Page images
PDF
EPUB

least £1 10s. an acre. Mr. Coke was preparing a large piece, within view of the house at Holkham, to be thus improved. I asked Mr. Blomfield how the thought occurred to him; he said, from observing pieces of flag laid on the hedgerow banks, and beaten firmly on with a spade when these banks are dressed, and which, he added, soon extended themselves and covered the banks, if free from weeds, with a similar flag.'

Mr. Coke's system of husbandry is the drill system, which he adopted at a very early period, and his extraordinary success in it is owing to the progressive improvement he has effected in the process, so as effectually to answer the purpose of loosening the soil, at different seasons, and of completely extirpating weeds. The advantage of deep and repeated ploughings and harrowings, to clean, loosen, and pulverise the soil, preparatory to its receiving the different seeds, every one knows, and, to a certain degree, this is practised on every farm; but the importance of stirring the soil, destroying weeds, and earthing up the young plants in the summer months, was not ascertained until effected in the drill system, by horse-hoeing, &c.; and Mr. Coke's great improvement in it, derived from his long experience, consists in his having gradually drilled at wider distances.

When the drilling of wheat was first practised, the lines were four and six inches distant. Mr. Coke now drills it at nine inches distance, which admits ample room for horse-hoeing, in the spring and early summer months, obviously much more effectual in loosening the soil, destroying weeds, and moulding up the plants, than hand-hoeing, particularly as usually practised by women and girls; who, in most instances, by a partial stirring of the earth, and an incomplete destruction of weeds, promote the more vigorous growth of those which remain. But he does not think it advisable to earth up white-straw crops, and therefore, in horse-hoeing wheat, he does not recommend moulding up the plants.

removing it, and which, though inferior in degree, is evidently similar in principle, to transplanting it; for, in both cases, Dr. Darwin explains the process to be effected by accumulating earth above the first few joints of the stems, whence new buds spring, generated and nourished by the caudex of the leaf, which surrounds the joint, as the original stem was generated and nourished from the grain itself, and which, like the seed, withers away, when sufficient roots have been formed for the future support of the plant. Sir Humphry Davy also entertains a similar opinion on this subject, and considers the tillering of corn, or the multiplication of stems, as favored by the drill husbandry; for, he says, loose earth is thrown, by hoeing, round the stalks.-Elements of Agricultural Chemistry, p. 204.

The truc estimate of every process in agriculture must indeed be obtained from experience; but the drawing earth round the stems would seem to promote their tillering, or the production of new stems by suckers or pullulations; and this was one of the great advantages which Tull, who has unquestionably the merit of having been the first to suggest the drill system, expected from horse-hoeing wheat. And it is worthy of remark to what an extent the stems may be multiplied under favorable circumstances, an indispensable one being the supplying the lower part of the plant with fresh earth to work in. The most perfect way in which this can be effected is, obviously, by transplanting. Dr. Darwin, in his Phytologia, gives a drawing of a. plant of wheat taken from a corn field in the spring, which then consisted of two stems; it was replanted in his garden, and purposely buried so deep as to cover the two or three first joints of both the stems beneath the soil. On taking up the plant, on the 24th of September, it had assumed the form delineated, and consisted of six stems, p. 278. Another way of effecting a multiplication of the stems is by drawing fresh earth round the lower part of the plant, without

In drilling turnips, Mr. Coke has gradually extended his lines on ridges, in what is called the Northumberland method, from twelve to fifteen, to eighteen, and even to twenty-seven inches. These wide drills allow the horse-hoe of the largest dimensions, and of various forms, adapted to the different purposes of turning up the soil and earthing up the plants, to pass most readily. 1816 was the first year in which the turnips were drilled so widely, and Mr. Coke expected that the twenty-seven inch drilled Swedish turnips would exceed in weight those of eighteen inches, by ten tons an acre. Dr. Rigby saw a large piece of these, about sixty acres, in which half were at eighteen inches distance, and half at twenty-seven inches; the latter were evidently the largest, in the most vigorous growth, and certainly promised to meet Mr. Coke's expectations. Drilled turnips, however, obviously require cross-hoeing, which must necessarily be done by hand; but as this is merely to destroy the supernumerary plants, it is easily effected by women and young persons. The Swedish turnips form his principal and most valuable crop, and are sown upon the best soils, from the middle of May to the middle of June; but Mr. Coke cultivates on his lightest soils the common and the Scotch yellow turnip, both which are sown from the middle of June to the middle of July.

