0ne of the most important points to be considered in the whole subject of laying down land to grass is the disintegrating or finely breaking up of the soil, and the intermingling with it of a sufficient proportion of vegetable matter, so that the soil may provide a good nest for the plant; for, as Sir John Lawes has well pointed out, it is the physical condition of the soil, its permeability to roots, its power of absorbing and radiating heat, and its power of absorbing and retaining moisture, that is of more importance than its, strictly speaking, chemical composition. This is a sentence, I need hardly say, that every agriculturist should learn by heart, and keep constantly before his attention, and especially in connection with laying down land to grass; for it is in consequence of the neglect of what Sir John has so well pointed out that failures so often occur, and the power to which he alludes of absorbing and retaining moisture is probably of supreme importance, for however abundant plant food may be, it must be remembered that it cannot enter the plant except through the medium of water. It is most unfortunate that all our agricultural textbooks should have given undue relative importance to the subject of agricultural chemistry. It should be carefully kept in mind that this is only one branch, and by no means the most important, of the many-sided problem of agriculture. It must always be remembered that a soil may be chemically rich, and yet in productive power be far inferior to one chemically poor, as shown, for instance, in the illustration given on page 35 (Chapter I). In this connection I may quote the following advice given by my late friend, Mr. Faunce de Laune, to a correspondent, under the following circumstances.

The land, as to which his opinion was sought, was thus described to him:

'The land is desperately poor land. It has been let lately at 2s. 6d. per acre, and the tenant is leaving; before that it was let at 5s., and seven years earlier it was let at 20s., but the tenant failed. The tithe is 7d. on most of it, and rates at 2s. in the pound. Not much money is to be expended, and what is to be done?'

'I advised,' he says, 'that the land should be frequently harrowed, and in the spring grass seeds, according to my No. 3 Table, for light chalky soils, sown; that it should be harrowed again, and left to Nature for fourteen months; and after that time it should be lightly fed with bullocks or sheep, the animals, if possible, to be fed with decorticated cotton cake.'

The accumulation of rent, rates, taxes, tithe, and cost of seed would amount to about 30s. per acre, and if the land should be worth 1s. 6d. an acre extra at the end of the year, it would pay the interest on the capital expended. He then adds the following observation, to which I particularly wish to direct attention:

'How far the accumulation of decaying vegetable matter, whether weeds or good grasses, goes towards manuring the land, and more especially how much it disintegrates the soil, so as to allow the inferior pasture grasses to grow, has not been a subject sufficiently studied; but the more attention and time I give to this subject, the more convinced do I feel that if on very poor land such courses as are described are carried out, Nature, assisted in the inexpensive manner above described, can and will improve the quality of the soil, and this at a less costly rate than by the artificial means of husbandry. Truly, Nature can be aided by supplying the seeds of those pasture grasses which are most beneficial to stock, but then I consider that expenditure should cease on such land as this.

'On a deserted farm in Essex, which I once visited, I noticed plants of cocksfoot and timothy accidentally sown, and growing with the utmost vigour, being evidently supplied with nourishment from decaying thistles and other weeds.

'Farming, as it is practised now, is more often the act of destroying natural fertility than adding to it, and it is therefore no wonder that the land becomes impoverished.'

Mr. Faunce de Laune, elsewhere in his proofs, quotes the opinion of the late Mr. T. Carington (Journal Royal Agricultural Society, Vol. XV., p. 490), who observes that 'no person who has not had experience will appreciate fully the difficulty and tediousness of the operation of converting into really good turf poor strong land which has been constantly under the plough for generations, and in which every bit of vegetable matter has been used up by the practice of having periodical dead fallows dressed with lime.'

