Then he changes the scene for us. He is a ploughman for the time. He tells how he managed his horses, guided his plough, turned over his furrows, mended his harness, and how three times a-day he fed heartily and well upon his oatmeal brose, and was healthy and strong in limb, happy in mind, and free from care. We question if he is heartier or happier now.
Next we find him writing like one who has been promoted to the rank of grieve or farm-steward. He has assumed the tone and look of a man who has responsibility upon his shoulders—who has graver duties to perform, and from whom more is expected. He tells us how he manages his men, apportions their hours of labour, and distributes to each his appropriate quantity and time of work. The scene shifts, and we see him in the market selling his corn. He wants threepence a bushel more, and he will hold out till he gets it. His sample is good, for his land has been well managed, and his grain well cleaned; he knows what his article is worth, as things are going in the market, and he will be an old corn-merchant who takes him in.
Or he has stock to sell, and there he goes into the whisky shop to finish his bargain. You heard him ask ten shillings more than he meant to take? That was because he knew the buyer was a higgler, and would have left him at once had he refused to come down in his price. Now they are gravely discussing the point over the gill-stoup. They are within half-a-crown now. Another gill will close the bargain. It is finished; the buyer is pleased; and our grieve is five shillings richer than if the bargain had been closed briefly and in the open air.
He is not a bad writer for a practical man who enables you, in a book upon farming, to call up successive transactions in a manner so vivid as this.
Next, he wishes to become a farmer on his own account, and he looks about for a farm that will suit him. On this subject he has an excellent chapter in his third volume. He has been faithful to his master, and now he acts honourably towards his equals:—
"Here," he says, "let me mention at the outset, that it is considered amongst farmers a dishonourable act to look at a farm, until you are, in the first place, assured that it is in the market. To do so, until you certainly know that the tenant in possession is to leave it, or at any rate, until it is advertised in the public prints, or otherwise declared to be in the market, whether the possessing tenant wishes to take it again or not, is an unfeeling act, and regarded as equivalent to telling him that you wish to take the farm over his head. Such an act would be as unbecoming as to intrude yourself into a house in town, which you think would suit you, to look at its internal arrangement, before you are aware the possessing tenant is leaving it, by the usual announcement of the ticket."—(Vol. iii. p. 1304).
But having obtained possession of a farm, he enquires, can I now make money for myself—quickly but honourably—in a way that will be at once creditable to myself, beneficial to my landlord, and of advantage to my country?
Two points Mr Stephens insists upon as indispensable to the making of money in this creditable way. The tenant must keep his land clean, and he must farm it high. Those who make most money in each district—their natural prudence being alike—are those who are kindest to the land. Use me well, says the soil every where, and I will use you well in return.
In other parts of his work he rises to the station of a land-steward. He discusses, in a clear and judicious manner, large agricultural questions—he writes with the gravity and thoughtfulness of one whose business it is to superintend and regulate extensive improvements, and to look after the proceedings and modes of farming of a large body of tenantry. This, indeed, we hope and trust will be the case with many of those who carefully read, learn, and inwardly digest the lessons and precepts of his book; for in whatever capacity it may be their lot to minister to the welfare and progress of agriculture, they will find aid and assistance and counsel from the Book of the Farm.
It is, indeed, in very many cases of much importance that a better instructed race of men should be entrusted with the immediate management of the larger estates of the country. We have met with many skilful and intelligent members of this class, many able to understand, and advise, and superintend the most enlightened improvements, and to conduct them to a prosperous and economical issue. But the mass of these men in our island is not up to the knowledge of the time; too many of them are almost entirely ignorant of the most elementary principles of agriculture. How, indeed, can it be otherwise, when a landholder is contented to place this delicate management in the hands of his retired butler, or his failing groom, or even of his solicitor or attorney, who has been bred up to a totally different profession? If law and medicine require separate schools and training, so do farming and the management of estates, if they are to be farmed to a profit, or managed with economy and skill.