494 LETTERS FROM ENalAND. 



ing come from America was mentioned, and who had sons in the 

 new world, brightened up -yrith a strange joy at seeing ©fie from a 

 land where her heart had evidently been of late "more busy than at 

 home. '^It was a good country," she said; "her sons had houffJet 

 laW, and were doing famous." For a working man to o*n land, 

 in a country like this, where the farmers are almost all only tenants 

 of .the few great proprietors, is to their minds something like hold- 

 ing a fee-simple to part of paradise. 



The morning yesterday was spent on horseback in examining the 

 agiiculture of the estate. Therich harvest-fields, extending over the 

 broad Cambridgeshire plains, afford, at, this season, a fine picture of 

 the great productiveness of England. About a thousand acres are 

 farmed by Lord H.,- and ffie rest let to tenants./ I was glad; to hear 

 from him that he has endeavored, with great success, to abolish the 

 enormous consumption of malt liquor among laborers of all classei 

 here, by giving them only a very small allowance joined to a sum 

 equal to the largest allowance on other estates, in the shape of ^n 

 addition to their wages. He confirmed my previous impressions of 

 the bad effects produced by this/monstrous guzzling of .beer by the 

 working men of England ; a consumptiou actually, astounding to one 

 accustomed to the abstinent and equally hard working farmiers of the 

 United States.-* 



Farming, here, is a vastly more scientific and careftiUy studied 

 occupation than with us ; and the attention bestowed upon landed 

 estates, (many of which yield a revenue of $50,000 or $60,000 a 

 year, ap,d some much more,) is, as you may suppose, one of no tri- 

 fling moment. Hence the knowledge of practical agriculture, by 

 the owners of many of these vast English estates, is of a very high 

 order; and I am glad, from considerable observation, to say that 

 the relations between owner and tenant are often of the most con- 

 siderate and liberal kind. No doubt the present free trade prices 



* At the celebrated farm of Mr. W., in this county, his cellar contained, 

 at the commencement of harvest, twenty-four hogsheads of beer ; barely 

 enough, as I was told, for the harvest labor — about nine pints per day to 

 each man. There was nearly a strike among the workmen for ten "pints ; 

 indeed, a galloi). per day is ho very uncommon thing fpr a beer drinker in 

 England! 