In 1814 Mr. Blaikie published some observations on preserving Swedish turnips, by placing them, as he terms it, and this has been successfully adopted at Holkham. They are taken up about the middle of November, or as soon as they have attained their full growth; the tails or bulb roots only are cut off, and they are placed in an orchard, or on old turf land, close to, and touching each other, with the tops uppermost, and only one turnip deep. An acre of good turnips from the field will occupy much less space when placed than could be imagined. In very severe weather a slight covering of litter is thrown over them. In this way they will keep very well, and be sound and firm in June. Those taken up in the spring, when the bulb or fibrous roots begin to shoot, and which, if suffered to remain on the ground, would greatly deteriorate the soil, may be placed in the same way; and at this time, if under the shade of trees the better.

The carrying off the Swedish turnips, and, placing them elsewhere for consumption, is, however, principally recommended on strong soils and retentive sub-soils, where they cannot

be eaten on the ground without injury. But upon light soils, and open sub-soils, the turnips should be placed where they grow, and put into beds of a proper width for a common hurdle to cover them; a furrow of earth should be ploughed against the outside rows to protect them from the severity of the weather, and from the depredations of game. The expense of placing a medium crop of Swedish turnips, with tops and tails on, is about four shillings and sixpence per acre, and five shillings per acre, when the tails are cut from the bulbs. When turnips are eaten where they are placed, the ground is hurdled off and folded in the usual way; they are chopped in pieces, and thrown about for full-mouthed sheep; but when given to young and old sheep they are cut into slices by a machine, and given to the sheep in troughs, which are frequently shifted. The refuse is thrown about, and the bottoms of the beds, where the turnips were placed, are shovelled and spread about; particular attention being paid to shifting the folds, so that the land is regularly manured. It is not generally known that the texture of the larger Swedish turnips is firmer, and the specific gravity, consequently, greater than in the smaller ones, the reverse being the case in the common turnip. The rind, the least nutritive part, is also, in the same proportion, thinner; but, were it equally thick, there would still be proportionately less of it, the surface of a large sphere bearing, obviously, a less proportion to the interior contents than the surface of a smaller sphere. These may appear trifling circumstances, but they not only show the intrinsic superiority of the Swedish turnip, but the manifest advantage of endeavouring, by a superior cultivation, to grow large ones, thereby improving their quality as well as increasing their weight per acre; and this, it is evident, can in no way be so completely effected as by the improved drill system, and which was never so convincingly apparent as in the most magnificent crops of the year 1817, both at Holkham and on lord Albemarle's farm, at Quiddenham, in this county.

Mr. Coke is liberal in manuring for turnips: he allows not less than fourteen loads of manure per acre, the common quantity not often exceed ing ten loads; he is enabled to do this by manuring his wheat with oil cake, which he drills in with the seed, one ton being sufficient for six acres; or he puts it in between the rows by the drill in the following spring, and this not only saves time, labor of horses, &c., as well as manure, but certainly answers well, as his wheat crops sufficiently prove. Mr. Coke mixes the farm-yard dung in compost heaps, by which means he not only increases the quantity, but he seems to improve the quality of the manure, so much so that he now grows better crops of turnips upon the Northumberland ridge method, with compost manure, and without oil cake, than he has formerly done, when his turnips were sown upon the flat, either drilled or broad cast, with all his farm-yard dung in the common method, and a large proportion of oil-cake added to it; and he has the advantage of reserving the oil cake for the wheat crop, to which he considers it more adapted than to turnips. The tur

nip crop, though so highly important, has hitherto however, even under the best management, been considered as avery uncertain one, depend in galmost wholly on seasons. In a rainy season it has been unusually good; but in dry seasons there is frequently a general failure; and, independent of the plant suffering from a deficiency of moisture, in its very early state, it is liable, in all seasons, and peculiarly in dry ones, to become a prey to the ravages of the fly, which not unfrequently sweeps off whole and repeatedly sown crops. Some ingenious mechanical contrivances have been applied to remedy this latter evil, and a curious trap, invented by Mr. Paul of Starston, a most intelligent and active farmer, has been successfully used in saving many crops; but its application is necessarily attended with trouble; and it is, at least, an additional source of occupation at a time when all hands are more than ordinarily employed in making hay, &c., and it has never, therefore, been generally made use of. Mr. Coke, however, no longer considers the turnip crop as an uncertain one; under his improved system of cultivation, it appears to be alike secure both from the seasons and the depredations of this insect.

