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22 BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE
* * * * *
No. CCCXXX. APRIL, 1843. VOL. LIII.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
THE PRACTISE OF AGRICULTURE,
POEMS AND BALLADS OF SCHILLER.--NO. VII.,
THE LAST OF THE SHEPHERDS,
THE FOUNDING OF THE BELL. BY CHARLES MACKAY,
AMMALAT BEK. A TRUE TALE OF THE CAUCASUS FROM THE
RUSSIAN OF MARLINSKY.--CHAPTER III.,
OCCUPATION OF ADEN,
SONNET,
CALEB STUKLEY. PART XIII.,
IMAGINARY CONVERSATION, BETWEEN MR. WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
AND THE EDITOR OF BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE,
THE BURIAL MARCH OF DUNDEE,
LORD ELLENBOROUGH AND THE WHIGS,
* * * * *
EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET;
AND 22, PALL-MALL, LONDON.
_To whom Communications (post-paid) may be addressed_.
SOLD ALSO BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.
* * * * *
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES, EDINBURGH.
BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
* * * * *
No. CCCXXX. APRIL, 1843. VOL. LIII.
* * * * *
THE PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE
Skilful practice is applied science. This fact is illustrated in
every chapter of the excellent and comprehensive work now before us
[1].
In a previous article, (see the number for June 1842,) we
illustrated at some length the connexion which now exists, and which
hereafter must become more intimate, between practical agriculture
and modern science. We showed by what secret and silent steps the
progress and gradual diffusion of modern scientific discoveries had
imperceptibly led to great improvements in the agriculture of the
present century--by what other more open and manifest applications
of science it had directly, and in the eyes of all, been
advanced--to what useful practical discussions the promulgation of
scientific opinions had given rise--and to what better practice such
discussions had eventually led. Above all, we earnestly solicited
the attention of the friends of agriculture to what science seemed
not only capable of doing, but anxious also to effect, for the
further advance of this important art--what new lessons to give, new
suggestions to offer, and new means of fertility to place in the
hands of, the skilful experimental farmer.
It is but a comparatively short time since that article was written,
and yet the spread of sound opinion, of correct and enlightened views,
and of a just appreciation, as well of the aids which science is
capable of giving to agriculture, as of the expediency of availing
ourselves of all these aids, which within that period has taken
place among practical men, has really surprised us. Nor have we been
less delighted by the zeal with which the pursuit of scientific
knowledge, in its relations to agriculture, has been entered upon in
every part of the empire--by the progress which has been made in the
acquisition of this knowledge--and by the numerous applications
already visible of the important principles and suggestions embodied
in the works then before us, (JOHNSTON's _Lectures and Elements of
Agricultural Chemistry and Geology_.) But on this important topic we
do not at present dwell. We may have occasion to return to the
subject in a future number, and in the mean time we refer our
readers to the remarks contained in our previous article.
The truly scientific man--among those, we mean, who devote themselves
to such studies as are susceptible of important applications to the
affairs and pursuits of daily life--the truly scientific man does
not despise the _practice_ of any art, in which he sees the
principles he investigates embodied and made useful in promoting the
welfare of his fellow-men. He does not even undervalue it--he rather
upholds and magnifies its importance, as the agent or means by which
his greatest and best discoveries can be made to subserve their
greatest and most beneficent end. In him this may possibly arise
from no unusual liberality of mind; it may spring from a selfish
desire to see the principles he has established or made his own
carried out to their legitimate extent, and their value established
and acknowledged--_for it is the application of a principle that
imparts to it its highest value_.
[Footnote 1: THE BOOK OF THE FARM. By Henry Stephens.]
Science is to practical skill in the arts of life as the soul is to
the body. They are united as faith and works are in concerns of
higher moment. As both, though separately good, must yet be united
in the finished Christian, so the perfection of husbandry implies
the union of all the lights of existing theoretical knowledge with
all the skill of the most improved agricultural practice.
