PKEFACE. 



The encouragement which the first part of this work has 

 received from the pens of lenient critics has prompted me to 

 carry my narrative forward to its conclusion. 



Briefly described, the present volume may be divided into 

 two portions; viz., that belonging to the eighteenth century — 

 a time of germination and growth, and that belonging to the 

 first half of the nineteenth — a time of fruition. The kind of 

 crop which was coming to maturity all through the earlier 

 portion of these two periods may be clearly discerned gar- 

 nered in those pages of the Statute Book which deal with the 

 legislation of the later. Such a harvest was not unaffected by 

 storms and commotions, and the narrative of these, together 

 with an explanation of their causes and results, has led me 

 forward till I found a convenient halting-place at the Repeal 

 of the Corn Laws. 



The last four decades of this present century are fraught 

 with interest, and without doubt pregnant with important 

 future changes, but they embrace a subject more fitted for a 

 history of modern British agriculture than for the work which 

 I now offer to the public. 



Nothing remains for me to do but to express my sincere 

 gratitude to those men of letters who have accorded me so 

 flattering a reception on entering their select circles. 



Russell M. Garnier. 



II. ^ h 



