The Making of the Land. 2 1 1 



Some of the objections to the system of enclosing disappeared 

 later on when the inducement of high prices of corn and low 

 prices of labour seemed to invite the farmer to extend the area 

 of his corn tillages ; but at any rate in practical farming 

 circles the objections to enclosing overruled the advantages at 

 this period, as we shall see before we have finished. We must, 

 however, first draw attention to the solution of the chief diffi- 

 culties just described, brought about by the discovery of a fresh 

 farming economy. 



It was the scientific agriculturist who came to the rescue, 

 and succeeded just when all means, constitutional and uncon- 

 stitutional, seemed to have failed. The mixed farm, neither 

 so large as the great grass tracts of the flockmaster nor so 

 small as the arable tenancies created by Parliament, found 

 occupation for all the industrial sections of the agricultural 

 community. On such a holding a farmer might test the ex- 

 periments of Jethro Tull in turnip-drilling, and at the same 

 time follow out Bakewell's hints on sheep-breeding. In cases 

 where the enclosure was as often arable as grassland, there 

 was room for the ploughman as well as the shepherd. Land- 

 owners, who, if they farmed at all, had hitherto converted their 

 estates into the kind of sheep tracts now common in Australia, 

 began to take an interest in the breeding of cattle and in the 

 cultivation of winter feeding stuffs. Any East Anglian farmer 

 could see with his own eyes what mixed husbandry was like 

 by paying a visit to " Turnip " Townshend's estates. Several 

 of the leading agriculturists in Europe had made a pilgrimage 

 to Dishley, to see the novelty of sheep reared for their mutton ; 

 and Tull's method of pulverising the soil was not only a topic 

 of conversation for agricultural sages as far north as the 

 Hebrides,^ but a subject of literary interest throughout the 

 Continent.^ Plenty of northern landowners, such as Lords 

 Cathcart, Stair ^ and Hopetown, Sir John Dalrymple and Cock- 



* Vide, the account of the disputation between Doctors Johnson and 

 Campbell, in Boswell's Lift of Johnson. 



^ His book was translated into several foreign languages. 



* Lord Stair is said by some to have introduced the turnip into Scot< 

 land. 



