Southey, in _The Doctor_, remarks: “It is a fact not unworthy of notice,
that the most intelligent farmers in the neighbourhood of London are
persons who have taken to farming as a business, because of their strong
inclination for rural employments: one of the very best in Middlesex,
when the Survey of that county was published by the Board of
Agriculture, had been a tailor.”
Scientific farming has of late years largely multiplied these amateur
farmers; but, long before rural economy had taken this turn, we remember
a curious instance. Some five-and-forty years since, when Davy’s
_Agricultural Chemistry_ was the only work of its class, there lived in
a town of Surrey a gentleman-tradesman, who loved to relieve the
monotony of his own business by flying off to experimental pursuits. In
politics he was a disciple of Cobbett, and year after year foretold a
revolution in England,—an alarm which he raised throughout his
household. He took extreme interest in new mechanical projects; and kept
a chronological record of the progress of the Thames Tunnel. In
wine-making he was a very experimentalist, and knew by heart every line
of Macculloch on Wine from unripe fruit. Next, he turned over every inch
of his garden, analysed the soil _à la Davy_, and _salted_ all his
growing crops, as well as the soil. But he soon flew from horticultural
chemistry to real farming; and about the same time took to road-making
and macadamisation, and became surveyor of the highways. He next bought
the lease of a house in the neighbourhood for the sake of the large
garden attached to it; and here he passed much of his time in its
experimental culture. Had he lived to the days of Liebig, how he would
have revelled in his theories!
We have a strong confirmation of Southey’s remark in the present day in
the case of Alderman Mechi, who has become a memorable man in this kind
of experimental agriculture, and has transferred the _magic_ of his
Razor-Strop (by the sale of which, in ten years he realised a handsome
fortune) to the barren heath-land of Essex. In 1840 he commenced his
bucolic experiments by purchasing a small unproductive farm at
Tiptree-heath; and here he tried what could be effected by deep drainage
and the application of steam-power. The Essex farmers laughed at him as
an enthusiast, and the country gentlemen kept aloof from him. Mechi,
however, persevered, and brought his farm into such high productiveness
that he realises annually an average handsome profit. We have seen his
balance-sheet impugned: however, if public opinion is worth any thing,
he has rendered great service to agricultural science by the exhibition
of processes upon his model farm, Tiptree, which is known all over the
European continent; for the Alderman has been presented with a 500_l._
testimonial of plate by noblemen and gentlemen interested in science and
agriculture at home and abroad.
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