GENTLEMAN FARMERS.
A succession of advertisements have caught my eye this week, all offering for sale "A Gentleman's Farm." What does the pernicious phrase mean ? My fear is that a great many farms farmed by all sorts of people are so regarded. The other day I met a working farmer, so called, carrying a gun and accompanied by a dog and another sportsman. He said to me, "The farm isn't much: but we do like a bit of sport." It is a quality common and welcome in many British people to like a bit of sport ; but how far is it true that the liking for a bit of sport prevents the farms from being much? And a second question requires an answer. Does "the gentleman farmer" do harm or good ? He is the making of our agricultural shows, which are the best in the world, but these, according to some of our Scandinavian critics, give the best proof that farming in Britain is on the wrong lines. For many farms are fancy patches, too few are essential parts of the tissue of our social and economic life. The very worst sign is that some of the professional and working farmers quite out-gentleman the men aimed at in the advertisement of Gentleman's Farms.
Previous page