Though such is the belief of those scientific men who are able and
willing to do the most for practical agriculture, who see most
clearly what _can_ be done for it, and the true line along
which agricultural improvement may now most hopefully direct
her course--yet with this opinion the greater part of practical
men are still far from sympathizing. Some voices even--becoming
every day more feeble, however, and recurring at more distant
intervals--continue to be raised against the utility and the
applications of science; as if practice with _stationary_ knowledge
were omnipotent in developing the resources of nature; as if a man,
in a rugged and partially explored country, could have too much
light to guide his steps.
In the history of maritime intercourse there was a time when the
timid seaman crept from port to port, feeling his cautious and wary
way from headland to headland, and daring no distant voyage where
seas, and winds, and rocks, unknown to him, increased the dangers of
his uncertain life. Then a bolder race sprung up--tall ships danced
proudly upon the waves, and many brave hearts manned and guided them;
yet still they rarely ventured from sight of land. Men became
bewildered still, perplexed, and full of fear, when sea and sky
alone presented themselves. But a third period arose--and in the same
circumstances, men not more brave appeared collected, fearless, and
full of hope. Faith in a trembling needle gave confidence to the
most timorous, and neither the rough Atlantic nor the wide Pacific
could deter the bold adventurer, or the curious investigator of
nature.
And yet it was not till this comparatively advanced stage of the
nautical art--when man had obtained a faithful guide in his most
devious and trackless wanderings--when he was apparently set free
from the unsteady dominion of the seas and of the fickle winds--and
amid his labyrinthine course could ever and at once turn his face
towards his happy and expectant home;--it was not till this period
that science began to lend her most useful and most extensive aids,
and that her value in the advancement of the sailor's art began to
be justly appreciated. The astronomer forthwith taught him more
accurately to observe the heavens, and compiled laborious tables for
his daily use. Geography and hydrography obtained higher estimation,
and harbour-engineering and ship-building were elevated into more
important separate arts, chiefly from their applications to his use.
Nautical schools and nautical surveys, and lighthouse boards, with
all their attendant scientific researches, and magnetic observations,
and voyages of discovery all sprung up--at once the causes and the
consequences of the advancement of his art towards perfection; and
latest, though yet far from being the last, all the new knowledge
that belongs to steam-navigation has been incorporated in the vast
body of nautical science. _The further an art advances, the more
necessary does science become to it_.
Thus it is with agriculture. It cannot be denied that the tillage of
the soil, with almost every other branch of husbandry, has made
large strides among us--that we have more productive and better
cultivated provinces, and more skilful farmers, than are to be found
in any other part of the world in which equal disadvantages of
climate prevail. Any one will readily satisfy himself of this, who,
with an agricultural eye, shall visit the other parts of Europe to
which the same northern sky is common with ourselves. And it is
because we have reached this pitch of improvement--at which many
think we ought to be content to stop--because we have dismissed our
frail and diminutive boats, and sail now in majestic and decorated
ships, provided with such abundant stores that we need not, night by
night, to seek the harbour for new supplies--that we begin to feel
the want of some directing principle--to look about for some
favouring star to guide our wanderings upon the deep. To the
tremblirg needle of science we must now turn to point our way.
Feeble and uncertain it may itself appear--wavering as it directs
us--and therefore by many may be depreciated and despised--yet it
will surely lead us right if we have faith in its indications. Let
the practical man then build his ships skilfully and well after the
best models, and of the soundest oak--let their timbers be Kyanized,
their cables of iron, their cordage and sails of the most approved
make and material--let their sailors be true men and fearless, and
let stores be providently laid in for the voyage; but let not the
trembling needle of science be forgotten; for though the distant
harbour he would gain be well known to him--without the aid of the
needle he may never be able to reach it.
In thus rigging out his ship--in other words, in fitting up his farm
and doing all for it, and upon it, which experience and skilful
practice can suggest--he cannot have a better guide than the book
now before us.
THE BOOK OF THE FARM is not a mere didactic treatise on practical
agriculture, of which we already possess several of deserved
reputation; nor yet a laborious compilation, systematically arranged,
of every thing which, in the opinion of the author, it should
interest the farmer to know. Of such Cyclopaedias, that of Loudon
will not soon find a rival. But, as its name implies, The _Book of
the Farm_ contains a detail of all the operations, the more minute
as well as the greater, which the husbandman will be called upon to
undertake upon his farm--in the exact order in point of time in
which they will successively demand his attention. Beginning at the
close of the agricultural year, when the crops are reaped and housed,
and the long winter invites to new and peculiar, and, as they may be
called, preparatory labours, the reader is taught what work in each
succeeding month and season should be undertaken--why at that season
for what purpose it is to be done-in what way it can best be
performed--how at the least cost of money and the smallest waste of
time--and _how the master may at all times ascertain if his work has
been efficiently performed_.
