38 AGRICULTURE. 



to the field, was unable to find the stick, which, having in 

 the interval been smothered by the growing grass, was only 

 discovered when the pasture was eaten bare in the suc- 

 ceeding winter. 



The history of the grazing lands in the Midland Counties 

 is singular. For no other district has nature done so much, 

 and industry and science so little. A generation, with 

 which many of us who are still in a green old age have had 

 personal intercourse, saw these upland pastures in a state 

 of ploughed common fields, the enormous ridges having 

 been produced by many centuries of ploughing, the furrow 

 being always turned upwards. These ridges still remain 

 (and he is a good hunter who skims them cleverly), very 

 frequently describing an easy double curve. When inclosed, 

 and devoted to pasture, these lands were not sown with 

 artificial grasses, but were left to acquire the turf with which 

 it pleased Nature to clothe them. For forty or fifty years 

 they improved progressively. From that time, they have 

 been stationary, at least, if not retrogressive. Except a 

 little, and generally very imperfect, soughing,* they have 

 received no improvement. Lord Gardner and Mr. Little 

 Gilmour fly over the same ox-fence now, which was charged 

 of yore by The Meynell, Lindo, and Germaine. Some 

 graziers, to be sure, have diminished the size of their 

 fields by subdividing, and some have increased it by grub- 

 bing up fences, and no doubt such spirited men were, in 

 this British Bceotia, considered to be improving farmers. 

 But " adhuc sub judice Us est" The real improvements 

 in agriculture passed these men by, or were brought to 

 their doors without exertion on their parts : take as an 

 instance the improvement of cattle, and the improved 

 mode of conveying them to market. They had a monopoly, 

 and the sluggishness which attends monopolies. But John 

 Bull will never submit to be stinted in his beef. 



To avoid, however, all disagreeable points somehow 

 land of a quality which would graze cattle had become 

 * An old Midland county term for Under-draining. EDITOR. 



