JOURNAL: FROM LONDON, THROUGH NEWBURY, TO BERGHCLERE, HURSTBOURN
TARRANT, MARLBOROUGH, AND CIRENCESTER, TO GLOUCESTER.
_Berghclere, near Newbury, Hants, October 30, 1821, Tuesday (Evening)._
Fog that you might cut with a knife all the way from London to Newbury.
This fog does not _wet_ things. It is rather a _smoke_ than a fog. There
are no two things in _this world_; and, were it not for fear of
_Six-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 in _this world_ so dissimilar as an English and a Long
Island autumn.--These fogs are certainly the _white clouds_ that 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 descended again, keeping constantly along just above the ground.
And, to-day, the fog came by _spells_. It was sometimes thinner than at
other times; and these changes were very sudden too. So that I am
convinced that these fogs are _dry clouds_, such as those that I saw on
the Hampshire Downs. Those did not _wet_ me 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 called _Wysihicken_. 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 the _smell_ has 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 to _bite my bread and
smell to my cheese_; talk, much more wise than that of certain _old
grannies_, who go about England crying up "the _blessings_" 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 the _cause_ of 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 the
_sun_ and the _fog_. I have 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
now _abroad_; 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, with
_crosses_ on 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 the _soak_ of 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 the _grand en petit_, or mock magnificence,
more complete than I ever beheld it before. Here is a _fountain_, the
basin of which is not four feet over, and the water spout not exceeding
the pour from a tea-pot. Here is a _bridge_ over a _river_ of 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 the _Colossus_. In another part there was a _lion's mouth_ spouting
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 these _gothic arches_ are to denote the
_antiquity of his origin_! Not a bad plan; and, indeed, it is one that I
once took the liberty to recommend to those Fundlords who retire to be
country-'squires. But I never recommended the _Crucifixes_! To be sure,
the Roman Catholic religion may, in England, be considered as a
_gentleman's religion_, it being the most _ancient_ in 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 a _Catholic_; 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 so _flinty_, that I do not like the country for coursing. The dogs'
legs are presently cut to pieces.
_Nov. 1. Thursday._
Mr. BUDD has Swedish Turnips, Mangel-Wurzel, and Cabbages of various
kinds, transplanted. All are very fine indeed. It is impossible to make
more satisfactory experiments in _transplanting_ than 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 called _Uphusband_, 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 of LORD 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
my fancy, 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
the _colours_ of 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 than _Fonthill_,
_Blenheim_, _Stowe_, or any other gentleman's grounds that I have seen.
The _house_ I 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 were _burnt_, for which only they are
fit. The great beauty of the place is the _lofty 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 no _gothic arches_
made 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 a _Whig_, 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 to _him_. But does
he think that his tenants can sell fat hogs at 7_s._ 6_d._ a score, and
pay 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 CAERNARVON told a man, in 1820,
that _he did not like my politics_. But what did he mean by my
_politics_? I have no politics but such as he _ought_ to like. I want to
do away with that infernal _system_, 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 a _Lord_ should dislike my politics? However, dislike or like
them, to them, to those very politics, the Lords themselves _must 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 and _my 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 not _some reason_ for men of sense to hesitate a
little before they _condemn_ those 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 a _great 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 by _me_, 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," as JEFFERSON said 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 7_s._ 6_d._ a score (but
would hardly bring that now), that is to say, at 4-1/2_d._ 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 5_s._ to 4_s._ 6_d._ a score. But,
then, observe, these are _dairy 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 6_l._ a load (40 bushels); that is, at 3_s._ 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, 5_s._ a bushel in this part of the country; and
the average of all England would not, perhaps, exceed 4_s._ or 3_s._
6_d._ a bushel. However, LORD LIVERPOOL has got a _bad harvest_ at last!
That _remedy_ has been applied! Somebody sent me some time ago that
stupid newspaper, called the _Morning Herald_, in which its readers were
reminded of my "_false prophecies_," I having (as this paper said)
foretold that wheat would be at _two shillings a bushel before
Christmas_. These gentlemen of the "_respectable_ part 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 4_s._ a
bushel. A farmer told me, the other day, that he got _so little_ offered
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 the _remedy_ of a _bad harvest_ has 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 very _unfortunate
state of the country_, than the necessity in which the Society finds
itself of _discontinuing 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 and _hitherto prosperous_ cultivators." You are mistaken,
Pat; it is not the _times_ any more than it is the _stars_. Bobadil, you
know, imputed his beating to the _planets_: "planet-stricken, by the
foot of Pharaoh!"--"No, Captain," says Welldon, "indeed it was a
_stick_." It is not the _times_, dear Patrick: it is _the 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 be _right_, or _wrong_, 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 a _grand change_ in your state! Something
a _little more rational_ than "Catholic Emancipation" will take place,
or I am the most deceived of all mankind. This _Debt_ is your best, and,
indeed, your _only friend_. It must, at last, give the THING a _shake_,
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. If _Reason_ have 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, nor _bend_,
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 it _reel_!
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 a _chain_ of 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 a _heavy 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 look _on_ it, 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 not _wash
away_ like 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 the _deep 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 the _bed_ of 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 much _shallower_ in 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 land appears 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
the _water_? 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 from UPHUSBAND
the _Wansdike_ (I think it is called) crosses the country. SIR RICHARD
COLT HOARE has 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 the _woods_ as well as on the
downs.
_Nov. 5. Monday._
A _white frost_ this 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, four inches
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 10_s._ So that, in this respect, the
labourers are pretty well off. The wages here and in Berkshire, about
8_s._ 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 8_s._ and some even lower. Some Dorsetshire Ewes brought no more
than a pound; and, perhaps, the average did not exceed 28_s._ I have
seen a farmer here who can get (or could a few days ago) 28_s._ 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 24_s._ 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 120_l._ and 14_l._ 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 5_s._ to 4_s._
6_d._ the _score_ pounds, 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 4_s._ 6_d_, a head, and
that they went away unsold! The skin was worth a shilling of the money!
The following I take from the _Tyne Mercury_ of the 30th of October.
