438 
Summary. 
as  founded  on  long  experience,  yet  many  also  new,  but  equally 
certain.  Every  soil  it  appears  may  be  improved  cheaply  if  suitably 
treated.  If  the  landlord  cannot  spare  the  money  out  of  his  in- 
come, the  tenant  should  endeavour  to  find  it  on  sufficient 
security  out  of  his  capital.  The  tenant’s  improvements,  again, 
are  cheap  as  well  as  effective,  and  high  farming  I have  endea- 
voured to  prove  is  not  extravagant  farming.  But  a slur  is  cast  on 
agricultural  improvement,  because  it  is  said  those  who  practise  it 
do  not  make  it  answer.  Now  the  notable  cases  of  improvement 
are  those  of  gentlemen  who  farm  their  own  land.  They  are  apt  to 
be  misled  by  crotchets,  but  the  chief  defect  is  the  want  of  active 
inspection  kept  alive  by  dependence  upon  the  farm  for  support. 
While  they  are  asleep  or  absent  their  labourers  are  idling  ; when 
they  buy  their  stock  or  sell  it,  they  buy  in  the  dearest  market  and 
sell  in  the  cheapest,  and  they  have  no  check  upon  their  accounts. 
One  of  our  greatest  agriculturists  held  his  farm  without  gain,  as 
Lord  Spencer  told  me,  for  a long  course  of  years,  yet  was  offered 
for  it  by  his  own  manager  at  last  a rent  of  1000/.  a year.  That 
gentleman’s  tenants  meanwhile,  by  the  same  improvements, 
were  growing  wealthy.  There  is,  however,  even  for  an  amateur 
farmer,  one  certain  test  by  which  he  may  know  whether  a practice 
he  adopts  be  an  improvement  or  not:  the  test  of  the  practice  of 
the  best  farmers.  Do  good  farmers  buy  bones  at  such  a price? 
If  superphosphate  cost  one-half  and  act  as  well,  it  must  pay  better. 
Do  they  buy  linseed-cake  ? Then  if  rape-cake  at  half  the  price 
feed  the  sheep  quite  as  fast,  it  pays  better.  There  is  indeed  a 
source  of  loss  which  lies  in  the  misapplication  of  practices,  as  when 
some  one  complains  that  he  has  ploughed  10  inches  deep  for 
wheat  and  has  got  a bad  crop,  while  we  know  that  wheat  requires 
a hard  bed  ; or  in  the  transfer  of  systems,  as  from  an  eastern  corn- 
growing county  to  the  mountains  of  Wales.  A gentleman,  who 
farms  on  principle,  or,  still  worse,  on  system,  will  be  lucky,  indeed, 
if  he  pays  his  own  rent.  In  the  worst- farmed  district  among:  the 
least  enlightened  fanners,  if  I sought  to  improve  them,  I should 
begin  by  finding  out  what  are  their  prejudices,  for  in  those  pre- 
judices will  lie  the  peculiarities  of  the  soil  and  the  climate,  so  that 
in  Wales  an  improvement  of  the  worst  Welsh  farming  may  beat 
Ickleton  or  Castleacre  transferred  to  the  mountain  sides.  Books 
will  not  teach  farming,  but  if  they  describe  the  practices  of  the 
best  farmers,  they  will  make  men  think  and  show  where  to  learn 
it.  If  our  farmers  will  inquire  what  is  done  by  the  foremost  of 
them,  they  will  themselves  write  such  a book  of  agricultural 
improvement  as  never  was  written  elsewhere,  in  legible  cha- 
racters, with  good  straight  furrows,  on  the  broad  page  of  England. 
Pusey , November  22,  1850. 
