which we stand in as much need as they do of
our raiment and hardware.

The East India Company, powerful as a
conqueror and arbitrator, like all other
governments, is the worst possible at the
retail departments of administration. The
ancient deeply-rooted superstitions of Suttee,
Thuggee, and human sacrifices, it has
suppressed in less time than it took to open the
East to steamers. It can annex a quarrelsome
kingdom in three months; but it takes
three years to consider a crane or jetty;
six years to think of a common road; and a
generation, if let alone, to consent to a railway.
Now, Manchester is celebrated for
money-making; great in agitation; not
unsuccessful in politics, and holds a deep stake
in cotton. Let Manchester, which showed
London the way to make railroads, unite
profits and patriotism, by risking something to
open the unknown oases of Central India to
British Commerce.

CHIPS.
THE SPADE.

THE winnings of our "Ace of Spades"*
have been doubted by several correspondents
in the agricultural districts. They deny it to
be the trump card John Sillet made out.
We shall best answer their doubts by referring
them to John Sillet's own work, which is
entitled, "A New Practical System of Fork
and Spade Husbandry." It is published in
London by Simpkin and Marshall.  We may,
however, meantime observe, that our
correspondents betake themselves, in criticising
John's estimate of produce for 1847, to the
favourite parliamentary refuge of calling that
an "exceptional year," which they appear to
regard as destroying the whole value of the
facts. On referring to honest John's
pamphlet, we find that it was indeed an
exceptional year to him, but in the reverse sense to
that signified by our correspondents. "I
must beg my readers to bear in mind,"
observes he, "that the past year (1847)
though very favourable for grained crops,
was a very trying one for roots. In
consequence my root crops were very much
below the average of other years. I lost
nearly the whole of my spring crop of
cabbage plants of fifteen thousand." The
introduction to the last edition of his work
is dated 1850, and so far from making any
complaints of altered prices or condition, he
continues: "I have for these last seven years
been enabled to support myself and family in
a comfortable and respectable manner."
Even the exceptors to his statements do
not agree in their own account of prices—
one dating from Birmingham (who, by the
way, makes the trifling omission from John
Sillet's account of £8 for potatoes) states
the price of onions at sevenpence per peck,
and allows only eightpence per pound for
butter; while he reckons sixpence per pound
to be the price of pigs. Another from
Harwich states butter at tenpence, and
allows only fourpence halfpenny for pigs.
Even the former admits (adding the omission
for potatoes) that thirty-six pounds six
shillings and eightpence may be the nett
proceeds of two acres after supplying the
family; and the latter concedes that a return
of forty-eight pounds six shillings and four-
pence may be practicable—admissions ample
for the purpose of proving the general case of
which John Sillet is the practical exponent.
* See p. 477.

Having disposed of the specific objections
of our friends (for whose letters we may take
this opportunity of saying we feel much
obliged; for it is only by temperate and
earnest discussion that truth can be elicited
and understood), we shall pass on to the
generalities of the spade question, saying a
word or two in favour of that primitive
implement of husbandry.

"In early ages of society," says Sir John
Sinclair, the founder of the Board of Agriculture,
"when oxen and horses were cheap,
when they were fed at little or no expense,
when their stables were little better than
miserable hovels, when the wages of ploughmen
were low, and when labourers were not
sufficiently numerous for carrying on extensive
cultivation by manual labour, it is not to
be wondered at that the invention of the
plough should be accounted a valuable
discovery. But now horses are dear, their
accommodation and food expensive, the implements
of husbandry are costly, while labourers
are abundant and their wages low. For
porous soils, which have been so highly
cultivated by the small farmers of Flanders,
manual labour is sufficient for the production
of abundant crops, and turns up the manure
which falls below the depth of the plough."
—"Spade husbandry," observes Dr. Yelloly,
"is not a system of expense or risk. Less
capital is necessary for it than ordinary
husbandry, from the smaller number of horses
and implements required, while the advantages
are speedily exhibited. Its tendency is
to diminish the poor-rates, while it raises the
amount of the labourer's remuneration, and
makes it dependent on steady habits of
industry. By turning up or loosening the
ground five or six inches deeper than the
plough goes, there is an opportunity afforded
for the descent and diffusion of the roots,
which are often interrupted in their progress
by a hard and impervious subsoil; and with
regard to wheat, I have observed that the
number and length of the roots are much
more considerable in forked than in ploughed
land: and the continual addition of decomposed
matter afforded by a succession of rooty
fibres, must effect a great and permanent
improvement in its productive powers."—" By
the spade," says another authority, "the