The Express.
London, England, 1853-05-28 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY .31AY 28.

TIE Royal Agricultural Society held its general
meeting, the other day, iu tine spirits, it appears :
and truly the report shows reason for fine spirits.
Its " practical objects are prospering. It sets con-
ferences going iu all parts of the kingdom—and
the experience of individuals is thus made wisdom to
the body of agriculturists. Its capital is augment-
ing, and so are its numbers. Agricultural im-
provers are joining, as fast as they have any im-
provement to impart ; and finally, the number of
new members elected into the Society during the
last five months is nearly equal to the total number
of those elected during the whole of the previous
year."
This is excellent. This is good news for every-
body ; for there is nobody, from the WARN down to
the workhouse child, who is not deeply interested in
the welfare of agriculture. Amidst the prevailing
prosperity of the nation, there is no one particular of
such high importance as the rising fortunes of the
tillers of the soil. When we say that it is our firm
conviction that those fortunes will continue to rise,
we are looking further than the prospects of any
one season,—further than the effects of any improve-
ment as yet instituted,—further even than the far-
extended benefits resulting from free-trade. We are
looking forward to the natural course by which per-
fection is reached in all paths of human pursuits,
the development of the science by which alone
any art can be carried to its highest perfection. It
is an axiom of philosophers, that all Science is
originated by its corresponding Art. Thus has it
ever been, beginning with the most abstract science
of all, mathematics, and proceeding through all that
are as yet less perfect; and then ensues the reverse
process, of the theory improving the practice. Mathe-
matics arose from the pains men took in measuring
spaces and times; and when the laws were made
clear, a rich harvest of practical results ensued ; and,
' as CONDORCET observed about its effect on naviga-
tion, the sailor, who steers clear of a reef by his ob-
servation of the longitude, owes his life to a mathe-
matical theory ascertained two thousand years before
by old Greeks, who were thinking only of conic sec-
tions. There are several sciences concerned in the
promotion of Agriculture; and one of them, meteoro-
logy, is the obscurest of which we have any know-
ledge, while it is of the highest importance of all to
the farmer. Nobody doubts that there are natural
laws at work in meteorology, as everywhere else in
the universe ; and that our uncertainty about wea-
ther arises wholly from our own ignorance—just as
the terror about eclipses did in the old days, when
they were supposed to be accidents or mysterious
signs. We predict eclipses now, and are never
wrong about them ; and the time will come when a
future generation may know beforehand when a wet
or dry season is coming, and even when high winds
or thunderstorms may be looked for, and what week
will be safest for hay-making or harvesting. Farm-
ing will be comparatively easy and safe work in
those days ; and farmers may now do something to-
wards bringing on those days. Men of science
have begun the work. There are stations in
various parts of the world, in various latitudes,
amidst various climates, where observations of
the weather aro taken, to be compared, and made
to yield some result of knowledge. But the
science will disclose itself faster if the art
lends its assistance; and the farmers of the present
day may be useful allies of the philosophers, if they
will, probably for their own speedy benefit, and cer-
tainly for that of their children's children. And the
organ of this assistance should be the Royal Agricul-
tural Society.
The grumbling of the farmers about weather used
to be a standing joke half a century ago. While the
tradesman was daily sinking in his fortunes from the
pressure of the war, and the farmers were selling
their wheat at 1139. Ild. per quarter, living bounti-
fully, and driving about gaily in their gigs, it was
asked whether a farmer was ever known to be satis-
fied with the weather; and the tradesman who had
not much to smile about, used to laugh at the
eternal grumbling about too much sunshine or too
much rain. The tradesman was not aware, perhaps,
how trying it really is to a man to sit helplessly by,
at the mercy of the clouds, and see his young
corn under water, or hia green fields turning broen
ander a reaming sun. And the farmer did not for
his part dream of preventing the mischief by science
and skill. Indeed, those were the days when the
farmers had their own joke against Sir IitaIPHRET
DAVY and other philosophers who recommended
them to manure their fields. It was only in 1800
that bone manure was first applied; and the farmers
called it all nonsense. Tho sons of those men may
in some cases be less rich in purse, bat far richer in
sense and knowledge. This last report of the Royal
Agricultural Society declares that their first practical
object—their "first direct investigation "—at pre-
sent is into "chemical action in reference to animal,
vegetable, and mineral matter :" and no small num-
ber of the farmers of Great Britain are, from
year to year, bidding a bolder defiance to the
caprices of weather by improved agricultural
skill. They have discovered that thorough drainage
is as good a defence against drought as against rain ?
