fered to pass without ministering relief to their tenantry, the latter will sink into hopeless insolvency. But the land, it may be said, remains to be bid for by other occupiers. Yes, to be ruined in their turn; until at length the destruction of successive tenants reacts upon ruined landlords, and one horrid level of unsparing desolation overspreads the land. This is no figment of a poetical fancy; it is the faithful portraiture of a state of things which is scripturally recorded for our learning, as fearfully resulting from the unjust administration of property. Having taken the liberty to throw out suggestions to landlords, we crave the same freedom in offering counsel to tenants; and our first admonition would be to eschew the evil practices of anti-cornlaw leaguers, and to abstain from all agitating meetings and concerted combinations. Farmers did not obtain their tenancy by means of mobs, nor by succour of associates, but by quiet negotiation with proprietors. So let it be now. Men may make common cause in the assertion of a principle; but where interests, all differing in degree, are to be adjusted, each case has its peculiar bearings, and must be governed accordingly. Besides, if tenants combine for aggression, landlords will associate for defence, and thus discord will be kindled among parties who can only prosper by means of peaceful union. In this respect, too, the agriculturists may present a favourable contrast to the turbulent movements of the manufacturing classes, which are so frequently convulsed by the combinations of masters, or the strikes of workmen. The same well-informed agriculturist whom we adverted to in the commencement of this article, offers a suggestion as the general basis of an equitable re-adjustment between landlord and tenant, which we think deserves grave and thoughtful consideration. Our friend proposes that the present money rent should be converted into a grain rent, at the average prices of grain for seven years previous to the passing of the late act; and that the future rents, so converted into grain, shall thenceforth be payable in money, according to the fiars prices in each county where the farm is situated. We give this suggestion in the words which embody it, adding our belief that several farmers of intelligence and experience acquiesce in its soundness and practicability. Our impression is that the annual adjustment of the fiars prices in the Scottish counties affords an admirable machinery for regulating the relations between landlord and tenant, which is strikingly superior to the vagueness of the English averages. We conclude by expressing a fervent wish that the Almighty possessor of heaven and earth may so dispose the hearts of men entrusted with the rights and responsibilities of property as to incite and guide them to acts of wise liberality. If Christian equity be disregarded, and sordidness and selfishness shall bear sinister sway—then the supreme PROTECTION of property will be penally withdrawn, and the rich will find too late the fearful force of the divine declaration: Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the he shall also cry himself, but shall not be heard. poor, HIGH FARMING AND HIGHLAND FARMING OR BLACKWOOD TURNED TRIPTOLEMUS. In common with the bulk of the reading public, we have addressed ourselves to the perusal of our dingy-frontispieced old friend Blackwood, No. 411-in the cheering expectation of finding some racy articles from which extracts might be taken, with the comfortable view of lightening our own literary labours. Blackwood is yet in the prime of life, some thirty-five publishing years -and must not be supposed at all approachable by decline or decay-but still, it never occurred to us that the staid and sober periodical-the only permanent pride of Scottish literature (for the Edinburgh Review has marched off bag and baggage to London head-quarters)-should so far forget its old and venerated vocation, as to discard a host of story-telling, or sonnet-scribbling penmen, and to give us in lieu thereof, 43 double-drilled (we must now term them) pages on "British agriculture !" Shades of the clever convivialists who recorded the tap-room revelries of the Noctes Ambrosiana, where are ye? What has become of the countless literati who harassed their brains in concocting "logs" and "cruises," and in ringing the changes upon "Ten thousand a-year" is their "occupation gone?" For what now stares in print before us? neither more nor less than the statistics of nearly all the farm-yards, dung heaps, stall-feeding, and other georgical details throughout the length and breath of bonnie Scotland-together with an immense correspondence furnished by rural worthies, who seem to have exchanged the plough for the pen, and who, for anything we know, may soon shine out as so many Caledonian Columellas. We certainly felt somewhat queer when we surveyed these astounding novelties, instead of solacing our eyes and minds with a bit of brightness which might look like an irradiation from Christopher North; but as we read on, it struck us that Blackwood is about to dethrone the dynasty of blue books, and to constitute "old Ebony," the de facto sovereign of statistics; beginning with the immediate concerns of mother earth, and thus affording a starting point for this grand agricultural article. It is plain to our perceptions, that Blackwood aims to be the oracle of grain-growers; but, instead of yielding responses after the fashion of the ancient soothsaying, the modern oracle prefers putting questions; and to this interrogative system we are indebted for the materials of the present rally in favour of protection. For now the secret is out. Blackwood is one of the best, if not the very best, of all the surviving organs of conservatism; and, awful to say, poor conservatism, after surrendering everything else, now takes refuge in its last sacred citadel-templum in modum arcis-the sanctuary of high rents, protected from profane depression! To shield, as far as in him lies, the last hope of landlordism, Blackwood now comes out in great force. The Mentor of Maga, whoever he may be, addresses a communication to two superlatively high farmers, one named Watson of Keillor, Forfar; and the