attention. But any controversy on that subject can only arise from want of proper discrimination. Fat meat is unquestionably more nourishing than lean, though to digest this oily matter, there are required, on account of its difficult solubility, a good bile, much saliva, and a strong stomach; consequently none, excepting those who are in the most vigorous state of health, or who are employed in hard labor, can properly digest it.. Though fat meat, however, is unfit for general consumption, yet experiments in the art of fattening animals, are likely to promote useful discoveries; and though, in the course of trying a number of experiments, errors and excesses may be committed, yet on the whole, advantage may be derived from the knowledge thus to be obtained. As the bone also gains but little in the fatting animal, and the other offal becomes proportionably less, as the animal becomes more fat, the public has not sustained much loss by over-fatted animals. To kill even hogs till they are thoroughly fat, is exceeding bad economy. An ox or cow, though the little filesh it has may be of good quality, yet presents, when lean, little but skin and bone; and if slaughtered in that state would neither indemnify the owner for the expense of breeding and maintaining it, nor benefit the public. A coarse and heavy-fleshed ox, which would require a very long time, and much good food to fatten, may be slaughtered with most advantage while rather lean. It is not, however, so much the extent of fat, as the want of a sufficient quantity of lean flesh, of which the consumer complains; for it cannot be doubted, that the lean flesh of a fat animal is superior in quality, and contains more nourishment, than any other meat.

4484. Handling well. The graziers and butchers in various parts of the kingdom have recourse to the hand, and the feeling of the skin, or cellular membrane, for ascertaining a disposition to fatten; and since Bakewell directed the public attention so much to breeding, that practice has become more generally known. Handling cannot easily be defined, and can only be learnt by experience. The skin and flesh of cattle, when handled, should feel soft to the touch, somewhat resembling that of a mole, but with a little more resistance to the finger. A soft and mellow skin must be more pliable, and more easily stretched out, to receive any extraordinary quantity of fat and muscle, than a thick or tough one. The rigid-skinned animal must therefore always be the most difficult to fatten. good sheep, the skin is not only soft and mellow, but in some degree elastic. Neither cattle nor sheep can be reckoned good, whatever their shapes may be, unless they are first-rate handlers. The improved short-horned breed, besides their mellowness of skin, are likewise distinguished by softness and silkiness of hair. Too great a length, however, ought not to be aimed at, since it is not easy, in that case, to preserve a due proportion in the appearance of the animal, without which it cannot be considered perfect.

In a

4485. Lightness of offal. An animal solely bred for the shambles, should have as little offal, or parts of inferior value, as possible (consistently with the health of the animal), and consequently a greater proportion of meat applicable as food for man. This, therefore, the skilful farmer will also keep in view in selecting his species of stock. (Code, &c.)

SECT. II. Of the Choice of Agricultural Implements, Seeds and Plants.

4486. The variety and excellence of agricultural implements is so great that the prudent farmer in regard to that, as well as in every other branch of his art, must study economy. He should not incur an unnecessary expense in buying them, nor in purchasing more than are essentially requisite, and can be profitably used. This maxim ought to be more especially attended to by young improvers, who are often tempted, under the specious idea of diminishing labor, and saving expense, to buy a superfluous quantity of implements, which they afterwards find are of little use. (Coventry's Disc. p. 47.) It is remarked by an intelligent author on matters of husbandry, that a great diversity of implements, as they are more rarely used, prove in general a source of vexation and disappointment, rather than of satisfaction to the farmer.

4487. The different implements required by the farmer are: those of tillage, for drilling or sowing corn; for reaping corn; for harvesting corn; for threshing and cleaning corn; for mowing and harvesting hay; of conveyance; for draining; for harnessing stock; for rolling land ; for the dairy; and, for miscellaneous purposes.

4488. In purchasing implements, the following rules are to be observed : they should be simple in their construction, both that their uses may be more easily understood, and that any common workman may be able to repair them, when they get out of order; the materials should be of a durable nature, that the labor may be less liable to interruption from their accidental failure; their form should be firm and compact, that they may not be injured by jolts and shaking; and that they may be more safely worked by country laborers, who are but little accustomed to the use of delicate tools. In the larger machines, symmetry, and lightness of shape, ought to be particularly attended to: for ? heavy carriage, like a great horse, is worn out by its own weight, nearly as much as what he carries. The wood should be cut up and placed in a position the best cal

lated to resist pressure; and mortises, so likely to weaken the wood, should, as much as possible, be avoided; at the same time, implements should be made as light as is consistent with the strength that is necessary. Their price should be such, that farmers in moderate circumstances can afford to buy them; yet for the sake of a low price, the judicious farmer will not purchase articles, either of a flimsy fabric, or a faulty form; and implements ought to be suited to the nature of the country, whether hilly or level, and more especially to the quality of the soil; for those which are calculated for light land, will not answer equally well in soils that are heavy and adhesive. (Code.)

