in it, is of very little prejudice to it: another great improvement is the planting apple-trees in the rows, which might entirely fave the allotting any ground to barley. Thefe points of rural economy, and many others, would render the two islands thus divided into fmall freeholds, I am fully fatisfied, even more populous than I have fuppofed; twenty acres of the medium land, between the best and wort, in proportion to the total quantity of each, would be highly fufficient to maintain fix people, and the fhare of the furplus 8,000,000; and this calculation fuppofes fix people, on every twenty acres, dependent on the agriculture, and not only cultivating the land, but fupplying the clafs of fupernumeraries (the 8,000,000) with hands to keep up their numbers; which they otherwife would be unable to do, efpecially as all the waste of war, &c. &c. comes from them. Thus the foil would not only keep up its own numbers, but fupply the deficiency of the fupernumeraries. I have stated this cafe merely with an eye to multiplication, as to the politics of it, with refpect to the principles of the British conftitution, that is another queftion.

With what eafe might a certainty be gathered in these matters, if fome gentleman who has property in poor, and commonly called barren foils, would try the experiment, by turning twenty acres of his poorest land into a little farm, and either give the property of it to fome induftrious labourer, with a wife and four children, or at leaft a lease of 99 years at a fhilling rent? The capability of fuch a portion of land's maintaining fuch a family would then be rendered clear-and the experiment would be perfect, if fuch farm was thrown into the proper order, by dividing it into feveral fields, well fenced with the hedge fhrubs moft proper for the foil; and if any artificial grafs is difcovered that will really grow luxuriantly on fuch land, to lay down a field with it; by thefe means, fuch poor tracts would be made to turn to the best account poffible.'

In the following fection, in which our Author estimates the proportionate value of feveral kinds of grain and roots, confidered as food for man, he condemns oats in the ftrongest terms.

This impoverishing grain, fays he, which fouls and exhaufts the land more than any other, is of no real ufe. Oatmeal is not to be compared to bread made of buckwheat, nor is it fo good a food as potatoes; and as to the utility of feeding horfes, it is only a means of multiplying a fpecies of cattle which alone may depopulate a nation; and which are already attended with an exceeding bad effect in that refpect on England. There is no really neceffary work which oxen will not perform; and what a difference is there between encreafing an animal whofe flesh is food for man, and another whose carcafe is eaten by nothing but dogs. The confumption of oats is 400,000 quarters more than that of wheat, in England and Wales; an immenfe quantity! The whole confumption amounts by calculation to 4,250,000 quarters; and the difproportion in Scotland is valtly greater.'

Our Author would induce cyder in the place of beer.-As to planting trees in hedge rows, fee the objections to this practice, in our laft month's Review, p. 26.

If the increase of animals depends in any proportion upon the increase of the food proper to fupport them, our policy feems to aim at the extirpation of the human race, and to give up the country to the intire poff ffion of the Houyhnhnms. But while there is a demand for oats, that grain will certainly be cultivated by the farmer, who must make the most of his land in order to pay his rent. The evil of keeping fuch vast multitudes of horfes is generally acknowledged: but we do not remember to have feen any effectual remedy propofed.

It feems to be good policy in general to encourage the exportation of fuch articles and commodities as we would wish to increafe; becaufe the exportation is a conftant encouragement to produce, manufacture, or breed them: and upon the fame principle we fhould imagine it must be very bad policy in this kingdom to permit the exportation of horfes, as it has a tendency to multiply the production of the fpecies, and to encourage a trade by which the nation mult lofe greatly; for what is the price of a horfe, exported juft when he begins to be fit for labour, compared with the value of the food he has confumed, if that food had been applied to the fupport of more profitable animals?

We apprehend, therefore, it would help, in fome measure, to remove this evil, if the exportation of horfes was prohibited. But the great and effectual relief, in this cafe, is only to be expected from fome plan of economy that will in general render the use of horfes lefs neceffary, and when a confiderable part of the business they now do fhall come to be performed by fome other means.

