Year: 1874

A writer in Frazer's Magaziae, in an ar
ticle on The Future of Farming" pre-
diets that the time will come when farm
ing will be commercial speculation,
carried on by large joint-stock concerns,
issuing shares of ten, fifteen or twenty
pounds sterling each. and occupying from
three to ten thousand acres. The author
thinks that such companies would, perhaps,
purchase the entire sewage of an adjacent
town Their buildings, their streets of
cattle stalls, would be placed on slope
sheltered from the northeast, but near the
highest spot on the estate, so as to distrib
ute manure and water from their reser-
voirs by the poWer of gravit;ition. A sta
t;onary steam-engine would crush their
cake and pulp their roots. pump their
water. perhaps, even shear their sheep.
They would employ butchers and others,
Il whole staff, to kill and cut up bullocks
in pieces suitable for the London market.
transmitting their meat straight to the
salesman. without the Intervention of the
dealer That salesman would himself be
entirely in the employ of the company,
and sell no other meat but what they sup
ply him with This would at once give
a l;,rger profit to the producer, and lower
price lin consideration to the public. In
summer, meat might be cooled by the ice
house OF refrigerator, which must neces-
sarily be attached to the company's bacon
factory Except in particular districts, it
is hardly probable that the dairy would
be united with the stock farm; but if so,
the ice-house would again come into requi-
sition. and there would be a condensed
milk factory on the premises.


He also predicts of this company that
they will utilize land now waste, by root
ing up hedges and filling up bitches; that
an effort to shorten the period between
crops, and get more than one crop from
the same soil within a year. will be at
tempted That irrigation will be resorted
upon an extensive scale and that artificial
heat or electric currents will be used to
ripen the crops. and that blasts of hot air
will be employed to prepare the crops for
harvesting as soon us cut.


This prediction may strike most Ameri-
can readers rs being Il wild dream of an
enthusiastic optimist. and yet the author
has given expression to not a single i'm
possibility Artificial heat has already
been employed to a large extent in culti-
walton, and artificially heated air currents
have been used to dry crops with perfect
success. The employment of steam motors
for the principal operations of agriculture.
is largely increasing throughout the world.
Under present social organization, these
advances enable men with capital to own
and cultivate, or cause to be cultivated,
large tracts of land. which, under the best
methods of cultivation in use, twenty-five
years ago it would have been impossible
for Il single individual with any amount
of capital to manage and supervise profit
ably. Where capital can. by the use OF
machinery, cheaper production by the re-
duction Of manual labor. the temptation
ALWAYS exists for me1 oa small capital to
combine and form companies, and there are
even now, we believe. companies eng ged
in farming large estates in the vast grain
producing regions of the West. The in
ducement for capital to combine in this
way has not long enough existed to pro
duce its legitimate effect. Such induce
ments have their origin in the vast i'm
provements in agricultural implement:
and machinery. which have characterized
the last fifteen or twenty years.


! The probable results of joint-stock com


pany farming cannot differ much from


that of ioint-stock company manuflctur


ing The predictions of the writer il
4 Fraser'S Maga=jnc We're intened to apply


more particularly to farming in England


but the same causes which tend to th'


combination of capital there, exist here


and although land is much cheaper thar


in England. this fact is calculated rattle


to hasten than to retard the formation @


ioint-stock agricultural companies.