"Last week, at Northawton fair, Mr. Thomas Cooper, of Bow, purchased
three milch cows and forty sheep, for 18_l._ 16_s._ 6_d._!" The skins,
four years ago, would have sold for more than the money. The _Hampshire
Journal_ says that, on 1 November (Thursday) at Newbury Market, wheat
sold from 88_s._ to 24_s._ the Quarter. This would make an average of
56_s._ But very little indeed was sold at 88_s._, only the prime of the
old wheat. The best of the new for about 48_s._, 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 32_s._, or 4_s._ 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 50_l._ a load;" that
is to say, 25_s._ 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 they do 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 word _farmer_ comes from the French, _fermier_, and signifies
_renter_. Those only who rent, therefore, are, properly speaking,
_farmers_. Those who till their own land are _yeomen_; and when I was a
boy it was the common practice to call the former _farmers_ and the
latter _yeoman-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, been _bought 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 the _Landlord's turn_; and the sooner the
better.--In the _Maidstone Gazette_ I find the following: "Prime beef
was sold in Salisbury market, on Tuesday last, at 4_d._ per lb., and
good joints of mutton at 3-1/2_d._; butter 11_d._ and 12_d._ per lb.--In
the West of Cornwall, during the summer, pork has often been sold at
2-1/2_d._ 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 have _no discounts_. What they have out they _owe_: it is so
much _debt_: 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 of Uphusband, 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 saw _country_ people, 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 the
_name_ of 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 the _two Members_ is
performed. "This place sends Members to Parliament, don't it?" said I to
the ostler. "Yes, Sir." "Who are Members _now_?" "I _don't know_,
indeed, Sir."--I have not read the _Henriade_ of 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:
Representans du peuple, les Grands et le Roi:
Spectacle magnifique! Source sacree 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.
Representans du peuple, que celui-ci ignore,
Sont fait a miracle pour garder son Or!
Peuple trop heureux, que le bonheur inonde!
L'envie de vos voisins, admire 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, the _seats_, the pulpit,
and the throne. Doubtless my poetry is not equal to that of Voltaire;
but my rhyme is as good as his, and my _reason_ is a great deal
better.--In quitting this villanous place we see the extensive and
uncommonly ugly park and domain of LORD 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 to SWINDON, 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 never _parches_ upon 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 passed through 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
ground _on 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, this _Wiltshire_ is a horrible county. This is the
county that the _Gallon-loaf_ man 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 7_s._ 6_d._ 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 the
_Londoners_; 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. BLOUNT at 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 3_l._ to 4_l._ 10_s._ each! None of them, the drovers told
me, reached 5_l._ These heifers used to fetch, at home, from 6_l._ to
8_l._, and sometimes more. Many of the things that I saw in these droves
did not fetch, in Wales, 25_s._ And they go to no _rising_ market! 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 5_l._ 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 call _Cititer_, 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, have _heath_ at any rate; but these stones are
quite abominable. The turnips are not a _fiftieth_ of 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 less _food_ upon them than I saw the other day upon half an
acre at Mr. Budd's at Berghclere. _Can_ it be good farming to plough and
sow and hoe thirty acres to get what _may_ be 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!
_drow_ away all that 'ere ground between the _lains_! 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 down from the top of a high hill into
_the vale of Gloucester_! Never was there, surely, such a contrast in
this world! This hill is called _Burlip 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 of _Number One_, I got out and walked down. From this
hill you see the Morvan Hills in Wales. You look down into a sort of
_dish_ with 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.--GLOUCESTER is 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.
JOURNAL: FROM GLOUCESTER, TO BOLLITREE IN HEREFORDSHIRE, ROSS, HEREFORD,
ABINGDON, OXFORD, CHELTENHAM, BERGHCLERE, WHITCHURCH, UPHURSTBOURN, AND
THENCE TO KENSINGTON.
_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 of _Weston_, 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 seven miles 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, called
_Penyard 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 of _ridges_ from 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 of _cider_ and _perry_; 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 on _wine_ and _spirits_! 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 the _Forest 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 the _ridges_ before 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 autumnal _colours_ of 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
the _clouds_, rising at intervals from the dells on the side of Penyard
Hill, and flying 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'S fine crops of _Swedish Turnips_, which are, in general, called
"_Swedes_." These crops having been raised according to _my 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 was _drilled_, 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 was _transplanted_ on four-feet
ridges 30th July. About half an acre across the middle of the field was
sown _broad-cast_ 14th April.--In the thirteen-acre field there is about
half an acre sown _broad-cast_ on the 1st of June; the rest of the field
was _transplanted_; 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 in _that_
field, 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 of _that_ field 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 of _tops_; and, of course, there is about 640
tons of _bulb_. As to the _value_ and _uses_ of 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. PALMER has 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 the _Farmer's
Journal_ thought proper to treat as a _romance_.--Mr. PALMER has had
some _cabbages_ of 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, making _ten thousand_ cabbages on the three acres. He kept
ninety-five wethers and ninety-six ewes (large fatting sheep) upon them
for _five weeks_ all 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 and _scoop out the
stumps_ almost to the ground in many cases. This ground is going to be
ploughed for wheat immediately. Cabbages are a very fine _autumn crop_;
but it is the _Swedes_ on which you must rely for the spring, and on
_housed_ or _stacked_ Swedes too; for they will _rot_ in 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. PALMER greatly prefers the _transplanting_ to the
drilling. It has numerous advantages over the drilling; greater
regularity of crop, greater certainty, the only _sure_ way of avoiding
the _fly_, greater crop, admitting of two months later preparation of
land, can come _after vetches_ cut up for horses (as, indeed, a part of
Mr. PALMER'S transplanted 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. PALMER drills his wheat upon the same ridges, without
ploughing, after he has taken off the Swedes. He drills it at _eight
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 the _tops_.
Then he has an implement, drawn by two oxen, walking on each side of the
ridge, with which he cuts off the _tap root_ of 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 the _uses_ to 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 the _Farmer's
Journal_ treated my book as a pack of lies. I know that my (for it is
_mine_) system of cattle-food husbandry will finally be that of _all
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
the _Farmer's Journal_. Where is a _Whig lord_, who, some years ago,
wrote to a gentleman that "_he_ would have _nothing to do_ with any
_reform_ that _Cobbett_ was engaged in"? But in spite of the brutal
_Journal_, 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 of _buz_ got 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 were _gay_ and my enemies _gloomy_:
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. PALMER and that of her two
younger sons, Messrs. PHILIP and WALTER 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 from HEREFORD and from Ross, we met with something, the sight
of which pleased me exceedingly: it was that of a very pretty
pleasant-looking lady (and _young_ too) with two beautiful children,
riding in a little sort of chaise-cart, drawn by _an 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_, or _Locky_ (I hope it was
not _Lockart_), 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 real _practical 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 that _Mr. Lock_ does 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 but _unmanly_.
_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 of PENCOYD. 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 PALMER has four acres of Swedes on four-feet
ridges, drilled on the 11th and 14th of May. The plants were very much
injured by the _fly_; 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'S Swedes, 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 the _fly_; 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 the _transplanting_. As to the 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 against _radicals_. 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 going _without
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
of _cabbages_, 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
is _thirty tons_ all 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, for _sheep_ to feed off
upon the ground. Common turnips have not half the substance in them
weight for weight. Then they are in the ground; they are _dirty_, 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. WINNAL has 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 ridges _five_ feet apart with _two
rows_ on the ridge, a part on _four_ feet ridges with _one_ row 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. WINNAL transplanted after vetches. They are very fine; and,
altogether, he has a crop that any one but a "_loyal_" farmer might envy
him.--This is really the _radical_ system of husbandry. _Radical_ means,
_belonging to the root; going to the root_. And the main principle of
this system (first taught by _Tull_) is that the _root_ of the plant is
to be fed by _deep tillage_ while it is growing; and to do this we must
have our _wide 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 all _well 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 Swedes _Radical Swedes_.