The preceding remarks l have quoted all indicate the really great difficulty connected with laying down land to grass -- the want of good physical conditions in the soil, which can only be supplied by permeating it with vegetable matter. The manurial conditions, from a strictly speaking chemical point of view, may be good, but they cannot make up for the want of good physical conditions; and the more I have studied the whole subject by the light of theory confirmed by practice, the more certain do I feel that the importance of keeping up a good physical condition of soil, though generally recognized, has never been sufficiently acted up to. (The Italians, in some cases, cut gorse and heather, and pile the cuttings between the rows of vines, and leave them (the gorse and heather) to decay, after which the decayed vegetable matter is dug in, in order to supply the soil with humus. It is interesting to observe how man everywhere found that this vegetable matter must be supplied, and that no chemical manures can take its place. This has been equally found by the Italian vine grower, the tea planter and coffee planter of India, and it must every day become more and more apparent to the cultivator of the humus-exhausted soils of Great Britain.) My first practical experience regarding this point dates a great many years back, and has ever since been the means of my continually observing and studying the effects of the presence or absence of good physical conditions of soil. I think it would be difficult to find a more thoroughly practical experience than that which I will now proceed to describe.

In conjunction with a planter friend in India I once endeavoured to ascertain the consumption by coffee trees of potash, with the view of seeing how far it was advisable to add it to our manures, and there were accordingly taken with great care two samples of soil -- one from the virgin forest land, and the other from land immediately adjacent to it, from which twelve crops of coffee had been taken without any manure being applied to the soil. The samples were sent to Professor Anderson, of Glasgow University, and he was asked to spare neither pains nor expense in carefully examining the soils, with the view of seeing how far the cropped soil had been exhausted of potash. The result seemed at first sight to be remarkable; for the soil from which the twelve crops had been taken was found, from a chemical point of view, to be very little deteriorated except as regards lime, which was rather less than in the virgin soil. But the explanation evidently was that the leaves, shed from the shade trees and stones decaying in the soil had supplied the small quantity of potash and other ingredients removed by the crops. 'Why, then,' asked my friend, who had called on the Professor to hear the result of the inquiry, 'can young coffee plants easily be grown on the virgin soil while we have the greatest difficulty in growing them on the cropped soil?' 'Simply,' was the answer, 'because the virgin soil is in a fine granular state, and in perfect physical condition, while the soil in the plantation, after having been rained upon, and walked upon, and exposed to the elements, has lost its original fine physical condition.' In other words it had become more or less consolidated, and therefore was a bad nest in which to grow young coffee plants. Here, then, we have an important practical illustration of what, I feel sure, must frequently be the case -- namely, that what is often attributed to manurial deficiency, or, in other words, poverty of soil, is largely owing to physical defects. And if these tell largely on a, comparatively speaking, strong shrub like coffee, how much more must they tell on tender-rooted grasses, and how much, further, must such deficiencies tell in a climate like ours, which is so much subject to changes which tend to run the soil together, and so injure its physical condition. And if, again, a planted out plant of coffee is, as we have seen, liable to fail from being put down in a defective nest, how often, too, must grass seeds fail from a similar want of a proper home to germinate in, and how frequently must the tender, newly grown grass plant fail from the want of suitable conditions for establishing itself in the soil. I think, then, that a little consideration of these points will show that I may safely declare, as I have in the beginning of this chapter, that one of the most important points connected with the whole subject of laying down land to grass, either to lie for a period of years or permanently, is the disintegration of the soil, and the intermingling with it of a sufficient portion of vegetable matter, so that, after being disintegrated, it may not readily again run together. The question which naturally occurs is this: How can such conditions be most economically provided? And, first of all, let us take the case of laying down land to permanent pasture.