By depositing a much larger quantity of seed than is usually sown, Mr. Coke produces a greatly increased number of plants, which, as the time of the insect feeding upon them is limited, obviously increases the chance of a greater number of them being ultimately left untouched; and this chance is much increased by shortening the period of the existence of the leaf on which these little animals feed, which is effected by accelerating the growth of the plants, by the stimulus of manure placed immediately under them, and also by the judicious method of depositing the seed immediately after the earth has been well stirred by the plough, by which in all seasons some moisture is evolved, and some chemical changes effected, which much favor the first process of vegetation. The leaf on which the insects feed is the first or cotyledon leaf, which is known to live only until the second or rough leaf is formed. The cotyledon leaf appears to be an expansion or evolution of the seed itself, and being probably nourished by the saccharine matter, which, from analogy, we may suppose is elaborated during its process of germination, it acquires a degree of sweetness which attracts the fly. This communication be tween the seed and cotyledon leaf continues, however, only until the roots are thrown out whose office it is to supply nutriment, derived immediately from the soil, to the plant in its more advanced state, and simultaneously with their formation below the surface are the second or rough leaves formed above ground; and, as soon as this curious economy between the roots and these leaves is established, the seed, no longer necessary as a source of nourishment, wastes away, the cotyledon leaves die and fall off, and, the rough leaves not being sweet, the fly is no longer attracted, disappears also, and the crop is

secure.

This excellent method of cultivating the turnip will, probably, be understood by the following brief detail of the process of sowing it. It

is effected by forming trenches and raising ridges on a clean tilth, by a trench or double-breasted plough and a pair of horses, one of which always goes in the last trench, and this sets out the width and preserves the straight line with tolerable accuracy. A cart and two or three horses pass down the trenches, which are thus opened, dropping heaps of compost manure, which are spread by two men with forks, and the manure falls pretty equally in the rows; another plough, like the former, passes through the middle of the first formed ridge, divides it equally, covers the manure, and forms another ridge immediately over it; a boy with a mule, or little horse, drawing a very light roller, follows this second operation, and flattens the top of the ridges; another boy, with a like horse, follows the roller with a drill, and deposits the seed on the middle of the ridges, and a light chain attached at each end to the back of the drill and which at first sight appeared as if accidentally fallen from it, throws the earth into the drilled lines and covers the seed, and thus the work goes on, the laborers and the relative progress of the work being so proportioned, that none are idle, none stand in each other's way; the manure is not left to dry in the sun, but the operation is completed as it proceeds, and about three acres in a day, with fourteen cart loads of manure on each, as before observed, may be accomplished with one complete set.

In drilling wheat, Mr. Coke allows much more than the usual quantity of seed; ten pecks an acre are the utmost which most farmers drill or dibble, and even six pecks have sometimes been thought sufficient; but he allows four bushels an acre in October, and even five bushels in November. In depositing so large a quantity of seed, and burying it so much deeper than when sown broadcast, it certainly does not seem so requisite to earth up the plants, as probably there will ever be a sufficient number of stems derived, in the first instance, from the seeds themselves; but then a question arises, and which may merit consideration, whether there would not, eventually, be an equal number to produce ears, were a less quantity of seed sown, and the plants afterwards judiciously moulded up. It would seem, indeed, to come to the same thing, and if so in the latter case there would be a manifest, and on a large scale a very great saving of seed. It cannot be expected that nature should conform her processes to calculations on paper; but if the production of buds and stems from the joints of wheat plants, when duly surrounded with earth, depends upon an established and unvarying law of nature, it must be the same thing whether twelve stems are produced directly, from six grains of wheat, or six stems are produced from three grains, and six more are subsequently produced by surrounding the lower joints with earth. A few experiments, conducted as they usually are at Holkham, would decide the question.

