PARTICULAR EXAMPLES OF IMPROVEMENT. 485 



LXXXVIII. PARTICULAR EXAMPLES OF IMPROVEMENT. 



I have spoken of the preparation of the land, by culture, for 

 the deposit of the seed, under the heads of ploughing, subsoiling, 

 paring, deep-stirring, scarifying, and harrowing ; but there were 

 two processes going on, in Cornwall, of so peculiar a character 

 that I deem it proper to detail them. 



1. TEHIDY. The first was at Tehidy, the residence of Lady 

 Bassett, under the direction of an intelligent and accomplished 

 agriculturist, a gentleman well established in the principles, and 

 familiar with the practices, of agriculture, in the best cultivated 

 districts of Scotland, and who was employed not merely to put 

 the home-estate under a proper course of management, but, by 

 example, counsel, advice, encouragement, and rewards, to assist 

 and induce the tenants on the property to abandon the objection 

 able and profitless modes of husbandry which they had long 

 followed, and introduce a better system, which the experience 

 of the most improving and best farmers in the country had 

 sanctioned. 



An extensive tract of land on the sea-coast was underlaid, 

 about three inches below the surface, with a compact bed of flint 

 stones, of four and six inches in depth, and might indeed be very 

 properly called macadamized. Vegetation on such land was 

 almost hopeless, for the mould, or vegetable matter, on the 

 surface, had little depth, and no plough or cultivator could pene 

 trate this obstinate mass of stones. But this farmer undertook 

 to remove with pickaxes this entire mass of stones, and had 

 accomplished a considerable tract when I had the pleasure to 

 visit it. The piles of stones lay as thick, as and very much larger, 

 than cocks of hay, upon the field, preparatory to their being 

 carted away, for the making or repairing of roads. Under this 

 layer of stones was found a soil which could be brought into, 

 and, under proper manuring, would liberally reward, good culti 

 vation. The Cornish men, who, in the capacity of miners, are 

 accustomed to face difficulties of no ordinary magnitude, and 

 will march up against the brazen walls of a copper mine, where 

 they may pick and hammer away for weeks and months with- 

 41* 



