an allowance for the altered
conditions introduced by the abolition of the Corn Laws, the
instructions given there are useful down to this very day. Here is the
knowledge of the peculiarities and requirements of stock slowly
accumulated during ages of agriculture, and at last written down and
printed for easy reference. However much the aspect of politics may
change, or however much the means of locomotion and communication may be
facilitated by the introduction of steam, Nature still remains
unaltered. The cows and sheep retain their instincts and their internal
economy; their modes of feeding, times of rest, and seasons of increase,
never vary. The earth too has not changed. The corn is sown at the same
time; Nature goes on her way as before, heedless of the railway rattle.
So it is that the details of management in this book are as useful now
as then, more than two generations since. It is the same with the
unwritten faith of the men who labour and live among these things. Go
out among them, and collect from the majority their views and
sentiments, and in this age of progress they will be found to correspond
almost exactly with those of their forefathers, as recorded by history.
They know that such is the fact themselves; they know too that it would
subject them to sharp criticism and reproof if they published their real
opinions. Therefore they remain silent, and it is only among themselves
that these ideas are earnestly insisted on.

In the earliest days of agriculture, when Abraham drove his flocks and
herds to and fro under the Syrian sun, the father of the family was at
once the procreator, the law-giver, the judge, the leader in battle, the
priest, and the king. He was absolute master under Heaven of all things
visible around him. The Pope claims to be infallible now, and to be the
vicegerent of Heaven, but the patriarch of old actually possessed those
powers upon his own domain. His sons were under his complete control--he
could sacrifice them alive to his God if he chose, or banish them from
their native land. His daughters were still more completely in his hand,
to be done with as he thought fit. His servants, his slaves, were as
much his as the wooden pole of his tent, or the very sandals he walked
in. They were as dust before him. There was no coming of age in those
days; no escape after the twenty-first year. The tie lasted till his
death. At forty his sons and daughters were as much his own as they were