Mr. Coke is an advocate for early sowing; and, as the drill puts in the seed quickly, and, as before observed, no time is lost in carting on manure; he has seldom much to sow in November. He says he has always the best crops when the wheat is very thick in the rows; and he

never thinks it thick enough if he can easily pass his finger through the stems, near the ground. He cuts his wheat very early, even when the ear and stem are greenish, and the grain not hard. He says the wheat, thus early reaped, is always his best sample, and he gets 28. a quarter for it more than for wheat cut in a more mature state. He, perhaps, loses something in the measure, the skin being thinner, and the grain, probably, not quite so bulky; but, if this be true, it is fully compensated by his suffering no loss by shedding on the ground, which, when the ear is ripe and the weather windy, is often not inconsiderable. He is equally early in cutting oats and peas: when Dr. Rigby observed to him that, in both these, the seeds were not all ripe; his answer was that he should lose more by the falling of the ripe seeds at the bottoms, than he should gain by waiting until the rest were ripe; and that the straw in this state, retaining some immature seeds, was of more value to his stock in the yards, than if cut later.

To prove the utility of reaping wheat early, Mr. Coke had hung up, in his own room, a few handfuls of wheat which was greenish and immature; in a few days they had ripened in the capsule. Mr. George Hibbert, of Clapham, a gentleman well skilled and much experienced in the cultivation of plants, was with us,' says our author, and he has since, in a letter, observed to me that this is a common natural process, more especially when the capsules are of a succulent nature, and which all gardeners very well know; and he mentioned a remarkable instance which occurred to him respecting a plant whose seed had no considerable envelopement. James Niven was employed by him to collect the seeds of plants in Southern Africa: he sent a specimen of a beautiful erica, lamenting, in his letter, that he had never been able to find one of that species advanced into fruit; but out of that very specimen, which he seems to have gathered in the full vigor of flowering, Mr. Hibbert actually obtained ripe seeds, and produced plants here by sowing them. When Niven returned, he showed him the specimen, and he said a very considerable progress towards fructification must have been made during the transit from the Cape of Good Hope, hither, by the rising of the sap within the specimen.'

Mr. Coke's course of husbandry, that is, the succession of his crops, varies but little from that which is general throughout the county of Norfolk. It is called the four or five course ;-first year, turnips-second, barley, laid down with clover or other grass seeds-third, grass to cut or feed-fourth, wheat. He has, within a few years, found it profitable to lay down a certain quantity of land with cock's-foot grass, dactylis glomerata, and this lies two years, making the course on this land five years.

This grass does not stand for hay, but is excellent sheep feed; when fed close, it tillers very much; or spreads and branches on the ground with multiplied stems, and, in the season most favorable to vegetation, it will grow more than an inch in a few days. Sheep are very fond of it, and Mr. Coke says he can pasture more upon it than on any other layer of artificial grass. The

seeds of this grass, which is indigenous, are gathered in the woods and lanes by women and children, who cut the tops off with scissars, about six inches long, an inch and a half below the lower spur; they are paid 3d. a bushel for it, measured as hay; one bushel of seed is obtained from seven bushels of it in the state it is thus gathered.

Though not cultivated as other artificial grasses, in the regular course of husbandry, saintfoin has been found, at Holkham, a valuable source of hay, and of autumnal pasturage. It was first cultivated in this district, in the year 1774, upon the Brent Hill Farm, by Mr. Beck, the then occupier. Mr. Beck's example was followed by Mr. Coke, and he has cultivated saintfoin, in Holkham park, about forty years. It seems most adapted to thin soils, incumbent on chalk. The seed is generally sown, in the pod, at the rate of five bushels per acre, with the barley, after a turnip crop; nine pounds of trefoil per acre are sown at the same time. The saintfoin being in pod, attention is required to bury the seed properly. The trefoil produces a crop to mow in the following year, and dies away in the succeeding years. The saintfoin is not in full perfection until the third and fourth years. It continues good until the ninth year, after which it becomes weaker, and is ploughed up for the land to go through a regular course of husbandry. The saintfoin is seldom manured or topdressed: it produces a ton and a half of hay per acre, annually, while in perfection. It is never spring-fed, but is depastured by all sorts of cattle, to consume the after-math in autumn.