4489. In the choice of seed corn regard must be had to procure it from a suitable soil and climate, and of a suitable variety. A change from one soil to another of a different quality, is generally found advantageous; but this is not always the case as to climate. Thus some of the varieties of oats, as the Angus oat, which answers well in most parts of Scotland, is found not to fill in the ear, but to shrivel up after blossoming in the south of England. In like manner, the woolley-chafed white wheats of Essex and Kent, rot in the ear, when grown in the moist climate of Lancashire. In settling on a farm in a country with which the farmer is little acquainted, he will often find it adviseable to select the best seed he can find in the neighborhood, and probably to resift it and free it from the seeds of weeds and imperfect grains. Particular care is requisite in selecting the seed of the bean and pea, as no crop depends more on the variety being suited to the soil and climate. Thus, on hot gravelly soils in the south, the late grey pea would produce little haulm and no pulse; but the early varieties, or the pearl pea, will produce a fair proportion of both.

4490. The only small seeds the farmer has to sow on a large scale, are the different varieties of turnip, and probably the mangoldwurzel and carrot. No expense or trouble should be spared to procure the best turnip seed; as if that is either mixed by impregnation with other varieties of the Brassica tribe, or has been raised from a degenerate small bulbed parentage, the progeny will never come to any size. The same may be said of carrot or mangold seed, raised from small misshapen roots. Even rape seed should be raised from the strongest and largest bulbed plants, as, these always produce a stronger

progeny.

4491. Of the plants which the farmer has to choose for stock, the chief is the potatoe, and every one knows that no circumstances in the soil, climate, or culture will compensate for planting a bad sort. The potatoe requires a climate rather humid as otherwise, and rather moderate and equable in temperature than hot: hence the best crops are found in Lancashire, Dumfriesshire, and Ayrshire in Britain, and in Ireland where the climate is every where moist. Excellently-flavored potatoes are also grown on mossy lands in most parts of the country. The prudent farmer will be particularly careful in choosing this description of plant stock, and also in changing it frequently so as to ensure prolificacy and flavor.

SECT. III. Of the Choice of Servants.

4492. On the moral and professional character of his servants much of the comfort of the farmer depends, and every one who has farmed near large towns, and at a distance from them, knows how great the difference is in every description of laborers. The servants required in farmeries are the bailiff or head ploughman, common ploughmen, shepherds, laborers of all work, herdsmen, and women. Sometimes apprentices and pupils are taken; but

their labor is not often to be much depended on.

4493. A bailiff is required only in the largest description of farms, occupied by a professional farmer; and is not often required to act as market man. In general young men are preferred, who look forward to higher situations, as gentlemen's bailiffs or land stewards. Most farmers require only a head ploughman, who works the best pair of horses and takes the lead of, and sets the example to, the other ploughmen in every description of work.

4494. Ploughmen should, if possible, be yearly servants, unless they are married and have families. Weekly or occasional ploughmen are found comparatively unsteady; they are continually wandering from one master to another, and are very precarious supports of a tillage farm: for they may quit their service at the most inconvenient time, unless bribed by higher wages; and the farmer may thus loose the benefit of the finest part of the season. Where day laborers, however, are married, they are more to be depended upon, than unmarried domestic servants, more especially when the laborer has a family, which ties him down to regular industry.

4495. The mode of hiring servants at what are called public statutes, so general in many parts of England, is justly reprobated, as having a tendency to vitiate their minds, enabling them to get places without reference to character, exposing good servants to be corrupted by the bad, promoting dissipation, and causing a cessation of country business for some days, and an awkwardness in it for some time afterwards. When hiring servants, it would be extremely important, if possible, to get rid of any injurious perquisites, which

are often prejudicial to the interests of the master, without being of any advantage to the servant. For instance, in Yorkshire and in other districts, it is a custom to give farm servants liquor, both morning and evening, whatever is the nature and urgency of the work. Nothing can be more absurd than permitting a ploughman to stop for half an hour in a winter day to drink ale, while his horses are neglected and shivering with cold.

4496. The following plan of maintaining the hinds or ploughmen in the best cultivated districts in Scotland, is found by experience to be greatly superior to any other mode hitherto adopted.

