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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



of winter feediug. But to bring the country under an im- 

 proved system of mixed husbandry, much, very much, has to 

 be done, and can never bo accomplished without the most 

 hearty co-operation of landlord and tenant. Our lands must 

 be drained, our occupations squared and well fenced, our land 

 cleared, so as to admit of the use of all the new and improved 

 machinery. We must have comfortable and well-arranged 

 homesteads, with well roaded farms. We must be alive to the 

 use of all the artificial manure, not neglecting to keep an eye to 

 the guano vendors, and be wary of the article, and we must 

 not be slow in adopting all the new and improved machinery 

 which tlie wonderful spirit of invention is daily calling into 

 existence. In most of those particulars we are far behind our 

 English and Scotch neighbours. But even this we can now 

 turn to advantage. We can select, from among the myriads 



of improved implements their bkill and industry have invented, 

 those best adapted to our soil and climate, and from among 

 their most improved systems of husbandry we can select those 

 best suited to this country. We can, in fact, make short cuts 

 to all their great improvements. We are, as it were, following 

 in their lee, steering our course by them, and this saves the 

 delay of having to make our own soundings. We are daily 

 coming nearer and nearer to them, and now, with the spirit of 

 agricultural improvement roused in the country, may we not 

 hope soon to steer alongside ? And I hope you will not deem 

 me altogether visionary when I say I hope the day is not far 

 distant when we will freely shake our sheets to the wind, put 

 our helm about, and stand boldly away in the great ocean of 

 agricultural improvement, and even hope soon to leave our 

 late pilots far upon our lee. 



A PRIZE TENANT.— HIS RIGHTS AND WRONGS. 



Amongst my Lord Stamford's Leicestershire posses- 

 sions, and of late years more than usually well known, 

 is a farm called Groby Hall. From it, indeed, the 

 heir-apparent to the property would take his title, and 

 write himself as Lord Grey of Groby. It is not, how- 

 ever, for any such negative showing as this that Groby 

 has become especially famous. It is not as a meet for 

 hounds, or a harbour for pheasants that Groby is now 

 renowned even in Leicestershire. There is something 

 yet better to be said for it. In a district where the 

 example was by no means unnecessary, Groby has risen 

 to the rank of " a model farm." And when we say a 

 model farm, we mean not the mere plaything of the 

 amateur, but the earnest occupation of the man who 

 gives his best energies to the pursuit he has been bred 

 to. Tried by so severe a test as this, there are few 

 places that are, or have been, for some time past so well 

 done by the tenant as Groby Hall. 



For generations past this farm has been held by the 

 same family. From father to son have the Everards 

 succeeded to it ; until at length, on the increasing in- 

 firmities of his parent, the present tenant, Mr. Breedon 

 Everard, who had previously had a smaller occupation 

 on the same estate, entered in turn on Groby Hall. 

 This was in the year 1852. Mr. Everard had already 

 evinced some ability in his profession. His claim, how- 

 ever, to the Hall Farm was soon put to the proof, and 

 as readily established. In 1853, following, or if not in 

 some measure originating a system now coming de- 

 servedly into more general practice. Lord Stamford 

 offered a premium " for the best cultivated farm 

 upon his estates." Mr. Breedon Everard took it. 

 For the next four years the conditions would not 

 allow of his again competing for this particular 

 prize ; but he nevertheless in 1854, 1855, and 

 1856, received all the other prizes of the first- 

 class, amounting to somewhere about twenty pounds 

 per annum. This year he again became eligible to en- 

 ter for "the best farm," and again Mr. Everard took 

 it : — twenty-five pounds for " the best cultivated farm," 

 ten pounds for " the best corn crops," and ten pounds 

 for " the best green crops." Mr. Packe, moreover — 



the member for the county — handsomely gave a prize 

 of thirty pounds for the best cultivated ftrm, not of an 

 estate, but throughout the whole of Leicestershire; and 

 again that of Mr. Breedon Everard was pronounced to 

 be the best. The judge, Jlr. Mason, thus comments on 

 the justice of his award — " This farm is not naturally 

 first-rate land, but the spirited outlay and excellent 

 management of the tenant have made it a model farm 

 in every sense of the word." Mr. Everard had, in 

 fact, in a space of five years, laid out five thousand 

 pounds in improving a farm of something over three 

 hundred acres. 



We can well picture the pride the noble owner of the 

 estate must have in such a tenant as this. Not, be it 

 remembered, a stranger, a new man, with new-fangled 

 notions, who has come and shamed all his people out 

 of their cherished sayings and doings. On the con- 

 trary, it is one of a breed landlords are especially 

 pleased to speak of — " his great-grandfather, his gi-and- 

 father, and his father, had it before him ; and here you 

 see is the old sort doing better than any of them." 

 We know, we are happy to say, very many instances of 

 landlords who encourage this feeling, even towards 

 those doing anything but the best with their property. 

 The agent thinks it his duty to complain, while he is 

 often enough met something in this way: — "Well, 

 you must give him another chance. Go and see 

 what he wants ; and tell him he must manage to get on 

 a little faster. You know I should not like to turn him 

 out, for his father and grandfather were there before 

 him." If we do this with a bad tenant of the old sort, 

 what shall we do with a good one ? Why rank him 

 and show him to our friends and visitors as one of the 

 chief ornaments of the estate. Take foreigners to 

 see him, and demonstrate to them what an English 

 yeoman really is. Let him be jotted down in their 

 note-books, with the patriotism of this ancestor at 

 Naseby, or the more welcome loyalty of some other one 

 earlier still. Let them carry away with them a re- 

 membrance of us, as not only one of the oldest and best 

 families in the Kingdom, but with the oldest and best 

 set of tenantry. Let them dwell on the kindly asso- 