We confess that we have been much struck with the wide range of
_practical_ subjects on which the author gives, in such a way a to
show that he is himself familiar with them, the most minute
directions for the guidance at once of the master farmer himself,
and for the direction of those who are under his orders. We have
satisfied ourselves that by carefully _examining_ the contents of
this one book, we should be prepared not merely to pass an
examination, but actually to undertake the office of public examiner
in any or all of the several crafts and mysteries of the farm-builder,
the weather-seer, the hedge-planter, the ditcher, the drainer, the
ploughman, the cattle-feeder, the stock-buyer, the drover, the
pig-killer, the fat cattle seller, the butcher, the miller, and the
grieve or general overseer of the farm. We know not what other
gentle crafts the still unpublished parts of the work may hereafter
teach us; but so faithfully and so minutely, in general so clearly,
and with so much apparent enjoyment, does the author enter into the
details of all the above lines of life, that we have been deceived
(we suppose) into the persuasion that Mr. Stephens must, in his
lifetime, have "played many parts"--that he has himself, as occasion
offered, or as work fell in his way, engaged in every one of these
as well as of the other varied occupations it falls in his way to
describe.
How, otherwise, for instance, should he so well understand the
duties and habits, and sympathize with the privations and simple
enjoyments of the humble and way-worn drover?--
"A drover of sheep should always be provided with a dog, as the
numbers and nimbleness of sheep render it impossible for one man to
guide a capricious flock along a road subject to many casualties;
not a young dog, who is apt to work and bark a great deal more than
necessary, much to the annoyance of the sheep--but a knowing
cautious tyke. The drover should have a walking stick, a useful
instrument at times in turning a sheep disposed to break off from
the rest. A shepherd's plaid he will find to afford comfortable
protection to his body from cold and wet, while the mode in which it
is worn leaves his limbs free for motion. He should carry provision
with him, such as bread, meat, cheese or butter, that he may take
luncheon or dinner quietly beside his flock, while resting in a
sequestered part of the road; and he may slake his thirst in the
first brook or spring he finds, or purchase a bottle of ale at a
roadside ale-house. Though exposed all day to the air, and even
though he feel cold, he should avoid drinking spirits, which only
produce temporary warmth, and for a long time after induce chilliess
and languor. Much rather let him reserve the allowance of spirits he
gives himself until the evening, when he can _enjoy it in warm toddy
beside a comfortable fire_, before retiring to rest for the night."
--Vol. ii. p. 89.
Then how knowingly he treats of the fat upon the sheep:--
"The formation of fat in a sheep commences in the inside, the
_net_ of fat which envelopes the intestines being first formed.
After that, fat is seen on the outside, and first upon the end of
the rump at the tail head, which continues to move on along the back,
on both sides of the spine to the bend of the ribs, to the neck. Then
it is deposited between the muscles, parallel with the cellular
tissue. Meanwhile it is covering the lower round of the ribs,
descending to the flanks until the two sides meet under the belly,
from whence it proceeds to the brisket or breast in front and the
shaw behind, filling up the inside of the arm-pits and thighs. The
spaces around the fibres of the muscles are the last to receive a
deposition of fat, but after this has begun, every other part
simultaneously receives its due share, the back and kidneys
receiving the most--so much so that the former literally becomes
_nicked_, as it is termed; that is, the fat is felt through the
skin to be divided into two portions. When all this has been
accomplished, the sheep is said to be _fat_ or _ripe_."--Vol. ii. p.
93.
But the enjoyment of tracing the accumulating fat is not enough for
our author--as soon as his sheep is ripe, he forthwith proceeds to
slaughter it; and though he describes every part of this process
accurately, and with true professional relish, coolly telling us,
that "the _operation_ is unattended with cruelty;" yet we must be
content to refer our readers to the passage (vol. ii. p. 96) as an
illustration of his skill in this interesting branch of farm-surgery.
