Amateur Fanning a Hundred Years Ago 



the one is as necessary as the other. The 

 want of the first, will overthrow him in the 

 very beginning of his career, and the absence 

 of the second will sink him \\-hen in sight of 

 the goal. 



Another point which a person who begins 

 famiing has to consider, is the employment 

 of a bailiff. He will find this determination 

 a matter of some consequence, and ought to 

 be well reflected on. Many reasons are to 

 be offered for, and many against it. It may, 

 in the first case, be asserted, that in every 

 species of business, the master should know 

 more, or, at least, as much as the man, that 

 no errors may pass in the conduct of the 

 latter, without being seen and understood by 

 the former. That the question does not turn 

 on the emplojiiient or non-employment of 

 such an excellent bailiff as may easily be de- 

 scribed, but of such a one as chance or the 

 common course of such matters will probably 

 discover ; in which case he may be supposed 

 bad, or indifferent, as well as good, and the 

 master Avithout the requisite knowledge to 

 discover whether he is the one or the other. 

 That the idea common in most countries is, 

 that of nine bailiffs out of ten being knaves, 

 which notion could not become general with- 

 out having some foundation in truth : nor is 

 this any wise surprising, for a servant placed 

 in a trust which in itself abounds with the 

 temptation of breaking it, and over-looked by 

 a master ignorant of the business, most cer- 

 tainly is a situation that would, in any other 

 trade, as well as farming, prove wonderfully 

 fertile in creating knaves. 



That a bailiff, from the nature of his office, 

 has so many opportunities of being unfaith- 

 ful without detection ; that he may, in one 

 " year, defraud his master of more money than 

 twenty labourers or servants can cheat him 

 of ; that the expense of one proper to over- 

 see and regulate a business is so great, that it 

 would swallow up all the profit of a small 

 farm ; consequently can never, with propriety, 

 be recommended but in a large business ; and 

 such no gentleman, ignorant of husbandry, 

 should at once venture on. That a bailiff" 

 having been brought up totally in the com- 

 mon practice, has an aversion (found among 



all larmers) to new practices, and could, 

 therefore, give his master no assistance in 

 many cases wherein he might want it ; but, 

 on the contrary, would probably thwart his 

 measures, and occasion a want of success. 

 For these, and many other reasons, bailiffs 

 are thought in most cases useless, and in many 

 detrimental. 



On the other hand, it is alleged that a 

 young practitioner in farming must neces- 

 sarily be so much at a loss about a great 

 variety of matters that come before him, of 

 which he is ignorant, that if he does not keep 

 a bailiff his whole business will infallibly 

 suffer ; his servants will impose upon him in 

 a hundred points, and assert everything to 

 be the custom of the country \ his labourers 

 will do the same in all their work and prices ; 

 his cattle will be ill-managed, and his crops 

 spoiled — consequences much more fatal than 

 the dishonesty of any bailiff, be he ever such 

 a knave. That a gentleman who does not 

 employ a person of this sort must, so far from 

 rendering his business a pleasure, submit to 

 it as a slave. He must be absent from home 

 no more than the lowest farmer ; and he must 

 at all seasons, hours, and weathers, attend to 

 every motion of his people. He must ride 

 about the country to fairs ; he must frequent 

 markets ; in a word, he must let himself down 

 to the lowest company ; and if he has the 

 least taste, or the ideas of a gentleman, suffer 

 continual uneasiness. That, by the employ- 

 ment of such a person, he not only escapes 

 all these disagreeable circumstances, but like- 

 wise learns, at the same time, the principles 

 and the practice of his business. By the help 

 of a bailiff, well skilled in common husbandry, 

 he will, in a few years, acquire an equal 

 knowledge ; and consequently, have it fully 

 in his power to oversee and control the bailiff" 

 himself, and never lay himself open, through 

 his ignorance, to be imposed upon. That the 

 propriety of keeping a bailiff", even in an 

 economical view, is proved by the practice of 

 most great farmers, a set of people so sharp- 

 sighted to their interest in these matters that 

 they would never suffer a constant, or, indeed, 

 any train of imposition. That all gentlemen, 

 whether they haAC farmed a long or a shtro 



