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FARMS. 



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•with that of a celebrated writer, but whom this gentleman 

 had not read, Mr. II arte, in his Essays on Husbandry. 



The size of farms is a subjedl upon which so much 

 has been written, that to enter into a discussion on the 

 subjc6l in the Report of a single county, would be to 

 swell a book with general subjevSls, which ought to be 

 appropriated to local and particular ones. I shall only 

 observe, tliat the vast improvements which have been 

 made in Norfolk, by converting boundless heaths, sheep- 

 \^•al^xS and warrens, into well-cultivated distriiSls, by en- 

 closing and marling, are such as were never yet made by 

 small farmers. Great farmers have converted in this county 

 three or four h.undred thousand acres of wastes into gar- 

 dens: can any thing therefore be so grossly absurd, as to 

 find fault with such divisions of the earth as have pro- 

 duced these effedls? Little farmers have never, in any 

 countv that I am acquainted with, produced equal efFefts : 

 if they have, let the Reporters of such counties explain 

 it; it is my business to state what has taken place in 

 Norfolk. In tlie eastern district of rich land, farms are 

 moderate or small, vet the country is v/ell cultivated ; but 

 natural fertility does the great business ; upon such land, 

 it is of much less consequence what the size of a farm 

 may be. 



When poorer trails become highly improved, and very 

 great exertions arc not equally necessary, farms of extra- 

 ordinary size may be profitably divided, since the inven- 

 tion of threshing-mills, which supersede the necessity of 

 barns : as in lliis case, the interest of the money expended 

 in new buildings, added to tlieir repairs, may not be 

 equal to the superior rent of a moderate tarm over one of 

 \a great extent. The private interests of individuals may 

 safely be trusted with all such arrangements, as much 



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