8 - Environment and heredity

Summary

Mountains

‘Soil and clime’, terrain and weather, are the major variables of farming, the given circumstances. Like Thomson's seasonal forces they are the parameters within which human activity must operate. We have some choice as to land: if we are rich we can be selective, or mould the landscape; if not we can clear it of brambles and dig drainage ditches. We can do little about the weather, of course; but as we have seen the rainy climate of the British Isles is portrayed as an entirely positive force. It nurtures not only fine, waterproof wool, but also the sturdy masculinity of God's Englishmen, ‘our Edwards, Henries, Churchills, Blakes, / Our Lockes, our Newtons, and our Miltons’ (lines 161–2). It makes us regal, heroic and war-like, nurtures our skills in philosophy and science, and fosters the stoical qualities required to write long poems in blank verse (‘slavish work’, according to Cowper).

The third variable in sheep husbandry is the animal itself. Dyer's advice on this subject (lines 185–230) follows on from his advice on terrain and weather. It is perhaps the most important section of the poem, so far as our assessment of the agricultural theme is concerned and I shall be examining it in some detail. It begins clearly enough as a piece of agricultural advice. The first part of it (lines 185–91) tells the shepherd that having chosen (or improved) the right terrain, and avoided the poor climate Dyer has described as ‘windy brows / And northern slopes of cloud dividing hills’ (lines 128–9), he must ‘procure a breed’ which will match these two variables.