If it could, by a bounty or otherwife, be made the apparent intereft of the farmer to ufe oxen more generally instead of horfes, this would be a very valuable improvement in our national economy; and as oxen are now used in fome places, without any public inducement, we imagine the private advan tage of ufing horfes cannot fo much overbalance that of using oxen, but that a fmall addition in favour of the latter would turn the fcale.

From these two measures confiderable relief may reafonably be expected: but it is with great pleafure we have obferved the commencement and fpirited progrefs of a plan of public improve ment which will, beyond all others, advance the effential interefts of this kingdom, in a variety of refpects; and which, when carried to its full extent, will prove a very complete and effectual remedy of the evil under confideration. We mean that great fyftem of navigable canals now carrying into execution chiefly in the Weft of England; and which will, doubtless, be extended in a few years through the whole kingdom, to the unfpeakable benefit of every rank of its inhabitants.

Upon

Upon these canals all the heavy goods will be conveyed that are now carried in waggons, and drawn through the country by multitudes of devouring horfes.-One horfe can draw upon thefe fluid roads more than forty can draw upon land.-Let this fall be confidered, with its evident confequences, and then it cannot but appear to every unprejudiced reader, that from thefe canals we may expect an effectual remedy for the evil complained of: and that the advantages attending thefe magnificent and truly noble undertakings will make fo great a balance in favour of those parts of the kingdom that have had penetration and fpirit enough to fet the example, that unless other parts adopt the fame measures, they muft unavoidably be drained of their manufactures and inhabitants; and the land-owners will have an opportunity of feeing what their lands are worth without trade, and without the people who depend upon it for their fupport.

The relief would still be more effectual and complete if the proprietors of thefe canals could make conveniencies for travelling by water as in Holland; and, as it is a fubject of great national confequence, we beg leave to recommend this improvement to their ferious confideration.

Thefe canals will alfo greatly promote the object of our Author's next fection, which is the riches that might be brought into the nation by agriculture; as they will give the most inland parts of the kingdom the benefit of fea-ports, and thereby greatly facilitate the exportation of their products.

Before I conclude this fection, fays he, I cannot omit obferving what vaft riches might be made to flow into this nation, from improvements in agriculture for the purpofes of exportation. I fay, for the purposes of exportation; because if they were answered, population, by means of the home confumption being regularly fupplied, would follow of courfe. Whoever makes a trade of corn will never want it to eat. Upon this principle, what tracts of uncultivated land are there in Great Britain and Ireland, which might be made to freight whole fleets of merchantmen? Nothing can be a ftronger proof that the domestic policy of this nation is, in these refpects, very far removed from perfection, than feeing fuch a large portion of the foil uncultivated it may be faid, that all extenfive countries are in the fame circumftances, and moft in a greater degree than ours: this may be the cafe most certainly, but it is a weak argument at beft. This nation enjoys another kind of liberty than is common in extenfive kingdoms, and therefore ought not to be contented with fuch a degree of improvement as others enjoy-Its conftitution requires more: befides, we are in a train of political economy, which, if properly pursued, would carry improvements of this fort to a higher pitch; of this the bounty on exported corn is a ftriking inftance; even the allowance of exportation at all is fcarcely known in other countries, after it has been used with fuccefs fo many years in England. What a fund of wealth would an univerfal application of this measure, with fome few well contrived laws, produce in thefe iflands!

G 3

Political

Political management moft certainly might be carried to fuch a height (and without offending one established custom) that not an acre of wafte land thould be found in the three kingdoms,'

In the fifth fection our Author gives a pretty extensive view of the prefent ftate of agriculture in the British dominions, wherein he appears to be a very able advocate for breaking up uncultivated lands, and for inclofures. He then proceeds to treat of the various kinds of manures, and other improvements, fuch as burning, draining. &c. and afterwards recommends the cultivation of feveral vegetables, not so generally cultivated as they ought to be. Among thefe he speaks of fainfoin in the following manner:

SA NF IN; one of the fineft graffes in the world, and much fown in many parts of England: for poor light foils it has not an equal; lafts many years, and yields very fine crops of moft excellent hay: I have feen two, and two and half, and three tons of hay the product of one acre, in foils that did not let for above half a crown, which, in fuch, is the ne plus ultra of their improvement: no tillage I apprehend can make them turn to fo great account. Sainfoin thrives vigorously on all foils that are not wet; fand, gravel, and dry loams; but on clay or any other wet foil the weeds prefently de ftroy it,

In the eastern parts of the kingdom it is very little fown, which is very furprising, as it is introduced even by a few farmers. In the Weft of England vaft quantities of it are to be seen every where. In Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, &c. they understand the advantages of it, and ufe it accordingly; and in Kent upon their chalky foils they fow it more than any other grafs.

