sentiment prevails among practical men. They are in general safe opinions – leaning always to the prudent side in cases of doubtful practice. If they appear, therefore, in some cases, not to come up to the notions of those lovers of change, who would improve agriculture as engineers make railroads – without regard to their cost or to the interest of the capital expended – they will appear to all sound men to be so much the better fitted to guide the rising farmers of the present day. These young men must possess more knowledge than their fathers, if they are to continue upon the land; but they will also soon disappear from the land, notwithstanding their knowledge, if a balance of profit at the end of the year be not considered an indispensable element in their system of husbandry.

The book, as we formerly stated, is divided into four parts, embracing in succession the proper operations to be performed in the four seasons, commencing with those of the winter.

To the greater part of the winter operations, as described and explained by Mr Stephens, we adverted in our former notice: there remains one topic, however, to which, from its great national importance, we must still turn for a little.

Among the various improvements which, in the dead season of the year, the farmer may undertake with profit to himself and advantage to his farm, is that of draining. Of this kind of improvement almost every farm in the country is more or less susceptible. But how should it be done, at what depth, and with what material? As to the depth, the young farmer who wishes to do his work well, will neither imitate nor rely too much on the practice of the district he comes from, or in which his own farm may happen to be situated. If so, he will, in Ayrshire – by the advice of the wise-acres in that county – put in his drains only twenty inches, or two feet, in depth; in Berwickshire he will sink them to three feet; and in Sussex he may be carried along with the rising tide to put none in shallower than four feet. He will not trust, we say, wholly to example. He will say to himself rather, what is the object I have in view, and what implements have I to effect it?

In draining he has one leading, one master object, we may call it, to attend to. He has to deepen his soil, that the roots of his crops may descend further – may draw their food from greater depths, and from a larger body of earth. The more completely he can effect this, the better will his work be done.

How deep will his crops send down their roots? In favourable circumstances his wheat and clover, and even his turnips, will descend to a depth of three feet. His operations, then, would be in some degree perfect, if he could so open, and drain, and doctor his land as to enable and induce the roots of his crops to go down so far as this.

But they will never, or rarely at least, descend lower than the level of the water in the bottom of his drains. He cannot, therefore, hope to make his soil available for the growth of his crops to a greater depth than that to which his drains descend. Three feet then, he will say, appears to be a reasonable depth for a perfect drain.

Again, drained land must be opened beneath by the subsoil plough, or by the fork, if the rains, and roots, and air, are to descend, and the full benefits are to be derived from the drains. With our existing implements – especially with the fork – the soil may be stirred to a depth of twenty-six inches. The top of the drain, therefore, should be at least this depth under the surface; and this, again, brings the whole depth of a perfect drain to within a few inches of three feet as before.

Then as to the material, it seems advisable to use either stones or tiles, according as the one or the other is the cheaper, provided always that the stones are properly broken, and carefully put in. The tide seems now to be running in favour of smaller tiles than have hitherto been generally used in Scotland, and even of pipe-tiles of a very small diameter. Our friend Mr Smith of Deanston has taken out a patent for a pipe-tile, with projecting fingers at the ends, which dovetail into each other, so as to unite the tiles together, and at the same time to keep them in their places. Should these pipes be found generally efficient, the cost of draining will be considerably diminished, while the small space they occupy will afford greater facilities for deepening the soil.

But the economical considerations connected with draining, are as important as the practical methods to be adopted, both to the cultivator of the soil and to the country at large. We shall advert only to one of these.

In what light ought the expenditure of money in draining to be regarded by the practical man?

