On the Econormj of Carting. 
229 
of power and sacrifice of convenience which has arisen on many 
estates from the random manner in which the land has become 
gradually aggregated into irregular holdings. 
The size of farms has generally been on the increase, and the 
tenants, anxious to get a little more land, have been glad to secure 
whatever chanced to fall vacant, wherever it might be situated ; 
and such makeshifts have been indolently perjietuated. 
Meanwhile such a farm as we have been considering will have 
undergone a great transition. Of such strong land no small 
portion was probably once in pasture ; and it mattered little if 
the cows had a rather longer walk, or a few tons of hay longer 
carriage from the field ; for the manure-cart never visited the 
pasture, and the sheep fed on it by day lightly carried off their 
teething to the night-fold on the arable ; bare fallows were in 
vogue, root-growing little practised and less understood ; so that 
an estimate for carting 1450 tons of roots on 600 acres would 
have been appalling ! From the same change in management, 
since the amount of manure made depends on the roots consumed 
as well as on the straw grown, the increase of manure to be carted 
must also have been considerable. Nevertheless, although the 
importance of having a compact farm very much increases as 
agriculture advances, there is often an opposing vis inertias, which 
is too great to be overcome by the average desire for improvement. 
The person most directly interested in such a readjustment is 
the occupier of the land, on whom the burden directly falls ; so 
that unless the agent or landlord be unusually energetic and far- 
sighted, they will not urge a point Avhich will entail on them 
tiouble, debate, and possibly ill-feeling ; yet, unless they take 
the initiative, the question cannot be mooted, and unless they 
urge it vigorously, it will not be satisfactorily solved. The 
tenant, however in the abstract he may admit that the fields 
might lie better and be readjusted with advantage, will still be 
apprehensive of inconvenience, and suspicious of loss from any 
proposed exchange of land ; his plan of cropping will be some- 
what deranged, and never will the virtues of the departed be 
more highly estimated and extolled, than those of the fields which 
he is expected to cede to his neighbour. If, then, any proprietor 
be prompted to review the map of his estate, with a view to 
removing the most glaring instances of inconvenient allotment of 
his fields, he should buckle himself up for the task with some 
strength of purpose. Even in i-ecently enclosed parishes, al- 
though the benefits derived from re-allotment were very great, 
still the redistribution of the land was often very imperfectly 
conducted, either from the obstinacy of owners and the dread of 
legal difficulties, or because agricultural interests were but im- 
perfectly appreciated and attended to when this great step in 
