The Project Gutenberg eBook ofRural RidesThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Rural RidesAuthor: William CobbettRelease date: November 8, 2010 [eBook #34238]Most recently updated: January 7, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RURAL RIDES ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Rural RidesAuthor: William CobbettRelease date: November 8, 2010 [eBook #34238]Most recently updated: January 7, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.
Title: Rural Rides
Author: William Cobbett
Author: William Cobbett
Release date: November 8, 2010 [eBook #34238]Most recently updated: January 7, 2021
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RURAL RIDES ***
RURAL RIDES by William Cobbett T. Nelson & Sons
Berghclere, near Newbury, Hants,October 30, 1821, Tuesday (Evening).
Fogthat you might cut with a knife all the way from London to Newbury. This fog does notwetthings. It is rather asmokethan a fog. There are no two things inthis world; and, were it not for fear ofSix-Acts(the “wholesome restraint” of which I continually feel) I might be tempted to carry my comparison further; but, certainly, there are no two things inthis worldso dissimilar as an English and a Long Island autumn.—These fogs are certainly thewhite cloudsthat we sometimes see aloft. I was once upon the Hampshire Hills, going from Soberton Down to Petersfield, where the hills are high and steep, not very wide at their base, very irregular in their form and direction, and have, of course, deep and narrow valleys winding about between them. In one place that I had to pass, two of these valleys were cut asunder by a piece of hill that went across them and formed a sort of bridge from one long hill to another. A little before I came to this sort of bridge I saw a smoke flying across it; and, not knowing the way by experience, I said to the person who was with me, “there is the turnpike road (which we were expecting to come to); for, don’t you see the dust?” The day was very fine, the sun clear, and the weather dry. When we came to the pass, however, we found ourselves, not in dust, but in a fog. After getting over the pass, we looked down into the valleys, and there we saw the fog going along the valleys to the North, in detached parcels, that is to say, in clouds, and, as they came to the pass, they rose, went over it, then descendedagain, keeping constantly along just above the ground. And, to-day, the fog came byspells. It was sometimes thinner than at other times; and these changes were very sudden too. So that I am convinced that these fogs aredry clouds, such as those that I saw on the Hampshire Downs. Those did notwetme at all; nor do these fogs wet any thing; and I do not think that they are by any means injurious to health.—It is the fogs that rise out of swamps, and other places, full of putrid vegetable matter, that kill people. These are the fogs that sweep off the new settlers in the American Woods. I remember a valley in Pennsylvania, in a part calledWysihicken. In looking from a hill, over this valley, early in the morning, in November, it presented one of the most beautiful sights that my eyes ever beheld. It was a sea bordered with beautifully formed trees of endless variety of colours. As the hills formed the outsides of the sea, some of the trees showed only their tops; and, every now-and-then, a lofty tree growing in the sea itself raised its head above the apparent waters. Except the setting-sun sending his horizontal beams through all the variety of reds and yellows of the branches of the trees in Long Island, and giving, at the same time, a sort of silver cast to the verdure beneath them, I have never seen anything so beautiful as the foggy valley of the Wysihicken. But I was told that it was very fatal to the people; and that whole families were frequently swept off by the “fall-fever.”—Thus thesmellhas a great deal to do with health. There can be no doubt that Butchers and their wives fatten upon the smell of meat. And this accounts for the precept of my grandmother, who used to tell me tobite my bread and smell to my cheese; talk, much more wise than that of certainold grannies, who go about England crying up “theblessings” of paper-money, taxes, and national debts.
The fog prevented me from seeing much of the fields as I came along yesterday; but the fields of Swedish Turnips that I did see were good; pretty good; though not clean and neat like those in Norfolk. The farmers here, as every where else, complain most bitterly; but they hang on, like sailors to the masts or hull of a wreck. They read, you will observe, nothing but the country newspapers; they, of course, know nothing of thecauseof their “bad times.” They hope “the times will mend.” If they quit business, they must sell their stock; and, having thought this worth so much money, they cannot endure the thought of selling for a third of the sum. Thus they hang on; thus the landlords will first turn the farmers’ pockets inside out; and then their turn comes. To finish the present farmers will not take long. There has been stout fight going on all this morning (it is now 9 o’clock) between thesunand thefog. Ihave backed the former, and he appears to have gained the day; for he is now shining most delightfully.
Came through a place called “a park” belonging to a Mr.Montague, who is nowabroad; for the purpose, I suppose, of generously assisting to compensate the French people for what they lost by the entrance of the Holy Alliance Armies into their country. Of all the ridiculous things I ever saw in my life this place is the most ridiculous. The house looks like a sort of church, in somewhat of a gothic style of building, withcrosseson the tops of different parts of the pile. There is a sort of swamp, at the foot of a wood, at no great distance from the front of the house. This swamp has been dug out in the middle to show the water to the eye; so that there is a sort of river, or chain of diminutive lakes, going down a little valley, about 500 yards long, the water proceeding from thesoakof the higher ground on both sides. By the sides of these lakes there are little flower gardens, laid out in the Dutch manner; that is to say, cut out into all manner of superficial geometrical figures. Here is thegrand en petit, or mock magnificence, more complete than I ever beheld it before. Here is afountain, the basin of which is not four feet over, and the water spout not exceeding the pour from a tea-pot. Here is abridgeover ariverof which a child four years old would clear the banks at a jump. I could not have trusted myself on the bridge for fear of the consequences to Mr.Montague; but I very conveniently stepped over the river, in imitation of theColossus. In another part there was alion’s mouthspouting out water into the lake, which was so much like the vomiting of a dog, that I could almost have pitied the poor Lion. In short, such fooleries I never before beheld; but what I disliked most was the apparent impiety of a part of these works of refined taste. I did not like the crosses on the dwelling house; but, in one of the gravel walks, we had to pass under a gothic arch, with a cross on the top of it, and in the point of the arch a niche for a saint or a virgin, the figure being gone through the lapse of centuries, and the pedestal only remaining as we so frequently see on the outsides of Cathedrals and of old Churches and Chapels. But, the good of it was, this gothic arch, disfigured by the hand of old Father Time, was composed of Scotch fir wood, as rotten as a pear; nailed together in such a way as to make the thing appear, from a distance, like the remnant of a ruin! I wonder how long this sickly, this childish, taste is to remain. I do not know who this gentleman is. I suppose he is some honest person from the ’Change or its neighbourhood; and that thesegothic archesare to denote theantiquity of his origin! Not a bad plan; and, indeed, it is one that I once took the liberty to recommend to those Fundlordswho retire to be country-’squires. But I never recommended theCrucifixes! To be sure, the Roman Catholic religion may, in England, be considered as agentleman’s religion, it being the mostancientin the country; and therefore it is fortunate for a Fundlord when he happens (if he ever do happen) to be of that faith.