_Bollitree, Tuesday, 13 Nov._
Rode to-day to see a _grove_ belonging to Mrs. WESTPHALIN, which
contains the very finest trees, _oaks_, _chestnuts_, and _ashes_, that I
ever saw in England. This grove is worth going from London to Weston to
see. The Lady, who is very much beloved in her neighbourhood, is,
apparently, of the _old school_; and her house and gardens, situated in
a beautiful dell, form, I think, the most comfortable looking thing of
the kind that I ever saw. If she had known that I was in her grove, I
dare say she would have expected it to blaze up in flames; or, at least,
that I was come to view the premises previous to confiscation! I can
forgive persons like her; but I cannot forgive the Parsons and others
who have misled them! Mrs. WESTPHALIN, if she live many years, will find
that the best friends of the owners of the land are those who have
endeavoured to produce such _a reform of the Parliament_ as would have
prevented the ruin of tenants.--This parish of WESTON is remarkable for
having a Rector _who has constantly resided for twenty years_! I do not
believe that there is an instance to match this in the whole kingdom.
However, the "_reverend_" gentleman may be assured that, before many
years have passed over their heads, they will be very glad to reside in
their parsonage houses.
_Bollitree, Wednesday, 14 Nov._
Rode to the forest of Dean, up a very steep hill. The lanes here are
between high banks, and on the sides of the hills the road is a rock,
the water having long ago washed all the earth away. Pretty works are, I
find, carried on here, as is the case in all the other _public forests_!
Are these things _always_ to be carried on in this way? Here is a domain
of thirty thousand acres of the finest timber-land in the world, and
with coal-mines endless! Is this _worth nothing_? Cannot each acre yield
ten trees a year? Are not these trees worth a pound apiece? Is not the
estate worth three or four hundred thousand pounds a year? And does it
yield _anything to the public_, to whom it belongs? But it is useless to
waste one's breath in this way. We must have a _reform of the
Parliament_: without it the whole thing will fall to pieces.--The only
good purpose that these forests answer is that of furnishing a place of
being to labourers' families on their skirts; and here their cottages
are very neat, and the people look hearty and well, just as they do
round the forests in Hampshire. Every cottage has a pig or two. These
graze in the forest, and, in the fall, eat acorns and beech-nuts and the
seed of the ash; for these last, as well as the others, are very full of
oil, and a pig that is put to his shifts will pick the seed very nicely
out from the husks. Some of these foresters keep cows, and all of them
have bits of ground, cribbed, of course, at different times, from the
forest: and to what better use can the ground be put? I saw several
wheat stubbles from 40 rods to 10 rods. I asked one man how much wheat
he had from about 10 rods. He said more than two bushels. Here is bread
for three weeks, or more perhaps; and a winter's straw for the pig
besides. Are these things nothing? The dead limbs and old roots of the
forest give _fuel_; and how happy are these people, compared with the
poor creatures about Great Bedwin and Cricklade, where they have neither
land nor shelter, and where I saw the girls carrying home bean and wheat
stubble for fuel! Those countries, always but badly furnished with fuel,
the desolating and damnable system of paper-money, by sweeping away
small homesteads, and laying ten farms into one, has literally
_stripped_ of all shelter for the labourer. A farmer, in such cases, has
a whole domain in his hands, and this not only to the manifest injury of
the public at large, but in _open violation of positive law_. The poor
forger is hanged; but where is the prosecutor of the monopolizing
farmer, though the _law_ is as clear in the one case as in the other?
But it required this infernal system to render every wholesome
regulation nugatory; and to reduce to such abject misery a people famed
in all ages for the goodness of their food and their dress. There is one
farmer, in the North of Hampshire, who has nearly eight thousand acres
of land in his hands; who grows fourteen hundred acres of wheat and two
thousand acres of barley! He occupies what was formerly 40 farms! Is it
any wonder that _paupers increase_? And is there not here cause enough
for the increase of _poor_, without resorting to the doctrine of the
barbarous and impious MALTHUS and his assistants, the _feelosofers_ of
the Edinburgh Review, those eulogists and understrappers of the
Whig-Oligarchy? "This farmer has done nothing _unlawful_," some one will
say. I say he has; for there is a law to forbid him thus to monopolize
land. But no matter; the laws, the management of the affairs of a
nation, _ought to be such as to prevent the existence of the temptation
to such monopoly_. And, even now, the evil ought to be remedied, and
could be remedied, in the space of half a dozen years. The disappearance
of the paper-money would do the thing in time; but this might be
assisted by legislative measures.--In returning from the forest we were
overtaken by my son, whom I had begged to come from London to see this
beautiful country. On the road-side we saw two lazy-looking fellows, in
long great-coats and bundles in their hands, going into a cottage. "What
do you deal in?" said I, to one of them, who had not yet entered the
house. "In the _medical way_," said he. And I find that vagabonds of
this description are seen all over the country with _tea-licences_ in
their pockets. They vend _tea_, _drugs_, and _religious tracts_. The
first to bring the body into a debilitated state; the second to finish
the corporeal part of the business; and the third to prepare the spirit
for its separation from the clay! Never was a system so well calculated
as the present to degrade, debase, and enslave a people! Law, and as if
that were not sufficient, enormous subscriptions are made; everything
that can be done is done to favour these perambulatory impostors in
their depredations on the ignorant, while everything that can be done is
done to prevent them from reading, or from hearing of, anything that has
a tendency to give them rational notions, or to better their lot.
However, all is not buried in ignorance. Down the deep and beautiful
valley between Penyard Hill and the Hills on the side of the Forest of
Dean, there runs a stream of water. On that stream of water there is a
_paper-mill_. In that paper-mill there is a set of workmen. That set of
workmen do, I am told, _take the Register_, and have taken it for years!
It was to these good and sensible men, it is supposed, that the _ringing
of the bells_ of Weston church, upon my arrival, was to be ascribed; for
nobody that I visited had any knowledge of the cause. What a subject for
lamentation with corrupt hypocrites! That even on this secluded spot
there should be a leaven of common-sense! No: _all_ is not enveloped in
brute ignorance yet, in spite of every artifice that hellish Corruption
has been able to employ; in spite of all her menaces and all her
brutalities and cruelties.