4497. Proper houses are built for the farm servants, contiguous to every farmstead. This gives them an opportunity of settling in life, and greatly tends to promote their future welfare. Thus also the farmer has his people at all times within reach, for carrying on his business.

4498. The farm servants, when married, receive the greater part of their wages in the produce of the soil, which gives them an interest in the prosperity of the concern in which they are employed, and in a manner obliges them to eat and drink comfortably; while young men often starve themselves in order to save money for drinking or clothes; in either of which cases they are deficient in the requisite animal strength. At least, under this mode of payment, they are certain of being supplied with the necessaries of life, and a rise of prices does not affect them; whereas, when their wages are paid in money, they are exposed to many temptations of spending it, which their circumstances can ill afford; and during a rise of prices they are sometimes reduced to considerable difficulties. From the adoption of an opposite system, habits of sobriety and economy, so conspicuous among the farm servants of Scotland, and the advantages of which cannot be too highly appreciated, have arisen and still prevail in these districts.

4499. A most important branch of this system is, that almost every married man has a cow, of a moderate size, kept for him by the farmer all the year round. This is a boon of great utility to his family. The prospect of enjoying this advantage has an excellent effect upon the morals of young unmarried servants, who, in general, make it a point to lay up as much of their yearly wages as will enable them to purchase a cow and furniture for a house when they enter into the married state. These savings, under different circumstances, would most probably have been spent in dissipation.

4500. They have also several other perquisites, as a piece of ground for potatoes and flax, (about one-eighth part of an acre for each); liberty to keep a pig, half a dozen hens, and bees; their fuel is carried home to them; they receive a small allowance in money per journey, when sent from home with corn, or for coals or lime; and during the harvest, they are maintained by the farmer, that they may be always at hand.

4501. There are no where to be met with, more active, respectable, and conscientious servants, than those who are kept according to this system. There is hardly an instance of their soliciting relief from the public. They rear numerous families, who are trained to industry, and knowledge in the operations of agriculture, and whose assistance in weeding the crops, &c. is of considerable service to the farmer. They become attached to the farm, take an interest in its prosperity, and seldom think of removing from it. Under this system, every great farm is a species of little colony, of which the farmer is the resident governor. Nor, on the whole, can there be a more gratifying spectacle, than to see a large estate, under the direction of an intelligent landlord, or of an agent competent to the task of managing it to advantage; where the farms are of a proper size; where they are occupied by industrious and skilful tenants, anxious to promote, in consequence of the leases they enjoy, the improvement of the land in their possession; and where the cultivation is carried on by a number of married servants, enjoying a fair competence, and rearing large families, sufficient, not only to replace themselves, but also from their surplus population, to supply the demand, and even the waste, of the other industrious classes of the community. Such a system, there is reason to believe, is brought to a higher degree of perfection, and carried to a greater extent, in the more improved districts of Scotland, than perhaps any other country in Europe. (Code, &c.)

4502. A shepherd is of course only requisite on sheep farms; and no description of farm servant is required to be so steady and attentive. At the lambing season much of the farmer's property is in his hands, and depends on his unwearied exertions early and late. Such servants should be well paid and comfortably treated.

4503. The laborers required on a farm are few; in general, one for field operations, as hedge and ditch work, roads, the garden, cleaning out furrows, &c.; and another for attending to the cattle, pigs, and straw-yard, killing sheep and pigs when required, &c. will be sufficient. Both will assist in harvest, hay-time, threshing, filling dung, &c. These men are much better servants when married and hired by the year, than when accidental day laborers.

4504. The female servants required in farmery are casual, as hay-makers, turnip hoers, &c. ; or yearly, as house, dairy, and poultry maids. Much depends on the steadi

ness of the first class, and it is in general better to select them from the families of the married servants, by which means their conduct and conversation is observable by their parents and relations. A skilful dairymaid is a most valuable servant, and it is well when the cattle-keeper is her husband; both may live in the farmer's house (provided they have no children), and the man may act as groom to the master's horse and chaise, and assist in brewing, butchery, &c. In the cheese districts, men often milk the cows and manage the whole process of the dairy; but females are surely much better calculated for a business of so domestic a nature, and where so much depends on cleanliness. 4505. Farmers' apprentices are not common, but parish boys are so disposed of in some parts of the west of England, and might be so generally. They are said to make the best and steadiest servants; and indeed, the remaining in one situation, and under one good master for a fixed period, say not less than three years, must have a great tendency to fix the character and morals of youth in every line or condition of life.

