pleasure. This broad valley joins a narrow one with lofty banks covered with natural wood, the whole or any part of which might also be flooded. Every natural feature here is on a large scale, and the arts required are chiefly draining and planting, both of which, as far as they have been carried, evince good judgement. The masses of trees in the park were projected by Mr. Gilpin, and are judiciously placed. Various recent improvements have been devised by His Lordship and his intelligent gardener Mr. Cato; and we had the honour of staking out an approach above a mile in length. The house is not large, but it is well arranged, and, as far as a stranger can judge in a day or two, it cannot be better placed. In a shrubbery walk there is a living arbour, formed by Mr. Cato, of ash trees, in the manner recommended in our Volume for 1841, p. 312., which has succeeded admirably. The kitchen-garden and nursery grounds here, as well as the pleasure-ground, are kept in excellent order. The agriculture, like that of Devonshire generally, is very bad; but Lord Clinton is using every exertion to improve it, as hinted at in our Volume for 1842, p. 658. Lord Clinton, who has resided some time in Scotland, is well aware of the defects of the agriculture on his estate, but, with true benevolence, is unwilling to change any of his tenants, preferring to instruct them. For the latter purpose, he has encouraged the formation of an agricultural society, of which he is president; and the papers read at the meetings, when considered worthy of publication, are printed at His Lordship's expense. His Lordship has also built a school and schoolmaster's house, and is improving the labourers' cottages and the farmhouses. In a word, he appears to be proceeding judiciously with all the more important improvements of which Heanton Satchville is susceptible.

Stevenstone, near Torrington, Lord Rolle, is a very old place, chiefly remarkable for very large trees, and for a boldly undulated surface. It is capable of immense improvement, in consequence of hollows that might be flooded with water, and eminences that require planting. The house is very old, though there is nothing worthy of notice in its architecture. It is low, occupying three sides of a long narrow court: the connecting side, or extreme end, containing the principal living-rooms; one side terminating in the offices and stables, and the other in the family chapel. The library, as a protection from fire, forms a detached building in the garden. There is a peculiarly quiet and melancholy expression about this place, which we think we can trace to its having little or no appearance of being inhabited, to the prevalence of grass, and the absence of gravel walks, especially of winding ones, and to the park being, as far as we remember, totally without young trees. Well-kept gravel

walks always give the idea of occupation; and young trees, with their protecting fences round them, seem to show that improvements are going on. A lodge has been recently built here, which ought to be noticed for the bad taste which it exhibits: not to speak of its architecture, which wants some characteristic features of the style, we shall merely mention that painted stags' heads are built into a rubble wall without any preparation, and that the Rolle arms are placed on the piers of the gates, not so as to front the public road, but edgewise towards it. It is much to be regretted that proprietors in the country, when they do not employ a regular architect, do not submit their own, or their carpenter's designs to one. For two guineas, any London architect would have pointed out the exterior faults in the pitch of the roof, form of the windows and doors, and defects in the placing of the ornaments in the structure to which we allude; and the stags' heads and the arms, instead of being deformities as they now are, would have been appropriate ornaments: and all this, with the exception of the architect's fee, at no greater expense than has been incurred.

At Torrington we called at Mr. Fowler's, the author of the Thermosiphon, a pamphlet on heating by hot water on the siphon principle, reviewed in our Volume for 1829, p. 453. Mr. Fowler, who was a banker and bookseller, was too ill to be able to see us, and is since dead.

In going from Torrington to see the inclined plane on the Rolle Canal, we looked down upon Ware Gifford, Lord Fortescue, and on Cross House, Mrs. Stephens, both situated in a rich valley. The Rolle Canal, and the various works connected with it, must have greatly benefited Torrington and the neighbourhood, and they do honour to the memory of Lord Rolle.

We have now noticed most of the gentlemen's seats which we saw in Devonshire, very briefly and imperfectly, from having taken no notes, and from having delayed to put down our recollections before most of them had escaped from our memory. Their brevity, however, is perhaps an advantage, because, if they had been much longer, we could not have found room for them. Before closing this article we shall notice the general impressions made on us by the face of the country and its agriculture, and by the labourers' cottages.

Roads. The greater part of Devonshire, more particularly of the south part, seemed very badly arranged in respect to parish roads. Owing to the small size of the fields the roads are far too numerous, and it is to the same cause that we must attribute their circuitous direction and their narrowness. We have already noticed the high hedge banks which accompany these roads, and prevent the traveller from seeing into the fields except when he comes to a gateway. We feel confident

that we do not exaggerate when we say that in many cases the ground lost to the proprietors by the lanes and fences, which would be superfluous if the ground were properly laid out, amounts to from 10 to 20 per cent. Proprietors of lands of great extent may remedy this evil themselves, but in general it would require the cooperation of the district. In either case a survey should first be made, and not only the roads and fences, but the inclination of the surface, natural drainage, and course of water ditches and brooks pointed out; and from this plan, jointly with the careful examination of the ground, a rearrangement of the surface into shorter lines of road, straighter hedges, ditches, and brooks, and larger fields, might be determined on. Even if the direction of the roads, and the general drainage, were rectified on sound principles, much public good would result, and the arrangement of the fields and farms might be left to the proprietors.

