dormant ; that what now affords scarce provision for a few vile sheep,* witliout form, without coats 

 of any value, might, by a small effort, be metamorphosed into rich pastures, abounding with as useful 

 sheep as any in the island. I say a small effort, for nothing more is wanting but at proper points to 

 draw out the water by boring, which now poisons large tracts of land, and to introduce it upon the sur- 

 face by the method, which irrigators call catch-work, and in many parts by introducing Salter's method 

 of dibbling pulse. But this is not all which renders Cumberland distressing to a farmer : enormous rents, 

 from two to four pounds per acre, with servants' wages and labour out of all bounds, and a cllmatet 

 where there is perpetual rain, can never gladden the farmer's heart, or enable him to carry on business 

 systematically. The consequence is, there are no farmers : there are men who rent each a small por- 

 tion of land, living in hovels, and employing a few women in the field, and with a few potatoes to add 

 to their oat cake and make themselves a meal, lingering a life of slavery, but no farmers.^ I could not 

 but contrast this state of things with what I had left in Norfolk, and would have exclaimed in rapture 

 upon you Norfolk farmers, what often used to escape my boyish lips, 



O foYtunatos nimiiwi, sua si bona norint, 



Agricolas § 



were I not sufficiently acquainted with you to say, it is not perfectly applicable to you at the present 

 day, II because you not only are sensible of your advantages^ but you have the gratitude, the generosity to 

 acknowledge the cause. You know and fear not to reverence your patron, whose name, gentlemen, 

 has reached Skiddaw's tops, and is as well known on all its sides, and as much revered as in Norfolk itself. 

 After this representation of the state of agriculture in Cumberland, is it possible I should be able to 

 state any practises there used,^f which can prove advantageous to you ? I know not. You will be the 

 best judges when you have heard them, and famed as you are for system, let not economy be overlooked 

 by you : let artificial farming claim your attention. You see, what it will do in watering meadows.— 

 You find there an -early and double spring-produce, a treble summer, and an aftermath equal, if not su- 



* These sheep properly selected, and put to Southdown tups judiciously chosen, would produce a very valuable cross of 

 sheep. 



t During my stay it rained perpetually, and much corn was green in the field. 



X I speak comparatively and with reference to the Norfolk farmers particularly. 



§ In English — Farmers happy beyond expression, if they did but know their advantages. 



11 Forty years ago the rent roll of the first estate in this county, I believe, did not amount to more than j^4000 a 

 year, and the tenants, except one or two, were all poor, and little better than boors ; at the present day, the rent roll 

 is nearer to 40,0001. and the tenants are all rich, the best farmers in the island, and form part of a most respectable 

 yeomanry with an urbanity of manners highly creditable. 



IT Notwithstanding this state of the agriculture of Cumberland in general, the practice upon Mr. Curwen's farm is 

 really good, and his crops abundant. He ploughs deep, has a great quantity of the best manure at command, \it. 

 Soaper's waste from Dublin, the ashes of his collieries, and the scrapings of the town of Workington, and follows the 

 four years course of cropping, viz. a green crop and a corn crop alternately. His green crops are in drills at large inter- 

 vals, for the sake of ploughing between them, except the clover and some colewort crops, and his wheat is drilled at 

 iiioe inches. I shall take an opportunity of shewing you the advantage of this mode of tillage in the turaip crop at a fu- 

 ture time — in the mean time I beg to state, that turnip crops drilled upon manure laid in rows, at three feet intervals, 

 will produce to the amount of between forty and fifty tons per acre. 



I shall think myself obliged to any farmer who will allow me to weigh eleven yards square of any green crop he has-. 