Mr. Coke is ever ready to try the cultivation of any new article. The introduction of the Swedish turnip into general cultivation is much owing to him. I was pleased, says Dr. R., to see a crop of mangel wurzel in a good state: and he told me he had procured some Heligoland beans, a new and promising article, which is said to yield sixty bushels or fifteen coombs per acre, and he proposed dibbling them on the transplanted land; but I saw no cabbages, no succory, no burnet, no parsnips. In Mr. Blaikie's pamphlet, on the Conversion of Arable Land into Pasture, he gives the result of two trials of dibbling the Heligoland beans on this land; the one was upon land which had undergone a complete summer fallow, previous to its being transplanted; and the other was land from which Swedish turnips were taken up in November, but they seem not to have answered in either case; the failure is, however, attributed to the beans having been put into the ground too late. In another instance, Poland oats were sown, and produced twelve coombs per acre.

Mr. Coke's flocks are highly estimated, and he is distinguished for his skill and attention in this branch of rural economy. His sheep are all Southdowns, but he told me he had not the merit of selecting them himself. Some years ago he was visited by some gentlemen from the South of England, who found much fault with the Norfolks, which then composed his flocks, and told him that the sheep in their county, the Sussex Southdowns, were much more profitable and better adapted to his pastures:-he bought

500 on their recommendation, and, finding they fully answered his purpose, he got rid of his Norfolks, and has had none since but the Southdowns. Mr. Coke was much gratified on finding that Mr. Cline confirmed this preference in his paper on the forms and constitutions of animals, in which he considers the characteristic mark of health and vigor, in an animal, to be the expanded chest, the thorax which has ample room for the free play of the heart and lungs. In the Norfolk sheep the sternum terminates almost in a line or edge, the ribs contracting too much as they approach it; while the chest of the Southdowns is more rounded and wider, terminating with a less angle at the sternum. He remarked, on showing Dr. Rigby his admirable dairy of North Devon cows, the same characteristic superiority of form over the Norfolk cows. He particularly pointed out the flat line the ribs take in spreading from the spine, in the upper part of the chest.

When Mr. Coke came to his estate at Holkham, the rent was £2200,-this was forty-one years ago. The produce of his woods and plantations amounts now to a larger sum; for he has had the spirit and judgment to plant 1500 acres ; the greater part of which have become magnificent woods, which have not only by their picturesque beauty, unspeakably improved the landscape; by their protection in checking the cold rude winds, so prevalent on this coast, materially softened the temperature; and, by the annual fall of their leaves, even contributed something to the fertilisation of the soil; but, at this time, the annual fall of timber, poles, and underwood, from them, averages about £2700. The timber and poles are applicable to most building purposes; some of them are used in the buildings, which he is constantly carrying on upon an extensive scale; his houses, cottages, barns, stables, and other farming buildings being all in a superior style of architecture; and the remainder is sold in the neighbourhood.

'I saw,' says Dr. R., a handsome house, built in the summer of 1815, and now occupied by his head gardener: the doors, windows, floors, stairs, as well as the roofs, joists, spars, &c., were all of Scotch larch, and spruce fir, of Holkham growth; and his timber yard, from the same source, displayed no mean quantity of rough timber, balks, planks, &c. In the plantations, several of which I rode through, the oaks and Spanish chestnuts have already attained a considerable size, and are in a state of vigorous growth; some of the oaks, particularly those near the house, being the largest I ever saw, of the same age; these in time will, obviously, become the most valuable timber on the estate; in time they may even supply our future wooden walls, and, under a change of form, navigate the very sea which washes the shores on which they are now growing.'

Firs, of the different species, the Scotch larch, spruce, and silver, have attained a sufficient growth to be applied to the above-mentioned useful purposes; and, like the oaks, for many years to come, will have an increasing value. There are also other trees, which, though of a subordinate character, Mr. Coke turns to a good

account; the Salix coerulea, or the French willow, at six years' growth, can be advantageously riven into laths, which are very tough, and answer the purpose quite as well as those made of foreign deal: the populus monilifera, the Canada poplar, also grows very luxuriantly. The wild cherry is also cultivated extensively, and its timber is valuable for all building purposes, when of forty or fifty years' growth. Another poplar, the black Italian, said to be the most profitable for planting of all poplars, is judiciously planted as a skreen, round some barns and farming buildings.

