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as it would deprive of employment a great many country bourers, the best behaved part of the population. But it should be borne in mind, where agriculture is well understood, arable farming is found very profitable, and will always be preferred to grazing on land of medium quality. Such land is farmed at less expense than poor land. The farm requires less dung, a far greater proportion of dung being made on the farm. The cultivation of green crops and stall feeding cattle is carried on to a great extent. The grain is always of the best quality for the season, and brings the highest price in the market. But it is very different on a farm of poor clay soil, no green crop can be cultivated, and, in consequence, little good dung made, and the farmer is put to great expense every year in purchasing dung. The climate is generally wet and cold. The corn is always of bad quality.

It is absolutely necessary such land be occasionally rested in pasture. Land of so soft and weak a texture could not bear constant cropping. Now, we have seen new grass on such land after the first year is any thing but profitable. With these disadvantages, the farining of these soft clay soils is the worst business a man connects himself with. No wonder the tenantry of such land, while they are the most industrious, and live in the plainest manner, are at the same time the poorest in the country, and that proprietors who farm their own farms, although in the most careful manner, behold with astonishment not unmixed with envy the comfort and opulence of the tenantry in rich districts of the country.

There is one objection against putting down a great deal of land to grass, which may be said to render any extensive conversion of land to grass as quite impracticable, and this is the necessity in this country, with such long and severe winters, of having a sufficient supply of fodder to winter the cattle.

The necessity that must always exist for winter meat renders it no doubt necessary that a considerable quantity of land must always be cultivated, but, I think, a much less quantity will do than at first sight appears necessary. Say a farm consists of 150 Scotch acres, let 100 remain permanently in grass, and the other 50 acres cropped in a rotation of oats, summer-fallow, wheat and barley, hay, grass, grass. This will give about 9 acres to each division, and including the hay, there will be 28

acres yielding winter fodder. In the fallow division, three or four acres potatoes or turnips may be cultivated. I would prefer potatoes planted with the spade instead of smashing this kind of land with horses, when it is most likely in a wet state at the potato planting season. If the straw and hay is cut into chaff mixed with a few of the potatoes or turnips, seasoned with a little salt, it is surprising how many cattle may be kept in good condition with this quantity of fodder, quite as many as the tenant will require to winter on a farm of 150 acres, particularly if the farm be not overstocked, and the cattle have plenty of rough pasture at the end of autumn.

The practice of keeping more cattle in winter than you have sufficient straw and turnip for, is no doubt wretched management. The great object of the arable farmer is to make as much dung as he can of the best quality, and every farmer knows this is not done by keeping a great number of cattle in poor condition. But on a farm such as we are considering (although dung collecting must be attended to), the great object of the farmer is to winter in good condition all the milch cows and other stock, it will be necessary to keep when there is such a large proportion of the farm in grass. It is the muirland and hill or grazing farmer who are best acquainted with bringing a great number of cattle through the winter in good condition on a small allowance of fodder.

The pasture of such a farm could not be stocked to greater advantage than with milch cows. This important branch of husbandry will be found very profitable, and is, in general, well understood by the farmer in those parts of the country where this plan of farming is recommended. It is a useful way of employing the females of his family, and the offals, in the shape of the profits of the piggery, will go a great length in his household economy. The produce of twenty or thirty cows will bring a good sum.

A few sheep too may be kept with great advantage. There will be no turnips to winter the lambs or hoggs, but they could be sold. There is always a standing demand for bred hoggs to put on turnips. Leicester sheep, if the ewes are well wintered and not lamb too early, would thrive amazingly on this kind

of land; but it would be a great error to keep too many sheep eating the grass bare in winter, which should always be avoided. It might answer well enough to winter the ewes in a fold, and to feed them on hay and turnips, and to turn them out to the grass a part of every day for exercise. No sheep thrive so well as the solitary ewe of the cottager, kept as a companion to his cow, and it is kept the half of its time in a close byre.

But the conversion of two-thirds of a farm to pasture, is attended with another advantage I have not yet noticed. The entry to the farm with so large a proportion in grass will be Whitsunday, and it will be found a farm of 150 acres under this management, will just require one-half the capital necessary to enter the same farm at Martinmas in the state a farm of this kind is generally in when let to a new tenant.

An arable farm at entry is generally in disorder, and a great number of men and horses are required the first year, which is attended with great expense; a large sum is also required to purchase manure.

But on the other farm, from the small proportion in tillage, the expense will be very trifling. A few young stirks are soon reared to supply any deficiency. L. 200 is amply sufficient to supply the grazing department, nothing can be more clear than that L.100 will stock the one farm as well as L.800 would do the other, or that L.500 will stock the one as well as L.1000 would stock the other. It is certainly a great consideration in this plan of farming these soft clays, that independently of being more profitable, it will only require half the capital.

