above notice, it pretty evidently appears that the same principle of management was pursued in 1807, by professional occupiers.-Even on the chalk hills where regular flocks of sheep were kept, and where regular supplies of food, in summer and winter, were of course to be provided, every man, speaking generally, provided them in his own way; according to the existing circumstances of the lands in his occupation, and the principles of management which long experience had led him to adopt.-It only remains to be added, that, under a plan of management, so pursued, there were, then, many "good farmers"-" knowing men" -"capital agriculturists"-on those hills.

OCCUPIERS.-P. 88. "The character of the farmers, like the size of farms, is very various in Surrey: there are still to be found, especially in the Weald, and the more remote parts of the county, many of the old class of farmers; men who are shy and jealous in their communications; unwilling to adopt any new mode of husbandry; in short, with much of the ignorance and prejudice of former times, and with all its rigid and inflexible honesty-on whose bare word the utmost reliance may be placed, and who have so little of the impartial spirit of commerce, that they prefer selling their grain to an old customer at a lower price, to deserting him and accepting a higher offer from one with whom they have not been in the habit of dealing. The roundfrocked farmers' (for they pride themselves on frequenting the markets in the dress of their forefathers) are equal enemies to improvements in agriculture and relaxations in morals,"

P. 89. “In other parts of the county, less remote and distant from the metropolis, the farmers are more on a level with the age; they understand their own business, according to the new and more improved methods of conducting it, extremely well; but they are either unable or unwilling to communicate the knowledge they possess. To this general character there are, however, many exceptions: there are among the Surrey farmers, men who would lose nothing in point of liberal and useful knowledge, if they were placed by the side of the most intelligent agriculturists in the island."-And so there were, half a century ago; as will appear under the head, Turneps, ensuing

WORKPEOPLE.-P. 540. “It is a very general and wellfounded complaint in Surrey, that it is extremely difficult to get a sufficient number of hands to work the land properly; and that the servants are extremely unsettled, continually wandering from one master to another."

A remedy for this evil is suggested by the Reporter:first, in the legitimate section, "Labour;" and, afterwards,

large and convenient, in good repair, and kept neat and clean: their size, and the mode and materials of their construction, vary with their age. The oldest are built entirely of brick, and their covering is generally of large heavy slatestone; others are of brick-nogging, covered with tiles; and many are built of a framing of wood, lathed and plastered, or rough-cast."

OBJECTS of HUSBANDRY.-P. 146. "In the neighbourhood of large towns, little arable land, in general, is to be seen; and this is the case on the Middlesex side of London: but in Surrey, on the contrary, the proportion of arable land is very great, all over the county; and this proportion hardly seems to diminish as we approach the metropolis."

PLAN of MANAGEMENT.-The Reporter has extended his section" Course of Crops" to an unwarrantable length; seeing how little it contains, respecting the established practice of the County under Report. It commences with a discourse concerning the author's own ideas of the subject; a dissertation, by the way, which does him credit as a writer. He next enumerates, a la Secretaire, strings of courses, on the several varieties of lands in the County, as they were found on the farms of individuals; in all or most cases putting down what may be well termed, in ordinary situations, the impracticable course.

Having past over nearly twenty pages of the section, we come to the following ingenuous notice.-P. 196. "Before proceeding to state the rotations pursued in the different parts of Surrey, that go against the fundamental maxim of agriculture, by bringing two white or corn crops immediately together, it is proper to premise, that the rotations already mentioned, are by no means the most common in the several districts where they are said to be followed. There is perhaps, a greater variety of rules and practices, even within the compass of a single parish in Surrey (if the Weald be excepted), than in most of the other counties in England: so that the practices adopted by one farmer are frequently very different from those of his nearest neighbour. The judicious and commendable rotations already noticed, are to be found in a more or less extensive degree, in the several districts specified along with them, and there is good reason to believe they are becoming more prevalent; but whoever from this account should expect to find that practices directly opposite were banished from these districts, would be much disappointed."

The fact is, the County of Surrey has-had some years ago-NO REGULAR COURSE OF CROPS; every occupier appropriated his fields and parcels of lands to the purposes to which he knew they were best adapted. And, by the

above notice, it pretty evidently appears that the same principle of management was pursued in 1807, by professional occupiers.-Even on the chalk hills where regular flocks of sheep were kept, and where regular supplies of food, in summer and winter, were of course to be provided, every man, speaking generally, provided them in his own way-according to the existing circumstances of the lands in his occupation, and the principles of management which long experience had led him to adopt.-It only remains to be added, that, under a plan of management, so pursued, there were, then, many "good farmers"-" knowing men" -"capital agriculturists"-on those bills.

OCCUPIERS.-P. 88. "The character of the farmers, like the size of farms, is very various in Surrey: there are still to be found, especially in the Weald, and the more remote parts of the county, many of the old class of farmers; men who are shy and jealous in their communications; unwilling to adopt any new mode of husbandry; in short, with much of the ignorance and prejudice of former times, and with all its rigid and inflexible honesty-on whose bare word the utmost reliance may be placed, and who have so little of the impartial spirit of commerce, that they prefer selling their grain to an old customer at a lower price, to deserting him and accepting a higher offer from one with whom they have not been in the habit of dealing. The roundfrocked farmers' (for they pride themselves on frequenting the markets in the dress of their forefathers) are equal enemies to improvements in agriculture and relaxations in morals."

