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page 87
[estab]lishment of manufactories, and in the consequent
quickening of agricultural industry. But this is far from
making them amends; and now that home-manufactures are
nearly done away, though the women and children might, at
many seasons of the year, employ themselves with advantage
in the fields beyond what they are accustomed to do, yet
still all possible exertion in this way cannot be rationally
expected from persons whose agricultural knowledge is so
confined, and, above all, where there must necessarily be so
small a capital. The consequence, then, is - that
proprietors and farmers being no longer able to maintain
themselves upon small farms, several are united in one, and
the buildings go to decay, or are destroyed; and that the
lands of the estatesmen being mortgaged, and the
owners constrained to part with them, they fall into the
hands of wealthy purchasers, who in like manner unite and
consolidate; and, if they wish to become residents, erect
new mansions out of the ruins of the ancient cottages, whose
little enclosures, with all the wild graces that grew out of
them, disappear. The feudal tenure under which the estates
are held has indeed done something towards checking this
influx of new settlers; but so strong is the inclination,
that these galling restraints are endured; and it is
probable, that in a few years the country on the margin of
the Lakes will fall almost entirely into the possession of
gentry, either strangers or natives. It is then
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