A Walk from London to John OGroats | Page 4

poor, flat, or fen
lands, your way is sure to lie through them. In a picturesque and
undulating country, studded with parks and mansions of wealth and
taste, you are plunging through a long, dark tunnel, or walled into a
deep cut, before your eye can catch the view that dashes by your
carriage window. If you have a utilitarian proclivity and purpose, and
would like to see the great agricultural industries of the country, they
present themselves to you in as confused aspects as the sceneries of the
passing landscape. The face of every farm is turned from you. The
farmer's house fronts on the turnpike road, and the best views of his

homestead, of his industry, prosperity, and happiness, look that way.
You only get a furtive glance, a kind of clandestine and diagonal peep
at him and his doings; and having thus travelled a hundred miles
through a fertile country you can form no approximate or satisfactory
idea of its character and productions.
But no facts nor arguments are needed to convince an intelligent
traveller that the railway affords no point of view for seeing town or
country to any satisfactory perception of its character. Indeed, neither
coach of the olden, nor cab of the modern vogue, nor saddle, will
enable one to "do" either town or country with thorough insight and
enjoyment. It takes him too long to pull up to catch the features of a
sudden view. He can do nothing with those generous and delightful
institutions of Old England,--the footpaths, that thread pasture, park,
and field, seemingly permeating her whole green world with dusky
veins for the circulation of human life. To lose all the picturesque lanes
and landscapes which these field- paths cross and command, is to lose
the great distinctive charm of the country. Then, neither from the
coach-box nor the saddle can he make much conversation on the way.
He loses the chance of a thousand little talks and pleasant incidents. He
cannot say "Good morning" to the farmer at the stile, nor a word of
greeting to the reapers over the hedge, nor see where they live, and the
kind of children that play by their cottage doors; nor the little, antique
churches, bearded to their eye-brows with ivy, covering the wrinkles of
half a dozen centuries, nor the low and quiet villages clustering around,
each like a family of bushy-headed children surrounding their
venerable mother.
In addition to these considerations, there was another that moved me to
this walk. Although I had been up and down the country as often and as
extensively as any American, perhaps, and admired its general scenery,
I had never looked at it with an agricultural eye or interest. But, having
dabbled a little in farming in the interval between my last two visits to
England, and being touched with some of the enthusiasm that modern
novices carry into the occupation, I was determined to look at the
agriculture of Great Britain more leisurely and attentively, and from a
better stand-point than I had ever done before. The thought had also

occurred to me, that a walk through the best agricultural counties of
England and Scotland would afford opportunity for observation which
might be made of some interest to my friends and neighbor farmers in
America as well as to myself. Therefore I beg the English reader to
remember that I am addressing to them the notes that I may make by
the way, hoping that its incidents and the thoughts it suggests will not
be devoid of interest because they are principally intended for the
American ear.
CHAPTER II.

FIRST DAY'S OBSERVATIONS AND ENJOYMENT--RURAL
FOOT-PATHS; VISIT TO TIPTREE FARM--ALDERMAN MECHI'S
OPERATIONS--IMPROVEMENTS INTRODUCED, DECRIED,
AND ADOPTED--STEAM POWER, UNDER-DRAINING, DEEP
TILLAGE, IRRIGATION--PRACTICAL RESULTS.
On Wednesday, July 15th, 1863, I left London with the hope that I
might be able to accomplish the northern half of my proposed "Walk
from Land's End to John O'Groat's." I had been practically prostrated
by a serious indisposition for nearly two months, and was just able to
walk one or two miles at a time about the city. Believing that country
air and exercise would soon enable me to be longer on my feet, I
concluded to set out as I was, without waiting for additional strength,
so slow and difficult to attain in the smoky atmosphere and hot streets
of London.
Few reading farmers in America there are who are not familiar with the
name and fame of Alderman Mechi, as an agriculturist of that new and
scientific school that is making such a revolution in the great primeval
industry of mankind. His experiments on his Tiptree Farm have
attained a world-wide publicity, and have given that homestead an
interest that, perhaps, never attached to the same number of acres