The poetry of agriculture
remains as yet, no doubt, unwritten, and the comedy of it also;
though its farce-tragedy has been too often extensively enacted in
practice--unconsciously to the players. As for the old 'pastoral'
school, it only flourished before agriculture really existed--that
is, before sound science, hard labour, and economy were necessary--
and has been for the last two hundred years simply a dream.
Nevertheless, as signs of what may be done even now by a genial man
with so stubborn a subject as 'turnips, barley, clover, wheat,' it is
worth while to look at old Arthur Young's books, both travels and
treatises; and also at certain very spirited 'Chronicles of a Clay
Farm,' by Talpa, which teem with humour and wisdom.
In sporting literature--a tenth muse, exclusively indigenous to
England--the same observation holds good tenfold. Some of our most
perfect topographical sketches have been the work of sportsmen. Old
Izaak Walton, and his friend Cotton, of Dovedale, whose names will
last as long as their rivers, have been followed by a long train of
worthy pupils.
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