William Macdonald

“ I may mention that so far as statistics will allow, I have ascertained the average yield of the wheat crop of the world, and I am able to say that the average yield is less than it is at the present time upon my permanent wheat land, after more than sixty years absolutely without manure. Here we have the result of Tull's three great principles—drilling, reduction of seed, and absence of weed. If he were alive now and were writing for the agriculture of the world, he would, I think, be quite justified in saying everything he said in regard to cleanliness and manure. ”

“ In the history of agriculture, the name of Coke is chiefly remembered by those famous gatherings locally known as "Coke's Clippings." These wonderful meetings began in a simple way with the clipping or shearing of sheep, but soon came to embrace the whole realm of the rural industry. As might be imagined, when Coke took over the management of his farms, he had not the slightest knowledge of the science and practice of agriculture. So he called together his neighbours and frankly asked their advice.
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They in turn were doubtless glad to meet a young man so keen and so eager to learn. ”

“ Although Tull's theories were wrong, his practice has been followed by all progressive farmers down to the present time. We now know that plants do not absorb particles of earth, but take in food in solution. Consequently, the more the particles of soil are broken up and refined, the more plant food the roots can absorb. In this volume, which must be counted an agricultural classic, Tull at once takes rank as the foremost preacher of his time of the gospel of deep and perfect tillage. ”

“ Still, it is safe to prophesy that the successful farmer of the future will not only be a hard worker, but also a hard reader. And biography brings before us, in a vivid manner, the onward march of modern Agriculture. ”

“ There will always be the ceaseless ebb and flow of the human tide between country lane and crowded street. But it is surely our plain duty to do something to make the life of the worker in the field less dull and lonely, and more attractive by the erection of pleasant cottages and the establishment of rural industries: while, at the same time, we try to brighten the life of the toiler in the town by freehold garden lots and sunlit, open spaces. ”

“ It was this invention that led Tull to enunciate his first principle of tillage, namely, drilling. And it is the more amazing to reflect that even after this long lapse of time many farmers still persist in broadcasting their seed; for, as a recent authority working on the semi-arid lands of Montana writes: "Sowing broadcast is bad at any time, but in dry-farming it is suicidal." That the use of the drill has everywhere effected an enormous saving of seed is common knowledge ”

“ Ruskin points out that all the pure and noble arts of peace are founded on war. It is worth while, therefore, to note that the British Board of Agriculture was established when Britain was engaged in the supreme struggle with France, which terminated on the field of Waterloo, that the National Department of Agriculture in the United States was inaugurated in the midst of the Civil War, and that the Transvaal Department of Agriculture was commenced ere peace was signed at Vereeniging. ”

“ It is also of interest to note how much Agriculture owes to men who could scarcely be called practical farmers. Indeed, the author has been impressed, contrary to common opinion, with the success of the Townsman who takes to farming. But this is really no more surprising than that the simple-hearted farm lad should forsake the Old Homestead for the fascinations of the City, and by reason of his character, courage, and industry, become in a few years the Captain of some great commercial enterprise. ”

“ Tull's idea—which was that by tillage soils might be constantly and for ever reinvigorated or renewed—is summed up in his famous epigram, "tillage is manure." He believed that the earth was the true and the sole food of the plant, and, further, that the plant feeds and grows by taking in minute particles of soil. ”

“ At the age of twenty-six, John Sinclair was elected member of Parliament for the county of Caithness, and remained in the House of Commons for upwards of thirty years.
The great monument to Sinclair's indefatigable industry is his "Statistical Account of Scotland" in twenty-one volumes, one of the most valuable works on agriculture ever published in any country. It took seven years and seven months of incessant labour to complete. ”

“ The nobility and men of large fortune travel, but no farmers; unfortunately, those who have this peculiar and distinguishing advantage, the noble opportunity of benefiting themselves and their country, seldom enquire or even think about agriculture. ”