that land which is baked after having been soaked is
a mischief which there is no need to put up with
any longer, after it has once been found that when
water percolates, instead of being stagnant, it leaves
the soil in a state so friable as to bear a good deal of
heat. Then, again, there is the resource of irriga-
tionlof which the Society's jourcals afford so inter-
esting an account, and in which we may succeed as
well as the people of Lombardy, if we choose to set
about it properly. Whenever we have taken mea-
sures, all over the kingdom, for ridding ourselves of
water when there is too much rain, and supplying it
when there is too little, we shall have done something
towards compensating for our ignorance of the causes
of the weather. And no one who studies the history
of human knowledge will deny the probability that
the ignorance itself will give way before such efforts
to meet its consequences. But there is another
direction in which agricultural art mast be pro-
moted, which ought to be, but is not, attended to
by the Agricultural Society. It has recently, by its
Council, thrown impediments in the way of the
greatest assistance ever offered to the art of tillage,
and the prosperity of the cultivator. The Govern-
ment is seriously meditating a scheme for giving us
returns of agricultural statistics; and the Society
does not appear to be thinking about it at all. Its
Council refused to aid the Government in the pro-
ject; and we see no reference to anything of the
sort in the abstract of their Report. It is really
astonishing that we should go on working in the
desk, when light is offered us. The best-informed
ion can but guess at what it is all-important
for us to know as to agricultural facts ; and
their guesses are worth next to nothing at all.
For instance, ARTIIDR YOUNG published his conjec-
tures about the quantity of corn of all kinds grown
in England above eighty years ago; and the most
eminent observers now, driven to guessing, tell us
their guesses, from which it would appear that we
now grow two millions of quarters of corn less than
we did in 1770. Nobody believes this; and there is
no occasion to believe it ; for we have no real evi-
dence to proceed upon. We know nothing about the
extent of cultivated land in England later than 1827,
%hen a survey was made by CODLING ; and that re-'
turn is nearly useless now, because nobody knows
how much of the corn land of that day is pasture ,
now, nor how much then returned as wild has been'
brought under tillage. This is bad enough—not to '
have the least idea how much of the nation's food is,
on the average, grown at home; but there is rine-
thing worse, which has a more immediate relation to
what we have been saying. For want of regular and
complete returns at short periods, we can form no
judgment of the effect of weather on produce. We
are accustomed to suppose, without having much
reason to give, that the average yield of wheat in
England is 32 bushels per acre. Mr. CA:RD, after
extensive and careful observation, believes it to be
20 bushels. Such a difference, added to our ignor-

ante of the amount of wheat-growing acres, is suffi-
ciently baffling to statesmen and to prudent pro-
ducers; but then comes in the consideration of vary-
ing seasons. There may be a difference of ten bushels
per acre, according to the goodness or badness of the
season, to say notliing of the difference in the yield
of the grain from the Fame influences, which may
raise or depress the balance by three or four bushels
more. A fourth part of our feud, and of that of our
stock, is thus in question ; and we do not trouble
ourselves to learn our fate in any year, or our pros-
pects for any number of years. Now, it we had
complete and frequent statistical returns, it would
be easy to compare the natural features of any loca-
lity, its management, and ifs varying production,
according to circumstances, with the meteorological
observations now constantly kept up by scientific
observers; and it will bo against all human expe-
rience, and against the very nature of the human
mind, if some light does not, sooner or later, arise
from such a comparison, to guide us to those secrets
of science which we want, and which we know to
exist, if we could but get at them. Every one of
these secrets wi'l be, as its lowest use, a mine of
wealth to the farmer. The alchemist worked for
him once, and the fruit is the whole range of
manures, which he is only just beginning to use.
The mechanician worked for him once, and
he has the benefit in the perfection of his imple-
ments. The physiologist has been working for him
of late years ; and the result appears in the vast int-
provemeut of his live stock. Now, the meteorolo-
gist is working for him ; and it is rational to antici-
pate a harvest in that direction too; and it will
probably arise through a scientific forecast about the
seasons and their change. Ile may as well do his
part towards a work arid, h will be such a blessing to
his order, whether lie may live to see it or not. And
his first step should be to Ming over the Royal Agri-
cultural Sucitay to the aid of Liovernment, with such
assistance as it call give—such assistance, that is, as
can be gisea by no other body in the country.
Mr. CARDWELL recently announced that a begin-
ning has been made in England. In Ireland, the
work goes on well by means of the constabulary
organisation. In Scotland, the agricultural Societies
are wiser than our grout English one, and are gather.
ing materials with all diligence. In England, two
counties are in course of exploration by means of Poor-
law organisation. Mr. Canimet.t. hopes that the
results will induce an extension of the plan, and
indeed we hope for a complete plan, whatever may
be the result of this partial effort ; for, glad as we
are of any information, it is evident that, in this
particular case, the chief part of the benefit is de-
rivable only from the completeness of the contem-1
porary returns.