134 AGRICULTURAL SURVEY 



call it fo) feems to have encreafed in proportion 

 to the decline of fairs and pitched markets. If it 

 were the cuftom for the great farmer, as formerly, 

 to bring - his corn to the public market, as is flill 

 the cafe at Uxbridge, Newbury, and fome other 

 places, the home diflricls would never be fhort of 

 corn ; but w T hile the great farmer and miller are 

 allowed to fettle large bargains, over a bottle of 

 wine, in a private room, from the exhibition of a 

 mere pocket fample, a country may at any time 

 be kept m the dark, as to the real quantity of corn 

 in it, and little farmers, by this means, mud be 

 quite ruined. I wifh, therefore, to fee fairs en- 

 couraged, and public markets revived : the lad of 

 which are all reduced, in this county, (as far as 

 relates to corn) to fale by fample only. 



But, after all, it is the excefs of the grievance 

 which 1 wifh to correct. — The evil is now fo great, 

 that there are many farms of icool. a year, in this 

 county, and Mr. North's farm at Rougham, was 

 lately 1700I. but I have the fatisfa&ion to be able 

 to fay, that he is now dividing it into four. The 

 letting lands in fuch large farms, as this was, is 

 evidently bad policy, if it were merely as to leffen- 

 ing the choice of tenants ; for where they have 

 one, in the prefent inftance, capable of carrying 

 on fuch farms, they would have twenty in the 

 other. 



I will, 



