226 MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 



and some hobby-horse must engage his atten- 

 tion, it therefore becomes a question for their 

 consideration in what way they can best employ 

 themselves. I would earnestly recommend that 

 gentlemen should endeavour to improve their 

 lands, and lay the foundation of fertilising them : 

 and instead of spending perhaps squandering 

 their money in follies abroad, as far as possible, 

 spend it at home. The late good and wise first 

 Lord Ravensworth used to say, there was nothing 

 grateful but the earth. "You cannot/' said he, 

 "do too much for it; it will continue to pay tenfold 

 the pains and labour bestowed upon it." Estates 

 so managed would then exhibit the appearance 

 of clean-weeded nurseries. As an act of justice 

 due to the industrious farmer, he ought, on enter- 

 ing upon his lease, to have his farm valued, and, 

 when his lease is out, valued again ; and whatever 

 improvements he may have made, ought to be 

 paid for on his leaving. I am well aware that 

 these remarks may not be relished by those whose 

 pride, dictated by the wish to domineer, will not 

 give in to this fair proposal, for fear of the inde- 

 pendent spirit it might rear; but it must be allowed 

 that the landlord could come to no loss by it, 

 and that the community would be greatly benefited 

 by the adoption of such a plan. Those gentlemen 

 who have moorlands, however exposed and bleak 

 they may be, may yet do something to make them 

 more productive, by enclosing them with dry stone 

 dykes, beset and bound with ivy, and intersected 

 with whin hedges ;* and this shelter would form 



* The very clippings of which (as noticed before) would be 

 healthful fodder for both sheep and cattle. 



