CULTURE OF GREAT BRITAIN.

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is diminishing in all parts of the United Kingdom, and the result of this system is a decrease in the supply of grain and of meat. The statistical tables published by Government show that the sales of homegrown grain in the markets of England in 1864, are about 25 per cent. under those of 1844. The deficit has been made good by foreign importations. But the decrease in the growth of grain produces a decrease in the supply of meat, and this not being made up by foreign importation, there is a deficiency, and consequently an advance in price. Some persons suppose that the decrease in the growth of corn is followed by an increase in the supply of meat. This is a fallacy. Meat cannot be made from grass in the cold or even the northern parts of the temperate zones, except in warm weather. It is necessary to keep the animal at blood heat, and all the food it can partake in the open air is not more than sufficient to keep up the animal heat; hence there is, in cold weather and in the open air, no deposit of fat. If meat is to be produced in England in winter, it must be done in the house, and house feeding requires artificial food; a decrease in the quantity of grain predicates a diminution in the area under turnips, and the necessary sequence is, a decrease in the quantity of meat, and an advance in the price. Thus agriculturists have been compensated for the reduction in the price of corn by an increase in that of meat. The question which you wish me to examine is this: seeing that the supply of meat in the United Kingdom is diminishing, while the population in the United Kingdom is increasing, from what country are our supplies to be obtained ? This is, indeed, a very large question. It involves an assumption that in other coun

tries the supply of meat is increasing at a greater ratio than that of population. If this be so, then their system of agriculture must be better than ours, which I am afraid our friends of the Royal, and other Agricultural Societies, will be slow to admit. The facts are, however, against them. There is a decrease in the home supplies of grain and of meat. What, then, has been done to improve British agriculture when this state of things exists?

It was not any portion of the duty which you imposed upon me to write an itinerary, but it may be of use to other travellers to indicate the routes and to explain the course that I adopted. In reply to the first, he who wishes for the shortest sea voyage can take the route from Dover to Calais; if he feels disposed to lengthen the sea voyage he may go from Folkestone to Boulogne, and see there the English visitors, many of whom have left remembrances behind them for which they are anxiously sought. He who wishes to get expeditiously and cheaply to Paris will go via Brighton to Newhaven and cross to Dieppe, or to Southampton and cross to Havre. He lands in Normandy, and in his route to Paris passes through Rouen, its old capital, and on his way he sees the country lying at the north of the Seine, and has an enjoyable and short route to the capital of the fashion of the world. He who wishes to prolong his journey to see more of the South of England and more of the North of France can go down from London to Dorchester and Weymouth and cross to Cherbourg, where he will see the great fortifications of the rival of Plymouth, and he can then take his way by the old Norman cities of Carentan, Bayeux, Caen, Lisieux, and Evreux to the Vernon station on the Havre and

LITTLEHAMPTON TO JERSEY.

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Rouen Railway, and thus reach Paris. It was not your wish, nor was it my object, to visit these cities; they have been often described, their history has been told. You wished me to visit the districts from whence England is drawing large supplies of food, and to report upon their further facilities. I therefore chose the route from Littlehampton to St. Malo. The ‘Ida' and the 'Vigilant,' which now perform that service, pending the construction of new and more powerful boats, leave the former port twice a week, calling en route at Guernsey and Jersey. It was my fortune to place my feet on the 'Vigilant' on Tuesday evening. She was advertised to sail at ten o'clock, but did not leave until eleven o'clock. We passed Alderney about seven o'clock the next morning, reached Guernsey at noon, and having steamed into the convenient basin at St. Peter's Port, we landed passengers and luggage, took others on board, and proceeded on our way. Sometimes the steamers pass between Alderney and Cape de la Hogue, at others between that Island and some bleak rocks called the Caskets:' the latter was our route. When we passed, the tide was not running very strong through the channel which is called The Race,' but at times it runs here at the rate of ten or eleven knots an hour, and this gives the steamers as much as they can do to hold their own against this current. We reached Jersey at two o'clock P.M. The wind had risen, and it was impossible to land the passengers. We had therefore to come to anchor in St. Aubyn's Bay, and wait for the tide to float us into St. Helier's Harbour, which has been created at great cost by the islanders. We did not get alongside the pier until four o'clock, and as it was blowing fresh and the pilot thought we could

not have sufficient water to carry us into St. Malo's, it was decided to pass the night at St. Helier's.

The Bay of Avranches is most singular; the tide, which comes in full force from the Atlantic, is here opposed by the French coast, and rises and falls as much as forty feet; the whole district is most dangerous to navigators; that which may be attempted with safety in one state of the tide is attended with the greatest risk at others, hence the recent accident to two of the Cherbourg squadron while on their trip from that port to Brest. He who approaches Jersey at low water, and sees the rocks standing above the surface of the water and notes the strata, can hardly avoid coming to the impression that the island of Jersey extended for many miles, if it did not join the French coast; that the surge of the Atlantic washed away the soft clay and left the solid rock. Hence there are great stretches of low reefs of rocks only a foot or two above the level of low water, and there are here and there masses of solid rock, some crowned with fortifications rising to the level of the Jersey coast. As the tide rises these low reefs of rocks are covered, the higher rocks appear as islands. Those spots which may have been traversed on foot, are now covered with water sufficient to float a merchantman or steamer, and the whole surface of the bay is changed by the mere flow of the mighty, deep, which here shows such varying phases.

When the weather is moderate, and the steamers reach St. Aubyn's Bay without sufficient water to enter the harbour, they cast anchor, and land the passengers with boats at a cost of 1s. each. One boat came alongside, but the captain dissuaded the passengers from entering. Two, more adventurous

ST. AUBYN'S BAY ST. HELIER'S.

than the rest, did so, but they had not got far from the ship when they carried away some of their gear. St. Aubyn's Bay is an open roadstead in which there is good anchorage, but it is by no means an inviting place to land in rough weather.

When the tide rose we tripped our anchor, and steamed slowly into the harbour, which consists of two vast piers, one running towards the south, the other to the east, and enclosing a large oblong basin, on one side of which is the landing slip used by the steamers. The tide rises and falls twenty-nine feet in the basin, and it is quite a job at low water to get on board a steamer from which you landed with much ease when the tide was in. I got on shore to see the islands, and found a number of excellent well horsed carriages waiting. Indeed one of the luxuries of Jersey is the low charge for carriages. The omnibuses are of a very superior class.

Before entering upon the enquiry into the aspect of continental affairs, I may, as circumstances admit, see what is done or doing in part of the British dominions, to which the Channel Islands, though unrepresented in the British Parliament, and governed by their own peculiar laws, belong. Jersey has an area of less than 70 square miles, Guernsey of about 50 square miles. Neither islands are manufacturing or mineral, yet the population of the former in 1861 was 55,613, and the latter, 29,350; being at the rate of over 800 per square mile for Jersey, and 600 per square mile for Guernsey. The average population of Great Britain is under 280 per square mile; in Belgium it is 440 persons per square mile; in Holland 280. About one-half of the population of Jersey are inhabitants of the town of St. Helier's. If we sup