This gentleman may, for anything that I know, be aCatholic; in which case I applaud his piety and pity his taste. At the end of this scene of mock grandeur and mock antiquity I found something more rational; namely, some hare hounds, and, in half an hour after, we found, and I had the first hare-hunt that I had had since I wore a smock-frock! We killed our hare after good sport, and got to Berghclere in the evening to a nice farm-house in a dell, sheltered from every wind, and with plenty of good living; though with no gothic arches made of Scotch fir!
October 31. Wednesday.
A fine day. Too many hares here; but our hunting was not bad; or, at least, it was a great treat to me, who used, when a boy, to have my legs and thighs so often filled with thorns in running after the hounds, anticipating, with pretty great certainty, a “waling” of the back at night. We had greyhounds a part of the day; but the ground on the hills is soflinty, that I do not like the country for coursing. The dogs’ legs are presently cut to pieces.
Nov. 1. Thursday.
Mr.Buddhas Swedish Turnips, Mangel-Wurzel, and Cabbages of various kinds, transplanted. All are very fine indeed. It is impossible to make more satisfactory experiments intransplantingthan have been made here. But this is not a proper place to give a particular account of them. I went to see the best cultivated parts round Newbury; but I saw no spot with half the “feed” that I see here, upon a spot of similar extent.
Hurstbourn Tarrant, Hants,Nov. 2. Friday.
This place is commonly calledUphusband, which is, I think, as decent a corruption of names as one would wish to meet with. However, Uphusband the people will have it, and Uphusband it shall be for me. I came from Berghclere this morning, and through the park ofLord Caernarvon, at Highclere. It is a fine season to look at woods. The oaks are still covered, the beeches in their best dress, the elms yet pretty green, and the beautiful ashes only beginning to turn off. This is, according to myfancy, the prettiest park that I have ever seen. A great variety of hill and dell. A good deal of water, and this, in one part, only wants thecoloursof American trees to make it look like a “creek;” for the water runs along at the foot of a steepish hill, thickly covered with trees, and the branches of the lowermost trees hang down into the water and hide the bank completely. I like this place better thanFonthill,Blenheim,Stowe, or any other gentleman’s grounds that I have seen. ThehouseI did not care about, though it appears to be large enough to hold half a village. The trees are very good, and the woods would be handsomer if the larches and firs wereburnt, for which only they are fit. The great beauty of the place is thelofty downs, as steep, in some places, as the roof of a house, which form a sort of boundary, in the form of a part of a crescent, to about a third part of the park, and then slope off and get more distant, for about half another third part. A part of these downs is covered with trees, chiefly beech, the colour of which, at this season, forms a most beautiful contrast with that of the down itself, which is so green and so smooth! From the vale in the park, along which we rode, we looked apparently almost perpendicularly up at the downs, where the trees have extended themselves by seed more in some places than others, and thereby formed numerous salient parts of various forms, and, of course, as many and as variously formed glades. These, which are always so beautiful in forests and parks, are peculiarly beautiful in this lofty situation and with verdure so smooth as that of these chalky downs. Our horses beat up a score or two of hares as we crossed the park; and, though we met with nogothic archesmade of Scotch fir, we saw something a great deal better; namely, about forty cows, the most beautiful that I ever saw, as to colour at least. They appear to be of the Galway-breed. They are called, in this country,Lord Caernarvon’s breed. They have no horns, and their colour is a ground of white with black or red spots, these spots being from the size of a plate to that of a crown piece; and some of them have no small spots. These cattle were lying down together in the space of about an acre of ground: they were in excellent condition, and so fine a sight of the kind I never saw. Upon leaving the park, and coming over the hills to this pretty vale of Uphusband, I could not help calculating how long it might be before some Jew would begin to fix his eye upon Highclere, and talk of putting out the present owner, who, though aWhig, is one of the best of that set of politicians, and who acted a manly part in the case of our deeply injured and deeply lamented Queen. Perhaps his Lordship thinks that there is no fear of the Jews as tohim. But does he think that his tenants can sell fat hogs at 7s.6d.a score, andpay him more than a third of the rent that they have paid him while the debt was contracting? I know that such a man does not lose his estate at once; but, without rents, what is the estate? And that the Jews will receive the far greater part of his rents is certain, unless the interest of the Debt be reduced.Lord Caernarvontold a man, in 1820, thathe did not like my politics. But what did he mean by mypolitics? I have no politics but such as heoughtto like. I want to do away with that infernalsystem, which, after having beggared and pauperized the Labouring Classes, has now, according to the Report, made by the Ministers themselves to the House of Commons, plunged the owners of the land themselves into a state of distress, for which those Ministers themselves can hold out no remedy! To be sure, I labour most assiduously to destroy a system of distress and misery; but is that any reason why aLordshould dislike my politics? However, dislike or like them, to them, to those very politics, the Lords themselvesmust come at last. And that I should exult in this thought, and take little pains to disguise my exultation, can surprise nobody who reflects on what has passed within these last twelve years. If the Landlords be well; if things be going right with them; if they have fair prospects of happy days; then what need they care about me andmy politics; but, if they find themselves in “distress,” and do not know how to get out of it; and, if they have been plunged into this distress by those who “dislike my politics;” is there notsome reasonfor men of sense to hesitate a little before theycondemnthose politics? If no great change be wanted; if things could remain even; then men may, with some show of reason, say that I am disturbing that which ought to be let alone. But if things cannot remain as they are; if there must be agreat change; is it not folly, and, indeed, is it not a species of idiotic perverseness, for men to set their faces, without rhyme or reason, against what is said as to this change byme, who have, for nearly twenty years, been warning the country of its danger, and foretelling that which has now come to pass and is coming to pass? However, I make no complaint on this score. People disliking my politics “neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg,” asJeffersonsaid by the writings of the Atheists. If they be pleased in disliking my politics, I am pleased in liking them; and so we are both enjoying ourselves. If the country wants no assistance from me, I am quite sure that I want none from it.
Nov. 3. Saturday.
