20 THE BOOK OF THE LANDED ESTATE. 



and who occupy, consequently, a high standing in their line of life. 

 This is no doubt owing partly to the want of proper training and educa- 

 tion, whereby their minds can be made to comprehend the advantages 

 arising from superior modes of culture ; partly to the want of sufficient 

 capital to enable them to carry out farming on better principles ; and, 

 perhaps, partly to the fact that, generally speaking, the beef, mutton, and 

 grain belonging to the man who rears them in the ordinary way, meet 

 with as ready a demand in the market as these commodities do when 

 reared and sold by the improver, the difference in the profits lying more in 

 the quantity than in the quality, of course all other points being equal. 

 Generally speaking, however, farmers, as a class, are acute in respect 

 to their own interests, and in so far as their intelligence and means 

 enable them they make the most they can of their subjects. For the 

 most part I have found them inclined to enter into such arrangements 

 as were suggested by the proprietors for the improvement of their sub- 

 jects, when the schemes were likely to turn out advantageous to the 

 interests of the farmers in the first place, and to the proprietors as well 

 in due course. In short, having had a considerable experience among 

 farmers in the way of carrying out improvements in many parts of the 

 country, I have seldom found the younger and more intelligent part of 

 them insensible to the advantages of superior modes of culture, nor 

 unwilling to introduce these on their farms where the proprietors have 

 been at all liberal in dealing with them. Generally speaking, and with 

 some exceptions, even where farmers are inferior in intelligence and 

 possessed of but small capital, if they are liberally dealt with, and under 

 the direction of liberal landlords and judicious agents, they may be 

 made to carry out and follow such a system of cultivation on their 

 respective farms as will be found highly conducive to the interests and 

 prosperity of both landlord and tenant. 



SECTION 2. The Prosperity of an Estate affected by the Qualifications 



of the Tenantry. 



In farming, as in all other pursuits, the condition of the subjects 

 operated on is a pretty correct index to the intelligence of the parties 

 engaged in their management. In taking a journey through different 

 parts of the kingdom, a great variety in the state of the respective farms 

 and estates is observable, and that variety is frequently so striking 

 as to attract even the attention of people who know little about the 

 country or agricultural affairs. What,' I would ask, is the cause of this 

 state of things ? Is it not that the superiority and inferiority in the 



