kshire the harness of the farmer's teams was often ridiculously
ornamented, and the horses were overfed and underworked to save their
looks. Before enclosure the farmer entertained his friends with bacon
fed by himself, washed down with ale brewed from his own malt, in a
brown jug, or a glass if he was extravagant. He wore a coat of woollen
stuff, the growth of his own flock, spun by his wife and daughters,
his stockings came from the same quarter, so did the clothes of his
family.

Some of these farmers were doing their share in helping the progress
of agriculture. In 1764 Joseph Elkington, of Princethorpe in
Warwickshire, was the first to practise the under drainage of sloping
land that was drowned by the bursting of springs. He drained some
fields at Princethorpe which were very wet, and dug a trench 4 or 5
feet deep for this purpose; but finding this did not reach the
principal body of subjacent water, he drove an iron bar 4 feet below
the bottom of his trench and on withdrawing it the water gushed out.
He was thus led to combine the system of cutting drains, aided when
necessary by auger holes. His main principles were three: (1) Finding
the main spring, or cause of the mischief. (2) Taking the level of
that spring and ascertaining its subterranean bearings, for if the
drain is cut a yard below the line of the spring the water issuing
from it cannot be reached, but on ascertaining the line by levelling
the spring can be cut effectually. (3) Using the auger to tap the
spring when the drain was not deep enough for the purpose.[483] It was
owing to the Board of Agriculture at the end of the century that he
obtained the vote of L1,000 from Parliament, and a skilful surveyor
was appointed to observe his methods and give them to the public, for
he was too ignorant himself to give an intelligible account of his
system. After the publication of the report his system was followed
generally until Smith of Deanston in 1835 gave the method now in use
to his country.

Robert Bakewell, who did more to improve live stock than any other
man, was born at Dishley, Leicestershire, in 1735, and succeeding to
the management of his father's farm in 1760 began to make experiments
in breeding.[484] He scorned the old idea that the blood must be
constantly varied by the mixture of different breeds, and his new
system differed from the old in two chief points: (1) small versus
large bone, and consequently a greater proportion of flesh and