A FARM IN THE PEAK OF DERBYSHIRE. 73 



The farm was taken in hand more than half-a-century ago by 

 a young farmer of twenty-three, who a year or two afterwards 

 married the daughter of a yeoman, just over the border in 

 Staffordshire. At that time the land was in a " run-out " and 

 forlorn condition, " hide-bound " with twitch grass and poverty; 

 the walls were dilapidated, the buildings out of repair, and the 

 house as old as it was inconvenient. In those days the farm 

 carried some twenty-five dairy cows and seventy breeding ewes, 

 with young stock in proportion, and four horses, and carried 

 them indifferently well. This young couple, however, had 

 youth, and health, and hope to encourage them three excel- 

 lent gifts in life and they set to work with a will to improve 

 the farm and make it pay. The moorland was the arable part 

 of the farm, and it was repeatedly stimulated with applications 

 of ground bones, three-quarters of a ton to the acre, until at 

 length it yielded an abundance of grass, and excellent crops of 

 oats and turnips excellent, I mean, for such a soil and climate. 



The oats sometimes yielded over 60 bushels, and the turnips 

 over 40 tons, per acre. The soil was cleared of thousands 

 of tons of rocks and stones which were in the way of the 

 plough, and miles of walls were rebuilt, all at the cost of the 

 tenant. After five-and-twenty years of toil and outlay the 

 stock-carrying capacity of the farm was raised to 45 dairy cows 

 and 150 breeding ewes. The cattle were Shorthorns; the 

 horses, Shires ; and the sheep, Leicesters. 



It was a yearly tenancy, unfortunately, and the landlord 

 encouraged the tenant in his outlay on improvements by a 

 promise that the rent should not be raised whilst he, the land- 

 lord, lived. This landlord was W. P. Thornhill, formerly M.P. 

 for the north of the county. For no reason that was ever made 

 known, the landlord went behind his promise a promise that 

 was spontaneously made and, " like a bolt out of the blue," 

 a notice was sent by Taylor, the agent, meaning an increase of 

 rent. This was a blow which shortened the days of the tenant. 

 This episode is placed on record as an instance of the injustice 

 in which landlords and agents could then indulge with impu- 

 nity against a tenant who for more than thirty years had been 