_Old Hall, Thursday, 15 Nov._
We came this morning from Bollitree to _Ross-Market_, and, thence, to
this place. Ross is an old-fashioned town; but it is very beautifully
situated, and if there is little of _finery_ in the appearance of the
inhabitants, there is also little of _misery_. It is a good, plain
country town, or settlement of tradesmen, whose business is that of
supplying the wants of the cultivators of the soil. It presents to us
nothing of rascality and roguishness of look which you see on almost
every visage in the _borough-towns_, not excepting the visages of the
women. I can tell a borough-town from another upon my entrance into it
by the nasty, cunning, leering, designing look of the people; a look
between that of a bad (for _some_ are good) Methodist Parson and that of
a pickpocket. I remember, and I never shall forget, the horrid looks of
the villains in Devonshire and Cornwall. Some people say, "O, _poor
fellows_! It is not _their_ fault." No? Whose fault is it, then? The
miscreants who bribe them? True, that these deserve the halter (and some
of them may have it yet); but are not the takers of the bribes _equally_
guilty? If we be so very lenient here, pray let us ascribe to the
_Devil_ all the acts of thieves and robbers: so we do; but we _hang_ the
thieves and robbers, nevertheless. It is no very unprovoking reflection,
that from these sinks of atrocious villany come a very considerable part
of the men to fill places of emolument and trust. What a clog upon a
Minister to have people, bred in such scenes, forced upon him! And why
does this curse continue? However, its natural consequences are before
us; and are coming on pretty fast upon each other's heels. There are the
landlords and farmers in a state of absolute ruin: there is the Debt,
pulling the nation down like as a stone pulls a dog under water. The
system seems to have fairly wound itself up; to have tied itself hand
and foot with cords of its own spinning!--This is the town to which POPE
has given an interest in our minds by his eulogium on the "_Man of
Ross_," a portrait of whom is hanging up in a house in which I now
am.--The market at Ross was very _dull_. No wheat in demand. No buyers.
It must _come down_. Lord Liverpool's _remedy_, a bad harvest, has
assuredly failed. Fowls 2_s._ a couple; a goose from 2_s._ 6_d._ to
3_s._; a turkey from 3_s._ to 3_s._ 6_d._ Let a turkey come down to _a
shilling_, as in France, and then we shall soon be to rights.
_Friday, 16 Nov._
A whole day most delightfully passed a hare-hunting, with a pretty pack
of hounds kept here by Messrs. Palmer. They put me upon a horse that
seemed to have been made on purpose for me, strong, tall, gentle and
bold; and that carried me either over or through everything. I, who am
just the weight of a four-bushel sack of good wheat, actually sat on his
back from daylight in the morning to dusk (about nine hours) without
once setting my foot on the ground. Our ground was at Orcop, a place
about four miles' distance from this place. We found a hare in a few
minutes after throwing off; and in the course of the day we had to find
four, and were never more than ten minutes in finding. A steep and naked
ridge, lying between two flat valleys, having a mixture of pretty large
fields and small woods, formed our ground. The hares crossed the ridge
forward and backward, and gave us numerous views and very fine sport.--I
never rode on such steep ground before; and really, in going up and down
some of the craggy places, where the rains had washed the earth from the
rocks, I did think, once or twice, of my neck, and how Sidmouth would
like to see me.--As to the _cruelty_, as some pretend, of this sport,
that point I have, I think, settled in one of the Chapters of my
"_Year's Residence in America_." As to the expense, a pack, even a full
pack of harriers, like this, costs less than two bottles of wine a day
with their inseparable concomitants. And as to the _time_ thus spent,
hunting is inseparable from _early rising_: and with habits of early
rising, who ever wanted time for any business?
_Oxford, Saturday, 17 Nov._
We left OLD HALL (where we always breakfasted by candle-light) this
morning after breakfast; returned to Bollitree; took the Hereford coach
as it passed about noon; and came in it through Gloucester, Cheltenham,
Northleach, Burford, Whitney, and on to this city, where we arrived
about ten o'clock. I could not leave _Herefordshire_ without bringing
with me the most pleasing impressions. It is not for one to descend to
particulars in characterising one's personal friends; and, therefore, I
will content myself with saying, that the treatment I met with in this
beautiful county, where I saw not one single face that I had, to my
knowledge, ever seen before, was much more than sufficient to compensate
to me, personally, for all the atrocious calumnies, which, for twenty
years, I have had to endure; but where is my country, a great part of
the present hideous sufferings of which will, by every reflecting mind,
be easily traced to these calumnies, which have been made the ground, or
pretext, for rejecting that counsel by listening to which those
sufferings would have been prevented; where is my country to find a
compensation?----At _Gloucester_ (as there were no meals on the road) we
furnished ourselves with nuts and apples, which, first a handful of nuts
and then an apple, are, I can assure the reader, excellent and most
wholesome fare. They say that nuts of all sorts are unwholesome; if they
had been, I should never have written Registers, and if they were now, I
should have ceased to write ere this; for, upon an average, I have eaten
a pint a day since I left home. In short, I could be very well content
to live on nuts, milk, and home-baked bread.----From _Gloucester_ to
_Cheltenham_ the country is level, and the land rich and good. The
fields along here are ploughed in ridges about 20 feet wide, and the
angle of this species of _roof_ is pretty nearly as sharp as that of
some slated roofs of houses. There is no wet under; it is the top wet
only that they aim at keeping from doing mischief.--_Cheltenham_ is a
nasty, ill-looking place, half clown and half cockney. The town is one
street about a mile long; but, then, at some distance from this street,
there are rows of white tenements, with green balconies, like those
inhabited by the tax-eaters round London. Indeed, this place appears to
be the residence of an assemblage of tax-eaters. These vermin shift
about between London, Cheltenham, Bath, Bognor, Brighton, Tunbridge,
Ramsgate, Margate, Worthing, and other spots in England, while some of
them get over to France and Italy: just like those body-vermin of
different sorts that are found in different parts of the tormented
carcass at different hours of the day and night, and in different
degrees of heat and cold.
Cheltenham is at the foot of a part of that chain of hills which form
the sides of that _dish_ which I described as resembling the vale of
Gloucester. Soon after quitting this resort of the lame and the lazy,
the gormandizing and guzzling, the bilious and the nervous, we proceeded
on, between stone walls, over a country little better than that from
Cirencester to Burlip-hill.----A very poor, dull, and uninteresting
country all the way to Oxford.
