206 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. 



boasted her natural roads, and the inhabitants quoted with pride a saj^ing of 

 Charles II., tliat the county ought to bo cut up to make highways lor the 

 rest of tlie kingdoai. But this only proved how deplorable was the condition 

 of the other parts of the country, for when Young visited Norfolk he did not 

 meet with a single mile of good road. In Essex he found lanes so narrow 

 that not a mouse could pass a carriage, ruts of an incredible dcptii, and chalk 

 waggons stuck fast till a line of them were in the same predicament, and it 

 required twenty or thirty horses to be tacked to eacii to draw them out one 

 by one. The thoroughfares in fact were ditches of thick luud cut up hy sec- 

 ondary ditches of irregular depth. In attempting to traverse them, Young 

 had sometimes to alight from his chaise, and get the rustics to assist him in 

 lifting it over the hedge. Such was the state of things when in 1707, he 

 abandoned the farm in which he had experimented too much to be successful, 

 and, availing himself of the frank hospitality which has in every age been 

 the characteristic of our fanners and country gentlemen, made those cele- 

 brated " tours," which are absolute photograplis of agricultural England, 

 and are models of what all such reports should be — graphic, faitiiful, pictur- 

 esque, and pliilosophical ! 



About half a century after Young had published his principal English 

 tours another celebrated man copied his example, and made his "Rural 

 Rides" through various counties between the years 1821 and 1832. It 

 would be natural to refer to this entertaining work of Cobbet to discover the 

 changes which had taken place in the interval, but scarce a notion can be 

 gleaned from it of the condition of agriculture. Superior to Young in talent, 

 in force of language, and in liveliness of style, though not surpassing him in 

 lucidity, which was impossible, he is, beyond comparison, inferior to him in 

 information and candor. * # * * Devoting a large portion of his life 

 to agriculture, and having won by his talents and his pungency the ear of 

 the public, he did nothing whatever to advance the science. His powerful 

 and reckless pen was chiefly employed in maintaining errors; and while 

 Young, by the accurate record of impartial observations, has left his lootmark 

 deeply imprinted upon the soil, the turbulent cleverness of Cobhett was like 

 a wind which makes a great stir at the moment, and then is hushed forever. 

 The name of Arthur Young will always be mentioned with gratitude in every 

 record of British farming; the name of Cobbett, if it is mentioned at all, 

 will only be quoted as a warning. On recurring to his " Rural Rides," we 

 have found them next to a blauk upon the subject of whicii they prufess to 

 treat ; and though abuse, egotism, conceit, dogmatism, and prejudice, when 

 set ofl by vivacity, may make amusing reading, they contribute nothing to 

 the promotion of agriculture. 



Foremost among the men whose merits Artliur Young helped to make 

 known to his contemporaries and hand down to posterity, was Robert Bake- 

 well of Dishley ; a man of genius in his way, for he laid down the principles 

 of a new art. lie founded the adrnitable breed of Leicester sheep, which 

 still maintains a high reputation throughout Europe and the Unit.il States 

 of America; and altiiough he failed in establisiiiiig liis breed of '• Long horn 

 cattle" and of " black cart horses," he taught others how to succeed. The 

 yeoman farmer had not yet removed to a " parlor," and Bakewell sat in the 

 huge chimney corner of a long kitchen hung round with the dried joints of 

 his finest oxen, preserved as specimt^ns of proportion, " a tall, stout, broad- 

 shouldered man of brown red complexion, clad in a brown loose coat and 

 scarlet waistcoat, leather breeches, and top boots. There he entertained 

 Russian princes, French and German Royal Dukes, British peers and farmers, 

 and sight seers of every degree." Whoever were his guests, they were all 

 obliged to conform to liis rules." *' Breakfast at eight o'clock, dinner at 

 one, supper at nine, bed at eleven o'clock ; at half past ten o'clock, let who 

 would be there, he knocked out his last pipe. There he talked on his favor- 

 ite subject, breeding, " with earnest yet playful enthusiasm ;" tliere, " utterly 



