The daily gazette., 1879-07-02
LONDON LET TER.

AN AGRICULTURAL FAIR IN ENG
IAND--1NvITATION FROM THE
PRINCE OF wALES-wHAT ENGLAND
Is DoIN,s TO MEET THE GROWING
COMPETITION OF THE UNITED STATES
-IMpRovEMENTs IN TIE BRITISH
METHODS OF TILLING THE SOIL,
ETC.
From our Regular Corresr ondentl
LONDON, June 21.-The Royal A9fi-
cultural Society of England is about to
embark upon spirited enterprise. In
yitations have been issued in the name
of the Prince of Wales, President OF the
Royal Agricultural Society, and OF the
chairman and members of the council,
with an intimation that from the Both OF
June until the h Of July an lnterna-
tional Agricultural Exhibition will be
held at Kilburn ''for horses, cattle, sheep,
pigs, asses, mules, goats, hops, seed, corn,
wool, butter, cheese, hams, bacon, cider,
bees. and hives" Prizes 10 the value of
n ,arly fourteen thousand poun Is are to
be awarded distributed among sue
cesstul competitors, and 1t is expressly
added that ''all prizes for live 81 ock are
open to foreign and colonial, as well as
to the British, owners of animals eligi-
BILE to compete" There was once time
when it was reproachfully alleged that
agriculture, if, indeed, it could be called
science at all it was the least progress
sive OF sciences. The taunt, unjust
when it was first uttered some sixty
years ago, is altogether out OF date at
the present day. The universal and never
ceasing necessity imposed upon the
human race of supplying food for the
sustentation of every corporeal frame
has so quickened the energies and stimu-
lated the intelligence of food-producers
in all countries that agriculture and the
kindred employment of bringing four
footed animals of all kinds to perfection,
having long taken their places among
finished sciences.
BY means of extensive enclosures,
large expenditure of capital in draining,
improved systems of alternate cropping,
ceaseless importation of foreign and in
creased elaboration of domestic man
ners, by the cultivation of root crops,
ameliorated breeds of horses, cattle,
sheep, pigs and poultry, the application
Of mechanical ingenuity to the improve
ment OF agricultural implements, and by
jud .cious economy in seed and labor,
an amount of new and efficient activity
has, step by step, been called into being
with a view to enabling the British
farmer to meet the discouragement of
low prices by the increased productive
ness of the acres committed to his
charge. Nor have the results attained
been unworthy of the sagacious efforts
put forth with view to their realization.
Not many days ago a prize-winning
| E1yIoS1aIa ms cold Inv q SCOTCH
farmer to Mr.. Angus, of Australia, for
seven hundred guineas, and it is incon-
testable that the domestic four-footed
animals raised in these islands have
advanced to degree of perfection un-
exampled in any other country.
Nothing, indeed, il more certain than
that the existing depression and hard
times through which the agricultural
interest is passing can alone be
met by bringing increased capital and
brains to bear upon the cultivation OF
felds.a .and the Royal Agricultural Society
of Englsud has played distinguished
and useful part in teaching the middling
and lower grades of farmers that their
sole hope of surviving consists in the
adoption of systems practiced by their
more wealthy and enlightened brethren.
Farming. like driving gig, was in
former times supposed to be one OF those
natural accomplishments which de nand
no impaired skill, no special education,
and until the late Mr.. Pusey published a
series of essays, in which he endeavored
to teach the farm ers of Engla how to
meet the necessities OF the times, bui
little had been done to contrOvent the
theory that agriculturlst had a congenial
aptitude for the pursuit of most diff
, cult ard complicated science. In 134l
the Average produce of wheat in Eng
land was but twenty SIX bushels an acre,
and MIR. Pusey showed that If it could be
raised to twenty seven bushels, there
would be an addition of four hundred
and seventy-five thousand quarters to
the nations income, worth, at fifty
shillings quarter, about one million
two hundred thousand pounds, which
would be equal to acapitaIsum oftwenty,
four millions gained for ever to the
country by this trifing increase in the
; growth of one agricultural staple alone
in England and Wales" At present the
value of a quarter of wheat Is less by ter
shilings than in 1S41; aud besides there
is competition from foreign part>, es
pecially the U United States, which is more
| likely to grow in pressure and contln
, ulJy than to decrease, and is supplement
ed by such an importation of meat, -deat
or on the hoof, as is full of serious men
ace to our domestic raisers of stock. I'm,
der these circumstances it is more thai
ever necessary for farmers to sit at th'
, feet of those agricultural Gamalieis t.
whom the Royal Agricultural Societ,
has long offered the encouragement o
substantial prizes, backed up by its tri
, butte OF appreciation. "Science will
: Practice" is the motto impressed upoi
the Society's seal, and in many of its re
. ports it has quoted with commentator
t the dictum of Liebeg, to the effect tina
) agriculture is both an art and science
iJs scientific basis embracing know
, ledge Of all conditions of vegetable life
, of the origin of the elements of plants
! and of the sources whence they deriv,
r their nourishment."
Mr.. Vests Resolution Disposed OF.