without ever making any attempt at improvement, it may be amusing to record the business-like offer of some of those indolent worthies who would bid for a pig in a poke. Thus it runs:—It should have been dated April 1, instead of 21:—
“Wheas We have considered we shall give you for Bonnyrig’s farme the som £100 25 puns upon condishinds per year if you should think it to little we may perhaps advance a little as we have not looked her carefully over her and for character Mr. Sowerby will give you every information as we are the third giniration that’s been under the Sowerbys.
“_If you want anye otes I could sell you fifteen bowels of verye fine ones._”
Now the “som £100 25 puns” being less than half what the Major’s grandfather used to get for the farm:—viz. “£200 63 puns,”—our Major was considerably perplexed; and as “Henerey and Homfray”’s offer was but a sample of the whole, it became a question between Boulogne and Bastile, as those once unpopular edifices, the workhouses, were then called. And here we may observe, that there is nothing perhaps, either so manageable or so unmanageable as land—nothing easier to keep right than land in good order, and nothing more difficult to get by the head, and stop, than land that has run wild; and it may be laid down as an infallible rule, that the man who has no taste for land or horses should have nothing to do with either. He should put his money in the funds, and rail or steam when he has occasion to travel. He will be far richer, far fatter, and fill the bay window of his club far better, than by undergoing the grinding of farmers and the tyranny of grooms. Land, like horses, when once in condition is easily kept so, but once let either go down, and the owner becomes a prey to the scratchers and the copers.
If, however, a man likes a little occupation better than the eternal gossip, and “_who’s that?_” of the clubs, and prefers a smiling improving landscape to a barren retrograding scene, he will find no pleasanter, healthier, or more interesting occupation than improving his property. And a happy thing it was for this kingdom, that Prince Albert who has done so much to refine and elevate mankind, should have included farming in the list of his amusements,—bringing the before despised pursuit into favour and fashion, so that now instead of land remaining a prey to the “Henerey Browns & Co.” of life, we find gentlemen advertising for farms in all directions, generally stipulating that they are to be on the line of one or other of the once derided railways.