Agriculture

Agriculture, originally the tillage of the ground, is now applied in a wider sense to the practical-scientific business of the farm in all its details of tillage, crops, stock, labour, &c. The term 'practical-scientific' implies the application of the laws and principles of the exact sciences and of scientific reasoning to the practice of the art of agriculture. Some such term is necessary to uproot the mistaken meanings associated with either of the words practical or scientific when used separately. Practical skill, to be really successful, must be guided by science, which is simply the experience of many, concisely arranged and systematised. The credit of science has suffered in the past by numerous and conspicuous failures of men possessed of a smattering of knowledge, but destitute of that necessary personal acquaintance with the actual details of work which is necessary to command success. The pleasures of a country life, and the handsome incomes that were gained by not a few successful farmers in times of agricultural prosperity, led many to agricultural pursuits who were, from want of sufficient training, quite unable to cope with the many and extremely intricate problems which arise naturally and inevitably, but which assume the form of insurmountable difficulties in the path of the uninitiated. True science was never at fault. It was the spurious and partial knowledge mistaken for it by the practical agricultural world. Had science been taken up by men reared in the business of farming, it would long ago have become the substantial and never-failing aid which it ought to be in Great Britain, and which it actually is in many foreign countries. British farmers are not, however, entirely without science, though it is usually on a much narrower basis than it ought to be. There is always in a farming family an amount of useful information handed down from father to son, which proves of much practical value, both in general respects and especially in the matter of local circumstances. The science which it would be well for the British farmer to possess is an aggregation of the more valuable of those family experiences, explained and amplified by the light shed on them by the study of the various allied sciences—sciences which have assumed more definite forms than we can yet claim for the science of agriculture.

Agriculture is one of the oldest of human arts, dating from long before the dawn of history. The savage who lives on the roots and fruits he finds ready to his hand stands lower in the scale than the huntsman living by the chase. The herdsman leading a nomadic life belongs to a higher stage of human culture; but civilisation in any full sense only begins amongst men with settled habitations, who till the soil for their sustenance. The inhabitants of the lake-dwellings of Switzerland are the oldest agriculturists and stock-keepers known to us. Amongst their relics we find the bones of cows, pigs, sheep, and goats, as well as of wild animals; corn-crushers were in use in every dwelling. Wheat, barley, millet, and flax seem to have been cultivated by these old-world folks; and apples and nuts were stored up by them (see CULTIVATED PLANTS). The Aryan (q.v.) peoples are believed to derive their name from a word akin to the Latin arare, 'to plough,' and to have thus been distinguished from the nomadic, non-agricultural races. But old as is the history of agriculture, its methods and implements, there are still plenty of tribes who neither plant nor sow. Land is still cleared and fertilised for a rude tillage by the ancient and destructive method of burning down all the herbage growing on it; and the most primitive digging-sticks and sharpened stakes are still used in some regions for turning over the soil, in the century that has perfected the steam-plough.

Egypt and Babylonia were amongst the great agricultural communities of the ancient world, and the leading principles of agriculture were zealously practised by the Romans. The Romans introduced their methods into the countries conquered by them; and after the long decline caused by the barbarian irruptions, the Saracens in Spain gave a great impulse to systematic agriculture in Europe. The monastic communities scattered over Christian countries did not a little to foster agriculture on the broad lands that belonged to them. Every civilised country has, of course, developed its agricultural methods more or less directly in accordance with its climatic and other conditions. In this work the agriculture of the various countries of the world will be discussed in the several articles on those countries. The present article deals mainly with agriculture in the United Kingdom, past and present; illustrates the gradual development of British agriculture, and the remarkable recent decline in its prosperity; and gives information as to agricultural societies, agricultural education, and agricultural statistics. At the end are notes on the agriculture of the United States, Canada, and Australasia. The statistics show to what an enormous and exceptional extent Great Britain is dependent on other lands for her agricultural supplies—grain, dairy produce, meat—on the United States, Canada, Australasia, India, Russia, Hungary, and other countries. It may be premised that France, Germany, Denmark, Holland, and Belgium are well advanced in agriculture; Italy varies in various districts; Austria and Russia are backward, but productive; and India exports wheat to us. Chinese agriculture is remarkable for the care with which manure is preserved and economically applied to the best advantage.

