CONCLUSION. 229 



cult of his own farms, and striving to "sound the 

 bass string " of the matter, by assuming the actual 

 circumstance and position of those whose interests it 

 was his duty to study and understand, shall be stated, 

 with such reflection as most suggests itself to one 

 who, while his spare shelves were filling with ' Ag- 

 ricultural journals/ and the works of Tull, Mills, 

 Liebig, Johnstone, and others ' of that ilk,' still kept 

 an eye upon his Law-books. 



The evil of retarded and discouraged investment in 

 the soil lies deep, and dates far back. It is not the 

 fault of the Farmer : he is the subject, the time-grown 

 and created result of the Legislation, and Custom with 

 the force of legislation, that have made him what he 

 is, and invested him with a step-mother relation to 

 the soil. By the Law of primogeniture applied to 

 Land alone of all other kinds of property and capital, 

 you have set on foot in this country a system which 

 has nearly reached its climax in the amassing and 

 aggregation of land into the hands of few and large 

 owners. The ancient yeoman, the owner of his own 

 farm, is becoming or become an extinct genus ani- 

 malium. By the enormous and factitious costliness, 

 delay, and difficulty attending the Transfer of land, 

 increasing in an inverse ratio with the acreage (for 



