Page images
PDF
EPUB

to the loser of property, taken in a state of neglect, or wilful insecurity:-rather should some salvage-some considerable percentage on its value, be claimable by whomsoever shall recover it; and a penalty be moreover levied, for the CRIME of NEGLIGENCE,-in proportion to its flagrancy. In flagrant cases, let the whole be forfeited to the district.

NEGLIGENCE of PROPERTY is the parent of THEFT; and ought, I am clearly of opinion, to be punishable :-not as a crime against what, in feeble phraseology, is termed good manners;"-but against INDUSTRY and HONESTY.

[ocr errors]

Perhaps, let the officers of each parish in the district be a COMMITTEE of INSPECTION; and, in cases of persevering neglect, let them make their report to the magistracy; the penalties, hey may levy, to pass to the district fund; or go in aid of the poor rate, in the parish where the crime shall be committed; or be applied to the education of the children of the indigent parishoners:-not merely to make them more tractable and ready, as servants and work people; but to prevent early habits of IDLENESS and

PILFERING.

Regulations of this nature, and making the punishment, for receiving stolen goods, greater than that for theft itself, would, I doubt not, reduce the crime within a narrow compass;-comparatively with the boundless range which it occupies, at present.

SUBJECT THE THIRD.

RURAL ECONOMY.

ESTATES

TENANTED ESTATES.

ISTATES.-P. 34. "An increasing wealth, among the more numerous classes of the community, has a direct tendency to produce the division and subdivision of landed property; and accordingly we find, that, as the number of this description of persons is larger, so estates are less extensive in this county, than in any that are remote from the capital."

TENURES.-P. 37. "There is much freehold, a considerable portion of copyhold, and some church, college, and corporation lands."

IRRIGATION.-P. 317. "In Hanworth-park, which contains 600 acres of land, there are about sixty acres of water-meadows. I have no knowledge of there being any more in the county."

MANAGEMENT

MANAGEMENT OF ESTATES.-P. 35. "Estates are, for the most part, under the management and direction of attornies-at-law, whose attention to these concerns seldom extend any further than to receiving the rents at their own houses or chambers, generally in London, and in drawing leases from old precedents: men who are not at all skilled in the business of agriculture; which, from the nature of their profession, cannot be expected."

TENANCY.-P. 71. "It is, without doubt, a most unreasonable prejudice which many proprietors entertain against granting leases of their estates; for the withholding them certainly operates as a powerful bar against every improvement, and is as injurious to the interests of the landlord as to those of the tenant and the community. For the same reason, it is perhaps equally bad policy to restrain the tenant from selling or assigning his lease." (!)

To those lines are added ten pages of a similar cast. It is true, that at the time Mr. M. wrote, the impropriety of granting leases of length was not so great as it has been of later years. Having already had occasion, in the course of my present Work, to speak, again and again, on this, now, thread bare subject, I pass over it, here, without further notice.-When the value of money shall become less rapidly fluctuating-much more stationarythan it has been, for several years past, long leases may, in some cases, be eligible *.

RENT.-P. 56. "The rent of land in this county, varies from ten shillings to ten pounds per acre; which great disproportion is here, as every where else, occasioned by a variety of circumstances: such as the natural quality and aspect of the soil; the distance from London and other markets; the goodness, situation, and convenience of the buildings; the state of the walls, hedges and ditches; the expence of conveying the produce to market, and of obtaining a supply of manure in return; and also, whether it is by land or water that the products are to be carried : the state of the roads; the expence of toll-gates, weighing engines, and markets:"-together with a variety of other circumstances.

P. 57. "The method practised by some gentlemen, of estimating

* MARCH 1816.-The above was written before the late alarm among tenants in husbandry took place: that is to say, before the bubble burst. Or, let it be said,—before the morbid tumor, which I have, for a length of years, as proper occasions offered, been pointing out to my readers-broke.May the distressing crisis save the Patient!

estimating the produce of land by trebling the rent, is very fallacious: three times the rent is not by any means equal to the value of the produce of the land under the best systems of husbandry now in use; though under the old exploded course of fallow, wheat, oats in the scanty produce of common fields, and when taxes, and the expences of living, were at one half of the present amount, it was not very distant from the truth. But under the more improved courses of husbandry on land at, and under, twenty shillings an acre, the produce is now more generally worth from five to seven times the rent."

See more on this topic, under the head Profit, at the close of this article.

On the Rental of the County, we find the following statement.-P. 57. "The rental of the whole county is about four million and an half, whereof 2,900,000l. was assessed to the county-rate to raise 12,000l. during the last year: the rate is at about two-thirds of the value, therefore the unassessed is 1,450,000l. Cottages not assessed 35,000, at 47. is 140,000/.; total 4,490,000l."

WOODLANDS.

PRESENT

RESENT WOODS.-P. 273. "The copses and woods of this county have been decreasing for ages; and, in a few centuries more, they will probably be annihilated.

