THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



4.r.r 



if not iuward respect for his laudlorJ, with a vote at his dispo- 

 sal at elections. The real value of the laud let to the tenantry» 

 the nature of the buildings required, the cost of their erection 

 and repair, these were matters about which the landowner 

 might have soaie sort of idea, but he for the most part was 

 indebted iu all such detail of estate management to the agent 

 or steward he salaried to supervise his property. A compara- 

 tively small number of large proprietors were also large prac- 

 tical farmers ; it was considered an amiable and a most respect- 

 able sort of eccentricity. Woburn and Holkham had (heir 

 periodical muck and flock figbta, which attracted a great deal 

 of notice, and did an iraraenae deal of good ; many gentlemen 

 farmed — home farms — were generally supposed to do so, sim- 

 ply for amusement, at a cost the process seldom repaid. 



How great is the change in all this ! It has come to pass 

 with a rapidity almost inconceivable ; it has done a work the 

 value of which is beyond all estimate. From the Prince Con- 

 sort to the Governor of the Scilly Islands, from the woolsack 

 to the youngest Bishop, from the Speaker to the last peer's 

 son, borough-born into the " House" — through these, through 

 every grade of Upper life, farming, in its general theory, is a 

 thing more familiar than the catechism, far more generally 

 practised in its most arbitrary requirements than the decalogue. 

 Noblemen, even under the despotism of dining a la Russe, 

 surrender the whole economy of the table to the cook and tiie 

 butler, or maitre d'hotel, while they usurp the office of their 

 " agent," well " up" in every branch of Ms duty — they reduce 

 him, not merely to the rank of a subaltern, but expect him 

 to sit humbly to learn at their feet, even iu the matter of 

 manure. 



Some little time since I shivered several hours on a cold day 

 in company with an earl (justly known far and wide for his 

 most useful and consistent life) ; he was in council with his 

 bailiff and a skilled shepherd, the business on hand being the 

 singularly delicate decision to be arrived at in the division of 

 a flock of high-bred Southdowna into three or four separate 

 harems for as many fleecy heroes, whose lineage and fame in 

 their own way had given them a money value for the season 

 more than equ»l to the pay of many a curate forthe year. I 

 have never forgotten the skill of eye and touch shown by my 

 noble friend as each mother in futtiro was singly parade 1, to 

 be discussed and classed according to her points of bone, fleece, 

 and mutton. The Earl spoke confidently, but ever and anon 

 appealed to the crook-armed shepherd, who, pondering over the 

 flock lore as it flowed from so exalted a source, yet hesitated 

 not to assent to or dissent from the positions maintained, 

 according to his own judgment. There was no wandering 

 from the subject in hand, no scamping of the matter iu impa- 

 tient haste. Had certain friends of Henry VIII. taken half 

 the pains about his Dutch spouse, who shall say what, even at 

 this hour, might have been the result ? 



I have seen Ireland's first duke stand over a tank on a 

 model farm, exquisite in its extreme filth, v;hile one of Eng- 

 land's best classic scholars eloquently, as a labour of love, gave 

 to us the primary compounds of the horrid composition ; 

 dwelling, as we inhaled it, on its true chemical and gaseous 

 elements, and, without moving a step, branching off into an 

 ecstatic exordium on the wickedness, the positive guilt, of any 

 waste of such Provideuce-by-beast ofl^ered wealth. I have met 

 with men irritable to the borders of insanity at the smell of 

 au oil-lamp which has put itself out ; who are so fastidious 

 that one fly in the soup would condemn the whole tureen ; 

 the smell of the groom in cotton gloves, waiting at a poorish 

 neighbour's dinner, being so destructive of their appetite as to 

 outrage the hospitality of the house by an abstemiousness 

 irreconcilable with their evident health ; and yet these very 



men will dally with the smell of a pig-pit, hang over " compost' 

 as if it had the aroma of their best claret. 



There can be no manner of doubt but that, were it a matter , 

 of competitive examination, the Peerage would gain more 

 marks for really valuable knowledge iu the matter of estate 

 management and soil cultivation than for any other subject 

 whatever. The Quartcr/y and the Edinburyh hold their own 

 places on the library tables, but the A'jrkiiUural Journal has 

 its leaves cut first, its pages moit studied. Not only are moat 

 proprietors now, to a greater or leas degree, good farmers, but 

 they are careful to procure tenants who have the capital and 

 skill wherewith to farm well. They have had to work out the 

 problem how best to obtain and retain such men ; this has led 

 not only to a wiser, more liberal, more enduring covenant of 

 tenure, but also to a more liberal provision in the way of build- 

 ings, in the alteration of fences, draining, &c. The farming- 

 landlord, if he learns something of profits, does not escape ex- 

 perience of loss ; the tenant has an appeal on his aide, always 

 existing in the trials to which the home-farm submits his 

 chief. 



The production at market of beef, mutton, and corn is now 

 literally the result of a system based on pure science. Every 

 well-managed estate is an area comprising a certain number of 

 cultivating factories ; whether it is soil to be worked up to 

 carry its crops of corn, roots, pulse, or grass ; or bullocks, sheep, 

 and pigs to be worked up to the perfection of what each can 

 carry best for the purposes of profit. There is an amouut of 

 machinery in use, of skill put forth, of science brought to bear 

 on the work, which has raised farming from what it was — the 

 refuge of an industry which plodded with little thought to 

 make gains it scarce knew hosv — to a pursuit taxing every 

 faculty, calling out day by day fresh intelligence, needing 

 considerable capital to be expended liberally and skilfully, and 

 indebted for its success to principles the result of the severest 

 science. 



There is not an agricultural county, I believe, in England, 

 in which the face of the earth does not tell of the vast progress 

 made iu this most important matter of farming. It is fast 

 turning fields into gardens. The order and cleanliness of the 

 tilth, the neatness of the fences, the luxuriant crops, the well- 

 appointed buildings, the variety, the ingenuity of the imple- 

 ments used, their great value, the application of steam as the 

 master-power of work for the granary, the fold and sheds — all 

 this has come so gradually on us, and yet so coming has so 

 rapidly developed its results, that I think we are scarcely yet 

 alive to the real nature of the rural revolution at our own 

 doors; its onward course seems to heed no check, to be ap- 

 palled by no doubt. There is at this moment of low prices 

 the most active competition for large farms, and agricultural 

 machinists, reckless of expense, are seizing steam after the 

 manner of Rarey, determined to force that power into more 

 service, to make it sweat its vapour and earn its coals, even at 

 the plough. 



What of the tenantry ? Just what common sense would 

 have predicted — the demand has found the supply. Men of 

 sufficient capital and enterprise could not have been enlisted 

 as tenant?, under the new aspect of things, except on favour- 

 able conditions. Improved systems of tenure, combining more 

 liberty to the tenant with sufficient security to the landlord ; 

 the prospect of a more permanent, more independent occupa- 

 tion ; farm-houses built with reference to the fair demand for 

 comfort and convenience, which men embarking large capital 

 had a right to expect ; buildings adapted to the nature and 

 requirements of good modern farming — these have availed to 

 secure to good landlords a choice of really good tenants. Such 

 tenants have proved themselves ever ready, as the rule, to fol- 



