There fences, guano, pair-horse ploughs,
threshing machines, and steam-engines, are almost as much disliked as cheap
bread and Manchester politics. But on the Wolds of Lincolnshire a race of
agriculturists are to be found who do not need to be coddled and coaxed into
experiments and improvements by the dinners and discourses of dilettanti
peers; but who unite the quick intelligence of the manufacturer with the
hearty hospitality for which the English used to be famous. Among the
Lincolnshire farmers rural life is to be seen in its most agreeable aspect.
The labourers are as superior to the southern peasantry as their employers to
the southern tenantry. Books, newspapers, and music may be found in the
farm-houses, as well as old ale and sound port wine. At Aylsby, six miles
from Great Grimsby, Mr. William Torr has a fine herd of short horns and a
flock of pure Leicester sheep, well worth a visit. The celebrated Wold
farmers are about ten miles distant. Any one of them is worth six Baden
barons.
After crossing from Hull, if a visit to these Wold Farms be intended, Grimsby
is the best resting-place, a miserable town of great antiquity, which, after
slumbering, or rather mouldering, for centuries on the profits of
Parliamentary privileges and a small coasting trade, has been touched by the
steam-enchanter's wand, and presented with docks, warehouses, railways, and
the tools of commerce.
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