Lord Hartington spoke at Barrow this day week on the
prospects of agriculture. He thought that the new Ministry of Agriculture, from which he had never anticipated very great results, had signalised the very first year of its existence by passing an Act on pleuro-pneumonia which would greatly attenuate the danger arising from such outbreaks as had just occurred in Cumberland. He thought the farmers too little inclined to pay attention to the breeding of good horses, for which there is a virtually un- limited demand, but nothing like the same effort to meet the demand as is devoted to the breeding of short-horned cattle. He suggested that prizes might be offered to the occupiers of small holdings for well-bred horses reared by them, including even the holders of mere allotments or gardens. As to allot- ments themselves, he did not think there was the same desire for them in Lancashire which exists in other parts of the country, and this for a very good reason. The Lancashire farmers so often desire to employ the full time of the labourers, that sagacious labourers sometimes refrain carefully from taking allotments which might prejudice them with the best employers. But wherever the labourer really desires an allot- ment, and finds that he profits by it, Lord Hartington hoped that landowners would do their best to gratify the wish, and to provide them on reasonable and profitable terms. Lord Harting- ton shows the truest sagacity in talking of these matters. He is wholly destitute of class prejudices, and eager to establish that cordial relation between landowner, farmer, and labourer which especially prevails on the Duke of Devonshire's estates.
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