i8o REMINISCENCES OF 



occasion I travelled through the highly cultivated 

 Lothians with an intelligent gentleman farmer, from 

 whom I naturally sought all the information I could 

 obtain respecting the secrets of their success, and 

 after calling my attention to the low, well-clipped 

 fences and almost entire absence of ditches, he turned 

 to the subject of manure. He informed me that his 

 farm was but of moderate size, its stock furnished 

 him with a fair supply of manure, the whole of which 

 was put into the ground ; nevertheless he had that 

 spring expended fifty pounds in the purchase of 

 additional manure, the whole of which had also 

 been put into the soil. I asked him how far the 

 crops would repay that large investment notwith- 

 standing all the advantages of their six-course 

 system. He replied that he had no fears whatever 

 on that point. Having these facts clear in my mind, 

 I gave my lecture at Malton, which at once raised a 

 storm. The country newspapers assailed me right 

 and left. Letters from farmers told me what nonsense 

 I had been talking ; that although I did not know it, 

 any manure left in the ground in autumn would be 

 washed out of it by the rains of winter. To my 

 surprise, even the Leeds Mercury took up this absurd 

 cuckoo cry. Of the smaller fry of my assailants I took 

 no notice whatever, but I replied to a second comment 

 upon my teaching in the Mercury. I invited the writer 

 to visit my garden near Manchester, where we 

 certainly had rain enough, but where I could show 

 him hollyhocks and hungry sunflowers from five to 