4506. Apprentices intended for farmers are generally young men who have received a tolerable education beforehand, and have attained to manhood or nearly so. These pay

a premium, and are regularly instructed in the operations of farming. We have already alluded to the example of Walker, who considers such apprentices, notwithstanding the care required to instruct them, rather useful than otherwise. (Husb. of Scot. vol. ii. p. 106.)

4507. To train ploughmen to habits of activity and diligence is of great importance. In some districts they are proverbial for the slowness of their step, which they teach their horses, whereas these animals, if accustomed to it, would move with as much ease to themselves, in a quick, as in a slow pace. Hence their ploughs seldom go above two miles in an hour, and sometimes even less; whereas where the soil is light and sandy, they might go at the rate of three miles and a half. Farmers are greater sufferers than they imagine, by this habitual indolence of their workmen, which extends from the plough to all their other employments, for it makes a very important difference in the expense of labor. Where the land however is stiff, and deep ploughing is necessary, the

operation ought not to be too much hurried. (Code.)

CHAP. IV.

Of the general Management of a Farm.

4508. The importance of an orderly systematic mode of managing every concern is sufficiently obvious. The points which chiefly demand a farmer's attention are the accounts of money transactions, the management of servants, and the regulation of labors.

SECT. I. Of keeping Accounts.

4509. It is a maxim of the Dutch, that " no one is ever ruined who keeps good ac counts," which are said, in The Code of Agriculture, to be not so common among farmers as they ought to be; persons employed in other professions being generally much more attentive and correct. Among gentlemen farmers there is often a systematic regularity in all their proceedings, and their pages of debtor and creditor, of expense and profit are as strictly kept as those of any banking-house in the metropolis. But with the generality of farmers, the case is widely different. It rarely happens, that books are kept by them in a minute and regular manner; and the accounts of a farmer, occupying even a large estate, and consequently employing a great capital, are seldom deemed of sufficient importance to merit a share of attention, equal to that bestowed by a tradesman, on a concern of not one-twentieth part of the value. There is certainly some difficulty in keeping accurate accounts respecting the profit and loss of so uncertain and complicated a business as the one carried on by the farmer, which depends so much on the weather, the state of the markets, and other circumstances not under his control; but the great bulk of farming transactions is settled at the moment, that is to say, the article is delivered, and the money instantly paid, so that little more is necessary than to record these properly. In regard to the expenses laid out on the farm, an accurate account of them is perfectly practicable, and ought to be regularly attended to by every prudent and industrious occupier. By examining these, a farmer is enabled to ascertain the nature and the extent of the expense he has incurred, in the various operations of agriculture; and to discover what particular measures, or what general system, contributes to profit, or occasions loss. The principle of economy may thus be introduced into the management of a farm, and the lessening of expense effected, which is every day becoming of greater importance, as bearing a higher proportion to the produce of the farm. 4510. To record pecuniary transactions is not the only object to be attended to in the accounts of a farmer. It is necessary to have an annual account of the live stock, and

of their value at the time; of the quantity of hay unconsumed; of the grain in store, or in the stack-yard; and of the implements and other articles in which the capital is invested. An account, detailing the expense and return of each field, according to its productive contents, is likewise wanted, without which it is impossible to calculate the advantage of different rotations, the most beneficial mode of managing the farm; or the improvements of which it is susceptible. Besides the obvious advantages of enabling a man to understand his own affairs, and to avoid being cheated, it has a moral effect upon the farmer of the greatest consequence, however small his dealings may be. Experience shews that men situated like small farmers (who are their own masters, and yet have very little capital to manage or to lose), are very apt to contract habits of irregularity, procrastination, and indolence. They persuade themselves that a thing may be as well done to-morrow as to-day, and the result is, that the thing is not done till it is too late, and then hastily and imperfectly. Now nothing can be conceived better adapted to check this disposition, than a determination to keep regular accounts. The very consciousness that a man has to make entries in his books of every thing that he does, keeps his attention alive to what he is to do; and the act of making those entries, is the best possible training to produce active and pains-taking habits.

4511. The accounts of gentlemen farmers or of the bailiffs they employ, it is said in The Code, cannot be too minute; but in regard to rent-paying farmers the great objects are to have them short and distinct. For this purpose a journal for business transactions, such as purchases, sales, agreements, hirings, and other real or prospective arrangements; a cash-book and a ledger, will, in our opinion, be sufficient, with the aid of memorandum books. But for greater accuracy, or rather for more curious farmers, the following models are given in The Code of Agriculture. The gentleman farmer and bailiff will find various descriptions of "Farmer's account books" among the booksellers. One in very general use is Harding's Farmer's Account Book.