He is really an amiable sheep-operator, our author--what placid
benevolence and hatred of quackery appear in his instructions--
"Learn to slaughter _gently_, dress the carcass neatly and cleanly,
in as plain a manner as possible, and without _flourishes_."--p. 167.
But whisky-toddy and fat mutton are not the only things our author
relishes. He must have been a farm-servant, living in a bothy, at
least as long as he drove on the road or practised surgery in the
slaughter-house. After describing the farm-servant's wages and mode
of living, he thus expands upon the subject of Scottish brose:--
"The oatmeal is usually cooked in one way, as _brose_. A pot of
water is put on the fire to boil--a task which the men (in the bothy)
take in turns; a handful or two of oatmeal is taken out of the small
chest with which each man provides himself, and put into a wooden
bowl, which also is the ploughman's property; and, on a hollow being
made in the meal, and sprinkled with salt, the boiling-water is
poured over the meal, and the mixture receiving a little stirring
with a horn-spoon, and the allowance of milk poured over it, the
brose is ready to be eaten; and, as every man makes his own brose,
and knows his own appetite, he makes just as much as he can consume." [2]
[Footnote 2: "The fare is simple, and is as simply made, but it must be
wholesome, and capable of supplying the loss of substance occasioned
by hard labour; for I believe that no class of men can endure more
bodily fatigue for ten hours every day, than those ploughmen of
Scotland who subsist on this brose three times a-day."--Vol. ii. p.
384.]
But if the _life_ of the ploughman is familiar to our author, the
_work_ he has to do, and the mode of doing it well, and the reason
why it should be done one way here, and another way there, are no
less so. The uninitiated have no idea of the complicated patterns
which the ploughman works, according to the nature of the soil and
the season of the year in which he labours. He may be "gathering
up--crown-and-furrow ploughing--casting, or yoking, or coupling
ridges--casting ridges with gore furrows--cleaving down ridges with
or without gore furrows--ploughing two-out-and-two-in--ploughing in
breaks--cross-furrowing--angle-ploughing, ribbing, and drilling--or
he may be preparing the land by feering or striking the ridges."--
(Vol. i. p. 464.) All these methods of turning up the land are
described and illustrated by wood-cuts, and we are sure quite as
effectually done upon paper as if the author had been explaining
them upon his own farm, guiding one of his own best ploughs, and
strengthened by a basin of good brose made from his own meal-chest.
But the practical skill of Mr. Stephens is not confined to the lower
walks of the agricultural life. The ploughman sometimes qualifies
himself to become a steward, that he may rid himself of the drudgery
of working horses. He has then new duties to perform, which are thus
generally described.
"The duty of the _steward_ or _grieve_, as he is called in some
parts of Scotland, and _bailiff_ in England, consists in receiving
general instructions from his master, the farmer, which he sees
executed by the people under his charge. He exercises a direct
control over the ploughmen and field-workers.... It is his duty to
enforce the commands of his master, and to check every deviation
from rectitude he may observe in the servants against his interests.
It is not generally understood that he has control over the shepherd,
the hedger, or the cattleman, who are stewards, in one sense, over
their respective departments of labour.... He should always deliver
the daily allowance of corn to the horses. _He should be the first
person out of bed in the morning, and the last in it at night_. On
most farms, he sows the seed in spring, superintends the
field-workers in summer, tends the harvest-field and builds the
stacks in autumn, and thrashes the corn with the mill, and cleans it
with the winnowing-machine in winter. He keeps an account of the
workpeople's time, and of the quantity of grain thrashed, consumed
on the farm, and delivered to purchasers."--Vol. i. p. 221.
The practical man who reads the above detail of the steward's duties,
will see at once that it must have been written by "one of themselves;"
and, by its correctness, will be able to judge of the full faith
which may be placed in the numerous other details upon every branch
of practical farming with which the work now before us is so full.
