PREFACE. xiii 



house in his neighbourhood, he could procure for the 

 maintenance of himself and his family. 



The two volumes which I am now offering to the 

 public will leave me, if I have health and opportunities, 

 within measurable distance of the completion of this 

 \vrk, which I undertook, in ignorance of how great 

 the task was, a quarter of a century ago. The interest 

 in these volumes is I submit of a very varied kind. 

 That of the last two will consist mainly in the extra- 

 ordinary zeal, activity and judgement with which the 

 landowners made themselves acquainted with their 

 own estates and with agriculture, undertook most 

 valuable experiments in husbandry, and were the 

 practical teachers of the art to small proprietors, the 

 yeomanry, and the tenant-farmers. There is hardly any 

 service of a public kind which was greater than that which 

 was done to English agriculture by many of the land- 

 owners in the eighteenth century. There is a record of 

 their services in the invaluable Tours of Arthur Young. 



Unhappily, the impulse was transient and speedily 

 exhausted. The long period of high prices, bad finance, 

 and destructive war came on, and the landowner as 

 a rule ceased to be a benefactor, and became an 

 oppressor. I seem to be hearing echoes from the 

 seventeenth century when I read, in a letter addressed 

 by Mr. William Calvert to Sir Eichard Sutton (one of 

 the best landlords of the time), under date of Feb. 5, 

 1 794 1 9 the following observations : 



I'rinted in Lowe's Survey of Notts, a report addressed to the 

 Board of Agriculture of which Arthur Young was Secretary. 



