Excerpt from A Free Farmer, in a Free State: A Study of Rural Life and Industry, and Agricultural Politics in an Agricultural Country I hope I have lived long enough in Rural England, in my youth as well as in my middle age, not to fall into the sin that so easily besets the versatile journalists-turned-coun trymen a-year-but - only-twa' who seem to write so much rural matter in the papers. A book like this must have many shortcomings but, whatever they may be, the reader who knows the English country - side because he lives in it all the year round, and he and his have succeeded in getting, all things considered, a fair and agreeable living out of it, is not to be tried once more by the most exasperating and most hopeless of all the follies of rural journalism and authorship I press upon him no patronising proposals to transfer to our much-prescribed-for rural districts an agricul tural and horticultural practice rooted in the geographical and economic conditions of another country; I offend his sense of justice by no japes at an agriculture so Old, so varied, so capitalised, so competent and so world-famous as that of Great Britain. Every year I live in the country. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.