The Landowner 



is not of the right sort ? 



The Hfe of a Danish younger son, Hving in a 

 dehghtful old manor house, making his hving, 

 and a good one, out of mother-earth, is surely 

 more attractive than a business career or the 

 drudgery of an office in a town. 



I have drawn this picture more for the sake 

 of contrasting the two systems than with any 

 hope that the Danish customs could at present 

 be adopted in our own country. 



I have made certain criticisms in this chapter, 

 and in bringing it to an end I must take this 

 opportunity of saying that I do not make them 

 from any feeling of disloyalty to my class. I 

 have simply mentioned specific features in our 

 existing system of landlordism which appear to 

 me prejudicial to the agricultural industry, and 

 which ought therefore to be remedied. Taken 

 as a class I believe the present landed pro- 

 prietors to be quite as capable of good and 

 efficient work as any likely to succeed them as 

 large landowners. 



Before I had to do with land I spent a good 

 deal of my time abroad, and was generally heed- 

 ful to learn anything I could about the treat- 

 ment of land. It is, then, only natural that I 

 should view the situation rather differently from 

 the man who inherits an estate after being in 

 the main brought up upon it, or after having 

 passed his earlier years in military, naval or 