“ Richard Rush, writes in "A Residence at the Court of London," "No matter what the subsequent advance of English agriculture or its results, Mr. Coke will ever take honourable rank among the pioneers of the great work. Come what will in the future, the Holkham sheep-shearings' will live in English rural annals. Long will tradition speak of them as uniting improvements in agriculture [Pg 28] to an abundant, cordial, and joyous hospitality."
When Coke started to farm in Norfolk the value of rotation was unknown. ”

“ He created it in a remote Virginian village, and he lived to see his catalogue printed in twenty languages, and to know that so long as the human race continues to eat bread the sun will never set on the Empire of his reaper, for somewhere, in every month in all the year, you will find the corn white unto the harvest. ”

“ His father died suddenly when John was sixteen, and he found himself heir to Estates comprising some 100,000 acres, mainly bleak and barren moor. He at once began to improve his property.
Scottish agriculture was then in a most backward state. The fields were unenclosed, the lands were undrained. The small farmers of Caithness were so poor that they could hardly afford to keep a horse, or even a Shetland pony. The burdens were chiefly borne by women. Indeed, according to Smiles, if a cottar lost a horse, it was not unusual for him to marry a wife as the cheapest substitute. ”

“ Year by year they increased in numbers till at last they embraced every nationality, every profession, and every rank in life, from Royalty to the poorest peasant. Holkham had, in fact, become a great experimental farm—a private estate turned by the enterprise of its owner into a public institution. Nowadays, we are familiar [Pg 23] with State experimental farms, which are visited by thousands of farmers once or twice a year. But a century ago such a thing was unheard of, and Coke may justly be termed the "Father of the Experimental Farm." ”

“ After an absence of three years Tull returned to "Prosperous Farm"—a place for ever famous in the annals of agriculture. Here he lived for twenty-six years to the close of his strenuous, chequered career. Of this farm, Tull writes: "Situated on a little chalk on one side and heath on the other, the soil is poor and shallow—generally too light and too shallow to produce a tolerable crop of beans. This [Pg 4] farm was made out of the skirts of others; a great part was a sheep down with a full reputation of poverty." ”

“ In the sixty-five years of its life this manufactory has produced over 6,000,000 harvesting machines, and is now pouring them out at the rate of over 7,000 per week. The McCormick Company is now known as the International Harvester Company, and his eldest son, Cyrus H. McCormick, is the President. The annual output is 75,000,000 dollars. It was the reaper that enabled the United States, during the four years of the civil war, not only to feed the armies in the field, but at the same time to export to foreign countries 200,000,000 bushels of wheat. ”

“ This not only promoted fertility, but [Pg 29] gave to the soil that solidity which is so essential to the growth of wheat, It was Coke's proud boast that he turned West Norfolk from a rye-growing into a wheat-growing district. But it took him eleven years before he could get wheat to grow on the poor, sandy soil of his own estate. Nevertheless, before he died, these so-called "rabbit and rye" lands were yielding as much as thirty-two bushels to the acre. His main idea was to stock heavily; more for the sake of manure than for the sake of meat. ”

“ He was a patient man but he was once heard to remark: "It is difficult to teach anything to adult ignorance. I had to contend with prejudice, [Pg 30] an ignorant impatience of change, and a rooted attachment to old methods." He referred to the fact that the farmers still persisted in the old system of sowing cereals broadcast, or else laboriously made holes with a dibbing-iron into which the grain was dropped, while another man followed with a rake and covered up the holes. Thus he used the drill for sixteen years before any of his neighbours could be induced to adopt it ”

“ In order, therefore, to encourage his tenants to exert themselves to the utmost, he let out his farms on long leases of twenty-one years at a moderate rental and burdened with but few restrictions. He soon saw, however, that in the case of an indolent tenant a long lease would mean the rapid deterioration of the property. It happened at this time that a certain farmer named Mr. Overman, who had been foremost in furthering the new agricultural schemes, applied for a farm on the Holkham estate. Coke allowed him, as an experiment, to draw up the covenants of his own lease. ”

