of a double quantity of manure, instead of
lying idle for a twelvemonth as it does
occasionally in the old-fashioned farm-yard.
Nothing lies idle at Tiptree. The tank is the
great stomach of the farm into which all
refuse goes as food, and forms the chyle that
is to pass as the farm's blood through pipes
under the whole surface of the land. It
creates new life, out of which there comes new
death, which returns to the great central
stomach and builds up new life again. As
the boys manage at leap-frog, the pot here is
always kept a boiling, and death in the pot
becomes life in the pasture.

The hose is of course managed without
difficulty by a single man, who is able to
irrigate—that is to say, to manure in the most
effectual way—a large field in a comparatively
little time. The cost of hose and piping is
from three pounds fifteen shillings to four
pounds an acre, "that is to say," says the
Farmer of Tiptree, "if you go to the best
market for your iron." We come down from
the tank and pass into a clover-field to watch
the simple process of irrigation with the hose.
Velocity compensating for diminished space,
there is poured from the hose as much liquid
manure per minute as would flow in the
same time through a pipe five inches in
diameter at the pace of a common river
current. As the somewhat too balsamic
shower falls before us, gentlemen who have
not taken the precaution to select a safe point
of view, put up the umbrellas that they had
been advised to bring by a merry shower in
the morning. Liquid manure, however, forms
the substance of the only showers that will
fall to day upon the fields of Tiptree. The
effect of this irrigation during past months
on the present crops, excited in the next
place the applause of farmers and the hopes
of sanitary reformers.

Some time ago there was formed a
company in London for the conveyance of the
filth of the metropolis as sewage manure, at a
small price for delivery on farms in the
surrounding country. Whether the hopes of
that company be dormant now, whether the
company exists, we cannot tell; perhaps it
was a chicken broken prematurely from the
shell; but, as surely as there are railways,
and as surely as there is gas, and as surely as
there is a penny post, so surely will the day
come when every town in England will
perform for the surrounding country the work
now done by the tank for Tiptree Farm; and
the matter that makes putrid fever for
ourselves shall have no time allowed it to remain
in town and give out deadly fumes, but shall
be carried off into the country to make bread
for those who may live after us.

Little stands have been made about the
farm by manufacturers, who take advantage
of the agricultural gathering at Tiptree to
display such tools and implements as are
thought worth displaying. They are all such
things as are designed for the satisfaction of
farmers who believe that ploughs and sickles,
nay, even spades, are things that did not
attain their perfection fifty or a hundred
years ago, and are not, perhaps, perfect now.
Here, for example, is a stand of spades and
forks, about which we assemble, and the man
in charge of them is brought at once into
the focus of a hundred eyes.

The stand is made over a patch of the
hardest soil, a spade is taken, and it is found
that with much effort it is simply impossible
to dig with it efficiently in soil so hard. The
man then takes a light fork, weighing two
pounds less than the agricultural fork
commonly put into the hands of labourers.
Its five narrow prongs are of cast steel, and
it is completed of one solid piece without
joint or weld. With this fork the man
proceeds to dig with wonderful facility the
heavy stony soil. The prongs of such forks
yield place to the stones, and bend round
them, loosening the soil, springing instantly,
when withdrawn, into their original form.
A match was on one occasion tried between
two workmen, one of whom used the
old-fashioned, rigid, and broad-bladed fork, the
other used one of these light implements
(Winton's Parkes's they are called) with
narrow tines of elastic steel. The man with
the light fork earned four shillings while the
other was earning two shillings and three-
pence, and the heavy fork after the match
required an outlay of sixpence for repairs.
The savings in repairs and renovation pay for
the light fork several times in the course of a
year, and in labour the saving is so great,
that a man using this fork is said to lift—by
the saving of two pounds on each effort—five
tons less in the course of a day's work than
his old-fashioned neighbour. Some of these
forks are made still lighter for the use of
children, who can earn good day wages by the
use of them at twelve-inch trenching. These
forks were regarded as playthings by the
men when they were first brought to Tiptree,
but it was soon found that whoever could get
one of them to use was saved twenty per
cent, of labour, and was able to perform his
work more thoroughly than it could otherwise
be done. Thus it appears that there
is room for Young Agriculture to display its
brains, even upon a pitchfork.

Who is Young Agriculture? We are sorry
to be told that while the Agricultural College
at Cirencester is indeed prospering at last,
and has now fifty pupils, not one of those
pupils is a farmer's son. Who, therefore, is
Young Agriculture? A tradesman who
brings brisk habits, sense, and enterprise out
of the City is the representative of agriculture
here on Tiptree Hill. Still there is hope.
These earnest-looking farmers are not here
for nothing. This quick-eyed Scotchman, who
has travelled three or four hundred miles for
the express purpose of seeing Tiptree, and is
now satisfying his own mind by comparing
for himself the digging powers of the spade