It is now clearly established, that, under Free Trade, 40s. per quarter is a price which the British farmer cannot calculate on receiving. The averages of England are now about 36s. per quarter, being 20s. lower than the sum which Sir Robert Peel considered as the lowest which could remunerate the grower. Therefore, taking the average yield of good wheat-land at four quarters per acre, it appears that, by continuing to grow that kind of grain which is convertible into ordinary bread, the farmer must be a positive loser to the extent of _four pounds per acre_! In other words, even suppose no rent at all were taken for the land, wheat cannot continue to be grown at a profit in Great Britain, so long as the averages remain below 40s.; and we leave a large margin to the credit of improved husbandry and strict economy, exercised, as it must be, at the expense of the labourer's wages. That such is the present condition of the British farmers--a hopeless one, unless a legislative remedy is applied--will brook no denial. Last year we were told of farms letting at an increase of rent, and of other symptoms of agricultural prosperity, whereof nothing now is heard. The fact of the depression--if we may use so mild a term in respect to a branch of industry which is now merely existing upon capital, not by income--is beyond all possibility of doubt or cavil. The causes of it are obvious; and it now only remains to be seen whether we can afford to allow agriculture to be extinguished from among us, or at best raised to that point which will afford a bare subsistence to the grower, without the risk of involving the rest of us in a like calamity.