him a considerable loser. If high farming could be shown to be productive, high farming would be the rule and not the exception. In Scotland we have farmed so high, that we are quoted at all hands as an example to the rest of the world. If we mistake not, Dr Buckland himself, in some of his stimulating addresses, has referred to the agricultural system of the Lothians as a specimen, or rather _the_ specimen, of what may be achieved by science combined with energy. We accept the compliment; and in the course of the following pages we shall endeavour to show him, and his friends, how the pattern farmer is likely to fare, and how he has fared already, under the operation of the new code which modern liberalism has introduced for the encouragement of British enterprise. Next to the chemists, and moving closely in their wake, come the free-trading landlords who assented to the great experiment. If we select Lords Ducie and Kinnaird as fair specimens of this class in England and in Scotland, we shall do no more than give that prominence to their names which is challenged by their late assertions. Our occupancy of the Scottish field, from which we are unwilling to depart, precludes us from entering into any investigation of the views promulgated by the English earl. But we have no scruple at all in dealing with the Scottish baron, who, in the letter of advice addressed to his tenantry of the Carse of Gowrie, has taken infinite pains to show that the superior husbandry of Scotland has been stimulated, if not created, by the exaction of high rents; and, by an easy corollary, that future improvement depends mainly upon the maintenance of these rents, irrespective altogether of the decline in the value of produce! This, we are bound to admit, is a comfortable landlord's theory; and, if the agricultural tenants who frequent the reading-room at Inchture are convinced of its practical soundness, we should be extremely sorry to utter a single word which might tend to unsettle their faith. But we fear that Lord Kinnaird, like many other inconsiderate individuals, has committed a serious mistake in rushing precipitately into print. We agree with him, on the whole, that rent is a desirable thing, which ought not, under ordinary circumstances, to be violently diminished; still we must adhere to our deliberate opinion, that, if a great organic change, affecting the interests of agriculture to a serious degree, is consequent upon any measures of the legislature, both landlord and tenant must be prepared to suffer in a certain ratio. It is all very well to recommend the aid of chemistry, provided, at the same time, that adequate capital is forthcoming. Even with capital, to be drawn from the tenant's, and not the landlord's pocket, it will require more than mere assertion to persuade the former that, by an enormously increased outlay in phosphate of lime, sulphuric acid, magnesia, manganese, gypsum, guano, and what not, he may raise crops the