TENANT-FARMERS. 29 



where they merely imbibed their father's ideas, would engage themselves 

 to work on well-conducted farms in other districts for a few years, they 

 would return with an enlarged amount of experience, which would 

 prove of the greatest possible service to them in after-life. I know 

 several instances where the sons of humble farmers have followed the 

 course I have pointed out, and the result is, that after passing through 

 various grades as confidential managers, they now occupy very respon- 

 sible and well-remunerated appointments. Others have either suc- 

 ceeded their fathers as tenants in the farms they occupied, or taken 

 farms on their own account, and iii both cases have done well, assisted 

 by the experience gained in other parts of the country. 



Under all circumstances, therefore, special educational and practical 

 training are essential to the success of those who intend to live by the 

 cultivation of the soil. Agriculture has become a very different pursuit 

 from what it was forty or fifty years ago, and we must seek to elevate 

 the educational status of all classes of farmers, in order to enable them 

 to meet in some degree the pressure which is now brought to bear on 

 the resources of British agriculture. 



SECTION 4. To whom Farms should be Let. 



Although it is of the greatest importance to the interests of landed 

 proprietors that, in regard to intelligence and practical skill, they 

 should have first-rate farmers as tenants on their estates, still we often 

 find men of very inferior abilities occupying that position. This is the 

 more surprising when we consider that landed proprietors in most other 

 respects act differently. For example, when a gardener, a farm-bailiff, 

 a gamekeeper, or it may be a butler, or any other head-servant, is required, 

 the employer is careful to learn the antecedents and qualifications of 

 the person before engaging him ; and afterwards, if he find the servant 

 at all deficient in the necessary knowledge for his department, or in the 

 performance of the duties he was expected to perform, he takes the first 

 opportunity to discharge him, and get a more competent person in his 

 place. This is all right and reasonable ; but one may ask, should not 

 the same rule be acted upon in regard to an incompetent farmer as in 

 regard to an unsuitable gardener, &c. ? One would think that should 

 be the case, but still it is not so, generally speaking. Then, why is not 

 the case of the inefficient farmer dealt with as promptly as that of the 

 inefficient gardener or butler? So far as I am able to judge in the 

 matter, the reason is this : proprietors are, generally speaking, less 

 acquainted with farming than they are with home management, and, 