When laying down land to grass, the usual practice has hitherto been to do so after a crop of turnips, and when the land has, in the course of its previous cultivation, been regularly supplied with farmyard manure, and thus with applications of vegetable matter, and is of a quality that does not readily run together, and so becomes tough and hardened, there is nothing to be said against so doing. But where the land has not been well supplied with vegetable matter, or is of a quality which soon loses whatever physical condition has been imparted by tillage, I have now reason to think, from my own practical experience, that it is decidedly best to lay down permanently after first of all growing a turf mainly composed of deep-rooting plants, and plants which leave much vegetable matter in the soil. For I have found in the case of alluvial flats containing rather heavy land that, after having laid down the land and left it in grass for about eight or ten years, we have, on again ploughing up and laying down, after a course of crops, had by far the most successful takes of grass that I have ever seen. There were two evident reasons for this favourable result. The first was that the soil was well permeated with vegetable matter, and the second that, being so, a thoroughly satisfactory and well aerated bed was provided for the springing of the seed, and the subsequent growth of the young plants. And in the cases previously alluded to, I am satisfied that a still better result would have been obtained had I, when first laying down the land in question, been acquainted with the deep-rooting chicory, burnet, and kidney vetch, and the advantage of using, from a vegetable-matter-creating point of view, a large amount of cocksfoot and yarrow. It may be urged that the process would be a costly and tedious one, and with the old system of laying down with a large proportion of ryegrass, which entailed a falling off of the pasture in the fourth year, this would have undoubtedly been the case; but, with our recent experience here, I have found that land of tough quality, and deficient in vegetable matter, may be loosened, ameliorated with vegetable matter, and deeply cultivated with the agency of roots in about three or four years; and then, after our usual four-course rotation of cereal and root crops, laid down to permanent pasture with satisfactory results. Having thus dwelt upon the importance of disintegrating the soil, and permeating it thoroughly with vegetable matter, before laying it down to permanent pasture, I now propose to allude to the equal, or even greater, advantage of doing so in the case of land to be left in grass for five or more years, and which is to be again broken up for the winter support of the stock on the farm.

I have been told by a very intelligent gardener, who is practically acquainted with the great importance of soil disintegration through the agency of roots, that if he trenches land a foot deep, and takes from it a crop of parsnips, he finds, on taking up the crop, that the land immediately below the part dug is in finer physical condition than the cultivated land above. And this, of course, arises from the fact of the parsnip roots penetrating, and minutely sub-dividing, the soil, which, from its depth, has the advantage of being largely removed from the action of the weather. And, to give another illustration, we find the same thing in India when the forest is allowed to gradually extend itself into the adjacent grass land, and when the roots of the trees gradually permeate the land below the reach of the roots of the grass plants, and so turn the whole soil to a considerable depth into a beautifully cultivated subject. Or to take yet another illustration, it may be mentioned that agriculturists in France, to improve certain arable lands, sow on them a mixture of gorse and grass (to be cut for hay) with a view of improving the depth and texture of the soil, which, after the lapse of a certain number of years, is again brought under the plough. Of all cultivating agencies, then, roots stand by far at the head, and it is by applying, this principle to our arable lands that we shall at once manure, aerate, and cultivate them in the cheapest manner. All agriculturists recognize this in a general way; but, as regards the cultivation of our lands with the agency of deep-rooting forage plants, it can hardly be said to have been, practically speaking, recognized at all in this country. And I may go as far as to say that, till it is so, our agriculture will never be placed in the position of safety it ought to occupy. I was long ago certain of this, but I never thought that I should be able to prove it to such an extent as I am now able to do; and, as the subject is of great importance, I propose to enter, with some degree of detail, into the particulars of the first experiments made by me as regards laying down poor and exhausted land, with the addition of various deep-rooting plants to the mixture of grasses and clovers suitable for such soils.