It is greatly to be regretted that the culture of fainfoin is not extended to many parts of thefe iflands where it is fcarcely known; it would prove a much greater benefit to the hufbandry of feveral counties, than almoft any acquifition they could make.

The variations of the culture of fainfoin are but few: the principal one is the fowing it with a drill plough, which was introduced by the famous Tull, who found it greatly fuperior to the broad-caft method; and in Yorkshire Sir Digby Legard has made many experiments upon it, which prove that the method is likewife upon his land fuperior.

I fhould not omit remarking that few of thofe gentlemen who have amufed themfelves with experimental agriculture, have made any variety of trials upon this plant; and yet its natural excellence is fuch as might have induced them to have given it great attention, Mr. Tull underflood its culture better than any one that has fucceeded him; and yet but little precife and determinate knowledge of it is to be gained from his writings any more than from Sir Digby Legard's. The author of the Efays on Hufbandry fays, it likes the fame foil, expofure, and culture as lucerne; and the experiments upon it in the Culture des Terres juftify the affertion: we want therefore to be informed by comparative experiments, the difference of cultivating it in the common broad-cait, and in the drill methods and the rows in the latter to be at various distances, and likewife

in

in the tranfplanting way, in the fame manner as lucerne is managed. A feries of fuch experiments would be attended with great use.'

Upon confidering the degree of encouragement which agriculture at prefent meets with in England, our Author makes the following judicious obfervations on the advantage of good roads, and inland navigations:

'Convenience of carriage, refulting from inland navigations and improved roads, are public works of great benefit, but defigned for other purposes befides the encouragement of hulbandry. The culti vation of the earth cannot be carried near to perfection without this eafe of moving the product of it. For while agriculture was exerted only for the feeding and fupporting a fmall neighbourhood, it was impoffible it fhould flourish; as all exportation, even from county to county, or from district to district, must depend on the means of conveyance. When the roads were exceffive bad, and no rivers artificially navigable, the expence of carriage was greater than the va lue of the commodity, and confequently all exportation from inland parts impracticable; but when the bounty was given, which proved fuch a noble encouragement, and the improvements which an increafe of riches fpread over the country, co-operated in rendering an eafe of conveyance every where an univerfal neceflary of life, rivers were daily made navigable, and all the roads of the kingdom wonderfully improved. The fhape of the island is peculiarly beneficial for exporting its produce: fcarce a village in it is more than seventy miles diftant from the fea; and, at prefent, by means of numerous inland navigations, and good hard roads every where to their banks, no farmer in the kingdom need be at any lofs for even a foreign market for his corn; which, when ill judged and hafty prohibitions on exportation do not abound, is so noble and vigorous an encouragement, that every village in the kingdom is publicly benefited by it; and every landlord enriched by a rife in the rent of his farms, which has been regular for near a century.'

When thefe inland navigations are extended through all parts of the kingdom; and we are bleffed with a judicious permanent law to regulate the exportation and importation of grain, this kingdom will enjoy a degree of power, independency, and folid wealth, that few of its prefent inhabitants have any idea of! With these advantages it may rival the felicity of ancient Egypt, when it was the prolific granary of the neighbouring nations. In the laft fection of this effay, on the poffible and probable improvements of British agriculture,' our Author recommends, first, the gaining a competent knowledge of the foil and culture; fecondly, breaking up waftes; thirdly, applying each foil to its proper ufe; and, fourthly, perfecting mechanics. We hall conclude our extracts, from this excellent effay, by laying before our Readers what the Author fays upon

Breaking up waftes.

'There can be little doubt but the converting of waste tracts of land into profitable farms ought to be one of the first undertakings