128 TEN YEARS IN SWEDEN. 



by a countryman of his own (where, by the way, we are 

 told that much of the land in England is in far worse con- 

 dition than in Sweden, and worse managed), to give us his 

 gratuitous opinion that the cause of such bad farming) in 

 England, is the despotic manner in which the tenant farmers 

 are treated by their landlords, the rich English lords, who, 

 according to the said editor, are worse than Kussians, and 

 who only care to hold their tenants under, that they may 

 trample over their lands with their horses, dogs, and steeple 

 chases ! 



I would ask the worthy editor where he supposes the 

 income of these " storm ricke" lords, as he terms them, 

 would come from, if the tenant's land were destroyed by his 

 landlord's horses, and steeple chases ? 



However, as far as I have seen of them (and this has not 

 been a little), the English farmers are quite able to " hold 

 their own/' and as for steeple-chases, I wish the sapient 

 editor could see one in some of our midland counties, 

 between hunters worth perhaps 150 (3000 rqr.) each, 

 ridden by the farmers their owners, over lands probably in 

 their own occupation. Perhaps, however, he fancies we ride 

 our steeple-chases in the summer ! 



It may probably be in a measure true, as Bishop Agardth 

 says, that it would be better for any land if as much of it 

 as possible were in the hand of the possessor, who worked 

 it himself. So it probably would be, if that possessor 

 were a real farmer, for then he could by working it, gain a 

 much better return on his capital, and have a decided inte- 

 rest in improving his own estate. But I will ask, How could 

 a large landed proprietor in England who owns perhaps ten 

 to twenty thousand acres of good ' ' working land," cultivate 

 it all himself, even if he were a practical farmer? No, he 

 knows better than this. He lets it out in parcels to men 

 of capital who can work it, and contents himself with 

 living a gentleman's life on the ^rental he receives from 

 them. 



The Bishop seems entirely to lose sight of this fact, that 

 farming is quite a business in itself, and that no English farmer 



