Dairy and Stock Farms. 
503 
this that they all look forward as the proper upshot and issue of 
the system. On both of these farms every help has been given 
by good management in the past, the fields having been thrown 
together in large, square, and well-fenced plots, and the premises 
arranged so as to hinder waste of labour ; and by good management 
in the present, also, for all kinds of labour-saving machinery 
are in use. Good cultivating tools and mowing and reaping 
and threshing-machines are employed ; and horse-power, being 
worked by the farmer or his sons, is employed early and late, 
without regard to regular hours, whenever opportunity offers or 
requires. And it is in this way that a very minimum of actual 
outlay on wages is incurred ; while the land is at the same 
time kept in the very highest state of cultivation and produc- 
tiveness. The system, wherever practicable, is one which 
insures farm profit, and therefore it insures the landlord's 
rent. And now, when the difficulty of obtaining labourers on 
the farm is almost everywhere complained of — especially the 
difficulty of getting labourers who are interested for their em- 
ployers — it is not likely that this most satisfactory way of avoid- 
ing it will be suffered to die out. 
No landowner will fail to lend whatever help as landlord he 
can offer to a prosperous and energetic tenant, whose family, hold- 
ing together and working steadily for the common end, thus 
escape that growing and excessive cost of hired labour which 
is threatening to affect the value of the land to rent. There 
seems only one objection to the system. Few would desire to 
see the land in the hands of uneducated tenants who are merely 
moneyed labourers ; and it is not without reason, therefore, that 
I have quoted Mr. Mackereth's care for the education of the 
sons who are helping him, as one among the merits of his 
management. Another objection to the system may indeed 
occur to some, that if every farmer rears all his sons in this 
way, it must ultimately lead to excessive competition for land, 
and therefore to excessive rents. This, however, may be left to 
correct itself, especially in a country like ours, blessed with 
colonies, for which the younger sons of farmers, thus accustomed 
to all kinds of farm-work, and ultimately receiving their share of 
the general savings, must be the best possible immigrants. 
The only other general conditions affecting farms in the 
Liverpool district to which any preliminary reference need be 
made are those included under climate, soil, and markets. A 
dense population collected in large towns scattered through- 
out a county necessarily modifies its agriculture. Manure can be 
purchased more cheaply than it can be made, when large towns 
are near ; and produce then commands a higher price in the 
market-place than can be made of it by consumption or con' 
VOL. XIII. — S. S. 2 M 
