The reader—or rather the critical economist—may treat the foregoing remarks as speculative or not, according to the colour of his opinions. All the discussion upon free-trade has been speculative, and so was the legislation also. We take credit for having anticipated what we now see realised; but beyond that, and beyond the facts which the experience of former years has given us, and which we have just laid before our readers, we are, as a matter of course, open to objection, and also liable to error. We have not been arguing, however, without sound data—such as, we suspect, never were brought fully under the eye of our statesmen—and they all tend manifestly and clearly to the same conclusion. That conclusion is, that, without the reimposition of a protective duty, prices cannot rise above the present level. Our argument goes further; for we hold it to be clear that, without some extraordinary combination of circumstances which we cannot conceive, prices must decline, and decline greatly. We look for nothing else; but having had our say as to the future, and pointed out the prospect before us, we shall now confine ourselves to present circumstances, and endeavour to ascertain whether, with a continuance of present prices, and under existing burdens, agriculture can be carried on in Britain at a reasonable profit to the farmer.
Mr Caird's pamphlet, though it has attracted a good deal of attention, contains no hints or information which are new to the practical farmer. Its high-sounding title would lead us to suppose that he had discovered some improved system of agriculture, which might be applicable throughout the kingdom. We read the pamphlet; and we find that it contains nothing beyond the description of a very low-rented and peculiarly-situated farm, the occupant of which appears to have realised considerable profits from an extensive cultivation of the potato. It is not necessary that we should do more than allude to the general tone of the pamphlet, which seems to us rather more arrogant than the occasion demanded. Mr Caird, we doubt not, is a good practical farmer; but we should very much have preferred a distinct and detailed statement of his own experiences at Baldoon, to an incomplete and unattested account of his neighbour's doings at Auchness. A man is fairly entitled to lecture to his class when he can show that, in his own person, he is a thorough master of his subject. A farmer who has devised improvements, tested them, and found them to answer his expectations, and to repay him, has a right to take high ground, and to twit his brother tenants with their want of skill or energy. But Mr Caird is not in this position. He is occupier of a farm of considerable extent, but he does not venture to give us the results of his own experience. It is possible that he may himself pursue the system which he advocates, but he does not tell us so; he points to Mr M'Culloch as the model. This is at best but secondary evidence; howbeit we shall take it as it comes; and as this is strictly a farmer's question, it may be best to allow one practical agriculturist to reply to the views of another. We might, indeed, have abstained altogether from doing so, for Mr Monro of Allan, in a very able pamphlet, entitled Landlords' Rents and Tenants' Profits, has distinctly and unanswerably exposed the fallacies of Mr Caird. Still, lest it should be said that we are disposed to reject, too lightly, any evidence which has been adduced on the opposite side, we have requested Mr Stephens, author of The Book of the Farm, to favour us with his views as to Auchness cultivation. We subjoin them, for the benefit of all concerned.
"On perusing Mr Caird's pamphlet, every practical man must be struck with astonishment at the inordinate quantity of potatoes cultivated at Auchness.
"The entire thirty acres of dried moss, (p. 7,) and twenty-five acres of lea, (p. 15,) were in potatoes in 1848; and the county Down farmer, whose statement is reprinted at the close of Lord Kinnaird's pamphlet, reports that the number of acres occupied by potatoes in 1849 was ninety. This is more than one-third of the whole area of the land. I have considered attentively the calculation made by the farmer; and I think that, in order to meet present prices, it should be modified as below. You will also observe that, in my opinion, the outlay on the farm has been too highly estimated.[21]
| " | 90 acres potatoes, at 71⁄2 tons each, £2 per ton, | £1350 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 60 acres wheat, at 36 bushels each, £2 per quarter, | 540 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| Profit on 130 cattle, at £6 each, | 780 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| Profit on 150 sheep, at 10s. each, | 75 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| Profit of 5 milk cows, at £12 each, | 60 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| £2805 | 0 | 0 | |||||
| Deduct— | |||||||
| Rent, | £262 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| Labour, 40s. per acre, | 520 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| Manure purchased, (p. 23, Caird,) | 256 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| Food for cattle purchased, (do.,) | 270 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| Seed potatoes, 108 tons, at £2, for 90 acres, | 216 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| Seed wheat, 120 bushels, at 5s., | 30 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| Tradesmen's bills, at £7 per pair horses each half-year, | 70 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| Incidental expenses, | 50 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| Interest on £2000 capital, at 10 per cent, | 200 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 1874 | 0 | 0 | |||||
| £931 | 0 | 0 | |||||
"This balance sheet shows a profit of £931; but as the potatoes are worth £1350, which is no less than £419 more than all the profit, it is evident that it is the potato alone that affords any profit under this instance of high farming. Indeed Mr Caird admits as much when he says, 'The great value of a sound potato crop induces the tenant to adopt such means as will not interfere with the continued cultivation of this root.' The admission is, that the profit rests entirely on the precarious potato. The potato has hitherto been safe in the moss of Auchness, and it is safe there in no other class of soil. In Ireland, even the moss does not save it. There is no high farming in the matter, in so far as manures are concerned, for as much and richer manure is used in the neighbourhood of large towns; and as on the moss at Auchness too much manure may be applied, at least after a certain time, so there may be on other soils; and thus high farming, in reference to soils, just means heavy manuring. Mr Caird says, 'The potato has been grown on the moss land successively, year after year; but the entire reclaimed portions, from being so frequently manured, are becoming too rich, and the crop beginning to show signs of disease, and a tendency to grow to tops rather than roots, which makes it necessary to adopt some plan of reducing its fertility.' It is known to every farmer, that it is quite possible to overmanure any crop, and the effects of overmanuring are, the breaking down of the straw of the grain crops, and the hollowing of the core of the tubers and bulbs of the green crops. The inference then is, that a profit which depends entirely on potatoes is uncertain in any year; and the particular case of Auchness, in which that profit is derived from moss, is not generally applicable to the country, and cannot, therefore, be held up as an example to farmers.