Though Great Britain is the greatest manufacturing and mercantile nation in the world, agriculture is nevertheless her most important industry. Agriculture has profited greatly by the increasing wealth flowing in from other sources. Improvement in agriculture was considerable as far back as the 16th century; since then, vast strides of advancement have quite revolutionised ancient systems. Red clover and turnips were introduced as field-crops in the middle of the 17th century, and were extensively cultivated by the beginning of the 18th century. In Norfolk, the four-course shift (see ROTATION) was pretty widely adopted. The increased supply of winter food brought about a marked change in the treatment of farm stock; in consequence, the quality improved, early maturity became possible, and the numbers increased. A regular supply of beef and mutton could then be had all the year round. The heavy soils of the London clays, unsuitable for turnip growing, were mostly laid out in rich old pastures devoted to dairying. The high price of corn consequent on the increase of population, and the restrictions imposed on importation of food by duty charges, encouraged the breaking up of those pastures for the growth of wheat, barley, and clover. After thorough drainage, mangold was grown on these and other strong soils, situated in regions of moderate rainfall and plentiful sunlight. The area of bare fallow was thus much lessened, and a great increase of winter food for cattle procured. Much clay-land has during recent years of unremunerative grain-crop cultivation gone back to pasture, and this, as in olden times, is now devoted to dairying, notably in the vicinity of London and other large cities, where the milk-trade has enormously increased, and continues to develop with the growing demand. Bakewell, in the latter half of the 18th century, improved many of the leading breeds of sheep and cattle, by selecting and breeding from the best specimens properly mated. His name is now specially associated with the Leicester breed of sheep. The brothers Colling followed him (one died in 1820, and the other in 1836), and carrying out his system, improved the shorthorn breed by selecting the best strains of the old Durham cattle. Booth and Bates still further specialised the two great shorthorn families which now bear their names, and which retain certain well-marked characters of form and constitution contracted under their treatment. The side branches of the two parent stems are now too many to enumerate. The mingling of the two strains of blood has not always met with uniform success. The discovery of the value of concentrated or artificial manures (see MANURES), brought about marvellous alterations in agricultural practice. Bones, very roughly broken, were used with marked success in various districts in 1825. About 1840-1, Peruvian guano and dissolved bones came into use, particularly in the growth of turnips; and these manures were speedily followed by the introduction of dissolved coprolites and other mineral phosphates, and, within recent times, of nitrate of soda and sulphate of ammonia.

English agriculture has gone through very varied experiences of prosperity and depression. After the Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, its prospects were most gloomy, but it rose again with the revival and further development of trade, which was stimulated in an unprecedented manner by the vast increase in the application of steam in improving and hastening the means of transit by sea and land.

