66 



dustry, and temperance, are to be found ; and unfa- 

 vourable as their circumstances may be for the crea- 

 tion of such habits, they are here attended by the 

 usual correspondent results. Some few peasants have 

 been enabled to gain three or four allotments, and to 

 employ their sons or hired servants to work for 

 them ; and there are instances of such persons making 

 a still further progress, and being enabled to purchase 

 estates for themselves. Such cases as these, how- 

 ever, occur so rarely, that though they produce indi- 

 vidual comfort and wealth, they have no perceptible 

 influence on the general mass of society, or on the 

 surplus quantity of agricultural productions. 



As may be naturally inferred, from the system 

 under which labour is applied to the land, that labour 

 is performed in the most negligent and slovenly man- 

 ner possible. No manager of a large estate can have 

 his eye constantly on every workman ; and when no 

 advantage is gained by care in the work, it will na- 

 turally be very imperfectly executed. All the Opera- 

 tions of Husbandry struck me to be very ill performed : 

 the ploughing is very shallow and irregular ; the har- 

 rows with wooden tines do not penetrate sufficient to 

 pull up weeds in fallowing ; the roller is almost un- 

 known ; and thus the land is filled with weeds of all 

 descriptions. I observed the same want of attention 

 in threshing; and it appeared to me that a much 

 greater proportion of the grain was left among the 

 straw, than in that which has passed under an English 

 flail. In short, the natural effects of the system of 

 ditty work was visible in the \vhole of the administra- 

 tion of the large estates where it is followed, with 

 the exception of those few proprietors who have in- 

 telligent and active managers, and are free from pe- 

 cuniary embarrassments. 



The common Course of Cropping is, the old system 

 of a whole year's fallow, followed by winter corn, 

 and that by summer corn, and then a fallow again 