Mr. Coke's system of letting his estates is not less excellent than his farming system: a long lease and a moderate rent cannot fail to be highly advantageous both to landlord and tenant; to the occupier it affords every encouragement to invest capital, and every motive for the skilful cultivation of his farm; and to the landlord eventual permanent profit in the improved value of his estate. The following have been the important results:-Mr. Coke's tenants are enriched, and his property has increased in value to an almost incredible degree. He gives twenty-one years' leases, and he has already seen the termination of such leases on most of his farms, and, though he continues the same encouraging system of long lease and moderate rent, his present relatively moderate rents, relatively as to the improved state of his farms, have admitted the total increase of his Norfolk rents to amount to the enormous sum of £20,000; an increase in the value of landed property, a creation of wealth, probably, unexampled, except in the vicinity of large towns, or in populous manufacturing districts. On the renewal of many of his leases, he has given the tenants the bonus of a capital house: these afford not only every possible accommodation to his tenants' families, but are striking ornaments to the country.

Irrigation is one of the superior improvements in agriculture, which Mr. Coke has advocated and adopted; but this can, obviously, be only effected in peculiar situations, and can only be undertaken by persons of considerable capital. The situation of Holkham does not admit of irrigating to any extent; but even here Mr. Coke exhibits a water meadow, where it could be little expected; it is near the house at Longlands, his principal farm, and rather on high ground; the source is a large pond, originally formed for the common purposes of a farm-yard. There may be a spring which feeds it in some degree, but its principal supply is from the heavens. When the pond is full, the water is well-directed to an adjoining meadow, whose level is a little below it. To a certain degree it has its use, but the supply of water is inadequate to an extensive and long continued irrigation.

The best specimen of complete irrigation, on any of his estates, is at Lexham,' says Dr. Rigby, which I have seen, when visiting his respectable tenant there, Mr. Beck. A small stream, tolerably well supplied, runs through a little valley of ordinary meadow land; a large reservoir of several acres has been formed by an embankment, and raised so much above the contiguous grounds as to admit of many streams, in VOL. XIX.

different directions, being conveyed over an extensive surface of land, to which they impart a wonderfully fertilising principle, and by anticipating the common period of the growth of grass in the spring, and by continuing it luxuriantly during the whole seasons of vegetating temperature, the supply of grass is much more early, and infinitely more abundant, than could be obtained on the land of such a farm under common circumstances. The grass which first shows itself in the spring, in the watered meadows, is the festuca fluitans, the long and broadish leaves of which are known to float on the surface of water, in ditches, &c. The cattle are very fond of this grass, and, on being first turned into these meadows, run with eagerness to get it. These water meadows were well designed and executed under the direction of Mr. Smith, the engineer, but at a very considerable expense. Mr. Coke, who has given a long lease of the farm to Mr. Beck, is said to have been at half of the expense; and, in addition to it, he has built him an excellent house, on a rising ground, and at a proper distance from the water, which is here as much a feature of decoration and beauty as in any gentleman's ground; and the whole would form a picturesque scene, were more trees growing on the opposite side of the water.'

Dr. Rigby afterwards visited Holkham at the sheep-shearing. At this time, he says 'considering the extreme dryness of the season, the crops, particularly the wheat, were excellent. The Devon cattle were not only beautiful, but, by the state of their flesh, they betrayed no marks of the prevailing drought, it being a peculiar excellence of this stock that they will keep themselves in good condition in moderate pastures. The flocks of Southdown sheep appear to be every year improving, showing the judicious and unceasing attention paid to them. About three o'clock the company returned to the hall, and not fewer than 300 persons sat down to dinner in the statue gallery, Mr. Coke presiding at one table and the earl of Albemarle at the other. After giving a fine fleece and a fat carcase,' Mr. Coke proposed the health of lord Erskine, who sat near him. He should not, however, he said, give him as a lawyer, but as a farmer. The circumstance of his lordship having, of late years, turned his attention to agriculture, and having been, several times during the morning engaged in conversation with him on the subject of Merinos, whose cause he seems disposed to advocate, he was induced to anticipate some observations from his lordship on that subject, and, in a vein of humor, alluded to the rudiments of his lordship's agricultural studies, and the progress he had made. I am led to hope, said Mr. Coke, that we shall hear something instructive, especially on the subject of Merinos, which, you know, has many times been discussed in this room with great good-humor. It will give me pleasure, and I am persuaded it will give you all pleasure, to hear his lordship inform you of his great success. I am fond of instruction, have met it many times where I did not expect it, and look for it now very anxiously.—I know his lordship's abilities; but I fear the subject is

M

« PreviousContinue »