Science has been shouted over the length and
breadth of the land, and chemistry, and I know not what, called to the
assistance of the farmer, and every day we are drifting more and more
backwards into the rule-of-thumb methods of our forefathers.
No anarchy,
happily - omitting that there is a strong resemblance to Spain. For an
instance, in the daily papers it has become as common as possible to see
an advertisement of farm-house apartments to let. Numbers of farm people
look forward to their letting season in the same way as at the sea-side
and in London. This is an immense breach in the ancient isolated manners
of country life. The old farmers, and only a very little time ago, would
as soon have thought of flying as of opening their doors to strangers,
and indeed their rooms were scarcely furnished in a way to receive them.
On the other hand, many farmhouses are empty altogether, and the land is
un-tilled, because it cannot be let at any price, and lapsing backwards
into barbarism. Everything used to be so fixed: there was a sort of caste
of farmers. A man born in a farmhouse never thought of anything else but
farming, and waited and waited, perhaps till he was grey, to get a farm;
now there are few who have such fixed ideas, they are ready to take a
chance at home or abroad.
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