Fat hogs have lately sold, in this village, at 7s.6d.a score (but would hardly bring that now), that is to say, at 4½d.a pound.The hog is weighed whole, when killed and dressed. The head and feet are included; but so is the lard. Hogs fatted on peas or barley-meal may be called the very best meat that England contains. At Salisbury (only about 20 miles off) fat hogs sell for 5s.to 4s.6d.a score. But, then, observe, these aredairy hogs, which are not nearly so good in quality as the corn-fed hogs. But I shall probably hear more about these prices as I get further towards the West. Some wheat has been sold at Newbury-market for 6l.a load (40 bushels); that is, at 3s.a bushel. A considerable part of the crop is wholly unfit for bread flour, and is not equal in value to good barley. In not a few instances the wheat has been carried into the gate, or yard, and thrown down to be made dung of. So that, if we were to take the average, it would not exceed, I am convinced, 5s.a bushel in this part of the country; and the average of all England would not, perhaps, exceed 4s.or 3s.6d.a bushel. However,Lord Liverpoolhas got abad harvestat last! Thatremedyhas been applied! Somebody sent me some time ago that stupid newspaper, called theMorning Herald, in which its readers were reminded of my “false prophecies,” I having (as this paper said) foretold that wheat would be attwo shillings a bushel before Christmas. These gentlemen of the “respectablepart of the press” do not mind lying a little upon a pinch. [See Walter’s “Times” of Tuesday last, for the following: “Mr. Cobbett has thrown open the front of his house at Kensington, where he proposes to sell meat at a reduced price.”] What I said was this: that, if the crop were good and the harvest fine, and gold continued to be paid at the Bank, we should see wheat at four, not two, shillings a bushel before Christmas. Now, the crop was, in many parts, very much blighted, and the harvest was very bad indeed; and yet the average of England, including that which is destroyed, or not brought to market at all, will not exceed 4s.a bushel. A farmer told me, the other day, that he gotso littleoffered for some of his wheat, that he was resolved not to take any more of it to market; but to give it to hogs. Therefore, in speaking of the price of wheat, you are to take in the unsold as well as the sold; that which fetches nothing as well as that which is sold at high price.—I see, in the Irish papers, which have overtaken me on my way, that the system is working the Agriculturasses in “the sister-kingdom” too! The following paragraph will show that theremedyof abad harvesthas not done our dear sister much good. “A very numerous meeting of the Kildare Farming Society met at Naas on the 24th inst., the Duke of Leinster in the Chair; Robert de la Touche, Esq., M.P., Vice-President. Nothing can more strongly prove the BADNESS OF THE TIMES, and veryunfortunate stateof the country, than the necessity in which the Society finds itself ofdiscontinuing its premiums, from its present want of funds. The best members of the farming classes have got so much in arrear in their subscriptions that they have declined to appear or to dine with their neighbours, and general depression damps the spirit of the most industrious andhitherto prosperouscultivators.” You are mistaken, Pat; it is not thetimesany more than it is thestars. Bobadil, you know, imputed his beating to theplanets: “planet-stricken, by the foot of Pharaoh!”—“No, Captain,” says Welldon, “indeed it was astick.” It is not thetimes, dear Patrick: it isthe government, who, having first contracted a great debt in depreciated money, are now compelling you to pay the interest at the rate of three for one. Whether this beright, orwrong, the Agriculturasses best know: it is much more their affair than it is mine; but, be you well assured, that they are only at the beginning of their sorrows. Ah! Patrick, whoever shall live only a few years will see agrand changein your state! Something alittle more rationalthan “Catholic Emancipation” will take place, or I am the most deceived of all mankind. ThisDebtis your best, and, indeed, youronly friend. It must, at last, give the THING ashake, such as it never had before.—The accounts which my country newspapers give of the failure of farmers are perfectly dismal. In many, many instances they have put an end to their existence, as the poor deluded creatures did who had been ruined by the South Sea Bubble! I cannot help feeling for these people, for whom my birth, education, taste, and habits give me so strong a partiality. Who can help feeling for their wives and children, hurled down headlong from affluence to misery in the space of a few months! Become all of a sudden the mockery of those whom they compelled, perhaps, to cringe before them! If the Labourers exult, one cannot say that it is unnatural. IfReasonhave her fair sway, I am exempted from all pain upon this occasion. I have done my best to prevent these calamities. Those farmers who have attended to me are safe while the storm rages. My endeavours to stop the evil in time cost me the earnings of twenty long years! I did not sink, no, norbend, beneath the heavy and reiterated blows of the accursed system, which I have dealt back blow for blow; and, blessed be God, I now see itreel! It is staggering about like a sheep with water in the head: turning its pate up on one side: seeming to listen, but has no hearing: seeming to look, but has no sight: one day it capers and dances: the next it mopes and seems ready to die.
Nov. 4. Sunday.
This, to my fancy, is a very nice country. It is continual hill and dell. Now and then achainof hills higher than the rest, and these are downs, or woods. To stand upon any of the hills and look around you, you almost think you see the ups and downs of sea in aheavy swell(as the sailors call it) after what they call a gale of wind. The undulations are endless, and the great variety in the height, breadth, length, and form of the little hills, has a very delightful effect.—The soil, which, to lookonit, appears to be more than half flint stones, is very good in quality, and, in general, better on the tops of the lesser hills than in the valleys. It has great tenacity; does notwash awaylike sand, or light loam. It is a stiff, tenacious loam, mixed with flint stones. Bears Saint-foin well, and all sorts of grass, which make the fields on the hills as green as meadows, even at this season; and the grass does not burn up in summer.—In a country so full of hills one would expect endless runs of water and springs. There are none: absolutely none. No water-furrow is ever made in the land. No ditches round the fields. And, even in thedeep valleys, such as that in which this village is situated, though it winds round for ten or fifteen miles, there is no run of water even now. There is thebedof a brook, which will run before spring, and it continues running with more or less water for about half the year, though, some years, it never runs at all. It rained all Friday night; pretty nearly all day yesterday; and to-day the ground is as dry as a bone, except just along the street of the village, which has been kept in a sort of stabble by the flocks of sheep passing along to and from Appleshaw fair. In the deep and long and narrow valleys, such as this, there are meadows with very fine herbage and very productive. The grass very fine and excellent in its quality. It is very curious that the soil is muchshallowerin the vales than on the hills. In the vales it is a sort of hazle-mould on a bed of something approaching to gravel; but on the hills it is stiff loam, with apparently half flints, on a bed of something like clay first (reddish, not yellow), and then comes the chalk, which they often take up by digging a sort of wells; and then they spread it on the surface, as they do the clay in some countries, where they sometimes fetch it many miles and at an immense expense. It was very common, near Botley, to chalk land at an expense of sixteen pounds an acre.——The land here is excellent in quality generally, unless you get upon the highest chains of hills. They have frequently 40 bushels of wheat to the acre. Their barley is very fine; and their Saint-foin abundant. The turnips are, in general, very good at this time; and the landappears as capable of carrying fine crops of them as any land that I have seen. A fine country for sheep: always dry: they never injure the land when feeding off turnips in wet weather; and they can lie down on the dry; for the ground is, in fact, never wet except while the rain is actually falling. Sometimes, in spring-thaws and thunder-showers, the rain runs down the hills in torrents; but is gone directly. The flocks of sheep, some in fold and some at large, feeding on the sides of the hills, give great additional beauty to the scenery.—The woods, which consist chiefly of oak thinly intermixed with ash, and well set with underwood of ash and hazle, but mostly the latter, are very beautiful. They sometimes stretch along the top and sides of hills for miles together; and as their edges, or outsides, joining the fields and the downs, go winding and twisting about, and as the fields and downs are naked of trees, the sight altogether is very pretty.—The trees in the deep and long valleys, especially the Elm and the Ash, are very fine and very lofty; and from distance to distance, the Rooks have made them their habitation. This sort of country, which, in irregular shape, is of great extent, has many and great advantages. Dry under foot. Good roads, winter as well as summer, and little, very little, expense. Saint-foin flourishes. Fences cost little. Wood, hurdles, and hedging-stuff cheap. No shade in wet harvests. The water in the wells excellent. Good sporting country, except for coursing, and too many flints for that.—What becomes of all thewater? There is a spring in one of the cross valleys that runs into this, having a basin about thirty feet over, and about eight feet deep, which, they say, sends up water once in about 30 or 40 years; and boils up so as to make a large current of water.—Not far fromUphusbandtheWansdike(I think it is called) crosses the country.Sir Richard Colt Hoarehas written a great deal about this ancient boundary, which is, indeed, something very curious. In the ploughed fields the traces of it are quite gone; but they remain in thewoodsas well as on the downs.
