ENGLISH FARMERS

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2006, 3 June 1885, Page 2

ENGLISH FARMERS

Forty years ago, the British farmer, says the "Mail," was, as a rule, a wealthy man, and in the days when Arkwright labored shoddy was unknown, and the territorial landlord was not only lord over his own dominions, but socially and politically a man of some importance. • In those days subsoiling, ioreign manure, and expensive agricultural machinery were unknown, and, with no other aid than seed, aud dung from tho stables of the farm, old wooden ploughs and unsightly and crudely shaped f wooden harrows, immense fortunes were made out of the land, and to be a fanner was to bo egarded as a man of some importance and consideration; Tho mistress and the master were never idle, while. Jane, Mary, and Anne,.ana\ (foci, Tom, aud Harry, the farnief ! s.'dfilightera and sons, wgr'e always busy either mthe dairy or tho field.. With the introduction tf, new appliances a!! these gonditjons were V changed. We all know that the farmer of forty years ago was slow to adopt them, Ijike all of a conservative turn of mind, i he was not favorable to sudden changes, .' and so it qaiue to pass that he regarded the application of foreign manures as calculated to impair the vitality of the soil, while subsoiling arid improved ploughs and agricultural machinery generally were looked upon as so many in. novations, introduced with no other object than that of'benefiting ag'eritHhd , manufa.Gtra, and of inqveasin? the/ working expenses of. his holding.-'Still, the time oame when, owing to what is called keeping pace "with the spirit of tho times," the whole conditions of farming were changed, The scientific chemist and the agricultural implement maker prevailed, arid with the new light .thfas diffused -• over the soil there set in a desiro for the refinements of the age on tho part of the farmers' sons and daughters; and so, while the working expenses of an English farm were enhanced, and a considerable .portion of the profits devoted to luxuries which their fathers knew hot, they ignored the fact that there were .pioneers out in Trans-Atlantic countries preparing tfl compete with (Item, circumstances than 'they could work, (n (Mr own markets'. •'''■' '