_Burghclere (Hants), Sunday, 18 Nov._
We left Oxford early, and went on, through _Abingdon_ (Berks) to
_Market-Ilsley_. It is a saying, hereabouts, that at Oxford they make
the living pay for the dead, which is precisely according to the
Pitt-System. Having smarted on this account, we were afraid to eat again
at an Inn; so we pushed on through Ilsley towards Newbury, breakfasting
upon the residue of the nuts, aided by a new supply of apples bought
from a poor man, who exhibited them in his window. Inspired, like Don
Quixote, by the _sight of the nuts_, and recollecting the last night's
bill, I exclaimed: "Happy! thrice happy and blessed, that golden age,
when men lived on the simple fruits of the earth and slaked their thirst
at the pure and limpid brook! when the trees shed their leaves to form a
couch for their repose, and cast their bark to furnish them with a
canopy! Happy age; when no Oxford landlord charged two men, who had
dropped into a common coach-passenger room, and who had swallowed three
pennyworths of food, 'four shillings for _teas_,' and 'eighteen pence
for _cold meat_,' 'two shillings for _moulds and fire_' in this common
coach-room, and 'five shillings for _beds_!'" This was a sort of grace
before meat to the nuts and apples; and it had much more merit than the
harangue of Don Quixote; for he, before he began upon the nuts, had
stuffed himself well with goat's flesh and wine, whereas we had
absolutely _fled_ from the breakfast-table and blazing fire at
Oxford.--Upon beholding the masses of buildings at Oxford devoted to
what they call "_learning_," I could not help reflecting on the drones
that they contain and the wasps they send forth! However, malignant as
some are, the great and prevalent characteristic is _folly_: emptiness
of head; want of talent; and one half of the fellows who are what they
call _educated_ here, are unfit to be clerks in a grocer's or mercer's
shop.--As I looked up at what they call _University Hall_, I could not
help reflecting that what I had written, even since I left Kensington on
the 29th of October, would produce more effect, and do more good in the
world, than all that had for a hundred years been written by all the
members of this University, who devour, perhaps, not less than _a
million pounds a year_, arising from property, completely at the
disposal of the "Great Council of the Nation;" and I could not help
exclaiming to myself: "Stand forth, ye big-wigged, ye gloriously feeding
Doctors! Stand forth, ye _rich_ of that church whose _poor_ have had
given them _a hundred thousand pounds a year_, not out of your riches,
but out of the _taxes_, raised, in part, from the _salt_ of the
labouring man! Stand forth and face me, who have, from the pen of my
leisure hours, sent, amongst your flocks, a hundred thousand sermons in
ten months! More than you have all done for the last half century!"--I
exclaimed in vain. I dare say (for it was at peep of day) that not a man
of them had yet endeavoured to unclose his eyes.--In coming thro'
Abingdon (Berks) I could not help thinking of that great financier, Mr.
John Maberly, by whom this place has, I believe, the honour to be
represented in the Collective Wisdom of the Nation.--In the way to
Ilsley we came across a part of that fine tract of land, called the
_Vale of Berkshire_, where they grow _wheat_ and _beans_, one after
another, for many years together. About three miles before we reached
Ilsley we came to _downs_, with, as is always the case, chalk under.
Between Ilsley and Newbury the country is enclosed; the land middling, a
stony loam; the woods and coppices frequent, and neither very good, till
we came within a short distance of Newbury. In going along we saw a
piece of wheat with cabbage-leaves laid all over it at the distance,
perhaps, of eight or ten feet from each other. It was to catch the
_slugs_. The slugs, which commit their depredations in the _night_,
creep under the leaves in the morning, and by turning up the leaves you
come at the slugs, and crush them, or carry them away. But besides the
immense daily labour attending this, the slug, in a field sowed with
wheat, has a _clod_ to creep under at every foot, and will not go five
feet to get under a cabbage-leaf. Then again, if the day be _wet_, the
slug works by day as well as by night. It is the sun and drought that he
shuns, and not the light. Therefore the only effectual way to destroy
slugs is to sow lime, in dust, and _not slaked_. The slug is wet, he has
hardly any skin, his _slime_ is his covering; the smallest dust of hot
lime kills him; and a few bushels to the acre are sufficient. You must
sow the lime at _dusk_; for then the slugs are sure to be out. Slugs
come after a crop that has long afforded a great deal of shelter from
the sun; such as peas and vetches. In gardens they are nursed up by
strawberry beds and by weeds, by asparagus beds, or by anything that
remains for a long time to keep the summer-sun from the earth. We got
about three o'clock to this nice, snug little farmhouse, and found our
host, Mr. Budd, at home.
_Burghclere, Monday, 19 Nov._
A thorough wet day, the only day the greater part of which I have not
spent out of doors since I left home.
_Burghclere, Tuesday, 20 Nov._
With Mr. Budd, we rode to-day to see the _Farm of Tull_, at _Shalborne_,
in Berkshire. Mr. Budd did the same thing with Arthur Young twenty-seven
years ago. It was a sort of _pilgrimage_; but as the distance was ten
miles, we thought it best to perform it on horseback.--We passed through
the parish of _Highclere_, where they have _enclosed commons_, worth, as
tillage land, not one single farthing an acre, and never will and never
can be. As a common it afforded a little picking for geese and asses,
and in the moory parts of it, a little fuel for the labourers. But now
it really can afford nothing. It will all fall to common again by
degrees. This madness, this blind eagerness to gain, is now, I hope,
pretty nearly over.--At _East Woody_ we passed the house of a Mr.
Goddard, which is uninhabited, he residing at Bath.--At _West Woody_
(Berks) is the estate of Mr. Sloper, a very pretty place. A beautiful
sporting country. Large fields, small woods, dry soil. What has taken
place here is an instance of the workings of the system. Here is a large
gentleman's house. But the proprietor _lets it_ (it is, just now,
empty), and resides in a _farmhouse_ and farms his own estate. Happy is
the landlord who has the good sense to do this in time. This is a fine
farm, and here appears to be very judicious farming. Large tracts of
turnips; clean land; stubbles ploughed up early; ploughing with oxen;
and a very large and singularly fine flock of sheep. Everything that you
see, land, stock, implements, fences, buildings; all do credit to the
owner; bespeak his sound judgment, his industry and care. All that is
wanted here is the _radical husbandry_; because that would enable the
owner to keep three times the quantity of stock. However, since I left
home, I have seen but very few farms that I should prefer to that of Mr.