Another potent influence was the use of improved machinery, which facilitated farm-work and lessened the outlay for labour. Remarkable ingenuity and enterprise have been manifested by agricultural engineering firms during the past twenty years. Many machines and appliances altogether new have been placed in the farmer's hands, while those he formerly possessed have undergone great improvement—all tending to increase their efficiency and lessen their cost. The application of steam-power to farm-work has not quite realised the expected benefits. Deep ploughing has been to a large extent abandoned, but steam-power is still employed with advantage in digging, stirring, and harrowing the ground. With the increasing prosperity of the industrial classes, prices of farm-produce rose apace, and in the years 1870-73, British agriculture attained to an unprecedented point of prosperity. Unfortunately this flourishing state of matters was not long lived. Gradually the tide of prosperity receded, and the disastrously wet and sunless year of 1879 completed the wreck of many an industrious farmer. Since then the tendency has been continually downwards, and even yet there is but faint indication of improvement. A succession of bad years, with an excess of rain and a deficiency of sunshine, have curtailed the produce of crops, and lessened the store of fertility in the soil. Through increased foreign competition and diminished purchasing power amongst the industrial classes, the price of wheat fell between 1880 and 1894 from 50s. to 22s. 10d. per quarter, barley from 40s. to 24s. 6d., and oats and other products almost as much in proportion. For a considerable time beef and mutton maintained their value, but at last they also gave way. Between 1884 and 1894 beef fell from 80s. to about 55s. per cwt., and the decrease in mutton was as great. This great decline in prices—representing from £4 to £7 per acre for wheat, and from £6 to £8 upon a two-year-old bullock—inflicted a terrible blow upon British farming. Thousands of farmers, formerly in comfortable circumstances, have been utterly ruined, and for the time being a large extent of poor, stiff, and stubborn land has been thrown out of cultivation; while a still larger area is being farmed at a loss to the occupiers, and little or no benefit to the owner. This, of course, cannot long continue, and as leases fall out or tenants succumb, farms either revert to the proprietors' hands or are let at greatly reduced rents. The depression has fallen most heavily upon strong clay lands, and in some parts of England land of this kind brings in hardly enough to pay the tithe, not to speak of any rent to the proprietor; consequently it lies untenanted and uncared for. It is impossible to accurately foreshadow the immediate future of British agriculture, but it seems more than probable that, at any rate for a considerable time to come, farming will be conducted with less capital than formerly, and altogether at an easier pace, with a lower level of prices.

Scottish agriculture was far behind in the 17th century, but acquired a marvellous impetus through the Union in 1707. The opening up of a market for her surplus sheep and cattle gave encouragement to their increase and improvement. The development of railroads has since placed Scotland within reach of the populous consuming centres, and encouraged the growth of agriculture in all branches. Smith of Deanston, about 1835, advocated deep ploughing and the revival and wide extension of thorough Drainage (q.v.). Drainage, when carried out on a proper system, has been universally advantageous to both England and Scotland; but deep ploughing up of the subsoil has had to give way to stirring without bringing it to the surface.

The greater portion of Scotland is in pasture, owing to its elevated position and to the climate in these parts being unsuitable to crop cultivation. The mountain tracts are improved by surface-drainage, and are mostly devoted to the rearing of Black-faced (Scotch) and Cheviot sheep. These, the Border Leicesters, and crosses of this and other varieties of Leicester with the mountain sheep, compose the bulk of the Scotch flocks.

The system prevailing in Scotland, of letting land on lease for nineteen or twenty-one years, by giving security and independence to occupiers, was a fruitful means of raising the standard of Scottish agriculture to the high state of perfection which it attained. Leases were all very well when, in spite of temporary depressions sometimes extending over a number of years, the tendency of the times was steadily inclining to a higher level of prices. The system has entirely broken down with the continued fall of prices, the result of a combination of altered circumstances which seem to have too wide a basis to admit of speedy improvement. Prominent amongst these are the appreciation in the value of gold, competition in our markets of foreign agricultural produce, the small profits to employers resulting from our national trades and manufactures, associated with a series of bad seasons. The advent of unprosperous times was followed by agitation among farmers for alterations in the laws affecting land; and hypothec in Scotland, and distress in England, were rightly abolished in a manner calculated not to suddenly affect existing interests. A royal commission on agriculture was appointed in 1879, and after careful inquiry and deliberation, reported on the agricultural position, and the best means of improving it. Another royal commission sat in the years 1893-4-5 inquiring into the condition of the agriculture of Great Britain. In 1880 the Ground Game Act was passed, and tenants acquired an inalienable and joint right with proprietors to destroy hares and rabbits under certain restrictions, with the result that hares are now almost extinct in many districts, though rabbits continue, especially in dry seasons and on light soils, to do appreciable damage.

