Preface, vii 



reformers will learn moderation if they give more attention to 

 the historical side of the question. Popular rights have no . 

 doubt from time to time been encroached upon by seignorial 

 agencies, but the repeated expenditure of individual capital 

 has long since rendered the past irrevocable, and even the 

 Gracchi recognised that the squatters on the Ager Publicus 

 were entitled to compensation for unexhausted improvements 

 when they promulgated a scheme for their eviction. 



There is another section of the public for which this book has 

 been more especially undertaken. I allude to the Casual Reader ; 

 and it has astonished me to find, by personal experience, how 

 many may be included under this heading. In my intercourse 

 with the various classes engaged in some form of industry on 

 large estates, I have frequently heard a want expressed for in- 

 formation on the historical side of their employment. Short, 

 simple histories of our Land Laws, our Agriculture, our 

 Gardening, etc., would find many readers amongst that por- 

 tion of the community which frequents our Free Libraries ; and 

 some day, if I meet with any encouragement in my present 

 undertaking, and when I have carried it down to the latest 

 date, I hope to attempt such a work on Agriculture alone. 



Frequently, when engaged in my business, but more especi- 

 ally two years ago, whilst writing my book on Land Agency, 

 I had been prompted to undertake some such work as this 

 by the discovery of much in our landed system that was in- 

 congruous and inexplicable, except when opened to the under- 

 standing by the key of history. No doubt what I have felt 

 must have been also experienced by many others engaged in 

 Land Agency, and I therefore venture to hope that interested 

 readers may be found in the ranks of my profession, as well as 

 amidst those of other practical men associated with the soil. 



It remains for me, whose excuse for entering on so wide and 

 deep a subject is based principally on qualifications attained by 

 many years of practical experience, to ofter some apology to 

 those more fitted by scholarship and research for such an 

 enterprise. 



Lord Cathcart, in his admirable monograph on the life of 

 Jethro Tull in the Eoyal Agricultural Society's Journal of last 