"There are, however, still a few acres so occupied on the north slopes of Hampstead and Highgate hills; about one hundred acres on the east side of Finchley-common; and two thousand acres on the north-west side of Riselip; together about three thousand acres (exclusive of near one thousand acres on the remains of Enfield-chase, which are accounted for under chapter vi, on inclosing) *. Rather more than half the said quantity is wood, pretty well stocked with thriving young oaks; the rest is copse. I believe the whole is on a soil of yellow clay."

Diswooding.-P. 274. "The hills about Copthall and Hornsey

"The forests, woods, copses and commons of this county, are nurseries for thieves. The security which they apparently hold out against detection, has tempted hundreds of the ill-disposed to com mence footpads and highwaymen; and has also been the occasion of numberless murders and robberies being committed, and some of the perpetrators being gibbetted.-J. M.”

Hornsey are now appropriated to the scythe; though, but a few years ago, they were covered with wood. They are already of five times their former value; and, after being ten years more in grass, their produce will be worth, to the community, ten times more than the produce of the same ground would have been in state of wood." (?) "Near Bowes Farm, several hundred acres of underwood have been grubbed up within the last eight or ten years; and the improvement of the soil is going on in a proportion nearly similar to the foregoing."

AGRICULTURE.

FARMS.-Sizes.-P. 48. "The farms of this county

are in general small, especially when compared with Sussex, Wilts, and other counties, where large downs or sheep-walks constitute a part of the farms. Mr. Willan's farm, at Mary-le-bonne-park, containing upwards of 500 acres, is probably the largest in this county; there are many of about 200 acres; but perhaps the average of the county would not exceed 100."

While speaking on the long continued dispute, about great or small farms, Mr. M. truly says, what every man of mature observation will allow, that "it is rather the larger farmers and yeomen, or men who occupy their own land, that mostly introduce improvements in the practice of agriculture, and that uniformly grow much greater crops of corn, and produce more beef and mutton per acre, than others of a smaller capital." p. 49.

Farm Fences.-P. 132. "The hedges are generally full of live wood, consisting mostly of hawthorn, elm, and maple, with some black thorns, crabs, bryers and damsons: the last frequently very fruitful, which is the cause of its being destroyed. All these are made anew once in ten or twelve years; at which time the whole is cut down to within a few inches of the bank. The scouring of the ditch is thrown up, a very thin stake and edder hedge is formed, and all the rest of the wood is made into bavins, and sold principally to bakers, at about a guinea a hundred delivered. In about two years, the live wood is grown so thick again, as hardly to be seen through."

HOMESTEADS.-P. 39. "The oldest farm-houses and offices now in the county, are built with timber, lathed and plastered" (or weather-boarded)" and the roofs thatched; which sufficiently indicates, that at some distant period they were generally so. These buildings appear to have

been

been erected by piece-meal, merely to suit the immediate and indispensible wants of the farmer. Of the houses, many are in villages; others in low sheltered situations; often on the side of a green lane; and frequently near a pond. In the arable part of the county, the offices have been added one after another, in proportion as the woods were cleared, cultivation extended, and the requisitions of the farmers increased. Being built with timber, they will endure repairing, even after every vestige of the original materials is perished and gone.

"Those farm-houses that have been built within the present century, are generally erected with bricks; and, owing to the high price of straw, and the great value of manure, the roofs are now, for the most part, covered with tiles."

P. 40. "Many hay-farmers have only a stable for their horses, and an open shed for loaded carts to stand under, in addition to the dwelling-house and its offices. Others have a shed for a cow, and a barn (without a threshing floor) which they fill with hay, frequently the second crop. Some of these barns are fitted up with deal linings, partitions and floors, in a very complete manner for the purpose of suckling house-lambs; and the second crop of hay is either placed at one end of the barn, or adjacent to it, for the especial use of these lambs.

"Many of the modern farm-houses, in the hay district of the county, have pretty much the appearance of gentlemen's houses, both in construction and neatness, principally owing to there being no farm-yards with cattle. And even in the arable part of the county, there are but few yards of this description, as the straw is almost all sent to market."

. PLAN of MANAGEMENT.-Still we continue to find the section, "Rotation of Crops," a favorite with the Board's Reporters. Mr. Middleton has extended it to fourteen pages; not by the means of pocket-book memoranda, put down in conversation with novitial practitioners; but, chiefly, with theoretic systems of the author's own invention.

P. 159. "When the commons, downs, and sheep-walks are inclosed and cultivated (as in a few years they must be), the old inclosed lands will, in consequence, be deprived of the manure deposited in the sheep-folds, which they now derive from those wastes. It will then very soon be found, that the wiser way, if not absolutely necessary, will be to grow two green crops for one of corn, as is now practised over six thousand acres in this county, with complete success.

"With these ideas impressed on my mind, I venture lo recommend for the best land, alternate green and white

crops.

« PreviousContinue »