Nov. 5. Monday.
Awhite frostthis morning. The hills round about beautiful at sun-rise, the rooks making that noise which they always make in winter mornings. The Starlings are come in large flocks; and, which is deemed a sign of a hard winter, the Fieldfares are come at an early season. The haws are very abundant; which, they say, is another sign of a hard winter. The wheat is high enough here, in some fields, “to hide a hare,” which is, indeed, not saying much for it, as a hare knows how to hide herself upon the bare ground. But it is, in some fields, fourinches high, and is green and gay, the colour being finer than that of any grass.—The fuel here is wood. Little coal is brought from Andover. A load of fagots does not cost above 10s.So that, in this respect, the labourers are pretty well off. The wages here and in Berkshire, about 8s.a week; but the farmers talk of lowering them.—The poor-rates heavy, and heavy they must be, till taxes and rents come down greatly.—Saturday, and to-day Appleshaw sheep-fair. The sheep, which had taken a rise at Weyhill fair, have fallen again even below the Norfolk and Sussex mark. Some Southdown Lambs were sold at Appleshaw so low as 8s.and some even lower. Some Dorsetshire Ewes brought no more than a pound; and, perhaps, the average did not exceed 28s.I have seen a farmer here who can get (or could a few days ago) 28s.round for a lot of fat Southdown Wethers, which cost him just that money, when they were lambs,two years ago! It is impossible that they can have cost him less than 24s.each during the two years, having to be fed on turnips or hay in winter, and to be fatted on good grass. Here (upon one hundred sheep) is a loss of 120l.and 14l.in addition at five per cent. interest on the sum expended in the purchase; even suppose not a sheep has been lost by death or otherwise.—I mentioned before, I believe, that fat hogs are sold at Salisbury at from 5s.to 4s.6d.thescorepounds, dead weight.—Cheese has come down in the same proportion. A correspondent informs me that one hundred and fifty Welsh Sheep were, on the 18th of October, offered for 4s.6d, a head, and that they went away unsold! The skin was worth a shilling of the money! The following I take from theTyne Mercuryof the 30th of October. “Last week, at Northawton fair, Mr. Thomas Cooper, of Bow, purchased three milch cows and forty sheep, for 18l.16s.6d.!” The skins, four years ago, would have sold for more than the money. TheHampshire Journalsays that, on 1 November (Thursday) at Newbury Market, wheat sold from 88s.to 24s.the Quarter. This would make an average of 56s.But very little indeed was sold at 88s., only the prime of the old wheat. The best of the new for about 48s., and then, if we take into view the great proportion that cannot go to market at all, we shall not find the average, even in this rather dear part of England, to exceed 32s., or 4s.a bushel. And if we take all England through, it does not come up to that, nor anything like it. A farmer very sensibly observed to me yesterday that “if we had had such a crop and such a harvest a few years ago, good wheat would have been 50l.a load;” that is to say, 25s.a bushel! Nothing can be truer than this. And nothing can be clearer than that the present race of farmers, generally speaking, must be swept away by bankruptcy, if theydo not, in time, make their bow, and retire. There are two descriptions of farmers, very distinct as to the effects which this change must naturally have on them. The wordfarmercomes from the French,fermier, and signifiesrenter. Those only who rent, therefore, are, properly speaking,farmers. Those who till their own land areyeomen; and when I was a boy it was the common practice to call the formerfarmersand the latteryeoman-farmers. These yeomen have, for the greater part, been swallowed up by the paper-system which has drawn such masses of money together. They have, by degrees, beenbought out. Still there are some few left; and these, if not in debt, will stand their ground. But all the present race of mere renters must give way, in one manner or another. They must break, or drop their style greatly; even in the latter case, their rent must, very shortly, be diminished more than two-thirds. Then comes theLandlord’s turn; and the sooner the better.—In theMaidstone GazetteI find the following: “Prime beef was sold in Salisbury market, on Tuesday last, at 4d.per lb., and good joints of mutton at 3½d.; butter 11d.and 12d.per lb.—In the West of Cornwall, during the summer, pork has often been sold at 2½d.per lb.”—This is very true; and what can be better? How can Peel’s Bill work in a more delightful manner? What nice “general working of events!” The country rag-merchants have now very little to do. They haveno discounts. What they have out theyowe: it is so muchdebt: and, of course, they become poorer and poorer, because they must, like a mortgager, have more and more to pay as prices fall. This is very good; for it will make them disgorge a part, at least, of what they have swallowed, during the years of high prices and depreciation. They are worked in this sort of way: the Tax-Collectors, the Excise-fellows, for instance, hold their sittings every six weeks, in certain towns about the country. They will receive the country rags, if the rag man can find, and will give, security for the due payment of his rags, when they arrive in London. For want of such security, or of some formality of the kind, there was a great bustle in a town in this county not many days ago. The Excise-fellow demanded sovereigns, or Bank of England notes. Precisely how the matter was finally settled I know not; but the reader will see that the Exciseman was only taking a proper precaution; for if the rags were not paid in London, the loss was his.
