rge the
tenants five per cent. on the outlay per acre occupied. Farm buildings and
farm houses are being put in thorough repair, and tenants are expected so to
keep them.

In the course of these repairs farm houses were found in which the windows
were fixtures, not intended to open! While as to the farming, it is scarcely
possible to imagine anything more barbarous. It is not a corn-growing
district, and what corn is grown these weaver farmers, indifferent apparently
to loss of time, first lash against a board to get part of the grain out, and
then thrash the rest out of the straw!

Market garden cultivation, stall feeding, and root crops would answer well,
but at the time of the survey only two gardens were cultivated for the sale
of produce in the unlimited markets of Oldham, Rochdale, and Manchester; and
little feeding except of pigs.

Orchard trees are now supplied by the landlords, free of cost, to all willing
to take charge of them.

It will be very difficult to induce these people to change their old slovenly
style of farming, for their chief pride is in their weaving, which is
excellent, and many of them are in possession of properties held for two and
three generations without change. But the system of encouraging the good,
and getting rid of the lazy, will work a reformation in time, especially as
there are some very good examples on the estate. For instance, Benjamin
Johnson, who, paying the highest rent per acre, has creditably brought up ten
children on nine acres of land, without other employment.

Middleton is a district especially suited for small farms, so much so that it
has been determined to divide one or two of the larger ones.

Altogether it is a very primitive curious place, with several originals among
the tenantry, and some beautiful natural scenery, among whom a morning may be
spent with profit and pleasure.

With the town and building land an equally comprehensive system has been
adopted.

The defects of the existing buildings are to be cured as soon as, and in the
best manner, that circumstances will admit; while all new houses are to be
built and drained on a fixed plan, and all roadside cottages to have at least
a quarter of an acre of ground for a garden.

It will take some years to work out complete results; it is, however,
gratifying to see a landowner placing himself in the hands of competent
advisers, planning not for the profits of the hour, but for the future, for
the