The revival of agriculture roughly coincided with the accession of Queen Victoria.
It was proved that Scotch farmers who had farmed highly had weathered the storm. Instead of repeatedly calling on Parliament to help them they had helped themselves, by spending large sums in draining and manuring the land; they had adopted the subsoil plough, and the drainage system of Smith of Deanston, used machinery to economize labour, and improved the breed of stock. This was an object-lesson for the English farmer, and he began to profit by it. It was high time that he did. In spite of the undoubted progress made, farming was still often terribly backward. Little or no machinery was used, implements were often bad, teams too large, drilling little practised, drainage utterly inefficient; in fact, while one farmer used all the improvements made, a hundred had little to do with them. But better times were at hand.
About 1835 Elkington's system of drainage, which among the more advanced agriculturists, at any rate, had been used for half a century, was superseded by that of James Smith of Deanston, a system of thorough drainage and deep ploughing, which effected a complete revolution in the art of draining, and holds the field to-day. Hitherto the draining of land had been done by a few drains where they were thought necessary, which was often a failure. Smith initiated a complete system of parallel underground drains, near enough to each, other to catch all the superfluous water, running into a main drain which ran along the lowest part of the ground. His system has also been called 'furrow or frequent draining', as the drains were generally laid in the furrows from two to two-and-a-half feet deep at short intervals. Even then the tributary drains were at first filled in with stones 12 inches deep, as they had been for centuries, and sometimes with thorns, or even turves, as tiles were still expensive; and the main was made of stonework. However, the invention of machines for making tiles cheapened them, and the substitution of cylindrical pipes for horse-shoe tiles laid on flat soles still further lowered the cost and increased the efficiency.[613] In 1848, Peel introduced Government Drainage Loans, repayable by twenty-two instalments of 6 1/2 per cent. This was consequently an era of extensive drainage works all over England, which sorely needed it; but even now the work was often badly done. In some cases it was the custom for the tenant to put in as many tiles as his landlord gave him, and they were often merely buried. At Stratfieldsaye, for instance, where the Iron Duke was a generous and capable landlord, the drains were sometimes a foot deep, while others were 6 feet deep and 60 feet apart,[614] although the soil required nothing of the kind.
Vast sums were also spent on farm-buildings, still often old and rickety, with deficient and insanitary accommodation; in Devonshire the farmer was bound by his lease to repair 'old mud and wooden houses', at a cost of 10 per cent. on his rent, and there were many such all over England. Farm-buildings were often at the extreme end of the holding, the cattle were crowded together in draughty sheds, and the farmyard was generally a mass of filth and spoiling manure, spoiling because all the liquid was draining away from it into the pool where the live stock drank; a picture, alas, often true to-day. It was to bring the great mass of landlords and farmers into line with those who had made the most of what progress there had been, that the Royal Society was founded in 1838, in imitation of the Highland Society, but also owing to the realization of the great benefits conferred on farming during the last half-century by the exertions of Agricultural Societies, the Smithfield Club Shows having especially aided the breeding of live stock.
Writing on the subject of the Society, Mr. Handley[615] spoke of the wretched modes of farming still to be seen in the country, especially in the case of arable land, though there had been a marked improvement in the breeding of stock. Prejudice, as ever, was rampant. Bone manure, though in the previous twenty years it had worked wonders, was in many parts unused. It was felt that what the English farmer needed was 'practice with science'. The first President of the Society was Earl Spencer, and it at once set vigorously to work, recommending prizes for essays on twenty-four subjects, some of which are in the first volume of the Society's Journal. Prizes were also offered for the best draining-plough, the best implement for crushing gorse, for a ploughing match to be held at the first country meeting of the Society fixed at Oxford in 1839, for the best cultivated farm in Oxfordshire and the adjacent counties, and for the invention of any new agricultural implement.
In 1840 the Society was granted a charter under the title of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, and its career since then has been one of continued usefulness, and forms a prominent feature in the agricultural history of the times.
In 1839[616] the first country meeting of the Society was held at Oxford, and its 247 entries of live stock and 54 of implements were described as constituting a show of unprecedented magnitude. According to Bell's Weekly Messenger for July 22, 1839, the show for some time had been the all-absorbing topic of conversation not only among agriculturists, but among the community at large, and the first day 20,000 people attended the show, many having come great distances by road. Everybody and every exhibit had to get to Oxford by road; some Shorthorn cattle, belonging to the famous Thomas Bates of Kirkleavington, took nearly three weeks on the road, coming from London to Aylesbury by canal. But such a journey was not unusual then, for cattle were often two or three weeks on the road to great fairs, and stood the journey best on hay; it was surprising how fresh and sound they finished.[617] The show ground covered 7 acres, and among the implements tested was a subsoil plough, Biddell's Scarifier, and a drill for depositing manure after turnips. There were only six classes for cattle—Shorthorns, Herefords, Devons, Cattle of any other breed, Dairy Cattle, and Oxen; one class for horses, and three for sheep—Leicesters, Southdown or other Short Wool, and Long Woolled; with one for pigs.[618] The Shorthorns, with the exception of the Kirkleavingtons, were bred in the neighbourhood, and many good judges said long afterwards that a finer lot had not been seen since. The Duchesses especially impressed all who saw them. The rest of the live stock was in no way remarkable.
From this small beginning, then thought so much of, the show grew fast, and the Warwick meeting[619] of 1892, after several years of agricultural depression, illustrates the excellent work of the Society and the enormous progress made by English agriculture. The show ground covered 90 acres; horses were now divided into Thoroughbred Stallions, Hunters, Coach Horses, Hackneys, Ponies, Harness Horses and Ponies, Shires, Clydesdales, Suffolks, and Agricultural Horses. Cattle were classified as Shorthorns, Herefords, Devons, Sussex, Longhorns (described as few in number and of no particular quality, 'a breed which has now been many years on the wane', but has recently been revived),[620] Welsh, Red Polled, Jerseys, Guernseys, Kerry and Dexter-Kerry.
The increased variety of sheep was also striking; Leicesters, Cotswolds, Lincolns, Oxford Downs, Shropshires, Southdowns, Hampshire Downs, Suffolks, Border Leicesters, Clun Forest, and Welsh Mountain.
Pigs were divided into Large, Middle, and Small white Berkshires, any other black breed, and Tamworths.