A inatcur Fanning: a Hundred Years Ao;o 



19 



may either be perfectly sound or equally rot- 

 ten, for anything they know of the matter : to 

 such, a few cautions relative to the economi- 

 cal parts of their new business cannot be un- 

 important. In one respect the consequences 

 may be exceedingly beneficial ; a little pru- 

 dent attention may prevent losses and ruin, 

 which will bring discredit, however unjustly, 

 on the business in general ; a circumstance 

 which all who love agriculture should do their 

 utmost endeavours to prevent. 



The first and grand evil to which adven- 

 turers in husbandry lay themselves open, is 

 the want of money to conduct their farm pro- 

 perly. In this respect they mistake worse 

 than common farmers, who never proportion 

 their land to their fortune as they ought ; but 

 gentlemen should apply a much larger sum of 

 money to it than farmers, for reasons obvious 

 to all the world. 



No human power can control or remedy 

 this error while persisted in ; it must inevit- 

 ably grow every day worse and worse till 

 utter ruin succeeds. And here I speak of 

 the most common practice, without going 

 into any expenses but those usual in agricul- 

 ture. But if any account is taken of experi- 

 mental husbandry, or the practice of what is 

 met with in books, all this becomes ten times 

 stronger. As this matter is the most impor- 

 tant of all others in the conduct of young be- 

 ginners, I shall beg leave to enter a little more 

 into the nature of the case. 



The great error of common farmers is the 

 hiring too much land in proportion to their 

 fortunes. We constantly, through three- 

 fourths of their lives, see the effects of this, 

 notwithstanding their practising the most 

 severe economy, notwithstanding their con- 

 stant attention to their business, and their 

 even labouring very hard themselves. The 

 inconvenience must in necessity be much 

 greater with a person who can neither labour, 

 practise a regular economy, nor give a con- 

 stant attention to his business, and who, 

 added to all this, knows nothing of the mat- 

 ter. If he depends on the advice and assist- 

 ance of another person, that person must be 

 paid : so that in whatever light we view the 

 case, he is undoubtedly under a stronger 



necessity of having a sufficiency of money 

 than any common farmer. 



A gentleman of small fortune walks over a 

 farm of perhaps two hundred acres of land ; 

 he sees an old waggon or two, three or four 

 carts, some ploughs and harrows, seven or 

 eight shabby-looking horses, a cow or two, and 

 a few ragged sheep. He goes into the house 

 and sees the men feeding on fat pork, or 

 bread and cheese : he views nothing that 

 gives him any idea of expense. Very possibly 

 all he sees might be purchased for a hundred 

 pounds, and this apparent want of but little 

 money must give him a notion that a trifling 

 sum will stock such a farm. Nothing is 

 further from his head than conceiving the 

 prodigious expense dependent on every thing 

 he sees. If he looks at an old rotten plough 

 that lies in the yard, it never occurs to his 

 mind what a train of expenses that instru- 

 ment, which may not be worth five shillings, 

 draws after it. If he asks advice, it will pro- 

 bably be of some farmer or bailiff he designs 

 to employ : now, the event is too much their 

 interest to undeceive him, however mistaken, 

 for his ruin cannot ensue without their being 

 much the richer for it. These suppositions 

 may appear somewhat far stretched, but not 

 to those who have had experience of the 

 lower kind of country life. 



There is no doubt but a gentleman may 

 turn farming to good account, and yet be 

 cheated for some time by the people around 

 him. He pays for experience, but then he 

 gets it, and that will, with good management, 

 afterwards pay him again ; but then large 

 sums of money are requisite for this, and in 

 the stocking a farm good allowances ought 

 to be made for such unseen expenses. 



After the view of such a farm as I now 

 supposed, which convinced the gentleman 

 that a small sum of money would do for farm- 

 ing, we will say he hires it. From that day 

 he will be very busy in viewing his land, in 

 pointing out improvements, and talking the 

 whole matter over with his assistant or ad- 

 viser. Every hour (if he has the least genius) 

 will disclose something or other that wants to 

 be done. His men will tell him, very 

 plausibly and sensibly too, that such a ditch 