Marlborough,Tuesday noon, Nov. 6.
I left Uphusband this morning at 9, and came across to this place (20 miles) in a post-chaise. Came up the valley ofUphusband, which ends at about 6 miles from the village, and puts one out upon the Wiltshire Downs, which stretch away towards the West and South-west, towards Devizes and towards Salisbury. After about half a mile of down we came down into a level country; the flints cease, and the chalk comes nearer the top of the ground. The labourers along here seem very poor indeed. Farmhouses with twenty ricks round each, besides those standing in the fields; pieces of wheat 50, 60, or 100 acres in a piece; but a group of women labourers, who were attending the measurers to measure their reaping work, presented such an assemblage of rags as I never before saw even amongst the hoppers at Farnham, many of whom are common beggars. I never before sawcountrypeople, and reapers too, observe, so miserable in appearance as these. There were some very pretty girls, but ragged as colts and as pale as ashes. The day was cold too, and frost hardly off the ground; and their blue arms and lips would have made any heart ache but that of a seat-seller or a loan-jobber. A little after passing by these poor things, whom I left, cursing, as I went, those who had brought them to this state, I came to a group of shabby houses upon a hill. While the boy was watering his horses, I asked the ostler thenameof the place; and, as the old women say, “you might have knocked me down with a feather,” when he said, “Great Bedwin.” The whole of the houses are not intrinsically worth a thousand pounds. There stood a thing out in the middle of the place, about 25 feet long and 15 wide, being a room stuck up on unhewed stone pillars about 10 feet high. It was the Town Hall, where the ceremony of choosing thetwo Membersis performed. “This place sends Members to Parliament, don’t it?” said I to the ostler. “Yes, Sir.” “Who are Membersnow?” “Idon’t know, indeed, Sir.”—I have not read theHenriadeof Voltaire for these 30 years; but in ruminating upon the ostler’s answer, and in thinking how the world, yes,the whole world, has been deceived as to this matter, two lines of that poem came across my memory:
Représentans du peuple, les Grands et le Roi:Spectacle magnifique! Source sacrée des lois![1]
The Frenchman, for want of understanding the THING as well as I do, left the eulogium incomplete. I therefore here add four lines, which I request those who publish future editions of the Henriade to insert in continuation of the above eulogium of Voltaire.
Représentans du peuple, que celui-ci ignore,Sont fait à miracle pour garder son Or!Peuple trop heureux, que le bonheur inonde!L’envie de vos voisins, admiré du monde![2]
The first line was suggested by the ostler; the last by the words which we so very often hear from the bar, the bench, theseats, the pulpit, and the throne. Doubtless my poetry is not equal to that of Voltaire; but my rhyme is as good as his, and myreasonis a great deal better.—In quitting this villanous place we see the extensive and uncommonly ugly park and domain ofLord Aylesbury, who seems to have tacked park on to park, like so many outworks of a fortified city. I suppose here are 50 or 100 farms of former days swallowed up. They have been bought, I dare say, from time to time; and it would be a labour very well worthy of reward by the public, to trace to its source the money by which these immense domains, in different parts of the country, have been formed!—Marlborough, which is an ill-looking place enough, is succeeded, on my road toSwindon, by an extensive and very beautiful down about 4 miles over. Here nature has flung the earth about in a great variety of shapes. The fine short smooth grass has about 9 inches of mould under it, and then comes the chalk. The water that runs down the narrow side-hill valleys is caught, in different parts of the down, in basins made on purpose, and lined with clay apparently. This is for watering the sheep in summer; sure sign of a really dry soil; and yet the grass neverparchesupon these downs. The chalk holds the moisture, and the grass is fed by the dews in hot and dry weather.—At the end of this down the high-country ends. The hill is high and steep, and from it you look immediately down into a level farming country; a little further on into the dairy-country, whence the North-Wilts cheese comes; and, beyond that, into the vale of Berkshire, and even to Oxford, which lies away to the North-east from this hill.—The land continues good, flat and rather wet to Swindon, which is a plain country town, built of the stone which is found at about 6 feet under ground about here.—I come on now towards Cirencester, thro’ the dairy county of North Wilts.
Cirencester,Wednesday (Noon), 7 Nov.
I slept at a Dairy-farm house at Hannington, about eight miles from Swindon, and five on one side of my road. I passedthrough that villanous hole, Cricklade, about two hours ago; and, certainly, a more rascally looking place I never set my eyes on. I wished to avoid it, but could get along no other way. All along here the land is a whitish stiff loam upon a bed of soft stone, which is found at various distances from the surface, sometimes two feet and sometimes ten. Here and there a field is fenced with this stone, laid together in walls without mortar or earth. All the houses and out-houses are made of it, and even covered with the thinnest of it formed into tiles. The stiles in the fields are made of large flags of this stone, and the gaps in the hedges are stopped with them.—There is very little wood all along here. The labourers seem miserably poor. Their dwellings are little better than pig-beds, and their looks indicate that their food is not nearly equal to that of a pig. Their wretched hovels are stuck upon little bits of groundon the road side, where the space has been wider than the road demanded. In many places they have not two rods to a hovel. It seems as if they had been swept off the fields by a hurricane, and had dropped and found shelter under the banks on the road side! Yesterday morning was a sharp frost; and this had set the poor creatures to digging up their little plats of potatoes. In my whole life I never saw human wretchedness equal to this: no, not even amongst the free negroes in America, who, on an average, do not work one day out of four. And this is “prosperity,” is it? These, Oh, Pitt! are the fruits of thy hellish system! However, thisWiltshireis a horrible county. This is the county that theGallon-loafman belongs to. The land all along here is good. Fine fields and pastures all around; and yet the cultivators of those fields so miserable! This is particularly the case on both sides of Cricklade, and in it too, where everything had the air of the most deplorable want.—They are sowing wheat all the way from the Wiltshire downs to Cirencester; though there is some wheat up. Winter-Vetches are up in some places, and look very well.—The turnips of both kinds are good all along here.—I met a farmer going with porkers to Highworth market. They would weigh, he said, four score and a half, and he expected to get 7s.6d.a score. I expect he will not. He said they had been fed on barley-meal; but I did not believe him. I put it to his honour whether whey and beans had not been their food. He looked surly, and pushed on.—On this stiff ground they grow a good many beans, and give them to the pigs with whey; which makes excellent pork for theLondoners; but which must meet with a pretty hungry stomach to swallow it in Hampshire. The hogs, all the way that I have come, from Buckinghamshire, are, without a single exception that I have seen, the old-fashioned black-spotted hogs. Mr.Blountat Uphusband has one, which now weighs about thirty score, and will possibly weigh forty, for she moves about very easily yet. This is the weight of a good ox; and yet, what a little thing it is compared to an ox! Between Cricklade and this place (Cirencester) I met, in separate droves, about two thousand Welsh Cattle, on their way from Pembrokeshire to the fairs in Sussex. The greater part of them were heifers in calf. They were purchased in Wales at from 3l.to 4l.10s.each! None of them, the drovers told me, reached 5l.These heifers used to fetch, at home, from 6l.to 8l., and sometimes more. Many of the things that I saw in these droves did not fetch, in Wales, 25s.And they go to norisingmarket! Now, is there a man in his senses who believes that this THING can go on in the present way? However, a fine thing, indeed, is this fall of prices! My “cottager” will easily get his cow, and a young cow too, for less than the 5l.that I talked of. These Welsh heifers will calve about May; and they are just the very thing for a cottager.