Sloper, whom I have not the pleasure to know, and whom, indeed, I never
heard of till I saw his farm. At a village (certainly named by some
_author_) called _Inkpen_, we passed a neat little house and paddock,
the residence of a Mr. Butler, a nephew of Dr. Butler, who died Bishop
of Oxford, and whom I can remember hearing preach at Farnham in Surrey
when I was a very very little boy. I have his features and his wig as
clearly in my recollection as if I had seen them but yesterday; and I
dare say I have not thought of Doctor Butler for forty years before
to-day. The "loyal" (oh, the pious gang!) will say that my memory is
good as to the face and wig, but bad as to the Doctor's _Sermons_. Why,
I must confess that I have no recollection of them; but, then, do I not
_make Sermons myself_?----At about two miles from Inkpen we came to the
end of our pilgrimage. The farm, which was Mr. _Tull's_; where he used
the first drill that ever was used; where he practised his husbandry;
where he wrote that book, which does so much honour to his memory, and
to which the cultivators of England owe so much; this farm is on an open
and somewhat bleak spot in Berkshire, on the borders of Wiltshire, and
within a very short distance of a part of Hampshire. The ground is a
loam, mixed with flints, and has the chalk at no great distance beneath
it. It is, therefore, free from _wet_; needs no water furrows; and is
pretty good in its nature. The house, which has been improved by Mr.
Blandy, the present proprietor, is still but a plain farmhouse. Mr.
Blandy has lived here thirty years, and has brought up ten children to
man's and woman's estate. Mr. Blandy was from home, but Mrs. Blandy
received and entertained us in a very hospitable manner.--We returned,
not along the low land, but along the top of the downs, and through Lord
Caernarvon's park, and got home after a very pleasant day.
_Burghclere, Wednesday, 21 Nov._
We intended to have a hunt; but the foxhounds came across and rendered
it impracticable. As an instance of the change which rural customs have
undergone since the hellish paper-system has been so furiously at work,
I need only mention the fact, that, forty years ago, there were _five_
packs of _foxhounds_ and _ten_ packs of _harriers_ kept within _ten
miles_ of Newbury; and that now there is _one_ of the former (kept, too,
by _subscription_) and _none_ of the latter, except the few couple of
dogs kept by Mr. Budd! "So much the better," says the shallow fool, who
cannot duly estimate the difference between a resident _native_ gentry,
attached to the soil, known to every farmer and labourer from their
childhood, frequently mixing with them in those pursuits where all
artificial distinctions are lost, practicing hospitality without
ceremony, from habit and not on calculation; and a gentry, only
now-and-then residing at all, having no relish for country-delights,
foreign in their manners, distant and haughty in their behaviour,
looking to the soil only for its rents, viewing it as a mere object of
speculation, unacquainted with its cultivators, despising them and their
pursuits, and relying for influence, not upon the good will of the
vicinage, but upon the dread of their power. The war and paper-system
has brought in nabobs, negro-drivers, generals, admirals, governors,
commissaries, contractors, pensioners, sinecurists, commissioners,
loan-jobbers, lottery-dealers, bankers, stock-jobbers; not to mention
the long and _black list_ in gowns and three-tailed wigs. You can see
but few good houses not in possession of one or the other of these.
These, with the Parsons, are now the magistrates. Some of the
_consequences_ are before us; but they have not all yet arrived. A
taxation that sucks up fifty millions a year _must_ produce a new set of
proprietors every twenty years or less; and the proprietors, while they
last, can be little better than tax-collectors to the government, and
scourgers of the people.--I must not quit _Burghclere_ without noticing
Mr. Budd's _radical_ Swedes and other things. His is but miniature
farming; but it is very good, and very interesting. Some time in May, he
drilled a piece of Swedes on four feet ridges. The fly took them off. He
had cabbage and mangel-wurzel plants to put in their stead. Unwilling to
turn back the ridges, and thereby bring the dung to the top, he planted
the cabbages and mangel-wurzel on the ridges where the Swedes had been
drilled. This was done in June. Late in July, his neighbour, a farmer
Hulbert, had a field of Swedes that he was hoeing. Mr. Budd now put some
manure in the furrows between the ridges, and ploughed a furrow over it
from each ridge. On this he planted Swedes, taken from farmer Hulbert's
field. Thus his plantation consisted of rows of plants _two feet apart_.
The result is a prodigious crop. Of the mangel-wurzel (greens and all)
he has not less than twenty tons to the acre. He can scarcely have less
of the cabbages, some of which are _green savoys_ as fine as I ever saw.
And of the Swedes, many of which weigh from five to nine pounds, he
certainly has more than twenty tons to the acre. So that here is a crop
of, at the very least, _forty tons to the acre_. This piece is not much
more than half an acre; but he will, perhaps, not find so much cattle
food upon any four acres in the county. He is, and long has been,
feeding four milch cows, large, fine, and in fine condition, upon
cabbages sometimes, and sometimes on mangel-wurzel leaves. The butter is
excellent. Not the smallest degree of bitterness or bad taste of any
sort. Fine colour and fine taste. And here, upon not three quarters of
an acre of ground, he has, if he manage the thing well, enough food for
these four cows to the month of May! Can any system of husbandry equal
this? What would he do with these cows, if he had not this crop? He
could not keep one of them, except on hay. And he owes all this crop to
transplanting. He thinks that the transplanting, fetching the Swede
plants and all, might cost him ten or twelve shillings. It was done by
women, who had never done such a thing before.----However, he must get
in his crop before the hard weather comes; or my Lord Caernarvon's hares
will help him. They have begun already; and it is curious that they have
begun on the mangel-wurzel roots. So that hares, at any rate, have set
the seal of merit upon this root.
_Whitchurch, Thursday (night), 22 Nov._
We have come round here, instead of going by Newbury in consequence of a
promise to Mr. BLOUNT at Uphusband, that I would call on him on my
return. We left Uphusband by lamp-light, and, of course, we could see
little on our way.
_Kensington, Friday, 23 Nov._
Got home by the coach. At leaving Whitchurch we soon passed the mill
where the Mother-Bank paper is made! Thank God, this mill is likely soon
to want employment! Hard by is a pretty park and house, belonging to
"_'Squire_" Portal, the _paper-maker_. The country people, who seldom
want for sarcastic shrewdness, call it "_Rag Hall_"!--I perceive that
they are planting oaks on the "_wastes_," as the _Agriculturasses_ call
them, about _Hartley Row_; which is very good; because the herbage,
after the first year, is rather increased than diminished by the
operation; while, in time, the oaks arrive at a timber state, and add to
the beauty and to the _real wealth_ of the country, and to the real and
solid wealth of the descendants of the planter, who, in every such case,
merits unequivocal praise, because he plants for his children's
children.--The planter here is LADY MILDMAY, who is, it seems, Lady of
the Manors about here. It is impossible to praise this act of hers too
much, especially when one considers her _age_. I beg a thousand pardons!
I do not mean to say that her Ladyship is _old_; but she has long had
grand-children. If her Ladyship had been a reader of old dread-death and
dread-devil Johnson, that teacher of moping and melancholy, she never
would have planted an oak tree. If the writings of this time-serving,
mean, dastardly old pensioner had got a firm hold of the minds of the
people at large, the people would have been bereft of their very souls.
