Farminr/ of Leicestershire. 32b 



differs from the true sort by the absence of mica. The stones 

 from this are cut to form streets, immense quantities being sent 

 to London for this purpose. 



On the average about 150 men are employed at these works, 

 the whole being managed with much skill by the junior partner, 

 Mr. Breedon Everard, whose farm we have noticed. 



Pasture Land. 



The farmer's chief interest in this county centres in the pas- 

 tures, which occupy one-half at least of its entire area. 



"Their history," writes the late Mr. Gisborne in 1849, "is 

 singular. A generation with Avhich many of us who are still 

 in green old age have had personal intercourse, saw these upland 

 pastures in the state of ploughed common fields, the enormous 

 ridges having been produced by centuries of upward ploughing." 

 " When enclosed and devoted to pasture, these lands were not 

 sown with artificial grasses, but were left to acquire the turf with 

 which it pleased Nature to clothe them." For forty or fifty 

 years they improved progressively ; from that time they have 

 been stationary at least, if not retrogressive. Except a little 

 and generally very imperfect soughing, they received no improve- 

 ment. Some graziers, to be sure, have diminished the size of 

 their fields by subdividing, and some have increased it by 

 grubbing up fences ; and no doubt such spirited men were in 

 this British Boeotia considered to be improving farmers. But 

 " adhuc sub judice lis est." The real improvements in agri- 

 culture passed by these men, or were brought to their doors 

 without exertion on their part. 



Furthermore he says : " A few years ago we should have 

 looked for the least improved district of agricultural England 

 from the top of Robin-a-Tiptoes," (a conical hill of considerable 

 eminence near Tilton-on-the-Hill.) " No prospect, in an agricul- 

 tural point of view, could be more melanchol}-. Large spongy 

 pasture-fields, so encumbered with vast ant-hillocks that nothing 

 but an accomplished hunter could gallop among them with 

 safety, bounded by rambling fences — land of considerable power 

 and inconsiderable produce. ' 1 went by the field of the slothful, 

 and lo it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered 

 the face thereof, and the fence thereof was broken down. Then 

 I saw and considered it well ; I looked upon it and received 

 instruction.' " * 



This not over-complimentary description of the graziers he 

 attributes to the fact of their enjoying a monopoly in the produc- 

 tion of beef, — stall-feeding being then in its swaddling clothes. 



* ' Quarterly Review,' No. clxviii, p. 419. 



