THE TRAINING NECESSARY FOR LANDED PROPRIETORS. <J 



and educated with the special view of their understanding, practically, 

 the cultivation of their estates, and of discharging the various duties 

 of managing them in all the various departments embraced on an estate 

 of considerable extent ; therefore it cannot be expected that improve- 

 ments on landed property will make rapid progress till its owners see 

 the great loss they sustain by allowing it to be in the unprofitable con- 

 dition which has been already described. The extent of the loss they 

 are sustaining annually is incalculable. There are vast mines of wealth 

 lying dormant in the land all over the country, to utilise which requires 

 only the application of skill, industry, and capital on the part of its 

 proprietors and cultivators. But . until proprietors receive a sound, 

 practical, and theoretical education, to enable them to understand how 

 to go about their peculiar business, and to appreciate the merits of 

 the case, these mines of wealth must continue to lie dormant. As soon, 

 however, as they obtain this kind of education, they will see the way 

 to deal with their land so as to gain the end held out to them in regard 

 to it ; and consequently, in order that they may make up for time lost 

 in the past, they will take the reins of management in a great measure, if 

 not entirely, into their own hands laying out capital on improve- 

 ments which will not only pay them a high percentage, but add vastly 

 to the permanent value of their estates. 



Keeping out of view altogether the education which it is understood 

 every landed proprietor receives as a gentleman, it is absolutely neces- 

 sary, in order that he may creditably discharge the duties devolving 

 upon him as a proprietor of the soil, that he should be trained and 

 educated, practically and theoretically, in the arts and sciences which 

 have a bearing on the cultivation of his ' property, and which are calcu- 

 lated to promote his success in dealing with it. It is, I think, scarcely 

 possible for a man to become thoroughly acquainted with all the neces- 

 sary branches of estate management unless he attend to the subject 

 from his youth ; and therefore every one who has the fortune to be a 

 landed proprietor, or who may have the prospect of becoming one in 

 due time, should begin early in life to prepare himself for the discharge 

 of the after-duties of his position ; as, if this is not attended to, he is not 

 so likely to become such a very successful improver, nor to have so much 

 pleasure in the management of his property, as one who has made this 

 his principal object and study when young. In order, then, that the 

 young man who has the prospect of becoming a landed proprietor may 

 have the advantage of an early training to tfye proper after-management 

 of the estate, the proprietor for the time should have a home farm, on 

 which the young man may receive useful instruction, and become 

 familiarised with the various processes of agriculture, as well as have 



