Agriculture of Nottinghamshire. 
17 
On referring to Mr. Lowe's Report upon the State of Agri- 
culture in Nottinghamshire in 1794, we find mention made of 
practices adopted at that time by certain individuals, which be- 
speak an intelligence and enterprise much beyond their day ; as 
for example, the application of bones at the rate of 50 bushels an 
acre to the turnip crop, and of rape-dust at the rate of half a ton 
an acre : those individuals possessing moreover the foresight to 
determine on the four course system, as the best adapted to the 
district, when, after so many years' experience, it has become 
universal. These persons had also the sagacity to perceive the 
great superiority of the Leicester sheep over the other breeds 
then known in the county, and spared no expense in bringing it 
to perfection. It must be confessed that such statements of the 
farming of fifty years back, are calculated somewhat to startle 
us, when drawing a comparison between it and the agriculture of 
the present day. In carefully revising Mr. Lowe's report, how- 
ever, we think it clear that the instances he there adduces of such 
spirit and intelligence were confined to the practices of the few, 
and formed little or no part of those of the many. 
In every age are found persons gifted with minds superior to 
the mass of those around them, who anticipating improvements, 
the necessity of which is not admitted by their neighbours, shape 
their conduct by their own convictions, indifferent to the preju- 
dices of others. 
We have no wish to become detractors from what is justly due 
to our ancestors of the eighteenth century ; but we think that very 
little reflection is needed to show that their movements must of 
necessity have been confined within a narrow circle by the dis- 
advantages with which they were at the time surrounded, which 
disadvantages must have formed an almost insurmountable barrier 
to anything approaching a perfect system of farming. 
When a considerable portion of the county was unenclosed, 
when the art of drainage was all but unknown, and at a lime 
when the prime virtue of the husbandman was the observance of 
a rigid economy ; far too rigid, we should imagine, to allow of that 
liberal investment of capital which has since proved the founda- 
tion of all the essential improvements which have taken place — 
with all these disadvantages, and especially the want of requisite 
information on subjects in general connected with his profession, 
on which science has since thrown light and knowledge; — we 
cannot but infer that the agriculture of 1794 must have been, 
as compared with that of 1844, very defective and imperfect as a 
whole. 
Sheep. 
The pure Leicester, or a cross of that with the larger framed 
