The Mismanagement of Landed Property. 37 



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Admitting, then, tliat, under the circumstances of the times, 

 any lease was preferable to none at all, let us now examine 

 their various defects, some of which were, perhaps uncon- 

 sciously, pointed out by the correspondents to the Board. 



It is quite evident that one uniform model would not suit 

 the peculiarities of every district. For example, in Lancashire 

 the introduction of manufactures had tended to minutely 

 divide leasehold property. Each township had one large farm 

 which, from its designation of the "Old Hall," or "Manor 

 House Farm," was obviously at one time the residence of the 

 great proprietor. The rest of the district, more especially 

 where it was suburban, was split up into small holdings from 

 fifty to twenty acres in size. Since immense quantities of 

 milk, hay and grass were required in the large towns, pas- 

 turage and meadov/ predominated over arable land, and espe- 

 cially in the fertile Fylde country the plough had of recent 

 years given place to the scythe. Close to Liverpool cow-keep- 

 ing had already become the chief pursuit of the husbandman, 

 though around Preston, but chiefly on its eastern side, oats, 

 occasionally varied by a crop of potatoes, were grown year 

 after year, until the much abused soil compelled its occupier 

 to bare-fallow. The tradition that the county was the mother 

 of English potato culture, combined with the demand for this 

 vegetable in the towns, had hitherto kept out the turnip. 

 Save a half-hearted attempt on the Wrightington estate in 

 the middle of the century, there is no early record of the culti- 

 vation of this famous root as a field crop, Now though this brief 

 glance at Lancashire husbandry a hundred years ago (very 

 similar to what it is now) proves the necessity of some form of 

 restrictive agreement, it is quite obvious that its clauses would 

 have had to have been framed on very different lines to those 

 in an agreement adapted to the circumstances of any of the 

 neighbouring counties. There are many districts still in 

 Lancashire where no agreement exists, and where a love of 

 his native place (almost as powerful as that of the Irishman) 

 predisposes the farmer to remain generation after generation 

 in one locality and pursue a proper sj^stem of husbandry. 

 Then, too, accessibility to an inexhaustible supply of cheap 



