The Sun.
London, England, 1853-10-06 00:00:00

would. represent the produce of the new penny
receipt stamp. Any person capable of working a
sum in subtraction could tell the amount. But
for that the public are to be greatly inconvenienced,
and double supplies must be provided. We hope
that this absurd regulation will be altered. It
must be so if the commercial community bestir
themselves, and represent in the proper quarter
its inutility and absurdity.

NORFOLK is to enjoy the honour of being the
first English county appealed to for its Agricul-
tural Statistics. It is solicited to serve as the
model county on this side the tweed, to enable
our Legislature to pass a satisfactory and well-
considered Act on this subject. We trust that it
will not disappoint the expectations of the country,
and those expectations are high. It is the county
which enjoyed, during his long-protracted life, the
princely and intelligent example of THOMAS WIL-
LIAM CoKE, which saw Holkam Park converted
from a- wilderness to an agricultural garden, and
au estate consisting largely of poor light soils, ren-
dered one of the best cultivated and most pro-
ductive in England ;'which beheld the agricultural
intelligence of the whole kingdom annually
assembled at the Holkam sheep-shearing a
gathering at which nobles and tenant-farmers, and
agriculturists from other countries also, mingled
in free and hearty intercourse, inspected the model
farm of their generous host, and the farms of
intelligent gentlemen around who had followed
his example, and returned to their respective
farms, counties, and countries, enriched with a
knowledge of the results of all the costly experi-
ments which were constantly in hand, at the
expense of the wealthy and public-spirited Lord
of Holkam. Those who are so frequently calling
on Mr. MECHI to produce his balance-sheet, and
who would 'wish him to guarantee himself a profit
on all he does, may remember with advantage
that THOS. War. COKE, the father of Norfolk, we
might almost say of British agriculture, was accus-
tomed to avow that he never wished or expected to
gain anything by his splendid experimental farm.
It was carried on to verify everything worthy of
trial at the cost of a landlord who could afford it,
on behalf of tenants whose capital ought not to be
exposed to risk ; and it was carried on till it has
almost changed the face of the county. Septe-
genarians now can hardly identify some parts of
it. It is true, Norfolk farmers have yet much to
learn ; but it is also true that they have learned
very much, probably more than the same number
of their brethren in any other part of England ;
they have long employed every kind •of agricul-
tural horse machinery; the steam-engine, though
not so fast as in Scotland, is making its way
amongst them, and the agricultural productions
of the county are perhaps more varied than those
of most counties in England.

Probably arpongst the tenants of the Earl of
LEICESTER, Hot one will be found unwilling to
make the required returns. We have no doubt
that the son fully sustains the system of his vene-
rated father. That system was one of long leases,
we believe seldom less than twenty-one years; ab-
solute political liberty ; license to destroy the in-
jurious game ; and for the landlord to regard a
large produce with exultation, not as furnishing a
claim for higher rent on his part, but as establish-
ing rather a claim on the part of the tenant, for
any man, according to the Earl's favourite adage,
" deserved the country's gratitude for making two
ears of wheat grow where one grew before." The
farmer who had made most of his farm felt most
sure of a renewed long lease on terms at least as
favourable as before. Mir can we believe that the
landlords are numerous who would raise a tenant's
rent because of the excellence of his cultivation,
and the consequent largeness of his production.
They know that there must have been a propor-
tionate outlay of capital to obtain it. They know
that a secure rent from a well-cultivated estate is
better than a rent which impoverishes and dis-
courages the farmer, and brings the land into their
hands at the end of the lease deteriorated in value;
they cannot wish to set before the other tenants a
premium on slovenly farming, and a penalty on
high cultivation and improvement of the estate.
The farmer need not fear, we believe, to return
freely and openly the entire amount of his pro-
duction of every kind. However, even the
hazard, imaginary as we think it, of exposure of his
business to his landlord, the farmer's sole fear,
even this is considerately saved him on the pro-
posed plan.

The returns are to be made in two schedules to
a statistical committee of each Board of Guardians,
and to be collected by the relieving officers, to be
issued the first week in October, and collected
again the first week in November. Individual
names are not to be given, and the results alone
are to be made public. This was the course
adopted in Scotland, and with such success that
in three entire counties, Roxburgh, Haddington,
and Sutherland, only three individuals declined
giving the information requested, and they now
probably regret that they did so. Of course it
will not be difficult for the relieving officers to ob-
tain the information pretty accurately at second
hand. The number of acres sown by a farmer
with each kind of crop, and the number of his
stock, are open, with tolerable accuracy to all
eyes ; but the desideratum is to accomplish the
object with the thorough good will of the farmers
themselves. They will share most largely in the
general benefit of the knowledge obtained, and it
is highly desirable that they should co-operate
with the enlightened confidence that the farmer
will be the greatest gainer by holding in 3iis hands
a reliable summary of the agricultural statistics of
the kingdom.
There is hardly a branch of trade throughout
Britain, hardly any interest indeed whatever, to
which the course and prospects of agriculture are
a matter of indifference ; the probable abundance
or scarcity of food enters into the calculations of
every one who has anything to make, to buy, to sell,
or to convey about the kingdom or the world. The
present year is, perhaps, the one which, since the
repeal of the corn laws, most reminds us of the
old panics (and other tricks too) by which gam-
bling speculators endeavoured to raise the pries of
corn till it would suffice to open the ports. We
think the price at this time is in great part a panic
price ; one which the large buyers will uphold, of
course, if they can, till they have disposed of their
purchasers ; but a price which, notwithstanding
the smaller extent of the wheat crop last year,
and also there is too much reason to fear a dimi-
nished yield per acre, cannot be maintained when
the facts of the actual home and foreign supply
become fully realised. Of course we may be mis-
taken ; but just in this appears the value of the
desired returns. We should, in knowing with
certainty the actual average of the wheat crop,
compared with other years and seasons, have by
far the most important element in the calcula-
tion placed beyond doubt. If, however, every
one else could act with so much more certainty
provided he possessed the proposed statistics, how
much more the farmer ? He would see at a glance
which kind of produce was likely to be in excess
or deficient, and could shape his business arrange-
ments by knowledge rather than by guessing.
And not only would they apprise him of the
probable supply and demand of the several articles
which he manufactures ; with a little care and a
few more columns, the returns might inform him
of the different principal modes of cultivation in
different districts, and the changes of modes, the
various kinds of manure used, or newly intro-
duced, with their effects, and all the general agri-
cultural usages and variations in the kingdom.
We should not be surprised if the present attempt
issues in a series of annual Blue Books, invaluable
to the farmer, and beneficial to us all.

FEES PAID BY MILITIA. OFFICERS.--Yesterday a re-
turn to Parliament was printed, showing the fees
charged on commissions by deputy-lieutenants and
other officers in England and Wales. In Middlesex the
fee by a deputy-lieutenant is 10 guineas ; a colonel of
militia, 91. ; lieutenant-colinel, 71. 19s. ; major, 61. 18s. ;
captain, 51. 17s. ; lieutenant, 41. 16s. ; ensign and
Second lieutenant, 31. 15s. ; and surgeon and assistant-
surgeon, 51. 17s. and 41. 16s.
GOLD.—The Alverton has arrived from Sydney,
whence she sailed the Ist of June, but the gold she
brings is valued only at 2,000/.
sE HARBINGEL—The General Screw steamer Har-
binger, which leaves Southampton to-day (the 6th), for
Port Philip and Sydney, takes out only 5001. in specie.
She has jewellery on board valued at 5,0001.