Gloucester,Thursday (morning), Nov. 8.
In leaving Cirencester, which is a pretty large town, a pretty nice town, and which the people callCititer, I came up hill into a country, apparently formerly a down or common, but now divided into large fields by stone walls. Anything so ugly I have never seen before. The stone, which, on the other side of Cirencester, lay a good way under ground, here lies very near to the surface. The plough is continually bringing it up, and thus, in general, come the means of making the walls that serve as fences. Anything quite so cheerless as this I do not recollect to have seen; for the Bagshot country, and the commons between Farnham and Haslemere, haveheathat any rate; but these stones are quite abominable. The turnips are not afiftiethof a crop like those of Mr. Clarke at Bergh-Apton in Norfolk, or Mr. Pym at Reigate in Surrey, or of Mr. Brazier at Worth in Sussex. I see thirty acres here that have lessfoodupon them than I saw the other day upon half an acre at Mr. Budd’s at Berghclere.Canit be good farming to plough and sow and hoe thirty acres to get whatmaybe got upon half an acre? Can that half acre cost more than a tenth part as much as the thirty acres? But if I were to go to this thirty-acre farmer, and tell him what to do to the half acre, would he not exclaim with the farmer at Botley: “What!drowaway all that ’ere ground between thelains! Jod’s blood!”—With the exception of a little dell about eight miles from Cititer, this miserable country continued to the distance of ten miles, when, all of a sudden, I looked downfrom the top of a high hill intothe vale of Gloucester! Never was there, surely, such a contrast in this world! This hill is calledBurlip Hill; it is much about a mile down it, and the descent so steep as to require the wheel of the chaise to be locked; and even with that precaution, I did not think it over and above safe to sit in the chaise; so, upon Sir Robert Wilson’s principle of taking care ofNumber One, I got out and walked down. From this hill you see the Morvan Hills in Wales. You look down into a sort ofdishwith a flat bottom, the Hills are the sides of the dish, and the City of Gloucester, which you plainly see, at seven miles distance from Burlip Hill, appears to be not far from the centre of the dish. All here is fine; fine farms; fine pastures; all enclosed fields; all divided by hedges; orchards a plenty; and I had scarcely seen one apple since I left Berkshire.—Gloucesteris a fine, clean, beautiful place; and, which is of a vast deal more importance, the labourers’ dwellings, as I came along, looked good, and the labourers themselves pretty well as to dress and healthiness. The girls at work in the fields (always my standard) are not in rags, with bits of shoes tied on their feet and rags tied round their ankles, as they had in Wiltshire.
Bollitree Castle, Herefordshire,Friday, 9 Nov. 1821.
I got to this beautiful place (Mr.William Palmer’s) yesterday, from Gloucester. This is in the parish ofWeston, two miles on the Gloucester side of Ross, and, if not the first, nearly the first, parish in Herefordshire upon leaving Gloucester to go on through Ross to Hereford.—On quitting Gloucester I crossed the Severne, which had overflowed its banks and covered the meadows with water.—The soil good but stiff. The coppices and woods very much like those upon the clays in the South of Hampshire and in Sussex; but the land better for corn and grass. The goodness of the land is shown by the apple-trees, and by the sort of sheep and cattle fed here. The sheep are a cross between the Ryland and Leicester, and the cattle of the Herefordshire kind. These would starve in the pastures of any part of Hampshire or Sussex that I have ever seen.—At about sevenmiles from Gloucester I came to hills, and the land changed from the whitish soil, which I had hitherto seen, to a red brown, with layers of flat stone of a reddish cast under it. Thus it continued to Bollitree. The trees of all kinds are very fine on the hills as well as in the bottoms.—The spot where I now am is peculiarly well situated in all respects. The land very rich, the pastures the finest I ever saw, the trees of all kinds surpassing upon an average any that I have before seen in England. From the house, you see, in front and winding round to the left, a lofty hill, calledPenyard Hill, at about a mile and a half distance, covered with oaks of the finest growth: along at the foot of this wood are fields and orchards continuing the slope of the hill down for a considerable distance, and, as the ground lies in a sort ofridgesfrom the wood to the foot of the slope, the hill-and-dell is very beautiful. One of these dells with the two adjoining sides of hills is an orchard belonging to Mr.Palmer, and the trees, the ground, and everything belonging to it, put me in mind of the most beautiful of the spots in the North of Long Island. Sheltered by a lofty wood; the grass fine beneath the fruit trees; the soil dry under foot though the rain had scarcely ceased to fall; no moss on the trees; the leaves of many of them yet green; everything brought my mind to the beautiful orchards near Bayside, Little Neck, Mosquito Cove, and Oyster Bay, in Long Island. No wonder that this is a country ofciderandperry; but what a shame it is that here, at any rate, the owners and cultivators of the soil, not content with these, should, for mere fashion’s sake, waste their substance onwineandspirits! They really deserve the contempt of mankind and the curses of their children.—The woody hill mentioned before, winds away to the left, and carries the eye on to theForest of Dean, from which it is divided by a narrow and very deep valley. Away to the right of Penyard Hill lies, in the bottom, at two miles distance, and on the bank of the river Wye, the town of Ross, over which we look down the vale to Monmouth and see the Welsh hills beyond it. Beneath Penyard Hill, and on one of theridgesbefore mentioned, is the parish church of Weston, with some pretty white cottages near it, peeping through the orchard and other trees; and coming to the paddock before the house are some of the largest and loftiest trees in the country, standing singly here and there, amongst which is the very largest and loftiest walnut-tree that I believe I ever saw, either in America or in England. In short, there wants nothing but the autumnalcoloursof the American trees to make this the most beautiful spot I ever beheld.