The Express.
London, England, 1859-12-27 00:00:00

LONDON. TUESDAY, Dia 27.

WE have had our show of prime cattle for this
December, and have heard the wonderful tale of the
agricultural improvements and @accesses of 1869;
and now we are about to enter on a new circle of
seasons, and to see how much more we can achieve
in the primary art of producing food. The prospect
is good, as far as we can yet look forward. There
need be no great fear of vermin, after such frosts
as we have had between October and Christ-
mas. The soil is pulverised as thoroughly by frost
as it has been for many a year. The weather is
suitable for the felling of wood, and putting things
in order for working on the soil, whenever there is a
sufficient thaw. Taking the late snow-fall into
consideration, we may hope that there is no such
deficiency of supply to the water•prings as has
been the main mischief to agriculture for a series of
years. On the whole, we may enter upon the new
year with a lively hope of good harvests to come.
It is plain, from its Report, that the Royal Agri-
cultural Society is in the best spirits, in spite of
great pecuniary loss from the defalcations of one of
its officers. Its finances are flourishing; the number
of its members increases from ma half-year to an-
other; and one can go nowhere without perceiving
that ever-growing honour is paid to its pursuits, its
aims, and its services. Throughout the whole range
of English conversation, there is no topic on which
the tone has undergone a greater change than farm-
ing and farmers. It is not so very long since farming
was regarded as a clumsy, oid-fashioned, unimprova-
ble occupation, venerable, no doubt, and in a distant
view poetical; but destitute of all romance on a near
inspection, from the ignorance and prejudice of the
farming class, and the utter clownishness of their
labourers. Now, the agricultural interest is another
osme for the spirit of enterprise, the zeal, liberality,
deference to science, and appreciation of art which
have raised other departments of industry
into • high rank in our eivilisation. The
advance in the arts of agriculture seems
even more rapid just now than any progress we
have witnessed in any other department. We used
only refer to the shows of implements at our resent
agricultural meetings, and to the series of operations
now instituted on oar best farms to produce say
single crop. In comparison with the manual labour
employed even a few years ago, in every proems,
from preparing the soil to threshing out the grain,
the modern methcd Is a new art, prophetic of immense
gain, and requiring anew order of men for its manage-
meat. We have already a class of farmers who
are to their fathers as educated citizens to rustics
bound to the soil. We hare still too many labourers
asaceg us who are not much wiser than the beasts
they (eel and drive 1 but there is ground for hope
that the next generation will show an improvement
corresponding with that attained by their em-
ployers. Much has been said this year, and
not a little has bean done, in the direction
of the labourer's best welfare. As the arts of
agriculture advance more intelligence abd trust-
worthiness are requisite in the labourers ; and
we find the claim to further consideration admitted
faster even than it is urged. Now that their occu-
pation is fast assuming the character of skilled in-
dustry, it is desired that they should be intelligent 1
efforts are made to lodge them near their work, in-
stead of to remove them out of sight; means are
devised to keep their children at school long enough
to profit permanently by instruction; and soma
effectual opposition has been made to the degrading
parade of patronage hitherto offered at county
agricultural meetings, when employers—mere private
eitissos—took upon themselves to confer pecuniary
rewards in public for moral deserts. Thanks to a
few spirited gentlemen, the distinction is now fairly
introduced which they clearly explained when
occasion served; the distinction between rewarding
Iproficiency in say part of their work—in any pro-
m, conneeted with agriculture, and moral desert on
which no man is appointed to decide in another's
loam. Country gentlemen are learning to under-
stand that the labourer may be judged is regard to