8 THE BOOK OF THE LANDED ESTATE. 



everywhere speak for themselves, and cannot be denied. They are plain 

 to every one who looks about him with his eyes open. In this country, 

 where wealth and men are abundant, and where agricultural skill 

 cannot be said to be wanting, it is doubtless remarkable that the 

 unsatisfactory state of things referred to in regard to landed property 

 should prevail, at least to such an extent as we find it. And here the 

 question naturally arises, Who is to blame for it ? My answer is, The 

 blame rests with the proprietors themselves. 



But few of them have hitherto been trained directly to the proper 

 management of their own peculiar branch of business, which may be 

 called the science of landownership ; namely, that of dealing with, on 

 the most improved principles, the land which they possess. Hence 

 they have not, generally speaking, understood the real state of things 

 which surround them on their properties, but have left their agents arid 

 tenants to judge for them in these matters, and to act in most cases as 

 they thought best. But neither agents nor tenants can do much for the 

 permanent improvement of the land without an advance of means from 

 the proprietor ; so the former have, of course, been comparatively helpless 

 when left to themselves. Prom this cause little has been done com- 

 pared with what would have been the case had the proprietors themselves 

 been thoroughly educated so as to understand the real condition of their 

 estates, and the great advantages they would certainly gain "by the 

 judicious outlay of money in permanently improving the condition of 

 the land. 



In any branch of business a particular course of education is required 

 to fit a man for properly and profitably conducting it; and it is very -well 

 understood among business men, that where the head of an establish- 

 ment has not himself been trained and educated specially for it, that 

 establishment is more likely to turn out a failure than a success. Every 

 merchant and manufacturer attends at the helm of his own peculiar 

 business, and sees that the most minute operations in connection with it 

 are rightly performed, all of which he thoroughly understands, and hence 

 the general success of such men in their undertakings. 



If these remarks hold true in regard to management in the establish- 

 ments of merchants, manufacturers, and traders generally, they must be 

 equally applicable to the management of landed property ; for without 

 doubt, the more one knows in regard to his own peculiar branch of 

 business, the more likely is he to be successful in it, and to make it 

 remunerative. It is nevertheless true that, in regard to the management 

 of landed property, these facts do not seem to have been sufficiently 

 recognised nor acted upon ; for, as I have already hinted, I know of but 

 few landed proprietors who may be said to have been properly trained 



