14 AN AGRICULTURAL FAGGOT. 



their food, dine himself, and at four go back to his cattle and 

 give them more fodder, and getting into his barn make ready 

 their food for next day, not forgetting to see them again 

 before going to his own supper at six. After supper he is to 

 mend his shoes by the fireside for himself and his family, or 

 beat and knock hemp and flax, or pitch and stamp apples or 

 crabs for cider or verjuice, or else grind malt, pick candle- 

 rushes, or " do some husbandry office within doors till it befall 

 eight o'clock." Then he shall take his lantern, visit his cattle 

 once more, and go with all his household to rest. 



There had been little change among the rank and file 

 of farmers until the latter part of the eighteenth century. 

 Farmers then lived, thought and farmed like farmers 

 of the thirteenth century. They were suspicious of new 

 methods and distrusted a young man who disobeyed 

 the saws and maxims of their forefathers. Farmers like 

 Bakewell began to impress them with the possibility that 

 " new-fangled notions " might have some good in them, 

 and great landowners began to devote themselves to 

 agricultural education in its practical sense. Coke of 

 Holkham was the most influential of these teachers, and 

 his annual sheep shearings provided the earliest course 

 of agricultural instruction. Nor was the written word 

 wanting. Arthur Young and Marshall spread the light 

 far and wide, and their descriptions of what was done by 

 the more progressive farmers appealed even more forcibly 

 than their injunctions of what should be done. The 

 new race of farmers were better educated, and more 

 enterprising than their predecessors. Holdings became 

 larger and offered greater scope for energy and experi- 

 ment. Of the Lincolnshire farmers Arthur Young, who 

 was not addicted to needless compliment, wrote in 

 1799 :— 



Industrious, active, enlightened, free from all foolish and 

 expensive show. . . . They live comfortably and hospitably, 

 as good farmers ought to live ; and, in my opinion, are 

 remarkably free from those rooted prejudices which sometimes 

 are reasonably objected to this race of men. 