—I was much amused for an hour after daylight this morning in looking at theclouds, rising at intervals from the dells on the side of Penyard Hill, andflying to the top, and then over the Hill. Some of the clouds went up in a roundish and compact form. Others rose in a sort of string or stream, the tops of them going over the hill before the bottoms were clear of the place whence they had arisen. Sometimes the clouds gathered themselves together along the top of the hill, and seemed to connect the topmost trees with the sky.——I have been to-day to look at Mr.Palmer’sfine crops ofSwedish Turnips, which are, in general, called “Swedes.” These crops having been raised according tomy plan, I feel, of course, great interest in the matter. The Swedes occupy two fields: one of thirteen, and one of seventeen acres. The main part of the seventeen-acre field wasdrilled, on ridges, four feet apart, a single row on a ridge, at different times, between 16th April and 29th May. An acre and a half of this piece wastransplantedon four-feet ridges 30th July. About half an acre across the middle of the field was sownbroad-cast14th April.—In the thirteen-acre field there is about half an acre sownbroad-caston the 1st of June; the rest of the field wastransplanted; part in the first week of June, part in the last week of June, part from the 12th to 18th July, and the rest (about three acres) from 21st to 23rd July. The drilled Swedes in the seventeen-acre field, contain full 23 tons to the acre; the transplanted ones inthatfield, 15 tons, and the broad-cast not exceeding 10 tons. Those in the thirteen-acre field which were transplanted before the 21st July, contain 27 if not 30 tons; and the rest ofthatfield about 17 tons to the acre. The broad-cast piece here (half an acre) may contain 7 tons. The shortness of my time will prevent us from ascertaining the weight by actual weighings; but such is the crop, according to the best of my judgment, after a very minute survey of it in every part of each field.—Now, here is a little short of 800 tons of food, about a fifth part of which consists oftops; and, of course, there is about 640 tons ofbulb. As to thevalueandusesof this prodigious crop I need say nothing; and as to the time and manner of sowing and raising the plants for transplanting, the act of transplanting, and the after cultivation, Mr.Palmerhas followed the directions contained in my “Year’s Residence in America;” and, indeed, he is forward to acknowledge that he had never thought of this mode of culture, which he has followed now for three years, and which he has found so advantageous, until he read that work, a work which theFarmer’s Journalthought proper to treat as aromance.—Mr.Palmerhas had somecabbagesof the large, drum-head kind. He had about three acres, in rows at four feet apart, and at little less than three feet apart in the rows, makingten thousandcabbages on the three acres. He kept ninety-five wethers and ninety-six ewes (large fatting sheep)upon them forfive weeksall but two days, ending in the first week of November. The sheep, which are now feeding off yellow turnips in an adjoining part of the same field, come back over the cabbage-ground andscoop out the stumpsalmost to the ground in many cases. This ground is going to be ploughed for wheat immediately. Cabbages are a very fineautumn crop; but it is theSwedeson which you must rely for the spring, and onhousedorstackedSwedes too; for they willrotin many of our winters, if left in the ground. I have had them rot myself, and I saw, in March 1820, hundreds of acres rotten in Warwickshire and Northamptonshire. Mr.Palmergreatly prefers thetransplantingto the drilling. It has numerous advantages over the drilling; greater regularity of crop, greater certainty, the onlysureway of avoiding thefly, greater crop, admitting of two months later preparation of land, can comeafter vetchescut up for horses (as, indeed, a part of Mr.Palmer’stransplanted Swedes did), and requiring less labour and expense. I asserted this in my “Year’s Residence;” and Mr.Palmer, who has been very particular in ascertaining the fact, states positively that the expense of transplanting is not so great as the hoeing and setting out of the drilled crops, and not so great as the common hoeings of broad-cast. This, I think, settles the question. But the advantages of the wide-row culture by no means confine themselves to the green and root crop; for Mr.Palmerdrills his wheat upon the same ridges, without ploughing, after he has taken off the Swedes. He drills it ateight inches, and puts in from eight to ten gallons to the acre. His crop of 1820, drilled in this way, averaged 40 bushels to the acre; part drilled in November, and part so late as February. It was the common Lammas wheat. His last crop of wheat is not yet ascertained; but it was better after the Swedes than in any other of his land. His manner of taking off the crop is excellent. He first cuts off and carries away thetops. Then he has an implement, drawn by two oxen, walking on each side of the ridge, with which he cuts off thetap rootof the Swedes without disturbing the land of the ridge. Any child can then pull up the bulb. Thus the ground, clean as a garden, and in that compact state which the wheat is well known to like, is ready, at once, for drilling with wheat. As to theusesto which he applies the crop, tops as well as bulbs, I must speak of these hereafter, and in a work of a description different from this. I have been thus particular here, because theFarmer’s Journaltreated my book as a pack of lies. I know that my (for it ismine) system of cattle-food husbandry will finally be that ofall England, as it already is that of America; but what I am doing here is merely in self-defence against the slanders, the malignant slanders, of theFarmer’s Journal. Where is aWhig lord, who, some years ago, wrote to a gentleman that “hewould havenothing to dowith anyreformthatCobbettwas engaged in”? But in spite of the brutalJournal, farmers are not such fools as this lord was: they will not reject a good crop because they can have it only by acting upon my plan; and this lord will, I imagine, yet see the day when he will be less averse from having to do with a reform in which “Cobbett” shall be engaged.
Old Hall,Saturday night, Nov. 10.