The Agricultural Holdings Acts (q.v.) sought to give compensation to farmers for improvements carried out at their own expense. They have not proved at all satisfactory, through the great practical difficulties of applying the conditions laid down—more especially as to the compensation for unexhausted manures. Many farmers' clubs have fixed scales of values, but conditions differ so enormously that even the best practical referees vary widely in their decisions. No legislation can ever equitably settle the relations between owners and occupiers; its true function is to place both classes on an equal footing with regard to freedom of action, and allow the common economic laws to mould their agreements. The efforts on behalf of farmers have not preserved very many from bankruptcy, and much of the land of the country is falling back upon the owners' hands—especially in the case of large farms where more or less of the working capital was borrowed. The class of arable farms which has suffered least is that of moderate-sized holdings of from 80 to 250 acres, where mixed husbandry prevails. Grain-growers were the first to suffer, as beef and mutton long remained at a high rate, though they have at last come down to a much lower range of prices.

In Ireland the want of mining and manufactures has driven too large a share of the population to agriculture. The excess in the numbers of the smaller farming class has also fostered the difficulty and encouraged the multiplication of small holdings. Since the failure of the potato crop in 1845, the population has gone down from seven to under five millions. It is still too numerous for the country, considering the impoverished condition of the soil of the smaller holdings. Ireland is a rich grazing country; but much of the land is in urgent need of drainage. If drained, it would, with the congenial climate, yield a good return. The agriculture of the north of Ireland is, as a rule, superior to the midland and southern districts. Flax has long been widely cultivated in the north, and of late years much ryegrass seed has been grown. The common cattle of Ireland have improved in quality within recent times through the introduction of good shorthorn bulls. Ireland is now the breeding-ground of many of the grazing cattle of England and Scotland. The great sale-product of the Irish tenant is butter, which is often of a very inferior quality, owing to the want of skill in keeping and handling the milk and cream. Rapid improvement is being made through the recent efforts to teach a scientific system.

AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS.—During the present crisis in agriculture, peculiar interest attaches to the ample, yet not quite complete, statistics collected by government from owners and occupiers of land in the United Kingdom. The total area of land and water in the United Kingdom is 77,671,391 acres. Of this 47,919,830 acres were in 1894 under crops, bare fallow, and grass, as compared with 47,895,770 acres in 1885, and with a yearly average in 1867-70 of 45,829,283 acres. The permanent pasture or grass, not broken up in rotation (exclusive of heath and mountain land), in 1894 was 27,578,400 acres: while the extent of arable land was 20,341,430 acres, or 3,406,487 acres less than the average of the years 1871-75—the highest point reached in the extent of land cultivated. The following table shows the areas of the various crops in Great Britain, and in the case of cereals, the prices and the estimated produce per acre for the years of 1874, 1884, and 1894:

Between 1874 and 1894 the area under wheat decreased nearly one-half, and the decline in price was still greater. Barley showed a small decrease in area, but a drop of over 46 per cent. in price. Oats covered a slightly increased area, but fell over 40 per cent. in price. The green-crop area decreased slightly, while there was a corresponding increase in the area of forage crops. A noteworthy change is the great increase—over 25 per cent.—in extent of permanent pasture.

The next table shows the numbers of farm live-stock in Great Britain in 1874, 1884, and 1894:

The following table gives the average prices of the best quality of cattle and sheep, per stone of 8 lb., sinking the offal, at the Metropolitan Cattle Market in the years 1871-75, 1881-85, and 1894:

The following table shows the extent under various crops, and estimated average produce of each crop per acre in Ireland for 1874-83 and 1894:

The next table shows the farm live-stock in Ireland, and the number exported to Great Britain:

Cattle gradually increased, while sheep declined in numbers within the twenty years. Wool showed a decrease in amount, and an enormous decline (fully one-half) in value. Various estimates have been made of the value of the annual produce in crops and live-stock in the United Kingdom. In 1878 Sir James Caird placed this at £260,737,500. Ten years later, Mr James Howard gave the following estimate of the 'annual amount realised for the sale of the farm produce of the United Kingdom, including market-gardens, orchards, and fruit-grounds, calculated upon the average of the seasons of 1885, 1886, and 1887:'