"The farm of Auchness contains nothing remarkable: for although the peculiar culture of the potato in moss is generally inapplicable, there are many farms in Scotland which have moss attached to them. The sea-ware may also be got on most farms on the coast, and where this is the case, it is commonly used. The soil is not good, and is certainly below the average quality; but I cannot understand what is meant by Mr Caird, when he asserts, on p. 7, that the '125 acres of light sandy soil is better adapted for wheat than for barley or oats when in a high state of cultivation,' for, in other parts of the country, such a soil would be eminently suited for barley. The steading is large for the size of the farm, but every steading ought to be made conformable to the farm by the landlord. The system of farming followed by Mr M'Culloch, of having 'no fixed rotation of crops,' is highly objectionable, and Mr Caird, with great propriety, does not commend it; since the farmer who manages so, has no dependence on the amount of crop he may receive any year, and must work according to circumstances, and not on principle, as the unhappy Irish hitherto have done. In this respect, also, Auchness is no example for the country; and, were a regular rotation followed on it, so many potatoes could not be grown, and the profits would be proportionally reduced.
"On the whole, then, I would say that Auchness farming is not generally applicable; and therefore it is useless to proclaim it as an antidote to free competition. For although it is probably true, as Mr Caird says, 'that green crops are likely henceforth to be the main stay of the agriculturists of this country,' yet he must be conscious that he is wrong in recommending, as an example, and as a substitute for protection, the enlarged cultivation of potatoes as a green crop, seeing that their growth has, of late years, been attended with great uncertainty. Is it not a mockery, then, to tell us that our main stay against foreign competition should depend upon a peculiarly uncertain crop? Will his pointing to a moss of 30 acres in Wigtonshire, convince the farmers of this great kingdom, that their future safety, as a class, must entirely depend upon their cultivating such a root on such a soil, in preference to wheat on the fertile loams of glorious old England? I apprehend that such a result is beyond the power of argument."
The non-agricultural reader must pardon us for the insertion of these details. They are necessary for our case, because, if high farming can be made an efficient substitute for protection, we are bound to adopt it, and we should owe a deep debt of gratitude to any one who could point out the way. We are fully alive to the necessity of agricultural enterprise; and, if we thought that our farmers were standing beside their mired waggon, clamorously invoking the assistance of Jupiter, when they should be clapping their own shoulders to the wheel, we would be the first to remonstrate on the heinous folly of their conduct. It is because no amount of personal exertion has been spared, that we seek to enforce their claim according to the utmost of our ability; and, in doing so, we are bound to prove, that no ordinary means which have been suggested for their extrication can be of the smallest avail. Mr Caird has come forward in the character of adviser, and we have stated the opinion of practical men as to the feasibility of his scheme. We have yet more to state, for nature has already denounced his plan far more effectually than opinion. When the county Down farmer visited Auchness in July last, he found more than one-third of the whole farm under potato culture. Upon that crop depended not only the whole profits, but a great deal more. Without the potatoes, there would have been a loss, at a more favourable calculation than his, of £419, on a farm paying only £262 of rent. Since then, we are informed on the best authority, that disease has attacked the potatoes. The highly-manured moss could not preserve from decay, if it did not accelerate it, the uncertain and precarious root. Mr Caird must not quarrel with the penalty he has incurred for having totally misunderstood the nature of the question which is now agitating the public mind. Whilst all others were directing their attention to cereal produce, he kept his eyes obstinately fixed on a little patch of ground which seemed to give unusual facilities for the growth of the doubtful potato. He never attempted to show that, without potatoes, and an exorbitant growth of that vegetable, high farming could pay at Auchness, even with the important elements of very low rent, and singular liberality on the part of an enthusiastic landlord. He perilled his whole case upon the probable returns of a root which every farmer views with suspicion; and—more than that—his statistics, which he wished to be inferred were of universal application, were only applicable to a few remote and isolated spots in Scotland. The result is, that, with all these advantages, the experiment has failed; and that all the liquid manures, economy of dung, guano stimulants, and so forth, as practised at Auchness, cannot, at present prices of produce, force up so much grain, or feed so much stock, as will nearly pay for the required and inevitable expenses. We pass over all possible mistakes. It may have been matter of delicacy for Mr Caird to have exposed the balance-sheet of his neighbour, or he may have assumed, rather hastily, statistics for which he had meagre warrant. We can allow him a large margin. Without potatoes, and such an extent of potato as would be plainly ludicrous if adopted as a general rule, Auchness never could have paid. With potatoes, it has failed in the very year wherein Mr Caird has chosen to exhibit it as a universal model.
So much for the only instance of high farming which has been adduced, as an example of its efficacy in superseding the protective system. In justice to Mr M'Culloch, whom we believe to be a most intelligent farmer, let it not be thought that we presume to call it empirical. On the contrary, we are convinced that that gentleman has acted with great judgment, suiting his management to the nature of the ground with which he had to deal; and that he has made as much of it as any man could do under similar circumstances. He was compelled to deal with a precarious crop, and few men could have dealt with it better: still, his method is no example to others differently situated, nor are his results to be taken by them either as matter of warning or of triumph. It is sufficient for us that Auchness farming, successful or not, is peculiar, and cannot be dragged in as a rule or example for the English or the Scottish farmer. We have enough of high farming statistics to lay before our readers, and, therefore, without any further apology, we dismiss the matter of Auchness, as totally inapplicable to the great question at issue.