358 History of the English Landed Interest. 



advocated and opposed. The whole table is put into a roar 

 by some witticism of Erskine's, who, inexpert, therefore un- 

 interested in the discussion, makes it an excuse to point a joke 

 against his own profession.^ This great assembly, lasting fully 

 as long as the Woburn one, was the outcome of those before- 

 mentioned homely discussions between on the one hand a 

 landlord feeling after agricultural enlightenment, and on the 

 other hand a few ignorant husbandmen brought face to face 

 with their own deficiencies. Now the one is considered the 

 founder the others are recognised as the foremost exponents of 

 a world-famed system. 



But it is time that we ceased to visit the homes of England's 

 agricultural worthies. Our object has merely been to expose 

 the fallacies and prejudices which even now encompass the 

 practice of amateur farming. If our readers are still uncon- 

 vinced of the importance of the assistance afforded to this 

 national industry by what they have now read of Tull, Young, 

 Bakewell, Coke, etc., we shall never convince them by per- 

 severing in the same direction.^ If on the contrary they 

 estimate such efforts at their true worth, let them draw on 

 their own memories and experiences for examples to supple- 

 ment our list. Let them recall to mind the familiar names of 

 nineteenth-century experts. Lord Althorp and Messrs. Booth 

 and Bates, renowned for their shorthorns; the Prince of 

 Wales, Lord Walsingham, Jonas Webb, and Mr. Colman for 

 their Southdowns, Lords Wenlock and Zetland for their 

 Shropshires, and Sir John Lawes and Dr. Gilbert for their 

 experiments in husbandry. The only danger in enumerating 

 a few names such as these is the probability of appearing to 

 slight by omission the merits of many equally worthy of 

 mention. It matters not who of these were successful in a 

 pecuniary point of view and who were not. " The thriving 



^ Fifty Years of my Life, vol. ii. p. 115. G. T., Earl of Albemarle. 



^ I would fain, did space permit, draw a pen and ink sketch of Robert 

 Brown, who farmed at Markle, in Haddingtonshire, in 1794. He was one 

 of those invaluable mortals who combined scholarship with practice. His 

 writings were translated into German and French, and many foreigners 

 came to see for themselves the practice which his literary works had 

 elevated to European renown. 