Cottages. These are not bad in the same proportion as are the general arrangement of the country and the agriculture. There is a greater sympathy between the cottage dwellings and those of the smaller farmers. In Northumberland, where there are scarcely any small farms, and where the farm-houses are almost as large as gentlemen's seats, there appears to be no sympathy between the dwelling of the farmer and that of his labourer, and the cottages are hovels of the most wretched description. (See our Vol. for 1842, p. 31.) In this respect Devonshire and Somersetshire are as far before Northumberland and Berwickshire, as they are behind these counties in agriculture. Nevertheless the cottages in Devonshire are susceptible of much internal improvement, more especially in the north; and, neither in the north nor in the south, do they appear to have been at all considered by the landed interest as objects of taste. This will not be the case in any country, till the subject of the improvement of cottages is taken out of the hands of farmers and land stewards, and undertaken by proprietors themselves. The farmers are jealous of their cottagers, to such an extent that, in some places that we could point out, they disapprove even of their children being sent to school; and the stewards are jealous of any improvement that does not originate with themselves, as it seems to reproach them with neglect of duty, or to give them extra trouble. Of course there are many exceptions.

The Agriculture of Devonshire appeared to us worse than that of any other English county, but, in consequence of the warm moist climate, grass is produced in abundance throughout the year, and thus the deficiencies of arable culture are in some measure compensated for. The corn crop being everywhere removed, we had an opportunity of seeing the

stubbles, which were everywhere foul, indicating shallow ploughing and bad fallowing. The best parts of the farmyard manure are allowed to be washed away by the frequent rains, and the weeds in the hedges and by the road sides are allowed to ripen their seeds, which are disseminated over the cultivated grounds, by the winds in some cases, and the birds in others. We saw one or two thrashing machines of the very worst construction. But it is unnecessary to say more than that 15 tons per acre are reckoned a good crop of turnips, in a county which abounds with some of the best turnip soils in England; and the climate of which, from its warmth and moisture, is peculiarly favourable to the culture of that root and of the potato. In a word, with the exception of the grass lands, the cattle, and the culture exhibited by the bailiffs on one or two gentlemen's estates, we saw nothing that we could commend.

In proportion as Devonshire is in a backward state in respect to rural improvement, notwithstanding its fine climate, in the same proportion is it susceptible of amelioration; and we amused ourselves, while travelling from one point to another, in fancying what we should do if we had the command of an extensive Devonshire estate. As the celebrated Arthur Young, in his Annals, indulged in a reverie of the same class*, we trust the precedent will be accepted as an

*"I wish I was a king,' said a farmer's boy: 'Why, what would you do if you was a king?' 'I would swing upon the gate and eat bacon all day long.' So I also may wish I was a king; if I did, it would be for the pleasure of executing such a plan as this for a personal amusement. I would send a message to the House of Commons, desiring to be invested with a power, on my own personal examination in any progresses I might make through my dominions, of ordering the necessary enclosures, buildings, and expenditures for the establishment of farms in tracts now waste. And I should be very well assured that my faithful Commons would not refuse it. They would, on the contrary, be happy in promoting the royal pleasures that had for their end the cultivation, improvement, and population of the kingdom. They would rejoice to see the presence of their sovereign diffusing industry; making barren deserts smile with cultivation, and peopling joyless wastes with the grateful hearts of men, who, through these efforts, had exchanged the miseries of poverty for cheerfulness, content, and competence; rearing the quiet cottage of private happiness, and the splendid turrets of public prosperity. These should be my amusements; doubtless they are such as kings would look down upon with a contempt equal to mine at the swinging and bacon of a country boy. But I should feel an enjoyment as refined, perhaps, as that which arises from desolated though conquered provinces, from the triumphs that military glory erects on the ruin and sufferings of humanity. And when I died my memory would have the honour of being forgotten; for I should rank with those kings of ancient days, dignes sans doute de nos éloges puisque l'histoire ne les a pas nommés. (Chastellux de la Félicité publique, Amst. anon.) The sentiment is more just, though not so strikingly expressed as that very pretty one of D'Alembert, who, praising Charles V. of France, adds, Quoique moins célébré dans l'histoire qu'une foule de rois qui n'ont été qu'heureux ou puissans." (Annals of Agriculture, vol. i. p. 62.)

excuse for inflicting on the reader two or three additional pages having reference to this county.

In

1. We would remove no tenant or labourer from the estate, however deficient he might be as a cultivator or a workman; because their present condition is the result of the circumstances in which they have been placed by preceding proprietors, and by the neglect of the local clergy. We would engage a man acquainted with the best practices in that kind of husbandry which is most suitable to the soil and climate, and we would let him have a man, a pair of horses, a cart, and a set of suitable agricultural implements at command; and with these, according to the season, he should go from farm to farm over the whole estate, and teach the best practices, and give the reasons, as far as they could be understood by the tenants, why one mode was better than another. the case of a naked fallow, or the culture of turnips, this man would arrange to have a ridge to prepare and cultivate in his mode in the same field in which the farmer pursued his ordinary culture, and so of every other operation and crop. For example, if a field was to be broken up for oats, our locomotive instructor should have a ridge in it to show the advantage of deeper ploughing than is generally practised, and of sowing a better variety. In this way we would continue for years to teach improved modes of culture and management, by degrees introducing improved rotations, breeds of horses or cattle, implements, machines, and even farm buildings; granting or extending the leases, so that the occupants might always be assured of continued possession, whether they adopted the improvements immediately or not.

2. For the improvement of the labourers, we should first have a survey made of every cottage on the property, in which there should be plans, elevations, and perspective views of their present state, including their gardens, with other plans, elevations, and views showing how they might be improved; and such as could not be improved we would take down and rebuild. Before determining what was to be done, we would consider the situation of all the cottages on the estate relative to the farms on which the men were likely to be employed, the mill in which their corn was likely to be ground, the school to which their children should be sent, and the church and burying-ground. We would always, if possible, have the cottages in small villages or in groups, that the occupiers might protect, assist, or communicate with one another more readily; and that they might, in certain cases, have a common washing-house, bakehouse, brewhouse, drying-ground, playground for their children, &c. Other ideas which we entertain on the subject of cottages need not be repeated, as they