especially through the organisation of transhipping centres for goods traffic, and through reductions in train mileage; but still more could be done, in the way of keeping down working expenses and improving the position of the companies in regard to concessions to traders, if the traders themselves would co-operate more with the railways to avoid the disadvantages of unremunerative "light-loading." (_c_) My third and last recommendation is to the agriculturists. I have seen repeated assertions to the effect that improved canals would be of great advantage to the British farmer; and in this connection it may interest the reader if I reproduce the following extract from the pamphlet, issued in 1824, by Mr T. G. Cumming, under the title of "Illustrations of the Origin and Progress of Rail and Tram Roads and Steam Carriages," as already mentioned on p. 21:-- "To the farming interests the advantages of a rail-way will soon become strikingly manifest; for, even where the facilities of a canal can be embraced, it presents but a slow yet expensive mode of conveyance; a whole day will be consumed in accomplishing a distance of 20 miles, whilst by the rail-way conveyance, goods will be carried the same distance in three or four hours, and perhaps to no class of the community is this increased speed of more consideration and value than to the farmer, who has occasion to bring his fruit, garden stuff, and poultry to market, and still more so to such as are in the habit of supplying those great and populous towns with milk and butter, whilst with all these additional advantages afforded by a rail-way, the expense of conveyance will be found considerably cheaper than by canal. "Notwithstanding the vast importance to the farmer of having the produce of his farm conveyed in a cheap and expeditious manner to market, it is almost equally essential to him to have a cheap conveyance for manure from a large town to a distant farm; and here the advantages to be derived from a rail-way are abundantly apparent, for by a single loco-motive engine, 50 tons of manure may be conveyed, at a comparatively trifling expense, to any farm within the line of the road. In the article of lime, also, which is one of the first importance to the farmer, there can be no question but the facilities afforded by a rail-way will be the means of diminishing the expense in a very material degree."