22 THE BOOK OF THE LANDED ESTATE. 



tenant. This is meant to be applicable to cases where inferior tenants 

 cannot be removed, to give place to others of a superior class, and where 

 proprietors are desirous, in the mean time, to improve their estates 

 even under the disadvantages arising from having to deal with a class of 

 inferior tenants. But, notwithstanding that estates may be vastly im- 

 proved under the guidance of liberal landlords and qualified agents, even 

 with the disadvantage of tenants of an inferior class, it is clear that the 

 same improvements can be more cheaply, and in all respects more satis- 

 factorily, carried out with the co-operation of really intelligent tenants, 

 who understand their business, and take a deep interest in it, than with 

 that of inferior men who do not properly understand nor thoroughly 

 appreciate the improvements which it is necessary to effect, and who, 

 therefore, cannot be expected to enter into them with that zeal which is 

 essential to success. 



In making these remarks, I speak entirely from my own experience in 

 dealing with tenant-farmers in the way of carrying out improvements in 

 various parts of the country. In no case have I found any difficulty in carry- 

 ing out improvements, however extensive, on the farms of intelligent and 

 thoroughly qualified men, as they in all cases had a complete under- 

 standing of the works before they were entered upon, and were, for their 

 own sakes, as anxious as the proprietor himself that they should be con- 

 ducted to a satisfactory result ; but, on the other hand, where I have had 

 to deal with tenants of antiquated views, and without the necessary 

 intelligence to understand what we proposed doing, I have experienced 

 very considerable difficulty in getting the respective works carried on 

 satisfactorily, and have never had them so cheaply performed on the 

 farms of this class as on those of the other. For this as well as other 

 reasons, I believe it may be laid down as a maxim in rural affairs, that 

 much of the prosperity of a landed property depends on the intelligence 

 of the class of tenant-farmers which exists upon it. 



Perhaps there is no branch of work so dependent for its proper 

 performance on the intelligence of the farmer as that of drainage, for 

 however able a man the agent of a property may be, and however 

 desirous he may be for the interests of his employer, he cannot carry on 

 the works of drainage well and satisfactorily to any considerable extent, 

 unless at much extra expense for superintendents, without the co- 

 operation of the farmers on whose land the operations are being carried 

 out. If the farmers are men of proper training and education they will 

 understand the nature of the work as well as the agent, and from their 

 having the deepest interest in its success they will be certain to look 

 sharply after the proper execution of the work ; so that the agent will 

 have confidence in its being well done, and be saved much expense 



