264 ECHOES OF OLD COUNTY LIFE. 



After the year 1835 a marked improvement rapidly 

 took place, both in the habits of the tenants, in the 

 management of their farms, in their households, and in 

 the general style of their living. The farmers, their 

 wives and families, began to dress as well as their 

 fellows in the towns, and in their household began to 

 practise the social amenities of life ; the farmer rode 

 a good horse to hounds, and the education of his 

 family now left little to be desired. All this is as it 

 should be. Drudgery is not the end-all of life. As a 

 boy I saw the serviceable smock-frock give way to 

 broadcloth, and a decent horse and' trap take the place 

 of the old market conveyances ; I saw agriculture 

 awake from days of torpor and depression and exalted 

 into its rightful standing, as one of the great scientific 

 industries of our nation ; I have lived to see it 

 again depressed and reduced, and once more the 

 rural districts pervaded with a spirit of doubt and 

 unrest and uncertainty in what the future may have in 

 store. I make no pretence to play the part of a prophet ; 

 I merely have tried to sketch in some sort of rough 

 outline things I myself have seen and know ; but, alike 

 to those that are disheartened and those that bestir 

 themselves overmuch, I would quote averse the country- 

 folk in my day used to sing occasionally at their 

 gatherings — 



" The race is not ahvays got 



By them Avot strive and for it run, 

 Nor the Battel to them peopel 



Wot's got the longest gun ." 



THE END. 