He ought to consider it only as a mercantile speculation, by which he may or may not make a profit, according to the degree of prudence with which it is undertaken. He has the usufruct of his farm for a certain number of years, with liberty to crop it in a certain way. By this he hopes to make a certain sum of money. But it is capable of improvement by draining, and he has liberty to drain if he likes. "Well," he says to himself, "I make a certain sum by farming my land as it is; I have here fifty pounds of ready money, could I make more profit if I were to lay this money out in draining it? – would it be a good speculation?" He calculates the cost of draining and the probable return of profit, and the result is apparently that he can make more profit by this use of his money than by any other way in which he could employ it. This being the result, the prudent man embarks in this safe speculation. He does not bury his money in his land; he does not give it away to the land to the loss of his family; he only lends it for a season, and for the benefit of his family. He has made his calculations badly, and has only his own arithmetic to blame, if he does not get all his capital back from the land, with a handsome profit in addition, some years before his lease has expired.

Many tenants think the interest of the landlord should enter into their calculations, and some cherish or excite in their own minds ill feelings towards their landlords at the idea of leaving their drains in the land when they quit, and the land itself in better condition than when they entered upon their farms. But this feeling arises altogether from a want of familiarity on their part with the ordinary feelings of mercantile men and the transactions of mercantile business. The farmer's sole aim is to promote his own interest. If that interest is to be promoted by draining, let him do it immediately, and with all his heart; his own profit will not be a whit the less that the landlord comes in for a little profit too when the lease has expired. The builder who takes thirty or forty years' lease of a bit of land in the neighbourhood of London, is not deterred from planting houses upon it, by the reflection that at the end of his lease the houses will become the property of his landlord. Long before that time has expired, he hopes to have his principal and his profit both safe in his pocket. If he does not cherish these hopes, he is either a fool or a rogue.

On one other point connected with draining, we are anxious to quote Mr Stephens' own words. In reply to the question, is your land drained? we have so often received the answer – "Oh, sir, my land is dry, it does not require draining" – that we request the serious attention of such of our readers as are interested in the improvement of land, to the following passage: —

"Land, however, though it does not contain such a superabundance of water as to obstruct arable culture, may nevertheless, by its inherent wetness, prevent or retard the luxuriant growth of useful plants, as much as decidedly wet land. The truth is, that deficiency of crops on apparently dry land is frequently attributed to unskilful husbandry, when it really arises from the baleful influence of concealed stagnant water; and the want of skill is shown, not so much in the management of the arable culture of the land, as in neglecting to remove the true cause of the deficiency of the crop, namely, the concealed stagnant water. Indeed, my opinion is – and its conviction has been forced upon me by dint of long and extensive observation of the state of the agricultural soil over a large portion of the country – that this is the true cause of most of the bad farming to be seen, and that not one farm is to be found throughout the kingdom that would not be much the better for draining. Entertaining this opinion, you will not be surprised at my urging upon you to practise draining, or at my lingering at some length on the subject, that I may exhibit to you the various modes of doing it, according to the peculiar circumstances in which your farm may be placed." – (Vol. i. p. 483.)

With the substance of these remarks we entirely agree. We would only not put the point so broadly as to imply, that the want of draining was the only cause of the bad farming we see. We have, however, been over large tracts of Scotland, and we are quite sure that whole counties might be made to yield the double of their present produce by an efficient drainage, and proper subsequent management.

We pass over the very succinct and methodical description of the processes of threshing, winnowing, &c., and can note only one point out of the great mass of very interesting matter Mr Stephens has brought together, in regard to the composition, qualities, and uses of the different kinds of grain. The point to which we shall advert is the composition of oatmeal. Every country is naturally prejudiced in favour of its national food. We Britons look with real or affected disgust on the black rye-bread of the northern nations; and yet on this food the people thrive, are strong, healthy, and vigorous. The bread, too, is sweet to the taste. It is only disagreeable associations, therefore – connected in our minds with the darkness of the colour – that make us consider it disagreeable or unwholesome. In like manner, our Irish brethren are strong, vigorous, and merry, on their potato diet. Why should we condemn it as the lowest kind of diet, or pity those who are content to live almost wholly upon it? It is true that, from its being the main staff of Irish life, great distress ensues when a failure takes place in the potato crop. But such would be the consequence of a general failure in any kind of crop on which they might happen chiefly to rely. The cure for such seasons of suffering, therefore, is not to be sought so much in bringing about change of diet, as in introducing a better system of husbandry – an improved system of drainage especially – by which a general failure of any crop will be rendered a more rare occurrence. The spread of railroads will soon render it comparatively easy to transport even the bulky potato from one county to another, and thus to prevent the recurrence of famine prices.

