Book III. EXECUTION OF IMPROVEMENTS. 757 



4608. Examples as stimuli to improvement may be exhibited in various ways: by etting a farm to a 

 tenant of superior energy, or from a more improved district; by exhibiting improved implements and 

 operations on one particular farm ; by an itinerant ploughman of abilities, accompanied by a smith and 

 carpenter, and with some implements, to go round the estate and instruct each tenant on his own farm • 

 and finally, and perhaps preferably, by inducing every farmer to make a tour into some other district 

 once a year. 



4609. In addition to these modes, appropriate as we consider for two different classes of tenants, Marshal 

 suggests the following as calculated to insure a spirit of improvement among all farmers not of sufficient 

 energy and intelligence. They are to be adopted in various ways, by a proprietor, or by the manager of 

 an estate, who has a knowledge of rural affairs, and who possesses the good will and confidence of its 

 tenantry. 



4610 By personal attention alone much is to be done. By reviewing an estate, once or twice a year • 

 by conversing with each tenant in looking over bis farm ; and by duly noticing the instances of good 

 management which rise to the eye, and condemning those which are bad ; vanity and fear, two powerful 

 stimulants of the human mind, will be roused, and an emulation be created among superior managers - 

 while shame will scarcely fail to bring up the more deserving of the inferior ranks. If, after repeated 

 exhortations, an irreclaimable sloven be discharged as such, and his farm given to another, professedly 

 for his superior qualifications as a husbandman, an alarm will presently be spread over the estate, and 

 none, but those who deserve to be discharged, will long remain in the field of bad management. 



4611. Even by conversation, well directed, something may be done. If, instead of, on the one hand 

 collecting tenants to the audit, as sheep to the shearing, and sending them away, as sheep that are shorn • 

 or, on the other, providing for them a sumptuous entertainment, and committing them to their fate in a 

 state of intoxication ; a repast suited to their conditions and habits of life were set before them; and 

 after this, the conversation bent towards agriculture, by distributing presents to superior managers, and 

 specifying the particulars of excellence for which the rewards or acknowledgments were severally be- 

 stowed ; a spirit of emulation could not fad to arise among the higher classes ; while the minds of the 

 lower order of tenants, and of the whole, would be stimulated and improved by the conversation. 



4612. By encouraging leading men in different parts of a large estate, men who are looked up to by 

 ordinary tenants ; by holding out these as patterns to the rest ; by furnishing them with the means of 

 improving their breeds of stock; by supplying them with superior varieties of crops, and with imple- 

 ments of improved constructions : and, in recluse and backward districts, much mav be done by tempting 

 good husbandmen, and expert workmen, from districts of a kindred nature, but under a belter system o'f 

 cultivation, to settle upon an estate. 



4613. By an experimental farm, to try new breeds of stock, new crops, new implements, new operations 

 and new plans of management; such as ordinary tenants ought not to attempt, before they have seen 

 them tried. To this important end, let the demesne lands of a large estate, or a sufficient portion of 

 them, be appropriated to a nursery of improvements, for the use of the estate ; to be professedly held out 

 as such, and be constantly open to the tenants ; more particularly to the exemplary practitioners the 

 leading men of the estate, just mentioned ; who, alone, can introduce improvements among the lower 

 classes of an ignorant and prejudiced tenantry: it is in vain for a proprietor to attempt it. On the 

 contrary, the attempt seldom fails to alarm, disgust, and prevent the growth of spontaneous improve- 

 ments. 



4614. Under the present plan of de?/iesne farming, the tenants see expensive works going forward, which 

 they know they cannot copy, and hear of extraordinary profits, by particular articles, which they a're cer- 

 tain cannot be obtained by any regular course of business. They therefore conclude that the whole is 

 mere deception, to gain a pretext for raising the rents of their farms above their value. Whereas, if the 

 demesne lands were held out, as trial grounds, for their immediate benefit, and conducted, as such, in 

 a manner intelligible to them, they would not fail to visit them. Instead of large proprietors attempting 

 to rival the meanest of their tenants, in farming for pecuniary profit, which, on a fair calculation, they 

 rarely, if ever, obtain ; let their views in agriculture be professedly and effectually directed toward the 

 pecuniary advantages of their tenants ; for from these alone can their own arise, in any degree that is 

 entitled to the attentions of men of fortune. Instead of boasting of the price of a bullock, or the produce 

 of a field, let it be the pride of him who possesses an extent of landed property, to speak of the flourish- 

 ing condition of his estates at large, the number of superior managers that he can count upon them and 

 the value of the improvements which he has been the happy means of diffusing among them. Leave' it to 

 professional men, to yeomanry and the higher class of tenants, to carry on the improvements, and incor- 

 porate them with established practices ; to prosecute pecuniary agriculture in a superior manner, and set 

 examples to inferior tenantry. This is strictly their province; and their highest and best view in life. 

 It has been through this order of men, chiefly or wholly, that valuable improvements in agriculture have 

 been brought into practice, and rendered of general use. 



4615. The possessor of an extent of territory has higher objects in view, and a more elevated station to fill. 

 As a superior member of society, it may be said, he has still higher views than those of aggrandising his 

 own income. But how can a man of fortune fill what may well be termed his legitimate station in life 

 with higher advantage to his country, than by promoting the prosperity of bis share of its territory ; by 

 tendering not one field, or one farm, but every farm upon it productive ? This is, indeed, being faithfully 

 at his post : and it is a good office in society, which is the more incumbent upon him, as no other man on 

 earth can of right perform it, valuable as it is to the public. 



Sect. II. General Cautions on the Subject of executing Improvements. 



4616. No work can be prudently commenced until the plan be fully matured, not in 

 idea only, but in diagrams, and in models, if the subject requires them ; in order that 

 every bearing and every hinge may be sufficiently foreknown : the site of improvement 

 being reverted to, again and again, with the draught or the model in hand, until the judg- 

 ment be satisfied and the mind he inspired with confidence. If a proprietor have not 

 yet acquired sufficient judgment within himself, let him consult some one man, or one 

 council of men, in w hose knowledge and judgment he can confide ; and thus fix a rally- 

 ing point. Having brought his plan to a degree of maturity, in this private manner, he 

 may then venture to publish it ; and endeavour to improve it, by the advice of its friends, 

 and the animadversions of its enemies. 



4617. If a jyroprietor wants judgment himself, and a fiend to supply it, let him not 

 attempt the more difficult works of improvement. Yet how often we see, both in public 

 and private life, men engaged in arduous undertakings, embarked on the wide ocean of 

 business, without rudder or compass to guide them, depending on casual information, 

 to help them on their way ! They are consequently ever of opinion with the last persons 

 they converse with. Such men's decisions and operations are always wrong: and foi 



3 C 3 