It may be said, if a great deal of land was turned to grass, all the productions of grass husbandry,-dairy produce, beef, and mutton,—would fall in price occasioned by the large supply; but, however extensively this plan of farming may be pursued, in certain districts of the country, the quantity of land turned to pasture, compared with the country generally, must be very trifling, and so far from it occasioning any over supply, it will be found, not one single pound less, either of butter or cheese, would be exported to this country by our Dutch neighbours.

The question that inferior arable land worth about twenty

shillings per acre, is capable of being converted to good permanent pasture, is a very important one, and to those who take an interest in agricultural subjects is extremely interesting. If individuals who are good judges of land were to examine the soil of old grass fields bearing good pasture in districts of the country where the land is generally of inferior quality, and communicate their observations to other individuals who may be similarly employed, or who take an interest in the subject, much useful information might be collected.

Of late years, corn has been selling at very low prices, while the other productions of the farm have been selling at good prices, which makes the importance of the subject still more urgent and well deserving of attention.

J. B.

MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES.

I. Physiognomy.-The celebrated Robert Hall was very remarkable for his great insight into character; his eye appeared so searching to strangers, as to be almost insupportable—its brightness was insufferable. I have fre quently heard it remarked both by ladies and gentlemen, that, until they became acquainted with him, they felt uncomfortable in his presence; he appeared to them as a discerner of the spirits. He considered himself a physiognomist. The following is an instance of his remarkable penetration ::-A London corn-dealer dined one day with Mr Nutler, of Cambridge, in company with Mr Hall. Mr Nutler observed that Mr Hall was very silent at table, and that he looked very suspiciously at this stranger. After taking two or three glasses of wine, the stranger hastily withdrew. On his leaving the room, Mr Hall said, "Who is that person, Sir?" Mr Nutler informed him that he was an eminent corn-dealer from London. "Do you do any business with him, Sir?"—" Yes, Sir."..-"Have you sold him any thing to-day, Sir?" "Yes, a large quantity of corn."-"I'm sorry for it, that man is a rogue, Sir." "Oh! you are quite mistaken, Mr Hall; he is highly respectable, and can obtain credit for any amount in this market."—"I don't care for that," continued Mr Hall; "do you get your account settled as soon as you can, and never do any more business with him." Although Mr N. saw no other reason for it, Mr Hall's opinion made that impression upon him, that when his account was settled, he refused to trust the individual any more; and, in about twelve months afterwards, this very person actually defrauded his creditors, and fled the country.

II. Frost upon Fruit Trees.-If a thick rope be intermixed among the branches of a fruit-tree in blossom, the end of which is directed downward so as to terminate in a pail of water, should a slight frost take place during the night, it will not in the smallest degree affect the tree, while the surface of

the water in the pail which receives the rope will be covered with thin ice, though the water placed in another pail by the side of it, by way of experiment, may not, from the slightness of the frost, have any ice on it at all.

III. Standing Orders of the House of Lords for Railway Bills, as amended, 1837.

1. That all Standing Orders relative to Railway Bills heretofore in existence be repealed; and that in lieu thereof the following Orders be the Standing Orders relative to Railway Bills.

2. That at the commencement of every session of Parliament a Standing Order Committee shall be appointed, consisting of forty lords, besides the Chairman of the Committees of the House of Lords, who shall be always Chairman of such Standing Order Committee.

3. That three of the Lords so appointed, including the Chairman, shall be

a quorum.

4. That previous to the Second reading of any private Bill, relating to Railways, in the House, such bill shall be referred to the Standing Order Committee, before which the compliance with the Standing Orders relative to notices, to the depositing of plans and sections, and books of reference, lists and estimates, and to applications for the consent of the owners and occupiers of lands, and to any other matters which may be required by the Standing Orders to be done by the parties promoting such Bill previous to the second reading of such Bill, shall be proved.

5. That any parties shall be at liberty to appear and to be heard by themselves, their agents and witnesses, upon any petition which may be referred to the Committee, complaining of a non-compliance with the Standing Orders, provided the matter complained of be specifically stated in such petition; and that such petition be presented on or before the second day after the introduction of the Bill into this House.

6. That such Committee shall report whether the Standing Orders have been complied with; and if it shall appear to the Committee that they have not been complied with, they shall state the facts upon which their decision is founded, and any special circumstances connected with the case, and also their opinion as to the propriety of dispensing with any of the Standing Orders in such case.

7. That three clear days' notice be given of the meeting of such Committee. 8. That no Committee on any private Bill relating to railways shall have power to examine into the compliance with the Standing Orders, nor into any part of the contents of any notice, list, application in writing, estimate, book of reference, or contract, nor of any plan or section, or copy of any plan or section, which are or may be hereafter ordered by any Standing Order of the House to be given, made, deposited, or produced by the parties applying for such private Bill previously to the second reading thereof in the House, excepting only in so far as may be required to enable such Committee to report as to the sufficiency of the estimate to be proved, in evidence before them, according to the Standing Orders of the House.

9. That all private Bills relating to railways, which shall have been opposed, and in which any amendments shall have been made in the Commit