The fields operated on -- the Outer Kaimrig, twenty-two acres, and the Inner Kaimrig, twenty-five acres -- were two of those fields of which there are only too many examples in Scotland, and which never should have been enclosed from the hill and ploughed unless with the intention of at once laying them down to permanent pasture, or treating them on the same system as that previously recommended by me. But they had been managed, and probably for the last fifty years, on the same five-course system as the best lands of the farm, but without the advantages of the latter, for the land was so high and distant from the steading that no farm-yard manure was ever applied to it, and the only manure it ever got was just enough of artificials to grow the turnip crop. Everything, then, came down, and nothing went up except the ploughs, horses, and people, which were requisite every rotation to more and more thoroughly exhaust the soil, and, worse still, more and more impair its physical condition. What to do with such fields was indeed a problem, and one of them in particular reminds me of Arthur Young's description of some land he unfortunately embarked, in, and of which he graphically wrote: 'I know not what epithet to give this soil -- sterility falls short of the idea -- a hungry vitriolic gravel. I occupied for nine years the jaws of a wolf. it was calculated to swallow, without return, all that folly or imprudence could bestow on it.' And the soil of my fields must have been nearly as bad, for one of them consisted to a considerable extent of a poor thin moory soil, while the other only contained a certain proportion, of fair hill soil, and to have attempted to treat them on the old system would certainly have been to occupy the jaws of a wolf or a crocodile. I then determined on laying them down to permanent pasture, and they were accordingly both laid down in 1890 with a thin seeding of oats. The poorer of the two, the Inner Kaimrig, a field of twenty-five acres, was sown as follows:

Cocksfoot	14
Tall Fescue	5
Crested Dogstail	2
Hard Fescue	3
Smooth-stalked Meadow Grass	2
Golden Oat Grass	1
White Clover	4
Alsike Clover	2
Perennial Red Clover	1
Yarrow	1
Birdsfoot Trefoil	1/2
Total, 35-1/2 lb. per acre

The adjacent field, the Outer Kaimrig, twenty-two acres, I resolved to experiment on, and the mixture used was as follows:

-	lb.
Cocksfoot	10
Tall Fescue	3
Crested Dogstail	2
Hard Fescue	3
Smooth-stalked Meadow Grass	2
Ribgrass	1
Yellow Suckling Clover	1
Kidney Vetch	1
Lucerne	2
Late-flowering Red Clover	2
White Clover	3
Golden Oat Grass	1
Burnet	3
Chicory	1
Parsley	1
Alsike Clover	1
Yarrow	1
Birdsfoot Trefoil	1
Total, 39 lb. per acre

Both fields were grazed with sheep. The Inner Kaimrig field showed great signs of inferiority to the Outer Kaimrig field, sown with the mixture which included the seeds of the deep-rooting plants, and so much so that, after a three years' trial in grass, I resolved to plough it up, and lay it down again with a much larger proportion of deep-rooting plants, of which, in the meanwhile, from introducing them on other land in my occupation, I had formed a most favourable opinion. The Inner Kaimrig field was accordingly ploughed up at the end of 1893, when it, was found, mainly, I believe, from the quantity of cocksfoot and yarrow used, that quite a thick sod had been formed.

In 1894 the land was cropped with turnips, which was a fair crop, considering the poorness of the land. In 1895 the land was again laid down with a thin seeding of oats (which turned out a very fair crop), and, the following seeds:

-	lb.
Cocksfoot	6
Meadow Fescue	5
Tall Fescue	4
Tall Oat-like Grass	3
Hard Fescue	2
Rough-stalked Meadow Grass	1/2
Smooth-stalked Meadow Grass	. 2
Golden Oat Grass	1/2
Italian Ryegrass	4
White Clover	2
Alsike Clover	2
Late-flowering Red Clover	2
Kidney Vetch	2-1/2
Chicory	2
Burnet	8
Sheep's Parsley	1
Yarrow	1
Total, 47-1/2 lb. per acre

If I now (1907) had to lay down this field, I would use the following improved mixture, as the experience of the last twelve years has shown me that a better mixture can be made without increasing the cost of the seeds used; indeed, the cost of this improved mixture will in most years be rather less than that of the original mixture.