Later estimates have ranged from £171,900,000 to £193,700,000. The following estimate of the mean annual gross value of wheat, barley, oats, beef, mutton, and wool produced in Great Britain alone for the three periods 1866-75, 1876-85, and 1885, was made in 1886 by Mr W. L. Little, then chairman of the London Farmers' Club:

These figures do not actually represent the balance-sheet of British agriculture, as minor branches which have not been mentioned may have developed; but as they embrace the more important items, they may be taken as a good indication of the extent to which farmers have suffered. They explain how farmers in recent years have been losing money, and why rents have dropped under new agreements—often 20 per cent., and even 50 per cent. Indeed, as has been indicated, the balance available for rent has in not a few cases been entirely swept away. Outside these unhappy exceptions the rent of agricultural land in the United Kingdom ranges from the merest trifle up to £3 or £4 per acre, these latter figures reached only in rare cases, where proximity to market or some other local circumstance gives special value to the produce. The fall caused by the depression still lingering has been greatest in the heavy wheat-growing soils, and least where, in a judicious system of mixed husbandry, grass and live-stock have predominated. All over, the decline in rent has run from 10 to 50 per cent., first-class farms coming down from 50s. to 30s., or even less, and medium land from 30s. to 20s., 15s., or even as low as 10s. per acre.

At first sight it might be expected that proximity to, or distance from, the great centres of consumption should be the dominating influence in regulating the rental of agricultural land; but this is not generally the case. Other considerations, mainly the character of the soil itself, the climate, and the system of farming for which it is therefore best adapted, have been found to be the leading factors in determining the value of land to the farmer. The improvement in facilities of transit has to a large extent lessened the significance of distance. As to profits from farming now and in former years, one can hardly venture upon any definite statements. The lamentable fact that such a fabulous sum as is mentioned in speaking of agricultural capital has been lost in farming in the short space of a dozen years, conveys the twofold inference that in the prosperous times handsome profits had been realised by farmers, and that now balances upon the wrong side must be the order of the day with them. The cost of farm-labour has increased greatly within the past twenty years; but where the advance was greatest there has recently been a very slight fall in wages. The high earnings of the artisan classes and the allurements of town-life have drained some agricultural districts of many of their best labourers; yet it is only in exceptional cases that the supply of farm-labour is seriously deficient. Nor has the quality of farm-labour improved; it has rather gone the other way, this degeneracy being most noticeable where cottages for farm-servants are defective and deficient. The cost of labour upon mixed husbandry farms varies from 20s. to 30s. per acre. By close watchfulness farmers have been able in recent years to slightly curtail outlays upon this head, as well as upon manuring and general expenses; but when they have done their best, the savings in outlay are trifling compared with the decline in the value of the produce. Moreover, it has to be noted that all this saving, especially in labour and manure, has not been so much actual gain—to some extent it is to be feared it has been effected at the cost of the fertility of the land.

Another series of figures illustrating the position of agriculture in the United Kingdom since 1750 will be found in the article on Great Britain (q.v., Vol. V. p. 375); and relevant information is given in the articles on Allotments, Commons and Enclosures, Labourers, Landlord and Tenant, Master and Servant, Rent, and Tithe.

IMPORTS.—The following table shows the agricultural produce imported into the United Kingdom:

The values of other food imports were as follows :

BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.—The department ' for consideration of the matters relating to agriculture ' is the Board of Agriculture, established in 1889, with a minister of agriculture as president. The United States Department is presided over by a commissioner. France, Prussia, and other European countries have special ministers for agriculture.

