But Professor Johnston, in the recent edition of his Elements,[28] tells us, that, from experiments made in the laboratory of the Agricultural Chemistry Association of Scotland, it turns out that oats are far richer in all the three things above named than the best wheat flour grown in any part of England—that they contain eighteen or twenty per cent of that which forms muscle, five to eight of fat, and sixty-five of starch. The account, therefore, between shelled oats (groats) and fine wheaten flour stands thus. One hundred pounds of each contain—
| Wheat. | Oats. | |||||
| Muscular matter, | 10 | lbs. | 18 | lbs. | ||
| Fat, | 3 | ... | 6 | ... | ||
| Starch, | 50 | ... | 65 | ... | ||
| —— | —— | |||||
| 63 | lbs. | 89 | lbs. | |||
What do you say to these numbers, Mr Cockney?—You won't pity us, Scotch oatmeal-eaters, any more, we guess. Experience and science are both on our side. What makes your race-horses the best in the world, may be expected to make our peasantry the best too. We offer you, therefore, a fair bet. You shall take ten English ploughmen, and feed them upon two pounds and a-half of wheaten flour a-day, and we shall take as many Scotch ploughmen, and feed them upon the same weight of oatmeal a-day—if they can eat so much, for that is doubtful—and we shall back our men against yours for any sum you like. They shall walk, run, work—or fight you, if you like it—and they shall thrash you to your heart's content. We should like to convince you that Scotch parritch has some real solid metal in it.
We back the oatcake and the porridge against all the wheaten messes in the world. We defy your homemade bread, your baker's bread, your household bread, your leaven bread, and your brown Georges—your fancy bread and your raisin bread—your baps, rolls, scones, muffins, crumpets, and cookies—your bricks, biscuits, bakes, and rusks—your Bath buns and your sally luns—your tea-cakes, and saffron-cakes, and slim-cakes, and plank-cakes, and pan-cakes, and soda-cakes, and currant-cakes, and sponge-cakes, and seed-cakes, and girdle-cakes, and singing-hinnies—your short-bread and your currant-buns—and if there by any other names by which you designate your wheaten abominations, we defy and detest them all. We swear by the oatcake and the porridge, the substantial bannock and the brose—long may Scotland produce them, and Scotchmen live and fight upon them!!
"The first great event in spring on a farm of mixed husbandry," says Mr Stephens, "is the calving of the cows." He then describes the symptoms, the preparations, and the treatment of the cow and the calf, the diseases to which they are respectively liable, and the treatment to which they ought to be subjected, in his usual clear, methodical, and remarkably complete manner. We have been struck with the kind tone which pervades the whole of this chapter, the gentle treatment he prescribes in all cases—indicating at once a practical acquaintance with the details of these operations, and a love also for the quiet and patient animals of which he is treating.
We should have quoted, had the passages not been too long, his description of the different modes adopted, apparently with equal profit, by the veal manufacturers for the London and Glasgow markets respectively. We should like to know the comparative profit of the French mode of feeding calves for the Paris market, on cream and biscuits. In his next edition, we hope Mr Stephens will instruct us upon this point also.
It is one of the merits of this book, and in our estimation a very high one, that method, order, and economy of time and labour are invariably recommended and insisted upon, in every process and at every season. But these points are especially insisted upon in his chapter on the advantages of having field-work always in a forward state. The following extract is long, but it contains such admirable advice, that we insert it for the sake of those who may never see the book itself, or have an opportunity of buying it.
After describing how every favourable day should be taken in preparing the land for wheat, beans, oats, potatoes, turnips, tares, or naked fallow, in their respective order, he continues:—
"And when every one of all these objects has been promoted, and there is found little or nothing to do till the burst of spring-work comes, both horses and men may enjoy a day's rest now and then, without incurring the risk of throwing work back; but before such recreations are indulged in, it should be ascertained that all the implements, great and small, have been repaired for work—the plough-irons all new laid—the harrow-tines new laid and sharpened, and fastened firmly into the bulls of the harrows—the harness all tight and strong—the sacks new patched and mended, that no seed-corn be spilt upon the road—the seed-corn thrashed, measured up, and sacked, and what is last wanted put into the granary—the horses new shod, that no casting or breaking of a single shoe may throw a pair of horses out of work for even one single hour—in short, to have every thing prepared to start for work when the first notice of spring shall be heralded in the sky.
"But suppose the contrary of all this to happen; suppose that the plough-irons and harrow-tines have to be laid and sharpened, when perhaps to-morrow they may be wanted in the field—a stack to be thrashed for seed-corn or for horse's corn in the midst of the sowing of a field—suppose, too, that only a week's work has been lost, in winter, of a single pair of horses, and the consequence is, that six acres of land have to be ploughed when they should be sown, that is, a loss of a whole day of six pair of horses, or of two days of three pair—suppose all these inconveniences to happen in the busy season, and the provoking reflection occurs that the loss incurred now was occasioned by trifling offputs in winter. Compare the value of these trifles with the risk of finding you unprepared for sowing beans or spring-wheat. Suppose, once more, that instead of having turnips in store for the cattle, when the oat-seed is begun in the fields, and that, instead of being able to prosecute that indispensable piece of work without interruption, you are obliged to send away a portion of the draughts to bring in turnips, which must be brought in, and brought in, too, from hand to mouth, it being impossible, in the circumstances, to store them. In short, suppose that the season of incessant labour arrives and finds you unprepared to go along with it,—and what are the consequences? Every creature about you, man, woman, and beast, are then toiled beyond endurance every day, not to keep up work, which is a lightsome task, but to make up work, which is a toilsome task, but which you said you could easily do, when you were idling your time in a season you consider of little value; and, after all, this toil is bestowed in vain to obtain the end you wish, namely, to prepare your crop in due season. You who are inexperienced in the evils of procrastination may fancy this to be an overdrawn picture—even an impossible case; but unfortunately for that supposition, it is drawn from the life. I have seen every incident occur which I have mentioned, both as to work being in a forward and in a backward state."—(Vol. ii. pp. 489, 483.)