Improved Inner Kaimrig Mixture. Cocksfoot, 10; Meadow Fescue, 5; Tall Fescue, 4; Tall Oat-like Grass, 3; Hard Fescue, 1; Rough-stalked Meadow Grass, 1; Smooth-stalked Meadow Grass, 1; Golden Oat Grass, 1/2; Italian Ryegrass, 3; White Clover, 2; Alsike Clover, 1; Late-flowering Red Clover, 2; Kidney Vetch, 2-1/2; Chicory, 3; Burnet, 8; Sheep's Parsley, 1; Yarrow, 1/2. Total, 48 lb. per acre.

As the field was to be cut for hay, Italian ryegrass was added to the mixture. The land was so poor that I had not thought of trying to take a crop of hay from it, but, as my factor wished to do so, I allowed him, as an experiment, to make the attempt. The result for such land was really astonishing, and surprised the various agriculturists who, by my suggestion, visited the field, for a crop of hay was grown which was as good as that produced on the best low-lying lands. There was no weighing machine on the farm, but from a careful estimation of the stacks, the crop was not less than two tons an acre, and the field yielded a fine aftermath. After such a crop of hay on such poor land, which had never been manured since it was enclosed from the hill some seventy years before, I expected that the field would afford poor grazing, but was agreeably surprised to find that an excellent account of its grazing capabilities was given by the shepherd and steward.

It will be observed that, in the case of the field from which the hay was taken, the field was cropped with turnips after being ploughed up, and the following year laid down again to grass with a crop, and was not put through our usual four-crop rotation -- i.e. a turnip crop, a cereal one, another turnip crop, and laying down again with a cereal crop; and this course was adopted because of the extreme poverty of the land. Indeed, in the case of such poor soil it is doubtful whether the land, when again laid down, should be laid down with a crop; but this is a point which will again be referred to when I come to weigh in a subsequent chapter, the various methods of laying down to grass.

In the year following the hay crop of two tons an acre, the field was grazed with sheep and lambs. And this year (1898) the field (much to my astonishment, after having yielded such a hay crop, and so much good grazing the year afterwards) has again exceeded my utmost expectations, showing that the manurial effect of the ploughed-up turf is still going on. And I say my utmost expectations, because, in the case of such poor land, to which no manure had been added since the artificials supplied with the turnip crop, I certainly expected that the grass would have much declined in the third year.

The adjacent field (the Outer Kaimrig) of twenty-two acres did so well, in consequence of the addition of burnet, chicory, etc., that I had determined on leaving it in permanent pasture; but, moss having made its appearance, it was ploughed up at the end of 1895, and cropped with turnips, preparatory to being laid down to grass on the system previously recommended -- i.e. taking first a turnip crop, then oats, then turnips, and then laying down with a thin seeding of oats to lie for an indefinite number of years. On ploughing up the turf, it was found to be so thick and strong that I am now inclined to think that it would be better, in the case of land left more than four years in grass, to begin the rotation with rape. When this field, the Outer Kainirig, was ploughed the second time no difficulty was experienced, as the land had become so ameliorated by the added vegetable matter of the first turf. We have found no difficulty in taking turnips out of grass in the case of other fields. For later information about the Outer Kaimrig field, vide Appendix 3.

