DESCRIPTION, HISTORY, [Chap. 



the preparation which the growing of the crop 

 would make for a succeeding crop of wheat. 



30. At last, 1 became interested, as the old 

 woman did at the sermon, merely by dint of the 

 length of the endeavour to convince me. " It's 

 a pity,'' said the old girl, ^' to give the gentleman 

 so much trouble to save our souls, and we go to 

 the Devil after all." I do confess that I was 

 very hard to be convinced ; I became interested to 

 be sure, and I resolved to give the thing a trial 

 immediately, if possible, or rather to set about it 

 immediately ; but, I confess, that if the thing had 

 been urged upon me by almost any other person, 

 I should not have done it; and that I did it, after 

 all, from a desire to avoid treating with indiffer- 

 ence that which my son had taken so much pains 

 to convince me v/as an object of importance, 

 and one well worthy of the attention of a persoa 

 to whom so many thousands of the people were 

 ready to look up for useful information. 



31. "Well then," said I, " William, we will 

 give your little corn a trial, for it is not too 

 late yet." But, now, a difficulty that appeared 

 to be insuperable arose ; namely, that the seed 

 was all gone 1 The seed was all planted in Sussex, 

 As soon as I reflected on this, I became really 

 eager to make the experiment ; so true it is, that 

 we seldom know the full value of what we have had 

 till we have lost it. I recollected however, that I 



