TAKING REINS IN HAND. 67 



At least, it shall not be handed over absolutely to 

 the control of a manager, no matter what good char- 

 acter he may bring ; and I will aim at a system of 

 cropping, which shall make some measurable return 

 for the cost of production. 



Dairying. 



ANY judicious farm-system must be governed in 

 a large degree by the character of the soil, and 

 by the nearest available market. It is not easy to 

 create a demand for what is not wanted ; nor is it 

 much easier so to transmute soils by culture or by 

 dressings, as to produce profitably those crops to 

 which the soils do not naturally incline. I am fully 

 aware that in saying this, I shall start an angry buzz 

 about my ears, of those progressive agriculturists, 

 who allege that skilful tillage will enable a man to 

 produce any crop he chooses : I am perfectly aware 

 that Tull, who was the great farm reformer of his 

 day, ridiculed with unction what he regarded as 

 those antiquated notions of Virgil, that soils had 

 their antipathies and their likings, and that a farmer 

 could not profitably impress ground to carry a crop 

 against its inclination. But I strongly suspect that 

 Tull, like a great many earnest reformers, in his ad- 

 vocacy of the supreme benefit of tillage, shot beyond 



