Jdvancement of Agrkidlural Science. 381 



preserved with greater care by a cottager, than is usual, or perhaps 

 practicable^, on an extensive farming establishment. The cottager 

 also, being unable to resort to any artificial substitutes, feels more 

 immediately and more palpably the loss sustained by his crops, 

 from any waste of the limited quantity of animal manure he is 

 able to provide, and is therefore more strongly and more fre- 

 quently admonished of the utility of preserving all he has, unim- 

 paired both as to quantity and quality. 



The practice too of feeding the cattle in stalls, or in a yard 

 where their dung can accumulate in the mass, and therefore 

 does not waste as it vvould do were it scattered over the field, is a 

 practice equally economical, v/hether adopted on a large or on a 

 small establishment. 



But with regard to the system of letting land in portions too 

 considerable to be kept in order by the labourer after his hours 

 of work are over, and yet small enough to require the care of only 

 a single family, I think that reasons may be assigned for its suc- 

 ceeding at Eastbourne, although, generally speaking, it prove dis- 

 advantageous. In the first place, the greater number of those 

 persons who find it answer their purpose to rent three or four 

 acres of ground at the same liigh rate which others pay for smaller 

 plots attended to during their hours of leisure, combine with 

 farming occupations the office of village schoolmaster, and are 

 thus, as I have already explained, indemnified by the gratuitous 

 labour of their scholars. Now, if the tenant has no more land than 

 he can well look after, and if he be able to exert sufficient influence 

 over his boys to secure the full benefit of their exertions during 

 their hours of manual labour, it is conceivable, that he may be 

 able to cultivate his ground at a smaller expense than the large 

 farmer can do with hired labourers. Moreover, as a man capable 

 of directing to advantage the labours of nineteen or twenty lads 

 must possess some intelligence, it may readily happen that he 

 will communicate the same elementary instruction in a shorter 

 space of time than is effected by a village schoolmaster of the 

 ordinary stamp. 



When, therefore, the proceedings of the master are sufficiently 

 overlooked to guard against the indulgence of the temptation 

 which would naturally beset him, of evading that part of his duties 

 which is designed for the benefit of his pupils, seminaries founded 

 on such a principle may prove eminently useful ; and in America, 

 especially among the New England States, I heard of several of 

 a superior description, in which a similar system was resorted to. 

 It must, however, be confessed that a school of this kind, if not 

 properly watched, might, in the hands of an unscrupulous master, 

 be more likely than those on the common plan to lead to abuses, 

 of which those of Dotheboys Hall, immortalised in * Nickleby/ 

 would furnish in some respects no unapt representation. 