To this

P. 89. "In other parts of the county, less remote and distant from the metropolis, the farmers are more on a level with the age; they understand their own business, according to the new and more improved methods of conducting it, extremely well; but they are either unable or unwilling to communicate the knowledge they possess. general character there are, however, many exceptions: there are among the Surrey farmers, men who would lose nothing in point of liberal and useful knowledge, if they were placed by the side of the most intelligent agriculturists in the island."And so there were, half a century ago; as will appear under the head, Turneps, ensuing

WORKPEOPLE.-P. 540." It is a very general and wellfounded complaint in Surrey, that it is extremely difficult to get a sufficient number of hands to work the land properly; and that the servants are extremely unsettled, continually wandering from one master to another."

A remedy for this evil is suggested by the Reporter:first, in the legitimate section," Labour ;" and, afterwards,

in his chapter entitled "Means of Improvement;" as will presently be noticed.

The Wages of Workpeople.-P. 542. "When servants are hired by the year and boarded, the wages are” (were in 1807?)" from 11. to 15l.: by the week, without board, the wages are from 13s. to 15s. A ploughboy gets nearly the half of a ploughman. A shepherd is allowed from 128. to 158. a week, with one bushel of oats per month for his dog and in some places, the keep of three or four sheep besides."

The Food of Farm Laborers.-P. 544. "The principal animal food used by the farm servants," (laborers)" is pork or bacon broiled over the fire. It may be thought, that where a man has a large family to support, it would be much more economical to buy" (boil) "such kind of meat, as, with the assistance of pease or barley, might go a long way in supplying nourishing food, by being made into soup or broth. This was suggested to his servants by a very intelligent farmer in Surrey, but the reply was a satisfactory answer, that the price of fuel was so enormously high, that the additional quantity requisite to boil their meat, would cost more money than would be saved by the different mode of cookery."

The Reporter's plan for improving farm workpeople, in England, may be thus briefly given.-To prevent their "wandering from one master to another,"" encourage married servants, in preference to unmarried, and employ their wives and children in hoing turneps, &c.";-and thereby "induce the farmer's servants to marry;" and, moreover, to "substitute a certain quantity of corn, or the price of a certain quantity of corn, for part of their money wages"; p. 540:-and-" if a free cottage were allotted to each; and if, moreover, their interest in the farm were increased, by being allowed to keep a cow-they would not only have little temptation to remove, but they would even be deterred, by the difficulty and trouble to which unmarried men are not exposed;-p. 589.

The above may be termed the Tweedside practice; as it is established on both sides of that river. And fortunately will it be for the occupiers of Tweedside farms, if they can preserve it in perpetuity. It is a desirable plan for farmers, who thereby become powerful sovereigns in their several domains.

Whether this plan is a relick of feudal baronage, or has risen out of the border warfare of former times; when every laird, or considerable proprietor, had his bastile, tower, or keep (the ruins of some of them not long ago remaining) in which he placed himself, his family and his domestic animals,

in a degree of security, during the night time (the former in the upper stories, the latter at the base); or whether the arrangement grew out of the dissolation which those warfares produced; or out of more ordinary circumstances; * is a point which requires not to be settled, here.

Let the rise of the Tweedside organization of farm workpeople have been what it may, it will, I conceive, be wise, in the Tweedside occupiers, to endeavour to preserve so convenient, so moral, and, of course, so valuable a system ;so far, I mean, as it goes to employ married laborers, living in "free cottages," placed under the eye, or ready observance of their employer f. But it were as easy to remove the Cheviot Hills, as such a system, into the environs of London-even if Tweedside parents, Tweedside schools, and Tweedside morals were to be sent forward to prepare. the way. The spirit of "independence," otherwise licentiousness, which prevails among farm workpeople, in the interior of England, would operate as a bar against any thing resembling circumscribed "liberty."

But,

I am well aware that something might be done, in England, toward improving the present plan of managing farm servants, by encoraging and preferring married men, to a certain extent, and under certain circumstances. while the dwellings of farm laborers continue to be fixtures, scattered over the face of the country, as they now are, and as they necessarily will be for a length of time to come; -owing to the intermixture of properties, and the varied sizes of farms;-the Tweedside plan, at large, must remain impracticable. Under existing circumstance, a certain number of single men, as domestic servants, to be ready at a call, are, in most cases, indispensably necessary.

WORKING ANIMALS.-P. 536. "Large, heavy, black horses are usually employed by the farmer. Their winter keep is two bushels of oats per week, and straw (usually cut), each horse: their spring food, tares, and two bushels

* See NORTHERN DEPARTMENT, p. 371.

of

+ In England, it would be nearly as eligible to suffer farm laborers to occupy a few acres of land to grow bread corn, as to keep a cow. Surely, it would be an improvement, in the Tweedside practice, to furnish workpeople with MILK, in fixed quantity, as with OATMEAL.

In a super-populous parish or township, it may be the interest of landed occupiers to prevent, rather than to encorage matrimony, among its settled inhabitants. If Tweedside, or any other district, is so thinly inhabited, that its occupiers find it difficult to procure farm work people, it may, I think, be eligible, in that case, (notwithstanding what I have ventured to suggest above) to settle a married couple with a cow, and induce single men to marry-to multiply population.