But Cecil was a man of capital. He really had a large sum of money, and
this short-sighted policy (as he termed it) of the landlords only made him
the more eager to convince them how mistaken they were to refuse anything
to a man who could put capital into the soil. He resolved to be his own
landlord, and ordered his agents to find him a small estate and to
purchase it outright. There was not much difficulty in finding an estate,
and Cecil bought it. But he was even then annoyed and disgusted with the
formalities, the investigation of title, the completion of deeds, and
astounded at the length of a lawyer's bill.

Being at last established in possession Cecil set to work, and at the same
time set every agricultural tongue wagging within a radius of twenty
miles. He grubbed up all the hedges, and threw the whole of his arable
land into one vast field, and had it levelled with the theodolite. He
drained it six feet deep at an enormous cost. He built an engine-shed with
a centrifugal pump, which forced water from the stream that ran through
the lower ground over the entire property, and even to the topmost storey
of his house. He laid a light tramway across the widest part of his
estate, and sent the labourers to and fro their work in trucks. The
chaff-cutters, root-pulpers, the winnowing-machine--everything was driven
by steam. Teams of horses and waggons seemed to be always going to the
canal wharf for coal, which he ordered from the pit wholesale.

A fine set of steam-ploughing tackle was put to work, and, having once
commenced, the beat of the engines never seemed to cease. They were for
ever at work tearing up the subsoil and bringing it to the surface. If he
could have done it, he would have ploughed ten feet deep. Tons of
artificial manure came by canal boat--positively boat loads--and were
stored in the warehouse. For he put up a regular warehouse for the storage