DIVISION OF LAND.—The division of land is an interesting question relating to British agriculture. It is interesting as to both ownership and occupation. In the so-called Domesday Book for the United Kingdom (1873), the landowners are divided into two classes—those who own less, and those who own more, than an acre of land. The former, who comprise 70 per cent. of the whole, cannot be regarded as agricultural landowners; and exclusive of these it is found that one-fourth of the remaining territory is held by 1200 persons, with an average of 16,200 acres for each; another fourth by 6200 persons, with an average of 3150 acres each; another fourth by 50,770 persons, with an average of 380 acres each; and the remaining fourth by 261,831 persons, with an average of 70 acres each. The peerage of the United Kingdom, numbering about 600 persons, possess among them rather more than a fifth of all the land, and between a tenth and an eleventh of its annual income. It has been roughly calculated from these figures that one person in about every hundred of the population is a landowner, and that every twentieth head of a family is an owner of more than an acre of land. Altogether, there are 1,481,000 landowners and farmers in the United Kingdom; and, reckoning these as heads of families, they comprise more than one-fifth of the total male population. In addition to these, upwards of 1,500,000 are employed as farm-labourers.

The tenant-farmers of the United Kingdom number about 1,161,000—561,000 in Great Britain, with an average of about 56 acres of cultivated land; and 600,000 in Ireland, with an average of 26 acres of cultivated land. In Ireland there is a much greater proportion of small holdings than in Great Britain. Nearly half the land of Ireland is held in farms under 15 acres in extent, less than one-fifth of Great Britain being so occupied. The following table, prepared in 1886 by Major Craigie, shows at a glance how the land of England is now divided in occupation :

Acres.
294,729 holdings under 50 acres in extent, comprise... 3,559,000
115,525 holdings between 50 and 500 acres, comprise... 17,899,000
4,696 holdings over 500 acres, comprise... 3,434,000

CAPITAL EMPLOYED IN AGRICULTURE.—As to the amount of capital employed in agriculture, it is not easy to arrive at precise and trustworthy figures. By statisticians of note widely divergent estimates have been formed. The past thirty years have witnessed enormous expansion and contraction in the capital of both the owners and occupiers of land. The gross annual value of 'land' in the United Kingdom assessed for income-tax in 1857 was £35,856,000—England, £41,177,000; Scotland, £5,932,000; and Ireland (1862), £8,747,000—which, at twenty-five years' purchase, represented a capitalised sum of £1,396,400,000. By 1875 the total in the same return had risen to £66,911,000—England, £50,125,000; Scotland, £7,493,000; and Ireland, £9,293,000—showing a gross increase of £11,055,000 in twenty years. Thus, according to this return, the landowners' capital in 1875 amounted to no less than £1,672,775,000—an increase of £276,375,000 in twenty years. Since then the value of landed property has tumbled down headlong; and it is probably within the mark to say that to-day the capital of the landowners of the kingdom is less than it was in 1875 by 30 per cent.—or say by £500,000,000. In an official return made to the House of Commons for the years 1883-84, the gross annual value of 'land,' as assessed for income-tax in the United Kingdom, is stated at £65,442,000. This, at twenty-five years' purchase, would amount to £1,636,050,000; but there is no doubt that the value of the landowners' property is now very far short of that formidable sum. It should be explained that 'land' in this return does not include gardens and plots less than one acre, but embraces buildings and all the landowners' property upon the land.

The capital employed by the tenant-farmers of the United Kingdom has been variously estimated at from one-fifth to one-third of that credited to the landowners. In 1878 Sir James Caird estimated the tenant-farmers' capital at upwards of four hundred millions sterling. Major Craigie, at the same time, assumed £8 per acre of cultivated land as the average; and this brought out a total of £376,000,000. Mr R. Giffen, of the Board of Trade, in his famous paper upon 'Recent Accumulations of Capital,' also prepared in 1878, estimated the capital of the tenant-farmers at no less than £668,000,000, or an average of £14 per acre. Assuredly Mr Giffen's estimate was too high; and this has now been recognised in government quarters, for in the Parliamentary Return just referred to for 1883-84, the tenant-farmers' capital is given at £300,000,000. The loss in farmers' capital since 1875 can hardly be under £100,000,000—some authorities of acknowledged standing have placed it still higher; and, reckoning the landowners' loss at five times as much, there has been a loss through the agricultural depression of no less than £600,000,000—a vast sinking of property in the short space of twenty years, far exceeding the increase of the preceding thirty years.