CHAPTER XV. 



AMATEUE PAKMING. 



The late Mr. Caldecott's delightful illustrations have made 

 every ous familiar with the old ditty, " The Three Jovial 

 Huntsmen." During the species of wild goose chase of which 

 it is a record, the trio come across some indistinct object 

 which one of them affirms to be " a gentleman farmer who has 

 lost his way." The incident illustrates an ignorant prejudice 

 against amateur farming very common at the time we are now 

 discussing. The reader will recall the popular saying quoted 

 in the earlier portion of this work as prevalent in Tudor times, 

 that " it was never merry with poor craftsmen since gentlemen 

 became graziers." Hartlib had declared that few men liked to 

 attempt fresh experiments lest they should earn the reproach- 

 ful appellation of " projectors," and Tull's new process, we have 

 said, was strongly objected to by the professional husbandman 

 because the practice of fresh innovations was considered un- 

 wise on holdings where, whatever the results of the husbandry 

 might be, a rent was payable.^ H any further evidence be re- 

 quired, we have only to remind the reader of the short descrip- 

 tion already given of the difficulties experienced by northern 

 gentlemen in introducing turnip drilling into their particular 

 neighbourhoods, and then compare this episode with what 

 took place in countries where this prejudice was not so 

 strong. 



Thus into France, for example, so Professor Symonds of 

 Cambridge informed his countrymen through the medium of 



* Even gentlemen themselves (Arthur Young, for example) had to write 

 articles to explain why amateur farming generally failed in a pecuniary 

 sense. Vide Annals of Agriculture, vol. i. p. 389. 



326 



