A Journey to London in 1840. 147 



or old ones could prevail, and such towns as Manchester and 

 Glasgow could not exist. Corn, like cotton or anything else, 

 should be raised with the fewest hands possible or at the cheapest 

 rate, and the surplus exchanged for such other produce as we 

 desire or require. If farms were all small, as in many parts of 

 the Highlands of Scotland, or as in almost all Ireland, the British 

 people would retrograde and become rude and ignorant like the 

 peasantry of Ireland. 



Again, if England enjoyed long leases as Scotland does and 

 if her agriculture was as good as ours, or as it is in the counties of 

 Northumberland and Norfolk, it would be possible to export many 

 millions of quarters of corn, and thus render our Corn Bill a dead 

 letter. The Corn Bill is about the greatest blot on the legisla- 

 tion of this country imaginable, but if we were true to ourselves, 

 if the English landlord knew his real advantage, we could in 

 twelve months from this date shake the nation free from tlie 

 degrading and ruinous trammels of the bread tax. But it is 

 difficult and requires a long time under ordinary circumstances to 

 effect any very considerable change or reform in the habits and 

 prejudices of a people. 



Another circumstance that struc^k me in England was the 

 comparative extent of pasture land. John Bull is evidently a 

 great beef eater. Some of the finest lands in Warwickshire were 

 devoted to pasture. But even these lands were neglected. 

 They were not limed or properly manured, and rushes and other 

 rank and noxious things were disfiguring fields, nay whole dis- 

 tricts, which, under wise management, might have been as clean 

 and beautiful as any royal lawn in England. Besides, they 

 would have been more valuable and would lia\-e yielded better 

 and more kindly pasture. 



The crops generally were very thin though fresh and green 

 in the blade to a degree of richness unknown in Scotland. They 

 were in some instances .so thin that they would not produce two 

 seeds, certainly not more than three or four. They were earlier 

 than the crops in Scotland, but not nearly so productive as the 

 latter were around Edinburgh, and on the Clyde in the neighbour- 

 hood of Glasgow. In other words the crops in England were 

 very considerably inferior (though earlier) to those in the best 

 agricultural districts in Scotland. 



In Scotland, as we pass through any district of it, we find at 