But I have found, from using chicory, burnet, kidney vetch, and a liberal supply of yarrow, that there are other attendant advantages besides that of disintegrating the soil and supplying it with vegetable matter, for all light land is, of course, very liable to suffer from drought, and all these plants resist drought to a wonderful degree. Of this fact I had a remarkable confirmation in 1895, in the case of a large flat field on the margin of a stream (called haugh in Scotland) -- a field interspersed at intervals with gravel beds, the grasses in which, of course, are quickly burned up in periods of drought. In that year there was a very severe drought, and, therefore, an excellent opportunity for testing the value of these plants in dry weather. When the drought was at its height, I, on 17th June 1895, carefully examined the field, and especially the shingly beds on it. On these the grasses and clovers were withered down to the ground, and the clover leaves crumbled in the hand as if they had been scorched by fire; but the drought-resisting plants were green and sappy, though in various degrees. Chicory and burnet clearly stood the drought best, then came kidney vetch, and then yarrow. Of the lucerne plant I cannot speak so positively. Some were dried up and yellowish, while others looked fairly well. I was particularly struck with a plant of burnet. It was touching one of cocksfoot (which stands drought well as compared with other grasses) which was withered yellowish-white down to the ground, but the burnet was as green and fresh-looking as a thriving strawberry leaf. And I may add that, when on a visit to Oxfordshire the week following, when a bad drought there was at its worst, I found burnet, growing on high dry land, quite green and fresh-looking, though surrounded with grass, bleached as white as that on an Indian plain in the hot season. (During the summer of 1898 we had a severe drought, which showed conspicuously the advantage of using drought-resisting plants. I this year observed, what had before escaped my notice, the great drought-resisting power of the late-flowering red clover, which is particularly to be recommended for light soils, and I am now inclined to place it, as a drough-tresisting plant, on a level with chicory, burnet, and kidney vetch.)

But besides their drought-resisting qualities, two of the plants recommended have valuable medicinal properties, for they keep sheep in healthier condition and both burnet and yarrow are of especial value in enabling sheep to contend with diarrhoea, while the former is valuable in cases of rot in sheep. Some years ago, when there was much diarrhoea amongst our sheep, I asked a very experienced farmer, who occupied land contiguous to mine, to notice especially how far my flocks compared with his, and I found that I had a much smaller proportion of afflicted sheep and lambs.

Another advantage was also found from using much cocksfoot and strong-rooting plants, and which is that the couch grasses were almost extinguished, and this, of course, cheapened the cost of cultivation when the land was again brought under plough. Lastly, it may be observed that from an experiment in a field on the low-lying land on this property, I have reason to surmise that chicory and burnet, if used in sufficient quantity (which they were not in my first experiments), are instrumental in lessening moss, or even of almost entirely preventing its appearance, though it is difficult to determine how much this effect is caused by the aeration of the soil which is effected by the strong and deep roots of these plants, or by their causing the ground to be more quickly and completely covered, or by both.

So far as I am personally concerned, then, I have solved the problem as regards cultivating poor lands without the aid of any manure, and have solved it to the extent of growing, on the poorest land, crops as good, and indeed, I may say, much better, than those commonly grown on the best land; and I have done this, too, after leaving the land only four years in grass, and on a system, which is continually improving the fertility of the soil, and increasing the depth available for the roots of plants. In the Big Haugh field some drills of turnips were sown without any manure in 1901 and 1903, and answered so well that I sowed a whole field without any manure in 1904 (vide Appendix III). The system, as the reader will have seen, is an extremely simple one. It consists of creating, with the agency of large-rooting and deep-rooting plants, a good sod, and then relying on it for the manurial (except the turnip manure) and physical conditions necessary for growing two green and two cereal crops, after which the land is again laid down to grass, and the creation of a good sod again commenced. But I must warn the reader, as I have elsewhere done, that this cannot be effected with the aid of the grass mixtures commonly used in rotation husbandry, as with these from six to eight years would be required to form a sod, and even then that would be far inferior to the sod which can be produced in four, or even three, years, with the aid of the mixtures I have found to be most efficacious.

This question now naturally arises: Why should I have had to work out my own salvation at my own risk and cost? Why should I not have known exactly what to do when I first took over the farm alluded to? And why should farmers in Great Britain in general not know exactly what to do in order to cope best with the difficulties of these times, and how to do it in the cheapest manner which combines with it the utmost degree of efficiency? The answer to these questions simply is because of the negligence of our Government, for there cannot be the slightest doubt that had it had experimental farms and agricultural schools the principles I have laid down, and proved the success of, would long ago have been brought to the notice of our agriculturists and generally adopted. For, as we have seen the farmers in Normandy, aided as they were by Government schools and farms, seem to have had no hesitation in at once altering their systems in accordance with the requirements of the times, and there can be no doubt that the same results would have occurred here had similar facilities existed for the diffusing of agricultural knowledge, and full and timely information as to all the world-wide causes which would necessitate a complete change of farming system.