These writings, aided by the charm of pompous sound, were fast making
their way, till light, reason, and the French revolution came to drive
them into oblivion; or, at least, to confine them to the shelves of
repentant, married old rakes, and those of old stock-jobbers with young
wives standing in need of something to keep down the unruly ebullitions
which are apt to take place while the "dearies" are gone hobbling to
'Change.----"After _pleasure_ comes _pain_," says Solomon; and after the
sight of Lady Mildmay's truly noble plantations, came that of the clouts
of the "gentlemen cadets" of the "_Royal Military College of
Sandhurst_!" Here, close by the road side, is the _drying-ground_.
Sheets, shirts, and all sorts of things were here spread upon lines,
covering, perhaps, an acre of ground! We soon afterwards came to "_York_
Place" on "_Osnaburg_ Hill." And is there never to be an _end_ of these
things? Away to the left, we see that immense building, which contains
children _breeding up to be military commanders_! Has this plan cost so
little as two millions of pounds? I never see this place (and I have
seen it forty times during the last twenty years) without asking myself
this question: Will this thing be suffered to go on; will this thing,
created by money _raised by loan_; will this thing be upheld by means of
taxes, _while the interest of the Debt is reduced_, on the ground that
the nation is _unable to pay the interest in full_?--Answer that
question, Castlereagh, Sidmouth, Brougham, or Scarlett.
KENTISH JOURNAL: FROM KENSINGTON TO DARTFORD, ROCHESTER, CHATHAM, AND
FAVERSHAM.
_Tuesday, December 4, 1821, Elverton Farm, near Faversham, Kent._
This is the first time, since I went to France, in 1792, that I have
been on this side of _Shooters' Hill_. The land, generally speaking,
from Deptford to Dartford is poor, and the surface ugly by nature, to
which ugliness there has been made, just before we came to the latter
place, a considerable addition by the enclosure of a common, and by the
sticking up of some shabby-genteel houses, surrounded with dead fences
and things called gardens, in all manner of ridiculous forms, making,
all together, the bricks, hurdle-rods and earth say, as plainly as they
can speak, "Here dwell _vanity_ and _poverty_." This is a little
excrescence that has grown out of the immense sums which have been drawn
from other parts of the kingdom to be expended on Barracks, Magazines,
Martello-Towers, Catamarans, and all the excuses for lavish expenditure
which the war for the Bourbons gave rise to. All things will return;
these rubbishy flimsy things, on this common, will first be deserted,
then crumble down, then be swept away, and the cattle, sheep, pigs and
geese will once more graze upon the common, which will again furnish
heath, furze and turf for the labourers on the neighbouring
lands.--After you leave Dartford the land becomes excellent. You come to
a bottom of chalk, many feet from the surface, and when that is the case
the land is sure to be good; no _wet_ at bottom, no deep ditches, no
water furrows necessary; sufficiently moist in dry weather, and no water
lying about upon it in wet weather for any length of time. The chalk
acts as a filtering-stone, not as a sieve, like gravel, and not as a
dish, like clay. The chalk acts as the soft stone in Herefordshire does;
but it is not so congenial to trees that have tap-roots.--Along through
Gravesend towards Rochester the country presents a sort of gardening
scene. Rochester (the Bishop of which is, or lately was, _tax Collector
for London and Middlesex_) is a small but crowded place, lying on the
south bank of the beautiful Medway, with a rising ground on the other
side of the city. _Stroud_, which you pass through before you come to
the bridge, over which you go to enter Rochester; _Rochester_ itself,
and _Chatham_, form, in fact, one main street of about two miles and a
half in length.--Here I was got into the scenes of my cap-and-feather
days! Here, at between sixteen and seventeen, I enlisted for a soldier.
Upon looking up towards the fortifications and the barracks, how many
recollections crowded into my mind! The girls in these towns do not seem
to be _so pretty_ as they were thirty-eight years ago; or, am I not so
quick in discovering beauties as I was then? Have thirty-eight years
corrected my taste, or made me a hypercritic in these matters? Is it
that I now look at them with the solemnness of a "professional man," and
not with the enthusiasm and eagerness of an "amateur?" I leave these
questions for philosophers to solve. One thing I will say for the young
women of these towns, and that is, that I always found those of them
that I had the great happiness to be acquainted with, evince a sincere
desire to do their best to smooth the inequalities of life, and to give
us, "brave fellows," as often as they could, strong beer, when their
churlish masters of fathers or husbands would have drenched us to death
with small. This, at the out-set of life, gave me a high opinion of the
judgment and justice of the female sex; an opinion which has been
confirmed by the observations of my whole life.--This Chatham has had
some monstrous _wens_ stuck on to it by the lavish expenditure of the
war. These will moulder away. It is curious enough that I should meet
with a gentleman in an inn at Chatham to give me a picture of the
house-distress in that enormous wen, which, during the war, was stuck on
to Portsmouth. Not less than fifty thousand people had been drawn
together there! These are now dispersing. The coagulated blood is
diluting and flowing back through the veins. Whole streets are deserted,
and the eyes of the houses knocked out by the boys that remain. The
jackdaws, as much as to say, "Our turn to be inspired and to teach is
come," are beginning to take possession of the Methodist chapels. The
gentleman told me that he had been down to Portsea to sell half a street
of houses, left him by a relation; and that nobody would give him
anything for them further than as very cheap fuel and rubbish! Good God!
And is this "prosperity?" Is this the "prosperity of the war?" Have I
not, for twenty long years, been regretting the existence of these
unnatural embossments; these white-swellings, these odious wens,
produced by _Corruption_ and engendering crime and misery and slavery?
We shall see the whole of these wens abandoned by the inhabitants, and,
at last, the cannons on the fortifications may be of some use in
battering down the buildings.--But what is to be the fate of the great
wen of all? The monster called, by the silly coxcombs of the press, "the
metropolis of the empire"? What is to become of that multitude of towns
that has been stuck up around it? The village of Kingston was smothered
in the town of Portsea; and why? Because taxes, drained from other
parts of the kingdom, were brought thither.
The dispersion of the wen is the only real difficulty that I see in
settling the affairs of the nation and restoring it to a happy state.
But dispersed it _must_ be; and if there be half a million, or more, of
people to suffer, the consolation is, that the suffering will be divided
into half a million of parts. As if the swelling out of London,
naturally produced by the Funding System, were not sufficient; as if the
evil were not sufficiently great from the inevitable tendency of the
system of loans and funds, our pretty gentlemen must resort to positive
institutions to augment the population of the Wen. They found that the
increase of the Wen produced an increase of thieves and prostitutes, an
increase of all sorts of diseases, an increase of miseries of all sorts;
they saw that taxes drawn up to one point produced these effects; they
must have a "_penitentiary_," for instance, to check the evil, and that
they must needs have in the Wen! So that here were a million of pounds,
drawn up in taxes, employed not only to keep the thieves and prostitutes
still in the _Wen_, but to bring up to the Wen workmen to build the
penitentiary, who and whose families, amounting, perhaps, to thousands,
make an addition to the cause of that crime and misery, to check which
is the object of the Penitentiary! People would follow, they must
follow, the million of money. However, this is of a piece with all the
rest of their goings on. They and their predecessors, Ministers and
_House_, have been collecting together all the materials for a dreadful
explosion; and if the explosion be not dreadful, other heads must point
out the means of prevention.
