VI OF THE SMALL LANDOWNER 109 



his insular prejudices led him to despise them. He was 

 slow, and he was cautious and hide-bound in his antiquated 

 traditions. They seem, says one authority, speaking- of the 

 statesmen of Cumberland, to inherit with the estates of 

 their ancestors their notions of cultivating them. 1 As Tull 

 himself remarked, the farmers said of his clover, that 

 gentlemen might sow it if they pleased, but they had to 

 pay their rent. Besides, few of these writers had practical 

 experience, and failed when they put their theories to the 

 test. ' Tusser teaching thrift never throve. Gabriel Plattes, 

 the counsellor, who boasted that he could raise thirty bushels 

 of wheat to the acre, died in the srteets for want of bread. 

 Jethro Tull, instead of gaining an estate, lost two by his 

 horse-hoeing husbandry. Even Arthur Young failed twice 

 in farm management before he began his invaluable tours/ 2 

 Even if prejudice had not stood in the way the small 

 farmer had not the necessary capital to adopt scientific 

 'farming. ' Where,' asks A. Young, ' is the little farmer to 

 be found who will cover his whole farm with marl at the 

 rate of 100 or 150 tons an acre? who will drain his land at 

 the expense of 2 or 3 an acre ? who will pay a heavy 

 price for the manure of towns and convey it thirty miles 

 by land carriage ? . . . who to improve the breed of his 

 sheep will give 1,000 guineas for the use of a single ram 

 for a single season ? who will send across the kingdom to 

 distant provinces for new implements and for men to use 

 them ? 3 ' Deduct from agriculture all the practices that 

 have made it flourishing in this island and you have 

 precisely the management of small farms/ 



1 Benley and Colley, Cumberland, quoted Rae, Contemp. Review, 

 Oct., 1883. 



2 Prothero, Pioneers, p. 59 ; cf. also The Pleasant Land of France, 

 \p. 45, for other unsuccessful theorists abroad. 



3 A. Young, Tour in France, quoted in Prothero, Pioneers, p. 74 ; 

 Mantoux, p. 148. 



