A Journey to London in 1840. 149 



rate the keep of 400,000 horses cannot be less than £4,000,000. 

 But the probability is that the cost is a third more or £6,000,000. 

 The profit and advantage that woiilrl immediately accrue to the 

 English farmer if he should adopt a better system of husbandry, 

 and to the nation remotely but not less certainly, are altogether 

 astoni.shing and may be valued in the aggregate at £10,000,000 

 sterling. If the English farmer would introduce the twodiorse 

 plough of Scotland he would not merely save all that I ha^'e said 

 but would save, in addition, the e.xtra service required. The 

 English, too, are Ijehind in the matter of farming imj^lements. 

 Their plough is rude and ineffectual, quite different from an im- 

 proved Scottish plough : their harrow is generally of wood, not of 

 iron. The threshing machine is by no means uni\-ersal, and as to 

 its being driven by steam the idea has never entered the English 

 mind. I forget if I ever saw the onediorse cart. The carts are 

 generallv constructed for two horses, often for three or four. 

 This is all \'er\ well when a vehicle of the size is needed, Init for 

 one time that a two or fourdiorse cart would be re(]uired a ;)ne- 

 horse vehicle would be twenty or fifty times in requisition. The 

 horses are not flriven abreast but in a line one after the other, the 

 power or efficiency of each being thereby diminished according 

 to its distance from the object drawn. Altogether the state of 

 agriculture in England is honourable neither to the intelligence, 

 enterprise, or puldic spirit of the tenant or landlord ; is unfavour- 

 able alike to priwate and public interests, and altogether unworthy 

 of so rich a country blessed with a first-rate climate and soil. 



The English horses, however, both those employed in agri- 

 culture and for pleasure, are of a breed very superior to those in 

 Scotland. Indeed there is no comparison between them. Those 

 in the south are surelv better fed, they are so large, sleek, 

 spirited, and handsome. On a former visit to England I had 

 been much struck with the superior breed of horses ; on the 

 present occasion the disparity appeared to me even greater. Nor 

 are the horses ever over-wrought in England as I fear they too 

 often are in Scotland. England, in short, seemed to me to be a 

 paradise for horses, where they Vive a life of ease and are fed on 

 the fat of the land. 



But I must lea\e the subject of English agriculture and 

 hasten on with my narrative. I arrived at London, as I before 

 said, on FFiday, 22nd May, at a quarter-past one o'clock p.m. 



