112 SCIENCE WITH PRACTICE, 1845 TO 1873 



labourers has considerably decreased. Whether this result 

 is satisfactory may be doubted ; but it is indisputably a 

 remarkable proof of the progress of scientific agriculture. 

 Another sign of the change is tenant right. In the days 

 of Protection English farming was conducted upon a system 

 which required little or no capital. Farmers brought 

 nothing upon their holdings in the shape of costly manure 

 or expensive feeding stuffs ; they laid down no pipes for 

 drainage, and used no manure beyond that which was 

 produced upon the farm ; their premises were dilapidated 

 and poverty-stricken. They themselves were men of little 

 enterprise, capital, or intelligence, farming by rule of 

 thumb and from hand to mouth, investing in no improve- 

 ments, aiming at nothing more than to make both ends 

 meet. The essence of ancient tillage was exhaustion 

 followed by fallow. Nothing was spent in replacing the 

 productive qualities which the crops had withdrawn. All 

 this was now reversed. The essence of the modern system 

 was restoration of fertility ; and tenants had at their 

 command a host of resources, the use of which entailed a 

 large expenditure of capital without immediate profits. 

 High farming extracts more from the land ; but it also 

 puts more into it and increases instead of diminishing its 

 value. Common law gave no compensation to outgoing 

 tenants except for their way-going crops, and everj^thing 

 affixed to the soil belonged to the landlord. Under such 

 circumstances tenants had little encouragement to expend 

 money in manures, drainage, or a course of skilful farming : 

 without capital, improvements were impossible ; but capital 

 is proverbially too shy to be attracted where no security is 

 forthcoming. The necessary outcome of the changed 

 system of farming had been recognised by Mr. Pusey in 

 1848. Before that time the cry for tenant right was un- 



