THE REACTION OF COMMERCE ON LANDED INTERESTS 543 
The progress of their endeavours has been recorded in many - 
cases by Arthur Young, who watched their proceedings with ’ 
interest and admiration. To him they were the greatest of 
patriots, for whom no praise could be too high. They were 
“spirited cultivators” who managed their land in such a 
fashion as to deserve “every acknowledgment which a lover 
of his country can give,” He is full of enthusiasm for their and in 
experimental farms, new patterns of agricultural implements, i 
and new plans for laying out farm buildings; as well as for i 
the care which they bestowed on the smallest points of land 
management. Perhaps we may feel that the judgment of a 
contemporary, who mixed with these men and discussed 
their successes and failures, was formed on better grounds 
than that of writers who, at a distance of more than a 
century, decry the landlords, and gratuitously attribute to 
them the meanest motives. 
The progress was initiated by wealthy landlords; but in and the 
order to carry out their schemes effectively it was necessary anys one 
that there should, if possible, be enterprising farmers too. The Yo new 
owners, who were improving their estates, preferred to throw 
the holdings together, so as to substitute farms of three 
hundred acres and upwards, for farms of one hundred acres 
and under. With the possible exception of poultry farming, 
there was no department of agriculture in which small farms 
proved more advantageous to the public. As the usual 
calculation appears to have been that the capital requisite, 
in order to work the land, was at least five pounds an acre, 
for getting more, he hath no rent to pay, but some to receive, which will maintaine 
him ; and when he is gone, all is gone; spending is easier then getting. And thus 
by little and little roweth himself and the hope of his posteritie under water, in 
the calme weather. Whereas, he, that hath a rent to pay is not idle, neither in 
hart nor hand; he considers the rent day will come, and in true labour and 
diligence provides for it, and by his honest endeavours and dutiful regard, gets to 
pay rent to his Lord * * I inferre not yet by this, Sir, that because they sometimes 
thrive well, that live upon rackt rents, therefore you Landlords should impose the 
greater rent or fine; that were to do evill that good might come of it, nay rather 
to doe eviil that evill may followe; for if there be not a meane in burdens, the 
backe of the strongest Elephant may bee broken. And the best and most carefull 
and most laborious and most industrious husband may be overcharged with the 
rent of his Land.” Surveyor's Dialogue. 80-81, also p. 16. Compare above, 
p. 107, n. 1. 
1 Arbuthnot, An Inquiry into the connection between the present price of 
Provisions and the size of Farms (1773), p. 21.