other (ominously, we think) bearing the sulky patronymic Dudgeon, and located at Spylaw, in Roxburgh. From these "two wealthy farmers" (for wealthy they must be to cultivate their acres so slenderly remunerative) the statistics of high farming having been obtained, a circular was despatched to the most "eminent agriculturists in Scotland," inviting them to "mark, learn, and inwardly digest," the facts and figures of Watson and Dudgeon, and to "send any answer they might think proper." Sheaves of answers accordingly arrived, attesting for the most the distressing accuracy of the Keillor and Spylaw statistics; and to all lovers of the useful little -men who delight in that elaborate minuteness which ratifies pretended prudence—we beg to say, read in Blackwood's Magazine (price half-a-crown) the distinct items of a farmer's folly! It is abundantly sufficient for us to lay hold of the main fact, fully proved by these wise tillers of the soil, namely, that they are amateur or philanthropic agriculturists, ploughing, and sowing, and reaping, wholly and solely for the good of the public, without incurring the slightest suspicion of benefiting themselves! Our friend Watson (for is he not the friend of all mankind!) has the happiness of holding a 500 acre farm in Strathmore, for which he has the conservative privilege of paying £800 per annum lawful rent. His payments on account of interest, management, &c., amount to £1250 more. His returns are estimated at £1956"leaving annually to the farmer for his skill and industry, over interest of capital employed," the sum of £106! which, we apprehend, will reduce Mrs Watson's housekeeping to something like short commons; indeed, if she is blessed with bairns, their dietary and equipment must be on a very scanty scale. But Mr Watson is not content with exhibiting this tight pattern of reduced income; he goes on to the doctrine of negative quantities, and shews us with the most painful precision that his "total loss annually incnrred by difference of price occasioned by free trade" is £518, 5s.! Poor Dudgeon enters into similar specifications as his luckless brother's, and his melancholy summation of matters is thus pithily conveyed-" tenant's loss" on the proceeds of 500 acres, rented at £800 per annum- -£141; and, like Watson, the saddened Dudgeon has a plethoric postscript of evil tidings, assuring us of "a farther present loss on the calculated profits of this farm to the extent of £112, 10s." A cloud of witnesses comes forward to attest in every way short of affidavit before the sheriff, as to the entire correctness of the statements made by the two martyrs we have just mentioned. They are all ready to swear that they are ruined by farming; and one of them-a Mr Gibson-supplies us with authentic details of the vastness of his shortcomings. This excellent farmer, and correct book-keeper, tells us that the rent of 330 acres being £1440, or £4, 10s. per acre, and his expenses of management £2346, his loss incurred by difference of price under free trade is £603:1:6. Blackwood's mysterious man of protection enjoins us to "consider well" these formidable particulars, and adds in Roman capitals the reason why-THEY ARE THE STATISTICS OF THE VERY HIGHEST FARMING IN SCOTLAND! It is quite unnecessary to offer any detailed description of this said high farming to readers who possess two grains of common sense. It means simply the expenditure of money, owned or borrowed, on the soil, so as to increase productive power by the application of all known and suitable agencies-drainage, subsoiling, manures of the most various and exotic excellency—in short, all the subtleties of science, combined with all the appliances of practical skill. Cattle feeding, reduced to such a systematic certainty, that the dietary of the stall surpasses the cuisine of indigent humanity. The fields must groan with heavy harvests, or teem with green crops for the winter-fed herds; and all agricultural operations must be carried on by a class of superior labourers, who are worthy of their liberal hire. Such is the sketchy inventory of requisites which go to make up the sum of what is called high farming; and very admirable such farming unquestionably is, and thrice happy are the public-spirited husbandmen who toil so disinterestedly to "scatter plenty o'er a smiling land!" But the system has two little faults in the estimate of churlish critics. In the first place, it won't pay—a fatal objection in the eyes of people who expect to make a profit by the exercise of skill, industry, and capital; and, 2dly, if it could be made to pay (which notion all the Blackwood swains stoutly repudiate), still, as high farming demands large resources-which, after all, can only be in the hands of a few-is it not clear as the light that to the great majority of farmers the practical application of the noble science of high farming would be a stark impossibility? The first plausible trickster who set agoing this ineffable nonsense about high farming is Mr Caird, who, on the old principle similis gaudet simili, immediately attracted Sir R. Peel's attention; and, through the exPremier's influence, was treated to a tour in Ireland at the cost of the Crown, that the marvels of Auchness might be transferred to the Bog of Allen! We venture to say that no viler deception was ever palmed upon the public than the misstatement contained in Mr Caird's flimsy pamphlet. Writing with the full consciousness of the almost universal failure of the potato, it comes out distinctly that the profits of the Auchness farm were derived from, and must depend on, the continued cultivation of the potato-certain moss land on that farm having produced potatoes exempt from the blight! So that all this flourish of cows' horns about the efficacy of the high farming perpetrated at Auchness amounts to the simple fact, that the holder had fifty-five acres of sound potatoes in the year 1848, when that perished root was rotting under almost every Scottish clod! Really the effrontery to gull, and the readiness to be gulled, exceed in these days all former measure of fraud and credulity. People began to be quite angry with themselves for not clearing £900 a-year out of 250 acres of land, which the great |