We have brought prominently forward the above extracts in relation to
the _minutiae_ of the farmer's life--to the detailed practical
knowledge which is so valuable to him, as being those upon which it
appeared to us that a writer who was capable of getting up a book at
all, much more such a book as this professes to be, in reference to
the higher branches of the farmers' art, was most likely to fail.
But these parts of the work are written not only knowingly and well,
but with an evident relish for the subject. Let us turn, therefore,
to the more intellectual part of the book, and see how far this part
of the task has been satisfactorily accomplished.
_The Book of the Farm_ is mainly intended as a manual for the
master-farmer, accompanying him every where, and at every season of
the year, counselling, guiding, and directing him in all his
operations. But it has a higher and more useful aim than merely to
remind the practical agriculturist of what he already knows. It is
fitted, without other aid, to teach the beginner nearly every thing
which it is necessary for him to know in order to take his place
among the most intelligent practical men; and to teach it precisely
at the time, and in the order, in which it is most easy, most useful,
and most interesting for him to learn it.
The beginner is supposed by Mr. Stephens to have undergone a previous
course of instruction under a practical man, and to enter upon a
farm of his own in the beginning of winter. This farm is a more or
less naked and unimproved piece of land, without a farm-stead or
farm-house, with few hedge-rows, and wholly undrained. On entering
the farm, also, he has servants to engage, stock to buy, and
implements to select. In all these difflculties, _The Book of the
Farm_ comes to his aid. The most useful, approved, and economical
form of a farm-steading is pointed out. The structure of barns,
stables, cow-houses, piggeries, _liquid-manure tanks_, poultry-yards,
and every other appendage of the farm-house, and, finally, the most
fitting construction of the farm-house itself, according to the size
and situation of the farm, are discussed, described, and explained.
Plans and estimates of every expense are added, and woodcuts
illustrative of every less known suggestion. These are not only
sufficient to guide the intelligent young farmer in all the
preliminary arrangements for his future comfort and success, but will,
we are sure, supply hints to many older heads for the reconstruction
or improvement of farm-steadings, heretofore deemed convenient and
complete. The following chapter aids him in the choice of his
servants, and describes distinctly the duties and province of each.
And now, having concluded his domestic arrangements, [3] he must
learn to know something of the weather which prevails in the
district in which he has settled, before he can properly plan out or
direct the execution of the various labours which are to be
undertaken upon his farm during the winter. A chapter of some length,
therefore, is devoted to the "weather in winter," in which the
principles by which the weather is regulated in the different parts
of our islands, and the methods of foreseeing or predicting changes,
are described and illustrated _as far as they are known_. This is the
first of those chapters of _The Book of the Farm_ which illustrates
in a way not to be mistaken, the truth announced at the head of this
article, that _skilful practice is applied science_.
[Footnote 3: Hesiod considered one other appendage to the homestead
indispensable, to which Mr. Stephens does not allude, perhaps from
feeling himself incompetent to advise.]
To some it may appear at first sight that our author has indulged in
too much detail upon this subject; but he is not a true practical
farmer who says so. The weather has always been a most interesting
subject to the agriculturist--he is every day, in nearly all his
movements, dependant upon it. A week of rain, or of extraordinary
drought, or of nipping frost, may disappoint his most sanguine and
best founded expectations. His daily comfort, his yearly profit, and
the general welfare of his family, all depend upon the weather, or
upon his _skill in foreseeing its changes_, and availing himself of
every moment which is favourable to his purposes. Hence, with
agricultural writers, from the most early times, the varied
appearances of the clouds, the nature of the winds, and the changing
aspects of the sun and moon, and their several significations, have
formed a favourite subject of description and discussion. Thus of
the sun Virgil says--
"Sol quoque, et exoriens et quum se condet in undas,
Signa dabit; solem certissima signa sequuntir.
Et quae mane refert, et quae surgentibus astris."
And then he gives the following _prognostics_, as unerring guides to
the Latian farmer:--
"Ille ubi nascentem maculis variaverit ortum,
Conditus in nubem, medioque refugerit orbe;
Suspecti tibi sint imbres....
Caeruleus pluviam denuntiat, igneus Euros.
At si quum referetque diem condit que relatum
Lucidus orbis erit: frustra terrebere nimbis
Et claro silvas cernes aquilone moveri."
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