372 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



who, whether they have sufficient knowledge of Agriculture 

 to manage those estates intelhgently or not, certainly 

 have not the means to keep them in the best condition, 

 according to the ideas of modern days, and to provide liber- 

 ally for the many improvements now called for. This is 

 a stumbling-block which has been growing in size for decades 

 past. " In every county where we found an estate more 

 than usually neglected," so wrote Sir James Caird in 1850-51, 

 " the reason assigned was the inability of the proprietor 

 to make improvements, on account of his encumbrances." 

 Only too many lordly estates have in truth become mere 

 imposing shop windows with poverty at the back of them. 

 One could wish that that were all. However, there are 

 other damaging heirlooms left, handed down from feudal 

 times, when our present land system was devised, not on the 

 economic grounds now advanced in its favour, but because 

 the landlord's tenants were his dependants and retainers ; 

 and the landlord, being above farming, for himself — Mr. 

 A. D. Hall speaks of the " all but universal failure of rich 

 men and corporations, who take up farming, under the 

 management of paid servants " — strongly desired, never- 

 theless, to remain in possession of the land, the ownership 

 of which carried with it, along with some economic benefits, 

 many social and political advantages, which are quite 

 unsuitable to the present day. The social and political 

 privileges, one is glad to think, are gradually being swept 

 away by advancing Democracy. But still enough survive 

 to prevent the matter of land hiring and land renting from 

 being put upon the same purely business footing as other 

 business. Very many landlords think not of doing the 

 best economically by their land, but of administering their 

 estate in best accordance with their own personal fancies 

 and likings. There are plenty of landlords — we had one 

 with very large possessions in vSussex (and he was by no 

 means the only one of his sort in the county) — who in the 

 choice of their tenants carefully consult their own personal 

 political predilections. Our Marquess would not have a 

 tenant, large or small, of the other side in politics be he ever 

 so good a farmer. There are others — I know of one in a 



