“Ye tenants old of Middleton ye cannot need but sigh,
   Departed are the traces of your own nobility,
   The Locomotivocracy have gone and done the trick,
   And England’s aristocracy’s obliged to cut its stick.”

A visit to Middleton, however, will show that on this occasion the tenantry have no reason either to sigh or weep, and the visit is worth making, independently of the pleasantness of a change from town to country, because it affords an opportunity of seeing what can be done with a neglected domain when it passes into the hands of men of large capital, liberal views, and a thorough determination that whatever they take in hand shall be done in the best possible manner.

Messrs. Peto & Betts are managing this estate on the same principles that they have conducted the undertaking by which, in a very few years, they have acquired a large fortune and an influential position.  Not by avariciously grasping, and meritlessly grinding all the subordinates whose services they required; not by squeezing men like oranges, and throwing them away when squeezed; but by choosing suitable assistants for every task they undertook, and making those assistants, or advisers, feel that their interests were the same, that they were prepared to pay liberally for services strenuously rendered.  By this system servants and sub-contractors worked for them with all the zeal of friends, and by this system the tenantry of Middleton will attain a degree of comfort and prosperity hitherto unknown, while the estate they occupy will be largely increased in value.

It is most fortunate that, at a time when so much landed property is passing into the hands of men of the class of which these gentlemen may be considered the intellectual leaders, an example has been set, by them, of liberal and judicious management.

For this reason we do not think these rough notes on Middleton will be considered a useless digression.

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Drains and repairs.—­Instead of the ordinary system of bit-by-bit repairs and instead of arrangements for the tenants to execute drains, as the first step after the change of proprietorship, a complete survey was made of the defects and of the value of all the holdings.  On this survey the rents were fixed, with the understanding that while no increase of rent would be imposed on a good tenant, lazy slovenly farming would be forthwith taxed with an additional ten per cent.

The landlords have themselves undertaken to execute a complete deep drainage of the whole property at a cost of 20,000 pounds.  For this they charge the tenants five per cent. on the outlay per acre occupied.  Farm buildings and farm houses are being put in thorough repair, and tenants are expected so to keep them.

In the course of these repairs farm houses were found in which the windows were fixtures, not intended to open!  While as to the farming, it is scarcely possible to imagine anything more barbarous.  It is not a corn-growing district, and what corn is grown these weaver farmers, indifferent apparently to loss of time, first lash against a board to get part of the grain out, and then thrash the rest out of the straw!