s to
have a small dairy at the back; though there was a time when the arable
farmer never thought of keeping a cow, and butter and cheese were
unknown, except as luxuries, in his establishment. This was during the
continuance of the Corn Laws, when everything was sacrificed to the one
great object of growing wheat. It was not impossible in those days to
find a whole parish (I know of one myself) in which there was not a
single cow. Now the great object is meat, then it was corn. But at the
time when most of the farmhouses were erected, the system of agriculture
pursued was a judicious mixture of the dairy and the cornfield, so that
very few old farmhouses exist which have not some form of dairy
attached. In the corn-growing times, most of the verdant meadows now
employed to graze cattle, or for producing hay, were ploughed up. This
may be seen by the regular furrows, unmistakable evidences of the
plough. When corn declined in price through the influx of foreign
produce, the land was again laid down in grass, and most of it continues
so till this hour. It might be roughly estimated that England now
contains a third more meadow land than in the early part of the present
century, notwithstanding the attempt to plough up the downs.

We now come to the third class of farmsteads--low thatched buildings,
little better than large cottages, and indeed frequently converted into
dwellings for labourers. These are generally found on small farms, and
in districts where there are a number of small landed proprietors. These
freeholders built houses according to their means. In process of time
they were bought up by the great landowners, and the farms thrown
together, when the houses were used for other purposes. Some may still
be found, especially in dairy districts. In these the principal part of
the house is usually the dairy, which absorbs at least half of the
ground floor, and opens on the kitchen, in which the family sit, and in
which their food is often cooked. The eaves of the house are low, and
there are scarcely any appliances for comfort. The yeomen who originally
lived in these places in all respects resembled the labourers with whom
they ate and drank and held the most familiar intercourse. Their
labourers even slept in the same bedrooms as the family. But these men,
though they mingled so freely with the labourer, were his worst enemy.
The little profit they made was entirely accumulated by careful economy.
They were avar