But it may be urged that, as we have hitherto done fairly well without Government schools and farms, none are needed now. Such reasoning -- and it is a too common course of reasoning -- shows how dangerous it is to rely on the experience of the past for lessons for the future, for it is seldom that the whole conditions of the past are exactly repeated, and there is, therefore, always a great risk run of applying to a different set of circumstances conclusions which were once fairly sound for circumstances only partially parallel. In former times no sudden change was required, and therefore the slow processes of improvement which resulted from the example of the most intelligent proprietors and agriculturists answered fairly well. But when a sudden change of front, owing to the wonderfully rapid increase of foreign competition, was required, the knowledge necessary for at once changing our system did not exist, and there was no machinery ready in the shape of agricultural schools and experimental farms for providing it; and the result is that while Normandy farmers, as we have seen, have at once been able to reorganize their farming system, and thrive accordingly, we have changed but little; and when we have changed in the direction of laying down land to grass, this has often been so badly done, and with so little discrimination, that a vast amount of preventable loss has occurred in all parts of these islands. And this loss has been largely increased owing to the fact that, from the want of proper means of instruction being at hand, the seedsmen themselves were as ignorant of the seeds they sold as were the people who bought them; and hence an enormous loss was inflicted on the purchasers of seeds, as we shall see in a future chapter. The so-called seedsmen were really not seedsmen at all, but merely shopkeepers who sold seeds, of which they either had no knowledge, or none worthy of the name. They ordered seeds from the large seed importers, who took, with little or no inquiry, seeds sent them from abroad -- and passed them on, with all their weed seeds in addition.

In this connection I may observe that had such schools and farms existed an immense advantage would have been gained from the instruction they would have afforded, not only as regards fruit and vegetable growing, but also -- and this is of even more importance still -- as regards the means, now so largely employed abroad, of preserving fruits and vegetables. And I know of no more marked instance of the evil results arising from the neglect of a civilized Government of the material interests of its people than has occurred in the case of our neglect of what other Governments have done in the way of agricultural education; for, while preserved fruits and vegetables are so largely used abroad, we have actually had, for the requirements of our Navy, to purchase preserved vegetables in France and Germany. My friend, Dr. Voelcker, has brought out an interesting article on this subject in the Royal Agricultural Society's Journal, but neither his article, able though it is, nor any number of articles, can be of any widely spread practical value till the Government provides an adequate informative agency in each agricultural centre.

I may observe, lastly, that the spasmodic efforts which have been made by various County Councils, or which may be made, can never efficiently supply the agricultural requirements of nation. For whatever efforts may be made by each County Council, paddling its own canoe, as each county does in the way of roads and other matters, will only lead to a number of all-over-the-shop experiments -- fairly well-conducted, perhaps, in one county and badly in another, and leading to numerous conflicting conclusions. What, then, is obviously required is that groups of counties of closely similar conditions as to soils and climates should be marked out, and a farm and school established at some convenient centre in each group, and that all these institutions should be placed under an Agricultural Department, which should direct and control the various schools and farms throughout the country; and, in especial, keep the farmer fully informed, and up to date, as to all the agricultural conditions in the world. But is it not evident that it is only with the aid of education and world-wide information that our farmers will be in a position to alter and re-alter the direction of their efforts in accordance with the requirements of the times?

In the next chapter I propose going further into details as regards chicory and burnet, and preceding my remarks by some observations as to Arthur Young and his writings, with special reference to his great unpublished and almost unknown work, which now reposes on the shelves of the MSS. Department of the British Museum.

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Next: Chapter 4: Arthur Young, and Some of His Agricultural Experiences with Reference to Chicory, Burnet, and Other Forage Plants

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