330 History of the English Landed Interest. 



This is only one of many instances where shrewd common- 

 sense is able to build on the failures of genius a solid success. 

 Sooner or later therefore the professional farmer derived from 

 the amateur the same benefits which his forefathers had ob- 

 tained from the monastic ploughlands or the ecclesiastical 

 tithe owner ; and it cannot therefore be space wasted or time 

 thrown away if we devote a chapter like this to an examina- 

 tion of the lives and characters of the most important amateur 

 farmers who flourished in the last half of the eighteenth 

 century. 



ARTHUR YOUNG. 



Far more influential than TuU, in fact chief in national 

 importance though not in social rank, of all the agriculturists 

 about to be mentioned in this chapter, was Arthur Young. 

 No history of English land would be complete without a care- 

 ful analysis of his character, life and writings, and no chronicler 

 of the agriculture practised a hundred years ago could ignore 

 the man whose name stands out as a landmark between the 

 communal husbandry of the middle ages and the scientific 

 processes of the present day. He forms one of a trio with 

 Cobbett and Caird, who during the last hundred years have 

 attracted by the irresistible power of their pens the public 

 attention to a renewed interest in this important industry. A 

 childhood, nourished amidst all the stately surroundings of a 

 squire's country residence, might have predisposed Young to 

 show a preference for the rights and prerogatives of landed 

 property. Though master of Bradfield Hall, he preferred, how- 

 ever, to assume the social rank of a Suffolk farmer. Had he 

 gone to Eton and the university as his father wished, he might 

 have been more exclusive in his views and more fastidious in 

 his tastes ; but he would certainly never have acquired that 

 wide influence over his countrymen to which it is the lot of 

 few men to attain. 



Gifted as he naturally was with considerable breadth of 

 thought, which would be sure to develop under the widening 