_Wednesday, 5 Dec._
The land on quitting Chatham is chalk at bottom; but before you reach
Sittingbourne there is a vein of gravel and sand under, but a great
depth of loam above. About Sittingbourne the chalk bottom comes again,
and continues on to this place, where the land appears to me to be as
good as it can possibly be. Mr. WILLIAM WALLER, at whose house I am, has
grown, this year, Mangel-Wurzel, the roots of which weigh, I think, on
an average, twelve pounds, and in rows, too, at only about thirty inches
distant from each other. In short, as far as _soil_ goes, it is
impossible to see a finer country than this. You frequently see a field
of fifty acres, level as a die, clean as a garden and as rich. Mr.
_Birkbeck_ need not have crossed the Atlantic, and Alleghany into the
bargain, to look for land _too rich to bear wheat_; for here is a plenty
of it. In short, this is a country of hop-gardens, cherry, apple, pear
and filbert orchards, and quick-set hedges. But, alas! what, in point
of _beauty_, is a country without woods and lofty trees! And here there
are very few indeed. I am now sitting in a room, from the window of
which I look, _first_, over a large and level field of rich land, in
which the drilled wheat is finely come up, and which is surrounded by
clipped quickset hedges with a row of apple trees running by the sides
of them; _next_, over a long succession of rich meadows, which are here
called marshes, the shortest grass upon which will fatten sheep or oxen;
_next_, over a little branch of the salt water which runs up to
Faversham; _beyond that_, on the Isle of Shepry (or Shepway), which
rises a little into a sort of ridge that runs along it; rich fields,
pastures and orchards lie all around me; and yet, I declare, that I a
million times to one prefer, as a spot to _live on_, the heaths, the
miry coppices, the wild woods and the forests of Sussex and Hampshire.
_Thursday, 6 Dec._
"Agricultural distress" is the great topic of general conversation. The
_Webb Hallites_ seem to prevail here. The fact is, farmers in general
read nothing but the newspapers; these, in the Wen, are under the
control of the Corruption of one or the other of the factions; and in
the country, nine times out of ten, under the control of the parsons and
landlords, who are the magistrates, as they are pompously called, that
is to say, Justices of the Peace. From such vehicles what are farmers to
learn? They are, in general, thoughtful and sensible men; but their
natural good sense is perverted by these publications, had it not been
for which we never should have seen "_a sudden transition from war to
peace_" lasting seven years, and more _sudden_ in its destructive
effects at last than at first. _Sir Edward Knatchbull_ and _Mr.
Honeywood_ are the members of the "Collective Wisdom" for this county.
The former was, till of late, a _Tax-Collector_. I hear that he is a
great advocate for _corn-bills_! I suppose he does not wish to let
people who have _leases_ see the bottom of the evil. He may get his
rents for this year; but it will be his last year, if the interest of
the Debt be not very greatly reduced. Some people here think that corn
is _smuggled in_ even now! Perhaps it is, _upon the whole_, best that
the delusion should continue for a year longer; as that would tend to
make the destruction of the system more sure, or, at least, make the
cure more radical.
_Friday, 7 Dec._
I went through _Faversham_. A very pretty little town, and just ten
minutes' walk from the market-place up to the Dover turnpike-road. Here
are the _powder-affairs_ that Mr. HUME so well exposed. An immensity of
buildings and expensive things. Why are not these premises let or sold?
However, this will never be done until there be a _reformed Parliament_.
Pretty little VAN, that beauty of all beauties; that orator of all
orators; that saint of all saints; that financier of all financiers,
said that if Mr. HUME were to pare down the expenses of government to
_his_ wish, there would be others "the Hunts, Cobbetts, and Carliles,
who would still want the expense to be less." I do not know _how low_
Mr. Hume would wish to go; but for myself I say that if I ever have the
power to do it, I will reduce the expenditure, and that in quick time
too, down to what it was in the reign of Queen Anne; that is to say, to
less than is now paid to tax-gatherers for their labour in collecting
the taxes; and, monstrous as VAN may think the idea, I do not regard it
as impossible that I may have such power; which I would certainly not
employ to do an act of _injustice_ to any human being, and would, at the
same time, maintain the throne in more real splendour than that in which
it is now maintained. But I would have nothing to do with any VANS,
except as door-keepers or porters.
_Saturday, 8 Dec._
Came home very much pleased with my visit to Mr. WALKER, in whose house
I saw no drinking of wine, spirits, or even beer; where all, even to the
little children, were up by candle-light in the morning, and where the
most perfect sobriety was accompanied by constant cheerfulness. _Kent_
is in a deplorable way. The farmers are skilful and intelligent,
generally speaking. But there is infinite _corruption_ in Kent, owing
partly to the swarms of West Indians, Nabobs, Commissioners, and others
of nearly the same description, that have selected it for the place of
their residence; but owing still more to the immense sums of public
money that have, during the last thirty years, been expended in it. And
when one thinks of these, the conduct of the people of Dover,
Canterbury, and other places, in the case of the ever-lamented Queen,
does them everlasting honour. The _fruit_ in Kent is more _select_ than
in Herefordshire, where it is raised for _cyder_, while, in Kent, it is
raised for sale in its fruit state, a great deal being sent to the
_Wen_, and a great deal sent to the North of England and to Scotland.
The orchards are beautiful indeed. Kept in the neatest order, and,
indeed, all belonging to them excels anything of the kind to be seen in
Normandy; and as to apples, I never saw any so good in France as those
of Kent. This county, so blessed by Providence, has been cursed by the
System in a peculiar degree. It has been the _receiver_ of immense sums,
raised on the other counties. This has puffed its _rents_ to an
unnatural height; and now that the drain of other counties is stopped,
it feels like a pampered pony turned out in winter to live upon a
common. It is in an extremely "unsatisfactory state," and has certainly
a greater mass of suffering to endure than any other part of the
kingdom, the _Wens_ only excepted. Sir EDWARD KNATCHBULL, who is a child
of the System, does appear to see no more of the cause of these
sufferings than if he were a baby. How should he? Not very bright by
nature; never listening but to one side of the question; being a man who
wants high rents to be paid him; not gifted with much light, and that
little having to strive against prejudice, false shame, and self
interest, what wonder is there that he should not see things in their
true light?