JOURNAL 



ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 

 OF ENGLAND. 



I, — Farming of Lancashire. By William James Garnett. 



Prize Report. 



The county of Lancaster is a very important and a very influential 

 one ; but most assuredly its importance and influence do not arise 

 from the excellence of its farming : whatever may be our character 

 for skill in manufactures or success in commerce, we are sadly 

 behind the rest of the world in agricultural attainments, and any 

 traveller along the North- Western Railway, from the time of his 

 entering, by crossing the Mersey near Warrington, to the time of 

 his quitting Lancashire for Westmoreland, must, I fear, leave it 

 with the impression that he has been passing through an ill-drained, 

 badly cultivated, and neglected district. The northern part is 

 decidedly better than the southern, but he would judge of it as 

 a whole: and if, in the rapidity of his flight, his eye should per- 

 chance have rested for a moment on a good field of turnips or a 

 clean stubble, a straight fence or a neatly-cut hedge, the oasis in 

 the desert is so small, and the vision so fleeting, that it would 

 have little effect in altering — or even, from the contrast with its 

 neighbours, might rather tend to confirm — his opinion that the 

 standard of farming in Lancashire is far below that of more 

 southern counties he may have traversed in his journey. 



Now, however simple and easy a matter it may be to observe 

 the fact, it is by no means easy at first sight to assign the reasons 

 for this state of things. If he consider the great wealth and 

 intelligence which undoubtedly are found amongst a large portion 

 of the inhabitants of Lancashire, he might reasonably expect 

 something better in the way of farming ; and before I proceed to 

 enter into the subject-matter of this report, I would venture briefly 

 to advert to a few of the causes which may excuse, in some 

 measure, the defects and short-comings of my native county. 

 And first, let us look at the map of Lancashire. I propose to 

 vol. x. B 



