244 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



burning, and such other methods of improvement as were recognised as 

 beneficial in those primitive times. Again, the great revival of agricultural 

 industiy dming the latter part of the eighteenth century was largely 

 due to the example set by George III., who, under the assumed name 

 of his shepherd, ' Ralph Eobinson, ' contributed to the monthly publica- 

 tion known as the Annals of Agriculture, and W'ho made no secret of 

 the fact that his interest in his farming operations exceeded that afforded 

 him by affairs of state. He revelled in the title of ' Farmer George ' and 

 t'ook a deep and personal interest in his flock of merino sheep and 

 ids stall-fed oxen. So far as was practicable he turned Windsor Castle 

 into a hug© farmhouse, and its grounds into an agricultural holding. 

 His maximum happiness was achieved when comparing notes with a 

 farming neighbour, quoting the dicta of Arthur Young, or personally 

 supei-intending the drainage or cultivation of his Flemish or his Norfolk 

 farm. Amongst those who followed the Eoyal example were Lord 

 Bockingham at Wentworth, Lord Egremont at Petworth, and Sir John 

 Sinclair, the President of the first Board of Agriculture. In more 

 recent times the same traditions have been maintained or revived by 

 men of outstanding enthusiasm and vision, such as Philip Pusey, Sir 

 Thomas Acland, Albert Pell, and Lord Eayleigh. 



In the main, however, even the more enlightened and progressive 

 landowners have during the last century failed to achieve much for the 

 benefit of the industry through lack of a comprehensive and well- 

 fthought-out plan, through discontinuity of effort, or through the con- 

 ;sciousness that they were failing to cany complete conviction to those 

 engaged therein as a source of livelihood. 



It is worthy of note, and tends to confirm the cynical and 

 ■ftrite observation of Swift, that the duplication of a single ear 

 'of com or a single blade of grass ' does more essential service to man- 

 Jkind than the whole race of politicians put together, ' that the fame 

 of the second Viscount Townshend, who was Secretary of Stat© under 

 George I. and George II., and subsequently Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 

 and Controller of the Foi'eign Policy of Great Britain, should have 

 passed down to posterity as that of an agi'iculturist rather than as that 

 of a statesman. As Arthur Young with prophetic vision says of him: 

 ' The importance of Embassies, Vice-Eoyalties and Seals is as transi- 

 tory as that of personal beauty, and the memory of this lord, though 

 a man of great ability, will in a few ages be lost as a Minister and 

 Statesman and presented only as a farmer. ' 



It is an interesting fact that while during the eighteenth century 

 landowners like Townshend and Coke were the pioneers of improvements 

 in tillage, and tenant farmers of those in live-stock, the converse has 

 been the case during the last 80 to 100 years. Prominent among farm 

 tenants who in the former period established upon firm foundations 

 various breeds of cattle and of sheep were Bakewell, Charles and Eobert 

 Colling, Matthew and George Culley, the Booths of Warlaby, Bates, 

 Benjamin Tompkins, Hewer, Quartly, and EUman of Glynde. The 

 names of Treadwell, Hobbs, Prout, Dennis, Clare Sewell Eead, 

 Jonas Weibb, and James Hope of Dunbar may be mentioned among 

 modern farm tenants who maintained a high standard of arable 