Went to Hereford this morning. It was market-day. My arrival became known, and, I am sure, I cannot tell how. A sort ofbuzgot about. I could perceive here, as I always have elsewhere, very ardent friends and very bitter enemies; but all full of curiosity. One thing could not fail to please me exceedingly: my friends weregayand my enemiesgloomy: the former smiled, and the latter, in endeavouring to screw their features into a sneer, could get them no further than the half sour and half sad: the former seemed in their looks to say, “Here he is,” and the latter to respond, “Yes, G—— d—— him!”—I went into the market-place, amongst the farmers, with whom, in general, I was very much pleased. If I were to live in the county two months, I should be acquainted with every man of them. The country is very fine all the way from Ross to Hereford. The soil is always a red loam upon a bed of stone. The trees are very fine, and certainly winter comes later here than in Middlesex. Some of the oak trees are still perfectly green, and many of the ashes as green as in September.—In coming from Hereford to this place, which is the residence of Mrs.Palmerand that of her two younger sons, Messrs.PhilipandWalter Palmer, who, with their brother, had accompanied me to Hereford; in coming to this place, which lies at about two miles distance from the great road, and at about an equal distance fromHerefordand from Ross, we met with something, the sight of which pleased me exceedingly: it was that of a very pretty pleasant-looking lady (andyoungtoo) with two beautiful children, riding in a little sort of chaise-cart, drawn byan ass, which she was driving in reins. She appeared to be well known to my friends, who drew up and spoke to her, calling her Mrs.Lock, orLocky(I hope it was notLockart), or some such name. Her husband, who is, I suppose, some young farmer of the neighbourhood, may well call himself Mr.Lucky; for to have such a wife, and for such a wife to have the good sense to put up with an ass-cart, in order to avoid, as much as possible,feeding those cormorants who gorge on the taxes, is a blessing that falls, I am afraid, to the lot of very few rich farmers. Mrs.Lock(if that be her name) is a realpractical radical. Others of us resort to radical coffee and radical tea; and she has a radical carriage. This is a very effectual way of assailing the THING, and peculiarly well suited for the practice of the female sex. But the self-denial ought not to be imposed on the wife only: the husband ought to set the example: and let me hope thatMr. Lockdoes not indulge in the use of wine and spirits while Mrs. Lock and her children ride in a jackass gig; for if he do, he wastes, in this way, the means of keeping her a chariot and pair. If there be to be any expense not absolutely necessary; if there be to be anything bordering on extravagance, surely it ought to be for the pleasure of that part of the family who have the least number of objects of enjoyment; and for a husband to indulge himself in the guzzling of expensive, unnecessary, and really injurious drink, to the tune, perhaps, of 50 or 100 pounds a year, while he preaches economy to his wife, and, with a face as long as my arm, talks of the low price of corn, and wheedles her out of a curricle into a jack-ass cart, is not only unjust butunmanly.
Old Hall, Sunday night, 11 Nov.
We have ridden to-day, though in the rain for a great part of the time, over the fine farm of Mr.Philip Palmer, at this place, and that of Mr.Walter Palmer, in the adjoining parish ofPencoyd. Everything here is good, arable land, pastures, orchards, coppices, and timber trees, especially the elms, many scores of which approach nearly to a hundred feet in height. Mr.Philip Palmerhas four acres of Swedes on four-feet ridges, drilled on the 11th and 14th of May. The plants were very much injured by thefly; so much, that it was a question whether the whole piece ought not to be ploughed up. However, the gaps in the rows were filled up by transplanting; and the ground was twice ploughed between the ridges. The crop here is very fine; and I should think that its weight could not be less than 17 tons to the acre.—Of Mr.Walter Palmer’sSwedes, five acres were drilled, on ridges nearly four feet apart, on the 3rd of June; four acres on the 15th of June; and an acre and a half transplanted (after vetches) on the 15th of August. The weight of the first is about twenty tons to the acre; that of the second not much less; and that of the last even, five or six tons. The first two pieces were mauled to pieces by thefly; but the gaps were filled up by transplanting, the ground being digged on the tops of the ridges to receive the plants. So that, perhaps, a third part or more of the crop is due to thetransplanting. As tothe last piece, that transplanted on the 15th of August, after vetches, it is clear that there could have been no crop without transplanting; and, after all, the crop is by no means a bad one.—It is clear enough to me that this system will finally prevail all over England. The “loyal,” indeed, may be afraid to adopt it, lest it should contain something of “radicalism.” Sap-headed fools! They will find something to do, I believe, soon, besides railing againstradicals. We will din “radical” and “national faith” in their ears, till they shall dread the din as much as a dog does the sound of the bell that is tied to the whip.
Bollitree, Monday, 12 Nov.
Returned this morning and rode about the farm, and also about that of Mr.Winnal, where I saw, for the first time, a plough goingwithout being held. The man drove the three horses that drew the plough, and carried the plough round at the ends; but left it to itself the rest of the time. There was a skim coulter that turned the sward in under the furrow; and the work was done very neatly. This gentleman has six acres ofcabbages, on ridges four feet apart, with a distance of thirty inches between the plants on the ridge. He has weighed one of what he deemed an average weight, and found it to weigh fifteen pounds without the stump. Now, as there are 4,320 upon an acre, the weight of the acres isthirty tonsall but 400 pounds! This is a prodigious crop, and it is peculiarly well suited for food for sheep at this season of the year. Indeed it is good for any farm-stock, oxen, cows, pigs: all like these loaved cabbages. For hogs in yard, after the stubbles are gone; and before the tops of the Swedes come in. What masses of manure may be created by this means! But, above all things, forsheepto feed off upon the ground. Common turnips have not half the substance in them weight for weight. Then they are in the ground; they aredirty, and in wet weather the sheep must starve, or eat a great deal of dirt. This very day, for instance, what a sorry sight is a flock of fatting sheep upon turnips; what a mess of dirt and stubble! The cabbage stands boldly up above the ground, and the sheep eats it all up without treading a morsel in the dirt. Mr.Winnalhas a large flock of sheep feeding on his cabbages, which they will have finished, perhaps, by January. This gentleman also has some “radical Swedes,” as they call them in Norfolk. A part of his crop is on ridgesfivefeet apart withtwo rowson the ridge, a part onfourfeet ridges withonerow on the ridge. I cannot see that anything is gained in weight by the double rows. I think that there may be nearly twenty tons to the acre. Another piece Mr.Winnaltransplanted aftervetches. They are very fine; and, altogether, he has a crop that any one but a “loyal” farmer might envy him.—This is really theradicalsystem of husbandry.Radicalmeans,belonging to the root; going to the root. And the main principle of this system (first taught byTull) is that therootof the plant is to be fed bydeep tillagewhile it is growing; and to do this we must have ourwide distances. Our system of husbandry is happily illustrative of our system of politics. Our lines of movement are fair and straightforward. We destroy all weeds, which, like tax-eaters, do nothing but devour the sustenance that ought to feed the valuable plants. Our plants are allwell fed; and our nations of Swedes and of cabbages present a happy uniformity of enjoyments and of bulk, and not, as in the broad-cast system of Corruption, here and there one of enormous size, surrounded by thousands of poor little starveling things, scarcely distinguishable by the keenest eye, or, if seen, seen only to inspire a contempt of the husbandman. The Norfolk boys are, therefore, right in calling their SwedesRadical Swedes.