“ Near by was a large deposit of iron ore, and he forthwith resolved to build a furnace and make iron. He persuaded his father and the school teacher to become his partners. For several years the furnace did fairly well, when, suddenly, the price of iron fell. The McCormicks were bankrupt. Cyrus gave up the farm, and stuck grimly to his reaper. One day the village constable rode up to the farm door with a summons for a debt of nine-teen dollars, but he was so impressed with the industry of the McCormicks that he had not the heart to serve the notice. ”

“ By-and-by, however, he noticed that a quaint term for a good crop of barley had come into use at Holkham. His farmers spoke of "hat-barley" for the reason that if a man throws his hat into a crop of barley, the hat rests on the surface if the crop is good, but falls to the ground if the crop is bad. "All sir," said his [Pg 31] tenants at length, "is 'hat-barley' since the drill came."
Coke was never tired of experimenting with every kind of crop. Cocksfoot (orchard grass) was cultivated with great success and numbers of sheep were fattened on it. ”

“ Yet it is strange to reflect that although every schoolboy knows something of the life of our least Poet Laureate, not one in ten thousand could tell you the career of the [Pg 69] man who responded in a truly miraculous manner to the heartfelt, world-voiced matin of both rich and poor, "Give us this day our daily bread."
Cyrus H. McCormick, the inventor of the reaping machine, was born in the eventful year 1809. It was the birth year of Darwin and Tennyson, of Mendelssohn, Gladstone, and Lincoln. ”

“ COKE OF NORFOLK: FATTIER OF EXPERIMENTAL FARMS
"Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before Kings; he shall not stand before mean men."
At the beginning of this article we have quoted a text taken from the Proverbs of Solomon, which we believe can be applied more truthfully to the subject of our paper than to any other name conspicuous in the annuals of agriculture. For he was a man diligent in his business and he stood before Kings.
Thomas William Coke, of Holkham (Holy Home) , Earl of Leicester, was the [Pg 17] eldest son of Robert Wenman. ”

“ Sinclair replied that he sought no favours for himself, but the most gratifying of all would be the establishment by Parliament of a great National Corporation to be called "The Board of Agriculture." In due course the Board was successfully established with the King as Patron, Sinclair as President, and Arthur Young as Secretary. ”

“ But he certainly never, as is sometimes said, condemned the use of manure. His experiments, however, proved beyond the shadow of doubt that good crops might be grown simply and solely by means of deep and constant [Pg 8] tillage. So he says, angrily: "The vulgar in general believe that I carried my farmyard dung and threw it in a river. I have no river near; besides, my neighbours buy dung at a good price; but it is known I neither sell nor waste any dung. Against such lying tongues there is no defence." ”

“ True, he was not exempt from those petty jealousies which so often mar the character of eminent men. He tried to snatch some credit for the Board of Agriculture from Sir John Sinclair, and he scoffed at the idea that Jethro Tull had invented the corn-drill. He met and conversed with the greatest savants of the age, yet his mind never burst the old wine bottles which he served out in the Suffolk store. And so he arrogantly says that Canada and Nova Scotia are not worth colonising. "If they continue poor, they will be no markets. If rich they will revolt ”

“ Give a man the secure possession of a bleak rock, and he will turn it into a garden; give him a nine years' lease of a garden, and he will convert it into a desert."—Arthur Young.
Arthur Young, the greatest of English agriculturists and the poorest of practical farmers, was born at Whitehall, London, in the year 1741. He was the youngest son of the Reverend Dr. Arthur Young, Prebendary of Canterbury Cathedral, Rector of Bradfield, and of Anne Lucretia, daughter of John de Cousmaker, a Dutchman who accompanied [Pg 40] William of Orange to England. ”

“ At eighteen he journeyed to the goldfields of California, drifted to Australia, and in the year 1855 arrived back in Wisconsin with 3,000 dollars in his belt. All this money he began to fritter away in trying to invent a self-rake reaper. Suddenly, inspired by the articles of a rural editor, who maintained that the binding of corn should be done by a machine, Withington dropped his self-rake and went straight to work to make a self-binder. He completed [Pg 79] his first machine in 1872, but met with much discouragement until, two years later, he came across McCormick. ”