But in South Britain the oatmeal of the Scottish peasantry – the national food – is looked upon with as much prejudice, and those who live upon it with as much pity, as the black bread-eaters of Germany and Sweden, or the potato-diggers of Ireland. But the health and strength of the Scottish peasantry, who live entirely upon oatmeal, is proverbial. On this subject, in speaking of the Scottish ploughmen, where the bothy system is practised – that is, where the single men all live together in a room or bothy provided for them, which serves them both for sleeping and cooking – Mr Stephens has the following characteristic passage: —

"The oatmeal is usually cooked in one way, as brose, as it is called, which is a different sort of pottage to porridge. A pot of water is put on the fire to boil, a task which the men take in turns; a handful or two of oatmeal is taken out of the small chest with which each man provides himself, and put into a wooden bowl, which also is the ploughman's property; and on a hollow being made in the meal, and sprinkled with salt, the boiling water is poured over the meal, and the mixture receiving a little stirring with a horn spoon, and the allowance of milk poured over it, the brose is ready to be eaten; and as every man makes his own brose, and knows his own appetite, he makes just as much brose as he can consume. The bowl is scraped clean with the spoon, and the spoon licked clean with the tongue, and the dish is then placed in the meal-chest for a similar purpose on the succeeding occasion. The fare is simple, and is as simply made; but it must be wholesome, and capable of supplying the loss of substance occasioned by hard labour; for I believe that no class of men can endure more bodily fatigue, for ten hours every day, than those ploughmen of Scotland who subsist on this brose thrice a-day." – (Vol. ii. p. 384.)

The quantity of oatmeal allowed to the ploughman —as his sole food– is two pecks, or 17½ lbs. in a week, exactly 2½ lbs. a-day – or ¾ lb. for each meal – and yet it often happens that a hard-worked ploughman cannot consume the whole of this allowance. Speaking again of oatmeal porridge, Mr Stephens says, "there are few more wholesome meals than oatmeal porridge, or upon which a harder day's work can be wrought. Children of all ranks in Scotland are brought up on this diet, verifying the line of Burns,

"'The halesome parritch, chief of Scotia's food.'"

As southern prejudices have a tendency to make their way northward, and, in the face of old experience at home, are leading many to undervalue the oatmeal, on which we trust our peasantry will long rely as their staple food, it is interesting to find that, on this point, science has at length come to the aid of reason and experience. Chemistry has already told us many remarkable things in regard to the vegetable food we eat – that it contains, for example, a certain per centage of the actual fat and lean we consume in our beef, or mutton, or pork – and, therefore, that he who lives upon vegetable food may be as strong as the man who lives upon animal food, because both in reality feed upon the same things in a somewhat different form. Now it appears, from analysis, that wheaten flour contains on an average not more than ten per cent of actual dry beef – of that which forms the living muscle of the animal that feeds upon it – with three per cent of fat, and fifty of starch. And because of this chemical composition, our southern neighbours think wheaten flour the most nourishing, the most refined, and the most civilized of all food.

But Professor Johnston, in the recent edition of his Elements,28 tells us, that, from experiments made in the laboratory of the Agricultural Chemistry Association of Scotland, it turns out that oats are far richer in all the three things above named than the best wheat flour grown in any part of England – that they contain eighteen or twenty per cent of that which forms muscle, five to eight of fat, and sixty-five of starch. The account, therefore, between shelled oats (groats) and fine wheaten flour stands thus. One hundred pounds of each contain —