250 FURNESS AND THE LAKE DISTRICT 



magnificent soil, capable of growing anything and 

 with a great natural reserve of fertility ; it was level 

 and easy to work, the climate was good, and the rail 

 and markets were close at hand. Yet in Bowland 

 we had seen poorer land and more remote commanding 

 just double the rent. Similar differences can be found 

 all over the country ; there are fashionable districts 

 where both rents and farming are high, other districts 

 where the land and opportunities are equal or better, 

 and yet the whole level of production is lower both 

 for the tenant and the landlord. This only shows 

 how difficult it is to fit the economists' definitions 

 of rent to the thing as it exists. That rent is the 

 fluctuating margin between the profit made by the 

 land and the rate at which the tenant is content to 

 live represents a tendency and not a fact ; and none 

 of the other definitions that we have found in the 

 political economy text-books seem to meet the facts 

 any more closely. 



In Furness we still had time to see the famous herd 

 of Shorthorns and the Shropshire sheep belonging to 

 the landlord of the farms we had been visiting. The 

 Shorthorns contained a considerable infusion of the 

 fashionable Scotch blood, and were beef cattle rather 

 than the milking type so general in the country we had 

 just left ; the Shropshires were again strangers in that 

 countryside, though well known in the great show rings. 

 One talks lightly enough about the improvement of our 

 live stock and the possibilities that the modern studies 

 of heredity have opened to the breeder, but in face 

 of flocks and herds of such perfection as we then saw 

 it seems difficult to conceive of any further advances. 

 For the mere manufacture of beef and mutton they 

 leave nothing to be desired, so truly have the instincts 

 of the practical man, working with great numbers and 



