Page:The agricultural labourer (Denton).djvu/71

 connected with agriculture, such as beetroot sugar, will both enlarge the field of renumerative labour in the country, and provide an absolute addition to agrucultural produce and wealth. For the pulp after the sugar is extracted has lost little of its value as cattle food, and therefore the substitution of sugar-beet for some of the present cattle crops will displace to a very small extent the means of feeding cattle. And even that will soon be made good by the more generous farming which the profits of sugar growing will enable the the farmer to practise on the other crops of his farm.

I have here a specimen of the first English-grown sugar, not a mere experiment, but produced as a matter of business. I find, from a French paper sent to me this morning, that the northern departments of France now produce about 100,000 tons of sugar a year, or nearly two-thirds of the sugar consumed in France. We use twice as much sugar in this country as the French do, and its consumption is always increasing. At a reduction at price equal to the present duty that increase would rapidly extend. I may be over sanguine on the subject, but I should not be greatly suprised if in ten years hence many thousand acres in the United Kingdom should be profitably employed in the production of home-grown sugar.

The last topic on which I will touch is one of omission. The returns of live stock do not include horses, the most interesting, and individually the most valuable of all. As every man knows the number of his horses, the return can be given without occasioning a particle of trouble, and I hope therefore that the schedule for the present year will include a column for horses. In conclusion, I think it will be generally admitted that the agricultural returns have proved most useful and most instructive, and considering the ever increasing demands of our population on the resources of agriculture, I trust that nothing will be permitted to interfere with their continuance, and with that greater development which further experience may render it desirable to introduce.